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Tuesday on the Soapbox

Battle of the Beauty Purge, Completed

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Last week I wrote about my massive beauty-product purge, ranging from shampoos and conditioners to lipstick and fragrance and everything in between.

This week, I will show you the fruits of that (very very hard) labor, in the form of a much nicer bathroom. Not just showing makeup products, but ALL of the products I reduced and condensed, and the total effect that had on my bathroom.

What Remained After the Purge

Makeup

About four years ago, I quit wearing full-face makeup all the time. Not coincidentally, I started dating my awesome boyfriend of win around that time–as we got to know each other, I found myself not feeling the need to wear much makeup around him, because he was always so positive about my appearance. When we purged the bathroom, I realized I didn’t need all the random makeup I was hoarding; either it was out-of-date, the wrong colors, or it just wasn’t necessary anymore. Thus, my collection was edited waaaaay down, into what you see below.


Clockwise from top left: New York Color Color Wheel Mosaic Powders in Translucent Highlighter Glow (top left) and Pink Cheek Glow (top right); E.L.F. Bronzer in Sun Kissed; Clinique Superpowder Double Face Makeup in Matte Ivory

True story–these four products are all that I use for face makeup these days. (Concealer has either never worked right or I never learned how to apply it without it looking blotchy and fake, so I don’t bother buying it anymore. And I find that the Superpowder does a fair job of covering most flaws anyway. ^_^) The bronzer, blush, and translucent powder over top gives me a naturally-finished look without taking too long.


From left: Revlon Illuminance Creme Shadow in Precious Metals; New York Color Metro Quarter Eye Shadow in South Street Seaport; CoverGirl Eye Enhancers in Drama Eyes #222 (left) and Tropical Fusion* #205 (right). Eye pencil (between the eye palettes) is New York Color Kohl Brow/Eyeliner Pencil in Jet Black.
*unsure of exact product name

Just these four eye palettes make it possible to mix nearly any color I want without having to buy every single shade. I can make a dark green, for instance, by taking the teal shade and adding a little black and a little brown; I can make a light purple by mixing the dark burgundy, the dark blue, and a little white. And, of course, they are all lovely shades to wear on their own. (The cream shadows, at far left, are great highlighters or bases, depending on what I need–they show up darker in this picture than they really are.)


From left: CoverGirl Wetslicks in Shimmershell; L.A. Colors Glossy Lips in Jammin’ Jelly; Neutrogena MoistureShine glosses in Healthy Blush (left) and Berry (right); New York Color lipstick in Ruby #305; Beauty Innovations lip palette, unknown name.

I reduced my lip makeup collection SEVERELY. These are all the lipsticks I own now, and they, like the eye products, can be mixed together to get the precise shade I’m after. I prefer glossier/smoother textures, and so most of my collection focuses around that.

The Glossy Lips gloss (second from left) is not really that dark, by the way–see it in the light, below:

Bath Products


From nearly a tubful of bottles, we shrunk my impressive shampoo collection down to this small drawer; we got rid of at least 150 shampoo bottles to condense it down to what I really use and like. I’ve got four basic formulas I like: light conditioning, heavy conditioning, super-cleansing, and volumizing. Thus, each of the bottles in this drawer does one of the four functions.


Since I hate having the “extra step” of conditioning in the shower every day, I have considerably fewer conditioners. Most of these conditioners match a super-cleansing or light conditioning shampoo.


I kid you not, we got rid of over 50 different shower gel bottles, and now I have room to spare in this little drawer. I generally like clearer, less-creamy shower gels with light fragrances, so that’s largely what my small collection is about. (I’m also in the process of phasing out shower gels in favor of scented bar soaps, which last longer and are cheaper.)

Fragrances


Okay, okay, I admit it, I like body sprays and scented stuff. And maaaaaybe I could stand to reduce this just a touch more. But considering that we hauled out 2 big black trash bags full of nothing but old perfume bottles… 🙂


I had been storing my sprays and lotions alongside my shower gels in that little drawer. But the drawer was way too small to hold all that awesome in it, and I was always forgetting to use the sprays because they were hidden away. Thus, I got this white-painted metal spice rack from Walmart for about 10 bucks, to create a “fragrance display” in my bathroom.


See? Looks a lot better than them just sitting out on the counter in a big conglomerate mess. (Oh, and the sprig of blue flowers beside them is there just ’cause it’s pretty. ^o^)

Hair Notions and Jewelry

I usually have longer hair most of the time, so I have tons of scrunchies, clips, and smooth bands to craft it into “cool hair,” as my boyfriend describes it. But in order to get my collection into a more manageable size, I had to edit and toss a bunch of stuff.


This is my much-reduced selection of bigger hair notions–I used to have about 3,000 of those big hair clips back in the day. LOL…


…but I still have a ton of little hair notions in the form of tiny clips and bands. What can I say, it’s a work in progress!


And these are all the smaller scrunchies that wouldn’t fit on my big ole scrunchie rack.

“Scrunchie rack?” you say. “What’s a scrunchie rack?”

THIS:


It was a hand-towel rack. I saw the unique, flattened “S” shape of the rack, below…


…and I thought, “Hey, I think I could thread my scrunchies onto that.” So I repurposed it…


…like so. It might look like a confusion of fabric (and it kinda is), but there’s organization there. Now I can see all the scrunchies at once and pick one off fairly easily.

Speaking of racks, here’s the slightly-Asian-inspired jewelry rack I picked up on clearance from Walmart:


Where once my jewelry was in scattered bags all over the house, now it has a permanent (and pretty) home in the bathroom, safely away from hungry sink drains. Awwwh yeah.

Other Items

When I said my boyfriend and I cleaned the bathroom, we cleaned out EVERYTHING and made space for EVERYTHING that was left. Like my soap/razors/hair products drawer:


Uh, yeah, this is slightly still a work in progress. But at least I always know where the soap is now, instead of having to dig through 4 cabinets and 2 drawers!


