A few weeks ago, the fine folks at BlogHer asked me (and a bunch of other bloggers) the following question:
How do you take care of your skin when you have zero “me” time?
The results of that informal survey are now up on BlogHer, and you can read all about them right here, in an article about “Skin Care Streamlined.” My own response is included.
In short, I responded that I just didn’t have time (usually) to devote to giving myself spa treatments, soaking in a tub, using a mask, etc. So I fit it in when I can, in particular, a few times a week when I get up in the morning, I put a mask on then go around and make beds and do other chores. I rinse the mask off when I jump in the shower to get ready for work. Seems pretty obvious, but it took me a long time to figure this out, because I used to associate using a mask (or any beyond-the-basics skincare step) with “indulgence” and “me time,” which I can’t usually afford. By shifting activities like this to a time when I’m going to be getting all wet anyway, I find that they fit a lot better into my schedule! So now, not only do I use a mask some mornings, I also do exfoliating scrubs and sometimes even dye my hair first thing in the morning, and then get into the shower to finish up before work.
The sum result is that my skin (and hair!) look better, and it hasn’t cost me any more time out of my already-busy day. One word of warning though: do try to make time for yourself now and then. We all need a little bit (at least) of that “me time.” That’s why I do go and get a real facial once a month. That hour I spend on the table every four weeks is all the escape I need (usually)!
Please share any tips of your own with me. Am I crazy? Should I just make time (and conjure the money) to have my hair professionally touched up? What else could I do first thing in the morning to save myself time later in the day? Maybe I need to figure out a way to read my email in the shower too? Leave me a comment, then make sure you visit this page and and leave a comment there for a chance to win a $250 Visa gift card! Now THAT could buy you some indulgent “me time!”
So thanks to my friend Creeva, I realized I hadn’t posted in a WHILE. Sorry about that. (BTW I love Creeva’s new layout, it looks really slick.)
Anyway, yeah…what HAVE I been doing?
1. Working, which is still going really well.
2. Buying a whole new HVAC system (two new AC units, two new coils, two new furnaces). Was that expensive? YES.
3. Dealing with the vagaries of my daughter’s pre-school and summer school schedule. Real school starts in just a week! She’ll be in kindergarten (all day at the Montessori school though, not our public school’s weak-ass half-day thing).
4. Playing WoW occasionally (log in, do dailies, poke around a bit, maybe some crafting, reorganize bank, log out).
5. Playing Left 4 Dead 2 occasionally (log in, shoot a lot of zombies, get frustrated at lag on Steam servers, log out).
6. Catching up on various TV shows – this summer I’ve watched all of the currently available seasons of Parks & Recreation, Boardwalk Empire, Nurse Jackie, and Game of Thrones, plus I’ve caught up to the latest on True Blood. I watch almost all of these shows on my iPad, which ROCKS.
7. Reading. Here are all the books that I’ve read so far this summer:
- All three of the Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins
- All five of the Song of Ice and Fire books by George R.R. Martin
- Dead Reckoning (the most recent Sookie Stackhouse novel) by Charlaine Harris
- Anno Dracula by Kim Newman (I understand this is part of a series too but can’t find the others on Kindle)
- Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner
- Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
- American Gods by Neil Gaiman
- Eifelheim by Michael Flynn
- Already Dead by Charlie Huston (just started this actually)
I also started Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris, but I just can’t get into it. The topic is interesting to me (American movie industry of the late 60s), but maybe it’s the prose? Anyway, it leaves me cold and I suspect I may not finish it.
I still have a backlog of maybe 20 or so items in my Kindle that I want to read, so I’m not buying ANYTHING new until I’ve finished all of it. This will help me save some money too, which is a good thing (see that painfully expensive new HVAC system, noted above).
And that’s what I have been doing!
Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining: scary movie, or scariest movie? I’ve watched it many times, and that shot of Jack in the maze at the end ALWAYS gets me. *shudder* But last night I watched something that creeped me out in an even more disturbing way, and actually gave me some trouble falling asleep!
