Yet another lesson-

So, my vanity got the best of me the other day and I decided to give at-home waxing a try. I figured that if I could wax my legs, then I wouldn't have to deal with the hair issue as often this summer. Now, everything that I read said that the new at-home kits are much better than those that were previously available. They are supposed to be easier to use and much safer, ie. it is more difficult to burn or hurt myself while I attempt to yank out my leg hair. Now that I'm writing it, I realize how odd the whole thing sounds. That I wanted to put hot wax on my leg, let it set so that the hair gets stuck in the wax, and then pull the whole thing off, ripping out the hair along with the wax. Anyway, I did a little research and it sounded like this new kit from Nair would be a good option. It's supposed to be easier on the skin, using a more pliable wax and it doesn't use cloth strips, rather once the wax sets, you just grab an end and rip. So, I picked it up at Target. Now, the other plus with this kit is that it is supposed to work on shorter hair than your standard wax kit, meaning I don't have to wait until I look like an amazon woman before I can wax. I did a patch test last night and it went pretty smoothly. No problems with my skin and it appeared to take most of the hair off of the area. Now tonight, I went ahead with the whole thing. Alright, I should know by now that when it's supposed to be easy, it never is. I now have wax drops and wax strings all over the bottom of my tub. The insert makes it sound like you use the stick to get a glob of melted wax and after a single wipe on the edge of the tub, you will just lift the wax over and put it on your leg. Ha. You get this globby thing on your stick and you try to wipe off the excess on the edge, but instead of just wiping off, it gets all stringy. So, now I take the whole tub and start holding it over my leg. I proceed put strips of wax on my leg and wait the recommended 20 seconds before I pull it off. I wait, and I make the skin taut, and I pull. Not too bad. And then I look at the wax, and there are like 20 hairs visible on the wax- from a section of leg that was about 4x2 inches. Yeah, not a good percentage there. Ok, I'll try again. Still not so good. I pretty much get done with my right leg, even though there is still quite a bit of hair there. I start in on my left leg. But, now, the wax is starting to get a little harder in the tub. I don't want to have to get up and heat it up again in the microwave, so my solution was to pretty much cover my whole leg in wax. One big huge blob of wax. Yeah, in hindsight, not a good idea. At all. Can I just say, ouch. At least I didn't lose any skin, which was kind of my fear once I started pulling the mass of wax off. So, my foray into waxing is over. Back to my handy-dandy razor, which while it may not last forever and there is the occasional nick, I don't wind up spending the better part of an hour removing what probably only amounts to about 25% of my hair.  So, there you go. Another fabulous evening in my life:)

Life's Lessons...

When running a half marathon, it is advisable to check out the amount of hills on the course at some point during your training and not finding out while you are actually running.  

All I can say today is, OUCH! I ran the Lake Geneva Half Marathon on saturday morning. Had to get up super early that morning as my friend was picking me up at 5:15am. I was actually pretty awake and ready to go. We got down there and got our numbers and timing chips and stuff. So, 8:00 rolls around and they start the run. It was a beautiful morning. Sunny, not too cold, not too hot. Just awesome. Of course, this is what I'm thinking during the first couple of blocks. I'm thinking that until about block 4, when we turn a corner and I look up and see this ginormous hill in front of me. And that was when this run stopped being really fun and nice and started being a test of my willpower and endurance. Miles 1 to 7 were continuous rolling hills. I ran all of those 7 miles, slowly but surely, but it took a toll out of my body, particularly my knees, which have been a bit of an issue in the past. Unfortunately, the right one decided to start hurting just as the route flattened out a bit. So, I was forced to take some walk breaks, although I did get a chance to chat with some nice people who were going at about my pace. Well, I did finish in about 2 hours and 45 minutes, which is actually a little faster than my previous fastest half marathon. I was tired saturday afternoon, but by that night, I was wiped. I actually fell asleep at 9:20pm. I don't think I've gone to bed before 10 when I wasn't sick in a long time. By sunday, I was so sore and stiff, that I had some difficulty walking. Stairs were very painful, particularly going down them. Today has been better, but I still was walking a little stiff, kinda limpy. So, I will never again participate in a run without checking out how hilly or flat the course is well in advance of race day. 

One Stomach Flu From My Goal Weight...

