Tag Archives: beauty

Bringing More Good Things To Me And Others (or Happiness and Self-Care)

Posted on March 1, 2019 | Comments Off on Bringing More Good Things To Me And Others (or Happiness and Self-Care)

I have had some very good monthly challenges in the past, but I’ve been feeling really good about the ones I’ve been working on for this year. I still may change things up as the year goes on, but I’ve been really focused on finding things that I think will really be beneficial. I don’t want them to just be something I can easily do or not think about. And I want the thoughts about them to all be good things and not annoyed that I need to do them.

My challenge for February was to put more positive things on Twitter. I became aware of how much news related stuff I was posting online and most of the time the news I posted was negative or scary. I don’t want to hide from the realities of the world, but I also don’t want that to be my only focus. I know I have always enjoyed to see positive posts that other people share on social media, and I wanted to do the same.

This ended up being a very easy thing for me to accomplish. I set an alarm on my phone like I have for so many other things to remind me to do a positive tweet. I usually did it before the alarm went off, but it’s always good to have the reminder. I also created a Twitter list of accounts that post positive things so it was easy for me to find something to share every day. And I loved having that list because I did use it for more than just finding what I wanted to share online. When I was having a down moment, it was a great resource to have to cheer myself up. I did find this challenge benefitted me as well as other people who saw it on my Twitter feed. And I plan to keep this up indefinitely because I liked the results it had.

This month my challenge will be something that will only benefit me, but it’s ok to have a selfish challenge from time to time. And this one is related to self-care which is something I have been working on for quite a while. I’ve been getting better at finding regular acts of self-care that I can do, but I know there are so many more things I can do that will make me feel better about myself.

I’ve been pretty good about skincare when it comes to my face. I haven’t always been amazing, but lately I’ve been really on top of things. I know this had to do with having the stitches in my face and having to be so careful with washing my face and taking care of the incision. I also love using different products on my face when I find something that isn’t quite right. I have a few different masks depending on my skin’s condition at the time and I also have different spot treatment options when I need them.

I know that skincare for your face is usually what you think about when you hear the word skincare. And honestly, I’ve been like that too. But I’ve been ignoring the rest of my skin and I’ve noticed that it’s starting to show. Growing up, I know I wasn’t as good about putting lotion on my body as I was for my face. I don’t know why I just didn’t do it, but I didn’t think about doing it. I’m much better about it now, but I know that just using lotion isn’t enough for my skin.

I do use special soap on my skin and I’m lucky that it doesn’t dry my skin out. And I have some lotions that I like and they seem to help. But I still have skin issues that aren’t managed just by washing and moisturizing my skin. I have dry skin issues and uneven skin issues too. I haven’t really looked into what I could do to fix those things before, but I’m feeling motivated to do it now.

I’m not totally sure of all the skincare things I want to do for my body, but I want to get myself into a better skincare routine. I got a dry brush a long time ago as a swag bag item and I’ve never used it before. I don’t know if using it every day will be right for me, but I want to try using it regularly so I can figure out how often I should dry brush. I also want to look into the lotions that I use and see if there is a better option for me. I have tried in-shower lotions before and I love the idea of them. But they haven’t been right for me. But I’ve been hearing about new in-shower lotion options that might be better and I know that putting lotion on immediately after showering is best (and I definitely wait too long after showering to put on lotion).

I don’t think there are masks that I would be using on my body, but I want to research other things I can do. Maybe there are things that I’m not doing correctly or skipping out on that can make a big different in the appearance and feel of my skin. I know that I’m starting from having things seem pretty decent so far, so I’m not expecting a huge difference. But I also know having the ritual of different self-care practices can be a lot more for mental health than physical health.

This will be an interesting challenge to do this month because I’m actually starting the month out-of-town (more on that next week). I don’t know how many things I will be able to do when I’m not home, but that could be good time to do some research. And hopefully by the end of the month I will have a good skincare routine I can share with you all and I will feel like my skin is looking better.

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Doing Some Beautification (or Feeling Better From The Outside In)

Posted on November 7, 2018 | 1 comment

This isn’t a recap of my current monthly challenge (I’m only a few days into it), but it is related to it. I’ve been working on finding myself again and getting back to me. And I really thought a lot of that was going to be stuff about my emotions and feelings and that I needed to reconnect to myself that way. But over the past few days I did a few things for my outside that really did help me feel so much better.

I’ve been getting better about doing self-care and taking care of myself, including things like skincare and beauty. I have noticed that I have looked better on the outside since I’ve been making more of an effort on those things. I don’t know if weekly sheet masks are really making my skin better or if doing those sheet masks is bringing down my stress which is helping my skin look better, but either way it’s working. I know that physical beauty isn’t everything, but when you don’t feel at your best it can be a hit on your self-esteem and how you feel about yourself.

