1. Giant 2-cup-capacity Starbucks mug.
2. Enough coffee to fill it about halfway.
3. Milk or milk-like product.
4. Chocolate syrup or powder: lots.
5. Peppermint extract: just a few drops or it’ll taste like toothpaste.
6. Refrigerate.
7. Sip from all day long.
I am happy and surprised to report that so far the cloth napkin experiment has been an unexpectedly smashing success. I was thinking the best possible outcome was “Yeah, I guess I’m willing to cope with this hassle, especially because it’s so fun to buy cloth napkins”—but in fact the outcome is “OMG WE LOVE THESE.” So fond of them are we, in fact, that if they were shown to be WORSE for the environment than paper napkins, we would furtively continue to use them and I would have to switch them over to one of my examples of how we all have things we do that could get us shot by environmental extremists.
The ones that turn out to be perfect for the kids are the “cocktail” napkins. They’re smaller and more manageable than the regular kind. There were two sizes of cloth cocktail napkins: one was the size of a folded paper cocktail napkin (5 inches square?) and I didn’t get any of those (for one thing, they were WHITE). The other size FOLDS to the size of a folded paper cocktail napkin, so it’s more like 10 inches square which is perfect. (The regular size of cloth napkin is 20 inches square, which is HELLA GENEROUSLY large.)
My next shopping quest (and I do love having a shopping quest: even if I buy only cat litter and toilet paper, the shopping trip is still fun because I had something fun to look for) is napkin rings. I bought two sets of four at 75% off, but each set is matched. Paul chose one of the wooden ones for his napkin, and I chose one of the metal ones for my napkin, but now we’re out of Different Rings. So I’m going to keep looking for more. There are always a lot of them on post-Christmas clearances, and I am patient. Well, no, I’m not patient (you should have seen me FREAKING OUT for information about my newly-born niece), but I’m patient about bargains.
I also love Devan’s idea of making some, and I’m going to see if I can get some big chunky gaudy beads for mine. And I also-also love the idea Jac left in the comment section about looking on eBay for old personalized napkin rings. I went looking but found that the ones I wanted (silverplate engraved “Beatrice,” for example) are the ones that are covered in bids and going for $40 each, whereas the ones I would pay NOT to own (geese with country-blue ribbons around their necks) are ending with no bids.
Oh my dears. Look what we have:
It is Niestle. Niecele. Niecstle. Niecestle. Niece-stle. Neestle. I guess Niestle is the best one. Perhaps I should have thought this out ahead of time, rather than making it part of the birth announcement. (Bethtastic gets credit for this nickname, which BLEW MY MIND with its wonderfulness.)
This is my niece. She is 19 inches long, and she weighs 7 pounds. She is so glorious, I am blinded. I had to use the little “home-row bumps” to find the right keys on my keyboard. Only through blurriness can I see her beautiful wahing mouth. Her tiny beautiful hands. Her lovely squinched eyes of indignation.
She was born on March 1st at 11:11 p.m., which is very tidy. I like her already.
If I’ve counted correctly, and it IS hard to count with blinded eyes of love, 14 of you guessed March 1st:
I used a Random Number Generator to choose a winner, and it chose #6: Julie of Life is Good. Email me (swistle at gmail dot com) with your mailing info, Julie, and I’m going to start putting things into a box!
Congratulations, Erik and Anna! Really nice work there!
Well, when Mr. Pickles (or possibly Mr. Pickles’s brother Mr. Pickles) wants to go back to Target, I’d like to see YOU try to say no to that fluffy little face.
Mr. Pickles tries to get a pickup game going. He’s been trying to kick that ball for, like, ten minutes now.
Mr. Pickles is looking out the window because he doesn’t seem to have a functional side-view mirror. Or a windshield.
Mr. Pickles tries on shoes: “How do I look?”
Mr. Pickles inspects the North Pole. “Still at the top,” he reports.
Mr. Pickles spots a deal. “OMG!” he says, “Only $1.74! And aren’t these the spaghetti-stain-colored towels you were hoping to find more of??”
Mr. Pickles is confused. Is this a 4-seater chicken toilet? Or what?
Mr. Pickles tries to blend in when a Target employee comes by. We’re not sure we’re allowed to be taking photos in here.
Mr. Pickles considers pen options in the dollar section. He likes the whale ones, especially because he thinks those are the ones Black Sheeped has, but eventually he selects the butterfly/grass combo.
