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I fell and broke my arm yesterday. On my birthday.

*sigh*

It was stupid how it happened. I was walking down the three stairs between our bathroom/closet area and the bedroom. Still in my pj’s, getting ready to take a shower. Slipped, lost my balance, went airborne. I landed hard on my ass, and would have been sore but OK. But instead, my left arm was flung backwards and struck the edge of the stair at my wrist. I heard the crack and knew it was broken right away.

“Oh shit, some birthday this is gonna be,” I thought.

In agony, I called my insurance company to get approval for a trip to the ER. I was denied. Instead, my hubz had to drive me to our local doctor’s office, where they could only look at it and say, “Yep, that’s broken.” THEN we had to drive 40 miles to a different center where I could get x-rays and see the orthopedist on call. We spent the whole damn day driving and waiting: in traffic, in lobbies, in lines.

I ended up with a purple cast from my palm to above my elbow, and a much-needed scrip for vicoden. One of the bones in my forearm is shattered at the wrist, but if kept very stable, will heal without surgery – hence the giant cast. In three weeks I can hopefully get it removed and replaced with a smaller, forearm-only model. Unfortunately, I’m having to learn how to eat, dress, do my hair/makeup, etc. with one hand, and the wrong hand at that. Writing is out of the question, typing is agonizingly slow, and driving is possible but terrifying.

Let’s not even talk about showering with a garbage bag taped over my arm! Luckily, I found and ordered this, and some of this stuff too. Hilariously, based on those purchases, Amazon decided to show me some other items they think I’d be interested in, including this (slightly NSFW). Um, thanks but no thanks, Amazon.

Where are my drugs?

Haven’t been blogging much, not even to post my outfits or songs regularly. I’ve actually been busy, busy, busy. My project at work is picking up, and will keep me very distracted for at least the next six weeks.

The weather here is in that transitional state where it’s gray, damp, and 70 (but feels like 60) one day; then sunny and 85 (but feels like 90) the next. The only thing that’s consistent is my office is always too cold now! So I’ve hauled out my space heater. I put it on low/oscillate, and let it run pretty much all day. It does a pretty good job of warming up at least my own cubicle. The big drawback to the varying weather is when the pressure changes so much, it tends to give me headaches. Also, my allergies have started acting up again. But hey, that’s what chemistry is for. Thank you Excedrin/Aleve/Zyrtec/Zantac!

I need to take the Bean shopping this weekend. She needs a new coat, because she’s had a tremendous growth spurt since last winter. She also told me she wants “slippers and purple pants.” It’s interesting that she’d have such specific requests, but I’ll do my best. Luckily, the shoppers’ mecca of Costco/Target/Kohl’s is right around the corner from our house, and she loves to go shopping. So I guess I know what we’ll be doing tomorrow!

I’m completely avoiding the topic of politics. Ordinarily, I’d have plenty to say about the things that have been going on. But I’m starting to feel kind of burnt out on it all. I’ve found, actually, that my blood pressure stays lower the less I subject myself to cable news, talking heads, and sound bites. So instead of CNN, I’ve been watching re-runs of CSI during dinner. Stomach-churning? Yes, but so is politics. At least CSI is also entertaining, and I can always remind myself that it’s fiction.

Serenity now, my friends. Serenity now.

This is not a review, it’s a Public Service Announcement. If you are female, and you wear lipstick or lip gloss, I want to save you the agony that you will experience if you wear this product:

Revlon ColorStay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick

“Revlon ColorStay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick,” aka the lip-drying, crumbling lip color OF DOOM!  Seriously, did anyone at Revlon TRY this product themselves before bringing it to market? Are there no lip color-wearing females working at Revlon who could be convinced to give this stuff a test drive before it hit the mass market?

This lip color is marketed as “long-wearing,” as in the kind of long-wearing where you put it on in the morning, and it lasts until late in the day – through eating, drinking, kissing, licking the windows on the bus, whatever it is that you like to do. Usually, long-wearing lipsticks like this are two-parters: a color part, and a moisturizing gloss part. The craze for these all started with Max Factor and Cover Girl, but just about every brand has them now – even MAC has one. The two-part application generally works very well, but this particular Revlon product’s big selling point is that two steps aren’t necessary – supposedly, it has the color and the gloss all in one fabulous product. Except apparently somebody forgot to include the gloss part.

