Random Thoughts

At the end of every day, I have to empty my front two pants pockets of their "Mommy contents." And by "Mommy contents," I mean all the stuff I confiscated from Rachelle when I wasn't near a trash can or the items' place in the house. Some days yield very little. Other days, especially days when we are at other people's houses, the park, or the library, my "Mommy contents" are overflowing.

Tonight I removed a Smarties wrapper, a stray marker lid, 2 hair ties, a broken piece of a plastic toy, a wadded up piece of toilet paper, my half-shredded shopping list, a red metallic heart off of a heart garland, and 2 Q-tips. Other items I have found at end of a day include coins, nail polish, Post-It notes, keys, chapstick, a glue stick. The most scary item I have ever emptied out of my pocket was a push pin.

Am I the only one who does this?

Today I also went "lipstick shopping." I say this because I went to the store specifically to shop for lipstick. I've been sans lipstick for about 2 months now, and even though I hardly wear make up anymore, I hate not having on some kind of lip stick/gloss/color when I actually do have on makeup. However, lipstick shopping for me is very time consuming. So it's not something I can just tack onto a regular store run. The girls just don't have the "store-run longevity" for that.

I used to get my foundation/powder/whatever and lip stick/liner/gloss/whatever only from Clinique. Not because I was a snob (although I'm sure I was), but because you could try it on. And know what you were buying. And waste less money. Because, let's face it, even though Maybelline and Cover Girl are like a 1/3 of the price of Clinique and Avon and Estée Lauder, you end up wasting money by buying things that you think will look good just based on what's in the packaging. And then you get it home and realize that it cakes, or doesn't blend, or doesn't match your skin tone, or doesn't last, or the color bleeds, or whatever. Then you have this new, $5-10 foundation/lipstick/powder/cover-up/gloss that you now have to replace. This costs you another $5-10, not to mention another agonizing trip to the store to try to guess what's going to look right on you.

So today I took the girls to Target to look for lip stick and liner. It took 45 minutes. This involved looking at lots of colors and brands, taking things over to the "scanner" to see how much things were (doesn't it bug you that makeup is never clearly priced?), deciding whether or not what I wanted was worth what they were charging, etc.

And yes, I am that person that will try to find one of the lip liners that is already open so I can draw a line on the side of my palm to see if the color looks good on my skin. I even take my own Q-tip and use it on the lip sticks, again finding the open one and making a line on my hand. (Hence the reason Q-tips were listed among my "Mommy contents.") I don't even feel bad about this - it's sanitary (I'm not putting this stuff up to my face) and I feel like the makeup company owes me for how much money I've wasted on stuff that doesn't work out.

Am I alone on this?

And finally, our TV has become possessed. Really, I think it's just slowly dying. Michael and I have been married for almost 9 years and we've had the tv since the day we were married. And now, the TV decides on its own when it will and won't turn on and off.

Yesterday, it just randomly turned on twice. And no one was standing anywhere near it to have accidentally stepped on the remote or something. Today I tried to turn it on with the remote - one, two, three, four times. Shake and pound the remote. Try different angles. Close range, long range. Finally give up and go up to the TV and try to turn it on manually. Still no go. Push the power button on the TV three or four more times. Finally, a full 2 minutes later, it turns on. Shaelyn declares, "It turned on all by itself!" After a few minutes, it turned off again. Luckily, we were able to turn it back on ourselves.

Michael and I have discussed several times the idea of upgrading our TV to a nice, HD flat screen. We've talked about this for years. But with our TV viewing dwindling down to practically nothing (the only shows we watch now are LOST and The Amazing Race), and with a TV that still works just fine, and with little ones in the house that cause everything to get real junky real fast, we just haven't been able to justify the expense.

But if our phantom TV keeps acting up, you may find us at Sam's Club with one of those big dolly carts. The ones used to buy 400 boxes of Peanut M&M's or 70 gallons of milk. (Both of which I have personally seen.) Except ours will have a new TV on it. And maybe some Peanut M&Ms.

What are your thoughts?