As I’ve mentioned perhaps meepillion times before, I like to do Postcrossing. It started as a way to cull and cultivate my postcard collection (“Why do I keep buying postcards when I never SEND them? And how can I get postcards from ____ without traveling there?”), but it has turned into something I’d be reluctant to admit to friends: pre-buying new postcard sets on Amazon.com; storing the cards sorted into clementine crates so I can find the right one for each recipient; sheet after sheet of stamps so I can use, say, a Ronald Reagan, a Shelter pet cat, and an American clock, instead of the boring 98-cent stamp; etc…. *drifts into postcard reverie*

DomestiKook and I were discussing one of the BIGGEST THINGS about Postcrossing, which is “What do you WRITE on the postcard?” It’s to a total stranger and you’ll never write to them again. Some people write “Happy Postcrossing!”—which has led a surprising number of people to put in their profiles that they want the sending to “WRITE something, not just ‘Happy Postcrossing’!”

I will tell you what I do. I write: “Hello! I’m [age], married, with 5 children and 3 cats. We live in the [adjective describing size] [adjective describing area of country] state of [name of state]. -Kristen” (sometimes I accidentally start to write Swistle).

If I have lots more space or feel more chatty, I might add something about our state: “We’re known for [food item], [character trait of residents], and [scenic attraction].” Or “This postcard is of ________.” If the recipient has expressed a liking for something I like, I’ll say, “Oh, I like ____ too!” If they’ve described their cats in surprising detail (age, sex, coloring, temperament, fur length), I’ll describe my cats in similar detail. You could also write “I’m a [profession],” “I can’t have pets where I live now but when I can I’d like to have a ____,” “I like to [athletic activity] and watch [type of movie] movies,” “My favorite authors are ______,” “My favorite celebrities are ________,” “We’ve been married for ____ years,” “We used to live in ____,” “I was born in ____,” “My ancestors came from [country] in [year].”

Paul thinks this is kind of boring, but I like it when I receive postcards that say those sorts of things.

Some people like to write secrets, and that can be fun too. I got one that said “I will tell you a secret: I’m in love with my best friend. I’m going to tell him this afternoon!” (My reaction was more “NOOOOOOooooooooo!” than “Yay, I’ll bet it’s going to work out great for them!”) (I’ve read the book He’s Just Not That Into You.)

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Links:

From the Milk and Cookies blog: letting a child wrap a gift, without losing your mind and half a roll of wrapping paper.

From the baby name blog: Can you use the name Natalie for a baby who wasn’t born at Christmastime?

From Hilarity in Shoes, I suggest two posts: Two Times a Bridesmaid in which she does NOT kill rabbits with her mind, and Whine School / In Lieu of a Revelation, in which a professor refers to Canada as “a purely agricultural society.”

I saw a flock of robins today. A whole FLOCK. I’ve seen more than one robin at a time before, but always scattered, as if they weren’t TOGETHER-together and instead just happened to be occupying the same yard. I don’t think of them as flockers. I hope this means we are having an EXTRA GOOD spring.

(I looked it up, and apparently they DO flock, but mostly at night—they split up during the day. Also, Robin’s Egg Blue is a very pretty color.)

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I remember at some point mentioning that my favorite piece in the Russell Stover assortment box is the Roman Nougat, and then I got all excited because I found out I could order a WHOLE BOX of JUST Roman Nougats online, but then they were out of stock. Anyway, they finally came back into stock, so I ordered a whole box of dark and a whole box of milk (I HAD to, to get free shipping, and also I couldn’t decide which ones I preferred). (And incidentally, it turns out that the See’s Rum Nougats have kind of spoiled the Roman Nougats for me, but let’s not let that ruin the story.)

WELL. Before I hit “place order now,” I noticed an OUTLET section, and in the outlet section was a box of “Bloopers”: a 3-pound box (it says “48 ounce,” but there is a cross-wiring in my brain that ALWAYS makes me think 48 ounces is 4 pounds) (oh, I’ll bet it’s because 48 inches is 4 feet) (anyway, 3-pound box is clearer) (well, unless you usually think in terms of kilograms, in which case it’s like one and a third kilograms) of chocolates that look funny but taste fine, in a random assortment based on what got picked off the line by Quality Control that day.

I was immensely curious about this. I wanted to know HOW badly malformed they were, and also I was intrigued by the idea of the GAMBLE: it could be 2.5 pounds of molasses chews (least favorite) and .4 pounds of truffles (second least favorite) and .1 pounds of vanilla creams (love)! OH WHAT WOULD IT BE? Also, I liked the thought of the workers picking them off the line, pick pick pick, like in videos of factories, gloved hands working fast, hair in white paper caps, serious focused expressions. So I ordered a box.

