...Think, Think, Think...

No Bubbles

The two most awful words to the ears of a beauty junkie.  No bubbles.

They screech, cutting you to your very core.  The horror.  THE HORROR.

A couple of weeks back, I noticed a little red round patch on my arm.  Nothing major, not itchy or weeping or anything grim.  Just a little red patch.

Then a couple of days later another one.  A bit further up on that arm.  At intervals, cue repeats on my thigh, my chest, back, calf, hip.  Some of them are a bit itchy.  Blech.

Last week I decided I'd best make myself a doctors appointment as it was definitely getting worse.  Earliest the one who specialises in the skin stuff could see me was today, at the surgery in the "group" that is the furthest from my house.  1.9 miles walking, according to Google Maps.

All weekend, I scoured the internet trying to self-diagnose, which we all know is a fools game.  Eventually I came to what I felt was the only logical conclusion.  It was Ringworm and it was obviously the cat's fault.  She hates me anyway, so why not infect me with hideous fungus?  Smug little sod.*

Turns out, I am not fungal.  Its eczema.  This brings both good and bad news.

Good news - I am not fungal.  Always nice to know.

Bad news - No bubbles.

By that, I mean that the doctor has advised that I use no perfumed products or bath/shower doo-dahs that lather until this is all sorted.

Its likely to be caused by a cold weather/central heating combo, mixed with my love for baths so hot you could cook food in them and a good dose of stress thrown in for seasoning. 

I've now got all sorts of new but boringly packaged, un-sexy smelling products to use.  E45.  Doublebase Gel.  Some sort of steroid cream just in case the itching gets unbearable.  And no more scalding hot baths.  I'm allowed short, warm showers.  Lucky me.  Just what you crave after a long day at work "Oooh yes, I'll have a quick splash in some lukewarm water for 30 seconds".  Great.

I'm torn between my love for soaking in a hot bubbly tub and my vanity i.e. knowing that to not look like a plague victim I have to take the advice.  Okay, I exaggerate.  I don't look like a plague victim.  children are not singing Ring a Ring o' Roses at me as I walk down the street** but I feel SO unattractive. 

I'll try to be good.  I switched from a daily shower/bath routine to a shower only routinue before when I had my tattoo done.  Although that was in late summer/early autumn so I felt less of a need to surround myself with a warm cocoon. 

As a plus point for friends and colleagues, I'll be going through my huge box of bath and shower goodies and handing out some castoffs.  I may alternatively open a branch of Boots.  I do believe I have enough stock to last until sometime in mid-February.

What I find most interesting slightly appalling is that the stress of one thing or another at work has had me feeling run down for ages.  It is only now that I'm showing physical/cosmetic signs of stress that my vanity kicks in and goes "Oi! You'd best do somethng about this.  You're starting to look a bit rough".  Am I really so shallow that my appearance is a stronger motivator than my health?

I'm not going to answer that.  You can draw your own conclusions.  The only hint I'll give you is that I will be redirecting my bath/body product fund into expanding my makeup collection.

* I apologised today.  I picked her up and hugged her and she looked more unimpressed at that than at the accusation.

** Did you spot the deliberate mistake here?  I know, I know.  Its nothing to do with the plague.  All a myth.  I was just testing.

One of Those Days...

You know the ones.

The ones where you get up early, leave for work on time feeling like a million dollars.  Yor hair looks good, you picked a great outfit, your makeup is amazing.

You feel shit hot.

Then, on the walk to work, this happens:

 

The pavement was slippery and although I'd been able to walk on the grass most of the way, I reached a point on my journey where there was no more grass.  I thought I'd be ok on the pavement, but I wasn't and my legs went from underneath me, my right knee twisted underneath my body and this rather fetching duo of cuts, along with some swelling is the result.

That was at about 8:55am.  Its now 11:20am and it still hasn't really stopped bleeding.

I'm pretty sure it gave the line of traffic that saw the whole incident a bit of a laugh.  I, on the other hand, had a few minutes of shock/adrenaline, then got to work and wanted to cry and am now at the point where I'm swearing every other word because it stings/throbs so much.  

I'm betting the brusing will be pretty when it comes out.

