Now like many people I was always under the impression that all shampoos were the same, let me just buy whatever is on sale or smells good. For a very long time I just would buy pantene shampoo and conditioner, after a while I could feel how dry my hair was getting. I thought it was due to the fact I was dying my hair on a regular bases. After talking to my hairstylist, telling her what products i was using she explained how bad pantene was on my hair. Apparently it leaves a waxing layer on your hair which was why my hair started to feel so dry.
I tried a couple different brands that were made for hair that had dye in it, ladies always ask your hairdresser for product recommendations. Mine gave me brands that were sold in her salon and others I could buy elsewhere. I did my research since i wanted to fix the damage i did to my hair and i found a couple brands i really liked. Of course i have my go to brand now, which does not damage my hair. I have been so passionate about this topic I have actually talked a couple of friends into switching their products. I do not push them into the products I use but something that would be better on their hair. I have actually had a couple friends come back and agree that switching to a better brand was just what they needed for their hair.
Now you may be wondering what brands have i tried, well the brands are Sebastian Drench and Sexy Hair. My go to products are the Healthy Sexy Hair Moisturizing Shampoo & Conditioner.
I have found Sebastian Drench on both Amazon and Groupon for really good prices and I actually tend to buy the Healthy Sexy Hair products from Macy’s on sale. Hair products can be a little expensive but if you do a little digging you can normally find a good sale.
Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would enjoy gardening, I do not like dirt, never have been an outdoors person. As I mentioned in a previous post I am trying to step outside my comfort zone. Before it was getting out for a walk which sounds crazy to some but to me it was a step hopefully in the right direction. I decided a little while ago I wanted my backyard to feel pretty for a change, this has also given me a great distraction during a really gloomy time.
I knew I needed a garden bed. It makes life a lot easier when you decide to finally get a little dirt under your nails. If you are like me who needs something very simple and easy without needing to figure out how to nail part A to section B then I have the garden bed for you make sure to scroll to the bottom to see the links I attached. The next step is figuring out what I wanted to plant, I have always loved colorful flowers. The bright vibrant colors just make me happy. I also wanted to try my hand at vegetables because why not this is the time to try new things and if i fail at least i gave it a shot.
I decided to make my own little what I have named the Italian garden. I bought some Tomatoes, Basil, Hot Peppers, Garlic and some spinach. I went to my local garden center and bought all the plants except the spinach which I ended up deciding to do a challenge and I got seeds. I planted the vegetables in the center of the garden bed, and then lined the edges of the bed with flowers. I did a combination of some seeds and then planted a couple plants as well. I fell in love with one type of plant called Celosia. There are so many different bright colors for this plant. How could I not get a couple plants. I also planted Marigolds seeds which are supposed to help keep bugs away.
The very last photo is the comparison of a month different with my garden box from when i first planted everything to now with everything growing a little. I can not wait to see how much my little garden truly grows.
Let’s talk carbs, as a jersey girl who comes from an Italian American household, carbs are a part of your everyday life. Bread and butter was the go to snack when you were waiting for dinner or you ate it with dinner. Sunday pasta days, pizza during lent on Friday’s. Now you may wonder, so if she’s been eating carbs since birth basically how on earth could she give them up because that’s basically what i did.
April 2019 I made the decision that I needed to change up my diet, and work to lose weight. I also found out due to the issues with my neck i really could not workout so focusing on what i was eating was all i could really do. The first month was the biggest struggle of my life, what could I eat, what should I eat, how many carbs were in xyz.
Everyone who stops eating carbs for different reasons, some due to an allergy some for diet or just a lifestyle/ health change. When i started down this no carb path it was strictly for diet reasons. I figured let me drop some weight, reset my body, get in a good rhythm of healthy eating and i can go back to eating my italian bread and butter whenever i want. Well I was so wrong with that mindset. What started out on a diet journey became a health journey.
