A Vicious Cycle

       The one at the gym I mean. Of all the machines, I hate this one the most. Here's why.
My hatred began at the tender young age of 6 when I wanted to be cool like the other kids and do tricks on my bike. In order to do this, I had to learn how to ride it without those damn training wheels. Like a normal kid might, I asked my dad to teach me. If only I had known how foolish this was.
       My father's idea of learning to do things is to charge right into them head first and take on something difficult right away so you can learn as you go. His idea was that the incline of a hill would provide the speed I would need to learn how to peddle without having to create my own momentum. In theory it actually seems like it might work, and it may have in practice as well if it weren't for one crucial variable.
The grass.
       See, if the hill had been just dirt or had thinner grass, I would have been okay until the bottom. The grass, however, was the thick, luxurious Kentucky bluegrass. This particular grass is optimal for rolling down such a hill as the one across the street from my house at my elementary school because it's squishy and sort of cradles you all the way down.
        Dad set me up with my knee and elbow pads and my helmet on my bike with no training wheels at the top of this hill and pushed. I was so ready for this to work like a dream. I thought I would take to this like a duck to water. After all, in my six-year-old brain the logic seemed pretty sound. I peddled as hard and fast as my little legs would go. About halfway through the hill the wheels stuck for just a second and I was dislodged. Then my faithful steed turned on me and fell down over me. We rolled down the hill together, me and my dear bike, though in a much more painful way than I intended.
         I eventually recovered and learned and rode my bike around and did tricks like I wanted. We later moved to Arizona where I rode my bike around dangerously in the scorching weather. Once I was old enough to go without my mom, my friend Morgan and I would ride to the park around the corner. One day we left my bike home and I rode handlebars to the park. On the way home disaster struck. Morgan decided to ride over the gravel and I somehow landed right heel first on the sizzling stones. Stones that were apparently, sharp. We rode back home quickly, blood oozing from my heel.
          And now the cycling machine is all that stands between me and having the thighs I want.

Monster.

Something Ambitious

             I have an event coming up in the medium-distant future that I'll talk about on here once it's announced (cryptic cryptic) and for that, I want to feel good. Now I don't really feel good unless I'm regularly working out and properly hydrated. Plus I want to see people from high school who have gotten fat for my own vindictive pleasure but I don't want to be one of them. So here's the workout routine that I plan to do every day. EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
25 Push ups (ugh)
100 Regular crunches
200 Oblique crunches
5 Minute wall sit
2 Minute leg thing (no idea what they're called)
10 Minute play chase with Charles

          And then four bottles of water every day. EVERY. DAY.

Cups: A Third Option

TMI Alert: Mentions of periods, blood, and other things of a once-a-month nature. Don't read if you have the maturity of a young boy and tampons make you giggle.

      About a year and a half ago I saw a YouTube video by one of my favorite vloggers talking about this weird thing. This vlogger, Laci Green, had taught me all sorts of thing about health and body issues so even though I had never heard of this "Mooncup" thing, I watched the video. As it turned out, there was actually this whole huge online community dedicated to menstrual cups like the Mooncup that I got sucked in to, and I'm glad I did.
     Menstrual cups are little cups made out of medical grade silicone, rubber, or TPE. They are meant to be used instead of pads or tampons. They are reusable for up to ten years with proper care in some brands and five years in most brands. To use them you just fold them, insert like you would a tampon without an applicator, run a finger around the rim to make sure it's open, and go about your day. When it's time to remove you just break the seal by pushing the side of the cup, pull it out, dump it in the toilet, rinse (or wipe it off with toilet paper if you're in a public restroom) and reinsert. It's so comfortable that you can't even feel it once it's in and a lot of people actually forget they're even on their periods. Two times a month (before you use it the first time that month and after the last time) you boil it for ten minutes to clean it so it's sanitary to use. I don't have a dedicated pot just for boiling mine, so I take a bowl that I use only for my cup, boil two pots of water, and pour the water into the bowl over the sink for ten minutes. It's a lot less trouble than it sounds like.
     One downside to cups (that's really sort of an upside) is that there are SO MANY brands to choose from. The brands themselves usually have two sizes, one for people who have given birth and/or are over 30 and another for those who haven't given birth and are under 30. They say that this should accommodate everyone, but in reality that's just not how vaginas work. Different people need all sorts of different sizes depending on where their cervix sits on their period and different softnesses of cup depending on how sensitive they are or how active they are. There are a few rules of thumb to determine which cup would be best for you. This page: http://menstrualcups.wordpress.com/2010/08/19/cup-size-comparison-charts/ Has a chart of cup brands by "squishyness" or how soft they are. If tampons irritate your junk, you should go for a softer cup. If you're an athletic type you should go for a firmer cup because your pelvic muscles could flatten the cup and cause leaking. This page: http://menstrualcup.co/compare-menstrual-cups/ shows cups based on length. If your cervix is higher on your period go for a longer cup, or if it's lower go shorter. Finding your cervical position does mean not being afraid to stick a finger up there to check, but if that wigs you out, you probably aren't mature enough to handle using cups anyway. If you find your cervix right away when looking (at the first or second knuckle of your finger) it's probably low. Beyond that it's probably higher.
       Should you get a cup? Here are some things to consider.
 Pros:

