Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Maintaining clear skin in the summer is harder for me

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I’m finding that skin care in the summer time is a lot harder for me than it is in the winter.

In the winter all I need to do is moisturize regularly and my skin seems to stay fairly clear and blemish free.

The summer is a different story. You see I seem to react to my own sweat. Yeah – really! I once had a doctor tell me that she thought I was allergic to my own sweat.

While I don’t know if it’s true or not that I’m allergic to my own sweat, I do know that if I go outside when it’s warm or very hot and I start to sweat I’ll have a mini break out in some of the areas that sweat. For example if I’m outside working in my garden, pulling weeds or pruning roses and I’m out there long enough to start sweating ie sweat on my face etc. I’ll often have a pimple or two on my face a day or two later.

I don’t think it’s true adult acne as it mostly only happens if I’ve been sweating. It also doesn’t matter if I come inside and wash my face and have a shower right away either, I’ll still have a mini break out.

I guess I’m glad that I don’t get covered in blemishes, but it’s a pain in the butt. The best way for me to control these outbreaks is to try not to sweat and as you know that’s almost impossible in the summer without staying indoors in an air conditioned house all the time.

Does this affect anyone else? Do you break out more when you’ve been sweating?





Feeling Hot Hot Hot!

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Whew it’s hot outside! We’re in the middle of a major heat wave here in Toronto. Actually pretty much all of Ontario and Quebec and several other areas are feeling the heat as well.

I’ve been staying inside in my air conditioned home as much as possible today, but of course, I’ve had to go out with the dog a few times. I also went out for a quick shopping trip to pick up some coffee beans for my new French Press. It’s most definitely hot enough to make it worthwhile making cold brewed iced coffee. Yum.

With the humidity it feels like 102 F (39 C) right now, and it’s almost 8 pm! If it’s like last night it’s not going to cool off much more. Last night I went out with our dog at midnight and the air was thick. It was like walking in bath water.

What a difference compared to last summer! Remember how cool and rainy it was all last summer?

I love the heat, but it’s pretty expensive when it’s this hot and you need to keep the air conditioner on all the time. Naturally the cost of electricity just went up so we’re trying very hard to only make the house comfortable and not have the air conditioning set too low. We’ve also been walking around in a very dimly lit house between keeping the curtains closed during the day to block out the sunlight and heat and turning most of the lighting off to save electricity and also not add to the heat in the house.

In addition to trying to stay indoors where it’s cool, we’ve been doing our best to beat the heat by drinking some fantastic cold drinks.

On Monday I made up two different homemade ice teas – one batch of iced green tea (sweetened with honey) and another batch of sweetened Earl Grey Iced tea. Both taste great in a glass with lots of ice and a slice or two of lemon. Yum. I also made lemonade. Yes, we have a lot of cold drinks to help us beat the heat.

Oh and I decided that I wanted to save money and try making my own homemade iced coffee. See the next post for a recipe for homemade iced coffee.

Are you experiencing a heat wave in your area right now too? How are you beating the heat?

Long time no see Nephew

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Our nephew stayed overnight on Monday. He’s my husbands sisters son.

It was the first time I’d seen him in maybe 8 years!

The odd thing is … I’ve been in the same house as him several times over the past 8 years. He is living at my husbands parents house and has been for at least the last five years … but he’s very antisocial.

He’d just stay in the basement with his friends or playing video games rather than come upstairs to join the family for dinner. He wouldn’t even come upstairs to say hi or eat with us at Christmas time. Isn’t that unbelievable?

I guess it’s the way he’s been raised. Ever since he was a little kid he’s always got everything he wanted. He also spent a lot of time with his grandparents and they let him get away with murder. I mean, when he was a little boy he’d ask for ice cream and they’d get it for him right away, then he’d take one bite and say he didn’t want it – he’d want something else. Oh and his grandparents would get it for him rather than make him eat what he’d asked for first or instead of just not giving him something else.

Isn’t that nuts?

So when I heard he was going to come and stay over at our house on Monday night I wasn’t thrilled. I mean, this kid couldn’t even come upstairs to say hello to relatives for a few minutes, even though he doesn’t have a chance to see them all that often?

Anyway I must say I was surprised by his visit. In a good way. He showed up wearing his hip hop clothing on Monday evening. He’s been working as an extra on a television show being filmed here in Toronto and he had to be back on the set early the next morning which is why he needed to stay over at our house (seeing as he lives an hour and a half outside of Toronto).

He was polite and friendly during his stay with us. We made him something to eat and he sat and watched TV with us for a while before heading off to bed at about 11 pm that evening.

It was the most time I’d spent with him in years.

Now if he needs to stay over for a night every once in a while I won’t be so apprehensive about his visit. Perhaps he’s starting to mature and change. He is 21 years old now after all.

My eczema is getting worse

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I think something is setting off my eczema lately. I have this spot on the top of my right wrist and it’s getting worse.

I’ve had the spot on my wrist for about 15 years. Yeah – it just won’t go away at all.

It’s been getting bigger lately though. It’s also ugly. It’s a big purplish dry area of skin.

I’ve been out in the sun a lot lately … maybe sun exposure makes eczema worse?

Anyway, I just bought this eczema herbal treatment that I’m going to try. Hopefully it makes it go away or at least look a little better than it does right now. That would be nice.

Anyone else have eczema? Do you have any spots in a visible area? How do you treat yours?

Ready to study business

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We heard from our niece in Chicago earlier today. She was calling to say “Happy Canada Day”.

It was nice to hear from her. We had a nice long talk – something we don’t get to do very often.

I don’t know if I mentioned it on this blog, but sometime in the winter my niece had called me asking me about Gmat prep courses. Now I must admit that at the time I didn’t really even know what a Gmat was, but I did some research on the internet and suggested a few places where she could enroll for a gmat prep course online.

She took the course at Knewton. Actually she just finished her course and she wanted to let us know that she did really well and that she was really happy with the company. She took advantage of the live teaching hours and said she was quite happy with the abundance of practice tests that she was able to do. Now she feels ready to continue her business studies.

I think we might get to see our niece in a couple of weeks. She and her dad and her two brothers might be coming to the Toronto area for a visit. It’ll be nice to see them.

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