Bluh

Well, the pimple on my psyche known as my midlife issues burst all over my insides sometime between yesterday and today.

Wow, but this really sucks.  It sucks because I can't really put into words what it is that I'm feeling/thinking/experiencing.  I can just say that it sucks.

Whatever this feeling is (you know that feeling when you taste something and think "What is that flavor?" I'm having that same sensation dealing with this amalgam of emotions) it's really not pleasant.  I know I'm supposed to be getting ready to wrap myself up in purple and kick people in their shins but I don't have any clue where to start with that.

I think this all came about after I hung out with some classmates from school a couple of weekends ago.  As much as I enjoyed myself and as much as I laughed while spending time just doing nothing in my friend's apartment with three of her friends, all significantly younger than me, I had the thought in the back of head 'hmmm, I've done this.  I've done this a lot.  This isn't my life anymore.".  Not a good or bad thing, it's just a fact.

I've been dwelling on stuff like:  I can remember seeing the news clips about Nixon and his possible impeachment.  I have vivid memories of seeing photographs of John Lennon on television with the announcement that he'd been shot.  I can recall when there was no cable and no VCRs.  If you wanted to watch something you had to be home.  If you wanted to see a movie you had to see it in the theater or you were shit out of luck.

And I'm going to tell these stories to my grandchildren, watch them oo and ahh at my stories about the old days.

To top this all off, Motley Crue's "Home Sweet Home" came on the classic rock station I was listening to.  See?  I was listening to a  CLASSIC ROCK station!  Shit.

If anyone has any words of wisdom for me in regards to getting through this intact, please drop me a line.

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  The sun is coming out!  Wear your sunscreen!  Find a foundation with a decent SPF and wear it!

Half-way there

I've hit the halfway point of my schooling.   I've learned so much.

How to handle and store foods correctly.
The basic cooking methods and how they can be applied.
How to make the five mother sauces (bechamel, veloute, tomato, brown and hollandaise).
How to make pasta from scratch.
The importance of parboiling.
How a mise en place (meez en plass, meaning 'everything in place') can make or break you.
A good stock is essential for many things.
A sharp knife is much safer than a dull one.
It is possible to use up every pot in the place making one recipe.
How to fabricate a chicken.
How to clean and fillet a fish, both round and flat.
Sweetbreads don't taste like much of anything but the sauce you serve them with.
Cleaning sweetbreads leaves your hands soft.
That I can do a huge amount of cooking in 2 hours and 15 minutes.
Keeping it simple is the best bet, always.
Have onions, celery, carrots and garlic on-hand at all times.
Everything benefits from the addition of salt.
Use butter.
Precise knife cuts require practice.
Relax and enjoy the process.

I'm still finding french fries, of all things, a challenge.  I'm terrified of burning them.

It's now the time where I'm starting to wonder what I'll do with this basic set of knowledge.  The next frightening step for me.  I've never worked on a line and I don't know that my knife skills are up to par for high end prep.  When I'm close to the end of my classes, I'll start looking at what jobs are coming available and what I might be qualified for.  I'm still doing the "Oh my god I'm forty years old!  What am I thinking?" but for the most part, I'm optimistic.

Well, realistically optimistic.  I know that I'm going in with zero experience and I'll need to build up my resume all over again.  I know that it will be very beneficial to me to work at well-known restaurants for free to make contacts and gain experience.

Meanwhile, I'm doing my homework,  putting in my best effort in class and practicing at home.  We're in the middle of how to cook fish right now, so the family has had fish sticks and fish fillet.  Shrimp risotto will be coming up.  And a  whole fish will be coming home one day this week for me to take apart.

Pass the salt.

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  If you're doing a lot of baking with powdered sugar, the particles can get trapped in your pores and cause breakouts.  Be sure to really wash your face when you're done.

And after yet another significant absence, I will now whine at you

The very unflattering photo you see here was taken in the bathroom of a Target after and unpleasant happening at Chuck E. Cheese.  My dad is in town and we all went to get pizza with the big mouse as a belated celebration for Will's 6th birthday.

While we were there Zoe had waited very patiently for her turn at a video game that had a seat.  While she was playing a boy was sitting in the seat with her.  I walked up to see what was going on and she seemed fine.  But as soon as she was done this kid started to use his hips to push her off.  I put the tip of my right index finger on his shoulder and said "Stop pushing".  (Yeah, I'm admitting I touched the child. I don't want to get in a big debate about it okay? You'll see why in a second)  I had made the assumption that there wasn't a parent in the vicinity, because pushing someone out of the game you want to play is generally stopped by a parent when they are nearby.

Well, I made and ass outta u and me because this voice behind me said "HEY!  Did you just put your FINGER on my SON?"  I turned to see a man sitting on yet another game behind us, he'd been there the whole time, watching his kid push my kid.  I said I hadn't realized he was there and I was very sorry.  Had I seen him I would have just let him handle it, again, I apologized.

