Monthly Archives: July 2012

Let’s Talk About Not Eating Things

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My brief period of feeling unwell last week made me reassess my eating habits. This is far from the first time I’ve thought about it, but maybe you’ll understand how it happens that you change something for the better, and then little by little end up where you started, or maybe worse. This has happened to me any number of times.

I guess I’m done with thinking that it’s a bad thing that I change something then undo it eventually, and I would rather think that the important thing is that I can redo at any time. It’s not like the last time was my last chance, is what I’m saying.

There are things I haven’t liked about the way I eat: I’d live on bread and dairy if I could get away with it, and especially if some of the bread was cake. I would drink infinite amounts of coffee if my body wouldn’t rebel. Sugar is a category all its own. I don’t even know what to say besides proclaiming my love for it and my interest in marrying it.

So, last Wednesday I found myself not wanting any of those things and then, well, I just didn’t start eating them again.

No, I guess that’s not entirely true. There is a tiny bit of sugar–less than three teaspoons a day, which is down from many, many teaspoons, but now even those 2+ teaspoons are feeling like too much. I nibbled a bit of mac & cheese early on, but just a little. I missed a wheat ingredient in something I ate later on. But I’ve been making a huge effort to stay away from wheat, dairy, sugar, and coffee. Remaking my habits to not include them.

Here’s the interesting (to me) thing: a few days in, my husband said my face looked so much better. The rosacea is calming down, it seems. AND? I don’t get stomachaches after I eat. AND ALSO? My sinuses are responding very well. I’ve been struggling for over a year and a half with some symptoms I couldn’t  understand, I’ve taken a couple courses of antibiotics, and I wasn’t quite ready to go further with seeking out more treatment until I tried treating it like an allergy for a while. So, I tried some allergy medicine which helped a little, but there was still a troubling symptom I couldn’t get rid of. Right now, it’s gone.

I’m not sure if things will continue to improve, or even stay as good as they are. Maybe the improvements I’ve noticed were coincidental, and had nothing to do with my diet. I guess that’s possible. I’m very curious to find out, though.

How Monday Was Spent

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Making dinner for a friend.

Reading some.

Knitting my Ravellenics project. I am on Team Happy Knits. I’m their weakest link. No one knows it yet. It’ll be a fun surprise.

This is a picture of biting off more than you can chew.

Two weeks to finish a lace shawl. I am too tired to make a joke about Olympic-level buttsitting, but if I wasn’t, believe me, it would be hilarious.

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Speaking of jokes, though, my husband has taken to calling all sports “sportsball”, and overpowering the sports news with his own voice-overs. It’s an improvement.

Beauty Product Post Three: Perfume

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I’ve thought and thought about what to post here about this topic. I think what I’m going with is (1) a short discussion of my interest in this subject, (2) a short list of what I like best, and (3) a couple links where you can find samples to buy in case you decide you want to start down this (possibly ridiculous) road.

I’m a little nutty about perfume. I’ve always loved it. I don’t love huge, billowing clouds of it. Actually, that makes me sick. But I do love smells. I love when other people wear perfume (if they are not walking in a huge, billowing cloud–see above). I love to wear perfume.

However, as it turns out, if I’m going to have something that close and that persistent, it has to be just right. Just right proved to be a little difficult for me to find, and thus began my perfume sampling career. It’s the kind of career that causes me to spend money and make no money whatsoever. Maybe the opposite of a career, then. A reerac.

Anyway, I have been sampling for years and have smelled many, many wonderful things. Some of them I wanted to be just right, and I tried for a while, but they were not. Others of them, well, I knew immediately that they weren’t for me, but would be wonderful on someone else. It’s been fun.

What I came up with for myself are the following scents, and they seem to be more classic scents, and older (with the exception of the Chanel). I didn’t plan it that way, but I guess they’ve stood the test of time for a reason. I’m going to warn you that I’m not one of those super perfume reviewer people who can pick scents apart really well, but I  did my best to describe what these smell like to me:

Fracas, by Robert Piguet  This fragrance is either loved or hated, it seems. I love it. I especially love it in humid springtime. It is my husband’s absolute favorite. On me, it smells beachy, oddly enough. Flowery, yes, but also fruity and, well, I don’t know what makes the beachy smell, but it’s nice. It wears as a quiet scent on me and I don’t think people really smell it unless they get very close.

