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!
22Feb
I sort of fell into a teaching career. That’s probably not what the parents of my students want to hear, but it’s the truth. I always thought I’d be a lawyer, actually. But when Chris got into graduate school at Yale about two weeks after I was accepted to law school, I decided to go with him to Connecticut and to turn down law school. When we got to Connecticut, I worked in the legal field for another year before finally deciding it really just wasn’t for me.
So I took a job working at Yale in an administrative role. While I loved that job and my co-workers, my favorite part of the day was getting to interact with the students. I loved seeing them grow throughout the year. As the school year went on, they became more confident, more self-aware, more mature, and sometimes they even got a little smarter…
Two years ago when we moved back to Florida, I looked everywhere for a job in college administration, but I couldn’t find one to save my life. After months of job searching, my friend, Sarah, told me about a job opening at the middle school where she taught. They were looking for an 8th grade language arts teacher, and Sarah wanted to know if I was interested.
At that point, if it had been a zoo calling to ask me to teach their blind fruit bats how to read, I would have taken the job. We were in desperate need of a second paycheck. Miraculously, my saint of a principal hired me with a hunch that I “had what it takes.”
The week leading up to my first day of teaching was awful. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat, could barely even speak. I had hated middle school and, up until that point, hadn’t really enjoyed most of the middle school aged kids I’d ever met. What the heck was I supposed to say to these kids? What did I know about literary skills and reading comprehension? Just between you and me, I wasn’t even exactly sure I could identify a pronoun in a sentence.
The morning I woke up for my first day, I showered, dressed, and drove to work in complete silence. My hands were shaking beyond belief, and I am sure my eyes were as wide as saucers. I walked into my classroom, looked around at the bare walls and thought, “What am I doing here?”
And then the first period bell rang. Students started filing into my classroom. The sound of middle school girls shrieking and middle school boys tumbling down the hall filled the air. And, suddenly, I relaxed. My hands stopped shaking, I started talking again, and instinctively I just knew what to do. Instantly, I was at home.
For me, teaching came so naturally and so quickly that after just a couple days, it felt like I had been doing it all my life. That doesn’t necessarily mean I am the best at it, but I’m certainly not the worst and I am amazed with every test my kids take that they are actually learning from me!
My students know I am new to teaching and so when we hit a lesson or a unit concept that I may not be so familiar with (the grammar unit always kills me!), I tell them right up front, “You and I are going to have to learn this together,” and then we do. Students make wonderful teachers. We’ve learned how to use commas, how to analyze poetry (not a favorite genre for me OR for them), how to write a clear introduction to an essay, and how to draw a plot diagram. And by the end of each unit, we are all so proud of ourselves for how much progress we have made.
Reading is a big part of my classroom. My students are required to read 30 books in my class by the end of the year. When I told them that on the first day of school, you should have heard the complaints. I thought they were going to throw pencils at me. “But Mrs. Brown,” they whined. “I’ve never read 30 books in my whole life, much less in a year!” “Me either!” I tell them, “But we’re all going to do it, so suck it up and start reading!” I teach 125 students. In the first semester, they read a total of 1,127 books. That averages out to nine books per student in eighteen weeks. In my classroom, they get a link on our reading paper chain for every book they read. This picture is from the first quarter, so it isn’t the full length chain, but my paper chain is now so long that it wraps around the ceiling of my classroom twice. I tell them the Fire Marshall is going to shut us down.
Every day they come into class telling me about what they are reading. They even send me emails to my school email address from their homes at night telling me how much they loved the book they just finished and how they can’t wait to tell me about it the next morning. Parents are going on and on about how they have to make their kids put their books away so they can do other homework. For students who had never read books for leisure before, they continue to amaze and inspire me. I find myself reading more just to keep up with them. In one of my classes, we all started reading the Harry Potter series together. Some of them finished before even I did, and every day we would compare where we were and what was happening in our novels. When I finally made it to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal last month, I took so many pictures to bring back and show my kids. I owe J.K. Rowling more than she’ll ever know just because of all the conversations she prompted between my students and me. 
Teaching is about so much more to me than just paper chains and books and grammar. And I think it’s about more than that to my students, too. It’s about forming relationships with the kids and bringing that education to a place where they can use it in their lives. I think that is what I love the most about education. In order for it to be the most successful, you have to meet the students right where they are, and to do that you must learn enough about them to know where that starting place is. That personal relationship is something I never got from an office job.
I was always pretty successful in the corporate world, but there is nothing like the feeling of success when a student who has only read one book in their whole life suddenly completes their seventh book in one quarter. Or the feeling of success when a student who could barely put a sentence together writes a killer essay. That level of satisfaction only comes from working in a career field whose sole purpose is to make children better people.
In twenty years, my students will probably not remember how to use a comma correctly. In twenty years, I’ll probably NEVER know how to use a comma correctly. My students will probably not remember the short story we read that made me cry in class as I read it out loud and they laughed at me. My students will probably not remember me walking down the hall dragging 1,000 paper rings on a paper chain, stopping anyone who would listen as I told them how proud I was of my classes. In twenty years, my students may not remember me at all. But in twenty years, I will remember each one of them and the fact that they taught me how to be a teacher.
Are you longing to make a difference in the world through your career? If you’re interested in teaching or nursing, Capella University might be just what you’re looking for to kick off a fulfilling career. Capella offers a rigorous and supportive learning community that transforms your education into work that makes a difference in the lives of others. As a teacher myself, I can promise you that your degree will change more lives than just your own.
To see others stories like mine and to see what the Capella community has to say, visit them on Facebook or their Graduates page. To support teaching, literacy, and careers that make a difference, BlogHer will donate $1 (up to $500) for every comment left on this post to one of my favorite charities, “Reading is Fundamental,” which helps promote literacy and lifelong reading skills for kids. To help raise money for this wonderful cause, please leave a comment below telling me who your favorite teacher in school was and why.
Many thanks to BlogHer for supporting such a wonderful cause and to Capella University for promoting teachers, education, and careers that truly change lives.
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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.
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…
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