Five for Friday

It’s Friday and I am posting this on Friday, March 15; you may not see this until June for all Feedly cares, but I don’t think I have any control over that. This is kind of a cranky way to begin a blog post, so, as I say to Carla: Let’s try that again.

It’s Friday! I am coming off a night of broken sleep (child coming in at three, returning to bed around four, husband waking up for the day at five thirty), so let’s have some Friday bullets. 

1. Are you as steeped in the Kate Middleton drama as I am? If you have no idea what I’m talking about, a) bless you and b) here is a really thorough explainer. If you are In It, I highly recommend finding a friend who is similarly obsessed so you can text her memes and links to conspiracy theories at all hours of the day. My personal opinion is that Kate is recovering from surgery, probably doesn’t look or feel her best, and just wants to recover in private until Easter as previously planned and communicated by the Palace. BUT, simmering in that dark gross part of me that enjoys drama, especially when it feels very removed from my own boring non-royal life, I am kind of hoping that someone is pregnant with someone’s love child.

2. What kind of snacks do you keep stocked in your house? I ask because we have become friendly with our new neighbors and they invite us over all the time for all manner of things. While I am a little intimidated by reciprocating with A Real Meal (they are incredible cooks and bakers, and every time we’ve been invited to their house the food has been astonishing in both quantity and quality), I am ostensibly fine with having them over for drinks and snacks. The other day, the kids went sledding and we had them over for impromptu cocoa. Luckily, we had cocoa mix in the pantry, and even more luckily the mix had tiny marshmallows, and even more luckily, we had an unopened bottle of spray whipped cream because one of the neighbor kids informed me that he really likes whipped cream on his cocoa in a tone so grave I understood him to mean that something dire would happen if no whipped cream appeared. But then there are all these kids and their parent in my house and I realized I DON’T HAVE ANY SNACKS. It’s not that I don’t enjoy snacks; it’s that I enjoy them too much. We managed to scrape together some muffins I had in the freezer and some individual bags of chips and veggie straws that we had leftover from some party or other, so no one starved. But it made me feel like I need to have at least some snacks on hand. But what?!? I’m not crazy about having a bunch of cookies around, because they either go uneaten or get devoured in two seconds. If we have chips, I will eat the chips. Cheese and crackers aren’t big among the elementary school set, and it’s not like I can have an emergency brie on hand for last minute guests (or can I?). Fresh fruits and veggies, yes, great, and I try to have those around as much as possible, but we don’t eat enough of them to have a ready supply in the fridge at all times. Occasionally I panic buy a bag of clementines, but at least a third of them inevitably go bad before we can eat them. So: shelf stable snacks that appeal to kids and adults but are not so appealing that my family will eat them before we have guests. Is this a thing? 

3. In vanity news, I have been Influenced to buy several things lately. I really like this very inexpensive multi-use highlighter stick. Of course I cannot find the video that originally persuaded me that this was an essential tool in my (non-existent) makeup game, but I like dabbing it on the inner and outer aspects of my eyes and swiping it below my eyebrows for a little bit of lively glow. Totally worth $2.94. The other thing I’ve already tried enough times to recommend it is this bronzing mousse. The weather is edging ever closer to summer, and I don’t want to scare the new neighbors with my fish-belly legs, so I’ve been practicing in the hope that I can add a little lifelike color to my skin before I appear in public in running shorts. I am always on a quest for the perfect fake tan, and this is the closest I’ve gotten. The things I like best about it are: a) It’s dark when it goes on, so you can SEE where you are applying it, and you can also see if you are introducing streaks to your thighs or stomach before the streaks have become one with your skin. b) While it has a scent, as all tanning products inevitably do, it strikes me as much fainter and less objectionable than any other tanning product I’ve ever used. c) The resulting tan is darker than my normal skin tone, but not so dark that it screams FAKE TAN. (I use this tanning mitt to apply it to my body which works really well and helps prevent streaking.) Once again, I have no idea which account suggested this tanning mousse, but I am a fan.

4. One of my current parenting goals is to provide more opportunities for Carla to spend time with her friends. I think I’ve mentioned before that I hate playdates. They fill me with anxiety, because they are both forced social time – sometimes with parents I don’t know well – and because I have no idea how to deal with more than just my one child. For better or for worse, that’s just how I am, and so we haven’t had a ton of playdates. But now that Carla is older, playdates presumably no longer require that social element AND the kids are old enough that I can give them a lot more independence. I used to agonize over how I was going to entertain two whole children, and so I’d gravitate toward things in my comfort zone, like baking projects or crafts. Unfortunately, those things require a lot of prep and supervision and clean up, so they aren’t relaxing or easy. But now I can pretty much let the kids go off and play together. Sometimes we all take a walk outside, and I’m always happy to take a walk, even if the kids ask me to pretend I’m not with them.

Even though playdates are, in many ways, easier now, I still of course have anxiety about them. I find myself fretting about planning An Activity, just in case. I find myself worrying about what happens if the kids get into a fight or misbehave or want food (it always comes back to snacks!) or want to be on screens the whole time.

This is so silly! When I was a kid, I don’t think my friends and I EVER had An Activity. We just went and played Barbies or roller skated in my basement or played school or ran around outside or played house. I can’t even imagine asking my mom or a friend’s mom for ideas. And snacks were not provided by the parent! We scrounged up our own snacks, and I don’t even remember a parent being present for any snacking. In fact, part of the fun of going to someone’s house was checking out their snacks. (Not as fun: eating any sort of meal at a friend’s house, because they had different foods than I was used to and different rules. THAT filled me with anxiety.) I loved my friend J’s house because they had an entire drawer full of candy, and you could just… eat candy when you wanted to! J, notably, was pretty uninterested in the candy. I loved my friend R’s house because her garage freezer was STOCKED with popsicles. At my house, we always had little bags of chips or Zingers in the pantry and Dilly Bars in the freezer and pickles in the fridge. (R and I used to each eat a pickle when we were at my house.) So I am guessing that kids DON’T CARE either what they do or what they eat at playdates. They will figure it out. And yet. We have two playdates on the schedule in the next few weeks and I am already stressing about it. I am planning to be Mean Mom and put a ban on screens, but beyond that… I don’t know what to do or what not to do. Wow, I wish I could chill out about this. 

5. You know something that always feels like magic to me, even though it’s science? Topology. Various algorithms keep serving me videos of topological experiments – because I keep watching them when they appear in my feed – and my mind cannot grasp the mathematics/physics. My dad taught Carla how to make a mobius strip and even seeing him create it with my own eyes doesn’t help me understand how or why it works. It’s witchcraft.

What are you up to this weekend, internet? And, more importantly, what kind of snacks will you be eating?

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Sunday Randomosity: To Do Lists and Birthday Plans Edition

This snow person has nothing to do with anything, but I found it on a walk recently and it is a real vibe.

A person can both Not Really Want, At All sweeping romantic gestures and glittery jewelry and giant bouquets of flowers and fancy heart-shaped boxes of chocolates, while still feeling a little disappointed to then not get those things. It is illogical, but such is the human heart. This past Valentine’s Day, I managed to override whatever part of my system feels sad and melancholy over not having the Hallmark Version of the holiday, and instead feel pleased about a) sending Valentines (although they ALL seemed to reach their recipients MUCH TOO LATE; note to self, start MUCH EARLIER) and b) making cookies and c) delivering said cookies to a few dear local friends and d) buying flowers for myself and e) supporting Carla in her desire to paper the house with hearts. It worked, truly, and I felt pleased and cheerful rather than resentful and pouty. 

Today: I bought myself some yellow tulips that I am hoping will open up as the day goes on. I do love a cheery yellow tulip. I am making vanilla cupcakes with lemon curd filling and cream cheese frosting because, as Engie noted, why would I pass up a perfectly good opportunity for a baked good?! Also, I am using boxed cake mix because the cupcakes always turn out better than homemade, PLUS they are easier. I am also making tacos for dinner and I am going to have a GIANT MARGARITA, maybe two! with the tacos. Probably not three, because I do need to wake up tomorrow to take Carla to school, but we’ll see where the night takes us. I don’t plan on doing a single dish, although that means I may have extra dishes tomorrow, but that’s okay! It is worth it! (We’ll see if I can truly go to bed with dirty dishes piled in the dishwasher.) 

