I'll Do it Tomorrow

I have a confession to make. I’m a liar. I lie to myself a lot. The biggest lie that I tell myself is that I will do it tomorrow. I’m going to do a lot of things tomorrow, you see, that’s how I ended up writing this blog at the last minute because I thrive on procrastination. I can plan and plan and plan to do things, but it always comes down to the last minute – especially when it comes to my personal life.

The lie, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” has been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember. There are many things that I plan on doing tomorrow that I’ve been telling myself for twenty or more years in favor of doing things that are more pleasant such as relaxing, watching television, or playing on my phone.

This week on the podcast we are discussing the book “Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be” by Rachel Hollis. In the book, Hollis discusses the different lies that we tell ourselves. In the end, Hollis says, there is one truth and that is “you, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.” This is probably my favorite statement in the whole book and it’s right on the first page. As someone that chased “happiness” for years, not realizing that I was chasing the wrong thing, I would often put the blame on external factors and not on myself. “I would be happy if…” or, “I can’t get this done until I accomplish this” and so on and so forth.

So, the takeaway is: take responsibility for…everything! I’m still working on this. The “if” and “can’t” factor is a huge hurdle that I am constantly jumping over, but personal growth doesn’t happen overnight. The message is that we are always a work in progress and we will always make mistakes, but we just have to get up, wash our faces, and live our lives to the fullest.

Here are some of the major lies that I’ve told myself over the years:

• The lie: I’ll publish tomorrow. In high school, I completed my first novel. I wrote it for a school assignment and then decided to expand it. In college, I decided to look into getting it published, and the publisher told me I needed more pages to make it truly a full-length novel. So, I began the editing and expanding process and I have been doing it for twenty years now. I keep telling myself that I will look into self-publishing my novel when I have time to sit down and write. Every year, I try to push myself to complete the process, but I continue to hold myself back. I could give a bunch of excuses why I haven’t published one of my novels or stories such as “time” or “work,” but it’s a lie. I have been holding myself back from publishing my work.
• The lie: I’ll diet tomorrow. This is a big one. I struggle a lot with my weight to the point that I have to be vigilant about what I put in my mouth. My biggest struggle lately is that due to depression and other external factors, I have been off the rails with my diet for the last year. It seems that I will take one step forward to lowering my cholesterol and eating healthier, and one huge step back if I give in to temptation and eat something fried or sweet. I tell myself that yes, I messed up today, but I will start dieting tomorrow. So far, I am only kidding myself.
• The lie: I’ll go to the doctor tomorrow. This lie piggybacks onto the dieting lie. I recently went to the doctor after months of putting it off. I don’t like visiting doctors much, and it always seems like as soon as I find a doctor I like, they move or they quit practicing. Back in August, my insurance company sent word that I would have to find another primary care doctor and, of course, I put it off in favor of doing something else. This was something that my parents struggled with as well – going to the doctor and getting checked out. I can make a list of all the things I hate about visiting the doctor, but I won’t because those are just excuses, action is the only thing that will benefit me in the long run.
• The lie: I’ll deal with my grief tomorrow. My father died in 2017, and my mother died fifteen months later. Since then, I have been running from dealing with my grief and the storage units containing my parents’ belongings. In the back of my mind, I thought that if I put off dealing with their things and my grief that it would go away, but here I am, almost six years later, trying to get up enough courage to open my storage lockers and begin the process of cataloging everything. Many times I have been told that I should be “over it” by now – the death of my parents. This has mostly been told to me by people that still have living parents. I don’t think you ever get over a loss that heavy, but I do know that I can deal with it better than I have been, such as seeking help or talking to someone. I just have to stop telling myself that I will set up an appointment “tomorrow.”
• The lie: I’ll clean the house tomorrow. I have a junk table in my house. It’s a table sitting by the door that I set stuff on as I walk in the front door with the intention of coming back and taking it to its proper place. Most of the time I set stuff on that table and forget about it. Months will go by, and it will still be sitting on that table by the door. Dust will start to collect on that object until, suddenly, it has been there for a year and I pick it up and wonder why it even exists. Most recently, I picked up an unopened envelope from that very table and realized that it was sent to me in mid-November and it is now March. I have lived in my apartment for almost two years, and I guarantee you that I have only cleaned the floors twice in my kitchen. So, I make these grand plans to clean one little thing when I come home from work and then tell myself that I will do it tomorrow because I am too tired today. It’s a vicious cycle that needs to end.