No risk of TSS- There have been no reported cases of Toxic Shock Syndrome from using menstrual cup
Some people may get shortened periods (I did)
Some people may get less cramping
Less changing- Cups only need to be changed once every 12 hours
Extremely diminished environmental impact
Way cheaper in the long run (they pay for themselves in like 3 cycles)
They come with a little cloth bag so you can keep it in your purse and never be caught unprepared again

Cons:

Takes a little getting used to
More maintenance than disposables
You'll want to talk about it to people because it's so cool but periods are kind of taboo to talk about in society today so if you aren't really close with the person you want to talk to about it their reaction could range anywhere from really interested to really grossed out

List of people who might benefit most from using cups:
Campers (No bloody trash to haul out of the camp site)
College students (Cheaper)
Transgender individuals (No dealing with body dysphoria due to public restroom and leak troubles)
Eco-conscious individuals (Less waste for landfills)
Lazy people (Only changing twice a day)

 Some things to consider!

Don't Be Afraid, It's Only Surgery

I missed a day, but it's my first slip up an I have a good reason! I was sending my third molars on a permanent vacation

           I had been putting it off as long as I could, but when I couldn't go a meal without biting my cheek I figured it was time for them to go. So I woke up at 5 yesterday morning before my surgery for no apparent reason. I was trying so hard not to get worked up, but I had never been put under anesthesia before so I was scared that I wouldn't react to it well. In order to get rid of my nerves I tried showered, braided my hair, picked out my outfit and got a before picture.

And I still had two hours to kill.

             We got a little lost trying to find the place but we got there just in time. When they called me back and hooked me up to the machine that shows your blood pressure and pulse, even though I felt totally calm the machine still said my heart rate was high. 

              Then came the scary part. The doctor stuck me with the needle for the IV, put some stuff in, and that was the last thing I remembered. I woke up walking down the hall to get to the car, where I took the after picture.

             That's cotton in my mouth, not swelling. We got home and I still couldn't feel my chin so while Dave was filling my prescriptions I looked up why that might be. Turns out, if can last for months and it can be a sign of serious nerve damage. When Dave got home I was crying because I thought I'd never be able to eat right again. He thought the anesthesia hadn't worn off, but I actually felt normal as soon as we were home. 

             I had a lot of luck with my surgery. My wisdom teeth were coming in straight, the anesthesia wore off really fast, I don't have any swelling today, the pain medication only makes me sleepy, not nauseous, my IV fell out but I didn't wake up  so they were able to get one in  my lower arm pretty quickly, I guess it must have had something to do with my lucky shoes.

Movie Moods

         Today is a bad day. It was all set up to be my best in a while and then everything fell through. This happens from time to time and sometimes there's nothing you can do but come up with a good distraction. Today my pick is movies. Here are the movies I watch for different bad moods:

For disappointment in life in general, I watch Breakfast at Tiffany's

Maybe your job makes you feel like you'll never amount to anything. Maybe your love life lacks love and/or life. Maybe you feel like you have no friends. I can promise you, Holly Golightly has it worse. This stylish New Yorker's only friends are an old man in prison, a cat, and her neighbor. Her job is her love life, which is surprisingly full of unattractive (but rich) men that she hates. She's severely unsatisfied with her life as well, but by the end of the movie, you start to have a little more hope for her.

For sadness in love, I watch Sweet Home Alabama

Soulmates, home towns, and the life of a New York fashion designer. If this movie can't pick you up when your ex gets engaged or your crush starts seeing someone else, you either need to pick yourself up, or just wallow in your sadness for a while.

For wallowing, Wuthering Heights

Awful people doing awful things and being in love. That's it. That's the movie. I mean, there's a little bit of the battle of nature vs. civilization, but there's a lot more of that in the book than the movie. You'll get a little glimpse of hope at the end, but up until then it just angst on angst on angst. Wallow on my friend!

