Ok actually, I still look greasy and disheveled, but some more thought has evolved about times where I may not.
On the Chaya front, somebody went through a bit of a growth spurt and got tall and mature and stuff. We have a front-facing, pixie-haired preschooler in our lives now.
The daddy-daughter haircut day was surprisingly smooth. We went to Hair Mechanix in downtown Mt Vernon. Kind of a sleek and fun barber shop, but boy did they nail the essence of toddler hair cutting: quick, unobstrusive and non-threatening. Chaya sat in my lap and squirmed around a bit, while our tactical genius struck with laser like precision at whatever swathe of scalp was exposed.
And it was a needed shearing:
Before... was getting a little rabid. And covered in all sorts of strange materials.
After...
Very pert. Much easier to handle. The stylist asked if I wanted a lock of her hair to save. I said the we'd already had to cut out ratted pieces off the back, so no sentiment required here.
But enough about Chaya's crazy hair!
On Chaya's very first day of Preschool, I rushed home and sent in a big honkin' application packet for a job. Not just any job: a professional job that sounded like a perfect fit for me. It so inspired me that I actually re-activated myself with the Washington State Bar Association. This means that this year will be spent tracking down all the free CLE credits I can cram into nap times and maybe actually still having to attend something somewhere. But I get ahead of myself.
Just the idea of doing this was a major paradigm shift and it's rocked the cobwebs from my hydroxozine befuddled stupor apace.
So far, I'm not feeling like the job opportunity is going to go anywhere. I've since updated that recalcitrant employment email address a few times (hey I'm an attorney again... hey I've been thinking about you... you look really nice in that gray sweater... hey is this still your number?) without response. Disappointed to not even here a "we got your stuff, thanks." But nonprofits and all.
Still even contemplating such a step has numerous reverberations in my domestic blissitude. I had to think about so many logistical challenges and things I would or wouldn't do if I were to be back in work that the work product lingers.
And the wheels have begun to twist and turn.
And a few logistical ponders:
Chaya's done great with preschool. That was really reassuring for somebody who was applying ot possibly need a lot more of it. Given the hours requirement of the job application, I could likely have worked in 4-5 days of morning preschool. That seemed totally feasible to me, if sad ot lose that time.
And I suddenly thought "if we both have to be out of the house for a certain period of time, I'm getting a cleaning service!" Little things, but just the thought was intriguing.
I'm back to thinking that I'll use Chaya's preschool day to fit in my medical appointments, tidy the house, and maybe have a quick bit of rest. But should anything require me to regularly be out of the house, it would be kind of nice to have a thorough cleansing of the household. While I might want to be home... less so. It's still a pain having somebody go through your house.
I am nowpondering the option of taking on another attorney's contract in June 2019. Part time, in court for at-risk-youth. But it has a major couple of downsides. Still, it's opened up the pondering. and that of course perpetuates the keeping-an-eye out side of things. As well as making me reconsider taking that GAL training for the CLE credits and seeing where it goes from there. We'll see. But of course there are hurdles.
Extra exciting eczema in the real world:
My hands still suck. They cycle through better and worse, but it's never really cleared or fully abated. It's quite limiting. Being in anything remotely like a warm room causes a major flare. A rise in body temperature causes a flare. I mostly have to wear gloves because too much abrasion is agonizing (and it keeps the moisturizer in). Aridity causes a flare. Heating causes a flare. Poor sleep never helps, but of course that's cyclical enough that I'm leaning on some anti-histamine sleep aids to keep any shoes from dropping. I'm closing in on a dermatology appointment and hoping for something that will allow me to "manage" my condition without living in a slightly chilled clean room with an array of cotton gloves.
This is a condition that doesn't really get "cured" (honey-smoked, maybe, but not cured). I don't quite know what made things erupt so angrily after a pretty conclusive dormancy, but there we are. Hope springs eternal that "avoiding triggers" means something a little less than "never doing anything that raises my body temperature above slightly shivery ever again." But if not, offices are going to be kind of miserable.
One facet is being addressed in a different way. Since I started weaning Chaya things have seemed awfully "off" hormonally. And things got worse after she was fully weaned. I started getting my pregnancy "flame ear" and waking up in the middle of the night completely overheated. Any heat made my head hurt, my hands swell, and my stomach to turn a bit. It wasn't the traditional hot flash, but everything pestilential annoyance of pregnancy that wasn't directly related to having a large object crowding out my internal organs. In the midst of my "my hands are driving me nuts" and "this looks kind of weird to us but we're not really experts" I insisted strongly that some of this seemed hormonal to me, considering.
Blood tests confirmed: (1) I don't appear to have an autoimmune disorder of which to speak, (2) I have the same wonk-ass hormones I had pre-conception but they're angrier now! Or at least they were unmedicated in this version of wonk-ass. I'm not menopausal, but I have virtually zero estrogen in my system. Guess what causes almost every single "symptom" I've complained of in the last several months? Hypoestrogenism. I don't think it will cure things, but I think the hormonal switch up definitely triggered some serious crap. So at any rate, I am now taking estradiol while I await another meeting with another specialist: my reproductive endorcrinologist is back on the agenda for next week. I somewhat suspect she'll tell me to get on birth control instead of cycling through several more years of HRT.
