Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Dry Cracked Feet?

In the last year or so I've developed really bad dry, cracked feet. Sorry, I know that's TMI for some of you. Anyway after weeks of trying all kinds of creams and lotions I finally found one that has worked wonders. I apply it religiously twice a day and it keeps things pretty much under control. Another plus, I've also discovered that it works well on rough elbows. Yay for smooth skin!

For the most part I am a woman of routine. If something isn't a part of my regular routine then there's a good chance it won't get done. If I miss even one day of twice applied cream rubs I notice a difference immediately. Therefore I have to make sure there are set times to apply this miracle cream to my feet.

The obvious first time is in the morning after showering, when I'm applying makeup and drying my hair. Rubbing the cream on my feet before doing all the other stuff allows plenty of time for it to dry before getting dressed. I then go merrily about my day.

The next obvious time would be at night just before climbing into bed. The liberal nighttime applications allows plenty of time for the cream to soak in and soften these rough tootsies.

But for me, nothing is ever as easy as it should be. My bedtime routine has been a tricky one to maintain for several reasons. First of all I obviously have to bare my feet before applying the cream, the key word being "bare." I don't know about you but to me "winter" and "bare feet" shouldn't go in the same sentence. When it's cold outside around here it's generally cold inside too. This calls for extra measures to be taken ... extra measures such as wearing socks to bed. Well poop. Now I have to choose between soft feet and warm feet.  Ugh, I really dread taking off my warm socks and climbing into a coooold bed but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.

Second to my dilemma, I go to bed much later than my husband. It's usually lights out for him around 11:30 but I stay up, on the computer and watching TV, until around 1:00 AM or later depending on how wired I am. The problem? I've yet to find a way to put the foot cream on without disturbing his sleep. First off, where should I sit to apply my foot cream? If I sit on the bed I wake him up as I  plop my fat butt down sit (obviously we don't have one of those mattresses that doesn't transfer movement, nope it's a lumpy old mattress that's almost as old as my marriage). I can sit in the chair next to the bed but it has squeaky springs that make enough noise getting in and out of, that it could raise a dead person. I could also do it in the bathroom but if I don't wait a sufficiently long time I end up sliding across the floor and catapulting into bed. Don't ask me how I know this will happen.

Oh, what to do, what to do? I figure I'm going to wake him up anyway so I might as well play it safe and sit on the side of the bed, and hope for the best. The best being I don't wake him up. The next best being he wakes up but turns over and goes right back to sleep. The worst ... well, I won't go into details but it ends with a grumpy, overly tired husband  ... one who ends up snoozing his alarm clock 467 times the next morning.

On to the next hurdle ... opening the tube of foot cream.   There's no easy way to do it without it making a LOUD popping sound. I guess to a sleeping person it's tantamount to the cork from a champagne bottle going off. Pow!, In a relatively quiet room this sufficiently startles even the soundest of sleepers. Oh good grief. At this point I just pat him on the back and say, "what? Did you have a bad dream?"

Once I've applied the miracle foot cream the third and final hurdle presents itself - getting my cold, greasy feet under the sheets without once again disturbing my back-to-sleep husband. The getting in bed is not the hard part, it's what I do after I'm between the sheets that is ...

Stop! Get your mind out of the gutter.

The problem? I don't know about you but when I have cold feet I have this overwhelming urge to attach them to whatever warmth I can find. That would, of course, be the warm backside of my husband. It's like his body is a magnet and my feet are being pulled to him and it takes every ounce of will power that I can muster to not assail him with cold feet. But most of the time I don't and it's not because I'm a sweet loving wife. Nope, it's more because even the manliest of men does NOT like cold feet touching him, ESPECIALLY not at night, and ESPECIALLY not on a cold night when he is snuggled, warm under the covers fast asleep. To do so is only inviting said husband to take revenge ... do I need to repeat the line above about snoozing the alarm THAT STARTS GOING OFF AT FIVE %^&* THIRTY IN THE MORNING?!?!

Now I know what many of you are thinking, I could just forego the nightly slathering of foot cream. Or, even more reasonable, I could actually go to bed at a decent hour and take care of all this before he falls asleep. But then, where is the fun in all that?  And what, pray tell, would I have to blog about?

1 comment:

  1. i have a suggestion... buy some white cotton socks [or i can send you a pair in the mail] that you use only for this purpose. don't wash the socks very often, bec. the idea is to build up the lotion barrier on the inside of the sock so that it starts to stay on your skin and not be absorbed by the sock... and re:cold feet.. do you have a heating pad you could turn on at the foot of the bed before you get in and turn it off once you get [so you don't fall asleep w/ it own and burn your toes - like i did once]. i can't fall asleep most nights unless i have the heating pad on for at least 10 minutes or so... and if you wear the socks you could do this in the bathroom, wear your clogs from BR to bed, and voila.... i do this routine w/ my hands = altho i use pure old vaseline and wear the cotton gloves... usually i'll wake up in the morning with them off, but i know they were on for at least part of the time.... also, re:crack heels... do you have callus built up on your heels? one way to address the problem would be to use a pumice stone to start removing dead skin after the shower... once you get enough off, you can just rub off the new buildup while you are drying your feet... btw,this is a sit down on the toilet lid job to really give yourself enough time... now aren't you glad i didn't post all this on facebook... glad you found something that works for you...

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