Trying To Be Productive As Well As Amused

Birchbox on the left and Beauty Bar on the right: love the earphones, the Jouer and the Sisley!

I know that signing up for beauty subscription services may be rather passé but even though others may be bored with them, I'm absolutely thrilled to have signed up for a couple.  Color me easily amused and quite bored - even desperate if you must - but I think that they're a bit of fun - perhaps because I need a life?  (I'll not take that bet - it's too easily lost!)  


At any rate, when I signed up for Birchbox and BeautyBar three months ago, I didn't realize that receiving four or five beauty samples twice a month (one from each company) would turn into something I would look forward to like a young, budding, in-training, teenaged prima donna at Christmas.  Yes, color me easily entertained too; however, I also recognize the fortuitous timing as I'm supposed to be on strict bed rest for the next month. (Yes, I still sound like a seal when I cough!)


I can see myself eventually becoming bored with the concept but for the moment they serve my purposes.  Both companies send out boxes that are somewhat tailored to one's tastes. They wanted my approximate age (good since that increases the chances of anti-aging products and decreases the teeny-bopper products I have no one to pass along to), they know I'm not especially into hair products (I've given up on experimentation with my hair as a lost cause, product-wise: I stick to a few must-have's and call it a day) and they're aware of a few other "facts" about me, such as I tend to like a conservative look and not cutting edge, though I must admit to a surprising fondness for the turquoise nail polish that came in the other day.


Thank goodness I have this bit of "fluff" in my life because whenever I go through a bad spell (understatement of the decade) I tend to go a bit off track with my entire life (is this a post for understatements or what???) and that all adds to my spiraling downward until I can finally say "enough!" and figure out some sort of mind game that will force me back on track.  This week I've tried quite a few things with no luck, so I'm putting it out there via this blog in order to shame myself back into "order."  Here is how I'm starting "back," if I can keep myself at the level I am right now and not get even a smidgen worse.   If I can get through five days of this, I'll have a good chance of succeeding:


1. Weigh myself each day and RECORD the number on my calendar. My 20-lb. weight gain is downright depressing but the worst is over, I hope, since I DID finally force myself onto the darn scale, a huge move.  And, BTW, I record my weight in code...I'm NOT crazy!


2. Cut out all sugar. That includes fruit and that honey I don't even like!


3. Go back to "food combining," or my version of it. I'm convinced that all of us do best on some foods and worse on others and it's up to us to see which work best for our individual selves.  That is, don't listen to the so-called experts - after all, they change their minds as often as Seattle changes its weather, about every ten minutes from what I've heard.  You know your body best, so listen to it and learn from it.  Food fads come and go why?  Because a certain percent of the population can be always be found to be successful with any kind of diet. (A topic for another day!)


4. Go back to taking my vitamins religiously. (More later on this too!)


5. Start back to what is over-the-top hygiene for me, a person with CFIDS/ME, fibromyalgia, pain, sleep problems and migraines, crazy temperature fluctuations several times a day accompanied by sweats.  For some reason this really helps, though paradoxically I have to be careful and not over-do it.  Overdoing anything at all can accelerate the pain and insomnia for heaven-knows-what reason(s).  So, it's all a rather bizarre balancing act.


6. Drink tons of water. Yes, it sounds so pathetic to say that I've been too weak to even drink enough water, but it's true nonetheless.  In fact, all these "goals" are so easily obtained for the "normal" person but feel like bucket list items for "us."


So, I'll let you know how things come along. I have GOT to get myself in gear.   Summer's almost over and I've accomplished almost nothing!  Worse, the remodeling has stalled because of my being too sick to have anyone in the house, which puts me into another downward spiral.  If we don't get our walls painted soon, I may have to go jump off the nearest cliff as I can't bare the thought of another holiday with scarred walls, little furniture and certain rooms filled to the rafters so yet other rooms can be worked on.


What a truly crazy life I lead: I haven't been to our local mall in at least five years but shopped at the Petronas Towers just a few weeks ago.  Surely there must be a happy medium!  (Huge goal: TJ Maxx and Michael's, which I've never even been to!)  Perhaps the subscription service is one easy possibility that will lead to more.  At this point I must keep in mind that thing I sooo hate to say to myself: baby steps.  Annoying?  You betcha! I was never a baby-step person, not even as a baby, but it'd be great if I could get myself to feel just a tad human again and start getting some feelings of accomplishment!


Here's to all feeling their best, only better!


Have you tried a subscription service and if so, what did/do you think of them?

Exploring the Brave New World of Face Serums...

Just five of my favorite La Mer products

Finally!  I feel as if I have discovered the Rosetta Stone!

In case anyone out there has also been lost in the brave new world of serums, I'm here to enlighten you because I am bubbling over.  You see, I was so happy that I finally figured it out that in my excitement, I again mistook my hubby for someone who might care and started to share this long-sought-for knowledge with him.  Imagine my amazement when he did NOT care!  OK.  I had a sneaky suspicion he wouldn't, especially since he had already closed his eyes and was about to take his first snore (or is that "make" his first snore - regardless!) but I was just THAT THRILLED!

