Changes | Marriage Confessions Changes | Laugh. Fight. Stay Married.

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

Yesterday was the first in a series of posts I’m doing about taking care of myself. Partly inspired because of my 2012 resolutions to eat better and exercise and partly inspired by my dad’s heart disease, I’ve been trying hard lately to be a little healthier. Which, for someone as lazy as me, is a big deal. Yesterday was all about what I’m eating (and not eating) these days, and today I’m focusing on the exercise part.

Or, as I like to call it, “Operation: Dying On My Neighborhood Sidewalk.”

The morning after Valentine’s Day, I found myself lying awake in bed at 5:00am. That’s not that shocking, really. I usually wake up between 4:30 and 5:00 every day and then just lay there dozing and making endless lists of things to do until my alarm goes off at 6:30. On this particular morning, I found myself making a list of all the crap I’d eaten in the past couple days. It was a long list.

And then I started thinking about that conversation I had with Sarah in my driveway about heart disease.

And then I started thinking about how there’s nothing I can do to prevent heart disease and how I really wanted to see my babies grow up so that they could experience sleepless nights when they have children of their own.

And then I sat straight up in bed and thought, “But I CAN do something!”

And then, really quick before I could think it through, I got out of bed and dug out my only pair of athletic pants/shorts/capris thingies that I own and put them on. Then I dug even deeper for that sports bra that I was sure I owned at one point in college. Then I dug out my Walmart brand tennis shoes that I bought for a crazy party in the middle of the woods one night in college. I took my iPhone and headed out.

But I got to my front door and realized it was still really dark outside and I didn’t know how comfortable I felt running around in the dark by myself, so I ran back upstairs and dragged Big Molly out of bed and made her go with me. Turns out, she’s the perfect running companion because she’s fat, she’s lazy, and she pants louder than me when we run.

Which got me thinking about the real reasons that Sarah always made me go running with her…

Anyway, I went running. All on my own. No one made me. I just got up and did it.

AND I DIDN’T DIE!

But the true miracle in this little story is that I’ve gone every morning since. Every morning I get up at 5:15 and run. Trust me, no one is more surprised by this than me. But after spending hours thinking over how the heck I ended up in an exercise routine (RUNNING, no less!), I’ve decided that it really is the perfect thing for me. I can’t ever do things in the evenings with Sarah because I have the kids. That’s a legit excuse, too. That 5:00-7:30 time frame is pretty chaotic in our house and a lot has to happen. Me stopping to go run or walk is really tricky. Plus, if I run or exercise, part of the reason would be to clear my head and take some time for myself. Hauling the kids around in a stroller doesn’t really do it for me.

But that 5:00am hour is really perfect. I have childcare. I have peace and quiet. I don’t have to brush my hair. Or teeth. I can just get up and go. So, I do. Usually, I run from 5:15 until about 5:45 or 6:00. Then, I get home and find Bean awake (he’s an early riser, too). I get Bean up and we go downstairs and have breakfast together, just the two of us. It’s actually really nice. Once we’re done eating, I let Bean play in the living room while I go upstairs and shower. While I’m in the shower, Chris gets up with Gracie around 6:45 and they go downstairs with Bean. I’m usually showered, dressed, and ready to go by 7:00, so I then help get the kids dressed and bags packed for the day. I pack my lunch, grab my keys, and we’re out the door by 7:30.

At first, I worried that I would be really tired from getting up that early, but it really hasn’t bothered me. I do notice that I go to bed a little earlier, which is actually good for me. And I’m sleeping much sounder, which is a minor miracle for me because I am a terrible sleeper. The one day that it really bothered me was today. I didn’t have to go to work and the kids were in daycare for the first half of the day, so without anything really to do, I just sat there and got really tired. But if I keep myself up and moving, I can go all day without feeling tired. Actually, I feel pretty darn good.

