Making Allergy Season Suck Less

 17 Responses »
Apr 112012
 

If you’ve been reading the blog for more than five minutes, you already know that I’ve generally held out on reviewing or mentioning anything other than books and writers since I hit publish for the first time. Mainly because of my years on the newsroom and the knee-jerk reaction to not allow The Big Bad Advertiser to take precedent over The Words That Matter.

I know…this isn’t a newspaper. But I do use this space for Words That Matter.

That being said, I didn’t automatically hit delete when I saw an email from aer1™ filter brand, a new line of portable filter technology which can be paired with their Holmes and Bionaire line of air purifiers.. You see, unless it’s a product I truly need and can speak to honestly, I’m not going to waste anyone’s time. Mainly….mine.

Have I mentioned my severe mesquite allergy? Or the fact that Buttercup is also so sensitive to mesquite that she has to use an inhaler before going outside to play? Or my allergy induced asthma that suddenly appeared after moving here? Living in Tucson kind of sucks when I’m allergic to a tree I can’t walk two feet without tripping over. Even staying home bra-less and in my jammies — cuz it’s classy — when the pollen count is high doesn’t work because I’m suffering through 10 minute sneezing fits and watery, burning eyes before I even get out of bed.

And yes, I’m perfectly aware that allergy meds exist. Only problem is I’m allergic to an ingredient used in so many allergy medications that it’s safer for me not to take any and just suffer.

Note to self: Contact Alanis Morisette and ask if she’s interested in updating the lyrics to “Ironic.”

So long story not so short, the Aer1 Brand sent me a fancy schmancy air purifier and a filter and asked me to try it out for a few weeks and then tell you how I liked it.

I can do that.

Ready?

The Aer1 Brand sent me a fancy schmancy air purifier and a filter and I tried it out for a few weeks and I liked it.

I might have relied on just keeping my windows closed and cranking the air all summer long out here in the desert as a way to limit exposure to pollutant and allergens, but it turns out the level of indoor pollutants can be up to 100 times higher than in my own backyard.

Seriously?

Must be. Because in the time I’ve had my Bionaire air purifier and the allergy filter,  life has sucked much less. I can breathe again. My sneezing fits are fewer and farther between.

As long as I stay inside, that is.

Click here for a $20 coupon off of any aer1™ ready air purifier. Or you can keep reading for a giveaway that can literally help you breathe easier.

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The aeri1 filter brand has generously offered one Aspiring Mama reader the chance at their own air purifier and filter. To enter, simply do one of the following (or more for extra entries!) Each counts for it’s own entry, so be sure to leave me one comment letting me know what you did so I can add up points! Also make sure I have a way to contact you.

To enter:

*Simply leave a comment on this post for one entry.

* Tweet this for one entry and leave a comment : Allergy season sucks. Check out @aspiringmama for a chance at an aeir1 brand air purifier. http://bit.ly/I3arcm.

*Sign up for the AspiringMama RSS for one entry.

*Like my AspiringMama Facebook page for one entry.

*Keep track of your families allergy symptoms (sneezing, coughing, watery eyes, etc) and what triggers them. Come back in a few days and leave a comment telling the aeri1 brand what those symptoms are. This counts as its own entry.

* Comments will be accepted through midnight, EST, on Wednesday, April 18. Remember that for all of your entries to count, each has to be included in its own separate comment.

* One winner will be selected via Random.org and will be able to select one of these air purifiers along with a filter set of their choice (allergy, smoke, total air, etc). The winner will be announced here on Aspiring Mama shortly thereafter.

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Not-so-fine-print: I received promotional consideration such as gifts, samples, content, or other incentives related to a product, service in exchange for writing about this product. Translation? They sent me the air purifier and told me I could keep it if I wrote a review. Either way, what I wrote is all my own opinion. But you already knew that.

 

 

 

Self-Loathing and Chocolate

 29 Responses »
Feb 032012
 

 

I didn’t realize I missed smoking cigarettes until I found myself waiting for my husband to leave for work this afternoon. I had a bag of food hiding in the back of the Yukon with taboo things like Reese’s Pieces and Cheeze-Its for me to bury my feelings with once the coast was clear.

But it’s not completely. Nick Jr. is on and I can say with absolute confidence that the coast is definitely preoccupied. At least I hope she is.

I’m 34 going on the fifteen-year-old in my head. I may call myself a recovered bulimic and, more amazingly, may actually believe it more often than not, but the truth is I’m more of a non-practicing bulimic than anything else. That, my friends, pretty much leaves me with nothing else to describe myself as but a binge eater.

Or a binge eater who only thinks about throwing up.

No, wait. I’d be more accurate if I called myself a Binge Eater who Obsessively Works Out, Avoids All Processed Foods and Sugars, and Puts on a Great Show for the Public for Weeks On End Before Secretly Falling Apart Inside of my Head and Diving Head First into a Pool of Self-Loathing and Chocolate in a Misguided Attempt to Make Myself Feel Better….Who Only Thinks About Throwing Up.

