Around the House | Marriage Confessions Around the House

On Monday, I blogged about my diet as I enter my 30′s this year. Yesterday, I talked about my new exercise routine. And today, I’m focusing on health and beauty products I use. A couple of years ago, I really didn’t use many products at all. I washed my face in the shower with body wash. I combed my hair and let it air dry. And I only used lotion when I forgot to shave my legs. But these days, my face gets really dry and is already starting to show some fine lines, my hair is getting brittle, and my skin is dry and ashy, if I don’t do anything with it. So, I’ve started using some more products lately that help me stay fresh faced and healthier.

(Ignore our horrible bathroom counter tops. They are on their way out…)

I’m not really sure what order to go in here, so I’ll just share them in the order I use them every day. None of these, by the way, are paid advertisers or sponsors of MC. I’m just sharing what I use and like.

Right after my shower (where I use Dove body wash and whatever shampoo and conditioner is on sale, in case you’re interested), I get out and put on skin firming lotion. I just started doing this in the past few weeks in a last ditch effort to tighten some of my belly up for our Costa Rican adventure later in March. I use Jergen’s Skin Firming lotion, and so far I really like it. It doesn’t have a super strong smell, which I prefer, and it goes on thick, but never feels wet or goopey on my skin. Plus, at about $5.00 for a giant bottle, it’s a steal!

Once I’m good and moisturized, I turn to my face. I begin with my favorite face wash on the whole planet: Basis. I used this stuff in college, but haven’t been able to find it in years. They have it in the bar form, but not the gel. Finally, I found it on Amazon and actually added it to my Christmas wish list. My mother-in-law bought me a four pack of it and I am already almost through that entire stash. I love this face wash because it smells heavenly – clean, light, fresh. Just like you want to feel after a shower. But I love it even more because it goes on really light, it foams up a lot, and it rinses away clean, without leaving your skin dry.

With a clean face, it’s time to moisturize again. This time I have two steps I use on my face, both from Mary Kay. I had never used Mary Kay facial cleansers and moisturizers until my sister started selling them last summer, and then I became addicted! Ginny has stopped selling it now, but I’m still hooked on their moisturizers. I use the Timewise Age-Fighting Moisturizer and I love it. I started using it, oddly enough, when I was dealing with depression two Christmases ago. My face looked awful, ya’ll. I was tired, pregnant, and stressed, and it showed on my face. Ginny came down for the holidays and while she was here she had a pamper session with MK products. In one afternoon, my face went from dark and sunken to bright and fresh looking. And I’ve never looked back. I really think this moisturizer is a miracle worker. It just kind of smooths out those fine little lines that show up on me when I’m tired. And, it’s fragrance-free, super light, and the moisture seems to last all day. In short, I love it.

After the moisturizer, I put on another MK product. This one is called their Day Solution. It is a lot like the moisturizer, except that it also has SPF 25 in it (a necessity when you live in Florida with fair skin). And it just leaves my face feeling a little smoother. Unlike moisturizers, this one protects you against the elements of the day and keeps you looking fresh-faced all day long.

I also use their Night Solution before bed after I wash and moisturize my face.

Other MK products that I use on a fairly regular basis are their microdermabrasion set. This one is pretty pricey, but it lasts a long time because you don’t use it often. And when you use it, it’s like giving yourself a mini-facial. Be careful with this one, though. One of the solutions is an exfoliant, and I almost took my face off the first time I used it because I rubbed too hard! It’s mighty powerful, kids! But when you use it correctly, it gives you that deep clean that leaves your skin soft and renewed.

Once my skin is taken care of, I let that all set and dry while I work on my hair. (sigh) My hair. What a mess. It’s a long, curly mess of red these days. I find the best I can do is tame it so that it doesn’t scare small children. Beyond that, I don’t hold out much hope. I do manage to keep it somewhat under control with three products. I wash my hair, and then towel dry it while I put on my moisturizers. Once I’m all moisturized, I take my hair down, comb it out, and then scrunch it back up in Garnier Fructis Curl Construct Mousse. I let that stay on while I put on my make up so that it dries a little more, and then I spray in Herbal Essence Tousling Spray Gel. I scrunch that in and decide if I’m going to wear my hair up in a ponytail (like I do 99% of the time), or if I’m going to leave it down. Once I’ve made the big decision, I spray it all down with Garnier Fructis Flexible Control Anti-Humidity Hairspray. Basically, it’s a lot of spraying and scrunching and takes all of 2 minutes.