Dr. Maureen has set up a group on Flickr for The Chicken Game photos: The Flickr Chicken Game Group. Anyone is welcome to join.
Last night we had a DATE, a cloth napkin date, and I totally stood you up. I hope you didn’t cancel other plans and sit at home waiting. My plan was to play on the Wii for a little while and then choose the winners, but then after I played the Wii I started messing around on Facebook, and before I knew it I’d sent, like, 18 flowers to Stacie and it was time for bed.
I went to Target again yesterday and I scored MORE cloth napkins, so I’m going to have TWO cloth napkin buddies. The first name the random number thing chose was Sarah of No Whey, Mama, so she’ll get the napkin heap shown in the post. Then the second person is Kim of Laments and Observations, and she’ll get the napkins I found at Target yesterday.
Okay, now I have to go finish my post about Mr. Pickles’s second trip to Target.
No niece-sighting as yet. Anna’s due date was the 24th, and here we are on the 27th. I am TOTALLY AWARE (I had an OB who was BIG on this concept) that the baby is “on time” up to TWO FULL WEEKS after the due date. But in that case, they shouldn’t call it the “due date.” Library books are not “on time up to two full weeks after the due date.” Bill payments are not “on time up to two full weeks after the due date.”
So anyway. Let’s make a list of all the ideas we know for getting Baby to make her long-awaited appearance. Remembering, of course, that my PARENTS (Anna’s IN-LAWS) read this blog, and so perhaps we want to ixnay the exysay ones. And besides, I seem to remember people making those suggestions to ME when I was 9 months pregnant, and I seem to remember thinking they were Not Funny.
Okay, so here’s my only tip. I had a friend who, when 9 months pregnant with her first child, went out and ate a huge steak dinner. She said she ate so much steak she felt like barfing. She went into labor that night. So when she was 9 months pregnant with her second child and getting impatient, she deliberately went out and ate a huge steak—and she went into labor the next day.
Mr. Pickles Goes to Washington Target:
We arrive.
We scope out the 75%-off clearance sections. Swistle buys some more cloth napkins and a runner rug. Mr. Pickles sees nothing he likes.
Mr. Pickles advises acquiring some of this Starbucks Frappuccino coffee drink in dark chocolate peppermint and in dark chocolate raspberry, even though it is only 50% off. Swistle, who is nearing the end of her patience with the children and feels the need of chemical support, agrees. She swigs one (a peppermint) as soon as they get to the car. It is delicious, and Swistle wishes she’d bought more. Mr. Pickles suggests a return trip tomorrow.
(These photos also at The Chicken Game Flickr Group.)
This post gets really LONG because I wanted to show you something and also give away a giftie, but in order to show something I had to explain it, and then I had to explain why I was explaining it, and then I had to explain why I was giving a giftie, and before I knew it it was one of those posts where you can scroll and Scroll and SCROLL. Maybe go potty before you start reading, or go get a sustaining snack.
I’ve been wanting to write about ENVIRONMENTAL STUFF for awhile, but I’ve felt shy about talking about it with you. My efforts are likely to be eye-rollingly pitiful to some of you, and teeth-grindingly self-righteous to others of you.
But then I thought, well, isn’t that true for ALL of us and our efforts? We’re ALL of us somewhere on the Environmental Righteousness Spectrum, with some people doing better than us and some people not doing as well. We all have some areas where we’re all exemplary and awesome, and other areas that could get us shot by an environmental extremist.
Plus, different things make sense for different people. It makes sense for me to use handkerchiefs: I’m not grossed out by them, I prefer the feel of them on my poor little nose, I like the durability of them (hate kleenex shreddies. hate.), and I have year-round environmental allergies that give me a box-a-week tissue habit otherwise. For me, handkerchiefs are easier, cheaper, and preferable—and that’s before we even get into any environmental benefits. But that doesn’t mean it makes sense for YOU to use handkerchiefs. I don’t even think of it for you!
In fact, I’m GREAT about other people’s environmental stuff. Like, you might feel shy about discussing the way you use the backs of your kids’ old school papers as scrap paper, because you’re worried someone will say, “Um, yes, but you drive to Target every other day just to buy plastic stuff. You’re hardly the Mother Teresa of the environment.” You won’t hear that from ME, though. I have several thoughts about that kind of thing:
1. “Driving and buying plastic and reusing paper” is better than “Driving and buying plastic and NOT reusing paper.”
2. Reusing paper helps to cancel out some of the driving and buying plastic. Even if it doesn’t make a huge impact, see #1.