Yeah…

That’s exactly it.

Funny how I don’t see that listed as a condition in any medical journals. Also? It would probably look awesome on a T-shirt.

I was fine until I stepped on the scale yesterday at the doctor’s office. I was there to discuss my need for a higher dose of anti-depressants and what I thought was just a bad habit but is actually an OCD condition called dermatillomania because normal is the new boring, and of course I had to step on the scale before it was time to get down to business. I won’t say what the number was because Ill just trigger myself again, but I will tell you that after giving up (until today, that is) all grains, all forms of sugar including maple syrup and honey, all gluten, soy, and dairy (the last one is allergy-related) I’m down one pound and — even more depressingly — am just nine under what I was the day I gave birth 4.5 years ago.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should be smaller and happier and thinner and more confident and smaller. And happier. I’ve been working out (until a few weeks ago) daily, eating only fresh fruits and vegetables and quality meats and juicing so much spinach I may need to get myself a girlfriend named Olive. Instead of listening to the countless media messages that tell me I should be disappearing before my very eyes, my body is instead working hard to prove it is an exception to the rule. There are doctors and unexplained weight gain and and hair loss and tests for various autoimmune diseases and lifestyle changes (that don’t normally include Cheeze-Its) and more waiting and wondering and woe is me.

Sometimes I’m able to convince myself that it’s all about health and not the number on the scale and that health is more important than weight and that I need to concentrate on how good I feel and not how I look when I get off of the elliptical.

And then I see the number that isn’t supposed to matter and am reminded that it does indeed when it’s not moving in the direction in which I had hoped. It matters much more than it should.

Had I not quit smoking, I’d have lit up and celebrated the fact that I wasn’t binging. I would have not distracted my daughter with television so that I could eat the feelings I am not able to process until the new medication takes my brain to a happy(er) place. I would not be just thinking about throwing up.

Instead, I’d be out in the backyard on the patio, the sounds of Nick Jr. carrying through the glass door, as I smoked away my anxieties and smiled smugly about being stronger than my own mind.

The Vicinity of Wonderful

 2 Responses »
Dec 302011
 

This is it. My last post before 2011 fades away and 2012 becomes the year that we all joke about the end of the world. I had planned for something Deep and Meaningful. But that was before I remembered that the in-laws were going to be here from Michigan and that would mean day-long outings and running out of room in the refrigerator for yet another set of restaurant leftovers and a frantic search through my non-existent draft folder in the hopes of finding something Wonderful that I might have been saving.

I looked. I found plenty of Somethings. But none of them were anywhere near the vicinity of Wonderful. Some were kind of Meh and a few gems were complete Disasters. More like an exercise in free-writing while high on expired Nyquil than something I’d like to share with the world.

So that leaves me to come up with Something New. And I’m hoping it’s Deep and Meaningful.

I’m supposed to talk about those as-of-yet unbroken promises I haven’t quite narrowed down to committing to for the immediate future. And buy some new running shoes so I can get to that new gym with the brand new membership I’m supposed to rush out to buy so I can fight for an elliptical machine until most have decided to wait until next January to try again, right? Or am I supposed to look back on 2011 and the stories shared, memories made, and goals achieved?

I could do that, except maybe I won’t. Not because I’d rather avoid the imminent panic attack next December when I finally fall asleep wondering if the world will still be there for me to wake up to or if social media will be alive and well and pointing fingers at the Mayans for being total drama queens. And that’s because this (read: the me having a Conspiracy Theory-worthy panic attack) will probably happen. I’m just wired that way.

I won’t wax poetic about the end of the old and the start of the new simply because, for me, I feel caught in limbo. Between what and what, I have no idea. I just know that this feels like my last post of 2011 no more than the first one did and that this was the first year that my birthday was really just another day and maybe 34 is the year that the passing of time becomes nothing more than a measure of how fast my child is growing and not a direct reflection of myself or that last grey hair I pulled out.

If I didn’t have a checkbook with what will probably be a month’s worth of ruined checks during the 2012 honeymoon period while I retrain my brain to write the new year, I’d probably forget that anything has changed.

Buttercup and I were out shopping the other day when a store employee asked Buttercup how her Christmas had been. After the expected excitement and squeals and Santa Brought Me’s, the employee smiled and asked Buttercup what she was doing to bring in the new year. Buttercup wrinkled her nose and blinked.

New Year? The look on her face told us both that she had no concept of what was being asked of her. She simple stood there for a moment while she tried to figure out for herself what this New Year was and how exactly one was supposed to Bring It In.

Finally, she smiled and her eyes brightened.