It was with high anticipation I awaited the arrival. Finally the day came.

Thanks for the cow theme, there.

Here it is!

Inside view

As you can see, Bloopers are just tossed into the box all willy-nilly, so they look scruffed-up from chocolate-on-chocolate action. The defects vary: a few were lightly squashed, but mostly it seems to be either misshapenness (supposed to be round, but had a lumpy part; supposed to be rounded oblong, but too low and rounded), or filling peeking out (convenient for picky picking!).

It appears from the way I arranged the photos that I opened the box of Bloopers right away, but in fact I waited more than a week. I was NERVOUS. (Also, I had some clearance Valentine’s Day candy I was still working my way through, which is how I unfortunately found out the Roman Nougats were now just Fine.)

And…I lucked out. It appears that the ones with a cream filling are most likely to be misshapen or have little bits oozing out of them, or maybe they were just working on creams that day, because almost the whole box is creams, and creams are my favorites. I’ve had about ten that are either maple-walnut or walnut creams and it looks like it’s over a pound of just those, so I can picture someone else being TOTALLY DISMAYED (ack, nuts! ack, maple! ack, creams!) but I love those ones so I could hardly be happier.

I’ve also had several caramels, and one lemon cream, and one vanilla cream, and I see several that are Roman Nougats, and I gave Paul a coconut (I like coconut but he loves them) and a truffle. I ALSO saw one that was definitely a molasses chew (filling peeping out), and I wish they looked different on the outside than the Roman Nougats because I just know I’m going to bite into one by accident. (In some assortments the molasses chews have white stripes, and in some they don’t. In this box, they don’t—and two of the maple walnuts DID. What the? I wonder if sometimes they forget to turn on/off the striping machine? I think I need to go work in their factory to find out the answers to these questions.)

There are no nut ones. I mean, there’s the walnut creams and maple-walnut creams, but there aren’t any nut clusters. It might be that they weren’t working on them that day, or it might be that those are harder to get wrong because they are lumpy by nature.

Henry has an ear infection, and as I was taking him to the doctor yesterday I realized I haven’t been to the doctor a single time with the kids this entire winter. And it doesn’t make me nervous to say this out loud (or in this case to write it out loud), not only because I don’t believe in the idea that words of that sort have an actual impact on actual reality via an actual jinx mechanism (who would have put such a mechanism in place? and why? and what would be the logistics of implementation?), but also because it’s now March, and March is spring.

Official Spring isn’t until March 21ish, but I think it should instead be divided this way in my area of the world, both for ease of use and for making sense: winter is December, January, and February; spring is March, April, and May; summer is June, July, and August; and fall is September, October, and November. I’m tired of having to say to a questioning child, “Well, yes, it’s warm/cool and rainy and the tulips are coming up, but it’s still TECHNICALLY winter,” or “I know, it’s snowing and we’re making paper snowflakes and it’s almost Christmas and we’re singing ‘Winter Wonderland,’ but TECHNICALLY it’s still fall.” Dim. I reject the jinx AND the equinox!

I just finished reading a book that has made me feel a little shaky and unstable:

Why We Get Fat, by Gary Taubes
(photo from Amazon.com,
though probably they got it from somewhere else too)

It has seemed pretty clear to me that any food-group-eliminating diet is for weight-loss only—that it might work for weight loss, but that that doesn’t mean it should be seriously implemented long-term, any more than a “grapefruit and egg” diet is supposed to be implemented long-term. It makes SENSE that eliminating a whole FOOD GROUP is dangerous ground.

But THIS book is saying it’s not about eliminating a food group, it’s that something SHOULDN’T BE A FOOD GROUP AT ALL. Like, okay, I don’t have a dog, so already I’m on not-safe-for-analogy-making ground, but am I right that I regularly hear of dogs who need to be fed less in the way of table scraps? Like, maybe some dogs can handle the regular scrap or two, or even LOTS of scraps, but other dogs get all fat and the vet has to caution the owners to cut it back, and still others are practically killed by their old-lady owners relentlessly feeding them from the table? Let’s just assume I HAVE heard this, and that it is VETERINARY FACT that table scraps are not a food group for dogs: they’re able to eat the food (it’s not like eating plastic wrap) (although I’ve heard dogs do eat any number of such things), and their bodies recognize it as food and so forth, but it’s not something they should be making a little food pyramid about and saying they ought to get 3-6 servings a day from that group. I mean, if dogs could talk. And hold a pen. And I’m sorry I seem to be comparing us to dogs.