That’s right, I dedicated a whole bathroom drawer to brushes. And yes, I do use every single one of them, depending on styling needs. No more knocking stuff off the cabinet tops to find that one stinkin’ brush that’s hiding from me!


And because I had no set place for my toothbrushes, cough drops, bandages, etc, I dedicated the drawer on the other side of the sink to hold such supplies. It’s the unofficial “medicine cabinet.” (And yes, I regularly need that many Band-Aids. I am one of the clumsiest, most accident-prone people ever. The first-aid companies <3 me.)

The Proudest Achievement: Organization in the Bathroom

First off, this thing rocks my socks.

It only stands about a foot or so tall, but held within it is all my makeup (top two drawers) and most of my hair notions (bottom three drawers).


Face stuff (plus a few beauty tools)…


…and everything else makeup-y. See? It all fits!

Combine that with the awesomeness of the racks holding my jewelry, fragrances, and scrunchies, and you get this:

…I’m finally bathroom-proud. It may not be the best-looking, it may still be in progress, but I’m using the space a lot better than I ever did before.

And LOOK! I can see the color of the countertops!! That, in itself, is a massive achievement. 😀 😀 😀

Tuesday on the Soapbox

The Massive Beauty-Product Purge

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I’ll admit it, I’m an OCD hoarder. If you could see my bedroom…well, maybe it’s best if I don’t post such traumatizing, disturbing pictures of disorganization and junk stacks on the Internet. (LOL) And besides notebooks, scraps of paper, and purses, I have also hoarded beauty products most of my life. Hey, having it at home is better than having to go out and buy it, right?

…WRONG. When your bathroom countertops overflow into the sink and onto the floor on a regular basis, and the under-sink cabinets are stuffed full of products whose bottles have ruptured and/or otherwise leaked, you know you’re in trouble.

Yet I let it lie like this for years, stymied, paralyzed. I couldn’t do anything with the junk, even the junk I KNEW was junk, because…well, if I got rid of it, and then I needed it later, I’d have to go out and re-buy it. Torture.

The Breaking Point

The stalemate between me and the growing mess finally broke one spring afternoon in 2011, when I was, ahem, otherwise occupied in the bathroom and had nothing better to do than to stare at the mess covering the countertops.

As I watched, a series of large perfume bottles (Bath and Body Works-sized) slid slowly into the sink, piling up on top of each other like a fragrance avalanche. The noise and rumbling of the perfume bottles set off a couple of smaller avalanches of facial wipes boxes, soap containers, and shampoo bottles, cascading into the floor like so many mountain boulders.

My first instinctive thought was, “…REALLY?” I’d dealt with the mess associated with hoarding most of my life, but I’d never seen a mess move on its own, not like this, anyway.

This had to stop. It was no longer just an innocuous pile on countertops, but a threatening mass that was making it impossible for me to use my own bathroom space, let alone anybody who dared to come into the house. This…HAD to stop. It was beauty-product madness.

The War Begins

My first volley in the war on beauty clutter was to rid myself of all the obviously expired products–all the stuff that had mold growing on it, had exploded, or was otherwise unsuitable for putting on my face or body anymore.

My awesome boyfriend proved his love ten times over by helping me with all of it, since it hurts a lot for me to squat down and/or stand in one place for very long. (He is awesome, focused, logical man, especially when this little bird gets overtired and cranky.) Together, we unloaded the overstuffed cabinets into trash bag after trash bag, discovering the following gems in the process:

  • a can of prehistoric hair spray (kidding–it was only from 1996…I think)
  • several crushed shower gel bottles
  • dozens and dozens of dusty, gummy little-girl hair scrunchies
  • more sanitary pads than the world’s women will ever need
  • three cream-to-powder foundation palettes which had some kind of horrible splotchy mold on them
  • a hoard of toothpaste tubes, which were keeping one of the cabinet drawers from opening AND closing
  • a vial of liquid foundation that was literally puke-green in color. It used to be the color of my face, about ten years ago.
  • one shampoo bottle that had apparently become volatile and EXPLODED, leaving green slime all over most of the cabinet’s inventory
  • a can of brown spray paint that had somehow “eaten” itself and rusted almost completely away. (We were both like, “WHAT is this BROWN POWDER in this CABINET?!” And the smell…*UGH*)

The Hardest Part: Purging What Was “Still Good”

Once we got rid of the obvious trash, which was fairly easy, I faced the largest obstacle: getting rid of stuff that still had life in it, was still usable.

For me, getting rid of still-usable stuff is hard, because I look at the pile of stuff I’m getting rid of and think “wasted money.” It makes me literally sick to think of all the dollars going out the door in trash bags. Thus, another reason why I hoard, I guess.

I started having real trouble with it, was almost too daunted to keep going, until my boyfriend said, “Honestly, honey, how long has it been since you used it? If it makes you happier to keep it, please go ahead–but this doesn’t look like it’s been touched in years.”

My instant argument back was, “Well, I would have used it if I could have FOUND it in this mess!”

“True,” he replied, “but do you have anything that does exactly the same function?”

He had a point. In some cases, I did have something (or several somethings) that fulfilled exactly the same function (like the 7 nail clippers–I wish that was a jest). Knowing that part of my junk problem lay in having multiple copies of the same item was an important key in getting over my attachment to the items I’d bought.

In the case of the nail clippers, I kept 3 of the 7, because one was a specific, larger toenail clipper, one was regular nail clippers, and one was an itty-bitty nail clipper/file combo that I put into my purse. The other 4 went away–2 got given away, and 2, we found, were irreparably broken/rusted anyway, so they were trashed.