With my skin and hair all taken care of, I throw on some of my favorite deodorant. Dove is awesome because it goes on white, but as far as I can tell, never gets on your clothes. And, trust me, I’ve tried! I love it also because it smelllllls gooooooood!

So, that’s my get up and go routine as I enter my 30′s. It certainly takes a lot more product these days to keep me looking fresh-faced, but it makes me feel good and it keeps my skin looking healthy. Tomorrow I’ll round out this 30 Day Health Check series with my top make up picks. Thanks for letting me do these super-girly posts this week! I’ve been having such fun, and I hope you guys have, too!

5 comments | posted in Around the House, Changes, health, Just for Fun, Marriage Confessions | tags: health and beauty, turning 30

I am not a runner. I don’t like exercise. But a few weekends ago, when my BFF forced me at gunpoint (not really) to run my second 5k with her, we were standing in my driveway with Sarah, her husband, Chris, and my parents the night before the race and I was complaining about running.

“I CAN’T RUN, SARAH!” I moaned, rolling around my driveway. “THERE’S HEART DISEASE IN MY FAMILY! DO YOU WANT ME TO HAVE A HEART ATTACK?!?!”

“No,” Sarah replied. “That’s why you need to be running.”

Everyone laughed and I found my lazy, un-athletic butt squeezed into running shorts at 6:00 the next morning, waiting for Sarah to pick me up.

The truth is that I have been thinking a lot about that comment she made in the past few weeks. It is true. There is heart disease in my family. My dad had his first heart attack in his 40′s and has had multiple since then. Thank God he’s healthy and has had a happy heart for the past six years or so, but that first heart attack of his has been on my mind.

This year in December, I’ll turn 30. Not much about turning 30 bothers me. Honestly, I’ve been living like I’m 30 for the past couple years anyway since we got married and had babies so early. Turning 30 feels like my age is finally catching up with where I am. But, I have noticed a few minor physical changes lately. Namely, these pesky bags under my eyes that used to go away with one good night’s sleep. I’ve also discovered that it is much harder to lose weight now than it was 5 or 10 years ago. But I’m okay with my weight right now. I could certainly do with a redistribution of where that weight falls on my body, but that’s just the mark of motherhood and, though it frustrates me, the distortion of my body shape is really a small price to pay for my two babies.

No, 30 isn’t going to be so bad. But it does make me more aware of my health, especially given the heart disease in my family. All my life, I’ve thought that eating well and exercising was about losing weight. I never really had a whole lot of weight to lose and so except for a few binge diets that always crashed and burned, I’ve just sort of put those two things out of my mind. They didn’t seem to apply to me.

But as 30 approaches and I realize how close I am to the age when my dad had his first heart attack, I’ve started to think more about eating well and exercising for my health. (Look how wise I’m getting in my old age!) I thought today and tomorrow I would share a few changes I’ve made over the past few months. I’ll start today with my diet and tomorrow I’ll get back to that pesky running/exercise/dying-on-the-side-of-the-road thing.

One of my New Years resolutions was to eat better. I’ve been doing pretty good with that, actually. I try to avoid any kind of sweets (though Valentine’s Day set me back on that one… So did Girl Scout season…) and I tried to cut out any unnecessary food that I’d eat when I wasn’t really hungry. Working full-time helps that because I can only eat what I bring with me that day. Generally speaking, here’s what my daily diet looks like:

- For breakfast, I drink two big glasses of water, and usually have either a whole wheat Eggo Waffle with peanut butter on it or a toasted 100 calorie English muffin with peanut butter and a sliced up banana on top.

- I keep a box of Luna Protein bars in my desk and eat one of those for a mid-morning snack.

- For lunch, I pack a Lean Cuisine (I buy that $1.99 ones and use a coupon, so they are only about $1.25 each), a Dannon Light and Fit Yogurt, and a piece of fruit.