Since I have been doing all these new self-care things, I really didn’t think that doing some more beauty stuff was going to make a difference. But there were some beauty things that I have been slacking on for a bit that I finally got a chance to do. A lot of this slacking has to do with not having the money to do it, but it also has to do with timing.

The first thing I did for myself was getting my eyebrows done. I know this is a luxury thing to do, but for me it almost feels like a necessity. My eyebrows are pretty crazy to begin with, but I cannot trust myself to do the work on my own. I don’t even try to use tweezers because I will overdo things and pluck way more than I should. I don’t want to do any damage to my eyebrows so I try to get them done professionally on a regular basis. When I went to cheap places, I would try to go once a month or every other month. But those cheap places were not worth it as I would get burns from wax and other issues from them. So I go to a slightly more expensive place (but still on the cheap end of things) and I can’t go as often.

My eyebrows weren’t the worst they have been, but they weren’t great. And I have something happening this week that I want to look my best for so I wanted to get them done. Even though this wasn’t the most dramatic eyebrow makeover I’ve had from getting them done, just having them look clean and professional really helped. Since I don’t wear a lot of makeup on a regular basis, having my eyebrows look good makes a big difference in my appearance.

The other beauty thing I did recently was getting my hair done. I used to be much better about getting my hair done on a regular schedule. Since I color my hair, when I don’t get it done it’s usually very noticeable. It used to be bad because I went lighter with my color, but since I’ve been going darker my roots don’t show as much. But since I’ve been getting more and more gray hair, now it’s really bad! When I was getting it done, my friend who does my hair said I’m about 30% gray now. I started going gray around 20, but it got drastically worse in the past 2 years. Now, my gray hair is all over and there’s no way to pretend it’s not there. I do have powder I can use to cover them, but it still needed to be done.

I was going to have my hair done around my birthday, but I put that off because I didn’t do a big birthday thing. Then I was thinking about doing it in September, but because I can’t afford to get it done as often as I like I didn’t want to do it then and have my hair look bad for Thanksgiving. I put it off longer than I would have liked to, but I finally got it done this week when it was looking really bad.

I like to take before and after photos of my hair, and the before ones are always much worse than I look on a normal basis. I always remember to take them right before my appointment, but that’s when I haven’t done anything to my hair. I just wash and condition it and let it air dry. Normally, I put product in my hair after it’s washed and I blow dry it. So my before picture has much more frizz and random curls than I do on normal days. But you can still tell a big difference between the before and after photo when you ignore the style of my hair.

The color is back to what I like it to be and you don’t see any gray or weird color changes from the top to the bottom of my hair. My hair was also super long and looking stringy so it was cut and shaped. It looks like a lot of length was taken off, but it’s actually not that much. In my after photo my hair is curled a bit so it looks shorter. I still had about 2 inches taken off to make it look healthier, but it’s still long. I have toyed with the idea of going short again, but I still love it long right now.

Before getting my eyebrows and hair done I didn’t think it was going to make that much of a difference, but it really did. I feel so much better about myself and just much calmer about things. It’s so weird how working on how I look on the outside made that much of a difference about the uneasy feeling I’ve been having. I still need to do more work on myself and I’ll recap that at the end of the month. But for now, I’m just so glad that doing something that seemed so frivolous really ended up being a big deal.

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Birthday Botox! (or Technically Birthday Xeomin But That Doesn’t Sound As Cool)

Posted on August 14, 2018 | Comments Off on Birthday Botox! (or Technically Birthday Xeomin But That Doesn’t Sound As Cool)

My entire life, my eyes have been sensitive to light. When I was a kid and still wore glasses, I had an extreme version of transition lenses. When the light was too bright, my glasses would darken. This was all the time when I was outside and they would sometimes darken a little when I was inside in bright light. They darkened so much that as a kid people would ask my parents if I was blind.

Once I got contact lenses when I was 9, I wore sunglasses outside when it was bright. It could even be too bright for me when it was a cloudy day and I would be wearing sunglasses then. I always have sunglasses on me and have several spare pairs in my car. But even with sunglasses, my eyes are still sensitive to light and sometimes it bothered me.

I didn’t realize it until recently, but I started to squint a lot in bright light. And when I squinted, I furrowed my brow. That was fine for a while, but then it started to cause me some tension headaches. I thought maybe I was overusing the muscle in-between my eyebrows and the headaches were more about the muscle being sore. And the last time I saw my dermatologist, she confirmed that my idea was very likely what was going on with me.

My doctor gave me 2 options to work on fixing this. The cheaper option was a type of medical tape that I would wear on my face to train my face not to squint and furrow my brow. But I would have to wear this tape almost all the time for several weeks and it wasn’t something that I could really hide. The other option was to get Botox. Getting Botox would paralyze the muscle and after a few rounds of injections my face should be trained to not do it anymore.

