UK

I've always had a love for England I couldn't explain - now that I live in California it seems to have grown exponentially. I tie this to my weird obsession with moving. I love it, I want to do it more, it makes me feel less stuck in my life. Plus I sometimes miss living someplace that actually gets cold on the winter.

I'm not kidding when I say my obsession with the UK has grown in the past few years. I found out recently that they will let you work there if you're also attending school there and the work is within the field you are studying. I can't tell you how often I now daydream of The Boyfriend and I selling all of our stuff and going to grad school so we can be actors overseas.

I think I'm addicted to change. That may be why I like traveling and moving so much. I don't get to do nearly enough of those in my life right now. While the moving part is totally out of the question at the moment, I think I may need to set my sights on figuring out how to make the traveling part do-able.

100 Pushup Challenge Week 1

So, The Boyfriend and I have completed our first week of workouts for the Hundred Pushup Challenge.

Remember, in my original test I did 12 regular pushups in a row.

So far, my totals for last week are:

Day 1 (30 seconds rest between sets)
7, 7, 5, 4, 5 = 28

Day 2 (60 seconds rest between sets)
9, 8, 6, 5, 10 = 38

Day 3 (120 seconds rest between sets)
10, 8, 8, 5, 15 = 46

My arms were pretty sore last night - the numbers jump up quicker than I had thought. Plus I went all gung ho and my last set, I only had to do "at least 10" but I decided to push myself and do 15.

The nice thing is that I can stay on any week that I want if I find that I just can't manage the next week's workouts. It's going to be very interesting to see how Week 2 progresses. I'm already seeing definition in my arms and shoulders. Plus I am definitely getting an extra workout for my stomach and back. Pretty awesome stuff.

Re-Upping

I'm going to be back to constantly posting about my weight loss/workouts as I've just recently sat myself down and had a long talk with myself about how I've really let everything slide for the past couple of months.



See, after I had the cyst removed from my back I quickly realized I needed more calories per day for recovery or I felt really sick and lightheaded. Of course, that never really went away as we began filming new stuff for the show plus my whole tooth trauma and I ended up on a serious plateaue with my weight loss.



Well, actually, I gained 3 pounds, but whatever.



But no more!



As of this morning, 1 of those lovely pounds is gone. And I'm gunning for the other 2 as I type this.



One of the things that really got me back into the swing of weight loss is my discover of this - 100 Pushups workout online. I'd seen it around but never really explored it when I decided I needed something new to get me going again.



And man this is definitely it!

What clinched it for me was reading about it on one of my favorite blogs All & Sundry. If I ever look as great as Linda does, I will totally post pictures of myself in a bikini.


The Boyfriend was really excited to try this out as well, so we've added it to our nightly workout regime.

Oh yeah, I said nightly. I've been pushing myself back into the "more than once a day" workouts again as well as re-committing myself to Nutrisystem.

See, I have about 50 more pounds to lose before I hit my goal weight. And I would like to not be on Nutrisystem longer than a year - so I have roughly 4 more months to hit my goal weight.

Ha! I'm fairly certain I won't make it, but I'm sure going to try.

Back to the pushups stuff. I LOVE this workout. It's 3 days a week and at the end you are supposed to be able to do 100 pushups in a row. I'd completely forgotten just how much of your body pushups work. We've only done 2 workouts and I can already tell a difference in how my arms feel, which is good because the weight loss has allowed some flappy skin to appear in my upper arm area and I am not happy about it at all.

Eureka!

I just had one of those moments, you know, the kind where something is so obvious you feel really dumb for not realizing it earlier...

Yeah, I realized that instead of complaining about part of my role as producer for my show, I should maybe just embrace that I'm the one who gets this done and just do it. It will be done, it will be done to my happiness and we can move forward on other stuff that needs to be worked on.

Ugh, I'm not sure this is coming out right, but I don't feel like editing myself today.

In toothy news, I finally feel better today after the whole root canal/infection fiasco. I'm almost done with the antibiotics, the swelling around the tooth/jaw area is going down and I'm not in pain any longer. So, yeah, things are looking up in that aspect. Now I just need to make an appointment with my dentist to get the crown prep done.

This past Sunday I had some time to kill while The Boyfriend was designing something on the computer, so I decided to finally try doing a conditioning treatment on my hair with Olive Oil. I've done a lot of research about this lately and I really wanted to try it, but I needed to find a couple of free hours to set aside and I finally had them.

So, I took 1/2 cup of Extra Virgin Olive Oil that we had sitting around and dumped it all over my hair while I was leaning over the bathtub, rubbed it in really well and piled my hair on top of my head. I had been warned that the olive oil would really run, so I put on a plastic shower cap and wrapped a towel tightly around my head.

Then, I just let it sit, for about an hour and a half. I vacuumed, mopped the floors, read a bit of a book, marveled at the fact that my hair smelled like it was baking and finally jumped in the shower. Man! I can't recommend this enough! I washed my hair twice to make sure I got all of the oil out, conditioned and let me hair air dry. It was magical. My hair was super shiny and extremely soft, without being limp or looking greasy.

Now I'm going to have to start purchasing olive oil at Costco to make sure I can do this at least once a month!

Apparently My Teeth Are Old

Yesterday I had the pleasure of getting an emergency root canal. What made it an emergency you ask? Well the fact that I had to have that day.

Yes, it was just as much fun as you could ever think it was.

6 months ago I had a filling done on this tooth and it took forever to heal. I chalked it up to the fact that I'm getting older and thought nothing of it. My dentist had discussed with me the fact that they had discovered the cavity just before it reached the nerve, but there was a chance I would need a root canal in the future. And the future was yesterday. Blows your mind, doesn't it.

