Monthly Archives: August 2008

Today was just one of those days.  You know those days when it feels like your head never got out of bed!  My body got up and went through all the motions, but my head stayed fast asleep on its pillow!  This makes for a very, very long day!  Not only do I have to concentrate hard enough to simply keep my brain functioning, I have to constantly fight my body’s urge to crawl back into bed … :(  If it weren’t for work, I’m sure I would have only gotten out of bed for the necessities.

But, that wasn’t a choice.  I had to get up and go to work!

Work.  It passed by … when you’re watching the clock all day, there is one certainty … time must go forward … just never fast enough on days like today.

I was just as sluggish when I got home.  I was doing the exact same thing as I had done all day … sitting in a chair, staring at a computer!

As I realized what a slug I was being, I figured I had to do something.  I had to at least try to make some part of my day productive.  So, I turned to my sneakers and skip rope.  I figured it wouldn’t matter if I only lasted 5 minutes, it was at least something!

So, with my sneakers, my skip rope, and my ipod in tow, I stepped outside to get some endorphins running through my blood.  It felt good.  In fact, it felt great!  The weather was cooler than usual, the wind was just enough, my body was cooperating, and I was getting a good work out.  A half hour passed before I even looked at the time.

Just about the time that I was ready to be done, my husband drove down the street on his way home from work.  Perfect timing!  I know he truly loves me when he’s willing to drive my sweaty, stinky, out-of-breath self home after my workout!

I felt so much better.  I was happy I forced myself to get moving.  There is no doubt that exercising has a big effect on my body … more noticeably, on my mood.  I know this.  I am certainly no stranger to this fact.  However, it is often hard to convince myself it works when I’m in the middle of a blah day.

So, even though I spent most of my day as a slug, I still consider it a success.  I cured my blah-ness and have enjoyed the rest of my evening.

And …. to top it all off … I just stepped on the scale only to find out that I’ve lost another 2 lbs! ;)  Yay!

As of the end of last week – 5 lbs lost in 5 weeks!  Yay!

Although it’s not the 20 lbs in 1 night that I am typically looking for, it is certainly an incentive to continue working out.  As usual, I’ve gotten pretty tired of just running :(  My time running just kept on getting shorter and shorter.  So I’ve added something else to my routine that gets me exercising longer … Jump Rope!  I don’t mind going outside earlier as I can jump rope just outside our apartment.  And, who knows if it’s true, but it seems that it works me harder as I usually get tired a lot quicker!  In any event, it seems to be working.  It has to be … I’m still working out!

Flowers can make anybody smile!  Especially me!  When I walked in the door from work yesterday, my husband had these sitting on the desk – an obvious place that I could not miss.  No reason, nothing to make up for – just because.  Before I could even say anything, a smile stretched across my face.  :)

Completely unexpected and very appreciated – thanks hunny!

Lately, I’ve been contemplating whether or not my blog really counts as journaling.  Is this truly a valid record of ‘me’ that can be passed down from generation to generation?  (I’m sure every blogger has their own opinion about this – and that it differs from every other bloggers opinion!  It has become very apparent that bloggers in this crazy world of blogging have no problem sharing what they think!  I guess that’s what blogging is, eh?)

…. a little background …

I used to be the queen of journaling.  I think I’ve got nearly ever day of my life documented from about grade six (perhaps earlier) clear through my freshman year of college.  That’s a lot of journals and a lot of ink!  I would take my journal on band trips, choir competitions, vacations, sleepovers – everywhere.  Although I cringe at the thought of anybody ever reading my journals, it’s amazing how I have all the little details recorded that I have now forgotten.  Journaling every day forced me to write life’s details.

After this, I had my moments from journaling regularly to not journaling at all.  Of course, for the times that I didn’t write, all I have to reflect on now are my memories.  And my journal entries for the times that I did manage to write something down were often feeble attempts of trying to catch up on the time missed from one entry to another (often 6 months or more).

Most recently, before blogging, I had pretty regularly gotten myself to sit down once a week and document my life.  I think this has been my most effective way of journaling – the details weren’t down to what color shirt I was wearing, but the memories were fresh enough from the activities of the week that I felt I could sufficiently document my life.

And now, I blog for my journal … getting me back to documenting the details of life.  But, is it really the best way?

Here’s my take on it (this is where I get to share my opinion ;) ha!) …

Is this truly a valid record of ‘me’ that can be passed down from generation to generation?  My answer is yes, but it can’t be the only record!

