Here's my excuse slip:

Please excuse Busy Mom for not posting for so long.

She has a senior in high school and didn't actually believe anyone about how stressful this time of year is.

She also has 2 other kids who will need food donations as she just this moment enrolled her first-born in college and the finances could possibly partially work out if her family stops eating, paying the mortgage and buying gas.

Winter in these parts has turned out to be a big wash so far this year, as we haven't really had any bitterly cold weather or snow to speak of.

But we've still used the heat in the house and have taken hot showers, and that can really dry out your skin.

While I'm not plagued with severely dry skin, I'm often annoyed by dry, tight skin, especially on my legs. I've got a whole set of different lotions that I use for different reasons, but I've really never found "the one" that cures everything.

Some are better for my hands, others are better for my legs, but make my hands feel greasy, while others work best on my elbows.

It can be quite the routine, so a moisturizing body wash can really be a time saver.

Recently I was given the chance to try Olay® Ultra Moisture Body Wash with shea butter.

It's got the equivalent of more than a jar of Olay moisturizers in every bottle, and with repeated use it has been found to improve the condition of dry skin.

I've been using it for a few days, and I've noticed that my skin doesn't feel dry and tight after a shower. The wash is rich and creamy and, while it doesn't really make a lather, it makes me feel clean and doesn't seem to leave a film or scum in the shower.

I'm usually a soap user, so the low-lather part has taken a little bit of getting used to, but the no-dry-skin part helped me get over that! I've even used it for shaving and it's worked out well.

Also, I haven't felt like I need to use lotion after my shower, and the good-skin feeling lasts for the whole day.

A couple of things I should mention: I find that it comes out sort of fast, so be careful, and the smell is very strong. It's not unpleasant, but it bears mentioning if you have any sort of sensitivity to fragrances.

If you have dry skin, and you find yourself needing an army of lotions to take care of it, check out Olay Ultra Moisture Body Wash to simplify your routine.

The giveaway: One reader has a chance to win a $50 Visa card. (That would buy a lot of Olay Body Wash!)

For a chance to win: Tell us how you simplify your routine.

Rules:

No duplicate comments.

You may receive (2) total entries by selecting from the following entry methods:

a) Leave a comment in response to the sweepstakes prompt on this post

b) Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post

c) Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post

d) For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules to learn about an alternate form of entry

This giveaway is open to U.S. Residents age 18 or older. Winners will be selected via random draw, and will be notified by e-mail. You have 72 hours to get back to me, otherwise a new winner will be selected.

The Official Rules are available here.

This sweepstakes runs from 3/20 - 4/17

Be sure to visit the Olay Body Wash page on BlogHer.com where you can read other bloggers’ reviews and find more chances to win!

While we’re on the subject of looking good, you might want to check out the “Looking Your Best” posts in the Life Well Lived section of BlogHer.com. There are some great tips and expert posts!4

I wrote this post while participating in the Olay/BlogHer program on behalf of the Olay Body Wash campaign. I received monetary compensation for the time to write my post.

I didn't get around to actually picking winners which was probably good (RIP Mizzou), but it's never too late to fill out the Social Media Madness brackets!

You can even print them for real, but I'm not sure you're that bored.

What will you be wearing this year? What are your spring trends?

That's a timely question for me.

I started a new job a few months ago, and I have to dress like a grown-up, and I'm in need of new clothes.

I'm on a mission to wean myself from black and brown, so I'll be wearing actual colors.

While I'll never be a slave to fashion, orange is really big this season, so I might check that out in perhaps some accessories or accent pieces as I live in Tennessee, and head to to orange screams, "GO, VOLS!"

What about you? Are you going to try something new to wear this spring?

Visit BlogHer.com join in the discussion about spring fashion trends.

Also, be sure to enter the current Life Well Lived Sweepstakes for a chance to win a Kindle Fire!

Along with those words often come the words, "with my friends".

Meaning: only kids and no adults on a road trip for hours to the beach with a million other teens.

What I'm getting ready to say may be controversial, but here goes:

My high school kids are not permitted go on spring break without an adult.

Yes, even my high school senior.

DISCLAIMER: This is my philosophy. I realize my views are in the minority.

However, my philosophy doesn't mean I'm judging yours if yours differs.

Additionally? I am well aware that, "they are growing up" and that I, "can't watch them forever", just so ya know.

While I'm not going to give you specifics about conversations with my kids since people at school read here (Hi, people at school!), but also because the conversations are usually just long variations of, "Whyyyyy nott?", and it would bore you to tears.

