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Archive for ‘lessons learned’

December 31st, 2010

2010 month-by-month

2010 held many changes, challenges, ups, downs, in-betweens for me.  Here’s a look at the year, month by month and what it brought:

January 2010: Said goodbye to my (at the time) fiance for his 8 month long deployment to the Middle East & one of my BFF’s got engaged that same month.

February 2010: Accepted a position to nanny part time for 2-year old twins. Scary at first thought, but turned out to be one of the best decisions ever!

March 2010: Had the privilege to escort my (soon-to-be at the time) stepdaughter to WV to see my (at the time) fiance’s parents for her Spring Break.

April 2010: Turned 29…last year in my 20′s.

May 2010: Went to San Antonio to be in my good friend Mel’s wedding – I was the maid of honor (my first time having that honor) and it was amazing to be there for another cornerstone memory to share with a friend I’ve had for over 20 years.

June 2010: I created my alter-ego D’Onca and used her to justify my other side.  Needless to say, she was a big hit!

July 2010: Took a trip to VA to be in my mom’s wedding. My mom’s been single for almost 75% of my life…I was so happy for her!

August 2010: Flew to FL to welcome my (at the time) fiance home from his deployment overseas and accepted a full-time position to work from home after I moved to FL.

September 2010: I watched (and was part of) my BFF getting married to one of Thomas’ BFF’s.

October 2010: Thomas and I got married, went to Tahiti for our honeymoon and I moved out of Texas after residing there for 21 years.

November 2010: Finalized the buy-out of my portion of BurbMom.net, the website for DFW mom’s that I co-founded with Holly & Shauna.

December 2010: Spent my first Christmas as a married woman in South Carolina at Myrtle Beach which was the first beach I ever went to when I was 6 weeks old and my mom dipped my feet in the water.

I can’t wait to see what 2011 holds in store for me!

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June 6th, 2010

only YOU can prevent {hair} fires

I LOVE dry shampoo. It’s a great touch up for your hair without having to take a shower and start all over from scratch. Not that taking a shower isn’t an option, but sometimes it’s just not happening on a daily basis. But that’s a story for another day… Dry shampoo now comes in a variety of brands, but most still hover around the $20 mark and some even up to $30. I started out a few years ago with what I believe to be the best brand of dry shampoo and have pretty much stayed true to it since then.  In fact, I’m still kicking myself for not stocking up on it when I was in Paris and could have bought it at half the price! Over the years, here are the 3 I’ve tried from Sephora:

So Rene Furterer’s brand is my favorite because it has a light scent, a powerful spray that unintentionally volumizes and a little goes a long way.  It was also recently released in a convenient travel size which makes me want to use it all the more.  Oscar Blandi also manufactures a dry shampoo but to me it smells like lemon-scented Pledge and I just don’t like that…who would?  More recently I tried a new brand because it was significantly cheaper than Rene (I’m always looking for a way to score a good deal) but I was very disappointed when I only used it once and then put it back in the drawer.  When I went to use it again several days later, the entire can was empty! I guess it had a faulty spray valve or something because the best I can guess what happened was that it all leaked out. Luckily Sephora is amazing to it’s customers and I was able to return the empty can and exchange it for something else.

Then, last month I was in San Antonio for my friend Mel’s wedding and she mentioned that Tresseme now offers a dry shampoo and it’s about $5. What?!?! Only 5 dollars?? That’s like 80% or more off the price I pay for Rene’s!  I HAD to try it out.  While I was there I used it a couple times and was convinced that while it won’t rank as high as Rene’s (you know, you get what you pay for), it’s still a good product at a GREAT price.  Once I got home I bought myself a can and I’ve used it several times since then, always happy with the results.

So the other day I was lighting candles around my house and I set down the lighter in my bathroom.

RIGHT NEXT TO THE DRY SHAMPOO. It’s probably worth mentioning that dry shampoo is EXTREMELY flammable…don’t worry, this isn’t a story of me setting my hair, or my bathroom, on fire. I know, I know: how boring am I?

BUT it is a lesson learned to PAY ATTENTION TO DETAILS because that very well might have happened!  Of course I WAS paying attention because I took pictures first, and then moved the lighter.  With as much as I like to use dry shampoo, I’m really glad I don’t keep company with smokers. Or grill-master Bobby Flay for that matter.

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April 6th, 2010

allergic to yellow

When you look out on your driveway and see it covered in YELLOW, you can only assume two things:

There was a massive genocide of yellow Peeps post-Easter OR the Spring Pollen didn’t get the memo about us all being in a recession.

Unfortunately for me the latter is true. Yellow has arrived. EVERYWHERE. It’s on the street, on my car, under my nails, in my hair, in the grass…and in my eyes. Only 2 things live peacefully on your eyes: tears and contacts.  And really, contacts aren’t always so easy on the eyes!

The past week has been an all out war on my eyes!  Itchy & watery hardly even scratch the surface of what I’m going through.  My poor eyes are red, inflamed, burning, stinging, watering, itching, sore, puffy, hive-infested, cloudy windows to my soul. Good thing they are just the windows to my soul…and not my actual soul!

I’ve tried everything I can think of!

VISINE® TOTAL EYE™ Soothing Wipes - nice for removing my makeup, but did nothing to improve my eye irritation. In fact, it even kinda stung the area around my eyes. Maybe I was rubbing a little too hard…

Refresh Tears Eye Drops Natural Tears – These ALWAYS make my eyes feel better. Until now.