One of my favorite Shakespeare speeches from the play “Macbeth” began with the repetition of the word “tomorrow” and talks about how men put things off until tomorrow until they have no more tomorrows left, only the memory of broken promises. As I write this blog I am reminded that tomorrow is not guaranteed, so we need to start today, and that is the point of getting past the lies we’ve been told (or tell ourselves), so we can become who we are meant to be.

I want to hear from our readers. What lies do you tell yourself? Have you read the book? What did you think? Comment below! 

Literary Witches

Hello everyone! This week on our podcast we are talking about literary witches and literal bitches (boss bitches, that is). Our podcast was inspired by the book Literary Witches A Celebration of Magical Women Writers and the companion oracle deck the Literary Witches Oracle written by Taisia Kitaiskaia and illustrated by Katy Horan.

Literary Witches book and deck

The book reimagines 30 female authors as “true witches: not hook-nosed creatures riding on brooms, but figures of radical creativity, originality, and empowerment.” Kitaiskaia’s book asks the question “what is a witch anyway?” As we concluded on the podcast, a “witch” doesn’t have to be literal, it can be a strong female that makes “magic” in her everyday life. She can be a catalyst for change both literally and figuratively. She is a true boss that demands change. This book is a perfect homage to these writers and the magic they have written.

The literary aspect and the artwork by Horan initially attracted me to this deck. I am always looking for unique decks to add to my collection and this one does not disappoint. Whenever I find a new deck, I feel like the deck “finds” me. I am usually not explicitly looking for a deck when I see one, and this was the case with my “Literary Witches” deck. I do not generally read from oracle decks, but I felt like I had to have this one, being a lover of literature, especially strong, female authors. The artwork by Horan is nothing less than amazing. I am a huge fan of minimalistic art and I like that her artwork features symbols from the writers’ most famous works. For example, Mary Shelley is a featured writer in the deck/book, and her photo is rich with symbolism from Frankenstein, her most famous piece of work.

Mary Shelley is a great example of a writer that made magic in her lifetime. Shelley wrote Frankenstein when she was only 19 years old while on vacation at her friend Lord Byron’s house on Lake Geneva. The weather was horrible and Byron’s houseguests remained inside most of the time, telling ghost stories. Lord Byron issued a challenge to his houseguests which was to write a ghost story better than the stories they read aloud to each other. Thus, Frankenstein was born and so was the first ever science fiction novel. Over two hundred years after the writing of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley continues to inspire writers and filmmakers alike.

Another example of a writer that made magic in her life is my favorite female poet, Emily Dickinson. Dickinson is considered one of the most important figures in American poetry. Most of Dickinson’s poetry was published posthumously by her sister, and she did not become famous for her writing until after her death. At the time, Dickinson’s poetry was groundbreaking in the sense that she heavily used dashes in her poems and slant rhymes, or near rhymes. Dickinson did not follow traditional poetry rules, and most of her poems were heavily edited to conform to the poetry “rules” of the 19th century. It wasn’t until around the 1950s that Dickinson’s poetry was published in its true form. Dickinson and her “no rules” approach to poetry are now appreciated and serve as inspiration to modern poets that don’t fit with traditional poetry rules and standards.

The final female author that I’d like to talk about is an author I learned about in college: Angela Carter. One of the many English electives I took as I was working on my degree was a fairytale class. Angela Carter’s most famous work is called The Bloody Chamber, a book of fairytales and folktales written with a feminist twist. Like most modern children, I grew up on fairytales, especially the Disney versions of fairy tales where the princess is saved by the prince and they both live happily ever after. In Carter’s versions of fairytales, the female often saves herself by taking a more masculine role or she is the villain all along. In her story “The Werewolf,” which is based on “Little Red Riding Hood,” the wolf turns out to be the grandmother all along and Little Red must save herself from her grandmother. In another version of the story called “Wolf Alice,” Alice (Little Red) herself is the wolf. Carter was innovative in the sense that she opened the door for bolder interpretations of fairy tales, inspiring more modern feminist writers.

