another week of stitches...and more on cosmetics

I guess I misunderstood the doctor--I thought he'd be taking the stitches out of my hand today,  I was so looking forward to it--but he said it was too soon.  So I have to live with stitches through the palm of my hand for another week.  Guess I'll just do as much as I can, and not worry too much about the pulling.  Maybe as the week progresses, the stitches won't pull against my skin so much.  Sigh.

I whiled away part of the day looking up songs on YouTube--I'm amazed at how many are available for free.  Or maybe they're not supposed to be free, but they are.  So I won't mention what I've added to my favorites and playlist, to protect those who are providing them.  Some are songs I have on CDs or albums from years ago; it's nice to have them on the computer.  I wish I could play them in the background while I do other things on the computer; I'll have to figure out if there's a way to do that.

I read today in the WSJ that Estee Lauder is revamping its department store displays to be more accessible.  Younger shoppers, the article noted, like to test things.  So do we boomers--we just, I think, took many approaches as givens.  But now my goal is not to buy any expensive department store-type cosmetics.  The last to fall was the foundation--the brands available in department stores had many more hues, and my skin is so fair (yet blotchy and reddish in spots) that it's hard to find a good shade.  Has to be tested on the skin.  Although even with that, I wasn't always happy with the shade I ended up buying.  Drugstore brands tended to come in light, medium, dark.  But I just purchased L'Oreal's Visible Lift makeup in light ivory, so I'm going to see if that's a good replacement for the much more expensive Lancome or Bobbi Brown.  (I liked the Bobbi Brown until the bottle started leaking every time I took it on an airplane--no matter how tightly I closed it.)  I used a coupon from Real Simple magazine--the ad had a color palette with some of the actual foundation, so I could test it against the Lancome foundation I've been using.  This L'Oreal has proretinol A+ (whatever that is) and vitamin C.  So it's supposed to be anti-aging.  But I think I only paid about $15 with the coupon, so I'm not out much if it doesn't live up to the anti-aging hype.  Even with the foundation swatches, I still had trouble picking between light and medium ivory.  Since we're moving into fall, and I use SPF 30 on my face every day, I thought lighter would blend in better.  Just hope I don't look pasty--that's the danger if it's too light.  I use foundation sparingly, only over the T zone of my face, where the skintone is uneven.

The only expensive product I'm now using is the Azelex cream--I paid $111 for a 50 gram tube.  But the pharmacist said I saved over $200 with my health insurance.  At least I think that's what he said.  Prescribed by my dermatologist.  Otherwise, she told me to use CeraVe, which is a very inexpensive moisturizer.  She basically said there's not much else I can do at this point.  I'm trying not to succumb to the ads for anti-aging products.  Best to avoid certain magazines, like More, that are inundated with such ads.  And combined with stories of all the famous women who look great at 50, 60, 70...just makes the rest of us feel worse, I think.

On a positive note, I'm off to yoga, after a 2 week hiatus to rest my strained quad.  And now I also have s sore paw--I'll have to work around these injuries, hopefully for only about a week.