Back in the Saddle Again (and by Saddle I mean my own home)

The Visitor's Center in Charleston
across from my Hotel.

I had a few short hours in Charleston yesterday morning before I was hopping back on planes (yes, multiple) to get back home. Even with the gain of three hours on the trip back, I still didn't get home until about 7 p.m. And I was happy to be back.

Cute shopping on King Street.

Hung out with Chef and watched the end of the Alabama-LSU game. Sad to see Alabama crumble in overtime after a pretty damn strong game. But then I'm used to watching my teams much earlier than overtime this year. Ended up going to bed at about 10 p.m. but I had already turned my clocks back so it looked like I was going to bed at 9. Which made me feel old.

The back and forth between Eastern and Pacific time zones finally took its toll on my sleep. I work up at 4 a.m. and had trouble getting back to sleep, so I threw on Twilight from the DVR (yes, it's my go to movie for sleep). I ended up watching the whole thing and an episode of Law & Order before I drifted back to sleep.

Khubla doesn't think this game is
very interesting. But I do.

Got up this morning and was a little pissed. It was raining and chilly in LA. HELLO?!?! I just left cold and dreary and was very much looking forward to returning back to my 72 degrees and sunny. Chef reminded me this morning that it's the LA winter. Patchy rain for weeks. Oh well. I guess it's time to bust out my cute "winter" clothes.

And now I'm blogging while listening to the Colts game. As you can see from the picture, Khubla has lost interest in the game and cheering on the Colts. He's a typical bandwagon hopper, and he's hopping off. But not me. I'm in it through the joys and pain. And this season is my penance for years of success.
At least there's chili simmering on the stove to console me.

Happy Sunday!

How I Deal With Beauty Products Now That I'm Older

When I was younger, I would try just about any new beauty product out there that had lofty promises and a good before and after picture. But now that I'm getting older, I'm getting wiser. I've learned a few things that I think have inevitably saved me tons of money and made me a lot happier with the products that I buy. Here's what I've learned:

• Products only do about 25% of what they claim to do. That number is higher for some people and lower for others. For me, I've found that if I take the claim on the box and adjust my expectations to 25%--and still want to buy the product, that I'll be happier in the end.
• Wait a week before being excited about something. I've had quite a few things that I loved after the first day or two to find out that I wasn't so excited a week in when my skin, hair, body or whatever got used to it. The rule of diminishing returns, I guess.
• Buy the product that smells the best to you. I've bought perfumes because Chef liked them and I was only so-so on. Turns out after a few wearings, he wasn't so excited about it and I was stuck with a perfume that I only tolerated. If you have a product that makes you happy when you smell it or that you love the smell of, it can only work 5-10 percent as well as it should and you don't feel like you threw your money out because at least the smell makes you happy.

What got me thinking about this? I did a mini-at-home spa day this morning. It's raining, I had just worked out and our plans of going to Culver City for pizza was traded in for basketball and movies at home with delivery Chinese food. (a good swap, I'd say). So, I took a long steamy bath and rub, scrubbed, and lotioned up with some of my favorite products (not that you don't know this, but I clearly don't get paid to mention these things):

• bumble and bumble true red shampoo: Recommended by my stylist for keeping the new red hair looking red. Smells okay (kinda like patchouli) but works pretty well and is really mild.
• bumble and bumble golden blonde conditioner: Again, not the greatest smell, but works to make my hair not TOO red.
  
• Pacifica Indian Coconut Nectar Body wash and body butter: I got it in a gift set from Sephora. It smells like coconut frosted cupcakes which for me spells WINNER in a product.
• Fresh Brown Sugar Body Polish: Smells delicious and the sugar fades away. A little oily for some people, but my skin drinks it in.
• Morrocanoil Restorative Hair Mask: My poor damaged hair drinks it in. I only use it once a week (same for the body polish) but I can always tell a difference for two days after I use it.
• The original Morrocanoil Oil Treatment: I put a few drops on my hair every morning before I blow dry. It actually does do a couple of things for me: 1) it makes my poor, damaged, dry hair look shiny and have moisture. 2) It takes me less time to dry my hair when I use it. Seriously. A noticeable difference.

So, that was my morning of relaxation. The next one will be in a few weeks when I get another massage. Why another one? Well other than the obvious, I also have a coupon for a 90 minute massage for the price of a 60 minute one. Not too shabby!

Hope your Sunday is just as relaxing. I have to get back to doing little to nothing but cheering on basketball teams of my favor and catching up on this week's TV shows.

