Category — Mind

photo by D Sharon Pruitt

Well, I’m back. Apparently my skull-splitting headache wasn’t fatal and I will live to see another headache-free day. Phew. That was a close call seeing as last night I was convinced I’d never be rid of the slicing pain. And if you missed my post yesterday about 10 ways to fight headaches, check it out. There are some really good tips in the comments. (I love my readers.)

So, go figure, it’s Wednesday. Normally I’d say that with a deep sigh but today I’m all peppy (couldn’t you tell that through the Internet? Nope? Hm.) because I only have one more day of work till I head to Buffalo for my friend’s wedding. I’m still at that stage where going to friends’ weddings are fun and not a chore. Gimme a few more years and several more weddings, and I might be saying this with a sigh.

The reason I really love going to friends’ weddings (aside from, you know, the wedded bliss the married couple will know from now until eternity; and if you’re married you know I say this sarcastically) is that I get to catch up with my college buddies. These are the girls I traveled throughout New Zealand with. In case you don’t know what it’s like to live in New Zealand for six months with a great group of friends, it goes something like this*: [Read more →]

photo by migraine chick
Funny, that’s how I feel.

I was just wondering what to write about today when the idea struck. It hit me right in the face—between the eyeballs, if you really want to know. No one told me this is what it felt like to be visited by the muse.

So, what better topic than headaches. (No, we won’t discuss the perpetual headaches in your life. We’ll get to kids and husbands at a later date.) Instead, I thought I’d provide you with a list of ways to get rid of a headache. I’m practically an expert after all. Lucky me.

1. Meds. Kind of self-explanatory, huh? Here are my thoughts on headache meds: They’re great if you get a headache once a year or even once a month, but when your skull is on the verge of exploding weekly these probably won’t do much. Take it from me. Excedrin loses its potency if you pop it all the time. Ahem, not that I used to do that or anything. On the flip side, now that I’m not taking any anti-inflammatories (because I’m getting PRP), one dose kills my headache on contact.

2. Sleep. Sure, you say, it’s not easy to get to sleep while little gnomes try to drill through your skull from the inside out. But if the room is dark enough and quiet enough you might be able to lull those brain gnomes to bed at the same time as you. Things go faster if you put a cold wash cloth over your eyes.

3. Shower. A long, hot shower sometimes makes my ache disappear … or at least die down a bit. If I follow this with a nap, I can usually cut the pain in half. Usually. [Read more →]

photo by d sharon pruitt

I was just about to start a post like this: I hate my knees. I hate my life. Wah.

OK, maybe it wasn’t going to be exactly like that, but you get the idea. Sometimes having a chronic injury sucks. And when the weather gets warmer it especially sucks. In winter, I was OK staying at home and doing nothing. The weather was too cold to leave the house anyway. Come spring? I want to get outside. I want to go for a walk in the park or window shop downtown. So, yeah, the whole knee-pain thing really gets to me and I start feeling bad for myself. But just as I was about to pour out virtual tears, I started thinking about June 2008.

June 2008 was my low point. My knees were in such pain, The Man would carry me from the couch to the kitchen in our 600-square-foot apartment. When The Man wasn’t home, I’d inch my way to the bathroom on the floor. Because making the 8-foot trip was too painful. I couldn’t brush my teeth standing up (thank goodness for long countertops). I’d get dressed sitting down. As soon as I got home from work, I’d pile four pillows under my feet and ice for an hour. I had to buy bigger jeans because my regular ones were too tight around my swollen knees.

Back in June 2008, The Man picked me up outside our apartment and dropped me off before parking the car—even though the parking space was a few feet away. (Good news: I became a pro at turning just about anything into a seat. Including but not limited to curbs, fire hydrants, a newspaper bin, and the floor. No shame, people.)

Looking back just two years, I see how far my knees have come. (You can read my entire, really long story here.) [Read more →]

photo by blw photography

We’re going to do something different today. I like to keep you all guessing and using your brains because, well, it can prevent Alzheimer’s and that’s probably something we all want to avoid. Like how I snuck that health tidbit in there? That was me helping you. Which brings me to today’s post…

Instead of going on and on and telling you all about the latest stress-related study, I thought I’d ask for your help. Because what’s a blog for if not for getting advice minus the therapist’s bill? (And don’t consider billing me. I won’t send a check.)

