Desperate Times Call for Desperate Measures

In anticipation of a party-filled weekend (it's been so, so long since I've said that. In reality, it's just a cocktail party tonight and an engagement party tomorrow night. We are the hosts, however, for the second one.), I thought it best to do a bit of body-maintenance.

While time is limited during naptime, I thought I could accomplish a brief buffing of the face, removal of nail polish, and repainting of said nails. I took a short, but luxurious bath - including shaving!, and lotioned down my legs and other potentially-exposed body parts.

As I gathered my astringent, nailpolish remover, and nailpolish, I realized I was missing one key tool. Cotton balls or pads.

I searched through the bathroom, high and low, behind all sorts of waaay-expired beauty products, with no luck. But low and behold, on the shelf devoted solely to my lady parts, wedged between the red sharps disposal box and the Clearbl*e Easy Ovulation Monitor (which, yes, I am using), a barely-used package of Kot*x pads.

From first glance, I thought they were pantyliners, as they were so very thin. But upon closer inspection, I discovered they were indeed ultra-thin pads (I was only a consumer of these oh-so-comfortable products after the birth of the babies...I hate them!).

And surprise, surprise. They make remarkably good nail polish remover pads (so absorbent when I practically spilled all over my bed!). A bit rough for the facial astringent, but when in a pinch...

Note to Self

When adorable 16 month-old twins rummage through the pantry for a little something to play with, and then pull out a half used envelope of hot chocolate mix and proceed to sprinkle it all over the floor and themselves, do not, I repeat DO NOT, be too lazy to pull out the vacuum and then use sopping wet paper towels to clean up the powder.

It makes for chocolate babies who thoroughly enjoy licking their own sticky fingers, toes, legs, and arms, as well as all exposed body parts of the other twin.


Edited to add:

Additional note for times when children, no matter what, will not follow you into the bathroom/kitchen/bedroom/car:

A small laser pointer, intended to stupify your felines, is the perfect tool for corraling small toddlers. Follow the red dot...

This Duck is Stuck ...

We have a box of "conversation questions" that sits in our dining room. I'm sure you've seen them - nicely printed square cards, encased in a cool Lucite cube. The questions are usually interesting, and sometimes J & I pull one from the box, and each of us answer it.

A recent question was "What are your top three pet peeves?" I jumped on this one, as I usually have so many that I cannot limit it to just three. But for the sake of the game, I managed to choose my top annoying pet peeves. As follows:

Chewing. People who chew loud.
Not crunchy loud - you just can help making some noise when biting into a crispy potato chip, and I certainly don't begrudge anyone the right to crunch into a taco. I mean mouth noises. You know the noise ... wet, smacking, gooey noises. Gross. I grew up with loud chewers, and refuse to deal with it as an adult.

Diagonal walkers.
When I'm in the car, and I politely stop to allow someone to cross the street (with or without a crosswalk or stop sign), the walker, instead of taking the direct route across the street (straight!), chooses to meaner diagonally from point A to point B. This leisurely stroll results in me, having tried to do something nice, cursing the walker and vowing to never again give right of way to a pedestrian. It's wrong, I know, especially since I myself am I diagonal walker.

Obviously poor grammar/spelling.
Again, I'm sure I've been an offender as well as the offended, but I just can't let it go. Tops on my list are there vs. their, ending sentences with prepositions, and that vs. which.

As we all know (don't we??), you use which following a comma, and that when no comma is used. Wait ... let me pull out my AP Style Manual ... it is quite old (1996), but I'm sure the rules haven't changed ...

Ah ha! It all goes back to essential and non-essential clauses. That is preferred for essential clauses. Do not uses commas for essential clauses. Which is preferred for non-essential clauses. Use commas for a non-essential clause.

Now let me pull out a favorite children's book Duck in the Truck. It has topped our most-read list of late, and each time I read it, I am painfully aware of the following passages:

This is the Duck driving home in a truck.
This is the track which is taking him back.

Teeth grinding ... must continue reading ... children love this book ...

These are the feet which jump the Duck down
into the muck, all yucky and brown.

So my question is, would I be considered totally anal-retentive if I was to correct the grammar in my children's board books??