Systematically, we hunted through all the stuff. Endless iterations of Night-Blooming Jasmine shower gel and perfume (which I stockpiled because B&BW only offers it twice a year), 10 different Clinique compacts of pressed powder, literal hundreds of lip glosses…all were evaluated, condensed, and the excess removed. (We found that 4 of the jasmine perfume bottles were all just alcohol anyway…no fragrance smell remained. SAD)

The Aftermath

By the time the organizing carnage was (mostly) over, my bathroom cabinets were cleared; their interiors were empty and dusted out, left to air out overnight after long years of being shut away in shame. The countertops were also cleaned and polished up, and new systems of organization went into place atop them, showcasing my jewelry, my fragrance bottles, and my impressive scrunchie collection (hey, I grew up in the 90s, all right?). I also FINALLY had a place for all my makeup–at least, what remained of the huge collection I had (but more about that later).

At last, after years of getting ready (somehow) amid a torrent of products, my bathroom had become a true lady’s dressing room and ablutions room. I finally had room for everything, and everything that I had was stuff I was really going to use and really enjoyed, from shampoos and conditioners to fragrances, from powders to lipsticks and everything in between.

Next Week: The Makeup Survivors

Next week, I’m going to show what remains of the massive collection of old makeup we cleaned out. I went from several LARGE zippered bags of makeup to two tiny drawers-full in a five-drawer countertop organizer…unbelievable as it sounds!

Saturday with the Spark

I’ve Still Got It!

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My creative musical life has gotten a huge boost very recently–in fact, “Monday of this week” recently! Thus, the following blog post is in honor of it. And if you’re experiencing a slump in your own creativity, I urge you to read this for advice that really helped me get back my creative groove.

Before Monday: I Haz a Musical Sad

It seemed that I was no longer interested in composing music, as I once had been. I had been used to writing tons of piano solos and piano/vocal music every year (at least 15 every year); in recent months, however, it felt like years since I had even sat down to compose. Once, I had done performances for other people, but even those were rare. It was like the desire for my own music had been drained from me, replaced by performing others’ music, as well as not having a ton of time anymore to muse at the keyboard.

I mourned this loss, and it made me downright unsure of my creativity in music anymore. I wondered, “Do I even have “it” anymore, the gift of writing beautiful music? Or has it all been replaced with ‘everyday life’ and random stuff?” Not only that, I feared I had lost the capacity to write beautiful melodies, and had also lost the time to just sit at the keyboard and expand upon them.

Then, I Got Mad

On Sunday, I realized all this. My first instinct was to wallow about in my sadness, and I started to draft a Saturday with the Spark post about “losing my musical mojo” or something like that.

And then, I stopped about halfway through. “Why am I LETTING this happen to my music?” I thought, staring at my writing. I was starting to get ticked off. “What is all this stuff about ‘I used to be good at music?’ Dangit, I want to be good AGAIN. And I can be–it’s just there’s all this CRAP in the way!”

Getting Rid of the Aforementioned “Crap”

So, in a fit of drivenness rather than rage, I systematically removed all the obstacles towards practicing music. Since my keyboard is currently set up in our finished basement, there were a LOT of physical obstacles in the way. I replaced the cold, creaky, too-short keyboard chair with another; I moved the pile of junk that sat boldly in the path to the keyboard; with Dad’s help, we fixed a light on the basement stairs to make it easier (and safer) to go down.

But that still didn’t remove all the mental obstacles. I had a lot of fear about whether I still had “it,” whether I could still write beautiful music. That, I left ’til Monday, and rested the rest of the night.

The next day, I spent most of the day writing, kindasorta avoiding the melody (and part of a little song) that had been twisting and twining between my brain cells for the last month and a half. At last, about 6:00 Monday evening, I set aside what I was writing, and began to fix up the song’s lyrics properly so that they matched the melody–what I had roughed together was okay, but it wasn’t the best.

About 10 minutes later, I took computer and all down to the keyboard, and set up the screen so I could see it from the keyboard. Then, I began to play and sing the song…

And Then, I Haz a Glad

…and it was magic. The song slid from my fingers easily, and I maneuvered the vocal melody just as easily as if I’d been practicing it for days (which, in a way, mentally, I had been). Not only was it prettier than I had imagined, but it was easy to sing, was honest, and…it was good. Much better than I had expected from myself after months of not doing this.

I had been so long out of practice that I had been afraid to try anymore. But I was pleasantly surprised–and very, very happy. I wept at the keyboard–it was like a long-lost friend had finally come home.

Have You Lost “Mojo” for Anything Creative Lately?

(Pardon the Austin Powers reference 😛 ) If you’ve lost the ability or time to be creative due to too much work, illness, etc., then you know the sense of emptiness and loss I was feeling. It really took me getting mad about it and getting fired up enough to change what had been happening, and I think that’s what it takes for any change like this to come about. You have to be dissatisfied with how it’s been going, and know what to change to make it better.

One key, as I found, is to remove all the obstacles towards being creative. If you feel at a loss for writing because you have no space to work, for instance, make a space to work. It might be at a kitchen table or counter, or it might be a cheap folding table in the corner, but make a place for your creativity. For me, the junk pile, the lack of light, and the too-short chair made it easy to make excuses…they had to be changed.

Another key is to make time to be creative. If you allow no time for creative activity, it won’t just happen on its own. If you keep yourself busy, don’t leave the Internet behind for a few hours, or don’t carve out even a teeny bit of time in your commute to just think out a couple of ideas, it won’t happen. I had to leave the Internet behind on Monday afternoon, just long enough that I could draft and play my song…and it was WORTH IT! 😀

The last key? Trust your ability. If you could do it before, you can do it again. You might be a touch out of practice, you might feel a little differently about the process, but if you expel all the doubt and fear from your system, you’ll do fine. At least, that’s what I found out.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Tales from the Picky Eater’s Plate

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As my parents could probably tell you, I’ve been a picky eater as long as I can remember (and probably even before that). One of the first coherent thoughts I expressed aloud, as a child, was “Don’t want. Not good. Bad taste.” XD

My relationship with certain types of food, therefore, has been a tenuous one. Most vegetables and “healthy” food has instead tasted horribly bitter to me–and I don’t think I’m alone in that. Not only that, I experience aversions to certain food textures as well, which I’ll elaborate on in a moment–and I’m also not the only one to be particular about food textures. Some consider it a mild eating disorder, some think it’s part of a sensory disorder, and others are simply talking about their own food texture hates.