- When I get home, I have the hardest time because I cook dinner for the kids, but Chris and I don’t eat until after they go down, which is around 7:30. So, the break between lunch and dinner for me is really long and I get hungry. I was trying to make it through without anything, but that was just causing me to binge on whatever I could find about 20 minutes before dinner. Not good. Now, I’ve started eating a little snack while the kids have their dinner. I try to make it some kind of veggie since I eat more fruit in my day than veggies. Last night, I had celery and carrot sticks with light ranch dressing.

- Dinner is pretty much an anything goes. I do meal plan every week and so I try to plan meals that are healthier these days. We do lots of grilled chicken, brown rice, veggies. But we also have things like lasagna with whole wheat pasta and ground turkey. One of my go-to dinners right now is a whole roasted chicken. Throw it in the crock pot in the morning with some carrots, celery, and onions and you have a giant, tender chicken waiting to do whatever you want with when you get home. We also have a lot of tacos in our house. At least once a week we have taco night with ground turkey, lots of veggies toppings, brown rice, and black beans. Chris likes his in taco shells, but I usually put mine over a bed of lettuce. Just as filling and delicious to me – tastes like Chipotle!

- Throughout the entire day, I try to drink as much water as possible. That might seem obvious, but I have never been a water drinker. It’s too bland for me. Now, every time I go grocery shopping, I buy one lime and one lemon. I slice them up and keep them in a Tupperware container in my fridge. Every morning I fix a giant water cup for me to take to school and I stick a couple lemon and lime slices in there for flavor. Throughout the day, as I add water, the flavor of the lemon and lime keep it tasting fresh. I am drinking three times as much water as I used to simply because of the flavor.

- Oh, lastly, every day after dinner, I limit myself to one serving of Girl Scout cookies. Which, we all know, is one box.

There are lots of things I need to add to my diet, but I’ve spent the past few months cutting things out. Now, I’m ready to start slowly adding what I need. More greens, more veggies, more proteins. But I’m feeling pretty good about my diet lately, and, more importantly, I can tell a difference in how I feel after eating now.

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing about how I’m slowly killing myself with exercise…

27 comments | posted in Around the House, health, In the Kitchen, Marriage Confessions | tags: health

In the hustle and bustle of daily life, sometimes our family gets behind. If we have a weekend with hardly any down time at home, laundry piles up that week, groceries don’t get bought, the house doesn’t get cleaned. And all of those things really throw off the upcoming week. Which really throws off a lot of other stuff. We’ve been pretty busy lately on the weekends. Between a few minor home repairs and renovations (I’ll have to show you my freshly painted bathroom soon!) and other obligations, we found ourselves without any down time at home for two weekends in row. This meant that none of us had any underwear, there was no bread or milk in the house, and our kitchen floors were a bit dodgy.

When times like these happen (and they do from time to time), our family institutes a “Self-Inflicted Laziness” weekend. It’s a weekend that we purposefully commit to NOT making any commitments. It usually starts with an email exchange between me and Chris in the middle of the week saying something like, “I ran out of dog food this morning, so I fed them Cheerios.” When those kinds of emails start flying, they are quickly followed by an email that says, “This weekend is reserved, okay?”

Reserved means that we turn down or even cancel any plans we have and our family basically goes on lock down for a full weekend. We try as much as possible not to leave the house at all on either Saturday or Sunday. One day of the weekend is strictly a home day. On this day, we sleep late (or, as late as possible with a toddler and baby), we fix a family breakfast, we hang around in our PJs, and we just enjoy each other. This past weekend, we found ourselves sitting on Bean’s bedroom floor at 6:00am playing with blocks and Legos. And we stayed there until 10:00.

Later that morning after breakfast, we decided to break our own rule and we headed out of the house to take a walk around the neighborhood. I threw Gracie in the stroller and Bean rode around on his bike. It was a nice little break from being inside, especially because it was so beautiful outside, and it gave us a chance to play outside together.

When we got home, we had a family lunch and then when the kids went down for naps, Chris and I cleaned the house really good before finally crashing ourselves for a bit. That night we had dinner together and when the kids went to bed, Chris and I got to pick our own REAL ADULT MOVIE with no singing or cartoons!!!! Oh, the luxury!

