Category Archives: Health

Injured hamstring, the importance of exercise, and increasing stubbornness and “fixed mindset” as we age

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Since college, I’ve regularly exercised. I was not very targeted about what I did, but I always did some kind of physical activity regularly. Once I started working full time after college, I got a gym membership and went to the gym for a rigorous workout anywhere from 3-5 times per week. I dabbled in different exercise and yoga studios. But it wasn’t until I was 27 when I started being more regimented about when I went to the gym (early morning on weekdays before work), and more regular about what types of exercise I did. And then, it wasn’t until two years ago when I weaned off breastfeeding that I started listening to my body in terms of what I liked and did not like (I generally dislike HIIT workouts), and found what really worked for me (low impact, pilates, barre, light weights) versus what other people (e.g. trainers, exercise guides) said would work for me (heavy weights, HIIT). This is a long winded way of saying: it took me a long time (so, my entire adult life for the last 21 years?!) to get comfortable with what kind of exercise I’d like that would work for me: fitness has most definitely been a journey and not a destination.

I exercise because I know it’s good for me, and it also makes me feel really good. I am always more alert and focused after exercise. I sleep better when I have worked out that day. I feel more agile, flexible, and nimble when I’ve worked out. I can feel a huge difference in my body when a few days have passed and I haven’t done any rigorous workout; it’s actually one thing I really look forward to when we get back from a long trip away. In the long term, I know exercise has helped my overall health; regular physical activity helps combat the inevitable loss of bone density and muscle mass as we all age. And given I am turning 40 next January, I am very cognizant of the fact that once I get there, I’ll begin to lose bone minerals faster than I can create new bone minerals, and thus, my bones will eventually become more porous and brittle.

What concerns me, though, is how inactive my in-laws and my dad are. My dad is turning 77 this year; Chris’s dad turns 72 tomorrow. Chris’s mom is just a few years behind his dad. My dad is basically glued to his computer most days, watching endless YouTube videos and leading this extremely sedentary, sloth like lifestyle. I used to suggest exercise, then I stopped when I realized he was never going to change or listen to anything I said. My in-laws seem repelled by exercise; it’s almost like they are allergic to it or something. The mere mention of the gym, and Chris’s dad’s face goes a little off, as though he has smelled something foul. Chris’s mom finally got semi-coerced into a gym membership by Chris’s brother over a year ago; after an initial consultation there, she says she goes about three times a week. Chris’s dad has bristled at the fact that the gym isn’t cheap, but why should it be, especially given where they live? Plus, spending on the gym is spending on health. They are both happy to spend money on prescription drugs or over-the-counter drugs and vitamins/supplements, but they do not see that spending money on a gym membership is an investment in one’s health. Regarding the gym workouts, I have observed Chris’s mom while at our building gym during their visits: she barely does anything that would really challenge her, which would lead to change in her body or weight. Chris’s mom has insisted for years that exercise “just doesn’t work for her,” as in, it doesn’t help her lose weight, even though she’s never given herself a good, hard look in the mirror and realized that she’s simply not challenging herself enough when exercising. As they always say, “no pain, no gain.” I’m sure it can sound hurtful when Chris or I have said or hinted at this; this is where having an unbiased third party, like a trainer, would be ideal, because they’re only going to say it like it is. They have zero reason to say things to hurt you; they were hired to get you to a better place. I used to give suggestions when Chris’s mom would complain about weight and eating so much (especially with us, because I’m not really about to starve them while they are with us), but then I finally stopped last year when I realized she was doing little to nothing to be honest with herself and actually take action to improve what she keeps complaining about. Now, I just listen or ignore it and say little to nothing in response.

Last week, I injured my hamstring during exercise. I am not sure what I did wrong, but I do know that my left hamstring and IT band were burning when I walked up to 76th Street and back last week. I figured it was time to rest and recover. Later that evening, when I was doing a hamstring stretch, lying on the floor with a towel to lightly pull my foot down, Chris’s dad came over to ask what I was doing. I told him I hurt my hamstring while exercising, and he looks at me, puzzled. “Oh, you injured it during exercise? Then, why exercise at all?”

