Acne and baking

Whew! A good, busy day.

A love getting huge blemishes on my face. Really. x.x

WARNING: GROSS OUT TMI THINGS AHEAD.

I was a bit spoiled in high school, in that I didn’t have serious acne. A bad skin day for me was when I had maybe three zits. Unfortunately, I grew up with a mother who, for some reason, had a compulsive need to pop zits. And, in self-defense, I started popping my own zits before she could get to them, even when they hurt a lot. Then I got mad that it took so long to heal and would pick at it. Needless to say, while I’m not as bad as some people, I do pick at my skin a bit compulsively.

Unfortunately, in recent years, I’ve developed a different form of acne, which makes me just about go insane. I wasn’t aware of it (what with being spoiled and all) but there are apparently several different forms, and the one I’ve been dealing with lately is called cystic acne. That means its deep under my skin, and trying to pop it will do absolutely no good, and in fact can do a lot of harm. Growing up I’d always had the garden variety zits that could be popped, and cystic acne drives me to distraction. It makes me want to take a knife to my face, sometimes (and I only get it on my face, of course). Every once in a while, I ignore my own common sense and attempt to pop the cystic acne. *Sigh* And that enormous red spot on my face that you can see in the photo is the result. Since I also have problems picking scabs, leaving it alone long enough for it to heal is a herculean effort for me (and I often fail). I’ve gotten more scars from the past couple years having cystic acne than I ever did back in high school. x.x

In happier news, I’m baking tonight. A tried and true recipe, beloved to me for its extreme (and I do mean extreme) ease. Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, yummmm. I, personally, make half the pictured amount (one box of cake mix, a 15 oz can of pumpkin, and 6 oz chocolate chips), and I find that it makes exactly enough to fill twelve regular muffin cups and twelve mini muffin cups. I tend to make the mini ones because, for one, I adore tiny things (if the doll knitting and such didn’t make it obvious). For another, I usually share them, and many people who are “watching their weight” are more willing to try them if they are tiny. That doesn’t mean I condone weight loss, it simply means that I hate that they feel the need to deny themselves, and I want them to have a treat too, so I play by their rules to make sure they get the enjoyment everyone else does. Baking, for me, is a way to share my joy of food with people. It’s also a deep-seated psychological need for acceptance that I’m attempting to gain by giving people things, and since food is a generally accepted thing that is okay to give (no obligation or implied payback), I do it a lot. Is it healthy? Perhaps not. But I know that when I get thanked by people for bringing them baked goods, it makes me feel good. *Shrug* So I don’t see the problem with indulging myself.

Tomorrow I’m going to visit a friend for a doll meet (just the two of us, others had conflicts) and she always brings food when I host the meets at my house, so I figured I’d take her food in return, and this is an easy and delicious treat. Also, she has a husband and two sons, so I can take the majority of it to her house and not have leftovers (if I keep too many, they go bad before I eat them all, I always forget to freeze them).

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