Rainy Days and Sickness Get Me Down

It's raining again in LA. That's enough to make at least 10 percent of the 8 million SoCal residents act like idiots on the road. Chef and I went out this morning (because you can usually avoid just about any crowd by doing things before noon in LA), and got back to the house a little before 2 p.m. --right before the rain started falling.

The thing about rainy LA days are that they seem so rare that it almost gives you permission to be lazy. Add to that the fact that I've been fighting various kinds of illness all week and it was enough to say "Let's stay at home and watch movies."

Seriously, I can't seem to shake feeling sick. Never bad enough to warrant anything other than going to be bed early, but still. Not cool. I had a full blown cold on Sunday--cold but running a fever, lethargic, and stuffed up. So, I went to bed and stayed in bed until I got up for work on Monday. I fought the cold with daily doses of Theraflu, DayQuil and NiQuil.

That worked for the most part, but the cold then turned into major allergies. I think it's the moisture around here that flipped the switch. I sneezed in my office all day on Thursday and Friday. It's not so professional to have toilet paper hanging out of your blazer pocket, but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do.

The congestion is still residing in my nasal passages, but luckily the sound like a man voice is gone. I'm still taking Afrin and shivering in the "cold." I know 55 degrees isn't cold. But with some rain and a wind, the chill through the bone is enough to have me and Chef under blankets.

I know the rain is supposed to be here tomorrow too, but I'm hoping for at least some sunshine on Monday. My visitors deserve the best of what California has to offer.

Rain Makes Me Nervous

It started raining yesterday in LA. Not that rain is exceptionally noteworthy, but it was the first overcast day since we moved here. And the sprinkles started and then some heavy rain, but nothing I'd consider a downpour or anything of that nature. '

However, it was about 4 a.m. when I started hearing what sounded like waves outside our bedroom window. We're close the ocean in a sense that we are only about 15 miles away from the coast, but 15 miles is not nearly enough to hear the lapping of water on sand.

I looked out the window to see cars on the road next to our apartment slowing down (if they had enough time) and skidding through flooded street. The wave sound was the sound of the water lapping against the parked cars on the side of the street. We live near a busy street. It's 3 lanes on each side. We've also come to realize that we live with people who aren't used to flash flooding.

By the time I woke up and got out of bed, the flooding had subsided and the street was wet, but passable. The rains had dwindled and it looked like a soggy day. However, around 11 a.m. they kicked back up again and by early afternoon, you couldn't see road for about half a block. The water was standing about 8 inches high.

As entertaining as it was to watch all these cars come to a screeching halt in time to see their cars under a huge spray, it also made me nervous. Anyone who lived in Nashville in May knows what I'm talking about. It was during the flood that I learned it only takes a foot of water to sweep away a car. That rains can become raging rapids in less time than it takes to get to the supermarket 4 blocks away. There's a point when you start wondering if you have flood insurance. Realizing that even if you do have flood insurance, the roof might collapse from all the rain collected on it. That while being a part of history is fun, it's much more enjoyable in, say, a witnessing a no-hitter kind of way instead of a being a part of a 100 year flood kind of way.

They say Los Angeles hasn't had rain like this in a decade. Well, I'm tired of being a part of memorable weather. The next history-making weather I want to be a part of is the longest streak of consecutive 72 degree and sunny days in Southern California history. Of course, I'll have to wait another 4 days for that to begin as the rain isn't supposed to let up until Thursday.

I know those of you suffering in snow have little sympathy, but I thought I'd vent nonetheless.

I'm On A Boat

If you haven't been in Nashville lately, I'd avoid it unless you're a fan of being stranded or water sports. We knew it was going to rain all weekend, but I for one wasn't expecting the Arc-building floods that we've been hit with. Nearly 12 inches of rain in 48 hours--that's about 25% of our annual rain fall.

Needless to say, our sewers and bridges weren't really prepared for this. There was a mobile home floating down the Interstate yesterday. Luckily, despite living on a first floor apartment, Chef and I have been spared for the majority of the calamity. Our first floor apartment was actually built about 6 feet off the ground--thank you, engineers! We've had a drip from above that's evidence of a leak, but it's small and of all places, dripping into the sink. We're not part of the 21,000 without power in the county or without suitable drinking water. I went to the grocery store Saturday morning before it really hit. The only complaint we really have is the lack of good TV on to pass the time.

Either way there were a dozen or so boats deployed today by the metro emergency management agency to help rescue others who saw the standing or rushing waters and thought "That doesn't look so bad" only to realize that it was that bad. Which made me think that this is the only time that people don't really want to be on a boat. Right, T-Pain?