Palmolive Soft Touch review

I received this product for review from Influenster.

I'm a member of Influenster, which is a site that sends out products for review and hopes that you use your social media influence to promote whatever you get. As a part of that, I received two bottles of Palmolive Soft Touch dish soap (the Vitamin E and Aloe varieties, though they also have a Coconut Butter one that sounds nice).

I didn't remember to take a picture of the box it came in (I win at social media. Woo!), but these are the bottles I received.

There were a lot of reports of people's bottles arriving damaged, but mine were ok. The aloe one leaked in the box, but it was fine after a good rinsing. I gave the alone one to my mom because I'll never get through that much dish soap. She liked it and said it made her hands soft.

Before we go on, I need to justify myself a bit. You see, every once in a while I go through a passive-aggressive husband-encouraging phase. He is, uh, not the best at helping with housework and doing "his" chores (the quotation marks are because the idea of him actually doing the housework he agreed to do many moons ago is completely ludicrous). When I get in a snit motivated, I'll try to force encourage him to DO THE MOTHER-LOVING DISHES ALREADY help out by letting the dishes pile up. That's where we were when I took this picture right before I finally caved acted like a grown up and did the dishes.

I'm repulsive. I get it. (I've also used the Palmolive several times since then to do the dishes because no one else will.)

Despite the daunting task in front of it, the Palmolive Soft Touch performed well. I thought it did a great job of cleaning and de-greasing. It actually took the char marks off the plate that was the victim of B's brilliant idea of microwaving chicken nuggets for EIGHT MINUTES. It was nice to my hands, too. They weren't as dry at the end of my dish washing marathon as they normally get. The only thing I really didn't like about it was the scent. It was too...floral-y or something for me. The word "cloying" keeps coming to mind. I'm kinda sensitive to smells, though, so it might not be an issue for anyone else.

Overall, I give the Palmolive Soft Touch an A-. It works well, but I did NOT like the smell. It's a nice, skin-friendly alternative to other dish soaps. I recommend it.

A restful night

Last night I met Laura for the first time. She was sweet and fun and takes phone pictures that give the illusion that I have boobs and didn't murder me and probably thinks I'm totally creepy (we've already established that I don't know how to make friends, remember?). After a long drive home (we live on opposite ends of a fairly long state and met somewhere in the middle), I was ready for sleep. But because my children's only goal in life is to destroy me, that was not to be.

Juuuuust as I was drifting off, R woke up crying. It wasn't his normal, occasional, mid-sleep crying, so I went to check on him. I found him sobbing on the floor behind the door (and smacked him with the door when I opened it). He and his bed were covered in pee from head to toe, which necessitated a complete change of diaper, pajamas, and bed clothes. After that, R refused to let me leave. He screamed any time I tried to get up. He doesn't usually do that and I don't normally give into the cry manipulations, but I figured being stuck with one awake kid was better than being stuck with one awake and screaming and another one awake because of the screaming. B slept through the whole thing. Of course.

R has a teeny tiny room and a toddler bed. Here's a visual aid:

R's room

I was in his room forever trying to get him to go back to sleep. About half the time, we were crammed in the bed like this:

Don't let the stick figure fool you. There were a lot of baby parts squishing into my parts.

The second half of my time was spent like this:

Faces millimeters apart, knees in my gut, arms around my neck. Also, my kid doesn't really have a mullet.

This was the WORST. I had a hot, sticky toddler wrapping himself around me and breathing on my face. Breathing. On. My. Face. I cannot stand air blowing on my face. If B and I are in bed and he rolls over so he's facing me, I have to roll to my other side to make sure I'm not being breathed on. I just can't deal with it. So, naturally, R wanted to do nothing except get as close to my face as physically possible. Any time I moved my head to avoid some of the toddler breath, he would move closer. It basically ensured that I had no hope of sleeping (not that being smashed into a toddler bed with my feet hanging off the end is all that conducive for sleeping).

Once R finally passed out, I went back to my own (normal-sized, no one breathing on my face) bed. And was wide awake. Go figure.

My children:  creating new and inventive causes of insomnia since 2008.

Solo parenting achievement

Our daycare held a carnival this weekend to celebrate its fifth birthday. B had to work and my mom was busy, so I sucked it up and took the boys. By myself.