Blogging is great.  It is a lot of fun to document my life this way.  Since I am writing for an audience, it forces me to find the creative, exciting, and entertaining side of what I might otherwise find as mundane and ordinary.  It allows me to document unique and specific experiences that might otherwise get missed when journaling my week all at once.  It helps me to simply  write things down – it is so great to be able to reflect on a memory and have the documented version fill in all the little details that may have been forgotten.

On the contrary, although writing for an audience helps to find the exciting in the mundane, it inhibits the writer from documenting what they might consider is too personal to share.  A personal journal is the best place to document these experiences.  With having a personal journal to write down these situations that fall in this category, there is no longer a restriction of what can be written down – it only becomes a matter of where it is written down.

So, with all this said, I will start by taking my own advise.  Two journals it is!

I consider myself a pretty healthy person – there aren’t many ailments or sicknesses I catch that can’t be cured with a normal dose of Advil.  I’m not allergic to anything, I don’t get migrain headaches (in fact, don’t get many headaches period), I have never had asthma, I don’t catch other people’s sicknesses very easily,  and I manage to get over things fairly quickly if I do come down with something.  I chalk this all up to good genes!  (Thanks Mum & Dad!)

You all jealous yet?

Well, don’t you worry – there is something I suffer with that, when it is at its peak, I would happily trade for your allergies any day!  And, unfortunately, I’ve been having to deal with this ‘something’ for the last couple of days.  I have a skin condition called Dyshidrosis (or Dyshidrotic) Eczema.  There’s really no need to look it up as I’ll tell you all you’ll need to know (if you just can’t fight the itch of looking it up, don’t look at any of the pictures since they only put worse case scenerio pictures up on the internet – with medication, my hands never get that bad!).  In very easy, and hopefully not to gruesome, terms – this condition affects the palms of my hands, fingers, and the soles of my feet.  There are thousands of little clear blisters that cover these areas that are hot, itchy, and can often form together to make bigger blisters.  Over time, these blisters dry out and form calussed skin that can only be removed by peeling away.  At the peeling stage, I pretty much look like a burn victim as it happens in patches and the skin underneath is extremely sensitive and very red.  The good part about all this is that it is not contagious and it does not spread anywhere else other then my hands and feet.

It’s at this point that I realize just how much I do with my hands!  With gloves only making the situation worse, it makes things very difficult!  I can no longer wash dishes, hold my blow dryer, vacuum, hold the knife properly while preparing dinner, pull the covers up in bed, pick up my laptop bag, etc. without a fair amount of pain and discomfort.  Hense the term ‘gimped’!  (Although … it is definitely a good excuse to make my husband do the dishes – ha!  There’s something good in everything!)

Unfortunately, there is no definite cause for this. It is often connected to a sweating or nerve problem … but over the years, that has been proven incorrect.  So, everytime this starts to happen, I try to scrutinize what I’ve touched, handled, or done with my hands that might spark the reaction.  What makes this difficult, is that it is very sporatic – I ‘broke out’ a couple of times when I was a teenager and then it didn’t happen again until late last year.

Last year, when this happened, I went to the doctor and we discovered the cause was probably because of the excess washing I put my hands through using Anti-bacterial soaps (I’m a bit of a freak about washing my hands … turns out it’s not so beneficial!).  My already sensitive hands were being forced into increased sensitivity and they had no choice but to react.  Of course, there is no known cure for this – so the remedy is either topical steroid cream or a steroid shot.  I opted for the cream!  And I now use organic soap that is not anti-bacterial.  Seems to be working!

As I mentioned above, I’ve been dealing with this over the last few days … which means I’ve been trying to figure out what could have caused it this time!  Fortunately, it’s been fairly easy to find out – Unforutnately, I’m much to blame for my break out!

Last week, the company I work for was having an employee jewelry sale.  I went down to take a look and found some really cute rings.  I ended up buying 4 – 1 ring was silver (that I ended up giving to my sister-in-law) and the remaining 3 were gold-plated.  After I bought these rings, I put them on and wore them for the rest of the day.  The next day my hands started breaking out.  I quickly tried to stop it by using the cream that evening.  Everything was under control.  The next few days, I wondered if the rings could really be the problem – maybe I touched something else, maybe I was overstressed (also one of the many probable causes) or something else.  So – I tested my theory out and put the 3 gold-plated rings back on!

Terrible decision!  Sure enough, my hands broke out even worse and I’ve been dealing with it ever since!

There must be something in the chemicals with gold plating that triggers this condition with my hands.  Bummer – only precious metals for me ;)

So, there you go – probably more information then any of you wanted to know!  But, just in case you ever happen to see the underside of my hands when I’m dealing with this, you are now informed!