If yesterday you saw a new review appear, then disappear, then appear in the sidebar but be gone when you clicked on it, the problem is now resolved and here it is: a review of 200-calorie portions of pizza [review blog no longer exists, so link has been deleted]. One of the changes that the review had to be taken down for is that the giveaway changed from $100 to $200, so, uh, I’d say that was worth the little glitches.

Can we please talk a little bit about the annual BlogHer conference? Every year I think about going. So far I never have. I am, as I may have mentioned once or twice, socially anxious. Like, PSYCHIATRICALLY-DIAGNOSED socially anxious, not, like, “Oh, I’m a little shy around people.” (And incidentally, I was totally on my own there spelling the word “psychiatrically,” so if it’s supposed to be “psychiatricly,” neither I nor the spell-checker knew it, and I’m pretty sure that if it’s a contest I win because the spell-checker’s idea was “psychically.”)

OMG OUT IN PUBLIC. MAYBE NO ONE WILL SEE ME.

But I think I’d like to go. I’ve been inspired by The Bloggess (perhaps don’t click that link for a couple of days until her top post isn’t quite so gross), who ALSO needs chemicals to get through social interactions, and SHE goes to BlogHer so it CAN BE DONE. I like her idea of wearing a Confidence Wig, too. I wonder if that would work for me. Do you think if I go I should get a wig, or do you think it would just look copycatty? I think it would look copycatty. Perhaps I could do a Confidence Halloween Mask. Or, well, “confidence” still sounds copycatty, so it could be an Intestinal Fortitude Halloween Mask.

I fret like crazy over practicalities. Like, “OMG HOW WOULD I GET THERE?” and “OMG HOW WOULD I FIND THE HOTEL?” and “WOULD I HAVE TO TAKE A TAXI? I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH TO TIP!!” Other worries:

• How would I book the hotel room, and what if I want to share, how would that work? And how many people can share? And does one person have to pay and the others reimburse? Because that kind of thing gives me a huge worry wrinkle.

• When do the conference tickets usually sell out by? I’d rather get the Early Bird pricing anyway, but just in case I dither too long.

• Do the hotel rooms fill up fast so I should get one early or else I’ll get stuck trying to find another hotel in New York?

• Food? Is there food? Do I have to bring my own or else get stuck paying for very expensive room service?

• I don’t think I act socially anxious on my blog, because I’m NOT socially anxious when I’m sitting alone at my computer typing. So won’t everyone I meet be like, “YOU’RE not Swistle! YOU BIG FAKER!”?

• I know it is ridiculous, but I get stressed about clothes. If I wear pedal pushers and a t-shirt and sandals, and none of it is anything that would make anyone say “OH SQUEE CUTE!!!” (in fact, probably the VERY pedal pushers and sandals as in the photo above), will I stand out like a sore thumb? Or will other people dress like that too?

• Do I need to have a laptop?

• People get business cards printed for these things, right? I don’t know how to do that.

• How WOULD I find the hotel? (And WOULD I have to take a taxi?)

My attitude is poor this morning. Type of poorness: obsessive mental arguments with everyone who has ever said anything unfair/untrue, plus disproportionate self-pity for household crimes such as people keep taking my scissors and not putting them back, plus large-scale crabbiness about organizations and how they do things, plus self-disdain for personality traits such as wimpiness, plus near-boiling-point frustration with the CHILDREN and their CONSTANT TALKING/INTERRUPTIONS. I am attempting a coffee-related attitude adjustment, but I’ve got no-bake cookies on stand-by.

