The sucky thing about vacations is that the relaxing benefits you may have enjoyed from being away from home are often short-lived, because once you walk back in the door you’ve got an overload of domestic tasks to take care of: fifteen loads of must-do-immediately laundry, grocery shopping to fill your empty fridge, and a flurry of cleaning to deal with the mysterious and awful odor emanating from your empty (. . . or is it?) fridge.

Having just returned from a four night parents-only getaway (in lovely Tofino, BC, which I really can’t recommend enough), the only thing I really wanted to do yesterday was spend time with my son, but once he went to bed I couldn’t ignore the post-vacation detritus any longer. I had suitcases and dirty clothes to deal with; a house that had thankfully stayed in good shape thanks to the presence of Riley’s grandparents, but still needed some picking up before the work week started; and a week’s worth of groceries to buy. Not to mention eighty jillion digital photos to sift through and organize.

With this topic fresh on my mind, here are a few tips that may or not be useful for you the next time you leave town:

Read the rest of this entry

I can’t even believe I just used the term beauty routine—but there it is, gunking up the blog title with its associations of frippery and vanity and a general disregard for the Important Things In Life.

Well, what can I say, I rely on a little primping before I greet the outside world. When I have a little time to devote to some monkeyish self-grooming, I feel better about myself. The truth is, a portion of my self-confidence comes from Sephora—whether it’s right or wrong, I subscribe to the I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, my blemishes are mostly concealed mantra.

Now that I’ve got a toddler to wrangle in the mornings, I’ve had to streamline my getting-ready routine. For instance, I’ve learned that it’s hard to linger over my hair when I’ve got a 2-year-old standing in the bathroom doorway yelling “ALL DONE MOMMY! ALLLL DONE!” (not a fan of the hairdryer sound, my son). So, on the mornings when I’ve got about ten minutes to spiff myself into a reasonably presentable shape, here are some products I rely on:

Read the rest of this entry