Category — Life

This was what my drive was tonight. It took me 3 hours to drive a distance that normally takes me an hour and 15 minutes to drive. It was all very pretty, I must say, but it was a little annoying to deal with.

Oh, but my killer Gislaved NordFrost 5 winter tires ROCK! There was about 5 cms of snow on the ground with a little bit of frost on top as the temperature went down (and we melted the snow as we drove on it), and my tires were grippy (that’s the technical term for it.) I went up a rather steep hill at one point that had another car slipping and sliding around (obviously he had bald all-season tires because he was slipping even on the flat sections of the road), and I passed him! Once I got onto my relatively deserted street I did a few sudden stops & skids to see how the tires would respond, and man, they stopped me without sliding! They are phenomenal. I am pleased I shelled out the cash for them.

I leave you with another photo of the winter wonderland that was my neighbourhood tonight:

I’m a day late with this post, but after I explain why, you’ll understand…

I got braces again yesterday!

Yes, you read that correctly. Almost 20 years ago to the month that I had them the first time around, I got some orthodontic braces put on my bottom teeth. My first go around was when I was 14, and my teeth were all straightened out. But as we age our teeth do move, plus I tend to clench my teeth when I’m stressed, so you can imagine what happened 20 years later. I would have actually just left them if it was only the bottom that was getting all crooked again. But since one tooth was now affecting an upper tooth (my front tooth, if you must know), I was getting annoyed at having them go all cock-eyed. So about 18 months ago I asked my dentist about it, and he said that he could definitely put some on there to fix it all up again.

Since most insurance plans only cover dependents under 18 years of age for orthodontic work, I started saving my beer money…and after 14 months, finally had enough for partial payment. My dentist requests one-third up front, and the rest monthly, so I was all set! I went in on Monday to have them put on.

And wow, was he fast! He did it in 35 minutes, which I thought was impressive. Of course as a teenager I had them on both top & bottom, and with the perspective of a teenager, it seemed like it took all day to put them on. In reality it was probably only about 2-2.5 hours, but you know how things seem to take f-o-r-e-v-e-r when you’re 14. But this went super-quick, and I was in and out in 45 minutes. Already within 10 minutes I felt my teeth starting to move, and by this morning (24+ hours later) I must say I am definitely having second thoughts.

My teeth HURT. It’s that dull ache that you can’t really do anything about, you know? Plus everything I eat is too hard. So I stopped off at the grocery store tonight and picked up $34 worth of liquid-y type of food stuffs. And no, before you ask, none of that was alcohol. I got:

• yogurt
• yogurt drink
• breakfast shake mix (on sale, no less!)
• 6 cartons of ready-made soup
• another package of perogies (they’re mushy, so I figured they were good.)
• crackers for the soup
• mini-shots of V8 (those are the teeny tiny cans)

I would have just made my own soup, however these were on sale, so I went with those instead. Especially because I’m not in the mood to do any cooking this week. But I wanted to make sure that while I’m not eating as much as I normally eat, that I get all my vitamins n’ such, you know?

One other good thing about these braces, aside from the eventual straight teeth, and the fact that I’ll only have these one for 6-7 months, is the fact that I’ll only have to go in for an adjustment every 6 weeks, which is great! That means that I’ll only be in pain like this for 3-4 days every 6 weeks, which is good.

In a couple of months I’m going to go back and get the retainer for my upper teeth, to shove that one back in. Thankfully I don’t have to get braces up top as well, but just the retainer.

So right now I’m having serious flashbacks to life as a 14-year old, and keep thinking that I’m wearing a mouth guard or something. My bottom lip is starting to get all sore from the brackets (thank god they’re not as huge or sharp as they used to be!) and I’m already getting better at talking funny.

There you have it, Retro Mondays: the Return of Braceface! hahahahaha

Ugh, this time change thing back to Standard Time is a little painful this time around. As I get older, I’m finding that whenever I don’t sleep well (or enough), I end up with a nasty headache. The headache typically leaves me nauseous pretty much all day, and the whole day ends up being lost. That’s what happened yesterday. I actually slept over 9 hours the night before (the night of the time change), but because I’d been out at a party that night, I didn’t sleep very well (and before you ask, no, I didn’t over indulge in any alcoholic beverages. I indulged, but certainly not overly so.) I was couch-bound for most of yesterday, and actually went to bed at 8:30pm. Yes, you read that correctly, 8:30pm. I’m up ungodly early this morning because I was hoping to be able to go into the office, but I’m still feeling headachy, so I think I’ll be working from home. The whole annoyance with this situation is that yesterday I had lots of house things I wanted to do (mostly of the cleaning variety), and then this week at work I’ve got quite a lot to do as well.

*sigh*

Spotted today at my office: one of my colleagues wearing 3-hole Doc Martens, in black.

Why this is strange: Doc Martens, while not out of business, are certainly not as in vogue as they were in the mid- to late- 1990’s. I know because I had a pair back then. I still have them, but haven’t pulled them out of the closet in a while.

What’s even stranger: Is that the colleague wearing them was actually younger than me! Meaning, he was like 9 or 10 when the fad was all the rage, so it’s very strange that he’d still be wearing them today.

Woo! It’s time to get to the Candy Shop and get Into the Groove kiddies. Yes, tonight’s the Madonna concert! It’s the first Toronto show on her Sticky & Sweet tour. Okay, while I’m not a fan of the name of the tour, it’s always fun to see Madge live. I went with the girls to see her Reinvention tour a few years ago, which was great, but missed out on the Confessions on a Dancefloor tour as her only Canadian date was in Montreal. But I must say that after seeing it finally on DVD, I’m sorry I didn’t make the trek to la Belle Province to see it. It looked like a phenomenal show, and something that would have been great to see live. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time around, and immediately gathered the girls when I heard that Madge was going back on tour. Half of the fun is going to be in the crowd though, as all the queens come dressed up! At the Reinvention tour there was La Isla Bonita Madonna, and Borderline Madonna, as well as Like a Virgin Madonna and a couple of Music Madonnas. My friend JH doesn’t actually remember all of them, so she’s excited to see “who” shows up this time around!

Stay tuned for updates after the show.