I was in CVS last week and had a coupon – $3 off a Revlon color cosmetic. I’d been curious to try this lipstick, and when I visited the display – what do you know? They were featured with a “buy one, get one free” promotion (two tubes shrink wrapped together, a light shade and a dark shade). So I figured what the heck, and I bought one (two). When I first tried it on, I was optimistic – the color looked pretty, and the texture, at first application, was fine. It felt creamy and it looked good. Then it started to dry. And dry. AND DRY. If you’ve ever tried the long-wearing lipsticks before, you know how it feels when just the color part is on your lips and is drying – it feels dry, tight, and a bit sticky. And that’s how the Revlon product felt, period. Since there was no moisturizing gloss/top coat component, that’s how it felt, period. Even better (worse), as it got drier, it started to get crumbly and made my lips peel a little bit. So not only was it supremely uncomfortable, but the color didn’t look good anymore. In short, it was a MESS! Adding another gloss on top did not help. There was no salvaging this stuff.

I threw it away. Even the free one, that I never tried. I considered giving it away with a random drawing, but honestly, I would have felt guilty encouraging another woman to apply this stuff to her lips. IT’S JUST THAT AWFUL.

I really like most of the Revlon products that I try, so this experience was a real shock. This is what makes me think that nobody at Revlon tried this stuff before they inflicted it on the public. How could they have possibly thought this was a good idea? This is a company that usually has lots of great ideas. Here are some Revlon products that I not only like, but love, and heartily endorse:

ColorStay Mineral Lip Glaze
ColorStay Mineral Mousse Makeup
Cream Blush
ColorStay Pressed Powder
Super Lustrous Lipgloss
Beyond Natural Protective Liptint SPF15

So it’s not like I don’t love Revlon, but I really question their judgment on this product. Please, ladies – do yourself a favor, and STAY AWAY from “ColorStay Ultimate Liquid Lipstick!”

I’ll bet you have at least one of these in your house, maybe even a few of them. They come in lots of different colors – natural, blue, pink; lots of different materials – canvas, nylon, mesh, vinyl; and several different sizes – 16 pockets, 20 pockets, there’s even a smaller version with little pockets that’s meant to be hung over a shower door. They’re all, with the exception of that last example, shoe organizers. Or at least that’s how they’re labeled! The fact is, you can use these shoe organizers for LOTS of other storage and organization tasks, anywhere you have a door with free real estate on one side. In fact, I don’t really like them for holding shoes (I prefer solid cubbies), but they work great for lots of other storage purposes:

- In the hall closet, it can hold mittens, gloves, hats, and rolled-up scarves. All those small, loose items that seem to get jumbled up on the one pathetic shelf that sits above the rod. Imagine never having to search for your gloves again! This is probably my favorite use for over-the-door shoe organizers.

- On the back of your home office door, it can hold office supplies, items that you sometimes need in your purse but don’t carry all the time (for me, these are things like tape measures and small flashlights), extra keys, and even cleaning supplies like paper towels or a microfiber duster.

- In the linen closet, you can use it to store small linens such as wash cloths or hand towels; or all those extra soap dishes/toothbrush holders/lotion dispensers that you’re not using, but are unsure where to stash. I bet you can free up a lot of under-the-sink space this way!

- On the back of your water closet or bathroom door, the pockets are unfortunately too small to store toilet paper. However, you can stash just about everything else you might need in the bathroom: soap, feminine hygeine products, extra bottles of shampoo and body wash. This is also another place where you might store your extra soap dishes or other vanity accessories that aren’t currently in use.

- In a kid’s room or baby’s room, use them to store toys, socks, diapers, wipes, etc. Hint: put items you want the little angel to be able to get herself, like her socks and toys, in the bottom few rows. Save the top rows for stuff that you want to keep out of a small child’s reach – such as diaper ointment or other potential messes and hazards.

I’ll try to update this post with some photos of my own over-door organizers in action this weekend.

My admittedly whiny post about trying to replace my watch band now has a happy ending. The jewelry store I thought could help me was willing to, except they said they didn’t have any tools for cutting the leather band. But they did make a suggestion which I ended up using.

I took the band to a shoe repair place where I’ve had work done in the past (they re-soled and re-heeled my cowboy boots last year and did a tremendous job). I explained what I needed done, the dude said “Sure,” and told me to come back in two days. I picked up the band today, and it had perfectly-cut notches. He charged me $8. I brought it home and installed the new band on my watch all by myself, and now it looks AWESOME.

I can now move on to the next drama.