Why my high school kids are not permitted go on spring break without an adult:

1. Long-distance traveling can present unfamiliar scenarios.

A fender bender, a blown tire, an empty gas tank, lost keys, a stolen wallet or a finger mangled in a door at a gas station (happened on a road trip I was on, once) are all things they have to learn to handle, at some point.

However? I'd rather have a responsible person there to demonstrate what to do than have them trying to decide if they should hitch-hike for help or not.

2. Many beach places require you to be 25 (spring break rules) to rent AND check into them.

Some situations would be illegal for them to be there alone.

What if I'm charged with something for allowing it?

What would happen if they got kicked out?

3. My kid isn't 18.

However, even if she was, she is still in high school, we decide what happens.

Until you can handle it without calling me if you get arrested in the middle of the night, you aren't "on your own" in my house.

4. Other people can put them in a bad situation.

I'm not particularly worried they'll do something stupid, but what if someone in their extended (meaning other friends they met up with there) group does?

It only takes one moment for someone to run off into the sunset in vodka-laced tears (Hint: it's in the Sonic cups they carry around the beach) after teh dramaz.

What if they didn't come back?

5. Drinking to excess is very, very real.

Again, I'm not particularly worried about my kids and their friends doing so (but, group mentality can be a strange thing, sometimes), but I am concerned about the ability to recognize an alcohol poisoning emergency around them and what to do about it.

6. But, they aren't in college, yet.

Yes, I do know Busy Girl will be in college soon (yikes), but there is a big difference between a second semester college freshman and a high school senior.

Yes, there is.

Now, does "adult" mean someone escorting them to the beach and fastening water wings for them?

Heck, no.

Water wings keep you from learning to swim (another post for another time).

They can take their own car, do their own things for the most part, but I require them to have an adult with them as a back up as they learn to handle things, not to stay on top of them.

It's not a matter of trusting them, I trust them and their abilities, but traveling and spring break can present situations that require adult decision-making, and someone needs to be there.

I realize you can't live as if every day was the "worst scenario", and the trip will more than likely be uneventful, but I consider this trip to be intermediate training for the next few years to come.

And, those?

I don't wanna know.

Busy Mom Blog

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While I have no doubt the intentions are good, whatever happened to, "You're welcome"?

For example, if you're a server at a restaurant and I thank you for refilling my drink (which I do), it's likely one of your normal job tasks.

I appreciate what you do, but a reply of, "No problem", sounds like you only did it because it didn't inconvenience you, but you may not do it again, it just depends.

I get that it's supposed to be more informal or whatever, and many people have (heh) no problem with it, but, "No problem" indicates the speaker's focus is on themselves rather than the receiving party.

I don't like being assured I'm not a problem because I never thought I was in the first place.

1. Determine you have money left in your FSA that needs to be spent in the next 24 hours or you lose it.

2. Go to frame place.

3. Wander around, try on a few frames and realize you're looking at the men's frames.

4. Act like you meant to do that.

5. Ask the optician helper person where they keep the ones that are somewhere between nondescript wire, sensible frames and Sally Jessy Raphael.

6. Realize she has no idea what you are talking about.

7. Wonder why she keeps asking you, "Are you sure these are only single vision?

8. Try on eleventy-million frames, searching for the elusive pair that makes you look up to date, but not ridiculously trendy.

9. Realize you don't remember where they came from, so you can put them back.

10. Resist choosing ones you don't really like, but have the cutest case.

11. Narrow your choices down to 3 frames.

12. Study yourself in the mirror to make sure they don't make you don't look like an aging hipster.

13. Lament that your head is like Sputnik. (Bonus points given for identifying the reference)

14. Give in and ask the optician helper person her opinion.

15. Cringe when she says, "Oh, no way", to the pair you nearly purchased.

16. Put all the frames away and start again.

17. Narrow it down again and realize you chose all the same ones from the first time, just in different colors.

18. Give up, and let optician helper person decide for you.

19. Get fitted to make sure the frames are right, wonder what that View Master-looking thingy they smush up against your face is for.

20. Order glasses, pick them up several days later, get home and realize they're nearly identical to your old glasses.

I have a friend who calls them "jean shoes", you know the ones you put on just to go about your typical day that you wear around with jeans.

Not an event like,"lunch with friends", or a "shopping trip with girlfriends", an "afternoon at the theater", or whatever women's magazines think we do all day.

I need ideas about what to put on my feet with jeans when I wake up on Saturday to go to the grocery or to pick a kid up from somewhere.

(Side note: Picking up teens from weekend night events in my pajamas and slippers has become my new sport.)