Here is something I am crabby about: I am ELIGIBLE and WILLING to donate blood, and in my area there are signs everywhere with panic-inducing declarations of emergency-level needs, but all the blood drives are, like, from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on weekdays. Er? I am guessing that I should not bring three preschoolers with me to something like that. I am further guessing that I am not the only citizen who would find a weekend or evening donation slot useful. Even a late-afternoon would help, because I could have Paul come home from work a little early so I could go. But 9:00 to 2:00? That makes it particularly annoying to read the guilt-trip stuff about how only a tiny percentage of eligible donors bother to donate. ORLY? Is this perhaps something we could change by BOTHERING TO MAKE IT POSSIBLE FOR THEM TO DONATE? *pant pant*

There’s a donation center 20 miles away in an unpleasant downtown area (all one-way streets and expensive parking), but they too have hours such as 7:30-1:30 on weekdays, and when they do have evening/weekend hours it’s for the more complex donations like platelets and double red cell. What I want is to donate REGULAR BLOOD, and I want to do it NEARISH MY HOUSE, and I want to do it at a time that MAKES SENSE. Considering I am giving up a chunk of my free time AND part of my own personal body for ZERO personal benefit (okay, there are cookies, but they’re not GOOD cookies), I think these are reasonable requests.

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Thank you for your helpful advice about Mouse. I wet down her dry cat food with a little water and she scarfed it down. I also moved her water dish away from her food dish, and I saw her drinking out of it later that day. And I’m also planning to take her to the vet, though what that means is that I won’t get around to it until I get the reminder card in the mail.

I get stressed about vet appointments because they seem to escalate so quickly into a level of medical care I wouldn’t even choose for my insurance-covered SELF. I feel like such a heel asking the COST of things, as if MONEY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SANCTITY OF LIFE, but I am not $1500 worth of curious to find out why my healthy-seeming elderly cat is off her oats—and also, there are not many procedures I’ll do if the tests DO show problems, so it seems like it’s not worth it to reveal or rule out every possible issue.

And I KNOW they are just giving me my options since many people DO want to do the full spectrum of tests and treatments, and a normal person would just say yes or no and not think of it at all, but they state it as if they’re assuming I’ll do the full works and I find it difficult to start any sentence that suggests otherwise. I wish they would state ALL the options including the ones where we DON’T do the tests and treatments or do SOME of them, and I wish there were an easier way to tell the vet at the beginning what sort of pet owner I was—like, a form where I could choose to check off a box that says “I am willing to go as far as, like, giving her an inexpensive pill each day for a simple problem, but she’s a 15-year-old cat and so let’s not spend $1500 on tests to diagnose an illness I’m not going to treat.”

Actually, I guess I could tell the vet this information using, like, my VOCAL CORDS. But I would so prefer a checkbox form.

Let there be ANOTHER hotpad!

This one is two strands of cotton (instead of one strand cotton and one strand wool like the first one), but still on size 6 needles. One strand changes from yellow to white and back again; the other strand changes from pink to white and back again. It’s fun to choose this kind of yarn and fun to knit with it, but the results remind me of the rag rugs I used to buy for $1 for my apartment so I think maybe next time I will use non-color change.

Did you already know this, that you can buy a big THING of Panera Bread’s cheddar-broccoli soup and just bring it home with you and put it in the fridge and heat some up whenever you want? The Panera counter girl acted all blasé about this, as if it weren’t worth having my eyebrows as high as I had them or my voice as quavery as it was. She just put some of the crusty soup-bread in the bag with the soup and told me what the total was. HAS SHE NO SOUL?? The heavens were opening up above her head and SHE DID NOT EVEN LOOK!

Speaking of eating, I mentioned the other day that our cat Mouse is acting all weird about her food and that like an idiot I Googled it. One of the less alarming possibilities was that as an elderly cat she could be having some trouble chewing things, and I remembered that when we visited the animal shelter awhile back there was a Cat Room for the elderly cats who needed to have soft food because of their teefies, so I got her some cans of food instead of her usual dry. She is EATING THAT STUFF UP.

