Your reward for reading about soap...

My 2-year-old standing in a high chair at IHOP shoving pancakes into his face.

A Post About Soap (And Possibly Mental Health)

In these tough economic times, it seems that most families are cutting back in some way to save money. Perhaps you are one of those families. You may be biking to work instead of driving in an effort to save gas money. Possibly you brown-bag it instead of dropping eight bucks at Café Rio five times every week. You could be opening your windows to let in a breeze instead of turning on the air conditioning. I am not doing any of these things. What I AM doing is cutting back on scenty, name-brand soaps.

There was a time that all my household soap was from Bath & Body Works. I love that soap. It smells super and makes the surrounding area smell nice. And the bottle is cute and has that cute little photoshopped image of the delightful smell inside, beckoning as if to say, “Come soap yourself with smell-goody soap, soap user!” Plus it’s either nice and creamy-foamy, or nice and creamy with little specks of anti-germ stuff. Either way, terrific.

All of this was before I had children old enough to wash their own hands. My kids both love to wash their hands. Not particularly when they’re dirty, because then they “hafta.” My children are recreational hand washers, and half the fun is using tons and tons of soap, resulting in tons and tons of bubbles, and tons and tons of soap scum for me to scrub out later. But that’s another post entirely. Anyhow, as soon as my oldest was old enough to reach the soap pump, I realized our entire monthly toiletry budget was going down the drain (literally) in the form of Warm Vanilla Sugar.

This unfortunate development led me to begin purchasing SoftSoap. No huge complaints here, but I soon realized I was spending almost as much money on soap as I was before, and my hands didn’t smell nearly as much like coconut, lime, or verbena, whatever verbena is. It was time to have a heart-to-heart with myself regarding my love of smelly soap.

What I decided was this: I would buy a year’s supply of Bath & Body Works soap during Christmastime. By a “year’s supply” I mean a mere 12 bottles of delightful, fragrant soapy goodness (I, too, marvel at my providence and practicality.). Because there is always a really good sale during the holidays, it is at LEAST as cheap as nasty WalMart brand imitation SoftSoap, and between my birthday and Christmas someone usually gives me a B&BW giftcard (Thank you, whoever you were last year/ will be this year! Sincerely!), so I am no longer spending a fortune on soap. Great.

The problem is, I am now officially a soap hoarder. I still have 9 bottles and we are almost halfway through the year, folks. This is abnormal. Before you start asking yourself, “Ew, sick, are the Garrards not washing their hands in oh-nine?!” let me share my current situation with you. I have been filling my Bath & Body Works soap dispensers with cheap soap. This is not the same as when I was simply using cheap soap out of the cheap dispenser. I still have the little photoshopped picture to brighten my hand-washing experiences. And I have actually had guests at my home say, WHILE WASHING THEIR HANDS WITH COSTCO DISHSOAP FROM A B&BW DISPENSER, “Oh, boy! I love Exotic Coconut! Mmmm, does it smell nummy! Yeppers, my favorite!” So it’s clear that little photoshopped picture does a world of psychological good.

My main concern, and yes I am trying to get to a point here, is that I am preoccupied with the soap situation. As if you couldn’t tell. I wash my hands about 39 times each day, and every time I think something like, “I’ll just refill this thing once more, then I’ll break out another bottle of the fancy stuff.” But 3 months, and five refills later, I’m still using the Kirkland with the deceptive little coconut picture on the front. Kind of like the old adage, “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without,” except absolutely insane. Shameful. And stupid. And what is the point of all this foolishness?!??!

Today it ENDS! The old fakey-soap bottle has seen it’s last refill, and I am opening a new FANCY soap TODAY! RIGHT NOW!!! Be right back…

OH, it was neat. That was great. As good as soap gets. Which is good, but not as good as some other really good things. But still good. And my hands are clean, so, again, good. And lemony, with a capitol KITCHEN capitol Lemony.

