My face is in a Lunapads commercial!

How appropriate since I’ll be spending most of the next 3 weeks bleeding!

Know what I hate? When you’re half asleep, in a great dreamscape, but conscious enough to be rolling around in bed trying to control the flow of blood flowing from your vagina so it stays on the pad, rather than gushing up over it and soaking through your pajamas onto the sheets. I really really fucking hate that. Oh yeah, and cramps too. If it weren’t for the pain I was in while all of this was happening, I probably would have kept sleeping, but no, I got up and by the time I took all my “morning drugs”, including painkillers, I was up and awake and there was not a goddamn thing I could do about it.

So here I am.

As I’ve mentioned a few times already, I’m reading Eat, Pray, Love and right now I’m in the middle of the book where she’s just arrived in India and she’s talking about yoga. Admittedly, I know absolutely nothing about yoga. When I went last week, the teacher wanted us to fill out some paperwork that was half questionnaire and half  “you can’t sue me if you break your neck” stuff, but she asked the question, “why are you taking yoga?” Blake & I were the only ones filling out this information because the other 3 girls in the class are regular students and since Blake always finishes these things first and leaves me feeling awkward while I finish mine, I just wrote “to maintain weight” as my reason, but that’s not totally it and now I feel like she thinks I’m vapid for saying that because according to Eat, Pray, Love, yoga is much more than a body exercise. It’s supposed to be all transcendental & shit. The fact of the matter is, I don’t really know why I’m taking yoga. It seemed like a good idea at the time? It’s a good immersion therapy exercise? To take away some of my menstrual pain eventually? (I hear there are poses for that.) To show off how flexible I am as a party trick one day? All of those reasons? None of those reasons? I don’t know. What’s the right answer to that question? What is it she would have wanted to read under that question? I know “to maintain weight” wasn’t it.

By the way, I’m doing Hatha yoga, which according to Eat, Pray, Love is just your run of the mill yoga, nothing fancy. I think Kelley, our teacher, said in one of the e-mails to Blake that she was mixing it with another kind of yoga, but I forget what she said now. All I know is that last week was a positive experience and I’m actually kind of looking forward to this week’s class.

Last week’s class I found to be very very easy when I expected it to be very very hard. I did all of the poses more or less correctly, according to Blake, but I didn’t get into them the proper way and I didn’t do certain nuances of some poses, like in downward dog your heels are supposed to be flat on the floor but I’m not flexible enough to accomplish that yet because my muscles haven’t stretched enough from repetition of the pose. And I don’t really understand the teacher’s instructions most of the time. Like, she says to flex or release the muscles in your wherever but I have absolutely no fucking clue as to what muscles she’s talking about most of the time because the only muscles of mine I’m ever aware of is the uterine ones. And my thigh ones, but that’s a long story as to why…

So I made it through all the poses and my position in the class is right beside the giant wall clock in the studio and I was amazed at how fast the class went. I was expecting it to be an agonizing hour, like gym class where time just stood still, but it wasn’t like that at all. In fact, I didn’t even think to look at the clock until there were only 10 minutes left.

Since I didn’t know any of the poses to begin with and since she didn’t name all of the poses we were doing, the only two I picked up on was “table pose”, “child pose” and “downward dog” because those seemed to be the transitional poses between other poses.

Blake was apparently sore the next day from doing the class, but I wasn’t and I’ve been wondering why the whole time. Blake says it’s just because he hasn’t used a lot of those muscles in a long time, but I would guess that neither have I, so why wasn’t I sore? I felt barely any strain whatsoever during the class which made me think I was either doing it wrong (likely) or maybe my flexibility is just better than Blake’s (possible).

Right now I am in hell due to menstruation (my 3rd period this month, hooray for me!) and on the questionnaire she asked if we had any health problems that may affect our ability to do yoga and I put down “endometriosis”, SO, on Tuesday I don’t know if I should tell her I’m in hell before the class or if I should just not say anything and do the best I can. “They” say that exercise is good for cramps but that has never been my experience at all. I’ve never tried yoga for it before though, not really. I do a variation of “child pose” all the time for period pain where I sit cross-legged and bend the rest of my body forward the same as “child pose”, but I don’t think that’s an actual yoga pose and we don’t do “child pose” for very long during the class so that one won’t be doing me any favours tomorrow. I’m just hoping that this period hell will be over by then, but I’m not holding my breath.