For that get up and win feeling, Legally Blonde

Cleverness, hard work, and above all the spirit of pink. You need to dominate during finals? What are you doing watching movies? Slacker. This movie will give you all the motivation you need though. If Elle can get through Harvard, you can tackle your challenges too.

And finally, for when you're feeling let down by friends, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Two friends sticking together through everything should help you remember the good times. Even if it doesn't, the fun musical numbers and fantastic costumes should distract you long enough to think about something else.

Feel better!

Little Ways to Make Anxiety Less Awful

          Anxiety is something I struggle with pretty heavily. It hits hardest in the car because of a recent car accident, but it happens a little bit about everything. People I don't know looking at me in public, people I do know wanting to hang out, health concerns, and messes all make me very anxious. It'll probably even take me ten minutes to decide that I want to post this anywhere because I'll be afraid of people judging me even though logically I know nobody will really notice because they're so busy living. Anyway, when the sky is falling, here are some ways to prop it back up for long enough to handle it.

Step 1: Find Time

            The first and most important step is to make some time for you to take a breather. I know, you have a million things to do and they're all urgent and need to be dealt with so you can meet your deadline or so you don't forget about it and just not do it and then ruin everything. I feel that way too, but your health is important. You have to be your own priority. Think of it this way; you have two lists of priorities. One is your Life Priorities List and the other is your Daily Priorities List. Your Life Priorities List should always have health at the very top. After that everyone has their own list like morals you won't compromise, general life direction things, stuff like that. Then on your Daily Priorities List there are things like specific tasks, social life, paying bills (usually at the top of the list) and that type of thing. The way these lists should work is that LPL should always win over DPL. If going at the pace you're going is going to compromise your health, take one of the things (important as it may be) and move it a little later so you can have some you time. It can be hard to make that call, but you're worth it.

Step 2: Environment Fixing

            Find a place where you can spend a little time to just gather yourself together. If you are an indoors person, make it your room. If you're an outdoors person, find a park. Once you have your place, it's important to clean your house. I know, it seems like such a simple thing, but when you know everything is in order at home, that's one less thing that's on your mind when you're trying to deal with the EVERYTHING ALL THE TIME of life. Then, if you're an indoors person, make your space pretty. find a way to decorate your place with things that you love.

 I chose a to make a canopy over my bed with an old comforter I thought was pretty.

 I keep my prom dress hanging up where I can see it,

and I hung up my favorite parasol and some mobiles I made for my friends.

        The point of these is to remind you of things you love and make your environment a more enjoyable to be. My dress, for example reminds me of the year that some of my friends and I made or modified our own prom dresses. We would have sleepovers and work on them together and watch movies and gossip. It was a very happy time. After you have the look down get the smell you want. It could be a perfume or a wall plug in, whatever works. Then, once the room is set, find a way to spend your you time. A comforting movie, a great book, a long bath, a nap, a facial, anything that relaxes you.

         If you're an outdoorsy person, the place you want to be probably a,ready looks and smells great, so you can skip that step. Go to your place and take some pictures or go for a run or listen to music, anything you can find to do. 

 I like to take someone cute with me to talk and walk with.

Exercise can also be a magnificent way to relieve stress. (Context: I hiked here with friends)

Step 3: Set Goals

           This blog is actually my way of doing this. When you feel like you're buried under a landslide of stress, pick one thing. Write everything else you need to do down and forget about it so you can focus on that one thing. Throw your whole self into accomplishing that thing and then when you do, reward yourself and keep going. At the end of the day, if you didn't get to everything on the list, arrange to do it tomorrow or enlist help getting it done. Having a goal keeps you from feeling helpless and without direction. 

            My goal was to blog every other day to keep myself consistently doing something that may be difficult because I might not always have something to talk about, as was the case today. Then I started to get anxious about not being able to keep the commitment that I made and then BAM there was my topic. That's another great thing about setting goals; it's a way of learning to deal with low-level anxiety. It's like training yourself to find different solutions to problems than you might have originally thought of an being flexible enough to see them.

          And finally, the most important thing remember is that if your anxiety is ruling your life, you need to talk to someone about it. Anxiety and depression are hard to deal with and dealing with them alone only makes them worse. When you are ready and in a safe place, talk to someone you can trust and get help. You are more important and loved than you can ever know.

Wow, that got heavy for a second. Um... Hold on... Need to end on a light note...

Nailed it.

It All Started with a Wish and a Slipper.