Slowly the longer I was not consuming carbohydrates the better my body felt and then when i “slipped” and ate something like bread, pizza, pasta anything along those lines i would start to feel horrible. I would feel heavy and sluggish, something i never noticed before when i was eating whatever i felt like. Before i gave up carbohydrates i had arthritis flare ups in my ankle so bad at one point i thought i had actually fractured it. I went back to my doctor in january after giving up carbohydrates for almost a year at that point and she told me there wasn’t any sign that I even had arthritis in my ankle.
Now i am not saying giving up carbohydrates is the thing to do, because everyone is different and everyone works differently. All I am doing is sharing my experience and my perspective, this is what ended up working for me. If you haven’t figured out by now i’m not going back to the carb lifestyle, cauliflower has become my best friend. I love cauliflower pizza and it’s my guilty pleasure. If I want pasta I do like chickpea or lentil pasta which has a lot less carbohydrates. Sometimes when i need a break from everything i will do a meal or a day where i just eat vegetables, roasted or raw though i have always loved veggies even before i switched up my diet.
Within one year with only really exercising the last two maybe three months very lightly i was able to lose 32 pounds. Since hitting the one year mark I have continued to lose weight which is a really amazing feeling. If i can figure out what works best for me then i know anyone can figure it out for themselves.
I have never been super interested in skin care or what i should be using in the morning, what i should be using at night on my skin. I felt like it was a waste of time and energy, what did it really matter if i had a morning skin care routine compared to a night routine. As long as i was washing my face in the morning and at night shouldn’t that be enough? I used to just wash my face with Dove soup, I always felt like I had really sensitive skin and certain things would cause dryness or issues on my face. I have always struggled with acne, which was always embarrassing thank goodness for makeup at times.
December came around and since i was stuck in a neck brace that i was not allowed to take off at any point in time. Washing my face the regular way was no longer going to happen. This is basically when and how I learned just how important skin care truly is and why you need different types of products.
I started out with a liquid cleanse, something I could use to “waste” my face that was more then at least water. After I figured out a cleanser that worked I discovered how amazing renewal and detox pads really were for my face. I would change up the three products every couple of days just to make sure my skin was not getting too used to anything.
By the time I came out of my neck brace I figured out how amazing skin care really was and learned my lease to why using different types of products is an important thing. My skin has never looked clearer as it does now. A big factor to this was how i was taking care of my skin during my lovely neck brace time.
On December 4th, 2019 I had major surgery on the top of my neck, I had to have my C1-C2 fused together due to nerve and spinal cord damage symptoms. This was one of the most difficult physically, emotionally and mentally things I have had to go through in my entire life. This took about four full months to start to feel close to normal I would have to say. Truthfully I am still recovering both mentally and physically and it’s going to be a long road but hopefully it’s all worth it.
The one thing to realize that you have no control over anything when you are recovering from surgery. How you feel, whether or not the medicine you are given will actually work and how long everything is going to last. Surgery takes a huge toll on a person, you deal with the physical pain from the moment you wake up from surgery until that one day you wake up with real relief. It also can take a heavy toll on you mentally, you can’t escape the pain you feel. The overwhelming feeling of being alone starts to weigh on you, it’s something you can’t really explain to someone who has never been in your shoes.
Recovering from this surgery gave me a different perspective on life, I felt completely trapped, I could not do a thing to make it better and I just had to sit there and hope I’d heal quickly . Having to wear a neck brace 24/7 for about 2 months, in constant pain, makes you feel so powerless. I was lucky I ended up having a really good support group around me between family and friends. As I laid there in pain I thought up all the things I wanted to do when I was healed, played make believe in a sense just to let my mind escape what I was going through. I thought my recovery would go a little quicker than it did, so.
This also gave me a chance to take a step back and see people from a different perspective, who’s going to be there for you during the bad ugly times, who only really around when they need or want something. The older you get, the more wisdom you tend to have. I shouldn’t have to reach out to people on a regular basis when I am the one who is going through so much. Though i’ll touch more on this in a future post, for now i’m just going to focus on how recovery was for me.