Another NHS-Based Rant

In theory and on paper, the idea of free healthcare for all is great.

In reality, I don't think it works.

Since I reached adulthood, I've had an astonishingly hard time getting any doctors to take any problems seriously (and I don't have many!).

About 4 months ago, I noticed a mole I've got was being itchy.  Like really itchy.  So as we're all instructed, I go to my GP and tell him.  He tells me that this happens sometimes, not to worry, come back if anything changes.

That brings us forward to about 2 weeks ago.  Its gotten bigger.  Not massively bigger, my torso hasn't been engulfed by a state of mole-yness or anything, but its definitely bigger.

I go back to the GP and see someone different who looks, says he doesn't think there's a problem but to be on the safe side he'll refer me to "plastics" to have it removed and that I'll have an appointment within 3 weeks.  I finally felt as if I'd seen a doctor who took something seriously and I was actually quite pleased.

I guess I was filling in a gap, because I get a call on Friday afternoon telling me the appointment will be today at 4pm.  Thanks for the notice there, plenty of time to arrange things.

Fortunately my company is good about this sort of stuff so no one minded when I left at 3:30pm today to go to the hospital.  I did end up playing the voicemail they left me to a colleague though, I worried it looked a bit suspicious that I'm asking to leave early 2 days before christmas.

I arrived at the hospital at 3:50pm.  Then I waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

At about 4:10pm (my appointment was at 4pm, remember) I get called in by the nurse and told to wait in another room.

This room is what can only be described as neapolitan-ice-cream-hell.  The floor is that patterned lino that was very chic in 1973, in a fetching shade of sage green.  The walls were cheap ice-cream pink.  It was awful.

Here, I wait some more.

And more.

And a little more until at 4:20pm the doctor calls me in.  I go into another room where he looks at the mole, asks if I've got any others, measures it and then says this:

"If it gets any wider, call my secretary.  Not if you THINK it gets wider, if it actually does.  And if it gets black spots.  Not dark chocolate brown, but black, coal dust black, then thats a concern and you should call.  Other than that, we'll refer you for a routine removal and that should happen sometime in the winter or the spring, depending how busy we are."

That was it.  I wait half an hour (which I know isn't long, but when you're just sat there with other shit to do its ages) for no more than 2 minutes with the doctor who didn't really do anything anyway.

So now I wait and see when they can fit me in.  Some time in the winter or spring, so any time between now and about May I suppose. 

If I was a grown up that didn't have quite so much debt, I'd go private.  I'm sure there's some sort of system in place where if they decide you're rich enough they keep you alive.  Anyone not paying for their healthcare can just wait and if you take a turn for the worse between the assessment and your appointment its a bonus...potentially you'll die and it'll be one less drain on the resource.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think I'm going to die, I don't think its that serious but they really don't do much to put your mind at ease if you are worried.

So, how did everyone elses Christmas week start?  Well, I hope!

Ink

For about the last year, I've been exploring the possibility of getting a tattoo.

I've got friends who have them - some who just get random things, others who have beautiful pieces of art that truly mean something to them.

I fall into the same school of thought as the latter, as in if I'm getting a tattoo it needs to mean something to me.  Unfortunately because I'm a fairly direction-less sort, finding a design that meant something was tough.  I'd considered getting two magpies on my lower back (a magpie is a clever bird that likes shiny things - I consider myself to be the same.) but realised that to get the beautiful shimmer they have on their plumage theyd have to be fairly sizeable.  I didn't want to be crazy magpie lady, I have plent of other crazy without having it permanently displayed on my body.

I started thinking about butteflies.  I've always liked them and although they're a pretty common thing to have tattooed, I knew I could put my own spin on it.

I finally took the plunge on Tuesday and had the tattoo done.  The people at the shop were awesome, but I'm never having another one done ever again ever.  For me, that pain is more than I'd want to tolerate again.  I do love the finished product though, I think its really pretty and feminine (but I'm biased of course).

I'm still in the healing stages, but this is what it looked like a couple of hours after being done, its placed on the right hand side of my lower back because the tattooist said it'd flow better with the shape of my body there than if it was slap bang in the middle.  He put the stencil on and he was right - it would have looked strange in the middle of my back because its concave.