Today is supposed to be both sunny and warm, so I plan to take a long, leisurely walk. Maybe I will even start a new audiobook instead of forcing myself to continue listening to the book I am reading with a couple of friends. (I am nearly 70% of the way through it, and it’s just not my favorite. Although it is improving with time. I suppose for a five-book series, I should give the author a little time to solidify the world around me before throwing in the towel.) 

ANYWAY, despite all these happy things to look forward to, my husband is at the hospital and I am sort of feeling sorry for myself anyway so let’s skip right into some Sunday randomosity!!!!!!!!!! Aggressive exclamation marks!!!!!!!!

Edited to add: Turns out all I needed was to chat with you and pull a couple of fragrant pans of cupcakes out of the oven and my mood is considerably brighter. Onto the less aggressive and self-pitying randomosity!

Waiting to be filled and frosted!

1. My dreams have been highly stressful lately. Uncomfortably explicit dreams about people from my past. Not-finishing-the-assignment dreams. Last night, I dreamed that I worked at my old company, and got paid every month, but wasn’t actually doing any work. And there was an assignment due that I hadn’t yet begun, and I was kind of hoping everyone at the company had forgotten about me completely. But I was also feeling super guilty about getting paid for doing nothing. In the same dream, there’d been an Unknown Incident that resulted in needing to build a special room for my oven, but the room was in a tiny nook up several flights of stairs and it was 90 degrees in that space at all times. I think this last dream at least has some easily identifiable sources: a) I get hot to the point of needing to step outside every time I turn on the oven and b) my to-do list keeps growing and I keep not doing any of the things.

2. There are so many unappealing things on my to-do list. I think I’m going to try the thing where I list them out here, and the embarrassment of stating them publicly will spur me to do them. Come on, internet magic! 

• Call the electrician. How many times am I going to mention this particular pressing task before I DO IT? The reason I have not taken care of it yet is because the electrician has both a weirdly specific estimate process and a weirdly complicated scheduling process. My husband suggested I find a new electrician; that would be WORSE, because these people have already done a whole-house evaluation and I cannot stomach the idea of researching a new electrician and having them come out and give us an estimate and then schedule a real appointment. I CAN’T DO IT. Also, we get a discount with this particular electrician which has to count for something, no? 
• Figure out how to fix the doorbell????? Perhaps the electrician could give us some thoughts, if I ever get him back out here? I am seriously considering becoming an electrician myself because it seems like it would be easier. 
• Email or call the landscaper. The reason I am balking at this one is because I ignored the landscaper’s calls and emails for MONTHS before we were finally ready to sign a contract for next summer. Apparently, all you need to do to get me to spend money with your company is to badger me, politely but at regular intervals, for several months???? Anyway, now I feel like I can’t suddenly Be Available to talk about new things we want to do with our yard. Also, while I DO want to do new things with our yard, I don’t know what they ARE and I am not ready for that conversation (or the price).
• Schedule a work call. This should be the easiest on my list, I think. The only thing holding me back is that I already reached out to this person and they didn’t respond, which always makes me feel like I am pestering. 
• Figure out who will take care of our pool this summer. Talk about a Champagne problem!!!!!!! But getting a person whose purported livelihood is pool care/maintenance to call me back and then agree to have me pay them to do the work they purport to do is extremely difficult for reasons I don’t understand and I am avoiding it like whoa.
• Put last year’s earnings into my retirement account. (Another Champagne problem. I am so lucky that 99% of my problems are this variety.) WHY is this hard? It should not be. And yet. 
• Schedule Carla’s next dental appointment. The hygienist wanted to schedule it for me, but I didn’t know when Carla’s first day of school was, so I said I would call back once I knew… but then I looked it up while the hygienist was finishing up, and so I could have easily made the appointment, but didn’t because I didn’t want to bother her?????? So now I have to make a phone call. Yay. 
• Put a check in the mail to the orthodontist. We get a small discount on the price of braces if we pay in full in cash. I did not have my checkbook (why?????) when I signed the braces paperwork, but the office manager kindly told me she would give me the discount anyway, if I just sent in the check by the end of the month. She even gave me a self-addressed envelope. Why have I not simply WRITTEN THE CHECK and put it in the mail? THIS is the easiest item on my list. Just do it, Suzanne! 
• Figure out what kind of person addresses what looks like rot in the wood siding of my house. Probably I just need to google this. And then I will need to begin the rigamarole of calling people and having them come over and give estimates. Why did we buy a new house again? Who thought that would be a good idea?

• Fulfill the giveaway I offered on my blog. Wait a second. THIS is the easiest task on my list to fulfill! Guess what?! J is the winner of the paperback giveaway! Congrats, J! I will reach out to you for your address and send you a copy of the second book in Elena Ferrante’s My Brilliant Friend series. 

3. You know how, in TV shows and movies, someone will cough ominously and then three scenes later they die of consumption? Carla is upstairs and I can hear her coughing and it is filling me with foreboding. We went to a school event the other day; I volunteered while Carla ran around in a howling pack of other children. Already one friend has texted me with the unsettling news that her kid just woke up with a fever. We have so far avoided the bulk of the Winter Illnesses that have felled nearly everyone else on the planet… but based on the frequency of the coughing, I suspect our time has come. 

4. There’s no way to correct someone’s misimpression about your birth date without making them feel bad and/or stupid, right? There is a person in my life who very sweetly wishes me happy birthday every year… the day before my birthday. And now their spouse is doing it, too. And it’s very thoughtful and getting it on the actual date really does not matter – TRULY – I am now forty-three years old and it’s unexpectedly lovely when people remember your birthday at all, let alone get the date right. This is just a charming quirk I should love for as long as it lasts, right?

5. The best article I’ve read in awhile is this profile of Jodie Foster. I love Foster – most recently in True Detective. What resonated with me most is the idea of simultaneously craving privacy and connection. I wonder if it resonates with you, too, if you have a blog. The idea of having someone I KNOW – even though that’s a silly categorization, because I know YOU so much better than so many people I see out in the three-dimensional world day-to-day – read my blog gives me hives. And yet I thrive on the connections I find here, in bloglandia, via our (in most cases) text-only relationships. It was validating and comforting to read about Foster, who seems to have a similar personality and a similar struggle with finding the balance between being known and being understood.

6. Instead of doing literally ANY of the things I need to do (which also include larger, longer-term projects that I did not list in bullet #1), I decided I would put together an old-school blogroll. And I DID, based on the very haphazard and unreliable methods I use to check blogs regularly. But then I could not figure out how to create a new page in WordPress. I mean. I think I *DID* create a new page in WordPress, but I don’t know where said page LIVES on my blog. So then I tried to add the new page to the menu, and got very confused, and this is all to say that I did not accomplish anything except a Word document listing many (but probably not all) of the blogs I read. SIGH.

7. In addition to cupcakes, I am contemplating another baked good. I recently enjoyed one of these muffins at a friend’s house. Subsequently, I found myself thinking about the muffin with such longing that I asked my friend for the recipe. But I have yet to break down and BAKE the muffins. So far. 

8. Swimsuit season is creeping ever closer. I will be spring breaking in a place that requires a swimsuit, so I am fretting abstractedly about swimsuits. I own a swimsuit, a black two piece that includes a top and a skirted bottom. To be honest, that is probably the swimsuit I will continue to wear. But I always find myself pining for a NEW swimsuit. It’s tough to find a suitable suit, or at least a suit I find remotely flattering, when I am self-conscious of my rather lumpy lower half. It’s not just that I’m a pear shape, although the top part of the pear grows ever wider with the passing years; it’s that my hips are not a nice pleasing curve from hipbone to thigh: there’s a divot in there. I believe the young people call it a “hip dip.” I have become convinced over the years by body positive Instagrammers that this is not, as some might say, my fault; this is how my body is shaped, and I cannot control it no matter how many squats I might do or how little I weigh. (The latter, I know for sure; I remember being a 100-pound active high school student and worrying about my “saddle bags.”) But my body shape still doesn’t lend itself to a lot of the more pleasing bathing suit styles. ANYWAY, we all have our Things, and this is (one of) mine. I guess I am just wondering, what does YOUR swimsuit look like? And what swimsuit are you ogling, in case the one you own suddenly bursts into spontaneous flame? 

