some spring cleaning for the bathroom

This morning my husband asked me if I knew where the nail clippers were (yes - they were right where they were supposed to be, but the nail scissors had been left out after I last trimmed a child's nails), and then told me that as he could not find the clippers, he had had to use the hair scissors to trim his nails.

OK - you have to know something about my husband to understand how I feel about this. He doesn't have normal finger and toe nails - he has these thick claws that need to be trimmed with hedge clippers. And he used the scissors that I use to trim my eyebrows and hair, and the kids' hair, to cut those nasty nails!

I felt really upset about this. I'm not a total girly girl, but I'm still a girl, and I have grooming needs - I tweeze and pluck and wax and moisturize and all that. But my family is always getting into my stuff, and messing it up.

And that wasn't the only bathroom frustration. I also am always finding the soap by the bathroom sink gone, because my husband takes it into the shower and then leaves it in there. And soap left in the shower stall has a tendency to dissolve ... so it wastes the soap. He doesn't understand that I want the soap left by the sink, so I can wash my hands ...

And my daughter has a whole collection of Barbie dolls in the bathroom, that she likes to take into the bath tub with her for her bath ...

And we only have this little pedestal sink, but the whole family insists on leaving their toothbrushes precariously balanced on it, instead of putting them away in the cabinet ...

So, the hair scissors thing really tipped me over the edge today. That was IT. No more bathroom crazy mess. I went through the whole two rooms, and threw away old and expired products. I found a plastic basket to hold the Barbie Dolls on the back of the toilet. I found another plastic basket to hold all my husband's stuff, including his own bar of soap, separate from the hand-washing soap. I separated my daughter's hair gizmos from my hair gizmos and gave the kids their own cabinet to hold all her hair stuff and both their tooth brushing stuff and flouride pills. And then, in the broken sink in our 1/2 bath (we have an over the toilet sink for hand-washing in there) I set up my own area. I've told them all, touch it only after asking my permission. This is MY stuff - and no using my scissors to trim your nails! How do you like the fresh flowers in the broken sink? I like it, even if it means I'll have to buy myself a steady supply of flowers. :)

Does that seem like too much grooming stuff? My husband seems to think so, but he expects me to be a hairy hippy that never wears make-up. I want to walk the middle path. :)