3. Doing some things can lead to doing other things. If you get in the habit of reusing paper and notice it’s easy and satisfying, it may have a positive impact on other behaviors. You might start CARPOOLING to Target, for example. Whereas if you think, “I drive and buy plastic, so I might as well not bother to reuse paper,” you might after awhile start thinking you might as well not recycle milk jugs either.
4. People get discouraged if nothing is ever good enough. If nothing counts except Perfection, why do anything less? And yet, see #1. SOME action is better than ZERO action or ANTI-action.
So! This is all to explain why I bought cloth napkins at Target this past weekend. I don’t know if it’s going to work out, but I’m willing to give it a try. I’m always more willing to do environmental stuff when it’s (1) fun and (2) pretty and (3) involves shopping.
I’d been thinking I shouldn’t bother with cloth napkins because they need to be ironed, and suddenly I thought, “….Wait. I don’t HAVE to iron them if I don’t mind them being wrinkly.” And I really don’t mind them being wrinkly. Plus, Target had a bunch of pretty ones on 75% off, and you know how I feel about 75% off (“It’s free; take whatever you want”). Some of them were the exact color of spaghetti/pizza stains, which seems perfect!
I’d also been worried that maybe cloth napkins were in the category of “Things that cancel out their own positive environmental impact.” I know a lot of people use paper plates because their feeling is that the impact of the manufacture and use of paper plates is less serious than the impact of the dishwashing. It could definitely be the same with napkins, and I have no idea which is better, and I’m not motivated to research it because I don’t have strong feelings about it either way, and also because I have a feeling there are strong arguments for both sides of this. I come down on the side of washing things and reusing them, but that’s partly because that’s my preference (pretty ceramic plates! pretty embroidered hankies! and now pretty fabric napkins!). If it turned out I was wrong and actually it was better to use paper plates and paper tissues (and now paper napkins), I wouldn’t have any crow to eat: I could just be like, “Oh! Neat!” After all, I use disposable diapers and I’ve been known to THROW AWAY underwear that has had a Disheartening Accident in it, so I’d be a fine one to try to act like I was standing solidly on the reusability platform.
Where was I? Oh, yes! Don’t you want to see the pretty pretty napkins??
Only the vertical items are napkins; the horizontal items are dishtowels I bought because, uh. Because they were 75% off, and pretty. Don’t those little orange clearance tags just make your heart LEAP UP?
Notice I got TWO identical piles of the cloth napkins. I bought four 2-packs of the embroidered orange ones (aren’t those EXACTLY the color of pizza/spaghetti stains??), two 4-packs of the pretty light yellow ones that are my favorite shade of yellow and will almost certainly be covered in ugly stains within a week, and two 4-packs of the green shiny ones that don’t seem like they could possibly be absorbent enough but might be better at repelling stains because of it.
This is because I’m going to SHARE. I was standing there dithering and dithering about the napkins (“WANT! …But good? Or not? And WHICH ones?”), and then I got the idea of getting TWO batches and doing a giveaway so I could do this with a BUDDY. A cloth napkin buddy!
Giveaways make me feel shy, because I know a lot of people see them as cheap tricks to get comments, but I don’t see comments that way (as currency or something), and I love giving presents and I love shopping and I love getting other people to do the same thing I’m doing. Plus, I get a little money for that ad over there to the right, and I like to spend it on doing fun stuff like giving presents.
So if you don’t want to enter, you can still leave a comment if you want to—just say you’re “not entering, but…”. And if you want to be my cloth napkin buddy, say so, and if you want to you can say why. And this weekend or maybe Friday night, yeah probably Friday night, why don’t we just say Friday night?, I’ll pick one random person and mail them….um, a box of clearance cloth napkins that match mine (but not, er, each other). Woooooo!
[Edited to add: And of course Mr. Pickles the Chicken will be included with the napkins.]
So. Finally. My friend Maureen has posted about The Chicken Game. Finally the great Shroud of Mystery regarding Tiny Chickens and Their Purpose can be lifted. It is a great day for all of us. Please, friends, enlighten yourselves. (Edit: Maureen also did a follow-up post for frequently asked questions, and here’s the info on the Flickr group.]