Jicky, by Guerlain  I linked to the pure parfum, but I wear the EDT, and I love it and its hilarious, bombastic bottle. I think it’s kind of a vanilla-y, incense-y kind of smell, and I think this might be the perfume that feels the most natural for me to wear any time, but I think it’s especially nice when the summer is dying and the afternoons are warm but evenings are chilly.

L’Heure Bleue, by Guerlain  This is such a pretty, pretty smell. I think it’s also kind of incense-y, but with more flowers.

Chanel No. 19  This is the one on the list I’ve been wearing longest. I discovered it when I was 15 or 16, and my brother bought me my first bottle. I’ve been wearing it on and off ever since. I wear the EDT. I tried the pure parfum, but it was missing something that I love about the EDT, so EDT it is. It’s green and a little powdery, but eventually it dries to wonderful flowers and leather. I think it is one of those scents that if I am dressed formally and in doubt what to wear, I can spray it on and always feel perfect. And maybe I don’t dress formally very often anymore, but this fragrance still gets worn because it’s fresh and fairly light.

Other fragrances of notable mention are: Coco Chanel–the pure parfum only, and L’Artisan’s (NOW DISCONTINUED WHYYYYY) Tea for Two. Delicious, spicy-type smells. As a matter of fact, in the way of spicy-woody fragrances there are such wonderful things to smell and I want to start listing them, but I suppose I’ll stick to those two, and maybe only add Bois 1920 oops! I meant to say Frapin 1270 (although I do recall Bois 1920 being very nice, also) and Chanel Bois des Iles (in pure parfum, which sample was given to me by a kind woman to whom I will be forever grateful), and stop there.

Okay! So! If you want to try some perfumes that you can’t find in the department store, or if you want a little sample vial of something and can’t bring yourself to ask at the shop, here are a couple links, which are my favorite places to buy samples:

luckyscent.com has a nice selection of niche fragrances, and you can buy sample vials of many of them. I buy lots of my samples here.

The Perfumed Court has so, so very  many things, and you can get a tiny vial or a larger decant of a fragrance.

Do you love perfume? Do you stick more to classics or newer scents, and did you make that decision purposefully, or did it just happen that way?

Ring! Ring!

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I am sitting here watching a thunderstorm blow up, which I think is one of my favorite things in all of life. So wonderful.
What I’m going to do this evening is phone it in by linking to this post by Swistle. Now let’s talk about it:

The post to which I have linked is one of the most magnificent posts I have ever read on the subject of people getting all judgy about what other people spend on things. It is a great post to read whether you are the judger or the judgee. It is the kind of post you will want to print out and save.

Go read it. Then you can come back and see me tomorrow and we’ll talk about something beautyish. Maybe nail polish. Maybe lipstick. Maybe perfume. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I hope it will be fun for those who like beauty-type things.

Now I’m going to see if this storm can get itself together. Goodnight!

Wednesday

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Today I had to use my very favorite stomach-settling tea. I guess the bug that’s been making the rounds finally found me.

There’s something so comforting about the little bit of smokiness from the Lapsang Souchong that’s added to the blend, as well as the particular black teas that are used.

Do you have a favorite comforting thing to drink when you’re sick?

Thank God for Crackers

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I’ve spent today, and my whole weekend really, in a way that I haven’t in a long time: bouncing from knitting, to book, to knitting, to book, and a bunch of cups of tea throughout the whole thing.

I started the weekend reading a couple books that have been sitting, waiting very patiently to be finished. And then…

Yeah, I picked this up last night and now I’m halfway done. It’s just that kind of book.

So, the others are going to need to be patient a while longer.

In other news, the shawl progresses, but three days. Well fourish, really. Either way, I’m not so sure I’ll make my deadline. My wrists don’t tolerate that kind of abuse anymore. I’m still doing what I can, though.

AND! My husband and I celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary yesterday. Twelve years!

Now I’m going to go read some more…

Eyeball Maintenance and a Completely Normal Level of Preoccupation with Counting Things

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Hey there! I’m still ill, and I also have had not one, but two appointments this week for my eyes which I was absolutely sure were infected and, well, if I told you what was going on, you might feel sure, too. You might also be grossed out. Anyway, I was shocked to hear that no, no infection at all, and that I am now one of those people with chronic dry eyes. They didn’t feel dry, but lo and behold, I tried the drops and my eyes feel better already. Hooray for doctors!

So, I expect to spend my weekend both seeing and not having eye pain, which promises to be awesome. I will also update my Blooming Stitch Shawl stitch count post as I have FINALLY finished repeat five of the main chart. It’s about time, right?