I explained in the shortest and calmest way possible that injuries happen all the time, but that was not a reason to stop exercising. That’s like saying, oh, you should never try anything if you fail, because in that case, what’s the point? There is a risk in almost everything and anything you do. But just because something may hurt or be unpleasant doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Plus, hello, concerns around bone density and muscle mass loss, especially for them because they have both led very inactive lives?!

After a while, I just don’t think these conversations are even worth having. While we are all getting older, they are in their late sixties and early seventies, showing no signs of adapting a growth mindset anytime soon. They are unlikely to change their ways with exercise or anything in that realm. So I just smile and nod when they say these ridiculous things about how “exercise doesn’t work” or that they don’t have time to exercise or question whether a gym membership is worth the money because it’s clear nothing I will say will either agree with them or change them. So while I don’t think Chris’s parents and mine have a lot in common, what they all most certainly have in common is that they are all very, very much fixed in their ways. I wonder if I will be that way when I am my late sixties/early seventies, where Kaia is lecturing me about something she thinks I should do for my health but have neglected… I hope I can get to be that age where it could even be a possibility.

New York City laws for food establishments regarding restrooms

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As someone who admittedly has to pee fairly often (well, I do consume over the recommended amount of water per day), I always prefer to patronize establishments that have restrooms. Typically, if you are going to a sit-down restaurant in New York City, you can pretty much be guaranteed a restroom. With cafes and bakeries, though, this is very much on a case-by-case basis; it’s never a guarantee, and the vast majority of them will not provide a restroom for customers. So the rare times when I do find a restroom for customers, like at the popular bakery Almondine in Dumbo (likely one of my all-time favorite almond croissants, plus their hot Valrhona chocolate is more than worth it), or Paper Sons Cafe (a relatively new, family-owned cafe with excellent coffee drinks) in Manhattan Chinatown, I always appreciate it so much. And when I share these businesses with other people, whether it’s in public reviews or just by mouth, I always make sure to highlight it. It’s just a really big nice-to-have for a smaller establishment like a cafe or bakery. It ultimately just shows kindness and empathy to the customers who are frankly keeping you in business.

So you can imagine that I was pretty annoyed when I found out that a Japanese restaurant that had opened in East Village last year called Okiboro House of Udon, had no restroom. I was shocked. You’re charging $23 a bowl for udon, and you cannot even be considerate enough to your customers and have a bathroom? For the first 6-8 months when this place first opened, I was constantly seeing it all over social media; it had lines around the block and waits of 2-3 hours. People would just stand there for hours on end to sit and eat there for 30-40 minutes and leave. I knew I wanted to eventually go once the hype was over. So my pregnant friend suggested that we go there for dinner tonight; neither of us had ever heard of Himokawa style udon before, and we obviously had never had it. Unlike regular udon, with its fat and rounded noodles, Himokawa udon is a traditional, wide, and flat udon noodle that is known for its smooth, chewy texture and is often served hot or cold with a dipping broth. I said we could — but only if we went right at open time to avoid any potential wait. I warned her, especially given she’s pregnant, that it didn’t have a bathroom, but she said she could go to a cafe nearby after where her friend works, and she could use the restroom there. For her sake (and well, partly mine), I checked the latest Google reviews to see if they had added a bathroom. Unfortunately, we were out of luck: all the latest reviews still noted and complained about the lack of restroom. The owner kept responding to the reviews noting the lack of restroom and saying that because the restroom they had was only accessible through the kitchen, customers were not allowed to go through the kitchen to use it given that violated NYC health code. So, they could not allow customers to use it.

I felt like this was a total cop out, and frankly, it’s just bullshit. They would have known this was a law before deciding to lease the space and take over it as a restaurant. They could have easily incorporated a restroom into the design of the restaurant while it was being constructed like every other restaurant does. They’re making an excuse for something that they were just too lazy and cheap to do. I went to look up the local health code laws, and I found this out: If a food service establishment has 20 or more seats and opened after 1977, it must provide a toilet for its customers. I quickly counted the number of seats in the small space that is Okiboro House of Udon: those bastards — they have 18 seats! It’s like this purposely did this just to avoid having to build a damn bathroom that was accessible to customers!!