The guy stood up and was at least a foot taller than me.  What he said next is weird.  Here, this is what I recall "Yeah, well if that's how you want to do it."

I asked if there was anything else I could do other than take my daughter to play elsewhere.  He said "Yeah, you'd better just leave."

I walked away with my daughter feeling like an asshole weakling who was not only not able to stand up for myself I wasn't able to stand up for my DAUGHTER.  I had let the bully father of the bully boy who'd been pushing my daughter get away with bullying me.

I went back to the table and ended up bursting into tears telling Scott what happened.  Then I was embarrassed because I was crying and letting it bother me.  I managed to hold it together until we got to Target after our pizza/game free-for-all and ended up crying really hard in a bathroom stall.

After we came home I went to the only place in my house that is 100% mine, my closet.  I sat down on my pile of shoes, buried my face in my grandmother's fur coat and cried about a lot of stuff.

I've been struggling mightily with the current classwork in school.  I found myself actively dreading going to school one day last week. I've become pretty close to convinced that I'm not going to cut it in the industry.  So I cried about that.

I cried about the fact that my house is a mess and my father just came to visit.  My dad is here and there are piles of clean laundry on chairs in the living room and piles of clean laundry in the upstairs hallway and my couch has been torn up by the dogs.

And I'm so fucking TIRED all the time.  I cried about that for a while too.

I've got a voice in my head that says to shut up and suck up it's part of life, there are people out there a LOT more tired than I am and they have more children AND a clean house.  I don't have the energy to try and tell it to shut up right now.

And my eyes hurt.

Ow.

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  when your eyes are swollen from a cry, massage ice cubes around them to help bring down the puffiness.

Sometimes I have to drop the Amazing part......

A little background for those of you who haven't known me since 1998.

Back before kids, we used to go to a lot of science fiction conventions. We were at a big one in San Jose sitting in a conference room listening to someone play music.  I turned to my friend Beckett and asked her if she wanted a beer.  She replied in the affirmative and turned to get her purse to give me some money thinking I was going to the bar.  When she turned back around I was holding out a bottle of beer.  And it was cold.

She took it in her hand.  She looked at it.  She looked at me and said "What are you?  The Amazing Amanda?"  And the nickname The Amazing Amanda stuck.  When I'm able to pull off something that involves a lot of work in a short period of time, I say that of course I could do it because I'm the Amazing Amanda!  Ha ha!!

Fast forward to now.  I'm in school from 7 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday.  On Friday and Saturday I work for free 6 a.m. to noon in a bakery to fulfill my externship requirements.  Here is what one of my school days looks like:

5 a.m.  Alarm goes off.  Go out and make coffee.  Spend 45 minutes on my computer watching TV shows and playing Facebook games.

5:45   Get dressed and gather up all my stuff for school.

6:15 (latest) I'm out the door.

6:30-6:45 Arrive at school to sharpen my knife, print homework, go over notes or have coffee with my classmates while we wait for our instructor to arrive.

7:00 Class starts.  Usually we have 45 minutes to 1 hour of lecture followed by 3 1/2 hours of cooking.  We have a break, usually 20 minutes at the most and 5 minutes at the least before we start cleaning the kitchen.

12:30 p.m.  Class is over, but a lot of the time we're there until 12:45.

1-1:30 Get home and sit in my brown chair with my laptop for my afternoon rest.  I zealously guard this time since it's the only time I have with no one else in the house to ask me for anything.

2:30 Leave to pick up the kids.  Zoebelle has tutoring for twenty minutes after school.  Will and I will get the mail, run a quick errand or hang out with the other parents waiting for their kids.

3:30 the kids friends start to arrive at the door.  During the time that I have other kids in the house I try to do dishes or fold laundry.  Friends usually stay until 6 at which point I kick them out.  I start dinner for my kids around 5:30.  Occasionally, my kids will go to someone else's house but it's not often.  I like having them all around.

6:00 Dinner for kids and me.  Afterwards, I'll do my reading/homework.

7:00 I start to browbeat the kids into doing their chores.  Then they go get in the bathtub.

7:45/8:00 - Read to the kids and tuck them in.

8/8:30- I'll finish up any homework I might have before I start to realize that I've been up since 5 and I start to wilt.

In the evening I tend to be a slug.  I take a bath around 9-ish every night which lasts around 45 minutes.  This is another one of my rituals that I refuse to give up.

I look at that list of what happens during the day and I think I should be able to fit all the housework that needs to be done in there.  In 2010, Dr. Phil announced that according to studies, stay-at-home moms actually had around 30-40 hours of leisure time a week.