For me, there was no question. I was going to get Botox. I didn’t want to have to wear tape on my face for weeks and even though I hate needles the injections still seemed like the easier option for me. I discussed with my doctor about if my insurance would cover it. But I would have to have several appointments with a neurologist to approve the injections and those appointments would be more expensive than what going to a medical spa would charge me. So I decided to ask around for recommendations from friends to get it done outside of my insurance coverage.

I have a friend (who I am not going to name because it’s not my business to share what she does) who has been getting Botox for a few sessions already and was going to go back to the medical spa that she goes to for some other injectable procedures. So she offered to call them and see if they could make an appointment at the same time for me to go in. I really liked how her Botox had been done because her face was not frozen at all. I’ve seen bad Botox and I was terrified that mine would be overdone. Even though I was doing this for something other than wrinkles, I wanted a doctor who believed less is more.

Fortunately, that’s exactly the mindset that the doctor my friend goes to has. So last week after work, we headed to Hollywood to go to Skinny Beach Med Spa (they are mainly based in San Diego, but they have a Hollywood office now too).

While I was excited about this because it was going to help with my headaches and I looked at it as an interesting adventure, I was also pretty scared on the drive there. I hate needles and I knew this was a needle. I didn’t want to faint even though it’s been a little while since I’ve fainted with a needle. I didn’t want this to hurt a lot and I didn’t want to have something go wrong and have to wait 4 months for it to wear off before I looked normal again.

When we got to the office and met Dr. Staley, I felt a bit better. He was very calm and said that it should be very simple for me. Based on my research, I read getting your “11” lines (your frown lines) done is usually between 10-20 units. I figured I would be on the higher end of things because it was for headache relief. But Dr. Staley said that I didn’t need that much and it would only be 8 units for me. Also, he told me that he recommended doing Xeomin over Botox. They are very similar but Botox has a protein in it that your body can get used to. So Xeomin is preferred so you don’t need more of it over time to have the same effect.

Originally, I wanted my friend to go first so I could watch her. But that wasn’t the way things were going to go. So I handled my phone to my friend so she could take photos and I sat in the chair. I tried to keep my breathing calm, but my friend said she could see how freaked out I was. Dr. Staley has a little buzzing device that helps to keep the pain from the injection lower and that’s the gold device you see above the needle in the photo.

The entire thing maybe took 10 seconds. I did have a moment where I blacked out a bit (what has been happening with needles but I don’t faint and am normal again quickly), but it was seriously so easy! I warned my friend that I might cry because of how much I hate needles and I think she was shocked that when it was done I was crying a bit. But I was able to calm down quickly and my friend got in the chair for her injections.

I was taking photos of her process being done, but I also couldn’t stop trying to squint and frown to see if I felt a difference. I did notice there was a bit of resistance in my forehead and it was a weird feeling. The full effects of the Xeomin can take up to a week, but even comparing how I looked before to how I looked 1 hour later shows a big difference!

I don’t really care if it gets that much better than how it is now. I didn’t do this for the wrinkle reduction and I have noticed that I’m not getting headaches the way I was getting them before. And hopefully the headaches keep getting better and soon I won’t have them anymore at all. The goal is that after a few sessions of Botox of Xeomin that my face is trained not to do this anymore and I won’t need it after that. From what I’ve read online, that can be between 4-6 sessions and you get them done every 4 months. So for right now, my plan is to go back at the beginning of December for another injection and see how things go.

I never really thought I would ever get Botox or something like it, but I’m so glad I did. There’s nothing wrong with getting it done for wrinkles if that’s what you want to do. That’s not my plan right now, but I’m glad I know what it’s like in case in the future I do want to do that. There is some stigma with getting Botox or other injections and that it makes your face look weird, and I’m glad I found a doctor to do this who believes that people should look natural and I still have so much range in my expressions.

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Checking Out Face Haus (or Making Skincare More Routine)

Posted on June 6, 2018 | Comments Off on Checking Out Face Haus (or Making Skincare More Routine)

I’ve been on quite the self-care kick lately. This is a good thing and I’m glad that I’m doing it. I wasn’t necessarily neglecting myself before, but doing all these things does make me feel better. And while feeling better is a very important thing, I also want to look better which is why a lot of my self-care has been skincare stuff. Pretty much all of the skincare things I have been doing have been at home, but this week I had the chance to change that.

My friend Michelle is an esthetician. Previously she worked at Burke Williams and I went there for a facial with her last year. But I hadn’t done one since then. It wasn’t that I was necessarily putting it off, but going to Burke Williams was kind of a full day experience (or at least a half-day). Not only would you go there for whatever treatment you were getting, you also would wander around and use the different amenities there. It was awesome to do that, but it felt like a special treat.