For the actual run, I’m using a great app that my mother-in-law recommended. She is a runner and serious athlete and she recommended Jeff Galloway to me back when I ran my first 5k and everyone thought that I was going to become a real runner. So, I downloaded Easy 5k with Jeff Galloway (this link is to the $3.99 app, which I am about to upgrade to, but I have the free one right now and it works just fine). I have used a Couch 2 5k app before (I can’t remember or find which one it was!), but I like this one a lot better. Jeff Galloway uses a run/walk pattern for running. And he does everything in one-minute intervals. So, you run one minute and walk one minute. Which is really great because when I tell myself that I just can’t run any further or I’m going to pass out on my neighbor’s lawn, I remind myself that I can endure anything for one minute. And so I keep going. I also like him because he talks to you a little bit while you run. He says a few little encouraging words as you’re running, but what I really like is that he talks to you a little bit about healthy living. He might say a sentence or two about how your body burns fat. Or what kinds of carbs are healthy and which you should avoid. It’s never too much chatter, but just enough to remind yourself why you are running. It’s actually very encouraging for me.

Jeff is my friend.

Right now, I’m almost up to 1.75 miles at a time and it takes me about 25 minutes. Every day, Big Molly and I take a different route. We run through our neighborhood, or we cross over into the next neighborhood and run around there. Today, we ran all the way down this major road, which made me feel super powerful because I see lots of people running along that road all the time and I am always envious of them and their runner-like bodies. This morning as I ran that route, I thought to myself, “I wonder if all those people I see running this way are panting and drooling and whispering curse words under their breathe, too? Probably.”

After a week of running, here’s what I’ve decided. The term “runner’s high” is not really the right phrase. That phrase has always implied to me that the act of running gives the runner a high. That does not happen to me. (Although, this morning, for the first time, I made it through my run without feeling like I was going to die next to a yard gnome.) What I experience is more like a “after runners high.” And it lasts, roughly, all day.

All day after I have run, I feel pretty invincible. My head is clearer. I’m happier. And I feel like I could literally kick someone’s arse if I had to. I don’t really use the word “empowered” too often. (Mostly because I can never remember if it’s “empowered” or “impowered.”) But that’s the exact word for it. Running for half an hour in the morning makes me feel empowered all day long. I especially feel empowered over what I eat that day. I turn down sweets and treats a lot easier if I’ve run that morning because I know how hard I worked and I think to myself, “Remember thinking that it was the end of your life as you stumbled by Mrs. Patterson’s driveway this morning? And then how you pulled it together and made it all the way to Mr. Iverson’s corner lot without stopping and/or dying? Is that doughnut really worth undoing all that effort?”

You know what else? I feel prettier. (giggle, giggle)

I feel kind of stupid saying that, but it’s true. I feel prettier. I’ve been carrying myself a little taller. I’ve been wearing skirts instead of jeans. I have taken a little more time getting ready in the morning. And those little things are huge for me because I haven’t really felt attractive in a long time. Probably not since I had Bean Man. I figured that running would help that, but I thought it would take a while. Maybe I’d feel better about myself when I could see some change in my shape. But, apparently, my mind doesn’t need to wait for my body. Nothing has changed. I still look exactly the same, but I feel better about myself in one short week.

Although, I can’t say Big Molly experiences the same thing. Poor Big Molly. That sweet, big, fat dog runs every step with me and I am so grateful for her! When I start to slow down, she pulls ahead a little and tugs me with her. And when she starts to slow down, I remind her how good we’re both going to look in bikinis this year and she picks up the pace a little. We’re good running partners.

So, I’m exercising regularly. And I’m not dying. And I’m not hating it.

Miracles do happen.

******

Tune in tomorrow when I talk about what health and beauty products I’m using these days as I get closer to hitting the big 3-0.

26 comments | posted in Changes, health, Marriage Confessions | tags: exercise, getting joggy with it, health

Roses are red

Violets are blue

Remember that night

We went out for fondu?

It was the night before our wedding

And we were needing a break

From all of the demands

A bride and groom must take.

So, the night before our vows

We snuck away from our crew

And had a quiet dinner

Just me and just you.