9. My parents took me out to lunch for my birthday! It was SO DELIGHTFUL. I cannot remember the last time I celebrated my birthday with them?!? (Okay, yes I can; it was before Carla was born.) It was just the three of us and I felt very spoiled and loved and I cannot believe how lucky I am that they LIVE NEARBY. What a gift. I think we have settled into a good rhythm of seeing each other while allowing one another to Live Our Lives (although I would like to spend more one-on-one time with my mom). I hope I never take our time together for granted. 

Pile of presents from my family!!!! Plus Carla and I have been talking about our Future Hypothetical Cat, and decided that we want to name him Wallace and he will wear a monocle and will have coloring that makes him look like he’s wearing a white ascot and a brown or black suit jacket. Hence the picture she left for me this morning.

10. My holiday cards are still up. I don’t want to remove them, although my husband is making gentle noises indicating he is growing tired of them. I had enough this year to line the entire kitchen. I affixed them to the wall above the windows/doors and they make me so happy! We also still have hearts on all the walls, which also make me happy. Seeing as it’s still February, I don’t really feel a lot of pressure to remove the hearts. Perhaps I will take everything down right before Spring Break.

11. I have never really been a big Branded Handbag type of person. I don’t even really USE a handbag that much anymore. But I have recently found myself coveting a high-end handbag for myself. I blame this new desire on my choice to follow Class of Palm Beach on Instagram. Are you a handbag person? If you could get any fancy bag in the world, what would it be? A Birkin bag seems like the obvious choice, especially because they are considered a better investment than gold (!!!!), but it also sounds difficult to get your hands on one. (Please also keep in mind that there is no way I would ever buy a Birkin bag. This is pure idle fantasy.) 

Tulips! You can also sort of glimpse the hearts AND the holiday cards in the background.

Okay Internet. Tell me your favorite type of cupcakes and/or muffins. And please share all your magical body altering swimsuit choices with me as well. 

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Wednesday Randomosity: Squeaking in at the Last Hour Again

Okay, maybe it isn’t the last hour, but it’s pretty late. 

Once again, all I have for you is a collection of small random things I’m thinking about. But first: I am typing this from the armchair (Stephany: Pottery Barn Kids, purchased in 2013) in the corner of my room while my husband entertains his parents. An owl is hooting halfheartedly outside, or perhaps it is a mourning dove; they have similarly soft voices. 

From my vantage point, I can admire the new lamps for our nightstands, which arrived today! My husband set them up and they are lovely! I am still not 100% in love with the shape of them, I think, but I like the color (blue on ivory) and I really like the soft arcs of light they throw off. The dimmest setting is not as dim as I’d hoped (I wake up at the slightest provocation, so wanted dimmable lamps so my husband could see without jolting me out of sleep every night), but they will do, probably. 

I haven’t had a lamp on my nightstand since we moved in, so I’m very pleased about the presence of LIGHT! and I feel like I will warm up to the shape of the lamps.

Furnace: My furnace emailed me today. First of all, I didn’t know it could do that. Secondly, it is the kind of furnace that apparently only deigns to talk to you if there’s a problem. No, “Hey, how’s it going?” No checking in on how *I* am doing, just reporting issues like we don’t live in the same house together. 

THIS CAN’T BE GOOD.

It wanted to let me know that “your system briefly stopped heating your home several times.” What? Why? ARGH. I don’t know what’s going on with my furnace, but the whole thing is worrisome. We had our HVAC people out a couple months ago to do a check up, and they reported that the system is working fine. But it’s aging, as are we all, and the HVAC technician strongly suggested I register for the extended warranty on the furnace. But when I called, they said I only had 90 days from the day we bought our house to purchase the warranty, and they needed a copy of my title and the title transfer paperwork to get the process going. The title and paperwork we did not yet have. So I called the title company and asked where was our title, and they said it had been mailed, coincidentally, earlier that same week, and we waited for it, and it never showed up, and I badgered and it didn’t arrive and then the 90 day furnace warranty extension period evaporated. So. We don’t have the extended warranty on our furnace. (We do, finally, as of two weeks ago, have the title for our house. Not the original, which has apparently been lost to the whim of the US Postal Service, but a copy, which I had to prod and bother for.) This is all to say: of course our furnace is absolutely going to die now, isn’t it. 

Someone asked recently if I am feeling more settled now, and the answer is yes: more settled. But am I loving our house? Not yet. I am still hopeful it can happen. But right now, it still feels like there is so much. So many things to take care of, new problems popping up all the time. And with my in laws here — well, this is the first time they have been to this house, so we are showing everything to them and revisiting the early days of owning this place. Plus, they tend to be… quick to see the negatives in a situation, and they seem to often feel like people are out to get us all. So I am plunged back into feeling pretty low about the whole thing. I think (I hope) that this is all Part of Moving, and I am holding on to Jen’s assurance (HI JEN) that it will take me a good six months to feel like this is home. Maybe by the end of February I’ll feel better? Let’s check back then. Maybe my furnace and I will be on better terms.

Face (again): I know I just talked about face-washing yesterday, but it’s top of mind because a) my face is in A Right State lately and b) I had to buy a new bottle of Cetaphil face wash from Target and c) I just had a dermatology follow up to my diagnosis of rosacea. The dermatology appointment was a little disheartening. I don’t know what I expected, honestly. My skin hasn’t improved. If anything, it seems to break out more frequently than ever. The dermatologist kind of shrugged and said that it’s a chronic condition and there’s nothing I can really do to get rid of it. So. That’s the disheartening part.

I also had questions about the sulfur-based face wash I have been using (works pretty well, makes me smell faintly of sulfur which is unpleasant and self-conscious making) and I also wanted to ask a Vanity question. Background: I have been using either Cetaphil or the sulfur face wash to clean my face. When my face feels like a desert dune, I also use Cerave moisturizer. As a result of this regimen, I feel like my face looks SO OLD. Crepey and wrinkly and bleh. Fine lines really get a good grip when the skin is dry, I think. (I really, really miss my Beauty Counter face oil.) So one of the questions I had for my dermatologist was WHAT CAN I DO. WHY HAST YOUTH FORSAKEN ME SO. Etc. The dermatologist recommended – brace yourself – Vaseline. On my face. Like. All over it. 

I use Vaseline on my lips, and, yes, it seems to stave off the flakiness (although I don’t think I’ve used it yet in the dead of winter, so I will report back). But… on my whole face??? How would I sleep? My pillow would become an oil slick. Is this… a real suggestion? I feel like it cannot work and yet: I would try a lot of things in the name of vanity. 

Fashion: My husband’s holiday work party is coming up and once again I have no idea what to wear. It’s sort of dressy, although people wear a wide range of clothing items. Last year I wore black Ponte pants and a black top and maybe a sparkly necklace. What should I wear this year? 

By posting at night two nights in a row, I feel like I’ve really messed with the rhythm of this blog. And also, I still have houseguests, so I am guessing I will post again (if at all) late tomorrow night. But we are down to the wire of NaBloPoMo, and I am not going to fail now, Internet! 

I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join the fun, check out San’s blog here. 

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A Few Furniture Related Questions

We have come to the portion of Moving Into a New House where we are considering buying some new furniture. We have plenty of furniture, from the old house, but there are a few things that are missing from our collection. Plus, there are a few things that we’d prefer to replace because they just aren’t right for the current space.

The thing is, we have never really had to buy furniture before. We are deeply spoiled: most of the furniture in our house was handed down to us by my husband’s parents, who have moved several times over the years and who accompanied each move with gifts of furniture. Hand-me-downs from my in laws include two couches, two loveseats, an armchair, a kitchen table, The Piece, a desk, some filing cabinets, a baby grand piano, and lots of artwork. I know. We are very, very lucky.