But now Michelle works at an amazing new place called Face Haus. The idea of Face Haus is that it is a skincare bar where you come in for your facial and then go on with your day. It makes facials much more affordable and something that feels like a part of a routine instead of a splurge. I was so excited when Michelle got the job there and I couldn’t wait to come in to see her! And I had that opportunity to do so this week before the Santa Monica location (where she works) officially opened. I was so excited about this and knew that my skin needed it.

Walking in, it was immediately a totally different vibe. Everything is open and bright as opposed to spas where it is dark and in a private room.

At first I was curious about the idea that everything was one big room, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. If I was coming in for skincare and just skincare (compared to going somewhere for a day of relaxation), why should it be in a cave? This way just made sense for the idea of Face Haus and the concept that getting a facial should be a routine part of life.

I also loved that with the no-frills set up the price was no-frills too! All of the facials there are $65 and there are add-ons that you can pick if you’d like. Some of the add-ons include peels, microdermabrasion, eye treatments, and LED light treatments. Since this was before the official opening, the staff there were working on getting all the kinks worked out and I was able to get a lot of add-on treatments. I trusted what Michelle felt like I needed and went with all her recommendations.

She started with the standard facial by cleansing my skin. I wasn’t taking notes during my facial so I’m sure I’ll get the order of the next few things wrong, but I believe next was my first add-on of microdermabrasion. I’ve never had that before and she started on the lighter setting so I could get used to the sensation, but it didn’t hurt at all so she could work with the regular setting. Next I believe was cleansing again to get any of the leftover debris off of my face. And then I had the LED treatment.

I really had no idea what the LED treatment would be like. They use a combination of 3 different lights. The blue light kills bacteria that causes acne, the red light is anti-inflammatory, and the amber light helps skin produce more collagen and elastin. The treatment was about 20 minutes but Michelle was sitting next to me and we were chatting so the time went quickly. And of course I made her take a photo of me getting the treatment because I wanted to see what it looked like. And it was way crazier looking than I expected!

It was bright when I was getting the treatment, but nothing too crazy. And they do offer goggles to help block some of the light, but then the light is also blocked from helping the skin around your eyes. I decided to start the treatment without the goggles and see if I needed them, but I never did.

After the LED lights the rest was pretty much the standard facial steps with a mask, moisturizer, and oxygen blast. My skin felt incredible when it was all done (I didn’t take an after photo because it was a bit red from all the treatments like it always is after a facial) and I felt really refreshed and relaxed. The facials take about an hour, but I thought it would be much longer with the add-ons, but it was still pretty much only an hour. That is perfect to fit into a regular day without needing to do it on a day off!

In an ideal world, I would get a facial every month. I’m going to try to do that but for sure I’m going to go at least every 3 months. I want to make sure my skin continues to look amazing and I know that I need to do more than what I can just do at home. I almost started to compare this to going to the dentist. You brush your teeth every day but you still go to the dentist for a deep cleaning. I wash my face every day, but I should go to a professional for a deep cleaning too! Of course, getting a facial is 1000% better than going to the dentist.

If you are in LA, I highly recommend going to Face Haus! If you can go to their Santa Monica location, make an appointment with Michelle! But they also have a location in the valley and they are opening more around the city. And I have a feeling that people are going to love this concept so much that they will be expanding even more!

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Continuing To Get Back To Me (I Needed My Hair Done!)

Posted on May 23, 2018 | 1 comment

It had been a very long time since I had my hair done. I’m not always the best about remembering to get it done as often as I’d like, but I’m usually pretty good about going at least every 3 months (in an idea world, it would be done every 4-6 weeks). But somehow I let over 5 months go by without getting my hair cut and colored and I knew I needed to fix that.

I also knew that I wanted to work on feeling more like myself after being sick. I still wasn’t totally better, but I know making myself look more like me at my best does help me feel better. There’s also something about feeling like you are pampering yourself a bit to help make you feel a bit less sick. I had gotten my eyebrows done earlier in the week and getting my hair done was just completing my transformation from being super sick to being me.

I’m lucky that my hairstylist is a good friend of mine. While she started first as my hairstylist, I now look at her as friend first and stylist second. But that also means that when I see her to have her do my hair it ends up being a lot of gossip and catch up time. I like that and I’m always at her house (where she does my hair) for several hours since we just end up spending a lot of time hanging out after she’s done with my hair.

I went into getting my hair done not really looking my best. I had washed my hair after my workout, but I didn’t put any product in it and didn’t bother to dry it. I just threw it up in a clip to let it air dry while I worked. There was no need to do anything to it since it was going to get done (but it needed to be clean). My before pictures are always with super frizzy hair looking a bit crazy, but you can also see how long it had gotten!