And the only thing I have left to say about yoga is that Blake & I have brand new, spiffy yoga mats that are apparently in the trunk of the car and will stay in the trunk of the car (so they don’t get dog hair on them) and mine is pink. I don’t know what colour Blake’s is, but I’m guessing blue since that’s the colour of the first one he bought. It was $60 for both of us to rent mats for the class but I didn’t want to do that, especially because I suspect we will be taking yoga from this woman for a really long time because I actually like it but also because I wanted a pink one godammit and the ones for rent are either “gym class” blue or “crusty blood clot” maroon.

So that was yoga. I know I was brief about it last week and you guys wanted to know more than “it was eeeeeeeasy”, so there ya go.

In other news, I haven’t painted a fucking thing in a week because I’m a WoW addict who does little else right now than chew painkillers and pretend I’m a blood elf and that’s mostly what I intend to do until the end of next week, criticism be damned.

The thing with WoW, especially right now in the formation of a brand new guild, is that it’s largely a social game. I spend my days (and nights) killing fictional beings, yes, but I’m also chatting with about 15 other people while I’m doing it. And it’s like…okay say you stay off the internet for a day (the horror!) and you can’t get caught up with your friends list on Live Journal or Facebook the next day. WoW’s similar in that if you don’t log on for a day, you can miss a lot socially but the people who were on, have probably out-leveled you by about 2 levels and right now we’re all trying to stay within the same range of levels to be able to do dungeons and quests together. This guild ‘s entire purpose was to start toons from scratch and level them together. (A concept that’s been lost on some people who have decided to roll death knights who start at level 55, but whatever, good for them. I hope they like playing alone because that’s all they’ll be doing for quite some time.)

Anyway, as an officer of the guild and also the person with the most time on her hands, I kind of act as guild master when our guild master isn’t around, which is often because she apparently actually has a life. She pretty much only logs on to buy us guild bank tabs because she’s the only one who can do it and sometimes she levels her priest for a few hours, but she’s never on for entire days or nights like the rest of us are. (Which is fine, this isn’t a diss on our GM at all, I mean really, the job at this point is to just buy bank tabs and that’s pretty much it since our officers can add people to the guild or promote people.)

Basically the guild is being run by me, our friend from Camwhores, Warcorp and our friend Stephy. And Stephy got a job today so her time in Azeroth is soon to be more limited, I’m assuming. Warcorp’s our money-making machine who has almost single-handedly financed our first 3 guild bank tabs (I helped too, but nowhere near as much as he did) and since we’ve been filling up the tabs pretty quickly, I’ve been telling people what to take, what to sell, what to use and what to disenchant and I’m not even sure I’m doing that correctly because I don’t know for sure what a lot of the stuff we’re banking is for or what it does. I’m a WoW nerd, definitely, but I definitely have to ask the other WoW nerds of our guild for guidance on a lot of things because the game’s changed quite a bit since we stopped playing 2 years ago and the only profession I ever did seriously was alchemy (which I’m doing again) so I only really know what’s useful for that.

I’m hoping that Ditsy can spend some time with us every now & then to organize our guild bank a little better because I’m told she’s an expert WoW organizer.

Last night we did our 2nd guild instance, which was Gnomeregan and it took foreeeeever. Blake didn’t end up in bed until almost 2:30am, so tonight is probably not going to be a WoW night, especially since we still have yesterday’s True Blood to watch – so maybe I’ll get some painting in after all. Really, the two paintings that have been sitting on my coffee table for about a month only need arms, a signature and varnish to be finished, so I could probably get that done in a a couple of nights if I really wanted to. And since I like money, I should really want to.

Anyway, that’s all I really have to report other than the fact that both kids had excellent report cards and once again, both of them got principal achievement awards. The last day of school is on Wednesday and it should be an interesting summer with Alex & Ronny getting married, the kids going up north to Phil’s for a week or 2 giving Blake & I TIME ALONE OMG, my gardens and a few other things we have lined up.

So that’s that. I will now leave you with some lovely WoW screencaps that I’m sure you will all be thrilled by.

This Wailer is no match for Endometria!

My ride.
It sucks that when I get the next level of mount I HAVE to ride a brightly coloured chicken because there are no black high level chickens. I think that’s stupid.
The other day I saw a blood elf riding a zebra and I meant to look up how that was possible.

