A Day of Pleasure and Pain

Yesterday I woke up bright and early and took my dog, Talon, for his .64 mile morning walk.  It was a surprisingly brisk walk.  Talon was more interested in jogging than sniffing.  I swear I saw a huge grin on his cute little face as he skipped through the grass.  After the refreshing walk I decided to treat myself to a brunch consisting of nutella crepes topped with whip cream and strawberries, eggs, bacon, sausages and hash browns.  Yum!!!  I was celebrating almost three weeks of not smoking.  It will be officially three weeks tomorrow, Tuesday.  I know the breakfast wasn't a very healthy choice but when celebrating a personal milestone one should not begrudge oneself a little pleasure.  To make up for the decadent meal I bought a weight scale, right after.  I haven't owned an accurate scale in years.  I had one that was passed down to me by an Aunt but I was very dubious as to it's accuracy.  The pain I felt when I saw my weight in bold digital numbers was mind numbing.  I decided to relax for a bit and read a book.  I read for a few hours and then took Talon out for his .64 mile evening walk.  After the walk I dropped him off at home and went for my jog/walk.  I was very proud of myself.  I jogged farther than I did the previous night.  My goal is to jog the full .64 mile and then up my goal from there.  So, that was my day of pleasure and pain.

Update - Chemical Peel Part Deux

Just wanted to give you an update on the chemical peel results.  As I expected I haven't noticed any dramatic changes.  I still have the two dark skin discolorations from the two large pimples I had months ago on my right cheek, although they have faded a little they are still noticeable.  It's hard to determine any minute changes since I see my face everyday all day long.  My skin did peel, not obviously but it did peel just the same.  The second day after doing the peel my face was covered with a layer of dead skin cells that I scrubbed off with a washcloth in the morning and again in the evening.  The same on the third day.  Today I didn't feel too much dead skin on my face when I woke up so maybe that's it for the peeling.  We'll see.

Pictures I Take I Like To Change Into Something That Looks Like Art

I like taking pictures and changing them into something that resembles art.  It makes the photo look more interesting.  It gives it texture, substance and a story, in my opinion anyways.  For example:  I've attached three pictures that I took of myself with my iPad in the same night, the originals and changed them to the final the transformation below each original.

I think the finished product looks so much more interesting than the originals.  The originals just looks like a person taking pictures of herself in her room but the changed photos say something else, each one has a story all of it's own.

Chemical Peel Part Deux

I just completed doing my second application of the chemical peel. The first one was three weeks ago. I followed the same procedure as the last time. I wasn't expecting the chemical to burn as intensely as it did tonight. Maybe because my skin isn't as thickly layered as it was three weeks ago. It was pretty bad back then. Exfoliation was definitely in need. I left the chemical peel on for four minutes this time before rinsing it off. My skin feels good but I probably won't see any results, any real improvement anyways, until the fifth procedure.

*Allene Angelica*
Sent from my iPad

Pic of Me in the Middle of Watching "Arahan"

I just got done watching the martial arts flick "Arahan". It's hilarious! If I would have known it was that good I would have watched it ages ago. It's about a young police officer new to the job, full of ideals and gets himself into a few scrapes until he meets the seven masters. A ton of great fight scenes with a lot of gravity defying gymnastics involved, hey what can I say, it's fun to watch, funny comedic lines and the facial expressions are to die for. It's an Asian film so it is subtitled but it doesn't take anything away from the movie. Loved it! I threw in the picture of me because I snapped it during one of my bathroom breaks while watching the movie.

Met Up w/ a Girlfriend For Drinks Last Night

So, last night I met up with a girlfriend for drinks. Her and I were sitting at the bar having a great conversation catching up on stuff that has happened in our lives in the couple of weeks since we saw each other last, when we were interrupted by a Canadian man (according to him, we didn't ask to see his passport). He proceeded to give us financial advice for the next hour or two, while the conversation itself was interesting and he was giving us very good logical information it wasn't really the evening my friend and I had expected to have. Can you imagine sitting at a bar on a Saturday night talking to a total stranger about financial matters, investments, the pros and cons of timeshares and real estate. My friend thought the whole thing was weird and ridiculous while I on the other hand thought it was just another of life's little surprises. Always the optimist, that's me.

One of Two Pics

Taken last night.

One of Two Pics

Taken last night.

So Far So Good

Glad to have everything back to normal again although I sure didn't mind being pampered, sleeping in, watching movies, and just being all around lazy, it's nice to be able to read a book or look at my iPad without feeling like vomiting on it.  Hahaha...the drugs helped but you can only do that for so long.  I was starting to not care what day or time it was.  I've quit smoking and I haven't had an urge to light one up in about a week and a half, thank goodness...whew...well if I do get the urge Vicodin is here to the rescue.  I've started jogging in the evenings, jog/walking more like.  After taking my pooch on his nightly walk I drop him off at home and I take a spin around my neighborhood.  Next week I'm going to attempt "The Stairs" with my buddy, who's an expert at it and it will inspire me to reach her level of fitness.  Fingers crossed.  I hope, I hope, I hope.  Of course, I'm going to take it slow at first, I don't want to keel over and die (I'm sure her skinny ass won't be able to lift me) but it's always good to have a goal.  It's FRIDAY, my favorite day of the week!  I look forward to going home, maybe getting some work done on my book and eating dinner with my honey buns.  I hope he brings me one of my favorite dishes...

Pics of me sitting at work, happy to almost be going home.