Was the food good? Yes. Was it good enough for me to want to come back given all the other incredible food establishments across New York City, plus the fact it lacks a basic bathroom? No.

The hype has died down. Okiboro House of Udon — good luck to you.

Strength training before cardio or cardio before strength training?

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Unless I was heading to an outside gym for a class at a set time, when I do my workouts, I usually have always done cardio before strength training. For me, strength training can be anything from weights, pilates, or barre. The logic I always had (that I had heard from others) was that you want to increase your heart rate and get your muscles warmed up before you go into the strength portion of your exercise. However, I’ve noticed that a lot of people at my building gym do the opposite: they start with their strength training, and then they end with a run, elliptical set, or a fast incline walk. I started reading articles about this and realized that there’s really no right or wrong way to go, but what is generally accepted is to at least have a 5-20 minute cardio warmup before your strength set to still get your muscles and body ready for movement. I actually did this today: I did 15 minutes of running, then 30 minutes of strength, followed by another 15 minutes of running. And when I did my second run, I actually felt more energized and like I had more power in my muscles on the treadmill! It was a really good feeling, so I think I will likely continue this approach.

I will say, though, that since I run on a treadmill, that approaching workouts this way is a little annoying from a maintenance standpoint because if I touch the treadmill on two separate sets, that means I have to use the cleaning wipes twice on the treadmill instead of once…

The times when tough love is necessary: when you make the same mistakes during your workout twice

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As long as I’ve been living in our current building, I’ve had a friendly relationship with our building gym trainer. He’s a trainer who works at multiple sites under the same building management company and also has his own personal training business. We have gotten along and had some interesting conversations over the years. Sometimes, when he has a free moment and sees I am struggling with something or could improve my form, he will stop and help me. He’s not officially my trainer; I’ve never paid him (though I did give him a Christmas tip this last year), but he’s given me endless good advice and is just an overall fun, smart, good person to have around when you’re exercising.

Currently, I’m wrapping up a strength training program via my Alo Moves app, and yesterday, the session had some kettle bell-like movements. About five years ago, I injured my lower back using kettle bells. After that incident, I decided to swear them off, and I haven’t used them since. I told our trainer about this then, and he told me it was most definitely a form issue. He showed me the movement and the parts to focus on. But I shook it off and just avoided them like the plague. Then this week, I figured since it had been a while that I could revisit the kettle bell motion. Well, I messed up once again, even after five years: I woke up this morning with a back that just… did not feel aligned, and I knew immediately what the culprit was. I wasn’t in pain, and there was no clear tweak or pinch, but I definitely felt like I was walking around with something crooked in my lower back. I did lots of stretching and twisting to try to get my back in line.

I walked into the gym this morning and told him, “I’m never using kettle bells ever again.” He gave me a concerned look, but he was in a training session with a trainee at the time. I got on a treadmill for my cardio session. Once he was done and I was near the end of my cardio session, he walked over to me and stared me dead in the eye. He snapped his fingers and motioned for me to get off the treadmill, stat.

With that fierce look in his eyes, I knew that shit was getting real. And I had a feeling that if I didn’t get off that treadmill in that instant, he would have probably stopped my machine and pulled me off.