Blake & I drinking. He’s a troll shaman. And actually that’s a pic from last week, he’s had a change of hairstyle since.

Me riding a wyvern to destinations unknown.
This is how we roll on the Horde side, wyverns, zeppelins and dragonhawks.

And finally, the sun setting in Tirisfal while I wait for a zeppelin to Orgimmar.

So, did any of you read my article on LunaPads? Probably not, since it was posted on Buttercup, but I backposted it on my site and it can now be found here.

Anyway, I got them roughly 3 months ago, when I only had a week left of bleeding (I usually bleed for a full month) and I felt a little cheated. BUT I’ve got 7 birth control pills left in this pack (the 2nd pack of 3), which means in 7 days I’m going to start bleeding for a full month and I get to BLEED ALL OVER MY NICE CLEAN LUNAPADS.

For some reason, there is something extremely satisfying about that. I can’t even explain it.

And that’s all I really had to say.

March & April have not been happy months for me, vaginally speaking. I have stage IV endometriosis which I’ve had 5 surgeries for and after my last surgery, the specialist wanted me to take a monophasic birth control pill for 3 months straight, then take a 7 day break to have a period and begin another round of 3 months of pills. Lather, rinse, repeat.

This would be fine if my body acted accordingly, but it doesn’t. As soon as I start the 3rd pack, I begin spotting. By the 2nd week of the 3rd pack, I’m full on bleeding like a normal period except this bleeding persists for 2 weeks and then on the 4th week of the 3rd pack I go back to spotting, so by the time I’m supposed to take this 7 day “break” from the birth control pills, my body’s done bleeding. I take the break anyway, because I’m supposed to, but I don’t really see the point since I just had an entire month of hellacious bleeding and cramping.

So for the last week of March until roughly now-ish, I’ve been bleeding and at the beginning of April, bleeding and in pain, I got fed up because adding to my misery is the fact that because of my disease, I can’t use tampons, so I’m stuck with crappy plastic pads that quite often give me yeast infections and this month was no different.

Once I realized that I had another yeast infection that’s $20 a pop to cure and that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about it until I stopped bleeding and I was looking at another 2 or 3 weeks of doing so, I lost it. The idea of my already irritated vagina being stuck in a plastic diaper non-stop for another 2 or 3 weeks put me into tears and I sat down with my husband, Blake, and begged him to shell out the $145.99 it cost for Lunapads‘ Deluxe Heavy Flow Kit.

We really didn’t have the money to do this, but I argued that we spend more than that on disposable pads and Monistat per year and we both decided that for my own comfort and our wallets that reusable pads were the way to go and while Lunapads are a little more expensive than the reusable pads you’ll find on say, Etsy, after receiving them in the mail a few days ago, I believe the cost is most definitely worth it because Lunapads‘ construction and material is unlike anything I’ve found anywhere else and they say the average Lunapad has a 3-5 year lifetime, officially, but some of their staff have had them last up to 10 years and by looking at the quality of the ones I received, I’d believe it. This is a well-built product.

When you order, you can choose between regular cotton and organic cotton. The organic cotton costs more and is less absorbent, but is better for the Earth, so it’s your call, but I went with the regular cotton because we already couldn’t afford the kit I was buying.

A Lunapad is composed of two parts, basically. There is the maxipad, which has wings and secures to the underside of the gusset in your underwear with a plastic snap and it’s not just a piece of cotton that’s maxipad-shaped that you secure in your underwear, the part with the wings is two layers of cotton sewn together and then in the crotch of the pad, there’s a liner sewn in that’s composed of (I think) two layers of thick flannel cotton with a nylon layer in between and sewn onto each end of the “pad” portion are two bands of ric-rac which are used to hold a liner. A liner is crotch-shaped and is basically identical to the “pad” portion of the maxipad. This is a basic Lunapad and a liner. There are also liners with wings but the wings don’t wrap around the gusset of your underwear like the pad does, the wings just tuck against your crotch/thighs.

A few of the wings liners came with my kit but I haven’t tried them yet. Personally I kinda wish they would wrap around the gusset and fasten with a snap like the pads do, but that’s a really minor thing and it probably really isn’t even necessary.

