Day 26

Sometimes it’s the little things that can trip you up.  This week, my little thing was my eyeliner sharpener.  Do you know what I’m talking about?  The pencil sharpener looking thing that doesn’t actually fit a pencil?  It only fits the exact brand of eyeliner it was manufactured for, a clever marketing trick, but annoying when you switch make up brands.

Anyway, I lost mine.  This is not unusual, I lose lots of things somewhere in my myriad of bags I schlepp around. I figured it would eventually show up.  And, I really didn’t mind until I reached critical mass.  And by critical mass, I mean the point at which I had ground the eyeliner down to expose the sharp wooden points.  But, I’m nothing if not persistent, I still used it a couple of times succeeding in gouging little troughs in my eyelids.

In the spirit of The Simple Year, I decided I could create a work around.  First I tried sharpening it in our electric pencil sharpener.   Have you ever seen a tree go into a wood chipper?  Well, imagine the diminutive version of that.  Plus, later that day, Kelsey came to me holding a pencil with its point coated in sludge.  She said, “mom, someone put poop in the pencil sharpener.”  Because to a six year old, that is a perfectly plausible explanation for the brown gunk in her pencil sharpener.

I also tried a paring knife, a razor (yeah, I know) and picking at it with my finger nails, all with no real quality resolution.  So, I got the great idea to use my eyebrow pencil in place of eyeliner one day.  It rolls up when you twist it, no sharpening necessary.  Problem solved…

Except that apparently, they don’t use the same formula for both products, because by about midday the make up had gravitated down my face giving me a Lady Gaga appearance (although admittedly on a light make up day, like when she was going to the gym or maybe to walk her dog.)

There is good news.  I eventually found the sharpener. It was in the dog crate.  Now those of you reading this that don’t have kids might think that is a strange place to find it.  However, you parents out there are probably shaking your heads and wondering why I didn’t look there first.