      I recently was awarded (by myself) the title of Executive Mouse in the Kanab Community Theater production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Dave and I went down to help with production for three weeks because my favorite sister-in-law to be got the role of Cinderella! This is one of my favorite musicals and although I was hesitant to go, I'm very glad I decided to.
      The reason I decided to go down was that Stacy (my mother-in-law to be) had a huge thorn in her side in the form of the transformation scene. Somehow, she had to make this

 into this

on stage.

I won't tell you how she, as Back Stage Fairy Godmother did it, but I will tell you that it took more than one try and that my original design was WAY too complicated to work. With a little magic and a lot of sewing, she was able to make this happen

Since she and I were behind the scenes most of the time, I didn't have the chance to take many pictures. Most of the ones I did get were during the times that I was a rule-breaker and I snuck out to the back of the audience to get some pictures on my phone. Almost all of those are gratuitous twirly dress pictures.

 But can you really blame me?

 Ugh, it's so pretty I could just die!

 The final night I managed to get this one of the first look at the ball.

 A poetic dance. (If you've seen the movie, you'll get it)

 The lovely stepsisters in the most blurry photo ever.

Midnight.

The shoe fits!

 Happily Ever After! (Stacy's wedding dress with an added chapel length watteau train)

 And a very glittery magical lady.

    It was a great show to be a little part of and being down in awful, terrible, too-hot-to-be-alive Kanab was a great chance to get in some needed girl time with Kylie and Stacy. They're the best.

         It was also great to see and meet a bunch of Dave's family and meet the lovely and delightful Kali, who is Kylie's platonic soulmate. All in all, it was a pretty great trip.

Funny Face, Shady Message?

             I just finished watching Funny Face, fully expecting to love it. I have now come out the other side very confused and a little grossed out. It has tons of things I love, Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire, Paris setting, fashion, dance numbers, an opening number about pink for goodness sake! The execution, however makes me very glad I wasn't born in the era in which this horror was written.

             It starts with a girl working in a book shop being bombarded by orders from models and photographers she has never met before in her life. They throw the whole shop out of order for an unauthorized photo shoot, despite her frequent protests and threats of police intervention. They finish and leave so the photographer helps her clean up. Up until this point, the movie seems like a typical clever-girl-beats-the-odds-with-unlikely-friends comedy I was hoping for at five in the morning. While discussing philosophy and empathy, out of freaking nowhere, Fred Astaire (who has a good thirty years on Audrey) just kisses her! He then proceeds to tell her that he kissed her because empathy told him she would want it. That's right, he pulled a Robin Thicke. He leaves and she proceeds to sing about how great it was and how this lovey feeling is an unknown phenomenon to her. 

             Back at the magazine, the director (editor in chief? I don't remember her title) is looking for an "It Girl" for the magazine to exemplify all that it stands for. Here Fred Astaire's character (aptly named Dick) decides to suggest this girl for the job, despite the face that he knows it would go against her morals to take it and then when she objects he dangles her favorite philosopher and Paris in front of her. Here again her character (named Jo) is weak and sacrifices her morals to meet her idol.

            The bulk of the part where they are in Paris actually isn't that bad so I was able to put away my skepticism for a while so I could enjoy the vintage cinematography and wonderfully cheesy songs. Then came the scene where the wedding dress photo shoot took place, and this cradle-robbing Dick proceeds to put the moves on exceptionally clever but surprisingly naive Jo, and again she takes the bait. Then everything is love and sunshine and roses until she finally gets to meet her philosophical kindred spirit and unlike the long-bearded, bespectacled, cranky old coot she was expecting to meet, he's young and charismatic.

            Dick finds Jo and the foxy professor in a cafe and instantly assumes the worst. He shows himself to be jealous and possessive and generally gross. Jo defends the professor, saying that he's only interested in her mind and that Dick(face) has no reason to be jealous and he retorts with the most sickening line in the whole movie. "He's as interested in your intellect as I am." 

            Jo goes back to a party at Professor Foxy's (that's not his name, I just can't be bothered to look it up) apartment. To the surprise of nobody, she's followed by jealous Dick and business-minded Maggie (the editor president queen whatever) who do a very jazzy number trying to get in to force a girl into a pretty gown. After they've failed, she finds out, again to nobody's surprise, that the philosophical professor who seemed a kindred spirit is actually a scuzzweasel trying to ferret his way in to her pants. He backs her into a corner, getting too friendly and she whacks him over the head with a pretentious statue. Go Jo! Except that the going that Jo does is straight back to her condescending old man love where, after a little confusion, they get married and float off down the river on a raft of questionable safety.

And they all lived crappily ever after!