First, he told me he knew what I was doing wrong. And when I did the kettle bell (or, well, what I thought was the kettle bell) motion, he confirmed what his suspicion was: my form was wrong. And when he observed more and touched my abs, he declared that not only was my form wrong, but I wasn’t engaging my core enough. “A kettle bell swing is a hinge, NOT a squat!” I tried again. “What did I say about the squat? No squat. HINGE. Too much bend in the knees. You need to feel this in your hamstrings. Squeeze that core. SQUEEZE. IT. I NEED THOSE HIPS MORE SOLID!” And then, if that wasn’t bad enough to identify two things I was doing wrong, he said he could tell from my hips that I was neglecting my pre-exercise glute-strengthening exercises he taught me that he insisted I had to do as a warm-up before any, any exercise moving forward. Geez, he’s like my mom; I can’t hide anything from him…

“This is not just to address an injury: this is to warm your body up so that you have a strong foundation,” he admonished me as I sheepishly admitted I hadn’t done the pre-exercises in a month. “As we approach 40, different things in our bodies just get a little weaker, and we have to give them extra love to prevent injury. You have to focus, focus, focus, engage your core, and do the pre-warm up before all else. This is for your health, your wellness. Don’t just mindlessly exercise without thought. You need to focus!”

He said we’re all guilty of mindlessly exercising, of not engaging our core, of getting lazy with warming up. But we needed to do this things even more as we get older. He’s totally right. I probably needed this scolding, this “tough love” wake-up call to call out that even if I am working out 5-6 days a week, none of that really matters if my focus is off or if my form is incorrect or if my stability is a bit wobbly. Sometimes, we really need to get back to basics to get to where we want to be. And it’s really easy to forget the basics when you’ve been exercising so regularly for decades.

Differing approaches to parenting regarding choking hazards

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Today, Kaia and I met up with a friend and his daughter, who is about eight months younger than Kaia, for lunch and an outing to Central Park. As we were getting settled in and after we ordered our food, Kaia asked for a snack. So I whipped out a bag of unsalted peanuts that I packed for her. I laid some out on her plate, and she started grabbing them and stuffing them in her mouth.

As soon as my friend saw the nuts on Kaia’s plate, his eyes widened, an apparent frown showed up on his face, and he raised his voice. “Wait, you’re giving her peanuts?” he exclaimed. “Really?”

Initially, I wasn’t sure what he was reacting to. Did he object to peanuts or legumes as a snack? Did he think it was unhealthy? Or did he perceive it to be a choking hazard?

“Yes… What’s wrong with peanuts?” I said, confused, handing Kaia more when she asked for more. “They’re unsalted, and they’re a healthy source of protein and a whole food. What’s wrong with peanuts?”

“All right, then,” he said. After I pushed him for his objection, he said he thought nuts were a choking hazard up until age 5, so even though most of the peanuts were halved, he still didn’t trust giving them to his daughter. I offered to share some with his daughter, and he vigorously waved his hand to indicate he didn’t want her to eat them. I tried to tell him that every child is different, and obviously you need to know your own child and what they are capable of…. plus, you also have to be comfortable feeding your child of a young age whatever it is they are eating. He waved me off, clearly not wanting to talk about this. He told me he knew of a kid in another classmate’s previous class who had choked to death on a whole nut. He cited another article he read about another kid choking on other similarly sized foods. And he said he’d only allow his child to eat a peanut if I broke it into a sixth of a piece. I think at this point, we were nearing the point of insanity, but I refrained from making this comment. His daughter is almost three years old, and I’d seen her eat far larger things in my presence. I think this level of overprotection was just too much, but again, I said nothing to contest it.

“I didn’t realize you were this cautious with her eating,” I said, still confused. “I have offered nuts to her before when (your wife) was around, and she was happy to let her eat them. In fact, she ate them back then! I think they were cashew halves.”

He shrugged. “Well, I’m not having any more kids, so this is all I’ve got!” I looked at him with a slight eye roll; yeah, because I’m planning to have boat loads more kids after Kaia!

In general, I’ve never really said anything with friends who have young kids when I don’t agree with their approaches or what they do with parenting or feeding. I never said anything when I’d seen him or his wife previously spoon feeding their daughter purees even though I strongly believe in baby-led weaning; granted, I am biased, though, because Kaia ultimately decided on that path. I offered her miniature versions of our food and purees at the same time when she was sixth months of age; she categorically refused the purees and leapt right into hand held foods and never looked back. I never said anything when I saw their pouch consumption be pretty frequent, or when they refused to let even a grain of refined sugar into her diet (at least, to their knowledge).