So, about a week ago my jaw starting hurting every once in awhile, but I didn't think anything of it since my allergies have been quite bad lately and when that happens, I get pains in my teeth/jaw/whatever.

But, 3 (I guess now 4 days ago) the pain really stepped it up a notch. I thought I had a gum infection or something so I was taking aspirin every 4 hours on the dot as well as rinsing with Listerine when finally, on Wednesday night, everything stopped working.

Poor Lekowicz was over for a meeting and got to witness first hand just how much pain I was in, I just couldn't think about anything else.

So, yesterday morning I got up and called my dentist first thing. He is out of town at a seminar. So, I called the dentist he referred everyone to on his voicemail. Luckily, the very nice lady that answered the phone worked me in first thing yesterday morning - and they were literally next door to my dentist, so I knew where I was going.

The new dentist did some tests and x-rays and concluded that I needed a root canal. Since I was in so much pain and had been for days, he called the Endodontists that he refers everyone to, and got me an appointment that day.

So, I headed off to work for a couple of hours to try and get my mind off of the pain. At 12:15, I headed to Santa Monica, with the understanding that this was an evaluation visit and I might not be getting a root canal. Luckily for me, the Endodontist was a real pro, he did several tests, the last of which was holding some sort of cold metal pen thing to my teeth to show me that my tooth was in fact dead. It was really freaky realizing that I couldn't feel anything with that tooth.

So, we began the root canal after he explained how much it would cost. Luckily I was already in a ton of pain, so I didn't have time or energy to care. Which is good because I'm also going to need a crown when this is all healed and I have no idea how much that will cost.

I feel the need to point out now that my Endodontist smelled like Aveda products. Being a huge fan and someone that uses Aveda, it was oddly comforting. Plus, it was nice that someone who was going to be so close to me smelled nice and not in a "I bathed in cologne today" way.

Long story short, I had a root canal, was informed that I also have an infection in my jaw, written a prescription for antibiotics and sent home to rest at around 2:30.

Since I had not eaten since a very rushed breakfast around 7:30 am, I was starving. I ate a quick lunch, wherein I bit the crap out of my lip and now I have a really gross bruise on the inside of it. Apparently eating while your mouth is numbed all to heck is not a good idea unless you are paying close attention.

And here is where it gets really bad.

As the numbness wore off, the pain came back in a very bad way. I was literally crying uncontrollably, rocking back and forth to try and alleviate the pain somehow. The Boyfriend was trying everything he could think of to get me to calm down and try to breathe through the pain, but I was having none of it. Crying, of course, was not helping anything since that was making my head hurt worse, but I just could not stop. I've never felt this way before, or at least, in such a long time that I don't remember what it feels like to not be able to control what your body is doing.

This lasted for a couple of hours. I finally calmed down when the aspirin kicked in and started alleviating some of the pain.

Later that night I was treated to a wonderful surprise when Kendra stopped by with a huge stuffed Monkey for me, plus a bag full of treats like an ice-cream bar and Advil. It was so thoughtful I almost starting crying again! Apparently I'm a bit emotional over this.

So, anyway, I'm at work for part of the day today, mostly to get out of the apartment for a bit, before I get too tired and hurty. My jaw is quite sore, but my tooth already feels better.

I've had this conversation many times before, but it's quite sad how it takes something like this happening before you really appreciate your health. Or your teeth.

Happy Birthday!

The Boyfriend - 

I couldn't ask for a better best friend, partner if life, person who makes me laugh, love.

I can't wait to see what the future holds for us. There is no one else I would rather wander through it with.

Happy Birthday!!

Love you - 

Chez

Hot

I took a little break there, internet. I don't think anyone really needed to hear any more of my rants about why people suck. So, yeah, I've dealt with my anger over my nephews situation and now I leave everything in the hands of the police. I still have moments where I get so mad I feel my temperature rise - but my nephew is alive and safe, so I'm letting go of some of my anger abot this.

Oh yeah, my nephew also had to have his appendix removed last week - they think this was also brought on by the car accident. So, he had 2 surgeries in less than a week. Awesome.

But, on the bright side, I talked to my sister and they were able to laugh about how horrible this situation is, which is always very comforting to me. Because if it's so bad that you can't laugh, in my eyes, that's really really bad.

Anyhoo - I'm on to dealing with other sad things - like the fact that The Boyfriend is turning 1 year older on Monday. Well, that's actually more sad to him than to me, I think he's definitely getting more awesome with age!

In other weirder news, I seem to be going through a phase of ingrown hairs in a rather inconvenient place. So, I did a little internet research and remembered that a friend had recommended the product Tend Skin before. Man, that stuff is expensive!

So, I found several recipes online that allow you to make it at home. Not only is this so much cheaper - but I get to have fun in the kitchen making concoctions!

I love doing stuff like this - I went through a phase where I made my own Windex. I know, it's kind of pointless, but I liked it!

So, for those that are interested, here's the recipe to make TendSkin at home:
Solution 1:
18 tablets uncoated aspirin, crushed
5 oz. rubbing alcohol
Combine.
Solution 2:
8 tablets uncoated aspirin, crushed
2.5 oz. witch hazel
Combine.
Combine the two solutions.
The aspirin will settle a bit, so shake it before use.
Apply to the bikini area to prevent ingrowns.

It can also be used to spot treat blemishes. (aspirin is acetic and salicylic acids.)

This stuff really works and someone said it averages out to $1.50 each time you make it! I love me some cheap homemade stuff that works.