Ah.  You may wonder about my sanity about now, but it was ever-suffering hubby who inadvertently caused me to be in agony these last few years.

The two of us, one fine day, made one of our pilgrimages to my "beauty heaven" and I'd sent him off on an errand to pick up a jar of my beloved Creme de La Mer.  Let me tell you, the stuff if expensive, yes, but so little is used and I'm so lazy (alert: that was a code word!) about using it that it lasts me forever!  The good news and the bad news are basically intertwined.  Hubby loves to spend money on me which I'd never spend on myself (because he hates to spend on himself at all, sigh...) but often buys things I could care less about and puts me in agony as I think about all the other ways I might have spent our money more wisely.  A very mixed bag as I'm sure you can see.

On this particular day, puppy dog hubby came back from my beloved and wise Sylvia, whom I consider a friend after all these years of know each other, gossiping, seeking advice on family, analyzing our lives and problems and in the end, me also receiving wonderful, generous samples.  Darn Saks for leaving Pittsburgh!  Everyone who walked into Saks knew Sylvia and to know her was to love her.

But on this unsettling day, I couldn't visit with my Sylvia and she sent hubby back with two new products, serums, in addition to the jar of La Mer, and included instructions on exactly how to use them, written out in hand by Sylvia, bottles marked, everything crystal clear...

...except I was still trying to figure out the whole staging of when to use moisturizer, when to use sunscreen. Somehow my skincare was getting more complex by the month, it seemed.  Why the heck couldn't I just slap on some foundation, a bit of color on my eyes and cheeks and be done with it?  I can't even bare to have lipstick or gloss on my lips (or do stop gasping for heaven's sake!) and now people wanted me to add lip balm and lip liner and on top of that to put the lip color on with a brush? Was the world going mad?

Well, only because I loved and trusted Sylvia so much did I carry out her instructions...well, that is, when I did anything at all.  Remember, I tend to be an "all or nothing" sort of person, thanks to this DD!

I have no idea why I didn't call Sylvia and ask her questions about the serums.  Perhaps it was because I suddenly started seeing serums popping up everything I turned (on the Internet and magazines, people - remember, I rarely leave my house!) and I felt very stupid or intimidated - or just that I have this awful part of me that often doesn't realize that it's OK to ask for help.

Anyway, it's been at the very least five years since that serum first started to haunt my life and each month things appeared to worsen as more serums started to show up in everyone's beauty lines, MANY in each line. How many serums were we to wear?  I was still stuck in my sunscreen dilemma!  I absolutely hate sunscreen.  I hate most products on my face - other than foundation, which, it appears, the rest of the world suddenly strongly dislikes!

Can you see where just my skincare - ugly word to me, since I am, after all, a product of my generation - was becoming a double four-letter word?  SKIN CARE.  Oh, poor deluded youngsters who think they look better without foundation. But then they also think their legs look better without hose.  Is  the whole world nuts? OK, back to topic: skincare was making me start losing it!

But finally I realized what my BFF has been quietly teaching me all these years...look things up if you don't want to ask someone.  I mean no disrespect to those who use a different version of my motto, but I always think, "what would Linda do?"

And Linda would hit the Internet running.

So, research I did and after two months I finally figured it out!!!!

Serums are a treatment that, basically, go on after you have finished your cleansing routine.  ("Routine"?  Washing with Dove is a "routine"?)

OK, I jest.  I do know I should use other products and sometimes do (ha!).

One "expert" haughtily informed me (via YouTube, not in a vision!) that toners were a thing of the past and that serums are here to stay.  I'm not so ready to give up my toners but I did like the info on the serums.  Everything is now illuminated.  (Groan, but I really do need to throw in a literary reference occasionally!)

You see, serums are for various problems.  If you have a hydration problem, you get a hydrating serum, a loose skin problem, a firming serum or a lifting serum.  If you've a grayish complexion which is lifeless and dull, you use a radiating serum.  You pick your battles, as every mom (and wife!) knows.  Sylvia had me on a radiance serum in the morning and hydrating one at night...or was it the other way around?  The labels she'd so carefully placed on the bottles fell off about a year ago, so all bets are off!

Furthermore (and the most important part to understanding this as far as I am concerned) the serums have very small molecules.  Thus, after exfoliating, you apply your serum.  (Please, let's not even go there and just say that it is a given and I promise I'll get to exfoliation in the future if you remind me!)  When all the dead skin cells are off your beautiful skin, you put the serum on.  The serum sinks into your skin because of said tiny molecules and the serum goes to battle, conquering your problems.  Only a drop or two of the serums is needed because of concentration and because all you need is a thin layer spread lightly all over, not rubbed in.  Sunscreens and moisturizers have larger molecules and thus go over your serum.

(Now WHY did I have to go to such lengths to discover this?  This post is already too long to even go there!)

So, now I am in love with serums.  I always KNEW Sylvia was right!  And deep down inside, I knew hubby would not lead me too far astray.  And yes, when I mentioned the molecule bit, hubby did get a bit excited, for all of five seconds max and then turned away from me, mumbled something completely incomprehensible and began to snore...

...while I lay in bed thinking it was nice that ONE mystery was solved!