Parents have to make their own choices for their kids, and I totally respect that; but what I get confused about is when people think that I am in some way being reckless or irresponsible in my own parenting choices, or as though I am trying to put my kid at risk of choking and dying. I started preparing for introducing my child to solid foods before I was even pregnant! I did so much research, and I read so many studies. I coached my own child through eating solids from day 1 and watched and observed her like a hawk. Frankly, I am the reason she is the great little eater she is today. I know my child better than anyone else when it comes to food preferences and eating abilities. Kaia was hand feeding herself at age 6 months. She was eating hot spices at age 7 months. She was eating chicken off the bone at 7-8 months and navigating all the bones and cartilage at age 1-1.5. She was devouring pretty much every vegetable in her baby months. She was eating whole grapes at age 2; she started picking around a cherry pit at age 2.5. With eating, she has always been advanced for her age both in skill and in wide preferences for what she will eat. Food has for obvious reasons been a huge priority in my parenting with her, as I want her to flourish in her tastes and abilities with eating. So I think I’d be the best person to make the call on whether she can eat whole or half peanuts or not. I also think you kind of have to put your kid in somewhat challenging situations so they can learn and figure it out. When Kaia started picking out cartilage and bone pieces from bone-in chicken thighs and drumsticks, that’s when I knew that she could handle more “questionable” foods. Plus, it’s always with our supervision.

I am not a fan of helicopter parenting and strongly dislike overly cautious approaches to parenting in any form — food or non food. But hey, I’ll let my friends do whatever the hell they want — as long as they let me do what I want with my own kid.

“This is what it’s like to live”

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Unlike most Mondays, today I went to my SoHo coworking space. I was thinking about doing it anyway since I realized I had one March credit I had to use (I get four credits per month; it’s use-it-or-lose-it), and I want to use whatever perks I can get value out of from work as much as possible. But when a Brooklyn friend said she was taking Monday off and suggested we have lunch together, I decided it would be a good idea to meet semi-half way and meet up in Chinatown. We met up at one of my favorite Malaysian spots, Kopitiam, which she’d never been to before but loved (it’s an easy place to love; I have not brought a single person here who did not like it). Since my work schedule was relatively light, we enjoyed char kway teow, pandan chicken, fried duck tongues, Malaysian style French toast, lychee bandung, and iced Milo over two hours worth of chatter.

I told Chris what we ate, and in his usual snark, he made comments about what a busy work day I had and, “That sounds like a very luxurious Monday lunch!” If there is one thing I can never complain about with my current job, it’s the level of ownership I have over my schedule, as well as the flexibility I have to work wherever I want. I’ve had three managers now over the last almost five years, and every single one of them has agreed on the philosophy of: just get your work done, and no one will bother you about when/whether you are online.

It made me think about my neighbor I saw yesterday, who works as a doctor and is originally from Turkey. Her husband is French from France, and they both sound like they have very intense jobs. After their toddler goes to sleep at night, they both have to be back on their computers doing work and emails. She lamented how grueling it is, especially when she has to prepare all of her son’s school meals. It gets really tiring since she’s in the office five days a week, and her husband is in the office at least three days a week. So when she’s doing food prep for the week on Sunday, it’s almost like battling for time because it’s either she makes food OR she spends time with her son. He’s only engaged in the cooking if they’re making cookies, she said with a smile. The few weeks they go back to France or Amsterdam or somewhere where they have family, her parents will come up from Turkey and siblings will come from other European countries, and they will spend quality time together, 100 percent away from work. The kids will play and have fun together, and they will actually relax. She mentioned how it felt like, “All we seem to do here in America as foreigners is work, work, work. It’s so expensive here, so we don’t have a choice but to work around the clock. And so it almost feels like the only time we really get to enjoy life is when we take these trips together and spend quality time as a (wider) family. These are the times when it’s like a reminder to us: this is what it’s like to really live.”