Zaditor Antihistamine Eye Drops – Manufactured by Novartis, the pharmacist told me they were just as effective as the Zyrtec eye drops (which coincidentally were on some sort of recall/do-not-sell ban).  Perhaps I should have taken that as a sign. These bad boys sting my eyes bad and at first didn’t seem to do anything, but the third time I tried them I sensed some relief. The only downside? You can only use ONE drop per eye PER DAY.

Claritin D - This stuff is GOLDEN! While it hasn’t exactly helped my eyes much, it HAS helped everything else that usually accompanies an allergy war.

A Nap – usually a nap, preceded by eye drop usage, helps my eyes calm down. While I could never complain about actually taking a nap, I will say it hasn’t helped to solve my eye issues.

A Cold Compress on my eyes – I’ve actually felt some relief from the stinging and burning, but once I remove the compress my eyes are still red and sometimes take several minutes for them to come back to focus.  This combined with a nap is actually semi-productive!

Rinsing my eyes and eye area with water/washing my face - Honestly, whenever I rinse my eyes with water they always feel super dry and irritated afterward. It almost has that “squeaky clean” effect, which isn’t exactly becoming when you’re talking about your eyes, which are supposed to be moist.

Rubbing the heck out of them and using a Q-tip to try to wipe the insides of them – while this seems to “itch the itch” it almost starts to feel like I’m spreading the itch all over. The initial relief from this is soon gone and I’ve often felt a little worse when I’m done.

Scratching the rims of my lower eye with my fingernail – see above.

Staying indoors, away from doors that open often or doors/windows with a poor seal, so as to avoid the draft of air from the outdoors – this works! When I make the conscious effort to continually wash my hands and avoid the fresh air from outside, my eyes slowly start to recover!  It takes about 24-48 hours, but they eventually get closer to normal!

The one thing I also find helps, if I HAVE to go outside, is to wear sunglasses, regardless of the sun’s presence, and squint my eyes as tight as I can and still see until I am indoors.  The other day I also wrapped a scarf around my head and face (it was just sheer enough that I could make out the shapes around me so as not to fall or bump into anything) and use it as “face protection” against the wind and floating pollen.  I’d recommend you only use this method around your house and yard, as it’s a little attention-getting in other public places.

I’ve also come up with a third solution that I’m thinking might be the best of all: Wearing swimming goggles anytime I go outside. They’re clear so I can see fine in daylight or evening, they provide an almost airtight barrier around my eyes, they are cheap, and it’s almost summer so maybe the stares won’t be that bad…

Or I can just re-activate my Netflix account, hole up inside my cozy apartment and get caught up on Season 4 of 24. If only they’d deliver right to my door so I didn’t have to walk outside to the mailbox…

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January 6th, 2010

Lessons from Bear Grylls

I love Man vs. Wild. Perhaps because I relate to men emotionally – I think like a man. Or maybe because I’m wild. It doesn’t matter why, it just is.  Today I spent all day with the TV on and I watched a Bear Grylls marathon. I think they were gearing up for tonight’s new episodes. (Yay!)

While I was watching Man vs. Wild all day I realized Bear has some very valuable lessons to teach us, the general public – of which about 99.999%, wait, make that 100% of us will NEVER be in the situations he’s in.  Yet still I enjoy his survival lessons and listen with great intent just in case…

Here are the top 7 lessons I learned from Bear Grylls:

1. I need to carry a knife, a canteen (or water bottle) and flint with me. Everywhere. I. Go. You know…just in case.

2. Perhaps my outfits could be revised to consist of khakis with built in padding, button down shirts and tennis shoes. I also might wanna wear skivvies I wouldn’t mind being caught dead in. Because on some of these occasions, let’s face it – I would DIE. And if my corpse were to be found, I’d be quite embarrassed if I happened to be wearing undergarments that were worn and tattered. Not that I have any that fit that description. I’m just saying…

3. I should brush up on my British accent. If I’m going to declare I’m about to squeeze buffalo dung to extract water from it to drink – it just sounds so much classier if I say it in a British accent. Doesn’t everything sound better when the Brit’s say it?

4. Two main elements of survival are staying hydrated and getting “quick bursts of protein.” This will require me to be willing to drink anything, even my own pee, to stay hydrated. Though Bear warns that this, and giving yourself an enema, are only to be done in extreme cases of survival. Isn’t any case of survival extreme? I also have to get over my fear of snakes and worms – as these are probably his most common choices for bursts of protein.  Maybe I’ll just keep that water bottle I’ll be carrying full, and pack a protein bar in my padded khaki pants while I’m at it…

5. One man’s trash is a survivor’s treasure. But who would’ve known a week old rotting animal carcass was a treasure? Just goes to show you never know. Turns out he used it for shelter over night to wrap up in and keep warm in the dessert. I’d personally prefer my electric blanket, except I’d be hard pressed to find an outlet.

6. When Bear is cold and at risk for his body temp getting too low, he offers a solution: do 200 push ups. At about this time I’d just die of hypothermia because this is impossible for me to do. Would violently shivering for 200 minutes accomplish the same thing? Because that, I could do.

7. After surviving the Chihuahua mountains of West Texas, Bear has one final comment: Don’t Mess With Texas. Finally, something we completely agree on!  His top moment while in Texas? “Spotting the border police…” Me too Bear, me too.

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