Week 7 of 52 - Working hard for beauty

As part of our new budget, we cut our non-essential spending to the bone.  If you could see my hair right now, you would quickly surmise hair highlights must have been on the chopping block.

So to support my foils habit, I began filling out focus group research recruitment surveys with more fervor than ever.  I do this all the time, but haven’t been selected since testing out a dog food meal replacement bone a few years ago.  Yes, I did have a dog at the time.

This week Geo and I scored participant status!  I say Geo because he was my key to getting in the group.  The researchers were seeking mothers of 3- to 5-year old boys to preview a Chuck and Friends TV series and answer questions about the episodes.  This focus group was unique in that rather than a face-to-face group, you participated via a closed Facebook group.  I bragged to W about the $100 I would earn and never even leave our home.

So for three nights, we watched Chuck and his pals learn life lessons as only little trucks can.  The following day I would answer questions and share our thoughts and reactions to the pilot episodes. 

We were rolling along just fine, I was getting up even earlier than my usual 4 am, answering a few questions, and catching back up with the group after the boys went to bed.  W would occasionally comment, “Seems like you are earning that $100.”  I would scoff, “Are you kidding? I’m on Facebook anyway, only this time I’m getting paid to upload photos and comment on photos of others.”

 

Until Day 3.  I had coasted through to the final day, each day becoming a bit more boastful to W about my $100.  Funny how in a tight budget, $100 seems like an absolute windfall.  That evening, I tuned in to the Facebook group prepared to share a few more opinions and bid adieu to this group of ten mothers from across the country.

 

As I read the final assignment, I nearly choked on my oatmeal raisin cookie and spewed my vanilla almond milk (I had a coupon for the almond milk, it’s actually quite tasty):    

Design your own toy
Please sit down with your preschooler and design an ideal Chuck & Friends toy (or bunch of toys!) together. You can draw, paint, act out, or mold the toy (whatever works for your son’s creativity!). When you’re designing the toy, also make sure to identify its functions and how you would play with it.  Take a picture or include video of your toy and post it with a description of what is so great about it.

What?  Isn't CHUCK a toy?  Why does a TOY need a toy?  This was beyond me.

I quickly yelled for W, “Honey, you’ll need to do this.”

“Why should I do it?  You are the one getting the $100.”
 

“One of the reasons I married you is because I knew you would do the science fair projects and build crap like this with them.  Give me the spelling tests, the last-minute reports, but I hate this stuff.”  (Note gentle readers - I could pretend I didn't murmur the words crap and hate, but I did (out of earshot of little ears of course), so why lie? 

After some begging and boosting of his ego (“but honey, you are SO good at this”), he rolled his eyes one last time and worked with G to make a ramp for Chuck and friends.  I posted the photos to the group, breathed a sigh of relief, and said thank you to my man (but haven’t agreed to share the $100..after all, it's not like I can get only 1/2 of my head foiled).

Whew, never worked this hard for a beauty routine.