I’ve written before about the ways I cope with mild depression (need I say that if you have a doozier depression, you should not consult ME, a blogger with zero qualifications of any kind, but should instead consult someone who possesses ACTUAL MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE?):

1. A Pitiful List
2. Day Sadness
3. Easy, Inexpensive Ways to Feel Better

Sunshine and lights, coffee and warm food, skin contact and cuddling, small purchases, funny stuff, things that smell nice, music, fish oil and vitamin D—those are the basics.

But I haven’t yet figured out how to deal with acid-in-the-stomach moods. Today I am obsessing senselessly about an altercation I had with a clerk yesterday: my mom and I found a rack of stuff marked “$4 and under,” and we asked the clerk to price-check something from that rack that was marked $7. Even though the clerk was standing right at a register, she wouldn’t check the price, saying the price marked was correct. So we pointed out the sign on the rack, which she felt was irrelevant, and then there was a discussion about whether a store could have a display marked “Everything $4 and under!” that was more than half full of items marked higher than $4, with my position on the subject being “No” and her position on the subject being “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we don’t print the signs and we don’t mark the prices and we don’t have anything to do with anything including checking prices at all, so we are not responsible for any illegal and fraudulent errors our total lack of involvement may cause.” I may be paraphrasing both positions.

[Notice I’m not mentioning the name of the store, and it’s because I shop there regularly and I have never ever had any sort of problem even remotely like this before. So I don’t want to slam the whole chain just because a single problem with a single clerk. I plan to shop there again and everything, I just plan not to go to the particular location with this particular clerk, because now the whole store feels tainted by this encounter. But there is another location I can go to instead.]

Anyway. The real trouble is what home remedies to use on this acidy, stewing, unpleasant mood. When I feel like this, treats don’t really help, nor do any of the “be nice to self” things that can help with a depressed mood. Coffee might help, but also might backfire considerably, adding acid and adrenaline to a situation already steeped in it. Tranquilizers or drinks just make me tired and sullen in addition to cranky and acidy. Sometimes I work on chores, because if I’m going to be a miserable bear to live with no matter what, I might as well be getting the laundry done while I’m at it. I try to eat good foods, because I’ve found that sugar can make this kind of mood worse.

But that’s all I’ve got. Tips appreciated, as long as they’re not “Just don’t think about it” or “Just don’t let it bother you,” both of which are the equivalent of “Just be a different person! It’s so easy!” What little things do you do/use to shake yourself out of a bad mood of this sort?

Yesterday evening Paul had me feel his forehead for fever twice, which means it is time once again for him to be a colossal baby. Today he is staying home from work, parked on the couch groaning and asking weakly for things, and I am trying not to be deeply resentful at the way when he is sick he “stays home from work,” whereas when I’M sick…. Well, there is no sense going down this path.

You may have noticed I rarely have a good word to say about Paul. One of the main reasons for this—and forgive me for lifting the veil here—is that reading praise about someone else’s spouse is borrrrrrrrrring. Bad things are win-win: either the readers feel happier about their own spouses’ flaws in comparison, or they feel relieved that they are not the only ones yoked to boneheads. Good things, on the other hand, are lose-lose: either the readers feel unhappier about their own spouses in comparison, or else they are bored.

Another main reason is that I think you and I know each other well enough by now that you’d assume I wouldn’t live with someone for fifteen years if I didn’t kinda like him. I’ve left a marriage before so I’m clear on that option, I’m toward the pragmatic end of the spectrum on such things, and I have a good life insurance policy on him. If Paul were truly defined only by his shopping dumbheadedness and his pathetic babyish illnesses—or even if that were the larger part of him—-I don’t see any reason I’d stay with such a cheesehead, and I’m pretty confident that’s a conclusion anyone can draw. In fact, it seems like a natural conclusion that he must be pretty awesome in other ways for me to put up with the dumhbhead/baby crap.

Another main reason is that non-annoyances don’t start writing themselves in my mind. If Paul is being a pinehole, a new post springs into being naturally: I compose it as I’m angrily doing the dishes he left, or as I’m going to the store to get the eggs he didn’t get, or as I’m lying awake pretending to be asleep. Whereas if he’s not doing anything annoying, if life is going on as usual, posts do not compose themselves. And to return to the first point, they’d be pretty dull if they DID compose themselves: “Paul did the dishes without leaving food on them this time. Also, he went to the grocery store and came home with the things on the list. Also, a child brought homework back to school without me first having to fish it out of the recycling bin.”

Well, I’ve hidden in here long enough; I’m going to have to go back out there. PITY ME.

