I usually shower twice every day, in the morning and at night. The evening shower is more to relax and get into the calm, pre-bed mindset, but lately, my evening shower has been serving a functional purpose--well, several purposes.
First of all, the tooth whitening continues. Yes, I started my tooth whitening over a month ago, and I did say that the whitening would take only a week. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be that simple.
The first trays did not go all the way up to my gums, and the problem was with the mold that was taken of my mouth that day. (The dentist office was perplexed as to how it happened, and my knowledge of the dental arts is limited, so I couldn't offer an explanation, either.) I had to make another appointment to have another mold taken, and then I had to make another appointment to pick up the new trays and make sure that they fit (they do). And of course my dentist is open only during banking hours, so I had to wait until I could work at home for both appointments.
But now that's done, and I'm back to the whitening process. I've been doing one round (for lack of a better word) per day rather than the optimal two, and some days I have to skip due to user error. (Too much gel in the trays irritates your gums, and it's best to give them time to recover.) I am nearly 2/3 of the way through my gel, but I probably won't use all of it so I can save a tube for touch-up whitening in a year or two.
I wear the trays during my evening shower, and I've recently introduced another activity to shower time--practicing French. A coworker lent me a 1-hour learn-to-speak-French CD that I've been listening to (and practicing along).
If you think speaking French is hard, you really ought to try it while wearing gel-filled trays in your mouth. And if you're like me, you speak your second-learned foreign language with an accent from your first-learned foreign language, so I am speaking French with both Spanish and American accents as well as a tray-induced lisp.
Watch out, France--here I come.