When that info came out I said, and I quote "I'd like to find the person who headed up that study and punch them in the face."

But I really pondered that.  Did I really have 30-40 hours in a week as a stay-at-home mom?  Did I really have enough minutes to work a full-time job in addition to my already full-time job?  All that did was make me beat myself up.

Anyway, now that I'm doing stuff six hours a day six days a week I'm once again pondering the fact that I've found myself totally unable to keep up with the house.  We can barely keep the dishes done.  And don't even ask about the laundry.  Well, I can get the laundry done, just not put away.  This doesn't effect me that much since I'm in uniforms for school.

I do cook, but that's part of my homework.  Honestly! It is!

Shouldn't I be able to keep everything neat as a pin even though I've got other stuff going on?  If I would just do the 30 minutes a day thing I'd be able to keep up.  But wait, it takes 30 minutes to unload and reload the dishwasher.  It takes 30 minutes to fold the laundry and put it away.  It takes 30 minutes to get the kids to do their chores, which don't amount to much.

I could spend all day Sunday cleaning, but then I'd lose my one day off during the week.

I finally accepted the fact that I can't do it all and remain sane and standing.  This means I have to accept the fact that the house is going to be a mess all the time.  My kids are going to be rummaging around in their rooms for clothes.  There are going to continue to be drifts of dog hair around the baseboards.

I'm alternately relieved to come to this conclusion and pissed off at myself, thinking I'm just lazy.

What do you think?

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  If you have stinky shoes, put them in a plastic bag with a bunch of baking soda, then stick them in the freezer.  Knock off all the baking soda the next day and stuff them with the most strongly scented dryer sheets you can find.  This will help.  Now you can kick off your shoes in a social gathering and not worry.

Washing your face with honey

Here's that link:  www.crunchybetty.com

Dealing with adult acne

My friend Kirsten asked me about dealing with adult acne, so here we go.  Now, I'm not a doctor.  I'm not a nurse.  I'm not an esthetician.  I'm someone who has been dealing with breakouts as an adult, which are frustrating.  Especially so as I didn't really have any skin issues as a teenager.

First, what is a pimple?  www.nationwidechildrens.org gives the following definition:

A pimple starts when a pore (an opening in 

the skin) gets plugged up.  The pore has a tiny 

hair in it and oil glands at its base (Picture 1).  

The cells which line the pores are so small that 

they can only be seen with a microscope.  

During adolescence these cells are shed 

quickly.  In some people the cells and oil stick 

together and form sebum which plugs the 

pore.  If the pore is open, the result is a 

blackhead.  If the pore is closed, a whitehead is 

formed. 

The whitehead is the beginning of a pimple.  

It forms when the sebum escapes from the 

pore wall and gets under the skin.  The body 

tries to clean out the sebum and brings in the 

white blood cells to do the work.  The result is 

a pimple.  When the sebum gets deeper under 

the skin, a cyst can form.  A cyst is a deep and 

uncomfortable swelling of the skin. 

Unless they are squeezed, blackheads do not 

usually cause pimples.  Blackheads are not 

black from dirt, but from certain skin 

pigments (coloring) in the cells of the pores

In other words, there are skin cells inside your pores that shed.  They get stuck with the oil your skin creates and gunks up the pore.  If the pore doesn't have a lid, you get a whitehead.  Your bod tries to clear out the gunk with white blood cells that turn it white.  If the pore doesn't have a lid on it, you get a blackhead.  The dark stuff isn't dirt, it's the pigment from your skin.  I've also read that they turn dark due to oxidation, like an apple turning brown when you cut it open. 

Okay, now we know what it is, how to deal with the buggers?

My first bit of advice is to stop smoking if you do.  I recently gave them up (yes, again.  I know, I know. But it's something I'm going to struggle with my entire life I'm afraid) because they were making my skin gross.  

And, it's been said it's a myth, but drinking plenty of water really helps.  When I was consuming a gallon a day my skin looked outrageously good.  

You'll want to be careful with how much you wash your face.  Twice a day is good.  Make sure you get all your make-up off and change your pillowcase regularly.  A woman on Oprah once said you didn't need to wash your face in the morning because you hadn't done anything to make it dirty.  Uh, do you know how gross your pillow case gets?  Damn right my face is dirty!  Wash it!  

If you wash too much, you'll damage the inner wall of your pores, which is where the cells that plug things up come from.  That'll make the cells break off and muck things up more.  And, washing too often will dry things up and make your oil glands freak out and go into overtime production trying to get things back to where they think the oil level should be.  