Literary Witches: A Celebration of Magical Women Writers is an amazing canonization of female writers. These writers truly created magic in their writing and in their lives and this book is a must-read for anyone looking for inspiration in their writing and their feminist studies. The Literary Witches oracle deck is a must-have for any collection.

I want to hear from our readers. Who is your favorite female writer? Who do you consider a “boss bitch?” Let’s continue the conversation below or on our Facebook Page: MMC Chat.

Making Your Bed: A Metaphor for Life

We’ve all been there. We just can’t get it together. We wake up late, throw some clothes on, and leave the house without making our beds.  As the school year nears its end, I confess that I find it harder and harder to wake up in the morning, which makes it challenging to complete my morning routine, including making my bed. Making your bed can be so much more than the act of physically making your bed. 

 

Last September, we podcasted about our daily choices, including “brushing your teeth or taking a shower.” I find that among the choices that I have to make in the morning to avoid running late for work is the choice of making my bed or not. Do I make that choice? I admit, not always. Some days, I just throw the top sheet over the bed and call it “made.” On other days, I take my time to make all the sheets straight, fix my pillows, and smooth out all the wrinkles in the bed. Those are the good days. The days I wake up and have time to do everything I want to accomplish in the mornings, which includes relaxing and having a cup of coffee (rarely happens). As I sleep later and later, I’m lucky even to get fully dressed as I run out the door. Sometimes, the act of physically making my bed is daunting.

Aside from physically making your bed, the concept itself can apply to the consequences of life choices. If you’ve ever heard the phrase, “you’ve made your bed, now lie in it,” this may be due to the fact that you made some sort of choice that didn’t have the best consequence.

Think of your life as a bed. What kind of bed do you have? The type of bed you currently sleep in says a lot about you, and not just how the bed looks and feels, but the appearance. What color comforter do you have? Do you even have one? I currently don’t. I find that it’s easier to wash a quilt over a comforter. Do you decorate your bed? Do you make your bed every day? What kind of pillows do you like? I personally like backrest pillows, but I most recently discovered the most amazing pillows, Memory Foam Cluster pillows, from Walmart that haven’t gone flat since I bought my first one two years ago. I have since replaced all my pillows with that particular pillow.

I have slept on many different types of beds in my life, and they often reflected the different financial situations I was experiencing at the time. For example:

• The first real bed (not a crib) I ever had was a bed that was purchased by my parents. We went to Golden’s Furniture (a place that doesn’t exist anymore), and I looked at all the beds. Eventually, I chose a canopy bed of princess-like quality. The bed was white with pink flowers and a pink canopy. I slept in that same bed and never asked to change it until I moved out of my parent’s house at 18. That bed represented the comfort I had at home and my childhood as an only child and youngest grandchild – the “princess” of the family. As I grew up, the bed didn’t grow with me, and I never asked for a bigger or less-youthful bed.
• After living in a series of dorm rooms, Christen and I moved into our first real apartment, and I chose not to bring the “princess” bed from my room at my parents’ house. Instead, I opted for the cheaper, cooler, college-like futon that I could easily move from bed to couch depending on how much room I wanted in my small apartment bedroom. That bed represented freedom to choose. I bought the bed myself with money from my job at Braum’s, an ice cream shop I worked at while I attended college. That bed also represented the financial instability of a college student on their own. After six months, the bed broke, and I started sleeping on the floor on top of the mattress. I named the bed my “magic carpet” and it was actually quite comfortable after I stacked layers of blankets and comforters on top.
• When I moved to my very own apartment, my parents asked me what I wanted for my birthday/Christmas and I told them I wanted a real bed because I was finally tired of sleeping on the floor. I didn’t want my childhood bed, but a real, comfortable bed. My parents and I went bed shopping. We ended up at a place that also doesn’t exist anymore called Mattress Outfitters. The salesman didn’t see my mom coming that day. After a couple of hours of my dad and meI laying on every bed in the store, we left with a brand-new bed about half the price that it was originally priced for, a mattress protector, and a bed frame my mom talked the salesman into giving us for free. I had never slept on anything so comfortable. The bed felt amazing and I felt like I had upgraded in life (with the help of my parents, of course). The bed represented coming back into the fold. At that point in my life, I had dropped out of college for a couple of years and was working at Dillard’s, selling shoes. My grandmother talked me into going back to college, so I moved to a tiny two-room apartment across the street from the University of North Texas and started taking classes that fall. I kept that bed through the rest of college and my first teaching job.
• The next bed I slept on was the most uncomfortable couch in my grandmother’s living room. A few years after I graduated college, my mother had a series of strokes and became very ill. I was substitute teaching and living in the most expensive apartment I’d ever lived in, struggling to pay the bills. I quit my job and put everything I owned in storage to move in with my grandmother and take care of my mom. I spent two and a half months sleeping in hospital chairs, hospital couches, and, sometimes, my car, driving back and forth from the hospital to my grandmother's house (an hour away). I slept on the couch for about six months before my cousins helped me clean out my grandmother’s sewing room enough to take my bed out of storage. The couch represented a disruption in my life that eventually was overcome. After I was able to move into my grandmother’s sewing room and my mom was able to somewhat take care of herself, I found a local teaching job.
• When my ex-husband and I got our first house, we bought a used king-sized bed that wasn’t very comfortable. I had always thought that you finally made it in life if you could afford a king-size bed. I traded in my comfortable, small bed, for an uncomfortable king-size one. This bed represented my first marriage. It was something that I thought I wanted, but I sacrificed my comfort and peace for it. The bed was difficult to maintain and move during the many moves I endured in that marriage. When I moved after my divorce, I left that bed on the side of the road. That also meant I didn’t have a bed moving into my post-divorce apartment, the first apartment I had lived in since my mom had her strokes eight years before.
• This brings me to my current bed. It’s not the most comfortable bed that I’ve slept in, but it represents the uncomfortable moments that I went through to get to this bed. It also represents freedom from the struggles I had gone through to get to this bed. I had finally made a bed that I was comfortable lying in. After my divorce, I had no credit. It took me months to find an apartment that would accept me for who I was and the money that I independently made. I had barely any furniture to place in that apartment (I still don’t) and I was driving my grandmother’s car. My uncle offered me the brand new bed that he bought to place in my mom’s old room. My grandmother had recently moved to the nursing home and didn’t have a use for the bed. I jumped at this opportunity because I could barely afford to move into a new place much less buy a new bed.

What does all of this say about me? My current bed is pretty basic, but I have spent almost two years making it into the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in. After my divorce, I decluttered my existence where only the basics of who I am exist and that includes my bed. I opt for a simple quilt in aesthetically pleasing colors. Underneath, I alternate between a micro plush blanket and a sherpa blanket, depending on the temperatures outside. I cover my bed with the most comfortable and colorful pillows of various shapes and sizes. Do I always make my bed? It depends on my time and mood, but I can tell you that I feel better when I get into a freshly made bed at night. My cats even prefer a freshly made bed with clean sheets. So, I do like to take that time in the morning.

Making your bed and lying in it has meant many different things to me over the years. I love my current bed and have no problem lying in it. Can that bed be improved? I work on improving it every day, little by little. 

I want to hear from our readers. Do you make your bed every day? Are you comfortable with the bed you are lying in? What are some things you can do to improve your current situation? Comment below!

Women in STEM

Hello everyone! Last Saturday (February 11) was International Day of Women and Girls in Science. This week on the podcast, we are looking at women in STEM and talking about the movie Hidden Figures. If you need clarification on what STEM means, it means Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.

