Get a hold of yourself!

OK, I'm exhausted. I'm so burned out I can't sleep. The weather's been gorgeous all week long, except for the day it rained, which was lovely in its own way. It was the kind of day when staying in bed with the cats felt right and good. We were all so lazy until I had to get up and go see Dr. Wallit. Otherwise I'm sure we would have moved down to the couch to watch teevee and drink cocoa while wrapped in a blanket.

So the weather's been great, and I've felt obligated to go outside every day. I haven't let myself rest at all, then I stay up late, like this late; I see 4 a.m. with bleary eyes almost every morning. How am I supposed to go back to work living like this?

How am I supposed to stop keeping these hours when I don't really want to go back to work? That's not exactly true. I want very much to return to work, but I'd rather not go back to my particular job. On the other hand, it doesn't make any sense for me to start a new job when I know I have to go out again in a couple of months.

This is what's keeping me up nights. Well, there's that, and there's worrying about the scars. I wonder what they're going to look like. My dad has this horrible scar from when he had his appendix out. Is it going to be that bad for me? And there's the movies; not to mention the coughing.

Do I stand a chance, ever, of getting the cat hair under control or am I going to have to go on steroids for my allergies? From the reading I've done, my house is "contaminated." I'm not sure what one does to decontaminate, unless we were to move everything out, have the place cleaned by experts, have everything that goes back in cleaned by experts and then devote hours a day to keeping the place free of dust and cat hair. I don't know about you, but that sounds like extreme measures to me.

On the other hand, it would be nice to be able to breathe again. Maybe I should try that on a slightly less drastic basis. I could de-fur one room at a time, something slightly less post-apocalyptic. I think it would be worth the effort to stay off steroids as long as possible.

At this point I ought to apologize to my audience. I generally don't use my bully pulpit for freaking out; I guess there's a lot on my mind these days.

So, what y'all came for: skin care product reviews!

As it turns out, I tried something new yesterday. I got a sample of the Oil of Olay Daily Facial in a Metro station and decided to try it rather than toss it in the trash. I'm always a little wary of drugstore skin care, but I thought this was an interesting premise; besides, it was free.

Basically, it's a cloth-like thing, about 6"x3", and it has cleansers in the fibers. You wet the thing, or "moisten" as the copy says, and then you rub it together until it lathers. Then you use the lathered cloth to clean your face.

It didn't irritate my eyes, but I did have to go back over with eye makeup remover to get the last of my eyeliner. Knowing that it doesn't make my eyes bug out, I might use it a little differently next time, so I wouldn't have to go back over.

Results were good. It left my face feeling clean but not tight, and the various stuff I put on my face before bed went on well, so I could tell it had actually done a decent job cleaning. I went ahead and ordered a box of 30 from drugstore.com.

before - after