Here’s a video of one of the company’s founders showing how Lunapads work. I would tell you more about the founding of the company, but with their new site redesign that information seems to have been left off. Which sucks because the company was founded by two entrepreneurial Canadian women and it is based out of Vancouver, BC. Anyway, onto the video:

See? Easy to use. Great quality. Ingenious design.

What was also shown in the video, that you have to purchase separately and I didn’t, is The Moon Pad Bag, which is a pouch that has two sides, one for your extra clean pads and one for your used ones. Since I’ve been raving about Lunapads all month on forums, my site and Twitter, a few friends have asked me how they would use them at work and that’s how. Another option is that because of Lunapads‘ design, you can put in as many liners as you want, so in the morning before work, you could use a pad for heavy flow, stack it with 2 or 3 or even 4 liners and depending on your flow, you probably wouldn’t have to change your liners until you got home.

Since I work from home and the washing machine is on my way from the bathroom to my office, using Lunapads is pretty easy for me. Our family produces enough laundry that doing small loads every day is no problem, which would keep me in fresh pads throughout my “moon time” without an issue, especially since the kit I bought contained plenty of pads and liners to get me through.

I’ve only been wearing my Lunapads for about 3 days now and I’m only spotting so I can’t attest to how well they perform during heavy flow days, but with how they’re handling moderate spotting I have no doubt that they’ll be fine for my heavier days, especially if I double up the liners, but what I can definitely attest to is how comfortable they are. Honestly, I can barely tell that I’m wearing one and when I do shift in my chair or whatever and feel the pad against my skin, it’s very soft and 10,000 times better than sticky plastic. Since Lunapads are not holding moisture against my skin and their material allows my vag to breathe, they won’t cause the chronic yeast infections I would normally get with using disposables.

So how do you take care of your Lunapads? Well, the recommended method is to keep a container of water with a little bit of soap in it and soak your pads when you change them and then wash them, but I have no intentions of doing that, having a small bathroom and a daughter who hasn’t started menstruating yet and is easily freaked out by the concept. I just plan on dropping them in the washing machine as I use them and doing a load of laundry whenever I need to. This will probably result in staining of my Lunapads, but I mean come on, they’re pads for soaking up vag blood here, I don’t expect them to stay pristine and stains won’t affect their effectiveness. But if that’s an issue for you, then just rinse them out when you change them or when you get home and put them in the mesh bag that comes with them and put them in the washing machine when you’re able to, no biggie.

Yes, the cost upfront for Lunapads IS a bitch, but in my opinion totally worth it for the comfort factor and like I said in the beginning, even the bigger kits like the one I got costs less than I would be spending on disposable pads per year, especially when you factor in the yeast infection treatments that go along with them at $20 a pop. And of course there’s the added bonus that you won’t be contributing to landfills anymore, which is a huge factor in buying reusable menstrual products for a lot of people so I thought I’d mention it. Did you realize that pads are just like diapers in a landfill and take a really really long fucking time to break down? Did you realize that flushing tampons (which you actually shouldn’t do despite the encouragement on the instruction sheet that comes with them) and their applicators, especially plastic ones that take forever to break down, causes problems at your municipality’s water treatment plant? They have to scoop all of that debris out of a big tank with a thing that looks like a big pool skimmer and it all gets hauled off to the landfills anyway.

Another product that you can buy on the Lunapads website is The Diva Cup, which is like a reusable tampon except instead of absorbing the blood, it collects it and you empty it into the toilet once or twice a day, depending on your flow, then you wash it out and reinsert it. I know many people who use reusable internal menstrual products like The Diva Cup and they all swear by it, so if you’re a tampon girl and squicked by the idea of pads but would still like to have eco-friendly periods, The Diva Cup may be the way to go.

In closing, I’m extremely happy with my purchase and I find myself actually looking forward to my next period so I can use all of the neato pads that came with my kit. I’ve also talked it over with Blake and within the next 6 months, we’re going to be buying our daughter Madison, who will be 12 next month, the Deluxe Teen Kit because her menarche is right around the corner and we want to start her off on the right foot, especially since endometriosis is hereditary and I want her to be as comfortable as possible.

And before I go, I should probably mention that in celebration of the Lunapads site redesign, they’re giving 20% off on all orders made before Friday, April 16th, so if you’re thinking of making the switch, today or tomorrow might be the time to do it!

So that’s Lunapads. If you switch, I hope they make your vagina as happy as they’ve made mine.