Considering the importance of the missions at hand, manis and pedis aren't on the itinerary -- oh, and the chemicals in nail polish, such as alcohol, poison the environment that circulates the ISS's air. That, too. But Coleman notes that both female and male astronauts pay extra attention to their nails in space. "Some of us, including the guys, paint our nails with Hard As Nails products to give them extra strength, because the space suit's gloves and the environment are pretty hard on your nails," says Coleman. In space, outside ISS, Coleman says the air pressure that pushes down is like a hammer on your nails.

To avoid the pain, keeping your nails extremely short is key, but clipping is no ordinary task in space. "Every little nail clipping will fly off and float around until it lands on a filter," says Coleman. To keep her trims discreet, Coleman's clips her nails next to vents that suck in air and filter it out. ("I do the same when I eat something with a lot crumbs," she says.) Easy enough, although Coleman says getting to your toenails is it's own beast. "Imagine trying to clip your toenails in a swimming pool," she says. "It's less about balance, like on earth, and more about keeping your foot up to your chest. I have to enlist someone to volunteer their back so I have somewhere to keep my foot somewhat still," says Coleman.

"Shaving really depends who you're with ..." Coleman begins cautiously. Imagine what a mission simply clipping your toenails is, and try to factor in all the moving parts that come with shaving your legs (flying suds and hair, anyone?). "I pretty much wore pants the entire time, so I didn't even bother." She also admits that down on earth, she usually turned to waxing to skip the constant shaving.

"Whenever there's a spacewalk, anyone who isn't doing the actual spacewalk has to be in the rescue ship for the entire day. Whenever my friend Sandy [astronaut Sandra Magnus] was up there all by herself while her two crewmates were out, she'd refer to those shifts as her own little spa day -- that's when she'd take the time to shave," says Coleman.

While an earthling's sleep enemy might be tossing and turning at night or the appearance of sunlight, astronauts are more concerned about floating around the cabin as they snooze -- the zero-g equivalent of sleepwalking.

"Everyone has their own little cabin for sleeping, where you can doze off with your back tacked to the wall. Or you can slither into a blanket with arm holes, so you can type on your computer or read while you're "in bed"." (Snuggies in space!)

The most basic element of sleeping -- horizontal -- is one of the simple pleasures astronauts miss most, says Coleman. "Some people miss having their heads on a pillow -- just the feeling of having something there," she says. Those who pine for pillows have to settle for straps that dock their head to a wall, but the one thing that's relatively the same down on earth? Astronauts are given eight hours to sleep -- although they rarely log in the full eight thanks to, well, everything happening up there.

You're familiar with the vacuum-dried, dehydrated space food that you can pick up at REI to live out your astronaut fantasies ... and if you've actually eaten it, you probably understand why astronauts actually lose weight in space.

"I like to refer to our diet up there as the The Busy Diet," says Coleman, explaining the weightloss-friendly combo of a jam-packed work schedule in the name of science and the lack of 5-star restaurants. "The food isn't great enough that you'd gain weight. I lost 10 percent of my body weight while I was up there."

The lack of gravity has other perks in the vanity department: "You have a water weight shift right away, so that means anything that sags down here on earth looks really great up there in space," Coleman jokes. Plus, the lack of gravity pressing down on your spine causes you to sprout a few inches (Coleman came home 1.25 inches taller).

The downside? "The water weight gain also tends to settle in the lower half of the body," says Coleman. "We like to give the guys a hard time when they're complaining about the belly bloat." Welcome to our world, gentlemen.

So what do astronauts do when they're not conducting space walks, working out, repairing robotic arms, or in Coleman's case, talking to Sandra Bullock or playing the flute? "I talk to my family -- during my last mission, I talked to my family every day but three through Internet protocol on the phone or video conferences."

Coleman also took advantage of the time to relax and bond with fellow crew members. "Friday night after all the work is done, we're all pretty tired, so we'll sit around ... float around. Sometimes we'll get a chance to eat dinner together, which we don't get to do often, or we'll watch some TV. It was three Russians, two Italians and two Americans, so we usually revert to something easy to understand, and something physically comical. In most cases "The Big Bang Theory."