One of the things that's hard for me is to not pick at my face.  I love to squeeze 'em.  There's very little in the world more satisfying that popping a zit.  There's even a website dedicated to videos of popping called "Pop That Zit".  I'll let you google it.  :)   However, it'll just make things worse, give you scabs that will scar and make your gorgeous self unattractive.  If you can't keep your hands off your face and you do get a scab, use an anti-bacterial cream on it at night and a drying treatment during the day.  This can be a horrid process because the cream blocks your pores and can cause a zit under there which means you have to top it off with the spot treatment stuff.  Meanwhile, you have this pimple you want to squeeze.  And the world goes 'round and 'round.

You're going to have to experiment with cleansers and such until you find one that works for you.  Go to the library and get a copy of Don't Go To the Cosmetics Counter Without Me by Paula Begoun.  She reviews a huge number of products and has a nice list in the back with the ones she finds to be the best for treating acne and stuff.  

Start with Cetaphil.  You can get it in the drugstore or the supermarket and it's cheap for how much you get.  Use the one for all skin types first as I've found the one for oily skin can be too drying.  Combine the Cetaphil with an exfoliating technique twice a week.  You can use a washcloth (I prefer a baby washcloth), baking soda or the Olay cleansing brush that runs on batteries that I'm in love with right now.  Make sure to be gentle and not scrub.  Be nice to your skin!  

If that's not working, move on to something inexpensive.  Clean and Clear products are quite good and not much money.  Stay away from Noxema and cold cream, they just clog up the pores and make things worse.  Not the goal.  

In regards to benzoyl peroxide, I like the stuff.  Only use it on the pimple itself, not on your whole face.  It will dry things out and that can make things go in reverse.  

You can also talk to your doctor if you've tried everything and it's not working.  My cousin has had great success by using a birth control pill to level out her hormones that were causing the breakouts.  There are topical treatments that can be prescribed as well.  I will warn you that these are not always covered by health insurance and they can be pricey, but, if you can afford them they can be very beneficial.  

To recap:  

Don't smoke

Drink water

Wash your face with a cleanser that works for you twice a day

Exfoliate gently twice a week

Don't pick at it!

Use drying treatments only on the spots and not all over

See your doc if you're not finding relief on your own.  

Since today was just one big beauty tip I'll give you a household hint:

To keep your drains flowing treat them with baking soda and vinegar down the drain followed by a kettle full of boiling water. Always try this on clogs before you break out the Liquid Plumber.  

Something I look forward to every year

Every Christmas my grandfather sends me a check.  I've always gotten money from him for Christmas.  Before my grandmother died the checks were signed by her.  (The Christmas after she passed away, we all received the gifts she'd already bought and wrapped.  She'd also written out our gift checks so it was signed by her.  There was much crying.)

And this year, as I do every year, I squandered it.  I figure that's what Christmas money is for, squandering.

As I've discussed before, I'm a sucker for gadgets.  I'm especially fond of grooming gadgets.  A while ago I saw a gadget in the supermarket made by Olay that is essentially a motorized brush that is used to exfoliate one's face. Check it out here I will embrace the fact that it had me at hello.  But, at thirty dollars it's ridiculously overpriced and not something on which I would spend the butter and egg money.  But I have Christmas money!  I can squander it!  What a fun word!  Squander! Squander!  Squander!

And squander I did!  The first thing I put into my basket at Target yesterday was that overpriced gadget that promised me a bright, shiny, clear, radiant face that would make me irresistible to the opposite sex and the envy of all the women who saw me!  It even came with a sample of their cleanser!  There are not enough exclamation points in the world to express how excited I was!

When I opened up the box I wasn't surprised to see that the box was a lot bigger than it needed to be, I'm sure it's to make me think the gadget was bigger than it actually is.  And no instruction manual!  What the hell?  I mean, I know I can figure this out on my own, but to not include the little pamphlet that suggests the other products I might enjoy and coupons for them?  What the hell?  But, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it got left out.

I used it right away and I love the damn thing!  I don't know if it works any better than a washcloth but I don't care.  It feels luxurious and I'm going to enjoy it.

Anyway, I got that little gadget and some new eyeshadows in the cosmetics aisle.  Then I moved on to music and got myself a Journey CD.

Shut up!  I like Journey!  (I saw Journey was touring earlier this year, but Steve Perry isn't signing.  Well, what's the point of that?) I'm going to listen to it in the car at the appropriate high volume and sing along to Open Arms and Don't Stop Believin' and Wheel in the Sky and you know you would too!  Journey is one of those bands that people say "eh" about but when they come on the juke box in the bar where you're hanging out everyone sings along.  It's like the song "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown".  No one but me admits to liking it but everyone sings along.

With my face clean and my throat sore from shouting along with Steve I'm very happy with my holiday spree.  Cheers!

Amanda's beauty tip of the day:  Don't get me wrong, you can easily exfoliate your skin without a gadget.  A washcloth, baking soda, sugar or salt will work just fine.  Just don't use the super chunky kosher salt.