International Day of Women and Girls in Science is an annual observance adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to promote equal access to women in STEM fields. In comparison to males, women are largely underrepresented in the science and technology fields. But why are women so denigrated in these fields?

According to the United Nations, only one in three scientific researchers are women, and when they are able to research, they are given smaller grants than men. Women are also easily passed over for promotion compared to men and their research careers tend to be shorter. Women are particularly unaccounted for in the scientific field of Artificial Intelligence at only 22%. The United Nations attributes the low number of women working in STEM-related fields to gender stereotypes as the main cause.

Sima Bahous, head of the UN Women, the UN entity dedicated to gender equality and empowerment of women, states that gender stereotypes can be “found embedded in curricula, textbooks, and teaching and learning practices. The choices imposed upon girls in school shape their careers and employment opportunities as adults.” Bahous believes that the only way to change the picture for women in STEM is a “paradigm shift” which includes acknowledging and removing potential barriers that hinder women’s progress in STEM careers. Bahous also believes that “educational reform” is also needed to foster curiosity in scientific discoveries. Aside from educational reform, other ways schools can recruit future female scientists include scholarships, internships, mentorships, and incentives. 

These things are a good start for an education in STEM but encouragement at home is also needed. In my personal experience, I was never encouraged to pursue a career that was in a male-dominated field. My parents only encouraged me to pursue a “female career” such as teaching and nursing, and encouragement definitely starts at home. When I was a child, I raised and bred rabbits. My constant work with animals began an interest in veterinary sciences at a young age. If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was always a veterinarian, which was a highly male-dominated field at the time (the late 90s), according to an article by Today’s Veterinary Practice. 

Today, however, women veterinarians dominate over men at a whopping 63% according to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Eventually, I gave up on science and started pursuing writing (which was also discouraged by my parents) and eventually a teaching certification. I wish that I had been encouraged to pursue science when I was younger.

I still enjoy science, especially astronomy, and psychology. I hope to one day get my Master’s degree in psychology with a focus on school counseling. One of my goals for this year is to complete my essay and start applying for Spring 2024.

I would like to hear from our readers. Have you seen the movie Hidden Figures? Do you enjoy science? What female pioneers in the scientific field do you admire the most? Please, let’s continue the conversation below!

Self-care is the Best Care

Hello everyone! This week on the podcast, we are talking about what we do for self-care and why self-care is important. What is self-care? According to the Global Self-Care Federation, self-care is defined as “the practice of individuals looking after their own health using the knowledge and information available to them. It is a decision-making process that empowers individuals to look after their own health efficiently and conveniently, in collaboration with health and social care professionals as needed.” Simply, take care of yourself.

Why is this such a problem for people? As I’ve learned in life, not taking care of yourself will simply kill you. That’s the bottom line. My mother was great at taking care of things. My dad, grandma, and I (and her pets) were her world. She didn’t eat until everyone else ate. She spent endless hours making sure my grandmother ate, took her pills, watched her favorite shows, and took a bath to the point that she sometimes forgot to do those things for herself. My mom didn’t eat the things she wanted to eat; she always let everyone else choose. My mom didn’t do the activities she wanted to do; she went along with what I wanted to do. Her family and friends were her world, and when she wasn’t spending time with us, she was at work for endless hours (until she was forced to medically retire). My mom ran ragged worrying about other people and oftentimes neglected her health. As a result, she suffered a series of strokes at the age of 59 and eventually died of heart failure just shy of her 64th birthday.

I, too, was going down the same path as my mother. I had just turned 30 when my mother suffered her strokes, and I moved in with her and my grandmother to take care of them; it was like my life turned upside down. Before that, I lived alone and I had a routine. I woke up at a certain time every day, took my medication, ate at a certain time, followed a daily regime of skincare, and went to the gym regularly. I put all of my things in storage and started sleeping on my grandmother’s extremely uncomfortable couch when I wasn't sleeping in a chair at the hospital. Eventually, with the help of my cousins, I was able to move a bed into my grandmother’s sewing room, but this was after months of sleeping where and when I could, showering whenever I had the chance, and eating from the hospitality station next to my mom’s hospital room…which consisted mainly of yogurt and cheese sticks.