Here’s the deal: I’m stressed. I’m fairly certain there’s a great conspiracy going on where the earth has been pushed into warp speed and we’re now circling the sun so fast that we’re left with 12-hour days. I know this is true not because I hacked into NASA computers, but because my days have been cut in half. How else would you explain all the time that’s missing?

While The Man is loving his new job*, I’m not loving the hours. Getting up at 5:45 a.m., starting work at 7, and plugging away until 6:30 p.m. is draining the energy from me. Since I would like to get to bed by 10:30—any later and the next morning I resemble A. an insomniac, B. a hung over frat boy, C. Night of the Living Dead, or D. all of the above—that leaves me three and a half hours to go to the gym, eat, clean up the mess we created while cooking dinner, make tomorrow’s lunch, and get ready for bed. Hence the stress. Because that schedule leaves zero room for de-stressing. And that fact stresses me out. (See where I’m going? It’s a vicious, vicious cycle. If you don’t watch out, it’ll tear your arm off or do something equally as gruesome.)

So what do you all do to de-stress when life gets so crazy you can’t even remember the last time your discussion with your spouse didn’t sound something like, “OK, you get the dishes. I have the lunches. And break!”

*I’d like to get on the record saying I’m ecstatic that The Man loves his job. I’m not a horrible wife, I swear. Just tired.

Can you believe that this:

Is 28 today?

Me neither. I’m celebrating today (you know, by going to work all day and fun stuff like that) but I’ll be back (and older and wiser) tomorrow.

While I’m off partying like it’s 1982 over in cubicle 10, entertain yourselves:

These tips for going local on a budget are particularly useful since The Man and I are vowing to spend less.

Just in time for summer, a seriously simple guide to cutting a mango without wasting most of the flesh. Not that I do that or anything.

We’re back to not stretching, at least before workouts. I’m assuming a post-workout stretch is still a-OK. At least until the next study comes out.

Britney Spears has been turned into an airbrushed Barbie, and her “before” isn’t that bad. But that airbrushing was totally, 100 percent, absolutely, without a doubt necessary.

Disappointed you didn’t make the team, get the guy, win the bet, or whatever else it is that makes you curl up in the fetal position and suck on a chocolate bar? Here are seven surprisingly helpful tips for getting over it.

Which story do you find most interesting? And are you with me: The Briney Spears ad is unnecessarily photoshopped?

photo by jeremyok
Only we weren’t blonde.

I was just about to tell you to mark this day down when I realized its importance is meaningless to every single one of you. Except The Man. He generally agrees with me when it comes to ranking things in order of importance. (For instance, he wholeheartedly agrees that bread pudding is the best dessert ever, even counting chocolate cake which is pretty amazing. He also agrees that the apple tart we had twice on our honeymoon was the only non-bread pudding dessert to ever take the No. 1 spot.)

So where was I before I got off on that amazingbestestever apple tart tangent? Oh, right, today. And how it’s really important because it’s the first time in all of my years living in the DC area that my younger sister has visited. No, she’s not a hermit. No, she’s not afraid of driving or flying. Yes, she works retail and doesn’t get weekends off. Yes, I’ve been up to visit her a bunch of times even though she never set foot on Virginia soil. (Yes, I’ll be rubbing this in the entire weekend.)

I’m not sure yet what we’re all going to do this weekend. What with my gimpy can’t-walk-anywhere knees and my sister’s funky can’t-eat-anything stomach we’re like a really, really, like ridiculously good-looking geriatrics ward. (And yes I love Zoolander and quote it abundantly and often.) It might involve a lot of sitting around hungry. Or her running laps around me while I eat. We’ll see.

So now, before we go have so much fun you’ll be jealous—unless you’re doing something like going to the beach, in which case I’m jealous—I’ll leave you with the Craziest Thing I Heard All Week. Straight from the mouth of my mother, who called me while packing for the trip.

MOM: Do you have eggs and cheese?

TRACEY: Yes.

MOM: You sure? Because we can bring ours.