So anyway, that’s more what this author is saying: it’s not about “Don’t eat carbs, and you’ll lose weight YAY!!,” it’s more like “Certain foods are not appropriate for human consumption by a segment of the human population that can’t process them appropriately.”

The first half of the book is VERY HEADY STUFF. It says, basically, “Have you noticed that some thinnish people can lose a little weight through relentless and perpetual effort, and so can some fattish people, but that basically thin people are thin and fat people are fat and the “Lost Half Their Size!!” people are not available for interview a year later? And have you noticed that you can ‘eat less and move more’ until you are doing NOTHING but working on your body, and yet you are still fat, while other people, who spend nowhere near as much time or effort on it, are standing around rolling their eyes about how lazy you are and how you probably feed yourself through drive-throughs, and meanwhile you suspect this whole system is screwed up and that people are being icky to each other with ZERO SCIENTIFIC BACKING? Yes, well, you’re totally right. Some people can process carbohydrates correctly, and some people can’t.”

The second half is more about the studies and the science—though it’s not strict halves at all, and there are plenty of studies in the first half and heady stuff in the second half. But first he establishes his “Things are MESSED UP” point, and then he turns to the “Here’s what you can try” point. And, as you have guessed, and as I became increasingly and cringingly aware he was going to do, he cuts out the carbohydrates. Not ALL of them (in fact, you’re still supposed to eat multiple cups of vegetables a day), but pretty much. But he’s not saying, “EEEEWWWWW, they make you all FAT and GROSS!,” he’s saying, “Heart disease, insulin levels, screwing with the way your body decides how much fat to store.”

The very end of the book is the weakest part, but he knows it: he’s asking for more research to be done on this topic, because so far there isn’t enough: there’s research showing what WON’T work for some people (eating less and moving more, eating low fat, etc.), and there’s scientific reason to believe that this WILL work for those same people—but we don’t have enough to go on yet. And so he has to kind of peter out at the end: here’s what he thinks, here’s what the studies DON’T show, here’s the anecdotal evidence, here’s the scientific evidence—now sadly YOU will have to figure out how to implement it for the way your own individual body works (no carbs? some carbs? saying “carbohydrates” instead of “carbs”?), because everyone who could be working on this is too busy shaming people into eating less fat and fewer calories so they won’t be such COWS.

I’m not at all sure it CAN be implemented. In the beginning of the book he’s very sympathetic toward people who can’t stay on diets, and he says people are always talking about “will power” but that that’s not it AT ALL and it’s cruel/stupid to say it is. But then at the end, talking about implementing the meat thing, he’s more like, “Well, it’s hard, but you’ll have to use will power.” I appreciate the candor (I am immediately and deeply suspicious of any diet plan that suggests it will be EASY! and FUN! like that 12-page compare/contrast English paper the teacher tells you to “have fun with!”), and I also thought his analogy to cigarette use was helpful, but…I still look at the plan and think, “Oh, I, um, I’m not sure this…I mean, that’s really…”

And although he went a LONG way to convincing me that he was right, it is VERY HARD to completely give up long-standing beliefs. I LIKE the food pyramid. I am ATTACHED to the idea that “lean meat, whole grains, plenty of fruits and vegetables” is a boring cliché BECAUSE IT’S TRUE. I don’t really WANT to believe that people who switch to “heart-healthy” diets don’t make any difference in their risk of heart attack. I want to continue thinking that what makes sense is that eliminating entire food groups is a bad idea. It’s really difficult/unpleasant when I’ve been SURE of something, to find out I shouldn’t have been so sure and that actually I didn’t know anything about it beyond the posters on the wall in kindergarten.

Plus, I’m only so-so on meat. I like it okay, but I don’t think, “WOO-HOOO, ALL THE BACON I CAN EAT!!!” I don’t even remember the last time I ate bacon, and we cooked pork chops this weekend for THE FIRST TIME IN MY ADULT LIFE. So…to try this eating plan, I’d have to be convinced of it from a medical/science sort of perspective—not because it appeals. And meanwhile my brain is resisting it and saying “BUT THE FOOD PYRAMID!! The GRAINS!! The MILK!! The VEGETABLES!!”

I don’t know how this will pan out. I suspect some time will go by while I process this information, and then I will suddenly get motivated to try it, because I have been increasingly fretful and incredulous about my weight as the years have gone by, and if someone is offering me a plate of hope, I’m likely to think, “Well, sure, why not? I can always order something different next time.” Right now, though, I’m still thinking about it—and recommending the book, if only because it’s a fun, heady read and has a lot of thought-provoking stuff written by someone who writes like a good writer and not like a transcript of a motivational seminar.