Neck surgery was probably the most painful thing I ever detailed, and I really can not express this enough. It was such uncomfortable pain, not being able to figure out how to sleep. There is a lot I’ve learned and taken away from this experience. Figuring out how to eat was a struggle with the neck collar on. I felt like I was choking on my food with a lot of things. What I have learned is that as much as I want to plan things in advance, I have things to look forward to in the long run you really can’t control much when it comes to life. It does not matter how good of a person you may think you are to other people, you really cant expect the same treatment in return.
What perspective have I gained? You may wonder, I learned I need to let go of trying to plan my life and what I want out of it. There will always be a curveball that’s going to mess it up, I used to be a big planner but now I almost feel what’s the point. Let’s just see where the chips lay and take things one step at a time. I’ve also gained a new perspective on my health and how important it is to take care of your body and what you are putting into it. Mental health is also such an important thing to take care of which is something I did not take into consideration before this surgery.
Overall I’d like to think that what I’ve learned and the perspective I’ve gained is most of it good, some not so good but if I could get through this I think I can handle just about anything at this point. Which is something that’s very important to remember when everything just seems to stink. Stop planning what could be your future and just learn the life you are currently in, because those plans could just end up becoming nothing more than make believe in the long run.
I tend to change up my products in the morning depending on how my skin feels. Once a week I will use an exfoliant in the morning as a way to wash my face. My face always feels so much fresher and even lighter after I exfoliate my face.
But on a regular basis I switch between two different face washes, just so my skin doesn’t get used to one product and stop working. The two brands I use are SHISEIDO and zO’ Skin Health, both of which have such amazing products. When it comes to my skin I flip flop between having oily skin to kind of dry skin which can be so frustrating.
SHISEIDO is amazing because it’s so good for both skin types. I use Clarifying cleansing foam, it feels like I’m putting a face mask on. You only need to use a very little bit to truly cover your entire face which is also a plus because that means it product itself will last you a pretty long time. The current bottle was purchased in February and it’s still very full.
zO’ Skin Health I was introduced to multiple products from this brand and i love them all. This cleanser I use is for dry skin, which is why I said I switch between different products. So when i wake up and my skin just feels so dry i’ll normally reach for this product first. This product really does hydrate my skin and make it glow a little more.
Let’s talk about the elephant in the room, I started this blog during quarantine and it is not something I ever expected to go through. Though I’m sure no one ever really thought this will be normal for the time being. It’s a little different for me, I’ve been unfortunately stuck in the house for about six months now since I had surgery in December. The feeling of being bored, sometimes lonely can get very real and overwhelming.
Everyone is handling this whole situation differently and who is to really say what is the right or wrong way to handle everything. I have always been the type where i need to be busy, have something to do so this is a huge adjustment. Since I was stuck in my house months before quarantine was put into place the mental struggle I have been having has been a little different. While I was recovering from surgery the only light at the end of the tunnel was making plans to do things once I was fully healthy. Now all of the going into the city, brunches, rooftop bars or dinners with friends i had been hoping to plan totally went out of the window right now.
So what have I been up to now thats its going into month six that I have been stuck inside of my house. Well now that I am finally mobile and not in pain like I was recovering from surgery. Well I have been coming up with lists of projects, things to keep me busy and productive. This blog has become one of those items which has allowed me to become productive and who knows where this could take me.
Like everyone else I have watched a ton of TV, throwbacks to old series I watched ten years ago. I’ve watched a bunch of new things, I started to draw again, something I haven’t done in probably eight years. Cleaning and reorganizing has become second nature at this point.
One thing that I have learned during all of this is, no matter how hard you try to plan or think you have things figured out something can always just remind you just how unpredictable life truly can be. Hopefully once this all ends I will be able to maintain everything i’ve learned personally through everything.