Through my growing-up years and into adulthood, I have kept trying new foods that contain the ingredients I didn’t like. But I often find myself spitting out the non-favorite food anyway, either voluntarily into a napkin or involuntarily (gagging and sometimes even throwing up). This is not an entitlement issue–it’s actually quite restricting to my diet, and makes it 3 times more complicated when I have to order things specially made, or have to do “surgery” on a meal to remove all the crap I’m not going to touch.

Example: People don’t realize how lettuce and tomato flavors RUIN a burger, for instance–you can take the lettuce leaf and tomato slice off, but the bitter juices remain, tainting the bun, cheese slice and meat patty beneath, not to speak of all the condiments you lose in the “burger surgery” process. And if I ask for lettuce and tomato to be removed, I still have to pay regular price for it; I’m basically paying for lettuce and tomato I don’t want and don’t get. NOT fair, much?

When I have tried to explain my particular food tastes to others, the general consensus is that if “I’d just try it, I’d like it.” But I don’t like wasting money on food I just flat won’t eat. And, most of the time, I have tried these foods, and I still didn’t like them, or I experienced such a violent negative reaction to them that it’s not worth it. It seems my taste buds are very particular, and though I’d like to get healthy and eat “healthy,” most of the good-for-me foods don’t even taste like food to me.

Non-Favorite Foods

Vegetables

  • Tomatoes
  • Carrots
  • Corn
  • Mushrooms
  • Onions
  • Lettuce (especially Iceberg lettuce)
  • Olives
  • Broccoli (if not cooked in anything)
  • Spinach (if not drowned out with cheese)
 Fruits

  • Pineapples
  • Apples
  • Oranges (if left whole)
  • Bananas
  • Strawberries (if left whole)
  • Cherries
  • Peaches
 Meats

  • Steak
  • Bacon
  • Southern-style barbecue
  • Most seafood
  • Fatty bits hanging on any meat product
 Desserts/Snacks

  • Chocolate in too large a quantity
  • Twinkies
  • Shredded coconut
  • Anything drowning in grease/fat
  • Yogurt

How This Stuff Tastes to Me

  • Broccoli and spinach are only good mashed up in casseroles with loads of cheese on top so I can’t really taste ’em. Otherwise, they both taste like crunchy grass. (As in, I eat it and I’m tempted to moo afterwards.)
  • Chunky chopped tomatoes/whole tomatoes taste like acidic water and soil, and nothing else. And the texture is nasty as well–slippery and slidy in my mouth, dodges my teeth. Yuck. But I can eat ketchup just fine; go figure.
  • Bananas have too flat a flavor to really enjoy, but it’s the texture that kills me. Soft and mushy right until you get to the middle, and then your teeth crunch through this hard bit in the center. Um, no thank you, I didn’t want cardboard in the middle of my banana.
  • Eating olives feels like I’m eating cooked eyeballs. HECK to the NO.
  • Eating cooked onions is like eating spicy slivers of tapeworms. Pull the onion slice out of a breaded onion ring sometime and you’ll see exactly what I mean. BLEGH!
  • Iceberg lettuce (the really pale green/white kind) is basically crunchy, bitter paper impregnated with water.
  • Mushrooms have an odd rubbery texture that kinda feels like I’m eating a bodily organ of some sort. Combine that with an utter lack of flavor, and you get why I hate mushrooms.
  • Pulp and fiber in most fruits and vegetables is like eating a wad of Silly String, or gum that has long since lost its flavor. Examples: celery (bite into it, and it looks like split ends), oranges (yuck, pulp that gets all over my tongue and I can’t swallow it)
  • I’ve tried and tried to enjoy Twinkies and other “just-sugar-and-fat” foods, and I can’t take ’em. They are literally too sweet–my mouth dries out and I choke.
  • Very greasy food, like Taco Bell’s new beef recipe = not awesome.
  • I can take chocolate in small quantities, but I have to have something to drink with it–otherwise, the back of my throat burns like I’ve tried to swallow rubbing alcohol.
  • Strong fishy odors make me think of women’s health issues, NOT food. Seafood is largely yuck for that reason. (Seafood is also very chewy/oily)
  • Yogurt is okay in smoothies–just PLEASE do not serve it to me plain. The “live, rotting bacteria” taste has to be covered up with a much stronger flavor.

Not Just Taste, but Texture, Too

It’s true–I generally pay attention to texture of food as well as taste. One more reason that I hate most vegetables and fruit is because of the natural crunchy or pulpy texture–I don’t like too much crunch and too little taste, like in Iceberg lettuce, nor do I want 75% of what I ingest to be tasteless wads of pulp or seeds, like oranges and bananas.

Along with crunchy and pulpy, the tough, chewy foods are generally not on my happy list; thus, why I rarely eat most forms of pork and steak. Bacon? No, thank you, all you are is crisp and grease, or too tough to pull apart. BBQ pork? No, you’re just possum meat in a different animal (longer you chew it, bigger it gets). Steak? Why pay 16 bucks for meat that either tastes like leather or is mooing at me?

Basically, if the food feels disgusting in my mouth, I’m not going to be able to eat it, even if it tastes okay. Example: as much as I love oranges’ flavor, I can’t stand the texture of the pulp in my mouth–thus, no whole oranges for me. Literally makes me want to gag.

Other Picky Food “Rules”

  • Vegetables and meats are supposed to be salty, and fruits and desserts are supposed to be sweet. No crossovers allowed (i.e. sweet corn, honey barbecue flavored meat, watermelon with salt on it, brownies with salted nuts included).
  • Sweet and salty flavors are not supposed to mesh in the same food. Instead, sweet should be cleansed from the palate first before taking a bite of salty, and vice versa.
  • If the meat is pink, has blood running from it, or if the meat looks too much like the animal it came from (i.e., leg of lamb that still LOOKS like a leg), no way I’m eating it.

