I haven’t had much blogging inspiration lately. I guess that’s kind of a hard thing to come by when nothing changes. Every day is the same thing. There’s no kissing the husband goodbye in the morning as he’s off to work. There’s no anticipating his arrival after a long day. Every day it’s the same. Wake up. Take care of household chores. Go in the room and see Jason at his desk doing what he can to get a job. Feeling suffocated by the lack of space here a lot of the time. Trying to make Jess understand she can’t be in there bothering her daddy all the time. That’s a hard one that she doesn’t understand. He’s home so why can’t he play with her all day?

Well here’s what’s been on my mind lately. A big ol’ wish list.

I wish someone would hire my super amazing, talented and hardworking husband

I wish I didn’t have to wonder if we’ll be able to make rent next month

I wish I had more food in the house

More than that, I wish we could go to an actual sit down restaurant for dinner.

I wish someone would serve ME for once.

I wish I had a dishwasher.

I just wish things could go back to the way they’re supposed to be. I don’t want my days to be weighed down by worry anymore. Not this financial worry anyway. I’d rather worry about the little things that don’t matter so much. Things like, what should I make for dinner, not how the heck am I going to put something together with what we have because I’m not sure I can afford to get more groceries.

I wish I didn’t feel like I’m going to implode, or burst into tears all the time, or completely go off on my poor unsuspecting family for no reason.

So, here’s to hoping that something good comes along soon and I can go back to complaining about the small insignificant things like where I’m going to go for dinner or which craft items i’ll be buying simply because I can and I want to.

In the interest of “Full Disclosure” and all that, allow me to state for the record I’m not getting paid to do this “review.” I haven’t been approached by anyone asking me to review this product. I’m getting absolutely zip for doing it. I have, however, used the product so I thought I’d tell you how it went.

So the story begins with my mother. She had this thing and asked me if I had seen it or used it. She was surprised that it actually worked. I told her I had seen it but didn’t use it. She said she got hers at CVS. Honestly, I had no intention in purchasing this product, and I wasn’t even all that interested in trying it out.

What am I talking about? Smooth Away. Well according to the website: Each Smooth Away Pad Is Covered With Superfine Crystals That Buff Away Unwanted Hair Leaving Your Skin So Soft & Incredibly Smooth. (Personal aside, beware of the video that starts if you choose to go to the website)

Anyhow, I had gone over to my mother’s yesterday and she says, “That pile of stuff on the floor there is for you.” Included in said pile was the Smooth Away Hair Removal System.

Ok, I though, I’ll go ahead and try it out. There is a long list of do’s and don’ts. Do have clean skin. Don’t have wet skin or any kind of cream or lotion on your skin. Do rub in a circle. Don’t rub the pad up and down or side to side. Do apply gentle even pressure. Don’t press too hard.

So there ya have it. Seems easy enough. You just slap a pad on and start rubbing the hair off. This product actually does a pretty darn good job at removing the hair. (I only used it on my legs) When the instructions say don’t push too hard, listen! I was having trouble with the area over my shins. It didn’t seem to want to remove anything from the area at all. So of course I started rubbing it up and down too fast and too hard. At least it didn’t break the skin and cause bleeding or anything like that.

The other “problem” I encountered was that it made my legs crazy ashy. So once I was all done getting off as much unwanted hair as possible, I slapped on some scented lotion. That’s when I learned they mean it about the not pressing too hard and not going up and down too fast thing. Ladies, you know how when you shave and then shortly after go in the pool or the ocean and it feeels like your legs are burning off? Yeah, the scented lotion was doing the same thing to my legs, but only where I rubbed too vigorously. Lesson learned.

• So will I buy replacement pads when these are done? Probably. It’s easy enough to use the product.

• Would I recommend it to others, especially since I didn’t put up any of my own money to buy the thing? I guess that depends. How much do you hate shaving? Can you stand to have legs that aren’t perfectly smooth? Maybe I’m the only one with that issue. I’ll say yes, I’d recommend it.

• But would I spend MY money on it? I think I would since I know it actually does (mostly) what it says it does.

• Has this product revolutionized the way I think about hair removal? Uhhh, not really. It does work much better than I had expected it to. But I’m not going to tell everyone in the free world about Smooth Away. If the subject of shaving comes up with girlfriends, sure, I’ll talk about it. It’s a pretty good little product that I’ll be using for a while.

• On a scale of 1-5 (1 being don’t bother and 5 being OMG go get one NOW NOW NOW!) What would you rate your experience with the Smooth Away hair removal product? I’d give it a solid 3. I’d even go so far as to say it’s a 3.5. It’s easy to use, works pretty well, and isn’t all that expensive.

If you try it out and have a completely different experience, or have a question about it that I may not have answered, please leave a comment.

I don’t know what it is exactly, but the desire to work on something, anything during financially unstable times is strong. The problem is that when cash is super tight, I get a wild hair to do something new. And it’s not like I know I can supplement our income with my creations. I’ve never made something that I could sell on Etsy. Or maybe I have and just don’t know it. Everything I make I look at and think, “this isn’t good enough, no one in their right mind would pay money for this.”

