Fashion Friday: You're never fully dressed without a smile

After 18 months of looking like a 12-year-old, enduring jaw and tooth pain, feeling self-conscious, rubbing my tongue raw against the brackets and avoiding apples and corn on the cob, my braces came off without fanfare on Wednesday — and I can't tell you how happy I feel.

Of course, it's also coupled with exhaustion: We installed a new heater and air conditioner this week, I took on a part-time job (why I'm not sure), we started packing for an upcoming vacation and I've been feeling sick and got about four hours of sleep last night on the couch huddled by the space heater while Andrew froze in the bed alone — since the heat was turned off while the HVAC guy installed the new appliances.

So this post is short and sweet so I can sleep (in my bed tonight, hopefully). More on the braces — and some fun pictures from our trip — will come soon! And then I'll finally get the chance to read your blogs again. I've missed keeping up with you. :)

Writing Wednesday: 10 lies they tell you when you get braces

Source (and an interesting article about Asian teens who are obsessed with braces)

I know that this post is not typical for Writing Wednesdays, since I generally share some grammar or writing tips. However, my new boss is encouraging us to write more lists because they a) catch people's attention and b) are easy and fun to read. And since braces are top of mind for me right now since my orthodontist tightened my bottom teeth wires and gave me elastics to wear night and day (and I'm currently nursing a MAJOR headache), I thought I'd share the 10 lies they tell you when you get braces. Think of it as a tutorial in writing short, snappy lists -- or just a snarky commentary on the horror of orthodontia.

The 10 lies they tell you when you get braces

10. No one will even notice your braces. Yeah, right. You can make them blend in from far away if you have white or clear elastics (which I always do), but you're out of luck when someone comes within 10 feet. And they will.

9. Colored elastics make braces more fun. This may be true when you're 12 and think it's cool to decorate your mouth for the holidays. But even then, the fun fades when you can't bite into apples or bagels and spend a half hour picking caramel out of your teeth after a Halloween party.

8. Your teeth will only hurt for a day or two when they tighten the braces. Actually, they will usually hurt for several days -- and sometimes a week. They'll also hurt occasionally throughout the month and will be sure to start hurting when you bite into your favorite food just to spite you.

7. Tylenol or ibuprofen will take care of any tooth pain. All lies. You'll probably want to invest in something stronger -- like Lortab. And make sure you have a heat pack handy, too.

6. It's really easy to put the wire back in when it pops out. It's so simple that you have to have your husband pull out fish hook removers (because tweezers are too slippery and flimsy) and wrench it back into place. All while wearing a hiking head lamp and perching precariously over you as you try to lie perfectly still on the bed without laughing. No special equipment required.

5. Flossing is a piece of cake. Sure it is. All you have to do is get the floss through the eye of a needle (which is hard enough with thread), push it up under the wire, slide it between two teeth without crying out in pain and repeat 31 times. What could be easier?

4. Braces are affordable, no matter what your budget is. Of course! Every family can afford to shell out at least three grand for wires, brackets and elastics. And, even better, most insurance companies will pay only $1,000 -- and only before your child turns 18. Let's face it: It totally sucks to get AND pay for braces as an adult, too.

3. It's easy to put elastics on your brackets when they break. It took me two days to figure out how to put my elastics on. TWO DAYS. And when they snap off and you almost swallow them because they're the same color and texture as the pasta you're eating, you have to start all over again.

2. After a while, you'll forget you even have braces. Wrong again. When you feel cabbage from your delicious fish taco working its way between your wires or know you have parsley in your teeth at a team lunch and can't run out of the room to quickly pick it out with your toothbrush, you're once again reminded that you have braces. And that you're an adult and it's no longer a cool adolescent rite of passage.

1. You'll have those braces off before you know it. Tell that to the girl who's secretly hoped every month when she goes in for a checkup that that month will be THE month. The time when the metal comes off and she doesn't feel like a 12-year-old when she smiles. The time when she can finally bite into a juicy Gala without wincing. The time when she feels confident in meetings again.

Don't worry -- my orthodontist tells me the end is in sight. If i can just hold out for a few more weeks, I'll have the dazzling smile of my dreams. Any orthodontia lies I missed? Horrible braces stories to comfort me in my time of need? :)

On gravy

It was a rather interesting weekend. I got braces on my bottom teeth on Thursday and since then have been able to eat hardly anything but soup and Andrew's chocolate peanut butter protein shakes. Braces suck. That's all there is to it.