This means that, aside from purchasing two bedroom sets and assorted furniture for our child, we have no experience buying furniture. But… buying furniture is kind of hard? And unpleasant? Like, how many couches do you have to sit on before you decide that THIS ONE is the right combination of firm and comfortable, that it is formal enough for the space, that it will fit in the room, that the quality is good, that the price is reasonable? And then you have to choose the fabric?! Yikes.

In an instance of great good fortune, my friend Jen (HI JEN) happened to send me a photo of her couch (it wasn’t really of her couch, it was of her beautiful and charming children), and I asked about it (because it looked comfy but also aesthetically pleasing) and she gave me the details. And THEN our local Macy’s had several of the very same couch IN STOCK. There was only one person working in the entire Macy’s so my husband and daughter and I were able to sit on all the different options and examine the different sectional combinations and look at all the fabric samples completely unbothered by salespeople or other customers. With Jen’s assurance that this couch is a good couch, and the evidence of our own sitting, we are now going to order this couch. SO. That’s one big thing to check off the list.

But we have other furniture needs and I don’t really know where to begin. You have Furniture Opinions, yes? Because I need your input please.

• Where do you get lamps? We have looked at Target, and the lamps are… limited, and also a lot of them look kind of cheap. I am aware that Target does HAVE perfectly acceptable lamps; our old bedside table lamps were from Target, and they lasted a long time and I liked them just fine. We would not be looking for new beside table lamps had I not broken mine during the move. I have been suffering for my sins, lampless, since August. I looked at Crate and Barrel for lamps and it seems like you can’t get a lamp for less than $100, which is far more than I feel like I want to spend on a lamp. So maybe my question is not, “where do you get lamps?” but “where do you get nice, sturdy, aesthetically pleasing lamps that aren’t a million dollars?”

This lamp costs $350! $350!!!!!!

• What is the deal with slipcovers? My husband and I had a hand-me-down loveseat in our bedroom for twelve years. Neither of us noticed until now that the loveseat is wearing a slipcover. The slipcover is not, as I would have assumed, covering anything; I would have thought you would have purchased a slipcover to conceal a fabric you no longer liked, for instance. But now that we KNOW, we feel like we might want to get a new slipcover. One that is more our style. That is as far as I’ve gone with this line of thinking because I don’t really know where to go next. And also, are we stuck with the skirt part?

Sheesh this is a terrible photo. And I couldn’t even straighten the cushions before taking the picture? YIKES. P.S. The side table is a hand-me-down and I hate it so much. I can’t even articulate why. I just HATE IT. But it has utility so I haven’t yet donated it. The lamp in this photo came from World Market, which no longer exists in our city.

• Do you have a yoga mat you’d recommend? Does a yoga mat count as furniture? Let’s pretend it does for the sake of not wanting to revise the post title. One of my favorite parts of the new house is a dedicated room for exercise. But the flooring is Very Hard; my princessy bones have apparently grown accustomed to working out on a yoga mat on top of a plush carpet, and my tailbone and shoulder blades scream at me if I try to work out on a yoga mat on top of the floor. My solution was to get a nice thick yoga mat from Amazon. But, while the new mat is technically thicker than my old yoga mat, the material is much squishier, so it is not any more comfortable than what I already have. I tried to stack the yoga mats, one on top of each other, but they slide around. What I really want is a GIANT yoga mat that is also thick. Does such a thing exist? Rephrase: Does such a thing exist for under a million dollars?

Another terrible photo! And the floor is so dirty! Mainly because we had boxes filling this room until three days ago. But also because it is surprisingly difficult to clean this kind of flooring. Also, my husband and I discovered that the bottoms of his shoes, which are highlighter yellow, are shedding when he walks on the treadmill, leaving two yellowish tracks on the treadmill belt and a film of yellow dust on the floor. So weird.

Those are the most pressing furniture questions I have at the moment. Don’t even get me started on end tables. I think we’ll need at least one – maybe two – for the upstairs living room. We will also need couches and chairs and a rug for that space, but we’re living with our old hand-me-down couch and no rug for now. I don’t have the mental fortitude for ordering more than one couch at a time.

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Favorite Things Party

A few weeks ago, San linked to this article about how to host a Favorite Things party, and I have been thinking about it nonstop ever since. The gist is that you and a bunch of friends get together, and, after agreeing on a budget, each of you buy enough of one of your life essentials to give to each guest. (The article lists suggestions for how to do this with a big vs. small group. It also suggests going with a theme – kitchen, beauty, etc.)

Yes, I know it’s very off-brand of me to want to host A PARTY, because that’s just not my jam. But I have three or so friends that get along with one another who might also think it’s fun. I am so not ready to have real live people in my real live house, but I am maybe warming myself up to the idea. 

In the meantime, I keep thinking about what I might bring as my Favorite Thing. What would you bring?

This kitchen tool. I use this ALL the time. Mostly for breaking up ground beef, to be sure, but it also comes in handy for scrambling eggs or doing a chunky mash on things like potatoes or avocadoes. Sometimes if I have frozen vegetables I am using in a soup or something I will use this to break them up in the pot, too. It’s versatile and dishwasher safe and I use it all the time.

A cooling eye balm. This costs more than the suggested budget, but I love love love this eye balm. It has a cooling element that I find very refreshing, plus it adds a much-needed glow to the saggy smudged undereye area. 

Olive juice. Okay, okay, this is kind of a niche product, so maybe it wouldn’t go over that well at a Favorite Things party. But I love this stuff! It makes for really tasty dirty martinis, which is the only kind of martini for me. I also get a chuckle out of the name, despite the fact that I have never and will never go by Sue.

Cat slippers. My daughter got me a pair of these several years ago and I wore them to shreds. They just made me so happy, to look at their cute little cat faces. (They also come in llama or pig or sloth, if those are more your style!)

A stylish outdoor wine tumbler. I got this as part of a Fab Fit Fun box a few years ago and for some reason, I get such a kick out of it. It’s pretty and portable and makes me feel like A Fancy Lady.

Wearable reading light. This isn’t technically something I use – at least, not very often – but my husband uses it and it (usually) prevents me from waking up when he climbs into bed to read at one or two in the morning and therefore it is high on my list of favorites.

The best foot cream. I credit Nicole for the hot tip about this foot lotion. It is The Best. I put it on my cracked, dry feet before bed and they feel all soft and happy the next morning. MAGIC. You have to get the exfoliating kind, though – the regular kind is fine, but it doesn’t have magic properties.

Korean street food snack. My husband and I bought a package of garlic Tteokbokki when we made our date-night trip to the Asian grocery store. While the description isn’t wildly exciting, at least not to me (“rice cakes with red chili and garlic sauce”), the actual snack is SO tasty. Slightly sweet, slightly spicy, with a texture unlike anything I’ve ever had before. Kind of like if you were to cook penne pasta but not all the way through, so it’s somewhere between chewy and crunchy. I fear that this description might be a deterrent, which is the opposite of my intention. In any event, this stuff is SO GOOD. Oh, it is also extremely easy to make. 

Packable reusable bag. I have a million reusable grocery bags that I keep in my car, but I keep one of these in my purse, folded into its little square pouch. It comes in handy ALL the time, if I’ve popped into Trader Joe’s for “just one thing” without a grocery bag and end up buying too many items to carry, if I need an extra bag at the airport, if I’m out with my daughter and she finds eighty perfect rocks she cannot live without. Also, it’s machine washable which I love.

Matcha whisk. I love a nice soothing cup of matcha in the morning, and this whisk really does seem to eliminate lumps and clumps. It’s inexpensive enough that I could possibly even pair it with a little bag of matcha; Trader Joe’s has smallish bags that aren’t wildly pricey. 

Ice roller. My husband got me one of these last year and I use it for my feet. I LOVE IT. You can remove the little green portion and put it in the freezer, and then pop it into the handle, and voila! cooling and soothing foot rolling action. I think this tool is intended for faces, but I have also used it for bruises, like when I bark my knee against the corner of the bed, or for bug bites, to which Carla is extremely sensitive and which develop into enormous golf ball sized welts. There’s something about being able to roll the frozen part over the affected area that makes it more comfortable than dealing with an ice pack.