We talked about our lives

That were about to begin.

We laughed and we planned

And we kissed and we grinned.

That night as we dreamed

as only young lovers can do

I had no way of knowing

How blessed I would be to have you.

Our life hasn’t always been perfect.

Sometimes the storms raged against our shores.

But you stood there beside me

No matter how hard it poured.

And when times were good,

Well, you made them better.

Life was sweeter and brighter

When we were together.

If I could go back

To that fondu dinner for two,

I’d tell my young self

To stop planning what to do.

Because after all these years

There’s one thing I know.

We could never have planned

How deeply our love would grow.

So, roses are red,

And poison ivy gives me hives,

I’m so glad you’ll be my Valentine

For the rest of our lives.

26 comments | posted in Changes, Childhood, Flashbacks, holidays, Marriage Confessions | tags: love, Marriage, Relationships, Valentine's Day

Tonight I had a meeting at church after work. Somehow, I agreed to be a co-chair for our church’s vacation Bible school program this summer and planning is in full swing already. As the meeting was coming to a close, my blog actually became the topic of discussion. Apparently, some of the women discovered my blog and so we spent a few minutes talking about it, which is really odd for me because I don’t often talk about my blog in my real life. Actually, very few people who know me in person even know that I write. As I was talking about the blog to them, the subject turned to marriage. I mentioned that Chris and I were coming up on seven years of marriage and about half the group of women let out big groans.

“That’s a doozey of a year,” one of them said, and everyone nodded their heads in agreement.

On the way home, I thought about what they had said. I’ve heard of the Seven Year Itch in marriages, but I really thought that was just a saying. But as I thought over the past year of my own marriage, I started to wonder if maybe there was some truth to that dreaded seventh year.

This year of our marriage has been… not perfect. I guess that’s the best way to say it. It hasn’t been rough, really. LAST year when we were unexpectedly pregnant, moving, struggling for money, and dealing with my depression – now THAT was rough. This year has certainly been an improvement over that. But it hasn’t been smooth sailing by any means.

I think our lowest point was around the holidays. Chris and I really struggled through the this past fall. Nothing more than most couples, I imagine (and I hope!), but enough that it was tense. We were trying to save for Christmas and make plans for visiting family through the holidays, and that required some compromise from both of us. Chris was working more weekends and I was back to work again after having the summer off, so both our schedules were different and we were trying to adjust. And on top of those things, there were the normal happenings of a family with two small kids – Gracie was teething, Bean was potty training, and we were trying to make time for our family in the midst of all our other obligations. Like I said, it’s nothing that many of you have been through.

One night over our Christmas break, Chris and I got into one of the biggest fights we’d ever had. There were a lot of reasons for it, but it came down to pent up frustration with each other. We were both angry. We were both tired. And it all came to a head one night in a fight. At the height of our anger, Chris yelled out, “Our marriage just isn’t a priority for me right now! There’s too much stuff going on!”

Well, that shut me up. My first reaction was complete hurt. If I wasn’t a priority to my husband, who would make me a priority? That hurt quickly turned to anger, as my hurt usually does. I became so angry at Chris. How dare he make a decision like that about our marriage without even talking to me? This wasn’t just his marriage to prioritize. It was mine, too. But after a few days of thinking it over, I came to a startling realization: I felt the same way.

The fact is that there is sometimes truth in anger and honesty in frustration and had Chris and I not fought it out that day, I don’t think either of us would have been bold enough to say what we truly felt. That marriage just wasn’t important right now.

Chris and I worked through the issues we were having last fall during our State of the Union talk around New Years. We spent the dinner really talking about our marriage and why it had slipped down the totem pole of our priorities. While we never pinpointed an exact answer, we did come to the complete consensus that we had to make more of an effort to push it back up that totem pole. Without our marriage as the priority in our lives, nothing else works. We don’t parent well when we’re tense with each other. We’re preoccupied at work and so we start to slip there. Our household responsibilities that we normally share – paying bills, cooking dinner, putting the kids to bed – aren’t fun anymore. They become obligations and the weight of their responsibility weighs on us as individuals, instead of as a couple. That kind of pressure is really hard to carry alone. So, we’ve really committed this year to making our marriage a priority again and we’re doing a pretty good job so far. But, occasionally, I still feel that we’re not quite as united as we used to be.