Yes, everyone reminds me that it could be worse (i.e. I could have headgear), but sometimes, when you have sores all over the inside of your mouth and can't even drink orange juice without wincing, you can't really think about how things could get worse. It has to get better over the next few days, though, and then I can eat normal, solid food. If you're looking for a ridiculously expensive weight loss plan, get braces. You'll lose your appetite and when you do want to eat again, it's almost not worth it to pick all the pieces out of the brackets. GAH.

But we did try to squeeze some fun in, too. Andrew and I went to Ruth's Diner Friday morning (we took the day off to celebrate my birthday/take a much-needed break) for breakfast. We've been there once before and didn't have a great experience, but now I can tell you that their breakfast is AMAZING. Seriously. Even though I could only choke down half of my breakfast, which was the famous mile-high biscuits and gravy, it was delicious. The thing I liked about it was that the biscuits were flaky and soft and perfect, but the gravy wasn't thick and gloppy and overpowering. Sometimes country gravy is so oily and heavy; the gravy at Ruth's Diner was divine.

We actually found out about Ruth's Diner because it was featured on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives and we like to try out restaurants around here that were featured on the Food Network. Below is a picture of my breakfast (Andrew got the French toast, which was also delicious). Doesn't it look incredible? IT WAS. Darn you, braces, for not allowing me to savor it fully -- or to even eat the adorable little fruit cup!

When it was started in 1930 by a feisty woman named Ruth (of course), it was housed in a tiny boxcar, and you can still eat in that original part today. This makes it very small and cramped, and there are ridiculous wait times when it's really busy (as in every other time we've tried to go there) -- and it's in the heart of Emigration Canyon, so there's no cell phone service (which means you can't just wait in the warm car and have someone call/text you when there's a free table). So my advice is to take a day off if you work weekdays and go in the morning like we did. There was absolutely no wait, it was quiet and the waiters weren't stressed and were super nice. And the food was so yummy. It was a great start to our Friday.

We also went to the Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point and took tons of pictures of the beautiful flowers. Someday I'd like to take family pictures there. It's always lovely, and the weather was perfect, too. It has finally stopped raining!

Andrew and I also took a photography class Saturday morning that was pretty helpful, so hopefully my photos continue to improve soon! :)

I hope you all had a great weekend. I'm planning on eating a bunch of crusty bread and other hard things to chew once the pain goes away -- and right now I am LOVING Frozen Planet and wanting to snuggle some polar bear cubs. Anyone else watching that show? It's fantastic.

Wired

I got my braces on last Thursday, and I'm not going to pretend that I like them. In fact, I hate them, just like I knew I would. They are making huge sores on the insides of my lips, I have not been able to enjoy solid food for three days and I look like I'm 12 (or at least 14, as one co-worker put it) whenever I open my mouth. I just ate a bowl of chocolate pudding and enviously watched Andrew devour a buttered bagel, one of my all-time favorites. Also, I am currently lisping a bit when I talk because my lips don't want to move to accommodate the wires and brackets.

Before

After

Fortunately, they won't last forever, and when they're off, I will have a DAZZLING smile and no tooth or jaw problems. And I will look like I am in my mid-twenties again. :)

Due to my headaches and inability to talk like a normal person (or eat anything not pureed), we had a pretty low-key weekend spent at Andrew's parents' house doing laundry and watching holiday movies on TV. I introduced Andrew to "It's A Wonderful Life," which was just as great as I remembered it. I actually just read an article about how copyright laws have prohibited stations from showing that movie except on Christmas Eve and one other day of the year (yesterday). That movie reminds me of my late grandpa, who really liked it, and I wished I could have been watching it with him.

I also had the opportunity to sing one of my favorite Christmas songs, "O Holy Night," at the nursing home in our stake today. It was nice and depressing at the same time, especially since one lady couldn't talk but basically made these awful moaning sounds throughout the sacrament meeting and another lady was sitting in her wheelchair by the door as we left waving to her family as they drove away, looking incredibly lonely. Andrew told me we are going sky diving and not pulling the parachute when we get old so we don't end up in a nursing home. It is sad to see so many people who can barely take care of themselves there. At the same time, though, I definitely feel the spirit very strongly there and know that Heavenly Father is mindful of his elderly children, especially when they're hurting and feeling alone. It made me happy to know that I brought a little joy to their Sunday.

