Love my Cloud 9 O Pod

Santa was very good to me this year, he brought me a Cloud 9 O Pod. 

I have spent years trying to get body, bounce and volume into my hair. It's straighter than if you have used straighteners on it, it's fine and it's flat. Over the years I have spent a fortune on styling products, curling tongs and heated rollers. With a varying degree of success and frequently burning my fingers, ears and neck.

Recently I have found velcro rollers stay in my hair best but I need the heat too. So, I can either put the rollers in and use my hairdryer which works to a degree but often half of my hair blows free of the rollers. The best result was from using my curling tongs first and when my hair is hot put a roller in. This was both time consuming and still resulted in a number of burnt ears and fingers.

Then one day while I was having my hair done, rather than tonging it as usual my hairdresser brought out this O pod which heats velcro rollers in seconds and neither the pod or the roller are hot to touch. I let Santa know I would like one and he listened.

It is so quick and simple to use and, although the rollers are cool to touch when you first put them in, very soon after you can feel the heat against your head. They are a little heavier than normal velcro rollers but I have the clips to keep them in place and even in my fine hair, they do stay in. 

I love my O pod.

http://www.cloudninehair.com/the-o/the-o-pod/

Christmas has been and gone for another year.

It never ceases to surprise me how weeks of build up, planning and mayhem in the shops can be over so quickly. The wrapping paper is in the recycling, the chocolates are all eaten and the turkey bones have been picked clean.

The biggest decision I need to make now is when do I take the Christmas tree and cards down. My instinct is to put them all away on New Years day, before I go back to work. Somehow, I can't imagine coming home from work on Wednesday and being reminded it's still technically Christmas.

On reflection, this Christmas has been quite calm. I did a lot of my gift buying online, and all my items arrived in time for Christmas, even though I was quite late ordering some. Royal Mail did a good job for me and saved any last minute panic buying.

Every year I tell myself I will start preparing earlier, and every year I don't.

There is a tradition starting to take hold in our Christmas's - each year something happens with an item of food. One year we lost the Christmas pudding, only to find it lurking on the top shelf of the 'beer' fridge several days later.

This year, it was the turn of the Christmas cake that never was. We always buy our cake, and this year was no different. We were in the cake section at out local supermarket, we picked up the right size box in a Christmas style. The cake inside was iced with a sprig of holly indicating Christmas. It was in the trolley and through the checkout with the rest of the shopping to tide us over Christmas week. I have written before how I love a chunk of cheese with my Christmas cake and so I was treating myself to a block of Red Leicester cheese, something that was off my list of foods since my cholesterol issue. 

And so, Christmas dinner over, washing up done (and yes, it does still get done by hand even though I have a dishwasher in the kitchen, a personal preference) we settled down to a coffee and a piece of Christmas cake and a nice sized chunk of cheese.

The first cut into the cake was fine,

 the second led to such disappointment. There was no rich fruit cake hidden under the pure, flat, white icing. Not even a sponge cake with a few raisins in. Underneath that Christmas holly was a Madeira cake. What???  Yes, of course it said it on the box, but we hadn't read the words, simply looked at the box and the cake inside and made an assumption that we had a Christmas cake.

And no, cheese and Madeira cake does not work!


However, if that's the worse that went wrong this Christmas, we can consider to have done OK.

Latest Cholesterol Check

After the last disappointing cholesterol check I wasn't too hopeful that this would be any better. I hadn't lost much weight and only just started exercising again, so apart from my daily glass of beetroot juice and a little more fish in my diet I couldn't think that my good cholesterol would have increased much. I had continued with a very low saturated fat diet but my operation had certainly interrupted my focus. By having the blood test now it meant regardless of the results I could enjoy Christmas and get back on track in the New Year.

So, I duly went for my routine meeting with the oldies of the surgery and this time I made sure I planned it well. I ate at 6pm the night before the test and nothing to eat after, I had a soft drink during our weekly dancing class and that was all. So, I had done as much as I could when I finally gave my tube of blood.

A week later saw me sitting outside the doctor's room hoping that there was some improvement to be proud of. And then I heard my name called, the results were in.

I had got my overall cholesterol down to 5.5 (originally at 6) but more importantly my tryglycerides had plummeted. These were the bad ones which had previously only moved from +3 to +2.8 and needed to be below +2.3 ...

Fanfare ...

... and the figure now is +1.7

Success.

Even my good cholesterol is normal.

So, I can have an enjoyable Christmas BUT to make sure I don't go back on a diet of pizza & chips, I have booked a follow up blood test in March, just to keep an eye on the levels. My doctor is in agreement to this and I think it will keep me focused on the task.

Oh, I'm a happy lady!  No Statins.