Okay, those are some of my favorites. Now I want to hear some of yours!

I am kinda sorta attempting to complete NaBloPoMo, with the full expectation that life will make it impossible any day now. If you want to follow along, or join the fun, check out San’s blog here. 

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Crafting a Craft Room Part 2

One of Carla’s favorite pastimes is crafting. This is a blanket term that, for her, includes without being limited to:

• Drawing
• Painting
• Making things with yarn
• Using hot glue to make shapes/structures
• Using a 3-D pen to make shapes/structures
• Building things out of paper or foam
• Cutting up paper into tiny confetti bits for unknown purposes
• Diamond painting
• Coloring
• Gluing pieces of cardboard together
• Transforming pens, paper towel rolls, dowels and other items with string, gems, glitter, foam, etc.
• Making Barbie furniture
• Making clothing for various stuffed animals
• Cutting paper into snowflake shapes
• Origami
• Sculpting animals out of playdough or clay
• Making things out of yarn
• Sewing scraps of fabric together, to make clothing or purses or stuffed animals

She is extremely creative and derives a lot of joy from crafting. While I might prefer that she were to make things that had some utility, I certainly don’t want to restrict her creative mind. The big problem is that her creations tend to take up a huge amount of space. 

So our solution was to create a craft space just for her in the basement. (Slide the image below to see the before and after.)

Based on wonderful suggestions from you, my husband and I went to Home Depot and found a door to use as a craft table. Home Depot has a surprising (to me) variety of doors, and we went with one that was flat, unstained, unfinished, and unadorned in any way. It didn’t even have a hole for a doorknob. Just a flat slab of wood. Best of all, it was fairly inexpensive – around $85. (We are comparing the cost of the door to the cost of an actual table.)

We allowed Carla to choose a paint color for the door, and then the three of us painted it. 

We already owned a six-cube organizer shelving unit, so we bought a second one. Then we bought fabric bins to put inside some of the cubes. Once the paint was dry, we set the door horizontally across the shelving units.

My favorite thing is this spinning desktop organizer, which holds a bunch of pens and scissors and paperclips.

The “table” is nice and tall, and big enough to hold A LOT of crafts. We set up Carla’s Cricut machine on one side, put the spinning desktop organizer on the other side, and filled the shelving unit bins with construction paper and foam and painting supplies.

Over time, we have added additional shelving units and fabric bins, and lots of plastic bins and smaller shelving units.

It is a very well-used space. 

Two things that I think we still need, but haven’t yet figured out:

1. Some sort of plastic floor mat. I would love to protect the carpet. But we have only hit roadblocks when trying to find solutions. We originally thought we could get one of those stiff plastic mats that you can put under a desk so that your chair wheels don’t get stuck in the carpet. But to find one that is large enough is prohibitively expensive. We considered finding some heavy plastic sheeting, like the kind you put down when you paint… but I’m not sure that would be sturdy enough for daily use, or how we would affix it well enough to the carpet. We then looked into buying a cheap rug that we could put under the desk… but my main concern about that is that it might create a tripping hazard in the basement. Plus, the cheapest rugs at Home Depot have raw edges, and I think they would fray and fall apart pretty quickly… but I have no idea how to resolve that. So for now, we deal with occasional paint and perpetual glitter on the carpet.

• A chair. I think Carla would benefit from having a drafting stool of some sort. She says it’s tiring for her to have to stand when she’s drawing, and I get that. Sometimes, this means that she moves the crafting onto the floor, which I do not like. Maybe a stool of some sort would make using the actual table all the time more appealing. I don’t think she would use a stool all the time… but that’s fine. Then again, the need isn’t so pressing that I’ve done more than idle googling. 

The space is usable and Carla loves it and uses it regularly. Overall, it is a success.

My primary complaint about this space is that it is a craftastrophe 95% of the time. It is a horrific mess that encompasses the top of the table and the space underneath and bleeds into the surrounding areas. (Toggle for the mess if you dare.)

The problem is that no matter how many organizational bins and shelves and baskets you buy, they only work if you use them. And my kid doesn’t use them. I have no idea how to help her with this. One of our family mantras is that everything should have a space, and when you are done with something, it needs to return to its space. But that… doesn’t happen. 

Either Carla is in the middle of a project and doesn’t want to put it away…

Or she forgets to put it away…

Or she doesn’t know where the item’s “home” is (or, worse, it doesn’t really HAVE a “home”)…

Or she has used the storage bin for some alternate purpose… (This one really annoys me. For instance, we have this little case that has a bunch of separate spaces for small items, like pom poms or gems or paper clips or whatever, and she had removed everything that should be in it and replaced those things with individual small chunks of clay that had since dried out. This kind of “using a storage unit as a toy” is frequent and drives me NUTS.)

I am not sure how to reframe things for Carla so that she understands the how and the why of putting things away… or so that she sees the bins and shelves as Storage Only and not props in her elaborate imaginary scenarios.

If we ever buy another house, my dream is that we dedicate an entire room to Carla’s crafting. A room with our makeshift table, and tons of built-in shelving units that are all labeled and stocked with everything she needs. A room that has a door behind which we can shut the mess. 

But this is a dream, not reality. 

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Turkey Interruption + An X Person

I had a whole post all planned out for today, but then I got a call from someone at Whole Foods.

“Hello, I’m from the Whole Foods holiday table,” he said.

“Hello,” I said, trying to keep any suspicion or panic out of my greeting.

“We understand you ordered a turkey from Whole Foods,” he said, his voice already tinged with apology. 

“Yes…” I said. “I did order a turkey.” In my mind, I was chanting, “Don’t say there are no turkeys, don’t say there are no turkeys.”

“And you’re supposed to pick it up today?”

“Yes, I am picking it up today.” (Notice my very positive and definitive phrasing.)

Don’t say there are no turkeys. Don’t say there are no turkeys.

“Well, due to forces beyond our control, including an avian flu…” he began.

Don’t say there are no turkeys! Don’t say there are no turkeys!

“Some of our farmers have been unable to meet the demand for turkeys around this time of year…”

Don’t say it. Don’t say it.

“And we weren’t able to get a turkey in the size you ordered.”

PHEW.

“Okay, what’s the biggest size you have available? I’ll take that.”

“All right, I’ll put you down for that one. Thank you for understanding.”

PHEW.

I am very glad that we will be getting A Turkey, even if it is not the (admittedly enormous) size that I’d ordered after consultation with my mother. But really, what can you do? (Perhaps I would not be so magnanimous if there were an issue with the potatoes.) After all, I am more than happy to allocate my share of turkey to someone who needs it more. But the slightly smaller turkey will be FINE and I will live to panic again another day.

* * * 

Carla and I were watching an episode of The Dog Whisperer the other day. One of the subjects of the show we were watching is a beagle fanatic. She wears clothing that features images of beagles. She has stuffed beagles. Beagle figurines. Beagle-patterned blankets. Beagle dishes. And, of course, a real live pet beagle. 

This beagle mania (not to be confused with Beatle Mania) stirred a vague memory of something I read or watched, or maybe even experienced in person… Someone in possession of a similar large collection whose explanation behind it was, “I said I liked X, and suddenly every time someone saw a thing with X on it, they bought it for me.” Was it my mother-in-law, who at one time had many things featuring cows? I can’t remember. I do think of her every time I see something with a cow pattern on it, though.

I like both the idea that a person can be so in love with a thing that they want to surround themselves with that thing… and the idea that a person can unwittingly – nay, unwantingly – become the owner of a massive collection simply by expressing interest in a thing, or owning one example of a thing. The fact that one’s house – one’s life! – can be overtaken by a specific theme, purposefully or by accident, and that the theme itself can become emblematic of that person… well, I really like that as a concept. (In practice, it could be… tiresome, I admit.)

When I look around my house, I don’t really see anything that would make something think, “Oh! She’s an X person!” and then become reminded of me every time they see X in the wild. I mean, books, perhaps. (And I would be delighted to get a book for every present, from now until the end of time!) 