The ends were getting very scraggily and it needed to be cut and refreshed. But more importantly it needed to be colored! My hair has been going gray since I was about 20, but it used to just be a few gray hairs here and there. Now, it’s probably over 10% gray. And in my dark hair, it totally shows! I do have a product I can use to help cover the gray hair between getting it done, but I forget to use it from time to time and I hate how much my gray hair sticks out! The process of going gray has been getting quicker and quicker and I’m hoping it slows down soon. But I know in reality that it’s probably just going to keep getting more gray at a more rapid pace.

While I was having my hair done, we caught up on so many different parts of our lives. Because I post about online dating on here a lot, most of my friends are pretty caught up but they still love hearing the stories in person. And I have to admit that the stories I have are so crazy and interesting. If someone else had my life I’d want to know all about what’s going on! We also talked about her upcoming summer plans since her kids are almost done with school for the year. We’ve always tried to meet up in Tahoe during the summer, but unfortunately I won’t be in Tahoe at the same time as her family. But I have hope that one day our schedules will coordinate.

And while I was getting my hair done I also got to catch up with her kids. I hadn’t seen them in forever either and it’s crazy how much they’ve grown! And both of them were excited to tell me about the things they have been learning in school and how happy they were that school is almost done for the summer. I joked to them that weekends and summers don’t exist for adults and they thought it was funny that my schedule for my job doesn’t change just because it is summer.

Once my hair was done, it looked so amazing!

I had about 3 inches cut off, but it’s still pretty long. My hair grows quickly so I don’t think I cut off more than what grew in the past 5 months. But it feels so much healthier now that the ends are gone and it’s freshly dyed. Since I dye my hair a darker shade, it seems to coat my hair and make it feel a bit thicker (which is good since my hair is so much thinner now compared to how it was when I was younger).

But most importantly is that having my hair done just made me feel better about myself both mentally and physically. Things haven’t been that great for me lately and I needed this silly ego boost. I feel pretty again and not someone who was just sick and dealing with a guy who wasn’t treating me the way I deserve to be treated. While I’m still dealing with both being sick and feeling sad about the guy, at least I look pretty while dealing with it.

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Using Podcasts To Better Myself (or Continuing To Be A Podcast Addict)

Posted on February 22, 2018 | 3 comments

I wrote a long time ago about how much I love podcasts. I’ve been listening to podcasts for so many years that I can’t remember when I started. But because I don’t really listen to music, podcasts are my entertainment in my car (and while I’m blogging!). I just looked at my podcast app and I’m currently subscribed to 55 podcasts! There are some of them that don’t have new episodes or rarely have new episodes, but many of them are weekly and I have to work to stay caught up.

I listen to a lot of podcasts about the entertainment industry and about eating disorders/food. Those are great educational podcasts for me and it’s an easy way for me to stay informed. And there are lots of fun interview style podcasts I listen to as pure entertainment and those are great for when I’m just looking for a distraction. Every podcast I listen to is important to me for one reason or another, but I wanted to highlight 3 (technically 4) podcasts that are really changing my life right now.

The first one is one of the newer ones I’ve been listening to. It’s called Forever35.

I found this podcast because one of the hosts is on another podcast I listen to. Since I like what she has to say, I figured I’d listen to her on a second podcast and I am so glad that I did! This podcast is really about self-care. A lot of it is physical self-care like face serums, face masks, and other beauty things. And because self-care and allowing myself to be a bit more selfish was something I’ve been working on recently, this podcast came into my life at the perfect time!

While I’ve always tried to have a regular skin care routine, I’ve been making adjustments to it lately so it feels a bit more luxurious. I’m still doing things cheaply (thankfully Trader Joes has some amazing skin care products!) but it’s nice to add something that feels special into something you do every day. My new routine is still very new, but I do think I see a difference in my skin. It may just be that my skin is feeling pampered and I’m finally taking time to myself so I can work on it, but that still is a result! And I’m so glad that I felt encouraged by this podcast and the amazing Facebook group for fans of the podcast to work on taking care of myself.

The next podcast that has been helping me better myself is Unladylike.

This is another podcast I found out through another podcasts. The hosts of Unladylike used to host Stuff Mom Never Told You and I listened to them on that show. So when they created a new podcast I followed them there (I still listen to the other podcast with the new hosts) and I love this one! This podcast is about feminism and issues that women are concerned about. Topics have included the history of women and bikes, yoga and what is a yoga body, and abortion rights. I’m a feminist and have always been one, but I have been more and more involved in issues lately and I’m glad I’ve found a podcast that is adding to my education about the issues that I may not have thought about before.

And the final podcast is actually more of a podcast network. It’s Crooked Media and the podcasts that I listen to in that network are Pod Save America and Lovett or Leave It.