The colours and location of the colours were chosen specifically to represent the things I want more of in my life:

• The blue butterfly represents calmness and serenity.
• The yellow butterfly represents happiness and positivity.
• The pink butterfly represents love and passion.

The yellow butterfly is intentionally separate because I want my happiness and positivity to be independent of a relationship (ie the pink butterfly) - too many people think you have to have a partner to be happy and I disagree.  The blue and pink butterflies are on the same side because when I am involved I can be a little neurotic and I want to use it to remind me to stay calm.

I'm on day 3 now and it feels a lot like having sunburn.  Hopefully it'll heal quickly and I'll be able to lay on my right side again soon!

A Spinal Final Straw

I had to go back to the osteopath this week.

You see, I'm the sort of moron that didn't do the stretches that they gave me back in February when I last saw them.

That makes me the sort of moron that couldn't move her neck or shoulders for most of the week until I rang them and virtually begged for an appointment.  Luckily they had one at lunch time that day and believe me it was the longest 4 hour wait I've ever had.

As usual with a trip to see them, I felt 90% better by the time I walked out of there because they really do amazing work.  It must be such a rewarding job, to have people come in who are in total agony and to know that 45 minutes later when they leave, they'll feel better.  Thee therapist I saw was amazing and pointed out when I asked for as many exercises as possible to stop this from happening again that "I can give you all the exercises in the world, if you don't do them they won't work."  Fair point.

Bearing that in mind, I had the rest of that day to rest and have now started myself on an exercise regime focussed on not wrecking my back when I'm older.  Wednesday I did some stretches from the Pilates Back Book and in the process realised how I'm completely, totally inflexible.  I'm not entirely sure how I manage to achieve anything physical on a day to day basis.  Then on Thursday I did a Pilates dvd I bought a few months ago.  This helped me remember that I also have no muscle tone anywhere on my body.

I had a day off from it yesterday and even today, if I sneeze the muscles in my stomach hurt.

How do people get into these healthy habits and not die trying?

Happy Mondays #1 - Intro / Beauty Products

A while back, I had an idea for a weekly post that would push me to update more regularly.  My biggest problem with the blog is while I love having it and reading back over things I've writen, I'm astonishingly bad at updating it. 

In part, thats because there really isn't anything much happening in my life.  I go to work, I come home, I watch TV. Lather, rinse, repeat.  Occasionally I do something exciting like go out to eat, but at the moment its mostly the same routine.

Naturally, that can drag you down a bit and certainly make you lose sight of how fortunate a position you're in.  Which brings me right to this weekly post thing - Happy Mondays (every time I say it I hear the piano intro from "Step On", by the way).  Each Monday - or at least some Mondays - I'm going to post about something that I'm grateful for or that makes me happy or that I just discovered and totally love.  I guess some of the posts will be fairly shallow, others might be a bit more deep and meaningful.

First off, I'm going with something that makes me happy - all things beauty.

I am a make up junkie.  I'm completely, totally, hopelessly addicted.  I buy endless bottles of body lotion.  I have 3 lots of shampoo/conditioner on the go at any one time.  I drool over beauty websites like HQ Hair or MAC for hours on end.

I've posted about this sort of thing before, I think at one point I had a photo of the collection up and one blogger suggested I seek help.  I didn't, of course, and my collection keeps growing.

I should probably explain my reasons behind my love of the stuff, just because I realise that I'm in a minority here.

I don't wear much make up on a daily basis.  I'm happy enough and perhaps fortunate enough that I can get by with a bare face and for that I genuinely thank every positive force in the universe.  In spite of this, I love what make up promises.

Its the promise of outer beauty.  The notion that a bit of this here and a bit of that there (skillfully applied of course) can turn you from "meh" to "wow!".

I love being able to change how I look with a smudge of eyeliner or a slick of lipgloss.  I'm very excited about how a carefully placed line of white eye pencil along the bottom rim of your eye makes you look awake, or a pale pink highlighter pencil can lift your brow.

I am constantly on a quest for the next best thing, the holy grail product that will turn me into a supermodel in a nanosecond.  Its not out there yet (but with technology who knows!) and so I'll keep searching.