1. I finished the Thing! I wore it with my coat this morning as a demi-scarf—or, as the other mom at the bus stop less charitably but more amusingly called it, “a Dickey scarf.”

Oh, this? Yes, I just whipped it up over the weekend! …What do you mean, “Where’s the rest of it?”

Now I am starting a new Thing. I am using Lion Brand yarn again, this time a fuzzy kinked pink yarn called, if I remember correctly, “Cotton Candy.” (A child helpfully removed all the paper wrappings from my yarns for me.) I cast on 50 stitches; my plan is to make a wider, shorter Thing than last time. When I have finished it, I want to try a baby hat.

2. Virginia Ruth wanted to see some samples of Rob’s knitting. My mother-in-law taught him when she was here a few weeks ago.

The one on the left is Rob thinking he could maybe make a sweater for a stuffed animal by knitting two sweater shapes and attaching them together. On the right is him practicing making stripes.

My mother-in-law taught him to cast on and bind off, and he made these Tetris shapes later that night when he was supposed to be sleeping. My mother-in-law thought this was meh. Paul and I thought it was BRILLIANT. He has knitting and binding off IN THE SAME ROW!

It was hard to take a picture of this, but it’s a side view of a square of knitting with a rectangular flap coming out of the middle. Rob wanted to see if that would work. Mother-in-law said that wasn’t really the way it was supposed to work. Paul and I thought it was BRILLIANT.

This is Rob’s “sampler scarf”—he did a little of all the stitches he knew how to do, so there’s some knitting and some purling and some cabling and whatever else he knows. It’s about 4 inches wide on average.

1. This was Henry’s first year trick-or-treating; he went as a fydah-fydah (firefighter). A very REFLECTIVE firefighter.

It is not a whole lot of fun bringing five children trick-or-treating. There is a lot of playing The Manners Police (“What do you say?” “Do you remember what to say?” “What do you say NOW?” x 5), and there is a lot of fretting that a child will get lost in the dark. But it does mean there are five bags of loot to pick through after the kids go to bed. We searched first for razor blades, unwrapped/opened candy, and religious detritus. Razor blades 0, unwrapped/opened candy 0, religious detritus 2 (1 roll of smarties with scripture verses on the wrapper, 1 tract about “the treat that lasts forever,” complete with the prayer you should pray in order to “trick-or-treat at God’s door.” Jesus: He won’t give you cavities! Or get stuck in your teeth! Or get eaten by your parents after you go to bed!).

2. On Friday afternoon, William was tired and kept saying so. He went to bed an hour and a half early. He woke up two hours later with a nightmare, and he was feverish and coughing. Yesterday he was dizzy and had a fever that got in the high 103s whenever the ibuprofen started wearing off. This morning he was around 101 and feeling much better. I have to call the school tomorrow to let them know: they’re keeping track of all children and staff who miss school for flu-like symptoms.

3. Rob taught me how to knit. I should clarify that this was probably my dozenth time learning. I don’t know why I am learning again, except that Rob was so! keen! to teach me.

I am making A Thing. It started as 22 stitches across and has without my intentional interference varied from 22-28 stitches, mostly 26. It is too wide and short for a scarf. It is too narrow and long for a blankie. But ohhhhhhh it is soft! I’m using Lion Brand “suede” yarn in a pretty variegated color that is a lot prettier when it is not against the backdrop of my berry-colored shirt, and I’ve almost finished a skein. (I did my first Thing in Red Heart yarn because I’d heard that’s a good yarn for beginners, but for my second Thing I chose a yarn I liked.) Rob keeps saying, “NOW do you like knitting?” and I keep saying, “Nope! Still difficult yet boring!” But I do like petting the yarn.

4. The cat has been acting bonkers. She follows me around, making the cat equivalent of yippy-little-dog sounds. MEW! MEW! MEW! MEW! She is frantic. She bumps against my legs, tripping me and getting stepped on. Her food is fresh and full; her water is fresh and full; her box is fresh and scooped; she’s been petted and snuggled; WHAT DOES SHE WANT?? I am on the verge of taking her to the vet just because surely it must be SOMETHING.