Summary

Since we all eat but experience food differently, food is both an intensely universal and personal experience. My experience is just one among many–yours is likely completely different. But it’s interesting to share what foods we love and hate, and why.

I also wanted to raise awareness of the food texture issue, since that seems to be a much more common phenomenon than I ever dreamed. Who knew I had compatriots in the hatred of orange pulp and banana seeds?

Tuesday on the Soapbox

A “Tug” on My Brain: Intuition

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Countless times I’ve experienced it, especially driving somewhere. For instance, I’ll be headed to town, and feel a “tug” to go a different route to town than usual (there are two basic ways to get to the closest town from my house). It could happen with any route, at any time. There appears to be no rhyme or reason to it–except, of course, that the times it happens corresponds exactly with accidents or other traffic issues happening on the road I didn’t take.

The first couple of times this happened, that I followed the “tug” and later found out about something awful I avoided, I brushed it off. Now that it’s happened more than 20 times in the last four years, I’ve started to wonder what exactly this strange intuition is.

“Tugs” In Other Areas of Life

Intuitive “tugs” like this have also popped up in non-driving situations, like thoughts of someone randomly popping to mind.

Example #1: The Old High School Acquaintance

I remember about six months ago, I randomly thought of a girl I hadn’t talked to since high school while I was out on an errand. “I haven’t seen her in a long time,” I thought. “Wonder how she’s doing?”

I later met a few other high school friends while out and about at one of the local big-box stores. As we chatted in line at the checkout, one of the girls said, “Oh, and did you hear about [the girl]’s father?”

“Huh? No, I hadn’t,” I replied. “What happened?”

“He got put in the hospital today, ’round lunchtime,” the other girl said. “Kidney stones or something. She’s really messed up over it.”

The odds of this being a coincidence felt pretty slim, even in our small town. Why would that particular person be in my thoughts, only to have other people mention her to me later, in connection with her father’s illness? It was a little rattling, to say the least. Now, if someone pops to mind, I immediately pray for them–who knows why they’ve popped to mind, but I’m covering my bases.

This random, unpredictable sense has aided me in traffic situations, health diagnoses, and even just occasional meetings with people. Some people just seem to exude their worry, and I find myself unconsciously responding to that, offering encouragement–like the couple I served at the calendar store during the holidays in 2009.

Example #2: The Couple at the Calendar Store

When this couple came in to shop, I could tell they were desperately worried about something, but I didn’t know what. I didn’t say anything to them at all until they came up to check out–they spent most of their time talking quietly and looking around. While I was running their purchases through, I made some offhand comment about my knee acting up (probably said something like “Good ol’ Arthur Itis is after me again” or something silly). They exchanged a look, and said “As young as you are, you have arthritis?”

“Most likely–runs in my family, and I’ve had a lot of injuries to it,” I replied.

Again, the slightly-surprised look. “Well, our son is having a lot of pain and swelling in his left knee, especially when he wakes up in the mornings. We’re actually over here shopping, waiting for him to get done with testing–we thought maybe he’d broken something.”

“Sounds like what I go through on many mornings with my own joints,” I told them. “If it isn’t broken, it might be arthritis. But I take Advil or Aleve, and try to rest the joint if I can, and that helps.” I could FEEL them relaxing, and they smiled for the first time since they came in. They seemed happier now that they had a possible explanation for what was happening to their son. I had not known of any illness beforehand, but it had just seemed like the right thing to say.

Intuition through Dreams: Premonitions

Intuition like this seems to even occur in dreams for me–one very disturbing (but awesome) dream experience happened about two years ago.

Example #3: The T-Intersection Dream

Back in the summer of 2010, I had a vivid dream that I was at a country T-intersection about 12 miles from home, at night. I was getting ready to turn left in the dream, turning to go home from that point. It struck me as odd, though–in the dream, the house across the road had odd, blue-icicle Christmas lights on its side porch, which made no sense because it was July when I had the dream.

In the dream, I looked back and forth, checking to see if it was clear for me to turn. (This particular intersection is very scary at night because the lay of the land makes it hard to see if people are coming, and since it’s near a busy highway, some people come busting through there at 50+ mph.) I began to turn, and all of a sudden, I saw a flash of bright blue-green paint, right before I T-boned the pickup truck that had come out of absolutely nowhere. The jarring impact, and the sound of tearing, screeching metal, stayed with me long after I woke, and I could not go back to sleep.

Near Christmas 2010, I found myself at that same intersection, late at night–it was about 11:30 on a Friday. I looked back and forth, and it looked clear; seemed I could get on my way with no worries. But I happened to glance ahead and see the house across the road–it looked the same as it had been in my dream. Even the blue-icicle lights were in the same position on the house as they had been, only decorating the side porch. I felt that now-familiar “tug” on my brain, and thought, “This looks a bit too much like my dream for my liking.” Paused in thought, I held the car still longer than I had in the dream.

Then a flash of bright blue-green paint whizzed by in my headlights, shocking me out of my dream-memory. A pickup truck, going about 20 miles over the speed limit, had passed me in the night–the exact same color and general make that I had seen in the dream nearly six months before. If I had not waited a few seconds more, reflecting on my dream, I would have T-boned him exactly as I had done in the dream. I have no doubt that this dream saved my life by making me more watchful and aware.

“Tugs” about People: Danger Sense/Character Judgment

I can credit these strange senses with other, more immediate needs of mine as well–sensing when a person may become dangerous, or sensing when someone is in sincere need of help.

Example #4: The Young Blond Guy

For instance, one afternoon I was pumping gas near my college campus; I’d already paid at the pump and was well on my way to a full tank. A young man, blond-haired and wearing a jean jacket and camouflage-patterned pants, pulled up at the pump behind me and got out, ostensibly walking into the gas station’s convenience store. But instead of walking with purpose, he cruised–sauntered–on by my car, oh-so-casually glancing in my backseat and at my purse. Then, he moved on, walking on into the store.