In conclusion, I hope you didn’t come here to read about our most recent trip to the zoo (but everyone else blogged about that this week, so if you want to read about the zoo, go ahead and read someone else’s blog). I also hope you didn’t come to see pictures of my 2-year-old standing in a high chair at IHOP shoving pancakes into his face. Because this post is about soap, and my narcissistic need to share my soap trials with the general public. Thank you for your time.

A Tag: Ten Years Ago, Etc.

Well, everyone's all, "Update your blog," or, "Your blog is stupid." So I'm like, "Okay, I'll do this tag." So in behalf of, like, everyone I know, thanks for the tag Jill. :)

**5 things I was doing 10 years ago**
1. Being Newlywed.
2. Taking lots of naps because I didn’t have a job in Logan yet.
3. Doing some weird home decorating projects to attempt to make my creepy basement apartment look darling and attractive.
4. Doing a lot of baking for some reason.
5. Thinking I would never finish college.

**5 things to do on my list today**
1. Dive into the never-ending abyss of laundry.
2. Figure out something to do for Scott’s birthday that will make him happy and not seem too cheesy. He’s a reluctant celebrator.
3. Return a borrowed Cricut cartridge to a lady in the neighborhood.
4. Watch election returns and analysis until my eyes are all blinky and bloodshot.
5. Attempt to assemble a dinner that won’t inspire jeers from my 6-year-old food critic.

**5 snacks I enjoy**
1. Costco Americanized packaged sushi.
2. A bowl of cereal. Grape Nuts probably.
3. Right now, crappy Halloween candy.
4. Dried fruit.
5. Cheapy chocolate animal crackers (Thanks Kayla B.).

**5 things I would do if I were a millionaire**
1. Pay off the mortgage.
2. Buy Scott a really great car.
3. Go for a spa day with a bunch of girlfriends and family, my treat.
4. Take my kids on a bunch of fun trips.
5. Go shopping, invest in gold, and give to charity. That counts as one, right?

**5 places I've lived**
1. Murray
2. Lehi
3. Logan
4. South Jordan
5. Tooele

**5 jobs I've had**
1. Cleaning a lady’s house. A significant portion of my job involved cleaning her giant dog’s boogers off the wall about waist-high all around the house. For real.
2. Babysitting like crazy for several years of my teenage life.
3. Sandwich maker extraordinaire at Big Mountain Sandwich Co. I always smelled of French bread, which is neither terrible nor terrific.
4. Cashier/Book Sales Girl, at Hastings in Logan, Utah. I always smelled of horrible ornery customers who were furious that we only had one copy of “The Labyrinth” on VHS and it was checked-out or whatever. Terrible.
5. Jake’s and Brooks’ mom. Terrific.

**I Tag**
1. Karin B., whose blog I cannot see.
2. Tiffany Ann, whose blog is even more boring than mine is.
3. Stacie J., who possibly already did this tag.
4. Scott, who should start a blog.
5. Jake, who doesn’t have a blog but is begging me to put his name here.

Rules: Each person answers the questions themselves. At the end, tag 5 people and post their names

A message to my friends: "Well, I finally decided to start a blog..."

Here is the obligatory "first post." I am supposed to write about how everyone keeps bugging me to start a blog. I am also supposed to write about how I intend to use this as a sort of journal and I hope I can keep up with it. I am definitely supposed to say something like, "I can't imagine WHY anyone would want to read about little old me, and my very boring family."

But here's the thing: I am an avid and satisfied blog-stalker. I love hearing about what you did on your birthday. I can't wait to read about the stupid thing your husband did last week. I pour over your vacation photos like they are my own. And I especially, ESPECIALLY love to read about the time your kid broke his leg/started school/cursed in front of your mother-in-law/covered themselves in baby powder/ran naked through the neighborhood. It's all funny. Or it's sad. Or it's cute. But most of all, it ISN'T boring. So I'm going to go ahead and join you in writing about the details of my life that make it mine, with the hope that you'll be as entertained by my minutia as I am by yours.

Now I'll stop being so self-aware. Happy blogging!