Gift giving made simple

The in-laws arrive tomorrow for one week and the house looks like a tornado slammed through the front door and left out the back. How I will get everything stashed and arranged in time I do not know. I have just way too many organizing projects going on right now. For example Seb found three boxes of beauty products in the basement before he left last week and hauled them upstairs for me to deal with. These were from the cleaning out of the vast beauty product armoire last month and then the elimination of bathroom two and its giant pharmacy cabinet behind the toilet. "Aren't you embarrassed about having all this stuff?" He was right. There was so much stuff it was embarrassing: creams, body scrubs, loofahs, mineral salts, oils... But you know good stuff. So I am going through it right now and dividing it into "keep," "throw away" and "give away." The whole projects covers my bathroom floor and with Little S's help is one giant mess. So yeah that's just one project.

It's Father's Day in France on Sunday and I think in the US too (I'll have to check on that). I was in Marrionnaud returning my products from Mother's Day so I got a brilliant idea to start Seb on a better skincare regime. Right now he just slathers drugstore lotion on his face from time to time and calls it a regime. Anyway they have a great sample coffret (slightly larger than sample size actually) from Clinique on promotion and I was really pleased with it. It lets you try a few of the products in the men's line. So you know, great! more beauty products for the bathroom!

I actually realized that the store I went into and complained about for my Mother's Day gift was the wrong Marrionnaud. The right one is a few doors down from that one (it makes no sense to have two Marrionnaud stores on the same street but that's the French for you) and they were brilliant. I got to take back everything and got some good advice. Skin care advice reminds me of breastfeeding advice. Everyone has their opinions and everyone has their different philosophy but in the end you just have to listen to your body and take what the experts say with a partial grain of salt. What they say is valid but in the end it's your body and you know better.