But, uh. I mean, we buy the Iams dry food the shelter/vet recommended so we’re used to paying $30 for a bag of cat food without flinching (much), but this Iams wet food is 50 cents for a small can. She just ate nearly a full can for breakfast. Does this mean she is going to be eating $1 a day in cat food, and that I am going to be one of those people in line who has several teetering pillars of cat food cans? And here is the next question: will I be choosing kitty’s menu each night, standing before the cupboard wondering if kitty is more in the mood for salmon pâté or for lamb and rice? Well. I guess that would be all right.

The kids are still asleep and I hope they sleep a long time more. I’m not looking forward to seeing them today, I’m just not.

I have to take all five of them to a doctor’s appointment for one of them. I hate doing that.

Recent excellent 75%-off Target finds: fingerless gloves, earmuffs, Yes to Carrots lip balms/glosses, children’s sweaters, a pair of children’s winter boots, children’s sleepers, children’s glittery shoes. Recent excellent 50%-off Target finds: Nick & Nora children’s pajamas, children’s unders and socks, a hooded flannel shirt Rob has been pining for, picture frames I then actually put pictures in and hung on the actual wall, a baby blanket with hedgehogs on it, several boxes of granola bars for lunchbox snacks.

Last night’s dreams involved rooming with Jenn (we had a full bakery kitchen in our apartment, baker included, and neighbors spontaneously dropped in for huge potluck parties while we were trying to get ready in the morning), petting Georgie and Oliver which was upsetting and nice because I knew they were dead but here they were alive, and various Travel Fret scenarios (late for my flight! forgot to check in! no seats left on the plane!).

Mouse, our remaining cat, acts hungry but isn’t eating much. I Googled it like an idiot.

I’m switching to herbal tea in the mornings, in case the coffee is messing up my dreams. Also, I think the coffee might be to blame for how cranky I get mid-afternoon.

Parking at Home is having a giveaway to help alleviate a winter funk. Cute crocheted hats are involved.

I’m making another hotpad. This one is a little larger, possibly too much larger. Both strands are cotton, one a pink/white color change and the other a yellow/white color change.

There was a sale at the craft store and I bought more yarn than we can ever use. This is in addition to the yarn we already had at home, which was more than we could ever use. Rob asked me what my favorite part of knitting was, and I said “Buying yarn.”

I’m finally watching The L Word: I like a series to be over before I try it so I can watch it straight through on DVD. That’s a tricky show to watch with kids in the house—as has been the case with every Showtime/HBO series I’ve watched. It’s like they think the ABILITY to include swearing and nudity is a MANDATE to include it. It reminds me of college plays I went to (and I went to all of them because my boyfriend was a theater guy and sometimes had a 2-second appearance on stage—or even, once, A LINE): every single play involved the characters (1) smoking cigarettes and (2) firing the loud fake gun. WE HAVE THE ABILITY, THEREFORE WE MUST USE IT.

Look what I MADE:

This.

I MADE this. I decided I wanted to make a hotpad, I consulted Twitter peeps who said wool or cotton yarn would be best and to use a tight weave (I love being able to consult Twitter peeps), and I MADE A HOTPAD. It took me two days of the amount of time I’m interested in spending knitting, which is not much so you know it’s a quick project. I used size 6 needles, and I used two strands of yarn at the same time (to make it dense): a strand of 100% wool in orange, and a strand of 100% cotton in a yellow/white.

My goal was a breakfast/sunshine kind of color, but you know what it looks EXACTLY LIKE? Candy corn, that’s what.

AMIRITE?

Never mind that I could buy a hotpad for $1.24 on clearance and it would also come with a dishtowel or two. Never mind that I don’t even know if this will work as a hotpad or if it will instead scorch the table and/or my hands. I MADE IT. I have CREATED. I know how God must have felt: LET THERE BE HOTPAD.

Lots of people are in the Winter Funks and I am too. There is NOTHING WRONG, and in fact lots of things are GOOD right now, including Paul getting a promotion and raise that involve no extra time/duties (he got the promotion because he had gradually worked up to doing all the parts of the job he was promoted to), and also that for Christmas my brother and sister-in-law gave me a gift certificate for air travel so I can plan to another trip to see Niestle this spring.