Luckily for me, I've been able to find a couple of products that I now can't live without and for anyone who is interested, they are;

Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish - the beauty editors darling, the best cleanser I've ever used bar none.

Laura Geller Balance N Brighten - Powder/Foundation/Concealer combo, perfect for every day and goes on in one sweep.

Clinique Lash Power Mascara - It stays on.  It doesn't smudge or flake.  It washes off with warm water.  Its a miracle in a grey and silver tube, is what it is.

Carmex Lip Balm - Nothing touches this stuff.  Good for chapped lips, or cuticles too.

Nivea Nourishing Hand Cream - Smells like holidays, possibly because I'd used Nivea Sun Cream in the past, but thats beside the point.

If anyone has any beauty recommendations they want to share, I would love to hear them and also if you want to share what's making you happy this week that would be cool too!

Getting Lippy

Dad, do you think this lipstick is too much?

Erm...yeah.  It is.

I thought so.  Its a bit heavy.

Yeah, makes your mouth look really big.

Hmm.  I do feel a bit like a painted doll.

Its more like blow-up doll.

I'll change.

Haircut!

Ok, so this isn't tomorrow.  This is 5 days late.  I am a naughty blogger and at the gates of bloggy heaven I will most likely be banished to blogger purgatory.

Here are a couple of pictures of the new haircut.  Yes.  I am completely posing and yes, they're horrible quality photos but thats what you get for buying a phone because its shiney and has blue lights that flash on the side when you have a text message, rather than it having a half-decent camera.

Still, you get the general idea of the haicut.  I'm still not sure about it.  I don't think I ever will be.  I don't hate it, I just don't love it either.  It did give me an oppurtunity to change my profile picture to something recent.  The old picture was pushing 2 years old!

So there you have it.  The new do.

Ive had a genius idea for a regular sort of post, so starting Monday I'll begiving that a whirl.  Mostly just to see if there's any chance of me blogging more than once a fortnight.  Ha.

Weighing it Up

I realised yesterday, my attitude to food is incredibly unhealthy.

I was wandering around waitrose (after nipping into John Lewis and spending twenty quid on this little lovely) and trying to pick something for dinner.  My Dad has been having a particularly difficult time with work of late and so I thought I'd make something he liked.  An eternity later, I can't really decide and opt for spaghetti bolognese.  On my walk home I realised that the chances are, a nice meal isn't going to make him feel much better about things.  Therein lies yet another difference between men and women.  For men, or the majority at least, food = fuel.  For women, again I'm generalising a bit, food = comfort.

Over the last few months, namely since the ex moved away, my diet has been far from exemplary.  It wasn't good before, but it got considerably worse.  I've put on weight.  Not much, but enough to push me to the high end of my dress size and I'm not about to start buying clothes that are one size bigger.  The weight seems to have gone to my thighs and stomach, which is the norm for me.  It never goes to my chest, which is really the only part of my body I'd like to gain a little mass.  I've also been feeling increasingly lethargic.  I am working harder at the moment, but if I was treating my body better it wouldn't be so difficult.

We all know what that means.  Diet.  Exercise.  *shudder*

My mindset is sufficiently unhealthy that I'd actually rather not eat at all than have to eat boring, tasteless things I don't like.  Of course I know that if you starve yourself you won't lose any weight and ideally you need to eat every 3 hours.  Its just so damned difficult.  The second I say to myself "you shouldn't eat that really.." I want it.  I could go weeks without eating chocolate when I'm allowed it, but if in my head I'm telling myself I'm not, I may as well have a case of Dairy Milk melted down and given to me intravenously (I'd rather have fruit and nut, but it'd cause some problems with circulation).  But because I'm an all or nothing sort, if I'm allowing myself some chocolate I want the whole bar.  I'm not sure how I'm going to get around that bit.

Next week I'm starting.  I'm going to make a concerted effort to eat better and I'm going to exercise at least 3 times per week, not including the 50 minutes spent walking to/from work and the 30 minutes spent walking to the shop on my lunchbreak each day.  I'm finally going to use some of the hundreds of pounds of fitness equipment I already have and try to resist the urge to buy any more.

