Well well, after nearly a year of absence, the Online Goddess has made an appearance. Where on earth have I been? And what is to become of the site?

A lot has happened over the last 12 months, in short I have moved out of my teeny little terraced house in the busy town, relocated to the gorgeous Suffolk countryside and am currently 7 months pregnant with our first baby – whew!

Unfortunately, the seborrheic dermatitis on my face still has yet to disappear, hence my reluctance to try (and thus review) any new skin care products. In fact, it has sadly spread to both cheeks from nose to ears now and has made me quite self-conscious about my appearance. The (potentially) good news is that I’m currently using a soap called ZNP Bar I’ve imported from the US which seems to be really helping. I’ve had brief improvements in the past, so I’m not going to get too excited until it’s made a long-term impact.

So, onto the question of what to do with this site. Well, I still get a lot of visitors checking out past reviews and I’d like them to stay available for the benefit of consumers. I still want to do product reviews, but I’m not going to be able to do ones for facial products at the current time.

This doesn’t stop me from trying out body care goodies though, and thank goodness as I do enjoy a bit of pampering now and then. Plus, with baby on the way I want to get myself acquainted with the whole new category of natural and organic stuff that’s available for little ones and mums.

I’ve already been using some delicious products during my pregnancy, so look out for reviews of those starting within the next couple of days (maybe I’ll even get the first one up this evening!). I may also double-up with a bit of antenatal and postnatal blogging instead of the usual ranting about my dreadful skin lol.

So, I’m sitting here on the sofa and feeling thoroughly sick and tired of the sinus infection that has plagued me for the last week. I’ve been on antibiotics since Saturday and it would be nice to see some real improvement soon.

I’ve never had anything like this before. My hearing is muffled and the pressure behind my eardrums is extremely uncomfortable. Oddly enough, I’m fine in all other respects – no sore throat or blocked nose etc. 

To top it all off, that blasted rash has flared back up again. Maybe it’s because I’m under the weather, but I’m really upset as it was showing signs of finally clearing. I could go back to the GP, but I don’t feel very enthusiastic about that, largely because I’ll probably get fobbed off with yet another emollient. I would be extremely happy to never see another paraffin-based product ever again.

I’ve bought myself some more rose cream from Earthbound Organics as it’s been one of the most helpful products I’ve used for blemishes. It arrived on Saturday, but the postman couldn’t fit it through the letterbox and I haven’t had time to collect it today. I’ll get hubby to grab it on the way into town tomorrow.

A friend has recommended a good private dermatologist, but I won’t be able to afford that until at least February. It’s nice to know I have the option though. In the meantime, I’ll have to grit my teeth and bare it or, more likely, just not leave the house lol.

This week has been a pretty stressful one for me and I’ve not really felt like posting or socialising until today. On Monday, I discovered a small, hard lump in my right breast. I could have seen a doctor that day, but the only one available was a man and I really didn’t feel comfortable with him prodding me about, so I booked in for an appointment on Thursday.

This probably wasn’t the best idea as I then spent the next four days worried sick. I came off the mini-pill a few weeks ago and now my period is late, so I was praying that this all tied together and was just a case of messed-up hormones. I never realised just how something like this can affect a person, even though I knew the odds were in my favour. I spent a lot of time looking stuff up online, learning about what might happen if the news was bad.

I checked the lump multiple times a day, hoping it would suddenly have gotten smaller or even disappeared. I have never wanted to cancel a doctor’s appointment so badly, but I knew I’d never be able to relax if I didn’t go through with it.

Turns out all my worrying was unnecessary though. The doctor said it was absolutely normal and likely to be just fatty tissue. She was very reassuring and and thorough, even checking at my other breast and my armpits. I was certain I was going to get a hospital referral, but the doctor was very confident the situation would resolve itself. She did advise me to go back and see her if I was still worried after my next period had finished.

So that’s my week. It’s certainly given me a scare and shown me things in a new light.

Apologies for the lack of posts recently, I’ve had a bit of personal tragedy this week. Two of my beloved cats passed away, one of old age and the other of cancer. I’m having a tough time focussing my mind on anything else at the moment, but I’ll be back to regular posting as soon as I’ve got the emotional baggage sorted out.

On Monday, I finally had my contact lens fitting and took my shiny new lenses home. Yesterday I had to wear them for three hours and then increase the wear time in one hour increments daily until I’m at the maximum twelve hours. Well this is easier said than done, I’m struggling with them quite a bit.

For starters, I have astigmatism in my right eye. It’s not severe, but enough to warrant the use of a toric lens and this is making insertion a little more awkward. I can usually get the left lens in pretty quickly, but the right is only successful after a good 15 minutes of fiddling about. Removal isn’t exactly a fun affair either – funny how the blasted things won’t get off your finger when you’re trying to put them in, but when you want to get them out they hang onto your eyeball for dear life.

I have dry eyes apparently, so I have to pay extra for premium comfort lenses. Despite this, my eyes still feel sore and dry, even only shortly after I’ve put the lenses in. I’m also getting some headaches too, right above the eye socket. 

Then there’s the vision itself, which isn’t great. Once the toric lens has settled itself in (which can be up to half an hour after insertion) I still can’t see very clearly. Using the computer is particularly difficult as text looks slightly blurry and I can really feel my eyes straining. As I spend a great deal of time looking at my screen, this is worrying.

Finally there’s the hassle. Daily disposables are expensive, so I’m using monthlies and all the cleaning just adds more work to my day. I admit I’m terribly lazy, so anything like this is just too much effort. I like the simplicity of popping my glasses on in the morning and then throwing them on the bedside table at night. 

So, I guess I’m not really convinced that contacts are the way to go right now. I’ll give my trial a little bit longer and see if things improve, but otherwise I don’t think I’ll be making the switch.

In other eyesight news, I had my new glasses replaced just over a week ago. Apparently the frames were too wide for my face (causing the distortion) and the lenses were too thick. I now have a smaller pair of frames with thin lenses which I’m extremely comfortable wearing.

Today I picked up my shiny new glasses. I’ve been wearing them for about 2 hours and I’m having a little difficulty adjusting to the new prescription. I’m getting this weird bendy distortion at the sides, particularly on the left lens. Googling the problem reveals that either a) it’s normal and my eyes will adjust or b) my prescription has been made up wrong and I need to go back and get it fixed. I’m worried about it being the latter as the effect can be associated with wrongly corrected astigmatism – which I do have, but in the other eye.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I only got about four hours sleep last night. For some annoying reason, whenever I have to get up early I never manage to sleep well. Maybe that’s why it’s not going too well for me. I have to nip into town tomorrow anyway, so if things aren’t better in the morning, I’ll pop into the opticians and get them to double-check the lenses.

I also have a contact lens appointment on Friday, so I do hope the prescription itself isn’t wrong.

UPDATE Sept 9th: I visited the optician for a check over and he confirmed that there was nothing wrong with my glasses. He did bend them to match the shape of my old ones better and the side distortion has been greatly reduced. However, it’s not perfect and my peripheral vision is still a bit skewiff, in particular I’m having difficulty typing and looking at my screen. I’ll need to discuss it at my contact lens appointment if things don’t improve.

OK, this is going to seem a strange post in the middle of a skincare blog. When I had my old blog here, I wrote an entry on the fear of windmills and pylons. Basically, I’m still getting a lot of google hits to the (now deleted) article, so I’ve decided to repost it here so that people will still find the information they are after.
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