Day 10

Good morning.  I would like to begin by acknowledging that my daily blog titles are about as dry and boring as could be.  They are not the catchy titles I would advise my students to use, that is for certain.  The titles are simply a count up of what I have achieved with my little goal here.  They are not efficient or notable.  As a matter of fact, I have to look back every day to see what day I am on.  I have already forgotten.  In the long run, it really doesn't matter what day it is.  It only matters if change comes out of each moment of this little fast.

To be quite frank, it is my husband who should be keeping a blog about all of this.  His life is going to be effected in ways he never would have imagined when I first discussed this with him.  In the glimmer of money saved by this process he may have been blinded to what this means for him.  He has done a great job so far.  He has gotten birthday cards and wrap, groceries and household necessities, and yesterday he took his first foray into the world of women's facial care!

There are actually very few make up/ skin care items I care too much about.  I always tell my daughter that a woman needs nothing more than a good mascara and a swipe of pretty lipstick.  As I have aged, however, I have added a few really important things to my arsenal of survival.  Skin care and trying to prevent further aging have become part of my morning routine.  As  matter of fact, moisturizers of all kinds have become important to my over-dry skin. On this list are included: eye cream, face cream, body cream and shea butter.  It is a rather particular list.  I typically use an exact list of items and replace them in a timely manner, so that I never have to go without. 

As I said the other day, I wish I would have been more prudent in my preparations for this endeavor. I have this last ten days run out of a very important eye cream, foot powder, and whitening tooth paste( I will cover tooth paste in another post, it is too important to be included here as an aside). I use this a type of firming cream, in part, to fix a little bit of a falling eyelid issue I have had since I was struck with the shingles three years ago. After some searching I found a little jar of cream that really helped this very bothersome problem.  It can be found at any Clinique counter.  It costs a ridiculous $60.00 per .5 oz. jar.  The jar does last a long time, but...I could not ask my husband to neither go to the Clinique counter, nor pay this exorbitant price for some eye cream. Seeing this daily fix through the eyes of my unfettered husband made it seem not only vain but silly.  It got me thinking...shocker!

I did a little research on the best eye creams on the market right now.  Interestingly, one of the top rated ones was available at Target stores.  I found out that it is actually made by the Channel company and marketed to the average customer under the brand Boots #7.  The cost of this cream was one third of the Clinique cream, containing similar ingredients.  I read about three other creams on the top-rated list, all of which were available at Target.  

I gave my husband a list of four possibilities and asked him to find one of them during his next Target run.  He did it!  He got the Boots #7.  What a nice little gift!  I am pretty sure he even felt good about helping me out this way.  I think he might even appreciate little this growth of knowledge about me and what it takes in this little family of ours.  I feel good about using something one third the price of what I had been used to paying without thinking twice.  

Maybe that is the best start for us both for this upcoming "year."  Maybe we will just begin to think twice about the way we judge each situation. Who knows?  I will keep you posted, of course.  

Stay tuned for the next major episode...we just ran out of bathroom cleaner!