Which Side of the Bed Do You Claim?

Comic from chaoslife.findchaos.com

To those that are able to have a bed all to themselves, I envy you. I know my fiance would kill me for that comment, but it's true. Nothing like crashing into a bed, after a rough days work, all by yourself, crawling into a ball or all spread out, without a care in the world whom you may accidentally slap, scratch, or kick, and just fall asleep. That must be the life. Sadly, most of my adult life, I have shared the bed with someone. Although, there was this short period of time that I could claim the bed all to myself. Oh how wonderful that was. I slept like a baby.

I never really had a claim to a certain side of the bed in a relationship. It was always the guy. Here recently, well maybe in the past year I should say, my insomnia has been in full swing. I would not wish insomnia on my worst enemy. Let me give you a little insight to my daily sleeping pattern. 

     I crawl into bed, ready to fall asleep. I drift off peacefully to dreamland and escape the stressful world around me. My dreams begin to stream before me, like a movie marathon of a life of mine that is unknown to me. Then in my dream, I am frantically searching for a place to relieve myself because I seriously have got to go pee. After fail attempts in my dream to pee, I realize, "Dammit! I have to pee!" So, I  awake from my dream and stumble into the bathroom. Once I am done, I crawl back into bed, but first, I have to check the time. "Are you serious?! I have been asleep for a whole two hours?" Discouraged, I tuck myself back in and fall asleep again. Except this time, not peacefully. I usually end up waking up groggy or unknowingly to sit up on the side of the bed or just sit up in the bed, have awake wondering why am I up. I am exhausted. Then I try to lay back down and fall asleep to do the same thing again, over and over again. FML!

I have tried everything to reduce the insomnia- from decreasing active stimuli to taking Melatonin as a sleep aid. I can't take Tylenol PM, Nyquil, or anything that is meant to help you sleep that isn't an herb. The diphenhydramine, aka Benadryl, causes me extreme anxiety and restlessness. That's worse than insomnia itself.

In the past month, I think I had found a solution, or at least a temporary solution to my insomnia. It was found by accident too. One morning, after getting home from work, I woke my fiance up so he could get ready for work. Once he got up, I crawled onto his side of the bed because it was warm. As he hopped into the shower, I drifted off. Eight hours later, yes eight hours later, I wake up fully refreshed and had the best sleep ever! I thought maybe the insomnia had caught up with me and I was able to just sleep. Not the case. It so happens, that when we moved into the new place, we switched sides of the bed. I have been suffering from bad insomnia since we have moved here.

Anyway, my fiance and I have been discussing for the past month about switching sides of the bed so I can rest better. When we finally did it, I have not had much of a problem of not getting enough sleep. I still get up to pee in the middle of my sleep. I still look at the clock after I pee. What I don't do is sit up, toss and turn, anything that disrupts my sleep completely. It has been a wonderful week!

So...apparently, the right side of the bed (the right side of the bed if you stand at the foot of the bed facing towards it) is my favorite side to sleep on. What's yours?

My Skin Regimen

Yes, it has been a long, long while since I have done a makeup review or a blog at that. I have been slacking to no end and my only excuse is I am lazy. I would like to say that life in general is the culprit, but come on, how long does it take for me to type a review and post it? Anyway...

I have dry skin and it can be god awful at times. I'm talking dry, flaky skin. It's mainly on my T-zone where others tend to be more oily. People who have dry, flaky skin know that if you don't have the right foundation on, it will show every imperfection and every flake on their face. I hate it. Before I could even think about searching for a new foundation, I wanted to find the perfect skin regimen for my skin type.

I did loads of research on the internet and watched tons of YouTube videos on how to treat my type of skin. Sadly, none of those really worked for me. I finally just combined bits and pieces of advice that was given, that worked for me, and arrived at my now daily skin routine.

Because I do have dry skin, I do not use any facial washes that lather into a foam on my face. Facial cleansers that foam tend to strip away moisture, at least on me they do. As my skin changes from the cooler months to the warmer months, so does my skin regimen.

In the cooler months, when my skin suffers from dryness the most, I use a cream cleanser like Noxzema. Yes, Noxzema. I love the way it tingles and it adds the necessary moisture my skin needs. I do not exfoliate my skin during the cold season because it causes my skin to become more dry and it hurts like hell. It feels the equivalent to rubbing a black coarse nail file all over my face, not that I have done that, but I am assuming it would feel like that. For a moisturizer, I use Estee Lauder Daywear. At night, after washing my face, for the time being, I apply Estee Lauder Time Zone Night (it's a sample bottle, but a little goes a very long way). This skin routine decreases the dryness and flakiness of my skin that the harsh cold winter air causes.

In the warmer months, my skin is normal to dry to oily. Because my skin wants to keep me guessing, I use a gelish type facial cleanser like CeraVe (this was on my Hit or Miss blog post I did eons ago). This too does not lather. Not only does this leave my face feeling refreshed, but it helps tone down the redness of rosacea my cheeks have. Such a wonderful and inexpensive product. I also begin to lightly exfoliate my skin since my skin becomes oilier. My go to exfoliater has always been St. Ives Apricot Scrub. It's gentle and does not irritate my sensitive skin. I use this about 1-3 times a week depending on how my skin feels that week. On oilier days, for my moisturizer, I use Shiseido Pureness. It's a gel moisturizer and prevents my face feeling like a greasy mess at the end of the day. On the normal to dry days, I continue to use my Estee Lauder Daywear.

I have been doing this skin regimen for about a year and I haven't had any problems with dry flakes on my skin in a long time. I may have some from time to time, but not nearly as bad as it had been. I had been battling dry flakey skin since my late 20's. I wish I discovered this skin routine years ago. God I hate getting old.