Sometimes, I wonder if the last 17 years of working has really brought me any actual meaning into my life. I haven’t worked to increase equality in the world. I don’t save lives. I’m not researching cures for cancer or Alzheimer’s. I’m not trying to eradicate fake news and educate the masses. I basically have worked for a bunch of for-profit companies where at the end of the day, I’ve worked hard (well, most of the time) to make rich, mostly White people even richer. But then I realize… I have it really, really good. I met my life partner, husband, and father to my Kaia Pookie through work. I’ve met so many good friends and genuinely good hearted people across all the companies I’ve worked at. And I’ve also had a level of work flexibility that most people I know completely envy and wish they had. Life, I suppose, is all about give and take.

Wisdom teeth removal and a liquid diet

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In the U.S., it’s pretty normal to have your wisdom teeth removed when you’re a teenager or in your early 20s. The logic the dentist tells you (and has you believe is true…) is that your mouth will be overcrowded, that the wisdom teeth growing in later will start pushing up against all your other teeth, and thus they will ruin any orthodontic work (read: braces) that your parents (and their dental insurance) so heavily invested money in. They tell you that wisdom teeth serve no purpose other than to be a nuisance, so they must be removed! However, it seems like wisdom teeth removal is likely a reason why our mouths have gotten smaller over time, which have led to issues such as teeth grinding (bruxism), breathing problems, and a plethora of other issues that only the modern human seems to have experience with.

Chris never had orthodontic work, nor did he have his wisdom teeth removed as a young adult. But alas, this past week, he’s been having a lot of pain back there, so he went to a dental specialist yesterday to get this checked out. He ultimately made the decision to have all four of them removed. Let’s be clear here: removing adult teeth or wisdom teeth is no small feat. It’s not like when you’re a kid, and you’re pulling out a teeny tiny baby tooth with zero roots. Adult tooth roots, and especially wisdom teeth roots, GO DEEP. It’s a surgery, not a simple extraction. They are large, deep, and leave huge holes in your mouth. Those holes can trap food, and they need to be flushed out.

So when Chris came back with four holes in his mouth, plus a little post-surgery care kit, Kaia immediately noticed something was wrong with Daddy. “Daddy, what happen to your mouth?” Kaia said. “Are you hurt? You can’t talk?”

Chris’s mouth was stuffed with gauze getting soaked with blood gradually. He was coming off of numbing medication, and he was very understandably lethargic and slow moving. After procedures like this, it makes sense to have soft or liquid foods, so I suggested he have some oat porridge. I made some, but he said it was too “grainy,” so he had one bowl, and I left the other bowl for myself today. Then, he suggested that I could get him some “thick” soup at Whole Foods. I ended up going to the hot bar and picking up a large container of wild seafood chowder. Unfortunately, he was so uncomfortable eating the solid food pieces that he ended up picking out almost all the salmon and potatoes. Today, he seems a bit better. I made some vegan white bean soup and pureed it for him. But he’s getting cabin fever given he hasn’t been able to go anywhere. Plus, outside of soup, soup, oats, tea, and yogurt with jam, he hasn’t really had much else to eat.

These are the times you really realize how important food is to you (okay, well, us). It’s not only a source of sustenance, but it’s also a source of joy given how lucky we are to have such a vast variety of food available to us. We had ordered Filipino food from a nearby spot on Friday, yet he’s not going to be able to eat any of it given the texture, so Pookster and I will have to eat the rest. Adult wisdom teeth surgery stinks, even if it is necessary.

Tweaked neck

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Since my mid-twenties, every now and then I’ve had some kind of an annoying tweak, spasm, or pain during or after exercise. It hasn’t occurred that often, maybe less than once a year, but the fact that it occurs is always annoying. The worst time was back in 2018-2019 when I tweaked something in my lower back, and I couldn’t do much cardio for over a week without “feeling” it in my lower back. I try to do all the right things and stretch before, during, and after exercise. I try to warm up and do a proper cool down. But the tweaks still occasionally happen.