But still, I am befunkified, and I know a lot of you are too. I’m doing my usual remedies, such as using the expensive face lotion and drinking coffee and turning on extra lights, but I’ve had another idea. It seemed like a great idea to tell you about when I first thought of it, but now I am feeling shy because when I think of putting it down in actual words, it sounds like a really cheesy idea, the kind we ought to consider putting on an inspirational plaque in swirly gilt writing.

Oh, no—I know EXACTLY what it sounds like: it sounds like an idea Marmee would have come up with in the book Little Women. And while I love that book, and love Marmee too, she really was kind of an overflowing bowl of treacle, with her Big Shameful Confession being that she had a bit of a temper that her husband had to help her rope in, which he did so effectively that her children DIDN’T EVEN KNOW SHE HAD A TEMPER. Which, uh. I mean, that doesn’t seem like it could have been much of a temper problem then, does it? I don’t think Marmee would ever, EVER have snapped at her children or said, “Oh, god no, I can’t hear even ONE MORE joke today”—at, um, 6:30 in the morning.

Anyway, here is my idea. …No, I can’t, it’s TOO cringey. Here is MARMEE’S idea, which I am going to try: Marmee recommends doing something nice for someone else that is also fun for us. For me, I’m thinking along the lines of putting together a small care package of treats, but that’s because care packages and treats are my thing. It’s a good idea because it involves the happy work of making treats and packing them up, and also there will be extra treats for me.

I think any idea would work if it uses a skill that’s typically enjoyable for you and can be used to benefit others (knitting? embroidery? baking? shopping? drawing? writing? woodworking?), ideally something that will take a little time and effort and perhaps the fun of going to the store to get ingredients/materials. And then there’s the fun of choosing who the recipient will be.

This small thing isn’t going to CURE the winter funk, of course, but one of my winter funk symptoms is thinking there’s no point to doing anything unless it 100% solves the problem, so I’m counteracting that kind of thinking at the same time.

One of my Things To Deal With after my closet declutter was filling a 5-opening picture frame. I bought it because hey, I have five kids and this frame has five openings, IDEAL! But there were too many decisions to be made. Two of the openings are one way and three are the other way, and the frame can be put up either horizontally or vertically which affects which “way” two/three are.

Plus, which of my THOUSANDS of kid photos should I use? And we didn’t get a digital camera until the twins were 6 months old, so I’d have to go through ALBUMS and then SCAN PHOTOS IN. And I do want the kids’ pictures to be in order by age, so what if I want to hang the frame vertically, and I don’t find pictures in the right orientations that I like? OH ACK.

Well, so my plan was to put it in a closet for two years and not think about it, but THAT didn’t work EITHER. After finding it again, I made this decision: either I deal with filling this frame, or I get rid of the frame. I spent an evening on it and it was worth it.

The first decision that really helped was deciding to use all newborn pictures of the kids. We were still using film cameras for the first four kids, so we don’t have very many photos to choose from, and I was further limited by the orientation of the openings, but I just MADE DECISIONS choose-choose-choose and tried not to get all bogged down in what would be Perfect or how sad it was that a certain picture was the wrong orientation or WHATEVER. I just chose five newborn photos that fit in the five openings, and I scanned the four paper ones and uploaded them with the one digital one, and I got the prints and I bought them right away rather than giving in to the temptation of “I should wait until I have a larger order to place” which would have taken AGES.

So here are the five photos:

Newborn Rob

Newborn William

Newborn Elizabeth

Newborn Edward

Newborn Henry

And then I had to decide where to hang the thing, but again I just got a hammer and chose a place, and if I don’t like it I’ll change it later, but here’s how it looks right now. It’s in my kitchen and I like it.

Goal achieved.