Once, a friend gave me a very odd present. It is a… figurine, I suppose is the best word for it. It looks like a potato, but it has the features and appendages of a pig. Why did she give it to me? Did I strike her as the kind of person who needed a potato pig figurine in my life? (I am that person, but I didn’t know it at the time.) 

The other day, I was admiring my very modest fall décor, and my eyes fell on one of my favorite things. It’s… also a figurine, I guess. It’s shaped like a gourd. But it has eyes and the beak of a bird. Maybe it is a squash swan, although that is exceedingly difficult to say. I apparently saw this gourd bird at some point and thought that I had to have it. And, indeed, I do.

Am I a person who likes vegetables that are also animals??? Is this My Thing? 

I do not know. When my cupboards are filled with vegetable-animal mugs and my drawers are stuffed with vegetable-animal pajamas, I’ll let you know.

Are you An X Person? If so, what is your thing? Do you like being An X Person or have you grown weary of always being synonymous with X?

It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMo this month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.

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Road Trip! Snacks

In response to my recent Road Trip! post, several people mentioned snacks – a couple offered specifics; others were more general.

But it made me realize that I am Very Eager to discuss Road Trip! snacks. 

When I was a kid, my dad would buy rolls of Necco Wafers and hand them around. We had to take the wafer we were offered, so there was always the immense danger of getting the licorice flavored one. He was also a big fan of Planters Heat Peanuts. My mom, I seem to remember, perhaps incorrectly, enjoyed things like Chex Mix. 

For me, a Road Trip! is all about the chips. Aside from tortilla chips (which I eat occasionally), I hardly ever buy chips. This is because I LOVE chips and will eat an entire bag in one sitting. So chips are a real treat for me, and that’s my go-to snack for Road Trips. My favorites are Barbecue Lays, Miss Vickie’s Jalapeno, and Doritos Salsa Verde, the latter being a variety I don’t see in gas stations that often anymore. 

I have also recently become… well, obsessed isn’t the right word for it. Infatuated with? Yes. I have recently become infatuated with Skinnypop, despite the irritating name. My daughter got me into it; I think parents often buy individual bags of Skinnypop for birthday party snacks, and maybe they offer Skinnypop as one of the snacks at school; I’m not quite sure about anything that goes on in my kid’s life when I’m not around. Anyway, she liked Skinnypop first and asked for it enough that I ended up trying it. Now we buy it by the giant package at Costco. I love it. Don’t get me wrong – I would much prefer a giant bowl of freshly popped popcorn drenched – drenched – in butter, but Skinnypop is really quite delicious. So I might consider adding it to my Road Trip! snack repertoire.

While I am much more interested in salty things than in sweet things, sometimes the best chaser for a bag of spicy chips is a bag of Twizzler Nibs. Or maybe a Milky Way Midnight bar. 

And I rarely ever drink soda these days, but I do love a nice frosty bottle of Diet Mountain Dew. 

I may or may not indulge in my traditional Road Trip! snacks on this particular Road Trip!. They are not, as you might have already intuited, keto friendly. But my husband has already decided that he is NOT sticking to keto while we are on our trip, and that makes it much harder for me to stick to it. 

If I stick to it, though, I will survive by eating copious amounts of Zero Sugar York Peppermint Patties and Zero Sugar Reese’s Miniature Cups which Swistle has been recommending for a long time and I just recently tried. They are SO GOOD and do not taste like keto food; they taste like treats.

(I have yet to find keto chips I like. I tried the Quest Chili Lime chips, which were WONDERFULLY crunchy and had a nice chili lime flavor. But the chili lime flavor, though strong, was not strong enough to disguise the flavor of the chips themselves which I find to be oddly bitter.)

Speaking of my husband: I feel like I should KNOW what kind of Road Trip! snacks are his favorite. But I… have no idea. Maybe he doesn’t have one or two repeat snacks that he always eats? Maybe he goes for a wide variety? Maybe I am so hyperfocused on my own snacking that I become completely oblivious to those around me? I am not sure. Honestly, I don’t even know what I would buy for him if he sent me into the gas station with instructions to pick him out a snack. Some.. Sun Chips? That seems like the wrong answer. 

My daughter LOVES snacks and LOVES treats, so you know she is going to have many, many requests. If I were to choose something for her, I’d probably pick a trifecta of Cheetos or Cheez-Its, something weird (like a plunger shaped lollipop that you dip into a toilet bowl filled with sugar – yes, this is something she purchased with her own money recently), and something sweet. She likes most (all???) sweets, so I’m not even sure what I would choose for her, but I think she would probably like it.

Now, I have been speaking mainly of gas station treats. But Road Trips! are an opportunity to eat fun fast food, too. If you like fast food. I don’t particularly care for it, I have to say. So usually I vote for Arby’s so I can at least order curly fries. When I was a kid, Subway was our fast food stop of choice, and I do enjoy a six inch Spicy Italian sub on whole wheat with no cheese, plenty of spicy mustard. I don’t know if I would enjoy it quite as much now. But I suppose we will have a chance to find out! 

So now it is your turn! Tell me, in detail, your FAVORITE Road Trip! snacks – sweet, savory, and any other category. 

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Monday Randomosity: Mainly Frets and Stresses Edition

I am in the thick of it right now, and it’s not even very thick – people are in much thicker situations, and dealing just fine, and here I am flailing around. So I am feeling stressed and also irritated with myself for being stressed over so little. It really doesn’t take much. 

Taking a page from Swistle’s book and buying pretty flowers so at least there’s something bright in my day.

• Obviously, at the top of the frets list is the awfulness going on in Ukraine. The thought of people losing their homes, their loved ones, their lives… the thought of cities being devasted and bombed… the thought of babies and cancer patients huddled in basements and subway tunnels… it is all so awful. And then there is the underlying threat of a giant nuclear-weapon wielding toddler getting bored or angry and throwing a temper tantrum that results in nuclear destruction. Of course, there is other extremely upsetting stuff going on here in the US and around the world at the same time. The media coverage feels absolutely gleeful, there is so much bad stuff to go around. I am avoiding as much of the news as I can, which is, of course, a very privileged option. But it’s all horrible, whether you try to ignore it or not.

• Did I mention that I stayed home today with a sick kiddo? (It’s not Covid.) I would have stayed home anyway, but being at home hits differently when there is a child at home with you. In totally unrelated news, her school went mask-optional last week. Carla was elated about the option to stop masking, and so she stopped masking. My husband and I supported this for several reasons, but it really came down to the fact that she is nearly nine and we literally cannot force her to wear a mask. Once she’s at school, all bets are off. Anyway, some of those virulent little bugs that have been waiting around for two years to get a crack at some delicious elementary schoolers jumped right on board. Right on in there. It took one week for this to happen. 

• We are still wearing masks in public, even though cases are very low in my area right now. However, my husband and I did go to a restaurant for my birthday. We did not wear masks in the restaurant. (Although I put mine on to visit the restroom.) It feels a little odd to pick and choose this way. No masks at school, no masks at a restaurant. But I will throw on a mask to go to the grocery store or the post office. I don’t know. It all feels very strange. 

• Dinners this week? Ha. I have not thought about a single dinner beyond tonight. No one will starve. I have some broccoli and some lettuce and some green beans to make as sides. We are having tacos for dinner tonight, even though the thought of tacos makes me queasy. That’s as far as I’ve gotten. 

• Speaking of taco queasiness, I am doing Keto again. Sigh. This is Week Six, which seems like a good point at which to share it with you. Leave it to Keto to make my favorite food in all the world unappealing. It’s just that I’ve eaten so very much taco meat in the past six weeks. Piles and piles of it. Turns out I really need shells to enjoy the taco experience. I will try not to talk about it a whole lot, although I have found a few products and a few modifications that have made it better, this time around. If you are interested, maybe I will write a post about them. I mean, I may write a post about it anyway, no promises, but I will put something Keto-related in the headline so you can skip it if you are so inclined. 