May I recommend a hat for all your hat-related needs? I was shopping for winter hats for my fifth grader and my third grader, because the fifth grader EVIDENTLY no longer wants to wear the multicolored ones with fleecy spikes and tassels I’m so fond of, and so of course the copycat third grader had to pipe up with the same opinion. We went to Target and we looked in the boys’ section, but those hats failed to please the judges, and also even the size 8-14 was pretty snug (pediatrician, examining Henry: “Have ALL your kids had such ENORMOUS HEADS?”). We went over to the men’s section to see if those would be too big, and they weren’t. But they were, like, $12.99, and I hate paying that much for a non-cute hat that will no doubt be lost in November. Then we saw these:

Edward, Rob, Henry, William, Elizabeth

The hats are $2.99 each, and they’re stretchy and fit EVERYBODY, from fifth-grade Rob down to 2-year-old Henry. I bought six: one for each kid, plus a spare to reduce the morning fighting over who gets which color (everyone will get a choice, rather than the last hat-chooser getting stuck with the last hat). It comes in wine red, orange, yellow, green, royal blue, plum, black, grey, and brown. I still want to buy the brown one, and the kids might talk me into getting wine red and black too. At one of our local Targets these hats were on the opposite side of the display rack that held the more expensive men’s hats; at another Target the hats were on a different rack altogether (but still in the men’s department).

Hey, Etsy peeps. I had a thought. What if I reviewed a bunch of Etsy peeps’ stuff on the new review blog, in time for holiday shopping? I’ve wanted to do that before, but on this blog I have an ad that prevents me from accepting things for review. On the new review blog? No ad. And I am super in favor of people doing their gift-buying on Etsy. So….would that be good? or useless?

Edit: Oooo, wait. I have thought of a Big Fret. What if an Etsy peep sends me a sample—and I DON’T LIKE IT?? It’s one thing to give an honest negative review about a manufacturer’s item, but about an ETSY PEEP’S item? I’m not sure I could do it.

Oh, here’s another problem: what if the Etsy peep only makes things that are way too expensive to send a sample of? Like, I was looking at the Etsy shop of commenter Angie and OMG SO GORGEOUS, and obviously she is not going to send a TWO HUNDRED DOLLAR QUILT for a review—so what do we do, in that case? We fret, right? Good, because I am ALL OVER THAT.

Earlier this month, Sam (pronounced KEER-sten) wrote a post about her son Chicken (pronounced SOO-doe-nim): Chicken is thirteen and knows if he likes girls or if he likes boys, but sometimes when he mentions it he gets a reaction like he’s too young at thirteen to know that information.

I am very interested to know if my kids like girls or if they like boys, and I would like to know how much more time I have to wait to find out. So my question for today is: How old were you when you knew?

My mom says I had boyfriends as early as kindergarten (I do hope Alfie still regrets dumping me), but my own personal memory of actual attraction starts in third grade. I liked boys. I didn’t even have that early stage a lot of girls have where they develop a few crushes on girls or female teachers: I went right to crushes on boys and never stopped. So for me, the answer was clear at age 8 or 9. By age 13, it couldn’t have even been raised as a topic of discussion, it was so set. BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS. Boys!

But I know people develop at different rates, and I had classmates who didn’t show any interest in boys OR girls even in high school, and I also know a lot of people are more of a mix and so need more time to figure it out, so I’d like to get a bigger sample than just me and Chicken. How old were you when you knew what was what?

I have posted my first paid BlogHer review, and I hope it will reassure anyone who wondered if a review could be both paid and non-butt-kissing. But now I have Nervous Tummy (TM Tess) and wish I had spent more time emphasizing the positive, rather than emphasizing the MONEY part so much and at such length. I even did MATH PROBLEMS. For SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS.

Well. Perhaps you would be willing to click your little mice all over the whole post [note from the future: link deleted because blog no longer exists] so that Sonicare will not regret this entire arrangement. Perhaps you will win the $100 Visa gift card for your merciful actions. (I am kind of excited to think of one of you winning it!) And for those of you who like Stuff About Big Families, there’s a photo of seven toothbrushes in a cluster. Thrill!

Also, has it been about a million years since I posted a photo of Henry? I thought so.

Celebrating first review post with fast food

Jenny in MD wanted to see the whole list from this post. I think if you click on it you can see it larger.

Some of the weirder things on the list are household words for things. We call ground turkey “turko,” for example, and I’d be hard-pressed to tell you why. And “petted eggs” means the ones from “cage-free certified humane” chickens, because we picture the chickens being loved and petted (NO ONE NEED DISILLUSION ME ON THIS) and so of course the eggs would also be loved and petted. “LH” is Paul’s nickname for me, so “LH milk” is skim milk. “Baby milk” and “baby yogurt” just means “the kind the kids drink/eat.” “Pink cereal” is what the kids call strawberry shredded wheat.

I would like to point out that when he put guacamole-mix powder on the list over in Produce, he wrote it as “pow.” So I was even less open to the argument that “Lysol disinfecting wipes, 80 ct, on sale for $2.99 – get 2” was INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION for him to come home with the correct item.