After my mom eventually got well enough that she didn’t need someone attending her 24/7, I was able to start working again. However, in my new place, it was hard to get back into the strict routine that I had. Unfortunately, I had let myself go. I gained weight, I started breaking out, and I became too comfortable with a sedentary life. As the years passed, I slowly slipped into putting others’ needs above my own and eventually began to lose myself in the needs of others. 

After my separation in 2020, I began to slowly pick up those routines again. I started a strict skincare routine of cleansing my face daily and applying shea butter lotion to the rough skin that had developed on my arms and legs. I started giving myself regular pedicures and manicures and wearing the right makeup that didn’t break me out. Other than that I started dressing for my body type and picking up old hobbies that I had lost over the years. Slowly, I began to feel satisfied with myself again. I started working my way out of the slump that I let myself fall into. Eventually, I started eating better as well. Is everything perfect? No. Do I need to go to the doctor more? Yes. Will I get back to the routine that I want in my life, taking years of time and effort? For sure. But, I have given myself a level ground to continue on because I can still be there for other people and maintain myself. That is the takeaway. You can be both. You do not have to be one or the other.

I want to hear from our readers. How do you practice self-care? Do you have any self-care tips that you want to share? Please comment below!

The Secret Is...

In this week's podcast, we talked about the seven secrets to a perfect holiday. The word “perfect” is relative. I’ve learned over the years that perfect doesn’t exist if you set your expectations too high. Something will always go wrong. I want to say the biggest secret in my mind is that there is no secret to a perfect holiday.

One of the most memorable holidays I had with my family was one of those holidays where everything seemed to go wrong. I call it the “Great Pumpkin Disaster.” That year, my grandmother, my mom, and I decided to make a trio of pumpkin desserts: Pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, and pumpkin cupcakes. 

My grandmother is a perfectionist when it comes to all things pumpkin. She is always the one to make the pumpkin desserts. In fact, she never lets anyone in the kitchen when she is cooking. On the flip side, she won’t let anyone cook in the kitchen without her (because it is her kitchen). So, it was nearly impossible to cook your own recipe without her input. That being said, maybe I could have used her input that Christmas, but I was always irritated when I tried to cook in the kitchen and she constantly hovered over me. My grandmother used to say, “Too many cooks in the kitchen...”

My mom and I cooked first working on our pumpkin bread and cupcakes while kicking my grandma out of the kitchen multiple times. I love making cupcakes and it was the first time I had ever made pumpkin cupcakes. The result was pretty disappointing. My cupcakes sank in the middle and only a few turned out edible. I didn’t understand what was wrong. It had to be something wrong with my grandmother’s oven, but no one believed me. Next, my mom’s pumpkin bread came out of the oven as hard as a brick but still, no one believed me that there was something wrong with the oven. My grandmother claimed it was because we wouldn’t let her help us.

Finally, my grandmother made her pumpkin pies, and they almost caught fire in the oven, leading to hysteria in the kitchen as we prepped for Christmas dinner. My grandmother didn’t want to believe that it was an oven problem and swore that it was because she wasn’t cooking. When she pulled the pies out of the oven, they were completely black. My mom and I busted out laughing at the situation. My grandmother got so angry that she took a piece of my mom’s “brick” pumpkin bread and threw it at her head. My mom, in return, grabbed a cupcake and threw it at my grandma. That turned into an all-out war in the kitchen and throughout the house. We started chasing each other and throwing bits of pumpkin at each other until all three of us were covered and we had a huge mess to clean up.

I think back to that day whenever I bake any of my grandmother’s pumpkin recipes. We had to buy our dessert that year, but the memories of that Christmas with my mom and grandma will last a lifetime.

I want to hear from our readers. What is your perfect holiday? What are your holiday secrets? Let’s continue the conversation below. Have a wonderful holiday!