Okay, not quite. That is, however, my favorite line from "The Devil Wears Prada". Anne Hathaway's character tells the bitchy first assistant girl that she looks really good and must have lost weight and the bitchy first assistant says, "I'm one stomach flu away from my goal weight." Great line. That was the one and only plus on Sunday after about 12 hours of losing my meals. Ugh. Initially, I figured it was just a little hangover as I had a few drinks and jello shots at an MS benefit bowling event on Saturday. I started drinking at about 10:30am and when I got back to my parent's place around 3:30 or so, I took a nap. Woke up feeling ok, but then over the next couple of hours, started feeling worse and worse. After throwing up once, I figured it was done, but I barely made it home and pretty much proceeded to get sick again several times through the night and ran a low-grade fever for a few hours, too. I so don't envy my neighbors, who must have heard me at about 2:30am. I would so not be a happy camper if I was woken in the middle of the night by someone dry heaving in the apartment next door. (the walls in pretty much just the bathroom area are very thin as I can hear them coughing in the mornings- pretty sure they smoke) Anyway, long story at least a little shorter, by mid-Sunday I was up and moving around and had lost 4 pounds. They are back now, but I felt a little better knowing I could wear cute pants for my mom's birthday lunch. 

So, the diet is off this week. I'm running a half marathon on Saturday morning and while I don't plan on carb loading, it's also not healthy, or good for my time to go carb light. Come Sunday, its back on calorie limits and such, but at least for a few days, I'll indulge myself. 

Anyway, there's the update. Not much else going on at the moment- oh except very funny story from work this morning. I was a little out of it this morning when I first got to work and this girl in one of the labs downstairs stopped me in the hallway and asked me "how I feel about being drawn" meaning blood draw, but I thought she asked "how I feel about being drunk" which seemed a rather odd question for a wednesday morning, so I looked a little confused and said "okay". Well, as she continued explaining that they test for certain types and are always looking for new people to test, it finally dawned on me that she said, drawn and not drunk. I didn't say anything, but I figure when I see her to get drawn in the morning, I'll probably fess up as to my confused look when she first asked me. I hope you all had a bit of a chuckle at that. Later.

Skinny Bitch

So, sometime last fall, I picked up this book at Barnes and Noble (I can never leave that store without buying something). I had heard the title before, but really couldn't remember where and didn't totally understand if it was a diet book or self-help or what. I powered through it in about a week. It was very interesting and funny. So, Skinny Bitch is a diet book written by these two friends who, by looking at the picture on the back cover, are definitely skinny. I can't tell from the picture if they are bitches, but really, aren't we all, at least on occasion? What I definitely didn't realize when I bought it, was that this is a vegan diet book. The two women are pretty straightforward and very sarcastic and funny. Those of you who are Brewers fans may recognize this as the book that Prince Fielder read (it was his wife's) and caused him to decide to become a vegetarian. (It also apparently gained a lot of recognition after Posh Spice was seen purchasing a copy of it- however, what that woman is doing with a diet book, I don't know. I know the kind of looks I get when I tell people that I'm trying to lose weight- what kind of looks does Posh get when she says that?) Ok, back to topic. They are unbelievably descriptive about what goes on in animal processing plants. I guess it was this section that resulted in our vegetarian Brewer. Seeing as other people that read that section could never eat meat again, I'm not quite sure what that says about me as I continue to enjoy my burgers and chicken. Anyway, I just couldn't make myself become vegan or vegetarian. I just enjoy my dairy product and meat too much. I am a true Wisconsin girl! However, there was one section that I took to heart. The one about cutting out caffeine. To quote the Skinny Bitches, 

"Don't talk to me until I've had my morning coffee. Uhm... pathetic! Coffee is for pussies. Think about how widely accepted it has become that people need coffee to wake up. You should not need anything to wake up. If you can't wake up without it, it's because you are either addicted to caffeine, sleep deprived, or a generally unhealthy slob. "

Ok, that's the funny part. But they do bring up many good points about how caffeine causes headaches and ulcers, raises stress hormones and has been linked to depression and diabetes. So, based on all of this, I decided to give up caffeine. Back in college, I didn't drink much caffeine. I had never been a big coffee drinker, so it was mostly soda. But, when I was finishing grad school, I got completely addicted to coffee. Unfortunately, it wasn't just the caffeine (which kept me awake), but I still didn't like the taste, so I dumped in a ton of creamer and sugar adding scads of calories. Sometime in the fall, I think it was around the beginning of November, I went cold turkey on the caffeine. No coffee, no regular soda. The first week was rough. I had a few migraines and really couldn't seem to get up in the morning. But, after that, things got much better. I sleep better and am not dependent on something to keep me going. Now I'm going on six months off of caffeine. I have had two regular cokes (when I donated blood) and I drink caffeinated green tea on occasion, but that doesn't have anywhere near as much as a regular coffee. So, I guess the point of all of this is that I would recommend Skinny Bitch to anyone who wants to laugh at themselves or become better educated about what you put in your body. And I highly recommend the cutting out of coffee.