Any tips/support/recommendations for a cheap plastic surgeon so I can have lipo and not do this are most welcome!

Collarbones & Ribs = Hot?

For me, the only time that ribs can be hot is when they've been removed from a pig, barbecued/flame grilled, smothered in BBQ sause and are served with a baked potato (with cheese, bacon and sour cream) and maybe one of those dinky little pots of coleslaw.

I'm becoming both bored and astounded and the amount of press the "Size Zero" phenomenon is getting lately.  You can't pick up a (women's) magazine without at least one article in there about the whole performance.

There's a lot of house-of-commons style rantings about how its all wrong, these girls starving themselves in the name of "beauty".  But when I say house-of-commons style, I refer to both the noises made collectively and the astonishing amount of bullshit thats flung around.

You see, I think the journalists LOVE the size zero bit.  Its a constant source of easy stories. Imagine, 2 days before print, 2 fashion journalists working for an unnamed gloss/goss mag:

"So, whats your piece for this week?"

"Well, i've got another picture of Nicole Ritchie with her collarbones sticking out, so I thought I'd go with that.."

"OH....thats so brilliant.  Inspired.  Well done you."

"Yeah, I'll stick a bit of blurb in.  Some rubbish about how she's in rehab trying to gain weight. "

Except its not inspired.  A - its a really bad example for all the young teenage girls who are reading the grown up mags (I did started reading Cosmo at 13 although I can't bear it now, its just the same articles recycled over and over - for the last 12 years) and B - Its really fucking BORING.  So in the case of A they see these images, these "celebrities" - although fuck only knows quite what Ms Ritchie has done to warrant such media coverage and high praise - and some of them think "Thats it, thats for me.  Thats how I want to look."  Et voila - cue a smattering of anorexia, a few sprinkles of bullemia and a lifetime's battle with how they look.  Or how they think they look.  In the case of B - the rest of us think of the magazines "I can't believe I spent 3 quid on this.  These journalists are clearly getting paid too much.  Didn't they have to be creative once?  Is it too late for me to change career path."  In my case often followed by the thought that whichever celeb I'm looking at really does look terribly ill and that I'd best do some eating on their behalf.

I sat listening to my colleagues discussing a programme that was on last night where the lovely Louise Redknapp survived on about 800 calories a day and slimmed down from a "curvy" size 8 (US 4) to a UK size 4 - the equivalent to a US zize zero.  In itself, the notion of describing a woman at size 8 as "curvy" is somewhat ridiculous.  Don't get me wrong, she's got a great body - but calling a size 8 curvy is like calling a size 30 "voluptuous" - its bollocks. 

So for an hour or so, they watched Louise go through the ups and downs of slimming down to a size zero, the hunger, the moodswings, the ridiculous exercise program.  And do you know what the conclusion was?  They figured that while they didn't want to do it themselves, they could see how easy it would be.

Call me crazy, but surely this isn't the outcome we want from a programme about this?  Aren't we just giving more people the tools to follow a path which as far as I can see will only make them ill?  And for what?  Fashion?  Does it really matter if your average woman on the street is that skinny?  And if you attain it, how does it improve your life?  I wasn't aware that lethargy was in?  I've never heard a man comment on a skiny woman in a positive way.  I mean have you ever heard a man say (or said yourself) "Bloody hell mate, look at the collarbones on her?  You could hold on to those for the ride!".  Of course not. 

I'm as interested in fashion as the next girl, but it really saddens me that this image is plastered everywhere as something that ok, we say is unacceptable but is virtually advocated by the fashion media.  Of course I have my moments where I feel fat, where I think I'd like to lose a stone or drop a dress size, but the fact of the matter is I'd never jeopardise my mental or physical health to be skinny.  I'm a pretty happy, 6ft, 157lb, size 14 (US10) sort of a girl with a BMI of 21.3-ish which is exactly what I should be.  Its just a shame more women can't be comfortable as they are. 

And to celebrate my happiness with my body, I sit here drinking beer (from the can - tut!) and eating Apple Pie (bought from Tesco - the pastry is soggy) and ice cream (its not Ben and Jerry's but it'll do).

May many more women come around to the beer/pie/cream way of thought and just be.