A Basic Skincare Routine

Hello! This week on the blog we are talking about our favorite facial skincare routines and why you should have one. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t always have the best skincare routine, especially when my daily flow is interrupted. When that is the case, I usually get off my routine and have to pick it back up again. I’m inconsistent but I’m trying to be better as I get older.

I have susceptible skin, and it changes throughout the year, so it is trial and error when it comes to my skin to find products my skin will tolerate. Over the years I have tried many different companies, searching for the best skincare products using beauty subscription boxes such as Birchbox™ and BoxyCharm™. After years of searching, I have finally decided that Clinique™ has some of the best products out there. 

Clinique™ was actually the brand that I started my skincare journey with years ago. If anything, I like consistency and my mother and my grandmother were avid users of Clinique™. When I was a freshman in high school, my mom took me to the Clinique™ counter and she showed me the different products they had to offer and how to use them. Since then, I have always been faithful to their makeup and their blemish control system, AcneSolutions™. It wasn’t until about 10 years ago that I felt like I needed to amp up my skincare routines.

The one thing I try to stay consistent about daily is my moisturizer. I have Rosacea, which is a facial skin condition causing redness. One of the best moisturizers that I have found to help with my rosacea is called Redness Solutions Daily Relief Cream™ by Clinique™. I can tell a visible difference whenever I use the product consistently or switch between products (which often causes a breakout). I use my moisturizer twice a day after washing my face with a mild facial cleanser. One thing I like about this product is that it leaves my face feeling soft, unlike other moisturizers that I have used, which leave my face feeling dry.

Aside from an overall moisturizer, I also use an eye cream for the dark circles under my eyes. My favorite eye cream is also by Clinique™ from their All About Eyes™ eye cream line. Their eye products are the only products that I’ve tried that visibly reduce my eye puffiness in the morning, especially if I consistently use them every day.

My routine isn’t extensive but it helps keep my rosacea and eye puffiness at bay. My key to success is consistency. After years of trying, I found products and routines that work for my skin. The best advice I can give to those looking to try out new skincare routines is to try a beauty subscription box like the ones I mentioned above and see what products work for you.

I want to hear from our readers. What are your favorite skincare routines? Do you struggle with keeping routines? Let’s continue the conversation below.

Listing, an Obsession

This week on the podcast, we talked about list making and the different types of lists that we make. Have you ever wondered why people make lists? To me, nothing is more satisfying than making a list and checking things off it. It is the ultimate calming activity (aside from putting things in alphabetical order) for my Obsessive-Compulsive mind.

I can remember being obsessed with lists even as young as elementary school. One constant activity I did to calm myself down was to make a list. The lists were different every time. For example, I showed rabbits (I owned over 100 of them), and every single one had a name. I would sit and write down the name of every single one of my rabbits. In high school, I started keeping an APN (all-purpose notebook) and I would keep all my lists contained in that. At the beginning of 2021, I bought my first bullet journal and I started putting my lists in that journal, dubbing it my “List Journal.” But, why do I do this? There must be some psychological explanation for why I make so many lists.

• People make lists to remember things, which is something I do as well. I will make a weekly list of things I need to do in my classroom or at home. I keep them, on my phone and in my planner. Those are essential lists I make, but as I mentioned above, I also compulsively (and maybe even obsessively) list sometimes. 
• As I have mentioned before, I have Bipolar Disorder and I also have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) which can be symptoms of Bipolar Disorder. A common, OCD compulsion is called “glazomania.” Glazomania is an unusual obsession, passion, or fascination with making lists, which I have.

Is it wrong to be obsessed with lists? Absolutely not! Lists are a wonderful way to stay organized in a disorganized world. The problem (according to the article “Five Manias and Obsessions You Might Not Know About”)  lies when you are obsessively making lists, but the lists aren’t helping you in the way that they should, or if the only thing you do is make lists. However, making lists can also help stop compulsions related to OCD.

You decide. Is an obsession with lists a good thing or a bad thing? I want to hear from our readers. What kind of lists do you make? Do you obsessively make lists as I do? Comment below or continue the conversation on our Facebook Group: MMC Chat.