On Sunday, we got up and went to early church, went out for brunch at our favorite breakfast place, and came home for naps. After naps, Bean helped Chris work on our freshly painted, slightly renovated bathroom.

I did a little meal planning and coupon clipping while they worked and Gracie continued to nap, and then I ran to the grocery store without any kids!!!!! Another luxury!!!

Self-Inflicted Laziness weekends aren’t really about laziness at all, actually. They are more about regrouping and refocusing on our family and home life. We don’t need them often, but, man, we sure can tell when we haven’t had one in a while. I’m really glad I had the chance to reconnect with Chris and with my tater tots. And I know they’re glad they now have clean underwear!

20 comments | posted in Around the House, Family, Marriage Confessions | tags: Family, life

Yesterday was a long Monday for me. Nothing particularly bad happened. It was just a long, stressful day. Aren’t all Mondays?

I woke up this morning and thought, “Today is going to be better.”

Nope.

I got to daycare, dropped Bean in his classroom, and then headed to Gracie’s room, like I do every morning. Only, as I turned to leave, Gracie’s teacher stopped me and pointed out that Gracie had a little rash on her mouth. Which reminded me vaguely of a pamphlet that had been sent home last week that said something about something about hoof and mouth disease. But feeling fairly certain that Gracie did not, in fact, have hooves, I had thrown the pamphlet out.

Turns out, you don’t need hooves to have hoof and mouth disease! It has it’s own special name for making people sick – hand, foot, and mouth disease. So, they kicked Gracie out this morning until a vet could confirm that her hooves were disease free.

I was already running late for work and couldn’t take a sick day because I hadn’t put in notice for a substitute, so Chris ended up having to stay home with Gracie. That started my whole day off wrong. After that, I got to work and realized I’d forgotten anything to drink (a serious mistake when you spend all day teaching and/or yelling over loud middle schoolers), so I stopped in the teachers lounge to get a drink out of the vending machines. Only, the vending machine guy must have filled the machine wrong because when I pushed Diet Dr. Pepper, I got a real Dr. Pepper. No diet. Which normally wouldn’t have been a big deal, but I was already pissy.

So, now I’m late, out of sorts, and pissy. I was getting mail out of my school mailbox about 10 minutes later, I opened my drink as I walked and the entire bottle spewed out all over me. Perfect.

Now, I was late, out of sorts, pissy, and sticky. Great.

I got through two class periods before I finally realized the lesson I had planned for my students today was going really badly. They weren’t ready for it and so I was dragging them through the material (no fun for them or me), so very quickly before any other classes came in, I rearranged my lesson plans and threw together a better lesson that wasn’t so complex. If you’re a teacher, you understand how much changing plans in the middle of the day can really get you off kilter. Actually, I guess anyone can understand that – when you plan to do one thing and then have to change your plan midstream. It really flusters you.

So, by fifth period, I was still running perpetually late, out of sorts, irritated, sticky, and flustered.

I got to lunch and realized that I had packed the worst lunch ever. Lettuce in a bowl. Seriously. No toppings, dressing, anything. Just lettuce in the bowl. And I had forgotten a fork to eat it with. The crappy lunch is due to the fact that I must have been daydreaming for the hour I went grocery shopping this weekend because we have NO FOOD in our house! I don’t know what the heck I bought because I spent the same amount as always, but there’s nothing in the cabinets or fridge! I did things like buy more pasta (which we already have tons of), but forgot the spaghetti sauce… ????

Anyway, my bad lunch meant that I was not perpetually late, out of sorts, irritated, sticky, and hungry.

When I got home, I was so happy to see Gracie and was relieved to hear the doctor had said she did not have hand, foot, and mouth disease. However, when I put Bean to bed tonight, I did noticed a small little rash had appeared on his mouth. Freaking great.

Some days, I have it all together. I leave home without Cheerios in my hair. I get everyone to where they need to be on time and with shoes on. I feel successful and fulfilled at school. I get dinner on the table and the kids in bed at a decent time.

But then, there are the other days. Today was an other day. I would like a do-over, please.