A lot of folks have been linking to Rob Ager‘s very detailed analysis of films, including The Shining. I’ve read several, and watched a few of his video analyses, and they ARE fascinating. If you’re a film buff with a few hours to kill, his page will keep you interested and entertained for sure. But last night I was reading his long and detailed essay on The Shining, and this section in particular really got to me: “CHAPTER TWENTY: TWO LITTLE GIRLS, ABOUT EIGHT AND TEN.” Many of Rob’s essays feature revelations that have only been possible with the advent of HD video; some things are simply not noticeable or even visible in lower-quality (i.e., VHS) versions of these films. This chapter, in particular, explores something in one of the film’s most iconic scenes (the blood coming out of the elevator) that I’d never noticed before. And now that I’ve seen it, I wish I could un-see it, it just creeped me out that badly! This video analysis in particular is really disturbing (and it doesn’t help that Rob has edited it with purposely scary music cues).
People, I am warning you: if you don’t want to be utterly creeped out, do NOT click on the link to that video I just posted above. If it’s too late, and you’ve already clicked it, STOP WATCHING. Especially if you’re sitting alone in your home office in a dark house late at night after everyone else has gone to sleep. 
For those of you who went ahead and watched it anyway: WTF!! WHAT WAS THAT!?! HOLD ME!!!!
Prepare to receive my unsolicited opinion on Hulu Plus, Hulu’s $7.99 a month streaming service that is supposed to compete with Netflix:
IT SUCKS.
My husband signed up for the one-week free trial, so we tried Hulu Plus out on our Roku. I was NOT impressed. The interface, compared to Netflix and even Amazon VOD, is clunky. But most annoying were the commercials. TONS OF COMMERCIALS. I tried to watch an episode of Parks and Recreation (Season 3, Episode 1), and before the damn episode even started, I had to watch FOUR commercials. Two straight minutes of irritation right there (at least when I’m watching something with commercials on my computer, I can do other things and ignore them until they’re over). Then there were another two commercials at every normal commercial break in the program.
I guess I’ve gotten spoiled by Netflix, where there are NO commercials at all, but watching an episode on Hulu Plus was so annoying, before it was over I’d decided I would never do it again. $7.99 a month to watch commercials? NO THANKS. For $7.99 a month I can stream shows and movies from Netflix with no commercials, and for $2 more I can have one DVD out at a time too. Yeah, I get that Hulu Plus can offer more recent seasons, but so what? I’m pretty sure Season 3 of P&R will be on Netflix Streaming by this fall when it comes out on DVD. If not, I’ll just get the DVDs as part of my 1 DVD at a time plan. Or I’ll pay $38.99 and stream Season 3 in HD right now from Amazon VOD. It is worth it to me to watch without annoying commercials.
So my summary of Hulu Plus is: TOTAL WASTE OF MONEY.
(By the way, if you have no idea what a Roku is, you really need check it out. IT ROCKS.)
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I was sick of my hair, sick of blow-drying, sick of fussing and still not liking how it looked. Growing it out from my previous pixie has been easy, until the last month or two. Something about endless blow drying EVERY DAY in the summer is just such a drag! So I got a perm, and I don’t care how out of style or retro it is, I LOVE IT. In fact, I like the retro-ness – it’s rather 80s, even a bit 70s in its retro stylishness. It’s VERY curly and very boho and I enjoy the way it feels on my head. I especially enjoy the fact that I wash it and let it air dry, and spray some stuff on it, and that’s about it. Furthermore, I only have to wash it every other day at the most, which means that even though I just tortured my hair with chemicals to get the perm, it will be better for it in the long run.
Side effects: it made my bob look a LOT shorter (I don’t mind). It made my hair lighter (I don’t mind). Depending on what I wear, it makes me look like a crazy old lady who doesn’t care how she looks (um, I kind of am a crazy old lady who doesn’t care how she looks).
Look at me, the middle-age hair and fashion rebel! LOL!