I learned about Crooked Media from a friend of a friend I met at a party. I think at that time they only had Pod Save America but now there are 8 podcasts in their network (I think that number is correct, but they are always adding more). I’ll admit that I wasn’t the most involved person in politics in the past. Even though as a teenager I was on the city council for the city I grew up in on the youth committee and I’ve always voted, I was only aware of the most superficial issues. I know where I stand on gun control, abortion rights, healthcare, and other issues that I’m connected to and which politicians agree and disagree with me. But when Trump was elected, I knew that I needed to make a change.

The hosts of these podcasts use to work for the Obama administration so they are extremely knowledgable about political issues. But they are in their 30’s so they can relate to how those in my generation are experiencing things. They also know how to make politics more interesting and less like they are lecturing you. Each week they discuss the current issues in politics (although when an episode is released there may already be a new issue as that is the trend in the current administration) and while they are Democrats they are not afraid to call out Democrats when they are wrong.

Lovett or Leave It is a game show style political podcast where guests and audience members play games related to current events. The games are fun, but I still learn a lot from them. And because I listen to Pod Save America along with other political podcasts, I’m so excited when I am able to figure out the answers when I am listening to the episode. It proves how much information I’ve been picking up from listening to podcasts and how much more educated I am about issues that affect me and others.

If anyone is interested in more podcast recommendations on what I’m listening to that is educational, fun, or just entertaining; please let me know. I’m such a podcast junkie that I just want to share podcasts with everyone because I love them so much!

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Figuring Out Some Self-Care (or Working On My Physical And Mental Health)

Posted on January 19, 2018 | Comments Off on Figuring Out Some Self-Care (or Working On My Physical And Mental Health)

I’ve been a bit too stressed out lately. A lot of it had to do with just being overwhelmed and trying to schedule myself, but that didn’t explain all of it. Reflecting back on it, I think that it’s possible that my panic and anxiety disorder came back. It wasn’t enough for me to feel like I needed to take medication or call my new therapist, but it was something I was aware of.

Like with so many other things in my life, being aware is a huge step for me and I consider that to be a win. But of course I wanted to make the stressed out feelings go away and not just be aware of it. Part of what I’ve been working on is related to my monthly challenge this month. I’m being a bit selfish and turning down invitations to things I don’t want to go to. I’m not committing myself to things that aren’t what I want to do socially and I’m not going insane when there is an event I want to go to but it doesn’t fit into my schedule. I’ve had to miss some fun things like birthday parties and baby showers because of work, but I’m not feeling guilty that I have to work because my friends understand.

Being selfish is a bit of self-care and I never really thought of that before. I think it has been a big step in my mental health although it isn’t fixing everything. But giving time to myself does allow me to think through the stress I’m feeling and figuring out what is causing it and what I can do to make it a bit better. And I know I’ve said this probably a million times, but I am also working on time management to work on my stress. I hate when I get to the end of the day and I still have so much to get done. I’m trying to work on doing stuff throughout the day and not just after work or after my workout.

But this time, I’m also working on my physical self-care too. I love to look at different beauty products, but I’m not always someone who uses them. But I decided to get a set of sheet masks from Amazon (they were pretty cheap) so I could work on my skin care. They are nice, but I look pretty creepy when I’m using them!

I’ve only used one so far so I don’t see a huge difference in my skin, but I think the mental break I get when I use those masks help too. It is time that I have to be still and relax, which I probably don’t do enough. I also found a nice new body cream at CVS on sale that I got that feels a lot more luxurious than my normal body lotion. Sometimes, it’s the little things like those that make a big difference.

I’ve been working a lot of doing these self-care things this week and I really have noticed my stress levels go down. I still need it to go down a bit more before I feel totally like myself, but I’m glad it’s getting better. I didn’t need to turn to medication (which I’d rather not use since it will make my Vyvanse less effective) and I’m not waiting it out and suffering. I’m taking action and figuring out what works. Or at least what works for me right now. I know that things will change all the time and what is working now might not work later this year. But at least I was productive in figuring out what I needed to do.

I know that this self-care is a positive step, but I still am working on how to stop the stress from getting to this level. I want to be able to stop it before it gets this bad and I start feeling overwhelmed. But as I’ve learned I have to look at the baby steps I take and not get frustrated. I can’t be expected to figure out everything right away so I need to appreciate that I figured out one small step toward figuring it all out. And hopefully next time, I’ll figure out the next small step.

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Relaxation (or Taking Some Time To Myself)

Posted on April 7, 2016 | Comments Off on Relaxation (or Taking Some Time To Myself)

I’ve been busy with a lot of things lately. Between work, workouts, acting, and other stuff I feel like my days are getting filled up really quickly. This is awesome and I’m so happy about it, but sometimes I realize that I need to take a step back and relax for a bit. I’m finally getting better at realizing when my body feels like it’s getting to a breaking point, so when I started to feel like that at the beginning of this week I took some time to myself. I’m glad that I didn’t get to the point where I got exhausted and needed a few days to get back to my usual self. This time, I really only spent 2 afternoons being selfish and doing things for myself and I feel back to normal already.