After being canceled twice (once because the doctor’s mother-in-law died the night before, and once because the doctor had to take his first sick day in ten years), Paul’s Snip Appointment finally went through.

The next day I asked how he felt, and he said “tender.” He says he keeps feeling as if he should move carefully so it doesn’t suddenly zap him, but that so far it hasn’t zapped him. He says he feels overall a bit sore, but not IN PAIN. Also, I’d angrily fantasized that the urologist would prescribe him a huge bottle of narcotics even though after my c-section my OB sent me home with 1.5 days’ worth—but he got no narcotics at all, which I found grimly satisfying even though it robbed me of indignation, not to mention of the leftover narcotics.

For those of you whose menfolk might want to know what the experience is like, Paul says during the procedure it felt like the non-painful sensation immediately following a strong impact to That Area, where nothing hurts yet but it is obvious there will soon be a great deal of pain—but then without the pain ever arriving.

Which is also how the experience feels to me: right now it’s the non-painful sensation immediately following a strong impact. I think it might be that, just as with the surgery, the pain won’t ever arrive. The baby I wanted was the baby we could have decided to have two years ago; it’s too late to have that baby. I don’t have the same feeling about having another baby NOW, when my youngest is about to turn four and I’m in the second half of my thirties.

Here’s how the paint looks with the bunk beds in:

I love it. Each boy has his own-colored area, in a both-love-blue room. If I’d had to share a room as a child, I would have LOVED this.

When I was pregnant with Rob, I bought a travel system (infant car seat plus a stroller the seat could snap into) on a good clearance. In fact, did I ever tell you I bought it one afternoon, and the next morning I went into labor? I cut that a little close, I suppose. I didn’t want to get everything done Too Early in pregnancy and then be at loose ends later on. And also there were so many seat/stroller options and I couldn’t figure out which was best. Anyway this has nothing to do with the story.

The stroller that came with the travel system was nice while the car seat would snap into it, but once Rob was out of the car seat the stroller was so big and heavy and bulky, I hated lugging it around and hated using it. But umbrollers were too flimsy and often didn’t have baskets underneath. I wanted something in between, and, by happy accident, I found a floor model stroller on clearance that was exactly what I wanted: lightweight and non-bulky, but sturdy and with a nice roomy basket underneath.

I used that stroller for Rob, and then for William, and then for one twin at a time (like when I was out with only one of them, or when I could let one of them walk, or when my mom brought a stroller, or anyway this is kind of a boring parenthetical), and then for Henry. When Henry had just turned three, that stroller finally broke (a fatal structural snap), and goodness it had certainly earned it! I felt silly buying a new stroller when Henry was so close to not needing one, especially when this is the VERY SAME THING that happened with our crib: it made it through five children, and when Henry was about a year and a half old it broke. It seems like equipment is made to last through four children. (Although, our boy winter coats have lasted through three boys, which makes me think this might be an issue with HENRY and not with equipment/clothing.)

I dithered and fretted and finally bought another lightweight, non-bulky, sturdy stroller with a basket underneath, figuring that the timing might be silly but I DID still need/want a stroller, and someone on Freecycle would get lucky when we were done with it.

Then last weekend, Paul backed over it with the minivan.

So now I have used one stroller with 4-1/2 children, and the last 1/2 child has used TWO BRAND-NEW STROLLERS.

The third room is done! This is the room that used to be pale pink when it was Elizabeth’s. Now it will be William and Henry’s. William wanted the room to be blue and green; Henry wanted it to be blue and orange. So Paul painted almost the whole room blue (Behr Jamaican Sea, 510B-5), except in the part where the bunk beds would go, where he painted the upper-bunk area green (Behr Tart Apple 420B-4) and the lower-bunk area orange (Behr Orange Spice 250B-5):

Today we moved the bureaus around (we’re doing some switching around of those, too), and then moved the two that will be William’s and Henry’s down to their room. Tomorrow the bunks will move down and we’ll see how it looks with the colors.

So now it’s time to choose a paint color for OUR new room. Here’s a photo of our room I was luckily able to find in another post, since our room is currently halfway dispersed between the computer room and the living room:

I like that quilt. I’d like the wall color to go well with it. But my only color-choosing skillz lie in looking at something and MATCHING a color to it. And yet—I don’t want our wall color to match any of the colors from the quilt. Opinions? Maybe just do cream walls this time?