Of course many people fault birth control with worsening their eczema, so that doesn't thrill me, but hormones do play a part. And they definitely impact the "flushes" of whatever kind. I don't know if getting my hormonal flora back in place will cure my heat intolerance, but it will hopefully mitigate it.
I was also thinking that I'd make use of a spritzer of water, some aloe gel, and a small fan to keep myself cool in an office. Not the ideal thing to constantly get damp, but heat really doesn't work for me.
Anyways... enough about my weird health... no... wait... one more thing.
Style:
Gloves - I did actually realize that my graying cotton gloves are off-putting. And I was thinking about how I'd manage that in an interview or professional setting. I feel like when you have to start a conversation with "Don't worry, it's not contagious" or "No, I'm not a mime," you may have already lost.
I discovered "UV Summer Driving gloves" - there's a huge trend for these summer UV gloves. And they are a but more attractive.
See my Pinterest board here:
Because recent developments pulled me into Pinterest. I appear to be about four years behind the game on Pinterest, so I feel like somebody's grandmother discovering Facebook, but it finally makes sense to me! It's like when I was little and would go through catalogs to circle all the things I wanted. It's magical fantasyland. Or a horrifying place of crafts, eating-disorder-inspiring sayings, and weird recipes. You choose your own adventure through pinning like crazy.
.... and
... An Ounce of Pinterest is Worth a Pound of (Carefully) CURE(ated by a Personal Stylist Online Shopping:
I dress like a homeless yoga student most days. I once had the option of "cleaning up nice" but then I bounded up up up the scale lickety split (thanks, Doctors - nothing necessarily improved except the extra space in my wardrobe). I've been dilatory to redress (har har) this gaping hole in my sartorial splendor, because... because shopping. Shopping sucks. It's depressing. It's full of missteps. Oh and trying on clothes is more than psychologically challenging: naturally that aggravates my hands.
And thus new ideas were born. I was mentioning the whole Netflix-for-clothes subscription model to Andrew a few weeks ago. This is where you pay a membership fee and basically rent/check out clothes from a service. You pick clothes out. They make it easy to return. When you're done, you send them in and you get a new box. There's something really appealing about this model. I see it as one way of handling fast fashion: you constantly acquire and keep up with clothes that fit and fit trends but without shoveling through the corpses of fashions and sizes past. Plus, no laundry! You wear something and send it back. It's the 21st Century Version of having a few domestic servants or a good laundry service. I looked into Le Trunk, but they charge a fair amount and I'm kind of not feeling up to a $80 a month clothing budget in this lifestyle.
Andrew went searching and we found a trove of clothing subscription services.
He got sucked into Stitch Fix, which is a little different. This sends you a personally styled box based on your answers to an involved survey. You have three days to try the items (a blend of accessories, casual and formal wear). If you like any of it, you buy the stuff you like and keep. Anything you don't like, you send back. You can sign up to have a quarterly regular box. Or a weekly regular box. Or just manual. And when returning items, you get a chance to given feedback, so theoretically your stylist improves on their guesses each time. The personality test alone is worth trying it out. But this is where pinterest came into being. They let you link to your Pinterest fashion board. I have built a beautiful virtual wardrobe now. None of it likely fits or would ever fit into my life, but my online Pinterest avatar is very styling
So we're having a Cheesecake-clothing pact to try Stitch Fix out. And I picked up a free trial membership to Gwynnie Bee from a friend's referral. This is more of the clothing-rental model.
So far, I've received two pairs of pants through Gwynnie Bee and expect my first Stitch Fix fixer-upper on Tuesday.
Gwynnie Bee. Is an amazing service though not one I'll stick with past the free trial. There are a few reasons for this.
The primary reason is that I'm not exactly plus sized (they cater exclusively to women size 10 and up). I do have long legs and full enough hips to qualify for their services but only sort of. Turns out that many brands that cater to plus sized women are also more prone to vanity sizing. So I am a size 12 or 14 in theory but not so much in practice. And no other part of my body fits plus sized, so my options are limited. Andrew says I'm not pear-shaped so much as cello-shaped. I'll take it.
The other issue is that the perfume in whatever they use to launder their clothes reeks to high heaven. I won't even speculate on what that does to my skin. My eyes and nose alone were burning after an hour or two in my first pair. Definitely will be washing before wearing in the future. Which kind of negates one of the appeals of rental clothing (never do laundry again!)
I give credit that they make the process easy. As soon as you're done you fill out a quick "I'm done and I did/didn't like these" and then seal the clothes up in a provided purple shipping bag. Complications may arise when your toddler decides the purple bag is the most awesome to ever... But with much distraction and some tears, you can extract it and jam it straight into the mail.
Of course I'm not sure I need nice clothes if I'm toddling. Though I'm tempted to drop the kid at preschool and run home to change into a complicated outfit with many pointy accessories and then just sit there sipping kombucha (not really big on wine coolers) for a few hours...
I hear fermented stuff helps with the eczema (that or a plumber... something about leaky guts)
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