I ended up canceling plans that I had made this Monday to do some stuff that I needed to do but had been putting off. Even though my plans were more fun, getting stuff crossed off my to-do list is really nice too! None of the things on my to-do list were urgent, so I had been putting them off for a while. I think knowing that I should be doing something but not was causing a bit of stress in my life. So getting those done relived some stress and made the rest of the things I needed to get done not feel as overwhelming.

I’ve also rediscovered my love for the library. I used to use the library all the time. My original e-reader was a Sony because at the time that was the only one that could get library e-books. But then I almost forgot about the library and I let my library card expire (did you know they could do that?). So a few weeks ago, I went down to the local library branch to get a new library card so I could start enjoying library books again. I’ve checked out a bunch of stuff lately. It’s so easy to get library books on my Kindle (much easier than my old e-reader) so I’ve gotten a ton of new books lately.

I feel so silly that I haven’t used the library lately, but now I’m back and obsessed! After running the errands I had to run on Monday, my afternoon and evening were spent reading and that was such a perfect way to spend the day. I still have books that I buy, but I’m so glad that the library is pretty well stocked with e-books so I can curb that spending habit. I know I’ve spent a lot of money on books (I love them so much!) and if I could limit my book spending just to the books I love so much and know I’ll be reading over and over again, that will help me budget better. I still can’t get over how this wasn’t something I thought of sooner, but at least know I’m on the right track to reducing my spending habits without reducing my reading material.

I also spent time getting ready for my upcoming trip for Rayshell’s wedding. I had already gotten a dress to wear and some cute and comfortable shoes. But I realized that if I was wearing open toed shoes at a nice event my feet probably should look nice. So on Tuesday after work, I went to my favorite pedicure place and splurged on a pedicure. My last pedicure was last spring, so I think that I had deserved to get another one. And I found the perfect color to put on my toes for a wedding!

Pedicure

I’ve still got a couple of other things that I need to do before this weekend, but there’s nothing that feels so big that it will be tough to complete. I want to be able to enjoy my weekend (which includes the wedding and a 5K race) and not have to stress about things at home or things that need to be done. Most of the things on my to-do list now are ideas that I’d like to work on (like reorganizing my desk and cleaning out my workout clothes drawer), but they won’t affect me if they don’t happen this week or month. I would like to work on checking things off more often so they don’t build up like they have. That’s just something else I need to work on in my self-improvement so I can maybe start treating these relaxation days and rewards for getting stuff done!

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Getting A New Look (or Two Attempts To Dye My Hair)

Posted on September 30, 2015 | 1 comment

I’ve had a very similar hair color for several years now. I’ve had small changes and have had it dyed a little darker or a little lighter (depending on the season), but it’s pretty much been the same for a long time. And while I’ve loved the color it’s been, I’ve been ready for a change for a while. But I’ve been putting off changing up my hair.

Part of the reason for this is that if I change my hair color drastically, I have to get new headshots. It’s just the way it is. Before I was really pursuing acting, I would change my hair color almost every time I had my hair done. In some ways I miss that, but in other ways I’m glad I’m past that stage (I’m not good looking as a blonde).

So the last time my friend Erin did my hair, I mentioned that I thought that the next time she did my hair I would go for a big change. She’s totally cool with changing it up (I think she wishes she could change my hair more often) and we texted back and forth a couple of pictures of ideas. We had finally settled on one and this past Friday I finally got to change up my color.

Besides being excited to change my hair, I desperately needed a cut and color. It had been several months since my hair was done, and it was looking a bit scraggly.

Hair Before

First, Erin dyed my hair the color that she had picked out and texted a sample of to me. While it looked good in the sample, it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I did really love the color, but I knew that it wasn’t the most marketable color for me to have (I’m a big mad that I loved the color so much and had to change it). Then Erin added a brunette toner on top of the color she had dyed it earlier and it came out perfect and exactly like the picture I had sent to her.

Hair After

I’m so in love with my new color, but it’s a big change and I’m still getting used to it. It looks so much healthier now and I think that the color is going to be easier to manage. And so far, everyone who has seen me has loved it. And while it looks much shorter in the after picture, it’s pretty much the same length it was before.

Because of the hair color change, I’ll be doing new headshots very soon and I’m excited to see how casting directors react to the new color. Hopefully the new look will get me more auditions because I won’t look like a lot of the girls in my category (we’ve all had light auburn hair for a while).

Change is sometimes scary for me, but this time I think it’s a really good change and I’m excited to see what my new hair color inspires me to do!