Now don't get me wrong, I take the boys out in public by myself all the time, but I tend not to take them out to busy, crowded places where W's sensory issues might flare up (unless, of course, those places have shopping carts. Cart-contained children are much more manageable. You're welcome). A carnival is rife with sensory-overload triggers, but it sounded like fun, so I decided to brave it.

We actually had a lot of fun. I probably didn't supervise my kids as much as I should have at times, but what are you going to do? Since we knew 75% of the people there, I was able to, for example, leave W in line at the dunk tank while letting R play in the duck pond. It worked out nicely.

The boys had way too much sugar and brought home way too many stupid plastic toys, but it was a good day. While recounting the carnival with my mom today, W remembered dunking one of his teachers in the dunk tank and riding a horse. R remembered the popcorn and the cookies.

Some pictures:

W riding a horse. He enjoyed it.

R on his horse ride. He did not enjoy it so much.

Playing in the duck pond. This was a big draw all day. At one point, I caught R drinking the duck pond water out of his hand. *Gag* Letting the little one get dehydrated wasn't part of the day's achievements.

Marble races.

A new favorite pic of R. His face cracks me up.

Bits and blurbs - gimpy edition

• Two days into The Boot and I'm already over it. Only (a minimum of) 26 days to go!


• On a positive note, the broken foot and broken toe mean that I'm not going to be able to run the 5K I signed up for. Bummer. Seriously. No, really. I mean it. (You bought that, right?)


• I don't think The Boot is going to prevent me from having to volunteer for the race, though. I'll still call it a win.


• I've been feeling fairly blerg for the past couple of days, and it occurred to me tonight that it's likely related to the distinct lack of sleep in my life this week. I need to work on that.


• In the spirit of getting more sleep, I'm refusing to do my housework tonight. Every disgusting task will still be there tomorrow.


• Part of the problem with my sleeping is my reading. I've been reading books for the past few weeks and I tend to read and read and read and not sleep when I get into a book.


• If you're interested, I've read Wicked, Son of a Witch, A Lion Among Men, and Out of Oz all by Gregory Maguire, Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth (and I'm half tempted to pre-order Allegiant. I have a thing for series. Even when they're not my favorite, I HAVE to finish them. See e.g. the Twilight series. Hork.), Looking for Alaska by John Green, and I'm working on Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler. On deck are Bossypants by Tina Fey, The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, and apparently the entire Wizard of Oz series by L. Frank Baum, which I purchased for $.99 today. I'm such a sucker for the Kindle daily deals.


• I heart reading.


• Demons by Imagine Dragons is quickly becoming my favorite "depression song" (i.e. a song that is gloomy and not very uplifting, but listening to it makes me feel better anyway). I listened to it on repeat for like an hour tonight. I'm thinking Dear Agony by Breaking Benjamin might be relegated to second place.


• Daily Worth tweeted this budget plan the other day, and I think I'm going to try it. I'm terrible at budgets, but I'm hoping this will work. I'm sure it would work better if I only had to worry about my income or had a husband who would actually talk to me about finances and/or participate in any financial planning I try to do, but you can't win 'em all.


• Tomorrow is my niece's birthday party. I'm not super excited about spending the afternoon with my brother and his brood (they are straight up cray and I'm just not in the mood), but I need some baby snuggles, and my nephew (seven months old) isn't mobile enough to get away yet. Ha!


• Remember that sleep thing I'm supposed to be doing more of? I think I'll go do some of that now.

As I was saying...

Just the other day, I was lamenting the seemingly endless low-grade medical problems that continue to plague my existence. Today added this to the list:

Yes, my friends, that is The Boot. I will be in it for the next four-to-six weeks.

The most recent car accident caused some pain and swelling in the ankle I sprained last summer. I figured the sprain was just irritated and my doctors seemed to agree. But it's been six weeks with no improvement, so I went to see my podiatrist today. I fully expected to be sent to physical therapy and told to suck it up.

What I didn't expect was going home in The Boot. The x-rays I had taken two weeks after the accident show a minor navicular fracture that wasn't there when I had x-rays done six or so months ago (ergo, the conclusion that it happened in the accident). My family doc missed it, but it was pretty clearly there when the old and new x-rays were next to each other.

Where my fracture is. Courtesy of Healing Feet Blog.

So yeah. I just...I can't even.