“But it’s not June yet,” she said, “and that’s when my new year starts. I’ll be five then. I’ll probably have a birthday party with my friends. Right, Mama?” And  I told her that yes, she very probably would.

The Reverse Sundae (Reappears)

 6 Responses »
Oct 242011
 

I’m combing through my archives in an effort to maintain just a little bit of sanity while trying to do a massive revision of my manuscript, maintain the blogging schedule because I’m OCD like that, and do that motherhood thing. Santa may be receiving a letter from yours truly in the near future asking for a maid, a cloning device, or a one way ticket to Fiji (his choice), but until I actually have time to write it, it’s all about the archived blog posts and a liberally poured glass of wine.

Or five.

And because I am now officially dairy-free, may I suggest coconut milk ice cream as a nice alternative for The Reverse Sundae?

 

sundae

Sometimes, you just gotta live it up. No matter what diet or eating plan you are following, carrots sticks and chicken breasts are going to get boring if you don’t treat yourself every now and then.
So what’s a mama to do?

Live it up, of course! But play it smart.

That’s how I came up with what I like to call the Reverse Sundae. I was up late one night working on my book and decided I wanted to have some ice-cream. Six months ago, that would have meant a huge bowl, ignored serving sizes, and enough sugar to put an elephant into a coma. But things have changed. I’m working with a nutritionist now, eating as clean as possible and learning more everyday, and best of all, I no longer suffer from the All or Nothing mindset that used to doom me and my good efforts the moment I let a pinkie toe off the proverbial wagon.

So I went down to the freezer and pulled out my Haggen Daaz Five Vanilla ice-cream pint and prepped the counter to slice up some fresh berries and a banana. I also made sure to get my dessert bowl out of the cupboard…the huge bowls I used to use are no longer the first thing I reach for.

Once the berries were slices and nearing the top of my dessert bowl (about a cup of fruit, I think), I placed two smallish scoops of Haagen Daaz on top of my fruit. If I had to do this again, I’d probably say I used less than a serving size and may use even less when I make my next Reverse Sundae.

And that’s it! I grabbed a spoon and headed back up to my computer, enjoying every single bite of cooled and creamy fruit as I wrote. I got my fix, a nice serving of fruit to go with it, and felt great about my decision, my new creation, and myself when the last bite was done.

Give it a try and see what you think!

This post originally appeared at Bookieboo.com!

The Long and the Short of it

 7 Responses »
Aug 222011
 

I gotta start working on building the strength in my muffin top. I realize that the rest of the world may refer to it as their Core but let’s be honest: some titles need to be earned. And I threw my core out the window while paying for my last pregnancy craving at the nearest drive-thru four years ago.

The only real irony here is that I’m busting my booty to get that ab strength back at least a little bit just in case I get knocked up again. I know. If I think about it too hard, my head starts to hurt, too.

So out comes the Gaiam Mari Windsor pilates DVD set again. I stretch. I concentrate. I make beautiful transitions from one movement to the next. I laugh when I get to that legs curled over the head move with the toes on the ground move because I’m nowhere near flexible enough to pull that one off yet. Instead, I’m practicing my yoga candle pose to pass the time while waiting for Mari to tell me what do do next to tone and strengthen the abs hiding below the formerly mentioned muffin top.

“Mama, you have your pillow, right?” Buttercup is sitting on the couch, playing something vaguely educational on my iPod while I Provide a Good Example for Her by working out to be healthy and strong. She’s seen (and joined in on) the DVD enough times to know that I follow the modified moves, which includes a pillow for neck support.”

“Yep, it’s right here next to me for when I finish this move,” I say, hoping she can hear the words that seem, for some inexplicable reason, to be muffled into the Muffin Top Upside Down Cake of a mess which was once referred to as my stomach. I start to count the rolls and decide that it’s a blessing to all of us that our world is right-side up. Less trauma that way for the innocent passersby.

“Don’t forget to modify. And breathe, Mom. You need to breathe!”

Why yes, folks. That is my four-year-old talking. Why do you ask?

I roll my eyes and lower myself as ungracefully as possible from my candle pose, awaiting Mari’s next instruction. She says something about transitions being seamless and beautiful and firm tight buns (they sell those at the bakery?) and long lean legs and I nod and follow along, my eyes on the television screen, and not on the back of my head watching Buttercup’s head shoot up, eyebrows furrow in a look that can only be interpreted as What the Hell?, and the corner of her mouth curl up in disbelief at what she just heard.

“Mama?” Her voice ends on an up-note.

“Yes?” I stand, the pilates DVD complete. “What do you need?”

She scrunches her face in a But How Do I Put This Delicately sort of way and then shrugs her shoulders because it’s useless.

“You don’t have long, lean legs.”

I laugh and kiss her on the head, thanking the stars above she didn’t pick up on the lack of firm bunnage. She’s probably saving that one for next time.

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