 

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People Don’t Get It (or My Comment On The Dear Fat People Video)

Posted on September 8, 2015 | 3 comments

Some of you may have seen a video online called “Dear Fat People”. I’m not going to link to it because I don’t want to necessarily promote it (if you want to watch it, it’s pretty easy to find). I actually had not seen the video until yesterday and I had some pretty strong feelings about it.

First of all, I guess the fat people video is supposed to be funny. The woman in it is a comedian who thought that it would be seen as a joke (or at least that’s what I’ve read in interviews). In the video, she claims that fat shaming isn’t a thing. People who are fat should be shamed so they can change themselves. She thinks that fat people are fat because they don’t know that it’s wrong and don’t know how to fix it. She tells a story about a family who are all overweight (she says that they smell like sausages and sweat out Crisco) and are on a plane with her. According to her, she has to hold back the son’s fat while he is sitting next to her so it doesn’t cover her. She goes on and on about more stories about how fat people don’t realize that they need to change because they are all dying off from fat diseases. She does say that this video isn’t about anyone who may have a medical condition who makes them fat.

I have so many issues with this video that I don’t even know where to start.

First of all, her disclaimer that this video isn’t about anyone with a medical condition is stupid. How does she know that the people she discusses in her video don’t have a medical condition? While I don’t have a medical condition that causes my weight issues (beyond my eating disorder) I do have an invisible disability with my hip issues. I get a pass when I go to Disneyland that lets me sit off to the side when I wait for rides. I still wait just as long as anyone in line, but I don’t have to stand in line while waiting. When it’s my turn, I get to go onto the ride. Many guests think this is a front of the line/instant access pass. It did used to be that way, but too many people were faking injuries to get it. Back then, the disability line for many rides were longer than the regular line (I once waited 3 hours for Space Mountain when the regular line was 1 because I need to use the accessible coaster car so I can get into the ride safely). Now that it’s not considered as desirable to people who fake their injuries, the wait times are similar or maybe a little longer than the regular line. With this pass, I’ve had some people shame me for using it. I’ve had people tell me that if I wasn’t so fat that I wouldn’t have to cheat the system. I’ve been called names. I’ve been pointed out and laughed at. In the beginning, I used to carry around the pictures from my surgery to call out people, but now I just don’t care. But it does make me mad when someone assumes that someone doesn’t have a disability because they can’t see it.

I also find the story of the airplane completely unbelievable. If someone doesn’t fit into one seat and will be encroaching onto another seat, the airlines are pretty quick to force that person to buy a second seat so they have enough room. The guideline is that the armrest needs to go completely down without any spillage for the airline to agree that you take up one seat (yes, I’ve been called out on this and it was stupid because there was more than enough room for the armrests to go down). If this woman really had to hold back the fat of someone to enjoy their flight, I’m sure that the other passenger would have been asked to buy a second seat. I’m sure that either this story is made up or exaggerated for theatrical purposes.

Finally, the person in the video believes that people who are fat don’t know what to do to fix it. While this might be true for some overweight people, the majority of the people I know with weight issues know more about health, nutrition, diet, and exercise than almost anyone else. This is because most of us have tried every diet under the sun to lose the weight and get healthy. I can tell you the calorie counts of so many different foods. If you tell me your weight, I can guess how many calories you will burn if you walk or run a mile with pretty decent accuracy. I know what drinks have added sugars, fake sugars, or have a base other than water. I probably could teach a class on nutrition by this point. And I think that most of you who are regular readers would agree that I am working pretty darn hard on my fitness and know what I need to do. If I didn’t have my eating disorder, I’d probably be a size 2 now.

To anyone who watched that video and was embarrassed about your weight issues, there’s no need to be. Everyone has their struggles in life. Those of us with weight issues just have our issues on the outside where everyone can see them. If you are happy at the size that you are and your doctors say that you are healthy, then stay exactly how you are. If you want to lose weight, do it. There are plenty of great and healthy ways to lose weight and become the best that you can be.

And if you watched that video and felt like that people who are overweight should be shamed, you should know that shaming someone isn’t probably going to motivate them. For people with eating disorders, it will probably make the problem worse. If there is someone you love who is an unhealthy weight and you are worried about them, try to let them bring the issue to you. It’s embarrassing to discuss these things at times and if someone else brings it up they might not want to talk about it and then keep it buried inside even longer.

I’m aware that this is a rant about a silly video online. But if I had seen that video online maybe 5 years ago, I would have had a very different reaction to it. I see it as silly now, but then I would have been devastated and would have wanted to avoid the public in fear of random people trying to shame or taunt me because of my weight.

But now I know that no matter how skinny or fat I might be, I’m still the same fabulous person. People love me for who I am and not what I look like. And anyone who thinks differently isn’t someone who I need in my life.

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