Thursday, April 30, 2009

Real Obvious...


So this came in my inbox "help" from a home superstore, and Real Simple, the magazine dedicated to making me feel like the worst housekeeper on the planet. These "tips" are supposed to make my life better?

Use multitasking products? "No need to use separate products to cleanse and exfoliate" this exhorts me. I am so happy if I manage to get my makeup off my face before I collapse that I often use a wet wipe. Forget "cleansing."

"Line up your products in the medicine cabinet in the order in which you use them... No more forgetting deodorant when you're in a rush." If I couldn't get ready until my products were lined up in the medicine cabinet, I would never get to work. Then I have to put them back in the same order? Every morning? I might as well tender my resignation now.

"For items you're always using (like cotton swabs or makeup brushes), keep them on the counter in pretty containers." Really? Does anyone *not* keep their cotton swabs on the counter in a jar? Did I miss the memo that said that we weren't doing that anymore? Because everyone I know keeps theirs in a jar on the bathroom counter, along with the cotton balls.

Real Simple really should think about these "tips" before they send out this content. I am now convinced (as if I weren't before) that they are completely divorced from any kind of reality.

Friday, April 24, 2009

With mornings like these...

I really hate when one of my mornings is intersected with an extra child being at my house. Not "extra," as in friend over, but "extra" as in, should have been in the truck with their daddy. (He looks for excuses to leave them.) It is always disconcerting. And it takes a chunk of time out of my morning to do drop off at an extra school.

Anyway, so this morning W is sitting on the couch as his dad leaves. I ask why. Turns out, the guy who is taking him on an extra-special field trip to watch things blow up is picking him up at my house. My house is a wreck, as it is every semester about this time. (Spring break was a long time ago.) So I tell him that he has to pick up the living room-- all the area that can be seen from the front door.

Then, after I load the dishwasher, I tell him again.

In the meantime, he has taken the clothes out of the dryer so that he can dry his clothes. Fine. Turns out, though, those clothes are still wet.

I sweep the leaves out of the entry hall. At this point, I am yelling at W to clean up the living room that can be seen from the front door. He fusses about me yelling. Now, at this point, the fact that he needed to help neaten up should not have been news. Yet, he could not figure out why I was upset. How can he be such a man at 14?

Back to the wet clothes: I try to look at the lint screen to see if it is full. I reach over and pull it out and somehow knock the coffee out of my hands. As my dear Mea was trying to help salvage the falling coffee cup, she knocked over the laundry detergent. And the lid fell off as it hit the floor.

I had a quart (at least) Tide Free mixed with coffee on my hallway floor. And on my clothes. Which made the laminate floor impassible and my outfit impossible.

So I had to mop up the mess and change clothes. Changing caused its own set of trauma. I am evidently about 10lbs over my fat clothes at this point, so it was a challenge to find something that fit. Eventually, of course, I did, sort of. But I made it to work eventually.

And just made W wait in the front yard.