The last time Jason was laid off, I started making jewelry. I even sold quite a few items. I didn’t sell them online, but I ended up selling about $75 worth of stuff. Unfortunately it wasn’t until after Jason was employed and so that $75 didn’t do anything to help with the financial struggle that comes along with the only employed person being out of work.

Three months later and we’re back in the same boat, and he’s unemployed. And once again, I’ve got the strong desire to work on crafts. This time I want to try my hand at resin casting. Resin casting isn’t exactly cheap. First you have to get the resin, and the molds, and the wooden stir sticks, and the mixing cups, and then you have to know what you want to do with it. Well the only part covered there is what I want to do with it. However I’m not even sure what I want to do is something I could even try to make money on. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m obsessed with Twilight (we know, we know, shut UP about it already!) and I’d really like to do some themed pendents. However, I’m certain the book artwork is protected by copyright and so it’s not legal to use those images. And I highly doubt it’s legal to take stills from the movie and use them in something I want to ultimately sell. Plenty of people do just that, but I can’t exactly risk a lawsuit.

That leaves embedding other items into the resin which is cool its own right. But the problem is I don’t want to spend money on the supplies. I *think* I could do a good enough job that I could make a little money on it, but I’m not sure and so spending the cash on it seems irresponsible.

There’s just something about crafting during a crisis that comforts me. It makes me feel like I’m doing something, even though I’m really not. I guess it keeps my mind busy so I’m not jus tthinking about how scary life is at the time.

What kind of coping mechanisms do you have in place to help you through those dark days of instability, be it financial, health, whatever you may face?

Dearest Jason,

Thank you for being such an important part of my life. I love you more than anything. Happy 31st birthday my love. You mean the world to me.

And now for something completely different!

25 Things

(Times 5 and a day early)

It’s like the Friday 5, only BIGGER!

So there’s a meme going around Facebook and my girlfriend Kelly tagged me. I thought I’d go ahead and post it here since I haven’t had much to say lately.

25 Things You May Or May Not Know About Me

1. I’m obsessed with the entire Twilight Saga and unlike Kelly, I actually liked the movie, a lot.
2. I love brussel sprouts.
3. I haven’t maintained contact with any of my past boyfriends. (ex husband excluded because we have kids together)
4. I have over 40 shot glasses in my collection, and I won’t display any that I didn’t pick out myself.
5. Halloween is my favorite holiday and not because it’s my birthday.
6. I don’t have any tattoos.
7. American Idol makes me want to stab my ears with red hot pokers.
8. I drive a luxury vehicle and got it without the luxury sticker price
9. When we’re finally ready and able to buy a house, we hope to settle on the west coast of Washington State.
10. My oldest daughter has reached the point that I struggle when it comes to helping her with homework.
11. My favorite class in high school was Biology.
12. People say I have Flintstone feet, meaning they’re pretty squared off.
13. I’m 3 years and 3 months older than my husband.
14. I’m not a “let’s go to the movies” kind of girl.
15. I have something like 6 email addresses.
16. Out of every reading assignment I was given in high school, the only books I read cover to cover were The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck and Catcher In The Rye by J. D. Salinger.
17. I’ve never made zucchini bread even though it’s one of Jason’s favorite quick breads.
18. I can’t stand vanilla or cream cheese frosting.
19. Orange “flavored” (as in artificially flavored) drinks as well as orange creamcicles  totally gross me out.
20. I’d rather scrub toilets with a toothbrush (no, not MY toothbrush) than wash the dishes.
21. I’m a morning person. I wake up and it’s instant on.
22. I much prefer taking a bath over a shower.
23. Penguins are my favorite animal.
24. I used to want to be an astronaut until I discovered you had to be good at complex math.
25. My oldest child is attending the same Jr. High my mom and I both attended, and come September she’ll be at the same high school I went to.

Oh my gosh! That was crazy hard. I started it last night around 8 and gave up for the night after #7. Then I started it again around 6:30 and it’s now just after 8 a.m. Who knew it was so hard trying to come up with 25 things about me you may or may not know. Of course I tried to keep it interesting, but I know some of those probably fell short.

PLEASE please please feel free to leave a comment and let me know how many of those you already knew about me. I think *that* would be interesting. Also, were there any you didn’t know that surprised you? If so, do tell!

Since I’m in a fairly dark frame of mind right now, I didn’t want to get too deep with this week’s Friday Five.

So it’s all about describing where you live. This can be your state, city/town, or actual living space. If you play along, please try and keep to one word answers. Feel free to put (state) (city/town) or (living space) after each answer so we know what you’re specifically describing.

Where I Live – Whittier, CA (SoCal)

1. Sunny (State)
2. Expensive (State)
3. Suburban (City)
4. Small (Living Space)
5. Loud (Living Space)