Once he was in the store, the “tug” was unmistakable and strong, the impulse even expressing itself in words: “Get out, get out of here right now. You are in danger.” I quit pumping gas, got my printed receipt, and fairly flew out of the parking lot, taking the long way back to campus in case he followed me. I didn’t like the way he’d looked at me, as if he were sizing me up, and casing my car. But I got back to my dorm safely, and, once inside, quickly forgot about the incident.

It wasn’t until the next day in class that I heard several students talking about the woman who had been robbed at gunpoint at a local gas station. “Where was that?” I asked.

“That station right at the corner of campus, near the tire place,” one of the other guys said. “Happened just after 3:30 yesterday afternoon. They’re still lookin’ for the guy, too–had shoulder-length blond hair, wore a denim jacket and camo pants.”

Though I said nothing, I was shocked. The clock on my car radio had read 3:22 when I had pulled out of the gas station parking lot like a bat out of hell. The young man I had seen, who had given me such a huge case of the creeps, was dressed and looked exactly like the description. It seemed my intuition had been right, and I had been totally correct to follow it.

Example #5: The Scared Mother-to-Be

There was also the case of the young woman who approached me at the local coffee shop one evening, needing a ride back to Charlotte, NC, about an hour’s drive away. Though I did not know her, I had an instant sense, a “tug,” that made me want to help her. She seemed very desperate and afraid.

Though the drive eventually took us nearly all the way back to my hometown, due to a disagreement with the boyfriend she was having me drive her to meet, I was able to talk to her as I drove, and I found out she was four months pregnant, had been excluded from her church’s activities for being a “bad example” to the youth, and was terribly frightened about what was going to happen to her. I suspected abuse on the part of the “boyfriend,” whose very presence set off the “danger alarm” in my head–I was just as glad she did not choose to go with him after all.

By the time I dropped her off at a family member’s house in a nearby city, I had encouraged her to talk to her family members and seek their help. I had also told her that a church which excludes its members is not doing the work of Christ, and that God most definitely had a plan for her and her child. Listening to her talk of her life, weeping, was very difficult, but I did my best to minister to her and keep her safe on the road.

My intuition had been right again; though I had not known her from Eve when I first met her, she was someone who sincerely needed help in two ways, and I was willing to give it because of the “tug” of intuition I had had beforehand.

Where Do These “Tugs” of Intuition Come From?

I honestly cannot give an answer about where this intuition comes from. I’ve watched all manner of “psychics” do their acts, have investigated all the paranormal things I could, and still there’s no real answer to where these senses come from, and why they seem to be so dead-on accurate all the time.

I know for a fact I can’t predict the future consistently, nor can I see dead people around the living or talk to ghosts. But whatever they are, they have only benefited me and others positively. I prefer to think of these “tugs” as handy “warnings,” if you will…wherever they come from, they’ve certainly kept me out of danger and made me more helpful to others.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Horror Movies Ain’t Got Nothing on My Imagination

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I like to tell people that I’m not very interested in horror movies or literature, because I’ve got a whole horror-movie production studio in my subconscious.

Most people think it’s a joke…but they aren’t the ones with a horror movie going while they sleep, and no way to turn it off!

A Few Selections from My Gleefully Wicked Subconscious

  • The recurring dream featuring running through a very sticky substance, and KNOWING I have to run from something that’s going to eat me, but I’m stuck to the floor. My chest is heavy, and I can’t breathe at all–there’s a crushing pressure on my body that makes it nearly impossible to take in air. Oh, and did I mention I’m completely blind in this dream? (I hate hate hate this one–I always wake up feeling like I’ve been strangled!)
  • A flashback from teaching middle school, where I get arrested in the lunchroom for allowing the kids to go absolutely batpoo crazy, and the judge pretty much throws the book at me, telling me “a criminal like me should not be allowed back in the classroom for any reason.” His version of “throwing the book at me” is chopping my hands off and cutting out my voice box. (Aw, God, the sheer amount of blood, and knowing it was MINE…nastyyyyyy)
  • The one where I’m the servant of a minister and his kinda-creepy mother, and they ask me to come to the basement of the church after I finish work. There’s a barrel in the corner of the gray-brick room I arrive in, which looks to be filled with water…but when I look in it, there’s rotting flesh in there. A scream rips from me, and I wake up lying on the floor, watching the minister burn one of my leg bones on a makeshift altar. I realize that I’m now just a pile of fleshless bones on the floor–my flesh has been stripped from me and is in the barrel–but I can still feel everything he’s doing to that bone of mine! (I was literally screwed up for HOURS after waking up from this…THING)

And yes, these are all real dreams that I’ve had over the course of my lifetime. (The blind running/difficulty breathing dream has haunted me since childhood, at least since I was three.) My brain seems to be very good at giving me frights while I sleep–it’s like, “Hey, you’re sleeping–let’s make a really scary movie that you can’t wake up out of!” (I have had numerous instances of being unable to wake easily from these dreams, more than the pretty and lovely dreams I’m always jarred out of by the cursed alarm clock.)

Why These Dreams Equal No “Scream” or “Halloween” for Me

Couple this vivid imagination and wicked subconscious with a strong empathy for others’ suffering, plus a little bit of paranoia about experiencing pain, and you get exactly why I can’t sit through a horror movie without needing a barf bag or a sensory deprivation tank afterwards. I don’t like seeing great gouts of blood all over the screen, because I can all too easily visualize it as being mine. Seeing people get stabbed through the eye or having to run screaming from stuff is not my idea of fun…it’s too much like my own nightmares. Why pay for this when I can get it for free (admittedly, in an uncontrollable fashion, but still)?

Unpredictable Nightmares

The frustrating thing about my horror-movie dreams is that I can never predict when they’ll happen, but they’re always nerve-jarring when they do. I could have the most awesome day ever, come home, go to bed, and experience something like one of the three dreams I mentioned above. Or, I could have the most awful day of my life, come home and flop in bed only to have an amazingly wonderful dream.