I do want to add, no matter what season it is, if I know I am going to be exposed to direct sunlight for more than 10 minutes, I will use Eucerin Everyday Facial Protection with a SPF 30 instead of my regular facial moisturizer. Everyone knows or should know that the sun's UVA rays sucks the youth out of our lovely skin. This is why it boggles me why people insist on tanning. Yes it looks good, but while you age your skin, I will do my best from preventing the dreadful aging process (without medical intervention). I don't mean to offend anyone that enjoys tanning, but come on people, educate yourself. No one is invincible to the damaging effects of UVA and UVB rays. Fake and bake is the way to go.

I am missing the CeraVe facial cleanser from this photo of mine because I just ran out of it and have yet to go to the store and get more. All products in this photo and mentioned were purchased by my hard earn money and not given to me.

My Nightmares

Ever since I was a child, I have had nightmares, not night terror, but nightmares. My nightmares scared me so much, I started sleeping with a bible like one sleeps with a teddy bear. I guess it gave me a sense of security, but I did continue to have them regardless. 

Of course, I can't recall many of my nightmares I had when I was younger, but a couple did stick with me. Many of my nightmares had a reoccurring theme. I would be walking up some stairs that had a door at the end. The closer I got to the door, the more frightened I became. I never opened the door because I was afraid of what was behind it. Plus, I would usually wake up from the dream in complete panic and terrified. 

This next nightmare from when I was a teenager always stuck with me. I don't know why. I see it as if I had it just the other day. Anyway, I am standing in my bedroom and I see and old lady standing by the doorway holding a tray of tea light candles floating in water. Every candle was lit. I asked her what she was doing and what was the tray of candles for. She told me she was waiting for me and handed me the tray of candles. She told me the candles would let me know if something evil was near by when they all blew out at the same time. Sure enough, shortly after being given the tray, a light breeze came from behind me and the candles blew out. The old lady told me to run, run as fast as I can. I ran out of my bedroom into the family room. I could feel something evil was chasing me. I ran towards the stairs to go upstairs. As I leaped for the stair, I felt something grab my foot and began pulling me down. I fought and fought to only wake up in panic and fear yet again.

Thankfully, as an adult, nightmares have decreased by more than half. I could go months by without having a nightmare. Sadly, when I do have nightmares, they come in waves. Meaning, I will have one or two a week for several weeks and then nothing again. I don't know if it is stress that causes these flares up or what. Much of what you dream about is associated with what you had watched, done, saw, etc throughout your day. I can honestly say that the nightmare that woke me up last night had nothing to do with anything the day before.

Before this current nightmare I had, I do recall a dream that set the stage of fear in me for the nightmare to come into play. It's really a dream within a dream. If you know what I mean. My dreams are vivid. It plays in my head as if it were a movie. But like a dream, it's glitchy. I can go from one place to another without thinking of how I got there.

I was in a city alley back behind a church. I had keys to it. They were given to me by the pastor for some odd reason. I wasn't suppose to have them but I did. I am now inside, I am watching the pastor talk about wedding details to the brides family. The brides father is upset about not being able to have a room in the church for the bride's grandparents to sleep in. The pastor says, he just can't do that. They wouldn't last a night. After he said that he leaned forward towards me and he said, "I should know, it happened to me." (Insert fear of the unknown.) Next, I find myself in a 3 story triplex by the church. I am fumbling with keys trying to lock the door. I am walking down the flight of stairs and I see 2 ladies, a mother and a daughter. I can feel them wondering what I am doing in the building, but they see I have keys and able to lock and unlock doors. I am down in the triplex foyer now. I open the door, I feel like something isn't right, someone is watching me. Once again, I am fumbling with they keys to try to lock the front door. They keys bend and I can't get them to lock the door. I am walking towards the church again, I see piles of bodies wrapped in white body bags. I hear a lady saying you are not suppose to be here, but she sees that I have keys to the church. I hear her say to someone, "She is just a child, how does she have keys?" Again, the feeling of someone watching me, fear begins to set in. Then, income nightmare...

Lying in bed, starting to drift off, I get this eerie feeling that something is watching me from the foot of the bed. I try to ignore it by covering my head up with the blanket. Knowing that that wasn't working, somehow or another, I find myself clutching the bible. The same exact bible I use to fall asleep with when I was younger. I clutched it with all my might and began praying to God to keep me safe from whatever is lurking in the shadows. With my head still underneath the covers, I realize my younger sister is in the bed with me. I try to wake her up by shoving her and whispering her name. When that didn't work, I began pinching her and calling out her name. Finally, I was able to slightly awaken her. I told her to turn on her light on the nightstand. I felt her sit up, but her light never came on. With the overwhelming of fear still lurking in the shadows at the foot of my bed, I took a deep breath, removed my head from underneath the covers and sat up in bed to turn on my lamp on my nightstand. As I reached for the lamp, I felt arms wrapping around me. I thought at first it was my sister, but I knew she was no longer beside me and was definitely not her arms around me. Trying to fight through the fear, I continued trying to turn the lamp on. It wouldn't. Before this fear could completely engulf me, I wake up and actually turn on my nightstand lamp. Still shaken with fear, I grabbed my laptop and decided to write it all down. So here we are now.

I hate nightmares. I hate the feeling of fear I have after waking up from them. I recall one time I had a nightmare, I couldn't wake up no matter what I did. By the time I was able to wake myself up from the nightmare, I was in tears. That was within the past year. Is this common? To have nightmares like this as an adult? If anyone decides to read this, please let me know in the comments below about your nightmares and how often they happen to you.