I was making dinner last night and fretting about how, when the mother of one of William’s friends came to pick her (the friend) up, she (the mother) and I stood in our (Paul’s and mine) INCREDIBLY CLUTTERED AND MESSY dining room (messiness marker for reference: extras of the photos we sent out in our Christmas cards, scattered across the floor under the table) and she DEFINITELY saw the room, because WE WERE IN IT. And there was no way she’d think it was some FLUKE, because she has been here probably a dozen times before, and if anything it has looked WORSE on previous occasions, because at least THIS time I picked up the used washcloths and some of the winter outerwear and scraps of paper and barrettes and paperclips and cat kibbles—at least the ones right inside the door—and I also straightened the runner carpet (carpet runner?) which had been akimbo as usual.

So anyway, I was fretting, and I was also kind of praising myself for standing there talking to her like nothing was messy instead of dissolving into fretfulness and drawing her attention via detailed apology to each thing that was messy, and I was reassuring myself by thinking how, really, when someone else’s house is messy, I admire them if they brazen it out instead of acting freaked about it as if I were the sort of person who would like them less for it and maybe snicker about it to other people, rather than the sort of person who thinks, “WHEW, her house is messy, maybe we can be friends!” And so I was glad that the nonchalance approach was what I’D done in that situation, in case it would impress that other child’s mother the way it impresses me.

So THEN I was thinking how, on the other hand, I also admire it when I go to someone’s house and it’s really tidy and clean. I’m always impressed, even though I also make a mental note to not let that person see MY house until they love me so much it’s too late for them to be shocked, and then they have to instead justify their love of me by redefining what they consider a mark of good character and upbringing.

And they don’t have to personally clean it themselves, either: if they hire someone else to clean it for them, I admire their courage (because that involves phone calls AND having someone else in their house AND having someone get all personal with their possessions), and I also admire the sensible idea that we let the professionals do what they do best while we spend our time doing what WE do best—whatever that is.

So THEN I thought, “I seem to be saying I admire EVERYONE’S housecleaning situation, no matter WHAT. Is that possible?” and I thought, “Yes. That seems to be the situation here.”

Okay, now I have a bunch of links and stuff to show you, in case you are someone who laments the lack of action in the blogging community on weekends.

First, here’s another of those videos Paul finds and blows our household’s collective mind with. You will have it stuck in your head AND YOU WILL SAY THANK YOU:

[oh dear, I don’t know what this used to be; apparently it did not transfer during the blog move]

Paul says the guy who sings that song is the same guy who sang that “Peaches” song from a few years ago (“millions of peaches, peaches for free”), and you are very welcome for getting THAT stuck in your head TOO.

Next, The Bloggess on dealing with bullies. It’s her usual combination of “making you laugh until you might actually barf” + “actual issue that needs to be addressed” + “something kind of touching that makes you feel all emotional especially because you’re all primed for it by the laughing/barfing” + “actual advice for dealing amusingly with troll commenters, which starts the laugh-barf cycle all over again.”

Next, Mir on making sure your contract is right before you write for money, lest you find yourself looking at your own book on the bestseller list, but with all the profits going to someone else.

Over at Milk and Cookies, perhaps you would like to help me choose a travel mug?

I am mystified by the latest notice that came home from school with William. Today is Pajama Day, and I understand the first part of the instructions: “Remember pajamas need to be school-appropriate.” I am a LITTLE cranky that they are reminding me of something so obvious, but I am SURE (as in, “absolutely 100% sure, no need to convince me of it as if I were denying it, though feel free to give amusing examples”) that ALL school personnel have LONG SINCE stopped saying ANY sentence that begins “Surely any reasonable parent…,” and that the sentence about appropriateness is indeed warranted. Though it does seem as if a parent who would send a child to school in, say, just boxer shorts and socks, or in a satin cami and satin shorts with “SEXY” on the buns, would need more than a general sentence about appropriateness to point out to them that their choices were the ones being referred to as inappropriate.

Anyway, the next sentence is the one that mystifies me: it is italicized, and it reads “They may not be the ones you wear to bed.” Well, clearly! I mean, we all have at least ONE pair of pajamas we never wear to bed!

I don’t think the school is actually telling me that the children must wear pajamas to school that are not pajamas they’ve ever slept in. I think it’s a badly-phrased sentence, and that the school is trying to say one or two of the following things:

1. “It is okay to wear pajama-like clothing that is not in fact pajamas—such as sweat pants or yoga pants and a t-shirt.” They mean “might” instead of “may”—though even changing that word wouldn’t make the sentence clear enough.

2. “They should not be the pajamas you slept in the night before.” They might be trying to avoid children rolling out of bed and coming to school as-is.

Anyway, William is right now trying to decide if he’s going to wear sweatpants and a t-shirt, or if his popularity is stable enough to risk the feetie pajamas.