I have to confess that this may be a no-win situation, because, as much as I hate it when people do this to me, I have a long list of likely suggestions that I will reject:

- I'm not going to wear athletic shoes around all the time.

- I'm not a ballet flats or a Mary Janes person.

- I'm not overly fond of the, "I'm ready to go on a hike", look unless I'm, you know, going on a hike.

- I will punch the first person who suggests a "kicky pair of wedges".

- And, no I don't want to know why you're, "Much more comfortable" in heels all of the time.

- Danskos give me horrific knee problems.

- No slides (any way you slice it, they look like house slippers)

I'm currently wearing a sad pair of Merrells (no, not the "potato shoe" kind) that I got emergently when I somehow made it to a 3-day volleyball tournament out of town with only the Uggs on my feet.

They're pretty ugly, and I had no intention of wearing them past that tournament, yet here we are.

Internet? What can I put on my feet?

Today's Mental Jukebox Selection: a rousing rendition of The Doors' "Love Her Madly"

(Props to any locals who thinks of Jonesy's when they hear that.)

Reading:: I bought "The Hunger Games", does that count?

Thinking: So. Much. To. Do.

Dreading: See above.

Looking: out the dining room window because I'm sitting at the dining room table

Wondering: what that noise was.

Needing: to go to the grocery

Also needing: to come up with a real blog entry in case anyone is still reading here.

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Enter to win a $25 Publix gift card (ends 2/29) and also enter to win a Publix Pork Be Inspired gift pack (ends 2/27) that includes 8 $5 coupons for pork.

Do you have a favorite blogger or YouTube channel for hair tutorials? Do you create your own? What's your best tip for finding the best tips?

Oh, Lordy. Hair.

My hair is...well it is what it is.

I've not been blessed with good hair, and my life has been an adventure in what to do with it that just always ends up with it hanging there.

Part of the issue is that I'm not especially talented in the hairstyle department, and another issue is that my hair is really, really fine (no, not as in "supa-fine", but as in won't do much of anything).

I also have a really big head (it's like Sputnik, extra points to whomever identifies that), so I prefer not to have a hairstyle that accentuates that.

Nevertheless, I go in phases of plugging away looking for new ideas to try. When I look for hairstyle inspiration online, I tend to just Google terms until something comes up, I've actually found a lot of fun stuff that way!

It may take some digging to find videos that you like by people with a similar hair type. I'm prone to loving hairstyles that are all wrong for my hair.

It's important to remember to subscribe to YouTube page if you find one you like, or risk not remembering where you saw it.

As far as specific examples go, I'm obsessed with pixiwoo. They have a lot of fabulous make-up tutorials, but there's also hairstyle tutorials as well.

I'm just after the perfect hairstyle, is that so much to ask? I mean, really...

For some great ideas, or to jump in the discussion, be sure to visit BlogHer Life Well Lived.

Don't forget to enter the Life Well Lived Sweepstakes for a chance to win a Kindle Fire and a $50 Amazon gift certificate to go with it!

Apparently, the Los Angeles area is only a few short hours from there.

Who knew?

Headless Mom was disappointed I didn't tell her I was coming, and I was all, "Huh? Nevada-fornia? Wha'?"

I have a confession: west of St. Louis or so, I have no real grasp of geography.

Well, that's not entirely true.

I know my capitals and states, and all that, but I have no real-life understanding of where things are in relation to each other.

Every time I go to California, I have to look up the city I'm going to in order to figure out where I am in relation to, well...anywhere.

I've finally learned that San Francisco is north-y because I went for BlogHer that year, and I nearly froze to death.

We call that weather "Christmas" here.

I've also learned to look stuff up before I travel anywhere in my Zone of Vague Understanding so as not to make a fool out of myself by telling someone, "Hey, I'll be in San Jose, we should get together", and they're in San Diego and all, "Okaaaaay, you're telling me this, why?"

Truth be told, I sort of have the same problem with the great northeast.

Even though I've been there, and I know better, if you live in New York, my mental default is that you live in NYC and the only way to go anywhere else is to fly.

So I'm perpetually surprised when you say you got caught in traffic on the way to Connecticut for the weekend. I'm all, "You drove? How?"

While this could totally be solved with looking at a map (hey, they should put those online), when you live in/travel in my Zone of Vague Understanding, I find it more fun to believe you've gone on some grand adventure from home rather than a routine 2 hour trip somewhere

When I travel in my Zone of Vague Understanding, I either think I'm near you and we can visit, or that I'm thousands of miles away from anywhere.

Either way, I think I just made myself look none too bright.

Then I came home.

Not much happened today.

It's how I'm differentiating myself as a blogger.

Just thought you should know.