My Husband's Neck

So, my husband and I both clench our jaws. My husband also has a jaw disorder called TMJ. He has neck pain and headaches because of it. Once he got to go to a physical therapist for 6 weeks to see if massages would help. Guess what; it did help.

One of the first things my honey did when he went to this physical therapist was to ask what kind of pillow he should use to reduce his neck pain - he was hoping they'd give him a free, super cool pillow. The doctor told him that the pillows don't usually help people. It's only every once in a while that people are happy with the results. The real solution is towels. You fold a towel in half or thirds, hot dog style, and then roll it up like you're rolling up a sleeping bag. You lay this in front of your pillow where your neck will go and it supports your neck while you sleep. Who knew?! Guess pillows don't support you neck.

I've always been a two pillow kind of gal. I stack them on top of each other. My sweet man asked the doctor if this would be better. And the doctor said...sometimes, but if you're going to use two stacked pillows, the best way is to lay the top pillow so that it is touching the bed and the front of the other pillow, lying at an angle, NOT lying directly on top. I guess this also (theme here) supports your neck enough to not cause strain. I used this method for a while and it helped reduce my neck pain from jaw clenching but it isn't as good as the towel under the neck with one pillow method.

So, both my man and I sleep with towels under our neck. He sleeps with his folded in thirds and rolled. I sleep with mine folded in half and rolled. At first I tried it in thirds, but that was too big for me. I guess there is a thing called too much support.

The other night I wanted to see how many knots I had in my neck and we could only find one! This is so miraculous. Most of the time I don't like my husband giving my massages because then I relax enough to feel how many knots I actually have and it hurts more than before the massage. Sleeping with our rolled up towels has really helped though. We love our towels!

How I keep my daughter's bows

I really enjoy this method of bow organization. A friend told me about it long ago and long ago I made this. I got a poster frame from Wal-Mart and some chicken wire from my parent's-in-law and put this together. At first I laid the chicken wire on the cardboard backing but after a couple of months it started slipping out of the frame. My wonderful husband suggested that I loop wire through the chicken wire and then around the frame. It has stayed taut since I did that. I'm sure it would look much more cute if I covered the cardboard with some pretty scrap booking paper, but I haven't done that yet.

I like this more than hanging bows on ribbons because here the bows don't slip down; whereas, when I hung the bows on ribbons, they always slipped off. With the chicken wire, all you have to do is clip the alligator clip to the wire or with snap clips you just leave it un-clipped and it hangs quiet nicely.

Also, in case you're wondering, I made all but 4 of these bows myself.

Chicken Adobo

Preface: My husband spent 2 years living in the Philippines as a missionary for our church. We are Latter-Day Saints; more commonly referred to as Mormons. The hubby loves all things Filipino - it's weird that the country name starts with a ph but the nationality title starts with an f, huh? Anyway, we try to eat a nice variety of Filipino food. Our staple Filipino meals are Lumpia, Bicol Express, and Chicken Adobo. Oh. My. Goodness. These dishes are so fabulous! Once, I made Adobo frequently enough that my man had to ask me not to make it so much. I was upset because I love this dish soooo much. What makes it even better is that it cooks in the crock pot. Awesome.

Chicken Adobo

4 chicken drumsticks frozen*

3/4 C. apple cider vinegar

3/4 C. soy sauce

4-6 cloves of garlic, minced*

3 tsp. ginger powder

Put frozen drumsticks in crock pot. Combine sauce ingredients and pour over chicken, Cook for 4 hours on high, any longer than that, switch the temperature to low. Serve over rice.

See, isn't that so fabulously simply? You'll love it even more once you taste it.

*I am a freezer meal kind of girl and I've found that I like Adobo more when I put the frozen chicken in the crock pot vs. thawed chicken in the crock pot.

*I buy the minced garlic in a plastic container from Costco. It keeps forever because garlic is a natural preservative and it is much less of a hassle to scoop out a tsp of garlic compared to pulling out a cutting board and knife and finely mincing my garlic. 

Make it through the day and night make-up

I used to have a really horrendous routine to get my make up to last more than 3 hours on my face. I have always had oily skin. I remember being a teenager and not wearing mascara because even the waterproof stuff would all be off of my eyelashes at the end of the day. This meant I constantly had the yucky, dark circle smudges of mascara under my eyes, which, being waterproof would never completely wipe away without make up remover. Doesn't this sound like such an oxymoron? I could not get the mascara to stay on my eyelashes but then once it ran off onto my skin I couldn't get it off. Lame.

So, my old routine was:

first, I would layer baby powder thickly around my eyes,

second, I would put a lot of foundation around my eyes that was for oily skin

third, I would put on my water proof mascara and

fourth, I would hairspray my face with my eyes closed.

I'm not a high maintenance person; so, for me this was too much. This method worked most of the time but it really did a number on my eyeballs. They were pretty dry and being a contact wearer, I was already more dry to begin with. Remember how I said it worked most of the time? Yeah, it was not a fool proof method for me. Also, I've never been able to get eyeliner to stay where I draw it on. Ever.

What do I do now?

Now I use primer. Particularly the Bare Essentials primer for oily skin. Let me tell ya, it works! I also use their primer for eyelids. I can go the whole entire day and still can tell where I highlighted my cheekbones and I can also go the whole day with eyeliner staying around my eyes! It is fabulous. For a blonde eye lashed girl, this makes all of the difference.

I'm starting this blog to keep track of and share all of my crafty experiences, recipes, ideas, etc. I hope you enjoy it here!