• I made up a big batch of Costco salmon last night, which was DELICIOUS, but then I realized that I may be eating too much salmon, and looked it up and INDEED I am eating like 50 times the recommended salmon amount, so now what? I don’t want to let the salmon go bad. Plus it is delicious. How quickly does mercury poisoning set it, anyway?

• I did a yoga workout today and Adriene said something about how I needed to clear the desk of my mind. Well. My desk and my mind are pretty aligned, I’d say. (I did not get a lot out of today’s session.)

I have to be honest, it’s looked worse.

• Things that are stressing me out, on the opposite end of the nuclear-warfare spectrum:
  • We are going on a trip. I have all the usual pre-trip stresses, like making packing lists and checking that the plane schedule is the same, and trying to figure out how to remain clothed in the days leading up to the trip without needing to do extra laundry. Plus, the pandemic-era pre-trip stresses, like wondering whether our flights will be canceled or our rental car will be there when we arrive or whether we will all contract Covid in the airport on the way to or from our destination. 
  • I have a meeting with a new potential client. I am excited but nervous. We are meeting in person, which is adding to the nerves. As is typical of my stress about situations like this, I am hyper-focused on WHAT DO I WEAR. I have nothing to wear, nothing at all. 
  • I volunteered for a school project, because I wanted to be more involved at school. And it is turning out to be MUCH more involved than I ever imagined. I mean, this is a thing that happens yearly. There should be clearly defined policies and procedures that I can follow. And yet it is a situation where I feel like I am in a dark room and I can only shine my flashlight on one thing at a time, and even then I can’t get a really good sense of the layout of the furniture or what things I’m missing. It is also taking A LOT OF TIME. 
  • A friend – who is heading up a different school project – asked me many months ago if I would help with a small aspect of her project. I said yes. But now I am concerned that I will be too busy with my project to devote enough time/attention to hers, but it’s also too late to back out.
  • My in-laws are coming to visit. I am so happy and relieved that my mother-in-law has completed chemotherapy. She and my father-in-law are coming up for some post-chemo doctors’ appointments and tests. It will be great to see them, but it is never un-stressful to have guests. 
  • I am on the docket for jury duty. I only had to report for one day each of the last two times I was called for jury duty. The odds are not in my favor for skipping out on it again, are they. 
  • When am I supposed to WRITE, which is supposedly my main priority? 

• Something that is not stressing me out, but is still requiring time and energy, and, okay, a little stress, is that Girl Scout Cookies arrived. The part I hate the most, aside from asking people to spend money, is the collecting of the money. What if Carla or I make a mistake? What if we under- or overcharge someone? We already had one incident where a neighbor said that a box of cookies was missing – but in fact she had written on the form that she wanted to donate a box. So we are already on the hook for that box of cookies. It is only $5, and paying $5 is worth more than insisting the neighbor pay it. But I hate stuff like that! 

The floor of my office right now.

• Carla and I ran some errands today. Her fever was gone (which means she can return to school tomorrow), and we mainly stayed in the car. We did go into the pharmacy, where we encountered a man with a giant bloodhound. Carla, of course, wanted to pet the dog and he, of course, wanted very much to be petted by Carla. Also, he had a very long, twisty Biblical name which I thought was absolutely spectacular for a bloodhound. Why the dog was in the pharmacy is a mystery (he wasn’t wearing a vest that indicated he is a helper dog), but it was a fun encounter nonetheless.

• Another fun sight: I ran into the post office to drop off a StitchFix return, and on the way in I saw a man carrying a Netflix DVD to return!!!! What a blast from the past! I desperately want to know this man and his life. 

• I bought a carton of strawberries yesterday. Listen, I KNOW that strawberries are Not Good in March. This is not strawberry season. But they were so lovely and plump and red, and I just couldn’t resist them. I haven’t opened the carton yet, so they are currently Schrödinger’s Strawberries, and could very well be juicy and delicious. 

How are you, Internet? What’s cluttering the desk of YOUR mind?

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Cranky Kids; Pre-Clean; Coffee Talk; Holiday Cards; Target Peeve; Casserole Surprise

It snowed last night! Our first Real Snow of the season! Woo hoo! So I’m feeling chatty.

I suppose this is just a regular old Friday randomosity, dressed up in slightly different clothes.

Being a Parent Sometimes Means Forcing Your Kid to Go to School Crying

Hoo boy we had a rough start to the day. Poor Carla woke up on the WRONG side of the bed. And, oh, how I empathize. That feeling of dozens of little angry crabs, skittering all over your skin and clamping their tiny sharp claws into your brain, is so familiar to me, and I have dealt with it hundreds of times over the years and STILL don’t know how to get through it without snapping at my husband and/or feeling wounded by any tiny slight and/or wanting nothing more than to climb back into bed and start over. But for Carla, it’s still a new experience. She just doesn’t GET cranky, and so it’s been a long time since she’s felt this way and she hasn’t yet figured out how to cope.

I tried to be empathetic – validating her feelings, lots of hugs, keeping my own frustration in check (we left the house TWENTY MINUTES LATE) – but matter-of-fact. Being cranky happens, and it feels rotten, and nonetheless we all have to go on with life and do the things we have to do. I tried to suggest some strategies for getting past the yucky feelings. (I tried not to sigh too loudly when she rejected them all.) And then I dropped her off at school, even though she was tearful and upset, and I am hoping hoping hoping that her day only goes up from here.

Okay, despite my anxiety about being That Mom, I sent an email to her teacher just to check on her. (Not sure what I will DO, if her teacher says she is still crying… go get her? That seems like both the Wrong Lesson and the Right Thing to Do.)

Cleaning Before the Cleaner Arrives, Helpful or Ridiculous?

One of the reasons Carla was cranky (I think) is because I gave her a Hard Choice this morning. She was supposed to tidy her bedroom and her bathroom last night, in preparation for the housecleaner. I reminded her twice. I asked her whether she’d done it, and she said yes. But then, well after she was asleep for the night, I had to go into her bathroom for something and discovered that she had NOT tidied the bathroom. The opposite, in fact: sodden Barbies lying facedown on the bath mat, a full Barbie swimming pool in the tub, toy catalog on the counter, hair ties and rocks (yes, rocks) on the floor, pajamas wadded up in the corner. I know that some people who have housecleaners believe that the housecleaner can handle stuff like this. And I’m sure our very capable housecleaner could. But it is my view that time spent tidying – especially tidying away toys and things whose homes you may not be aware of – takes precious time away from the CLEANING. For me, the value of the housecleaning is in the scrubbing of the toilet and the scouring of the bathtub and the mopping of the floor. Some people in our house may disagree but I FIRMLY AGREE with myself on this point. So Carla’s bathroom door has been shut tight and the housecleaner has been instructed to stay out, and Carla will be getting some hands-on experience with what I mean by TIDYING vs CLEANING because she will be doing both.

Okay, so I also gave the microwave a quick swipe (there was a Ham Incident the other day, which I mostly took care of at the time, but exploded ham bits are surprisingly evasive) and wiped down the stove top (I haven’t even MADE anything on the stove lately, WHY was it so FILTHY?) before our housecleaner arrived because I don’t want her to think we are total pigs.

Stepping Out on Your True Love: Will It Rekindle the Fire, or Cause the Relationship to Implode?

The thing I REALLY wanted to discuss with you, before all the morning’s crankiness and associated anxieties derailed me, is that I have had a Startling Revelation. I think I am growing weary of my one true love: tea.

I hope you took that paragraph break to allow the magnitude of this revelation to sink in. Because it has taken me a few weeks to come around to this understanding. Historically, I LOVE tea. Double Bergamot Earl Grey has been my faithful and delicious companion every weekday since I discovered it, with splurge days on the weekends when I drink my fancy Uncle Grey imported from Canada. Before that, I drank regular Earl Grey or English Breakfast. I can’t remember exactly when I started drinking tea, but I know that it has at LEAST been for eight years (one of my fondest memories from Carla’s first year of life is that my husband made me tea every single morning and brought it to me while I pumped), and probably for several years before that.

But these past few weeks, I’ve had waning enthusiasm for my tea. It doesn’t taste quite as good, I find myself dragging when I need to prepare it, I end up gulping it down to get it over with instead of savoring it. It’s just not giving me the joy that a warm morning cuppa should give a person.