Tonight, as I was driving home, I started thinking about what the women at church had said about the seventh year of marriage and about my own upcoming seventh year of marriage. Why is that year so damn hard???

(Dear Future Beanie and Gracie – please turn away from the computer right now…)

I honestly think it’s because we have kids now.

Am I allowed to say that? I feel like I’m not allowed to say that. But I’m going to say it anyway.

If Chris and I didn’t have kids, I’m sure we would still have issues to work through in our marriage, but having children for the two of us has made things…well…different in our marriage.

In some ways, it has deepened who we are as a couple. I have learned to love Chris is a way that I didn’t love him before our kids were born. I love him more because there is more OF him to love. Bean and Gracie are extensions of mine and Chris’s love. They are our love in the flesh. So, because I love them, I am able to love Chris more deeply than I did before. Having kids has also taught us about true partnership. We’ve learned how to lean on each other and to turn to each other when we don’t have the answers. We depend on each other more now because we have children that depend on us. We’ve grown up together as parents. He is the only person who has been through every single parenting issue with me. Every single decision I’ve made as a parent – the right decisions and the wrong decisions – I’ve made with Chris, and that bonds you like nothing else.

But there are some ways that becoming parents has made being a married couple harder. For one thing, we can’t drop everything we’re doing anymore to fix problems. We have had to learn how to work through issues with babies on our hips and dinner on the stove. When Chris and I were first married and we would have a big fight or disagreement over something, we would pretty much stop what we were doing to fix the situation. We’d plan a dinner out for the two of us to talk about whatever the issue was we were dealing with. And we could do that because we had no kids. We didn’t need to worry about finding a babysitter or if we could afford a sitter that week. We didn’t have to worry about staying out too late because we had to get up at 6am the next day with the kids. We didn’t have to pick up diapers or baby food or a fruit that begins with the letter C for daycare the next day. We just didn’t have those obligations and so it was much easier to stop everything and fix our marriage.

Parenting has also impacted our marriage because it’s not all about us anymore. Like any good parent, Chris and I live for our kids. If you ask Bean who he is, he’ll say, “Mommy’s whole world!” Because he is! Those two kids are the heartbeat of our family. Neither Chris or I could imagine our lives without either of them. They make us better people. They make our world a better place. They make our family complete. But having our world revolve around our two babies means that Chris and I as a couple often take a backseat to our kids or to our family’s well being. What we’ve had to learn over the past two and a half years that we’ve been parents is how to draw the line and when to make our marriage the center of our universe.

Now, for those who are reading this without kids who hope to one day have a family – don’t panic! I don’t think this period of our marriage is going to last forever. In fact, I can already see us getting slowly past it. The thing about your seventh year of marriage is that you have to learn as your family grows. Chris and I are learning this year that sometimes we have to re-prioritize in our family and sometimes that means putting our marriage before our kids. Sometimes that means asking for more from each other without placing blame. That’s been a tough one for me. I’ve had to learn how to say, “I need more from you,” without saying, “I need more from you because what you’re doing is not enough.” It’s not that what we’re doing is not enough. It’s that the stakes are higher now. There’s more going on. We both have to get better – not because what we’re doing is not good enough, but because it just requires more effort now.

The seventh year is upon us and I feel it in my marriage. This year I’ve had to hear some really hard things from Chris and I’ve had to say some really hard things to Chris. But the hard is what makes things better. The hard is what makes us stronger. And so, yes, sometimes you just throw your hands up in the air and yell, “THIS IS JUST NOT A PRIORITY RIGHT NOW!” But that isn’t the end of anything. That’s just the beginning. It’s what I do after the frustration that determines the success of my marriage.