Wishing everyone a very great, infection-free weekend! With or without knitting! Wash your hands!

Dragging

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There is a summer cold making its way around here, and two of the four of us now have it. It wouldn’t be so bad if it was just me, but my littler guy is sick, as well, and I spent last night looking after a small person who didn’t feel like he was “getting enough air”.

I am tired today.

Oh, but that didn’t stop me from dragging the three of us to Costco for groceries. We were feeling well enough to go at the outset, and I was uncertain of how we’d be feeling tomorrow–you know how that works–so I figured I’d better get it done while we could. Long story short, we barely made it through and I needed a nap when we got home.

I never take naps.

We have some really delicious cheese for our dinner, though.

I am happy to say that my Blooming Stitch Shawl grows:

Possibly not quite quickly enough, because I was hoping to have it done by the start of the Olympics. I need these needles for my Ravellenics project, and I don’t want to put my shawl on stitch holders. However, speed knitting lace seems ill-advised. I guess we’ll see. I still have a week or so.

Tonight will be a night of good bread and cheese, and knitting, and television. It’s Doc Martin night. Does anyone else watch? I love that goofy show.

Beauty Product Post Two: Skin Care

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I take a very simple approach toward skin care. My skin is very sensitive, reactive, and rosacea-prone, and I find that simplicity is best.

From the time I was eleven or so, my mother impressed upon me the importance of good skin care. I always had my choice of skin care from that time on, and I have used some excellent products, and very much enjoyed using those products. However, my skin has changed and I had a very difficult time finding something that would work well.

Some people are able, through trial and error, to find a skin care system that results in a very perfect face. I’ve never gotten there. I don’t know if it’s genes, diet, not the right combination of products, or something else. However, I think I’m getting closer to finding  the face that is good enough for me, especially considering that my diet is, at times, horrendous and that I am a very delicate flower where my skin is concerned and my face lately tends to hate, well, things. Just, all things. AND especially considering what my face was like about a year and a half ago. The winter before last, I had a reaction to some oral medication that left my skin completely different from how it had ever been. It felt like sandpaper. It was covered in tiny bumps. COVERED. It was red, and angry, and breaking out, and dry, and a complete mess. It has taken a long time to begin to repair the damage, and I’m not sure it will ever fully recover.

Up onto the Photography Chair, everybody!

In retrospect, I wonder if the medication caused me to have a rosacea flare-up. I had always been ruddy in the cheeks, and I had several People Who Would Know tell me it looked like mild rosacea, but what happened after that medication was a whole new story. A whole new face, and I didn’t know what to do.

I started experimenting with different mild products, searching internet forums to get some ideas, and I tried lots of them. It ended up that I had to find my own way, and the products above are what have gotten my skin to look more normal again. I have to be so careful with natural, botanical products because I have many allergies to that sort of thing, so my products are not very naturey.  Also, my face hates the plant oils: the coconut, the argan, the almond, etc. If you like that sort of thing, I’m not your girl.

So. I use the Cetaphil cleanser (the creamy, non-foaming kind) most of the time. I use the Mario Badescu Enzyme Cleansing Gel twice a week or so. I don’t find it harsh in the least. Then, between one and three evenings a week, I’ve been putting on a thin layer of the Alpha Hydrox 10% Glycolic Acid gel goo. Every time I wash my face, I use a thin layer of the Mario Badescu Herbal Hydrating Serum, which I love. There are a couple products not pictured here because I am determining if they are or are not essential to the regimen. These products are: Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cleanser and Mario Badescu Glycolic Acid Toner. If I decide they are essential, I’d add the toner back into the system, and swap the Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cleanser for the Cetaphil. However, Cetaphil seems to be working well enough for now. The key, I feel, is that none of these things are irritating me or causing breakouts at this time, and my skin is reasonably hydrated.

A quick word about the Mario Badescu Herbal Hydrating Serum: if you read the ingredients, and if you are a certain kind of person, you will say, “Glycerin and water! She is paying $XX for GLYCERIN AND WATER!” I am telling you it does not act like glycerin and water on my face. I know this because I used glycerin and water on my face for an extended period of time, and it is not the same. Also, my face was angry and now it’s not, which is pretty much all I need to know.

Okay, those are my skin care products. I wanted to put it out there in case anyone reading might find themselves in a similar, desperate situation.

Also, I wonder, do any of you have a skin care product that is wonderful? Something you swear by? Have you ever had a special skin care need that you found the perfect product for?