You Can't Judge a Book By Its Cover...

Only you can.

I silently argue this fact every time I find myself at the library in town. Only I don't really have to do it silently anymore, because ever since they redid the library, and made it all fancy...calling it "Prescott's Living Room" (which is nice because they have better furniture than I do) and installed a coffee bar (oh yes, a coffee bar) and that cork flooring (which is very cool, unless it's raining or snowing outside...or I've just run through the sprinklers...and then it becomes a big slip-and-slide) I don't have to do any internal musings. I could dress up in my old high school flag girl uniform and march a band through the center of the library and sing "You Can't Judge a Book By it's Cover" and no one would bat an eye (except that I'm a leeetle bigger than I was in High School, bodily speaking, so my uniform may be a little tight and not close in strategic places) They even stowed all the kid stuff downstairs so the kid noise wouldn't bother anyone (See: Prescott one of the #1 places to retire...and I've already raised my family land) but really? With the marching band and all the people hopped up on caffeine slipping around on the cork floors...whats a bunch of kids giggling going to do? But, I was raised in a family that has a high respect for books, so I still use my inside library whisper voice while in the building, don't use my cell phone in there (which they just recently started not caring about) because I still think the library is sacred...and cool. We have a very cool library here. Even though they deaquisitioned a third of the books when they made the library bigger (I know...huh?) we have inter library loans. Which means, if my big library with hardly any books doesn't have what I'm looking for, one of the other one's in our system probably does, and my library will get it for me and let me check it out. See? Very cool...

Plus there's the whole live music/coffee/water park thing going on as well...

As it is, I am a notorious judger of books by their covers. We all try to believe that we're not judgers, but come on. Sometimes you only have a few minutes to decide whether or not something is good for you...food, clothes, men...a book? And, you may scorn me, but I usually can look at a cover, read a tiny synopsis and then decided whether or not a book is for me. Which doesn't make sense that I haven't started reading the Twilight Series before this week...I mean, I have been in love with the covers of these books since they came out. The always stop me in my tracks...luckily, my mother's neighbor has bought them all and loaned them to us...so I'm in business now. I am loving them by the way...

But heaven's this post isn't even about books at all. Not really.

It's about judging by first appearances.

And make-up.

And packaging.

I have a degree (I know this surprises you, but it's true) It's in advertising (there's some other impressive things going on with it as well, but you can email me if you really want to know what's up) I was also raised by two antique and collectible dealers...which meant that everything was more valuable in its original packaging. Pair this with advertising and this caused two things to happen to me quite simultaneously:

1. I love packaging. I really enjoy inventive and fun packaging...I am equally fascinated by the way someone is trying to reach me, and I respect that...it makes me quite giddy when I find fresh and fun boxes and paper products.
2. I have a hard time using things that I buy, and if I do use them, I have a very hard time throwing away the things that they were packaged in.

Which has now resulted in my new Benefits packaging being set and moved around my bathroom since opening it and using the products (that and they come with the best directions and I'm afraid if I throw the directions into the recycling bin I won't remember how to apply make-up and my face will fall off)

You see..the thing about Benefits is, while I am thoroughly loving their fantastic beauty products, they also happen to have the most wonderful packaging and overall theme going for them...a look if you will...just go sign up to receive one of their catalogues in the mail and you can see what I mean. I have to admit, the first time Dina showed me one of their catalogues and then some of their products? I about swooned and fell off the couch I was so adoring their look...I quickly realized that the only thing this would have accomplished was scaring her son half to death and rilling up the dog (who is always looking for an excuse to jump straight up and down anyway)

So, the real problem is, now I have all this adorable packaging sitting around taking up space and falling over in my already crowded bathroom, and I'm feeling just slightly guilty about throwing it in the recycling bin (well, it's actually usually a brown paper bag in the kitchen) because I'm worried that:

1. If I throw it away, I will miss it's packagy cuteness.
2. If I throw it away, the make-up will not have it's original packaging (even though I will use it all up and then eventually throw it away, and replace it...which will certainly lead me back to this dilemma) and thus become worthless.
3. I need to up my meds because this isn't really all that important...

Do you ever feel weird about this sort of thing or is it only me?

Should I flatten the boxes and figure out how to save them?

Should I check into some sort of appropriate facility this weekend instead of going with what I had planned...

• Going to dinner and possibly a movie and chatting about sewing with the other half of Tombo.
• Going to lunch with Dougie boy...and dragging him along to look at new glasses frames (because the designer ones I spent my life savings on are not any better than the other you can get at CostCo, and haven't even lasted as long and the lenses are starting to get all foggy around the edges besides, so it's just a matter of time when I won't be able to see anything...and you can believe that I have the original Versace packaging for these babies) because he has good taste and will totally humor me while I try on tons of frames...he will also make fun of me, which is kind of like humoring me...it's humoring someone anyway.
• Spending Sunday with Rich (who has a new blog and website by the way...he had to find a new server because the other one kept going down all the time and his site was not accessible. I don't have any idea what that means, but the first words out of my mouth where, "Wait...what about our email?!?! I love my personal email address you set up for me, that's when I realized that you might really like me...and it makes a fun noise when I get mail, and I love that because before I met you I could never figure out how to do that and I would hate to not have a fun email alert..." Because that's how I roll...not, "gee...rebuilding your blog and a new website might be really time consuming and hard! Poor baby..." So he got all teachery and tried to explain the technical side of what was happening and how it's like moving to a new house but he's not sure if he should take his corrupted things from the old house to the new one...well, I just got excited that we were moving in together and he had to stop and just tell me that our email was going to be fine, and if there was going to be any problem with it that he would take care of it, and there would still be a fun noise...Yay! Only I don't think we're moving in together now...) We'll be doing heaven knows what on Sunday...but I'll probably grinning like an idiot the entire time...evidenced by my tech knowledge above.
• Gently placing the Benefits Cosmetic packaging in the recycling bin, um bag...and slowly walking away...

(Thank you Google Images, for all the fun Benefits...)