          The moral of the story seems to be, if you're pretty, don't expect people to care if you're clever! Not even the person you marry! 

0/10 Would not recommend.

Sleepless in Gravity Falls

          So when I decided to stay up all night to fix my sleep schedule, I figured starting a new show would give me a reason to stay awake. I turned to Tumblr for inspiration because being on that website as often as I am, I know way more about shows I've never seen than I know the names of some of my relatives. Informed choices rarely disappoint, and finding Gravity Falls was no different. It has been suggested to me that my sleepy explanations should be documented and read to me after I have slept, so I'm giving it a shot.
           Gravity Falls is like a weird, foresty mash-up of Welcome to Night Vale and Regular Show. This could be spoilery, but I doubt I'll reveal anything big because I haven't seen anything that big. So these twins, Pinkie Pie from My Little Pony (Mabel Pines) and Dib from Invader Zim (Dipper Pines) get sent from their presumably screen-filled lives in the city to Gravity Falls, Oregon. I've never been to Oregon, but from the forests I've seen, the animation of the place is pretty authent-ish. They go to live with their Grunkle (great uncle) Stan who runs a touristy cryptozoology shop full of clever lies and funny fakes. Dipper feels unsettled in the forest and with good reason! While his Grunkle sells fakes, the forest has real paranormal beings and hilarity and hijinks ensue. His Grunkle Stan never believes his tall tales, but he's like the only one who doesn't in the group. Mabel believes him after an encounter of her own almost becoming Gnome Queen. There's Wendy who works in the shop and is lumberjacky and sarcastic and Dipper is super in love with her. There's Gideon (is ANYONE nice ever named Gideon? Ever? It's like authors just say, hey I have a snobby, pretentious, power-hungry character, got any good names? Oh Gideon! Of course!) who is in love with Mabel and is basically a short, fat, Southern Draco Malfoy. There is Soos, who is a big helpful giant humanized beaver. Gopher? Mole?

You tell me.

And at some point Mabel gets a pig sidekick. Is that everyone? Who knows? I'm tired.

Fun show.

Long Hair Challenges and Lazy Styling

I have recently made a huge, annoying mistake.

    By recently, I mean in the last couple years, but I didn't feel the full force of my poor choices until recently. I decided to not cut my hair until 2016. Up until recently, it was no big deal. I've had long hair before and long hair gives you more choices for hair style so it seemed like a situation I could handle without much trouble.

That was until this started to happen.

        Having your hair pulled is crappy enough when someone is leaning on your hair without realizing it, but this?!?! It makes it so you not only can't move your head, but when you try, it yanks at your scalp as well as having a weird foreign tickly nonsense in your armpit!

         Other than little momentary annoyances like that, having long hair is actually pretty nice. You can put it up and it looks great, or leave it down  and look like a god damn fairy princess. When it's bugging you you can get it out of your way with just a clip instead of a million pins that stab you in the head and then get lost forever.

        Long hair leaves more worry about damaging hair. If you plan to keep it longer, that means every curling iron, every straightener, and every blow dryer is the enemy. My issue with this is that while my hair is naturally curly, when it's long, it's too heavy for my curls to be pretty and defined like I like them without my curling iron. Some Pinteresting around showed me the ways of the headband curls, but I couldn't find a detailed tutorial anywhere so I put off trying it for a long time.

         Now that I've tried it and been replacing my curling iron with it for a few months, I have stronger, softer hair and no split ends and I wish I'd tried it sooner. Now that I've got it down to a science, who better to do a detailed tutorial than me? Probably someone who bothers to have photo editing software and the foresight to plan a post in advance rather than posting on a whim, but still I press on!

First, section damp hair off into two parts at the natural part (or usual part you use when styling your hair) and put them over your shoulders.

 Next, take a tight-ish stretchy headband and put it around your head over your hair from the start of your hairline to the base of your skull.

 Starting with the smaller side, section out a piece of hair (small or large depending on how large you want your curls to be) and then place your finger and thumb under the headband behind the hair. Put the piece of hair through your finger and thumb and then pull it through and under the headband.

 It should look something like this. Then taking the same section of hair, add another piece of hair and repeat the process until you finish the first side.

 Halfway done!

 Then the other side

 Remember to keep the two groups apart in the back so that they don't get tangled into one big horrible loop of hair

If you start with almost-dry damp hair, you can take it out in the morning and have perfect curls. It's not pokey like curlers so it's comfy to sleep in, it keeps your hair from looping around your arm in your sleep, and it won't damage your hair like a curling iron. 

 They wind up looking like this.

Good Luck!