Is this my subconscious’ way of giving balance to my life? “Oop, you’re too happy, let’s give you something to freak out about!” or “Whoa, you need a pick-me-up–here ya go!” Whatever it is, I guess this is another of my brain’s quirks…

For the Readers

Do you suffer from similar kinds of nightmares as I do, or have you ever had one that stuck with you for a long time after waking? Let me know in the comments!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Exercise Has Been Divorced From Reality

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Would I be completely in the wrong to say that exercise has been taken out of the context of our regular daily activity?

I don’t believe so, given the fact that most people’s exercise now takes place in gyms and home workouts rather than actual, useful activities. Exercise, far from being part of our chosen trade or part of our recreation, now is done in front of other, usually more fit people, at a gym or on a workout machine. It’s often regarded more as a status symbol than anything these days–if you have time to work out, you must be in a good job.

But what about exercise that MEANS something for your life, other than fitting into a smaller size or being healthier? Sure, those are worthy goals to have, but I would prefer to actually do something useful while exercising. Exercising just for its own sake is boring and lonely to me, and it feels useless; when in real life are we really going to lift weight in exactly the same pose for a certain number of times, or walk exactly a mile, or use just our abs to do anything besides laugh?

Modern “Exercise”: Movement without Context, without Purpose

In principle, this is the same problem I always had in math classes–being assigned 30 naked, context-less problems in a math book to “practice what we just learned” felt like a waste of time and effort. It always left me thinking, “I do all this problem-solving work, but it’s not really helping anybody. How about giving me 30 real-world problems that other people need solved right now? That way, I practice AND I help somebody out.”

Exercise, in my opinion, should be a fun activity that accomplishes a real-life goal outside of physical fitness. Yes, yes, I know, exercise for itself is great, but it bores me and makes me feel like I’m just wasting my time. I want it to multi-task.

Example of Purposeless Exercise: JUST Walking on a Track

Walking around and around in a pointless circle on a track for an hour? BORING. In fact, I’ve written a couple of times about exercise, including just how much I hate walking for no reason. Makes me want to tear my hair out. I’ve tried doing just walking as exercise several times, and I just can’t stay with it. Not only does every joint in my lower body hurt more with every step, but I’m wasting an hour just walking around when I could be getting stuff done at home, or running errands. It’s not “peaceful” or “relaxing,” as other people have told me it is for them–I find it maddening and painful.

Example of Purposeful Exercise: Walking as a Way to Get Stuff Done

Now, contrast that with activities that just involve walking: walking pets, running errands in town without using a car, or taking the kids on a nature hike. This is the kind of walking I can get behind–walking for a PURPOSE!

For instance, letting pets get out and about with you is a great way to bond with them, as well as to let them do their business outside (always good for the ol’ flooring). Parking your car and walking around in uptown saves gas, gets stuff done, AND gets you exercise. Getting the kids out of the house, away from computers, TVs, and video games, can be an important family bonding moment as well as family exercise. They can learn from you that exercise doesn’t have to be something regimented and divorced from their reality.

I Want This Kind of Exercise–the USEFUL Kind!

This is what I’m talking about–making exercise a seamless part of everyday life instead of a status symbol. Lifting weights 20-reps-at-a-time in the gym is pointless and means nothing for my everyday life; however, lifting junk down out of the attic and moving it out of my house is a weight-lifting exercise I can appreciate. I’ll be sore after doing both types of exercise, but only one type of exercise gets something done besides building up muscle.

Zumba, strangely, fulfills this “useful exercise” requirement I have in a unique way; it is based on dance moves, so I feel like I’m performing with a group of people rather than just “working out.” Not only that, being with the group of people and directly interfacing with the group leader helps me feel more accountable, like somebody actually gives a rat’s rear end that I’m doing this. It’s useful exercise because I love to perform and I love to socialize–it kills three birds with one stone, giving me new friends, a new “venue” to perform in, and a healthier body over time.

I know there are people out there who really enjoy the nitty-gritty training of exercise for its own sake. But I think if we’re ever going to be a healthier, fitter nation, we need to make exercise an integral part of life’s other activities rather than making it something we have to do outside of normal activities. Let’s make it not so lonely, boring, and horrible to try getting fit, and maybe more people will do it!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Content, not Perfect

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I am generally happy with the course of my life thus far, though I might not seem like it in most of my Tuesday on the Soapbox posts.

Dealing with The Negatives

By most people’s standards, my life is definitely not perfect. I’m overweight, and I don’t have a lot of friends I routinely visit, nor too much nightlife going on. I don’t have a paying job, and my parents and I all suffer crippling ill health–arthritis, severe headaches, and old, unhealed injuries run rampant, forcing us all to be more bedridden than we should be. This leaves our house in a shameful state most of the time. (There are rooms in my house which I haven’t been able to walk into in literal years. Yes. OCD hoarding + family illness = housekeeping? What’s that?)

Celebrating the Positives

But I do have a lot to be thankful for. Quite a lot, in fact. I have a stable roof over my head and enough food to eat every day. I have a wonderful, loving, supportive boyfriend of several years; he and his family are awesome. Both my parents are still living–I can depend on them for advice and love, and I can also reciprocate the care for them that they lavished on me in my growing-up years. I have a great church family that accepts and loves me, and has helped me to grow more spiritually in the last 4 years than I did in the first 23. Plus, I have the free time to do a lot of creative projects, like this blog, that help others, even if I’m not getting paid for any of it. There’s a great emotional benefit to doing something that others enjoy, and while it’s not a paycheck, it fulfills a creative need in me.

Perfect Lives =/= Happiness

Many times we get wrapped up in how terrible our lives are when we start looking at the negatives of our lives, all the things that shouldn’t be happening to us but are, all the illness and emotional garbage, all the family and friend drama, not to mention workplace drama and unfairness. We get all torn up about our lives’ quality, wishing for the financial, romantic, and familial perfection we see pictured in movies and television.

