I have way too many vanity products. I know this, okay? It’s an addiction. I have drawers that are overflowing with tubes and containers I rarely use, and more shamefully, my bathroom counter is a disorganized mess of the millions of items I DO use. You’d think with all this beauty arsenal at my disposal I would be a constant vision of dewy-skinned gorgeousness, but let’s be real: there’s really only so much modern cosmetics can do.

I have powders, brushes, hairsprays, lotions, perfumes, and lipsticks littering every surface of my counter, not to mention the flatiron, hairdryer, and various hairbrushes. It’s time to clean house, by god, and while I’m sure I can get rid of a few expired items here and there, the key will be to figure out storage for all of the crap I like to at least have the option of using. Sure, I only curl my eyelashes maybe twice a year, but that doesn’t mean I want to throw out the little metal tool! I just need a HOME for it.

I started poking around for makeup/vanity product storage solutions, and here are a few good ideas I found:
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I divide children’s television shows into four categories:

1) Shows I have a philosophical objection to the kids watching.

2) Shows I have no philosophical objection to, but can’t stand to have on because they make me feel as if sharing my house with children has made my whole life unrecognizably lame and sad.

3) Shows I feel indifferent about:  they’re fine for the kids to watch, and I don’t mind having them on.

4) Shows I really like: I’m glad when the kids like them, and I might start shushing so I don’t miss the dialogue.

Most of the shows in the fourth category are the ones I liked in my own childhood.

Current episodes of Sesame Street are fine (although they seem to be almost entirely Elmo’s World and Journey to Ernie), but I prefer seeing the very same episodes I watched as a child.  Grover and that guy in the restaurant!  Kermit and the on-the-scene reporting!  The typewriter, typing on itself!  Oscar being genuinely rude and mean!  Adults openly mocking Big Bird for saying Mr. Snuffleupagus was real!
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I’m the spit-up covered, booger-wiping mother to both a toddler and a baby, which means that the majority of the surfaces in my house are coated with . . . well, actually, it’s probably best you don’t know the details. Especially if you’re planning to visit. Have a seat! Never mind that sticky — wait, where are you going?

We all know parenthood is messy (and smelly, and gooey, and smeared with various bodily substances), so without getting too Martha-y about cleanup — can anyone without a full-time housekeeper and nanny really expect that their home will remain sparkling clean in the wake of small children? — what are your tried-and-true methods of dealing with the inevitable catastrophes? Here are a few of my favorites:
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I have a little chunk of money that’s all mine to spend on something frivolous.  When this happens (oh, practically EVERY DAY), I like to consider choosing a new expensive perfume.  Perfume is a good value for me:  every time I use it, I feel happy about it—and there are many, many uses in a single bottle.

The one I’m considering is L’Artisan’s Fou D’Absinthe.  The last time I bought perfume, there was a little free sample of it in the package.  I don’t even remember what it smells like now, but I made a note in the spreadsheet (YES, I have a perfume spreadsheet, SHUT UP) that says “MUST HAVE.”  Since I normally write “yes,” “no,” “maybe,” or “nice, but no reason to own it,” I’m assuming I liked it.
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My boy Riley is going to be three years old at the end of this month, which sort of freaks me out every time I think about it. He’s getting so BIG! And wait, I thought all this bratty behavior we’ve been experiencing recently has to do with being three, are you saying I’ve got more than a YEAR of this to go?

With birthday presents in mind, here are the things we’re planning to gift his way this year:
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My kids’ school (and I hope it’ll excuse me for saying so) is a big, no-fun poophead.  Every year I look forward to back-to-school shopping, every year I wait eagerly for the back-to-school shopping list—and every year it’s all “One box 24-count (NOT 48-count!) crayons, one box #2 pencils, two dry-erase markers (one must be black; the other may be red or blue or black), NO Trapper-Keepers, NO pencil boxes.”  Tell me this, then:  what can I do with all this awesome back-to-school stuff from Etsy?

Aqua retro floral pencil pouch.  I want to eat it on toast.
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Back-to-school preparation isn’t something that’s particularly on my radar yet since my kids are still mostly in the Anklebiter Stage of childhood, but I’ve been hearing a rumor that this most glorious time of year is fast approaching. 

With schoolgear in mind, today’s post features some cool lunch boxes I’ve found recently. If you’re looking to branch out from the tried-and-true paper bag, here are some excellent alternatives:
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When my oldest son went off to preschool, he needed a backpack.  I liked the idea of the Lands’ End and L.L. Bean ones, but why would I pay five times the price of a Walmart backpack?  So I bought him a $5 Walmart backpack, and it wore out in March when of course Walmart didn’t have any backpacks to replace it with.  I repaired it with packing tape and my crappy primitive sewing skillz.

The next fall, for kindergarten, I bought another Walmart backpack, but this time I got the one that was more like $8 instead of the one that was around $5—going for quality, you see.  That one, too, ripped before the end of the school year.  It was very frustrating.

So when my aunt gave us a gift certificate to L.L. Bean, I used it to buy L.L. Bean Original Back Packs for both of my older boys:  one for Rob, who was then going into first grade, and one for William, who was starting 4-year-old preschool.
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We have two kids and no plans to expand our family any further (with the possible exception of a fainting goat because hot damn, I’d never get sick of seeing this), and now that we’ve completed our childbearing activities I realize I no longer need to hang on to every item of baby clothes I own. I had no problem offloading my maternity wear, but then again, I didn’t find myself waxing nostalgic about a shirt the size of a circus tent.

Our youngest is six months old and he’s already gone through many of the small outfits I had saved after our first boy. I cleaned out the nursery closet the other day and ended up with a few boxes I plan to send to a couple of friends who are expecting their own baby boys, but there were certain items I just couldn’t part with. Like the incomprehensibly tiny striped onesie that both my kids wore during the first weeks after they were born, their coming-home outfits, the weird little yarn-tied hats they wore in the hospital. The first footed pajamas that fit, the hand-knitted cap gifted to us by a friend, even those unattractive teal-and-pink blankets they wrap your baby with at the hospital — I can’t bring myself to get rid of any of that stuff.
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