Where's my shopping cart?

My poor husband. I looked in the mirror a few minutes ago and realized that I look like hell. And that I've looked like hell for a few weeks, with one or two days of passable hair and makeup.

Yeah, I've become that woman who, because she doesn't leave the house very often, wears the same cardigan for days on end (no matter that it's crusted with leftovers from Tuesday's lunch) and hasn't painted her toenails in a month. Sigh.

This all happened pretty suddenly. We started the business three weeks ago and it seems that my grooming time simply vanished. For the first two weeks, it was because I was working out in the morning, then cramming in a quick shower and breakfast before getting in to the office. This week, I've been missing the alarm and waking with a start 20 minutes before I am supposed to be in my office chair, leaving enough time for a quick shower, cup of yogurt and maybe (and this is not guaranteed) to run a brush through my hair. Not glamorous.

I used to be glamorous. When I was a cosmetics maven, every day started with an elaborate beauty ritual involving no fewer than 35 products. I'm not even kidding. I counted. My hair was always perfectly (if a bit stiffly) coiffed. I wore three shades of eyeshadow, eyeliner and mascara, foundation, blush, lipliner, lipstick, lipgloss, pressed powder. I had a five-step skincare ritual. Nowadays, I wash my face and sometimes remember to put on moisturizer. I look like a homeless meth addict. (However, my teeth always look fantastic. I have good teeth genes and brush religiously.) The hormones are making me break out like a teenager and yet I have this perfect circle of dry skin on my forehead. I look like I'm trying to sprout a horn. Which would be typical.

My hair has completely freaked out since I got pregnant. (You women who say your hair was thick and luxuriant while pregnant? I hate you.) It manages to be oily and dry at the same time. It sticks out from one side of my head and lays flat on the other. It also doesn't help that my highlights are six weeks old and I'm afraid the caustic chemicals in the highlight mixture will turn the baby into Wolverine. I have what one friend referred to as a "reverse Mohawk." Super awesome.

Every night before I go to sleep, I look at my frowzy hair and my blotchy skin and make a personal commitment to myself and my marriage that TOMORROW, I will wake up on time, shave my legs, paint my toenails and apply some makeup. It never happens. I roll out of bed, look at my lumpy hair and splotchy skin and realize it is so not worth the effort. The last thing I want to do is spend 45 minutes getting ready in order to be overheated from the blow dryer and have the horn-stump on my head caked in powder and mascara running from my eyes because I cry every twenty seconds.

So, here's my new commitment. In seven months, when the baby is born, I'll make sure it is so stinking cute all the time, no one will even bother to look at the bushy-haired unicorn pushing it around in a stroller.