I am not immune to that, any more than anybody else. I will say, personally, that it’s very easy, especially in the darkness of the wee hours of morning, to get depressed over the circumstances of my life, homebound and job-frustrated as I am.

But I am CONTENT. I am not living a perfect life, an ideal life. There are conditions I’m dealing with that I wish I didn’t have to. I wish I could walk without pain, and I wish I had a job, for instance. But I am blessed to have the talents I have, and the amount of love that pours into my life from others helps to drown these relatively small pains. There are people in the world who would covet my life as it is now; the best thing I can do is to praise God for all the blessings He’s shown me, and give others an opportunity for similar blessings through outreach work and giving as I am able.

Though there’s a lot of junk in my life, literally and figuratively, the positives of my life balance the negatives. I am not living an idealized life, but I am much better off than I could be. Realizing that I am much more blessed than I even imagine can, in itself, lift me up. Knowing that I can help others because I am blessed lifts me up, too.

A Challenge for You

I challenge my readers (all 10 of you, lol) to think of three areas of your life which are going well. For me, my church life, my relationships, and my creative life are all going very well. The areas of your life can be big or small, but think of three. Write them down so you remember them, and look back at the list when you are feeling terrible.

Trust me, it works: even when all else seems to be failing in another area (like health, for me), I can look to my successes in three other areas and think, “Well, things could be much worse for me–I am blessed to have what I have.” We all need some practice at feeling content with our imperfect lives…this is one way to do it.

Sunday in the Wild

Eleven Things 2011 Taught Me

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To appropriately ring in the new year, I am reflecting on things that the old year taught me. How can I go forward if I don’t know where I am, right?

Eleven Things 2011 Taught Me

1. It is possible for your wisdom teeth to be severely infected for months, without your actual teeth ever hurting.

2. My parents are awesome, supportive people, and I am darn lucky to have them both still living.

3. 5,000 words typed in a single afternoon? Yes, it happens. 😀

4. Winter precipitation is a particularly large pain in the posterior region. It’s fine to be in a warm house looking out at said precipitation; trying to walk in the cold among inches and inches of icy, slippery snow leads to many falls and much fist-shaking.

5. Summer precipitation is no better–hailstorms are nothing to mess with, and leave your car looking like it’s been driven through a rough part of town. (LOL, my little Sydney has “street cred” now)

6. General anesthesia is a blissful nothingness, usually…but I had a dream while under general anesthesia, in which I talked peacefully with one of my relatives, long gone now. I wonder what I glimpsed?

7. Trying to sleep through a headache doesn’t work. Period.

8. Zumba, on the other hand, works. I lost 5 inches off my waist in 5 months of a little less-than-regular weekly attendance. 😀

9. Never put your faith in a single hard drive. Sooner or later, all hard drives, whether they are flash drives, external drives, or internal drives, will fail. Multiple backups are awesome!

10. Living without a personal computer is very annoying at best and creativity-killing at worst, at least for someone who creates files on a daily basis like I do.

11. Holly bushes absolutely COVERED in beautiful, big red berries = free Christmas decorations for the outdoors. 😀

Tuesday on the Soapbox

This is What Happens to Robin without a Pet

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I’ve had pets most of my life, from cats to dogs, from turtles (Mr. Koopa 😛 ) to rabbits (Mr. and Mrs. Bunny). Both my mom and me are animal-lovers. (I regularly swerve out of the way of animals in the road, and have been known to weep if I can’t swerve out of the way in time.) I also like to cuddle and pet animals…but the pet store is an exercise in both fun and masochism. I love them, but I have to leave them all there. ;_;

I Apparently Cannot Haz (Living) Petz

Why do I have to leave pets at the store? Unfortunately, we live in the middle of a big forest which is simultaneously a little too close to the roadway–most of our pet animals end up navigating straight into traffic and being killed. We also suspect that other people nearby may have ended up accidentally “adopting” our pets, since many of “our” animals were half-wild and we could never catch them to put collars on them. Not to mention that the pound has likely been called by to pick up “strays” that might not be stray.

The dangers from humans isn’t the only danger to our pets. Wild animals, like raccoons and feral dogs, have killed many of our smaller animals (poor Mr. and Mrs. Bunny, and all the little kittens that have disappeared over the years… :C ). Heck, even some of our own pets have fought or preyed on each other–two of our otherwise nice dogs absolutely loved killing and eating many of the kittens that were born on the place during their lifetimes. (Is it any wonder I’m a cat person?)

After the disappearance of my last cat, Stacy, and her unnamed kitten, I have been loath to get another pet; my mom feels the same way since our last dog, Big Sam, was hit and killed in the road. As horrible luck as we’ve had keeping pets over the years, it just doesn’t seem right to subject another pet to that, or to get attached to yet another pet that will just get killed or disappear.

The Great Indoors Ain’t All That Great, Either

And if you’re wondering why we just don’t keep them indoors, it’s not because we don’t love them, but because indoor animals are just not an option right now, due to ill health. Keeping a pet inside is more responsibility than any of my family can handle right now with all the health problems Mom and Dad and I all have. Ill health has also led to lots of human junk and mess scattered about our house (you don’t move home six times from college without junk accumulating everywhere). This would not be a healthy or safe environment for a pet. And since outside is just as unsafe for pets as inside, it pretty much means no pets for us.

;_; I Miss Fuzzy Furry Friends…

But knowing all this doesn’t stop me from missing the company of a little animal (most especially a kitty). There’s just something about having a pet around the place…it’s comforting to know that I can go outside and just relax while petting a sweet kitty or doggie. Without animals around the place, I get nervous when I hear nighttime sounds around the house (it ain’t my animal making that eerie crying noise, so what is it?)

Knowing that pets help reduce blood pressure and stress, and knowing that I find myself stressed out more than usual these days, makes me know I could likely use a pet of my own at some point. Till then, I’ll content myself with keeping my boyfriend’s family pets entertained…after all, throwing a ball for a severely ADHD Dachshund does have its perks. XD