I don’t think I can switch to other teas. I don’t really like most teas – the fruity kinds, no thank you. Rooibos and Chai are okay on occasion but not every day. I like green tea, but it doesn’t have the same comfort factor that Earl Grey does. Matcha is wonderful, but it requires so much milk and frothing and so on to make it the way I like it.

So NOW WHAT.

Today, I asked my husband to make a little extra coffee and so I am drinking that. It is… not good. It is too bitter, even with two packets of Sweet’n Low and my normal glug of half-and-half. When I am not drinking it, the inside of my mouth tastes metallic and sour, and I’m sure my breath is a delight. I made sure to eat a high-protein breakfast before I drank it, but I still feel like it’s making me jittery and a little queasy. How do people drink this every day?

I used to drink coffee. When I was eight, my mom brought home these beautiful bowls from France and she would make me café-au-lait for breakfast. When I went to her office after school, I would help myself to coffee and powdered creamer and many, many packets of sugar in the break room. During my first summer job during college, I would live for the few minutes when I could step away from filing and pour scalding coffee into a paper cup and doctor it until it was creamy and sweet. At some point in my life, I was a fan of Pumpkin Spice Lattes. So I have gone through multiple coffee drinking periods in the course of my life.

But I can’t say I ever really liked coffee. When I left it behind a decade or so ago, I intended never to return. Still, I don’t really want to get back into it, now. It would require too much sugar, for one thing. Too much half-and-half. Too much… amped-up quease. (I feel like the non-word “quease” evokes the feeling much better than the word-word “queasiness.”)

But what else IS there? I need a warm cup of something in the mornings! (PLEASE don’t say warm milk. Hork.)

Maybe I will drink coffee for a few days and then see if I have a newfound appreciation for tea. Or maybe I will find myself sucked into the coffee cult that has thoroughly brainwashed my husband and Lorelai Gilmore and so many others (maybe even you?).

Edited to add: It took me many hours to finish this post; distractions abound! So this is Future Me reporting back to you on today’s coffee sitch: I have still not finished my cup of coffee; my mug is still one-third full and the liquid is cold and my head feels powered by hummingbird wings and my stomach is a-sail on choppy seas. This is not a promising beginning.

A Strange and Unfamiliar Dilemma Arises!

This is not an actual problem.

We ordered our holiday cards on Sunday and they arrived ON WEDNESDAY. People, it is STILL NOVEMBER. This has NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. I am absolutely delighted. (We ordered through Mpix.com – it was a great experience, through and through. The cards look great, even if adding a photo to a card and printing it didn’t make the awkward way I am holding my arm in said photo look any less awkward.)

But now I am facing a quandary: when do I send the cards? Part of me wants to send them NOW, get them off my desk (my office has become Holiday Storage Central, and is full of boxes that I can’t bear myself to throw away and gifts for people), and perhaps achieve the ever-elusive status of being someone’s First Holiday Card of the Season. (Our First Holiday Card of the Season usually arrives from one of the few high school friends I continue to talk to as an adult. I am anticipating it any day now.)

But the other part of me is resisting this. I don’t know why. Maybe because I am a firmly Wait Until After Thanksgiving holiday celebrant? Maybe because I don’t want to be first? Perhaps people will toss the card because it’s so early, or perhaps I am uncomfortable with the idea of MY awkwardly posed arm being on someone’s wall or mantel all alone for days or weeks? I don’t know. It seems too early!

Then again, Hanukkah is early this year, and begins the weekend after Thanksgiving. Part of the reason we send holiday cards instead of Christmas cards is because so many of our card recipients are Jewish. It would be nice for the holiday card to arrive DURING the holidays, rather than after them. (Although I doubt that any of our Jewish card recipients care all that much; Hanukkah isn’t really that big a deal, and they are likely inured to the tradition of getting “holiday” cards during Christmastime.)

All this to say: I am sort of leaning toward sending them out on December first. That puts them arriving solidly in December, and hopefully before Hanukkah ends.

You Can Bet I Filled Out the Customer Survey, and I Filled It Out GOOD

Yesterday saw me flitting about from store to store, running errands. It’s been a LONG time since I’ve done something so carefree. I was looking for three specific things: 1. Candles for the menorah, which I did not find. 2. Ideas for a “giant crate filled with crafting supplies,” which was the top item on Carla’s letter to Santa. 3. A tiny, not-terribly-expensive salt and pepper shaker set that I can use when my parents are here; I did not find this, either. I did manage to spend a lot more money than my lack of success would imply.

Oh! Brief deviation from the topic, which I haven’t even GOTTEN to yet: I thought it was so fascinating to see how differently stores are handling the pandemic. Many stores had signs on their entrances, but I don’t think any of them were the same. “Masks required” said one, with a sentence below in smaller print citing CDC recommendations. “Masks recommended for unvaccinated individuals” said another. “Masks optional” said a third, which is similar to the second, but conveys a very different vibe.

One of the stores I visited was Target. I haven’t been in Target in a long while, partly because I haven’t needed anything from Target in a long time and partly because I love, with my whole heart, the option to order my items online and have someone deliver them to my car. CURBSIDE 4EVA.

It was sort of pleasant and nostalgic to wander around Target for awhile. It wasn’t terribly busy, and I could see with my own eyes that they were, in fact, completely out of Carla’s size in fleece-lined leggings. (I don’t know why I keep buying them, because holes sprout in the knees practically immediately.) (I do know why: they are cheap.)

I narrowly avoided buying any of the cute Christmassy appetizer plates they had for $3 apiece. I am beginning to think that was a mistake.

I was not able to resist the miniature office supplies set, which will make its way into Carla’s stocking.

image from target.com

But when I checked out, I reconnected with one of my biggest peeves about Target. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’ve complained about it before. But my peeve has been so inflamed that I am going to complain about it again.

When you checkout, there is almost NO WAY to see whether you are being charged appropriately for each item. Long, long ago, so long ago that I am willing to admit it may be a figment of my wildest dreams, you could go up to the credit card reader, and it would show you what you were buying in real time, as the checker scanned your items. No more. Now, if you have even a small hope of glimpsing what the computer says you owe, you have to stand back at the conveyor belt – which makes it very awkward to fill your cart as the checker bags your items – and squint at the computer screen facing the checker. Facing the checker, not facing YOU. And the type is so small that you have very little hope of seeing the price of each item anyway. In larger type is the total of your purchase, but that requires instantaneous math, and I am not good at that in the best of times, less so when I am in public.

We all know that Target makes errors. It is OFTEN that an item will scan at a different price than is displayed on the shelf. And the placement of the computer makes it nearly impossible to know that this is happening.

Also, the only way to know the total you are about to pay is to listen carefully to the checker, who has to say it out loud to you. It does not even give a total on the card reader! This is madness!

HARUMPH.

I did get a customer survey in my email later that day, which I took great pleasure in filling out. Not that it will do a lick of good.

Suspected Shipping Snafu Turned Sweet Surprise!

A box from amazon arrived the other day, as is an all-too-frequent occurrence in these days leading up to the holidays. (I am trying to wean myself off of amazon, I AM, but it is difficult.)

The box was addressed to me; I was expecting some fleece-lined leggings I’d ordered for Carla, to replace her hole-y Target ones. So I opened it.

Inside was a smaller box, with a label that said “lidded casserole.”

This was something I had JUST THE DAY BEFORE put on a list of Christmas wishes that I had shared with my husband. My guess what that he had accidentally sent it to me because I am the intended recipient. So I sighed and put it back in the box, resolving to be So! Surprised! when it appeared under the tree on Christmas Day.

But when he came home, he swore he hadn’t ordered one for me.

Turns out it was a thank-you gift from his parents! When they were here, I’d mentioned that I was constantly on the lookout for a medium sized casserole dish… and my mother-in-law remembered and sent me TWO!

What a fun and thoughtful surprise!

That’s the note I’ll end on. Well, and this additional note, from Carla’s teacher, that she arrived to class her cheerful, happy self. PHEW.

Hope you have a lovely weekend, Internet!

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