From Massachusetts. Five hundred miles. Oh, Mom.*

Let’s skip the routine “What are your weekend plans?” question today, shall we? Just for the sake of total randomness, tell me a silly childhood memory.

*No, she didn’t travel with the eggs and cheese. My sister and I talked her out of it.

photo by foshydog

Contrary to what the title of this post would have you believe, this isn’t a philosophical discussion about whether we actually weigh anything since we’re weightless in space and earth is in space, so… You get the idea. But that’s not what I meant.

I’ll preface my question by telling you about my childhood. Zzzz… No, wait! Don’t fall asleep just yet. I promise this will be a quick jaunt down memory lane and not a meandering road trip.

Growing up, our house was a no-scale zone. I remember my mother telling me at a very young age that Those of Which We Do Not Speak were pure evil and had no place in a home. Aside from my yearly checkup, I never knew how much I weighed. That was fine with me since I was always thin.

When I moved out, it didn’t even cross my mind to buy one of Those of Which We Do Not Speak. I have a pretty good grasp on my weight based off how my clothes fit. And I never really saw a need to fixate on numbers every day. And then. [Read more →]

photo by foundryparkinn

You can’t see me, so I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I write these posts hunched over my laptop. If you stare hard enough, I’m sure you can see a lopsidedness to my shoulders. That, my friends, is due to the twisted knots in my muscles.

I wouldn’t say I look like Quasimodo, but that’s how I feel. You see, while I’m at work I’m multitasking. I’m building great big knots in my shoulders and back and neck. It’s not an easy task, but if you work at a desk long enough you pretty much become an expert.

When the knots get big enough, you can try to massage them out. That works for a little bit, but nothing—nothing!—beats an honest-to-goodness massage. I should know. I grow shoulder knots like I’m getting paid for it.

The first time I got a massage, I thought I died and went to Heaven. Now that I’ve gotten a bunch more, I know that’s exactly what happened. So I can totally understand why researchers who analyzed a bunch of studies found that massage can relieve symptoms of depression. It’s. That. Amazing.

(In all seriousness, it’s hard to really determine the effects of massage in studies because you can’t really blind the participants. There’s no such thing as fake massage.)

Though it has nothing to do with the study, I’m pretty sure massage can also relieve the symptoms of stress. I conducted a study with me, myself, and I and lemme tell ya, I felt muuuch better.

Since I’ve had a lot of massages in the past, I thought I’d impart some massage wisdom. And then I’ll take up a donation for my next rubdown. (I have no shame, people. No shame.)

[Read more →]

photo by thumeco

We all aren’t created equal. (What? You really thought we were? Nah, my knees prove otherwise.) I’m generally OK being a gimp, but sometimes I wish there were a few skills I could add to my resumé.

Like resisting chocolate. If I possessed this skill, I could stare down a warm molten chocolate cake and not feel the sweet taste on my tongue without even opening my mouth.

Or maybe making lunch with my mind. That way I could 100 percent relax every night without knowing I’d have to make my lunch some time before I went to bed. Because that some time is usually 11 p.m. right about when I start getting exhausted.

And of course, karate-chopping skills. Just because it’d be so super cool.

What skills do you wish you could pick up?

photo by reynys

I’m going to take a stand on this soapbox here for a minute. One, because I feel a lot taller than you all and that makes me feel more important. Two, because it’s my blog. And three, because there’s something that irks me and deserves a post. And entire post.

(Disclaimer: If what I’m about to say applies to you, I in no way mean you’re a horrible person. You’re not even a bad person. You’re really nice. I mean that. So don’t take it personally. Consider this rant a live-and-learn moment. Or read one of my other posts. Your choice.)

I thought that I’d take on smokers today. Because why not? The longer I’ve lived in apartments, the lower my tolerance has become for cigarettes. Since this is really a health blog, I’ll start with the fact that smoking kills. Big surprise. (And if you thought that was a big surprise, you may need to go back to school. Or watch TV. Or talk to other humans.) It also harms the health of innocent bystanders in the form of secondhand smoke. And even the little grubby particles left on furniture and clothing are no good for our lungs. So, yeah, in a nutshell it sucks for all parties involved.

Now that we’ve cleared up the obvious, let’s move on to logistics.

[Read more →]