Yesterday morning, I was doing a strength training class via my Alo Moves app and was using light weights overhead when suddenly, I moved the weights above my head and TWEAK! I could feel something feel tight and uncomfortable on the right side of my neck. I tried to massage it out and stretch it, but nothing helped. Later that evening, I asked Chris to massage the area with some tiger balm. After a night’s rest, it does feel better, but it definitely isn’t 100 percent yet.

They always say to keep active and to keep up your strength training as you get older. I’m lucky that I haven’t gotten injured very often, especially compared to some of the horror stories I’ve heard. But these are the moments when I think…. Great. I try to do the right thing, and wham! Then, there’s pain.

Packing for Las Vegas – the dress I almost forgot about

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This morning, I packed my bag for a four-day work trip to Las Vegas this week. My company’s annual kickoff is being held there this year. This Thursday, we have a party where we’re expected to dress up. While a lot of my female colleagues obsessed over Slack about what dress or outfit they’d buy, I opted out of the conversation immediately. I had no desire to go shopping or buy any new glitzy outfit that I’d wear once and then shove in the back of my closet, never to be worn or seen again. After all the spending on gifts around Christmas time, plus the money spent on travel, I really did not want to buy more disposable clothing for myself.

So instead, I went to the back of my closet to find dresses I haven’t worn in years, as in… since 2015-2016, way before Kaia was born. I found one navy-blue, backless Kookai dress that I loved and decided to try it on to see if it still fit. Yes, it definitely still fits. And if I remember correctly, I think I actually have more back definition this time than I did back in 2015 when I last remember wearing this thing! I felt a little self satisfied as I rolled it and packed it into my packing pod.

I might be older now, and I might be a mom, but I can still wear fitted, body hugging clothing. I’m happy I dragged this thing out.

“Are you an old lady?!” The candle tunneling saga takes a turn.

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One of the things I looked forward to upon our return home this month was my nightly winter ritual of lighting a scented candle and reading for about an hour before bedtime. I hate the cold weather, and I strongly dislike short days, but I do enjoy cozying up in bed to a good book with the heat on, my covers over me, and a flickering and beautifully fragrant candle to soothe my senses.

Unfortunately, all of that sensual, soothing “me time” came to a halt one night last week when I realized that my semi new Voluspa Saijo Persimmon candle was starting to tunnel. How was this possible? Candle tunneling is the candle lover’s worst nightmare. I did all the right things: I made sure there was no draft in the room. I burned it for a minimum amount of time to allow the wax to melt evenly. I had the wick trimmed to the right length. What the heck was I doing wrong? So I immediately did a search on my phone to see what the culprit could be.

Unfortunately, it seems that candles do not like cold temperatures, either. A high quality scented candle prefers an ambient room temperature of somewhere between 65-75 F. What this means is: if a candle is lit while sitting in a temperature far below that (and yes, the thermostat in our rooms say that without the heat on, it’s somewhere between 40-50 F; we don’t keep the heat on in rooms we’re not using!), the candle fails to generate enough heat to melt the wax evenly. The heat then primarily melts the wax closest to the wick, leaving the edges of the candle solid and not burning properly. This uneven burning results in tunneling.

So what was I supposed to do, then, to prevent this from happening again — was I expected to turn the heat on in the room where I wanted to burn the candle and “prepare” the candle for lighting? That seemed so ridiculous. I get it when you want to turn the heat on in a room that you are preparing to enter, or for your spouse or even your dog or cat. But now I have to turn the heat on to prep the room.. for my CANDLE?

I was complaining about this to Chris earlier this week, and he gave me this bewildered look. “What are you, an old lady?” he exclaimed. “You’re researching causes for candle tunneling prevention?!”

He just doesn’t get it. When you have a fancy (read: expensive) and much loved candle which creates just the right room ambiance for you for your nightly bedtime reading ritual, you have to take care of it. You can’t just expect it to fix itself. I didn’t appreciate fancy candles ten years ago. But now, I wholly embrace them and everything they represent. Do I acknowledge this is a #firstworldproblem? Of course. But I have to take care of all my belongings!