May you all have the happiest Sabbath day!

Pedal to the metal

So, it's official -- I am getting braces December 1. Merry Christmas to me.

The good news, however, is that my sister-in-law recommended an orthodontist in American Fork who is charging $2,000 less than the original orthodontist I got a consultation with. It is unbelievable that there is that much of a difference between two offices that are only about 45 minutes apart. Ridiculous.

I'm definitely not looking forward to the braces (who would be?), but I am looking forward to finally getting the problems with my teeth straightened out. I have always been very careful with how I smile, especially the last several years when I noticed that my teeth had gone back to where they were before the braces at age 14, but I'm hoping that the braces will not only straighten my teeth permanently but will also prevent any problems later in life with bone damage.

I'm also feeling particularly grateful for the things that I have right now and feeling very humbled. There is a saying something along these lines that has been in my head lately: "Be grateful for the trials you have, because if you knew what other people were going through, you'd beg for your own problems." Lately, I've discovered things friends are experiencing that are absolutely heartbreaking -- things that make me feel overwhelming gratitude for the time of life I'm in now.

I think it's human nature to be envious, no matter what you have. It's easy to forget all the things you do have and focus on the things you don't and the talents you're lacking. I'm envious sometimes of bloggers who can refashion old clothes and make crafts out of stuff laying around the house. I'm envious sometimes of women who have straight, easy-to-style hair and don't feel like they're taming a rat's nest every day. I'm envious sometimes of women who own a home and can decorate it however they'd like.

And then I realize that there are probably people who are envious of me! I am married to a wonderful man, I have a great job, I have a nice car that runs, and I have so many blessings in my life that I don't even think about. Heavenly Father throws curve balls from time to time, like He does in everyone's life, but I have no reason to feel down on myself or wish for something more.

So when I get braces next month, I'm sure I'll have a few tears at first. That's just me -- I have to cry things out sometimes. But I'm going to look at this in a positive way and remember that it's a blessing to have a bit saved up for things like this. And I'm going to stop myself when the "green-eyed monster" of envy starts creeping back in. There's too little time in the day to let her affect me.

Brace yourself

I am not what you'd call high-maintenance. I am the type of person who thinks it's annoying to spend more than 15 minutes getting ready in the morning -- and that includes showering, getting dressed and doing my hair.

Which is probably why I put off going to the orthodontist for so long. I kept pretending that my teeth weren't going to keep moving and that the dentist would only have good news at every checkup as long as I kept brushing and flossing.

Unfortunately, reality has a habit of biting you in the bottom when you least expect it. After sitting in a reclining chair and listening to the orthodontist telling his assistant phrases like "bone loss," "severe overjet" and "moderate crowding," I learned three things that I already knew:

1) My teeth will continue to move (and eventually suffer bone loss) if I don't get braces to fix them.

2) I really, really need to have jaw surgery if I want to protect my jaw from further damage (hence the phrase "bone loss" again).

3) I have to have the hard-core metal brackets and colored rubber bands, because Invisalign (the plastic braces that people with only slight dental problems can use) isn't strong enough for my teeth. Nice.

And, of course, I learned three things that I didn't already know:

1) Braces cost an obscene amount of money -- nearly $6,000 total.

2) No one (do you know anyone?) has orthodontic insurance, including me, and my dental insurance only covers $1,000 -- up to age 19. I am 24.

3) I will have to channel my inner teen again and wear braces for at least 20 months.

As I sat in the orthodontist's office looking at horrible mug shots of me straight on and from the side and x-rays of my jaw, all I could think of was I look like a criminal and How am I ever going to pay for this? and I'm almost 25 years old. I don't want to look (and feel) like a 14-year-old again.

Then I cried. In the orthodontist's office. Who cries in the orthodontist's office? And I'm crying again now. Stupid cry-at-everything genes!

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that the next time you see a picture of me, I will look ten years younger (in a bad way) and will probably not be smiling very broadly since the braces I had at 14 had the annoying habit of cutting into my lips.

Wish me luck as I try to figure out how to deal with two years of braces (and pay for thousands worth of metal wires and brackets)! I'd love to hear your dental stories, too -- I could use some cheering up. :(