October 21, 2011

The Lowdown and Dirty

First of all, I want to apologize to my family for not letting them know I was hospitalized last week.  Sorry about that.  I really didn't want to worry you and seeing me look like a science experiment might cause some stress.  Well, it all began with a migraine, waking up to extreme pain and vomiting was not fun.  After waking up on the fourth morning to the same pain I decided to take myself to urgent care.  Once there, after checking my vitals they decided that my blood pressure was too high and that I needed to be hospitalized.  So an ambulance came and took me to the hospital.  The ambulance ride was actually quite pleasant.  The two male paremedics were very easy on the eyes (for those who don't know what that means, they were very cute) and I talked to one of them during the entire ride.  The driver was a soccer player in his youth and is studying to be a nurse.  While the other guy was keeping an eye on my vitals we talked about my kids and how two of them want to study nursing and so on...  Once at the hospital I was given all different kinds of tests.  Too many to remember while at the same time lowering my blood pressure slowly.  My hospital stay was a very positive experience.  I met three great doctors (or was it four?) and a ton of nursing staff that treated me like a princess.  They were all afraid that I would have a stroke or heart attack so they kept a close I on me and my blood pressure was checked every 15 minutes.  Overall they were great, I will have to remember to send a card or a gift of some kind to the staff to show my appreciation.  Now, they still haven't decided what caused my blood pressure to sky rocket.  Was it the migraine?  Or did the high blood pressure cause the migraine?  Personally, I think the migraine caused the high blood pressure because once my blood pressure was under control my migraine continued to bother me.  I still have more tests that need to be done.  One of my doctors noticed something in my kidneys and says I could have FMD.  I need to take a CT scan to find out for sure.  I will be doing that soon.  I have my fingers crossed that I can have it repaired and that I won't have to deal with high blood pressure anymore.  Now for the migraine...that's another story...

The Stairs

A friend of mine goes up and down (about 4 - 5 times) these stairs (over 200 steps) once a week.  She got the bright idea of inviting me to join her.  I accepted thinking to myself it can't be that hard.  We arrive at the bottom of the stairs and I thought "Oh how pretty."  (Looks are very deceiving.)  The cement stairs zig zags up to the right and then to the left, there is a nice terrace with concrete benches to rest your tired ass if you so desire, before heading up the last set of stairs.  I was optimistic on my way up...I made it up the first set of steps no problem...the second set...I started breathing heavier...and the last set I grabbed the handrail and was physically using my arms to pull me up the remaining ten steps, my breathing had become increasingly ragged.  I felt such relief and happiness when I finally reached the top step.  I leaned on the banister at the top, sweat pouring down my forehead.  I am so out of shape.  I looked down at the scene and thought how beautiful it all looked from here and mentioned to Minnette that I should have brought a camera and taken a picture and she says well let's go down and get your camera and come back up...I looked at her and said "Huh?".  Needless to say, we went back down, I didn't have my camera but I had my iPad and brought that with me back up the second time I climbed those stairs and below are the pictures I took.  After the second round I decided to rest and wait for Minnette while she she climbed those stairs about 3 more times.  I'll do it again with her next week and hopefully I'll have improved a little. :)  I think maybe I need to practice in between and do some step ups at home.

Chemical Peel

With the rain today I feel the summer is officially over and with that the sun over exposure. Although I did my best to always wear sunscreen and wear hats I wasn't always consistent. I took a good long look at my skin this weekend and noticed that my skin was looking pretty ragged. It was time to exfoliate. But with the economy the way it is I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars at a salon for chemical peels because truly that was what my skin needed. So, being me...I'm not afraid to experiment on myself. I bought a 15% chemical peel solution and a neutralizer. Due to my Asian skin coloring I decided to go with a Salicylic Acid Peel at 15%. I didn't want to over reach so I went with a lighter solution and the neutralizer is to neutralize the acid once the time is up. Now I've had chemical peels done before and I watched the esthetician closely while she performed the service. So I basically knew what to do. I started with washing my face with a non soap cleanser, then swiped on some alcohol free toner to make sure I got rid of all the residue. I let my face dry for a couple of minutes then swiped on the chemical peel solution quickly never going over the same area twice, avoiding my eyes and mouth. I set my timer for 2 minutes. I felt a tingling sensation. I didn't wait for the two minutes to be up. I applied the neutralizer after about 1 minute 30 seconds. Again I didn't want to over extend since it was my first time doing it by myself. After the neutralizer, I splashed my face with cold water repeatedly, after patting my face dry, applied moisturizer. I've read on several websites you need to do the chemical peel several times to see results so I'm mulling it over whether I want to do another application in three weeks to a month. Some sites tell you to do it once a week for 5 - 6 weeks but that sounds a little much so I'm thinking once every month for 5 - 6 months should be good. We'll see... I'll keep you updated on my results. I'm not saying for you to go out there and do what I just did. I'm not afraid to try things myself because I'm pretty hands on but I'm also very cautious. So please research and get advice before trying to do this yourself. This is acid we're talking about. Always use with caution.

Video of Boo Heading to the Finish Line

Poison

Poem I wrote back in March 1, 2005. I pulled this out of my archives because it reminded me of a friend's situation currently. She found out some things were said about her behind her back and she didn't know why.


There is poison in our midst!
Beware, beware the ugly creature
With invisible tentacles that oozes
Venom out of her soul!
Only God can save the cruel beast
For her life is full of misery.
Unfortunate for all around her.