Two rounds of The Chicken Game at The Swistle House:
In Swistle’s jewelry box
In Swistle’s medicine cabinet
Obviously you are going to want to leave now for a craft store to find your own chickens, but HOLD UP. There are ALSO a couple other ways to obtain a chicken of your very own:
1) Win a Swistle Care Package. I’ve sent out a chicken in each of the last three packages I mailed, so THREE of you have chickens already. I’ll put a chicken in the Happy Niece Day Package, too, and in the next few care packages as well, until I run low on chickens.
2) Beg Maureen. She has a few extra chickens and is not afraid to use the postal service to help her spread her Message of Chickens.
3) Or, yeah, go to a craft store. The chickens are sold in little tiny clear plastic rectangular boxes, twelve chickens to a box, and if I remember correctly they cost $1.99. You and 11 friends can play The Chicken Game for only 16.5 cents per family, plus applicable tax!
Oh my, I do love the January/February sales. They’re nearly over, and my house has an overstuffed feeling that makes me not mind them being nearly over. But it’s a GOOD overstuffed feeling, a STOCKED UP feeling. I bought, like, twelve pairs of jeans for Elizabeth in sizes 4 and 5, all 75% off at Target. Maybe twenty pairs of shoes for assorted children, for now and for later, all 75% off at Target. I bought Valentine’s Day tissue paper at 90% off—and you know, that stuff is RED so it looks JUST PERF at Christmastime.
Long underwear shirts for Paul, who works in a chilly office: 50% off. Heavy flannel shirts for Paul, $10 each down from $60 each, though that $60 starting price seems too high: they seem more like $30-40 shirts to me. Tights for Elizabeth, 75% off. Four boxes of Christmas cards that play songs, $1 per box down from over $20 per box (for 5 cards! those are EXPENSIVE cards). A bird calendar for next to my desk, $1. Sweaters at The Children’s Place, $5.99 each. Three pairs of kid winter boots, 75% off. Four sets of king-sized sheets, 75% off ($12.48-14.98 per set).
Okay, just listing the practical stuff like this is REALLY BORING. Pictures are better, and I’ll do pictures of the FUN things instead.
Plastic kid dishes, 50% off. TOO CUTE. I loved the Target Valentine’s Day stuff this year. Under the owls it says “Owl love you forever.” OWLMG.
Funny little girl-robot change purse, also from the Target Valentine’s line. 75% off.
I love this mug so much, it gives me heart flutters. There is a BIRDIE perched on the HANDLE. Another find from the Target Valentine’s line. 75% off.
How about this: if I DON’T say “from the Target Valentine’s Day line,” you can just assume it IS, because that’s where I really cleaned up the last few days. Turtle plates, 75% off.
I bought this frame for a picture of my niece WHENEVER SHE DEIGNS TO GRACE US WITH HER PRESENCE. I loved this frame so much, I bought it when it was only 50% off. (*pause for my mother to roll her eyes*)
Um. Valentine’s Day dishtowels and washcloths and oven mitts. Bought sparingly at 50% off, then lost control at 75% off. I justified it by figuring they’d be great for Swistle Care Packages. Because nothing says “I love you and appreciate you and care about you” like out-of-season clearanced holiday merchandise.
Oh, these were SUCH A GREAT FIND! I bought myself two sets of these Trudeau measuring spoons, like, a YEAR ago at HomeGoods (where I DO NOT buy groceries). They were only $1.99 per set and I thought they were gorgeous so I bought them, and then they turned out to be my favorite measuring spoons EVER and I always reach for them first. So then I thought I’d go back and buy more (HomeGoods had a huge selection in many color choices) and they were already all GONE. Thus began my feverish year-long quest, a quest that grew more and more despairing with time, especially when my sister-in-law wanted measuring spoons for Christmas. And then, yesterday, there were three sets in two color choices. I bought all three sets. (SIL Anna! Which set do you want? You can have your pick!)
These are MOUSE PADS that are also NOTE PADS. I was a LITTLE disappointed, because I thought each page had two lists, but actually the lines go all the way across the pad, like this:
Still, it’s so useful. It has the days of the week and I put schedule stuff over on that side, and then I use the righthand half for miscellaneous notes.
This represents a moment of shopping lunacy. It was 75% off and I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT IT IS, I just liked it very much. The serving suggestion was to put a bunch of them in a big bowl, but I hung it from the corner of my desktop shelves. [Edit from June 2020: I STILL have it hanging from the corner of my desktop shelves.]
This was so exciting. WHICH OF YOU has this shower curtain??? It’s brown toile with blue birds, and it looks pretty bleah in the package but WONDERFUL in action. I saw it on your blog and IMMEDIATELY loved it. I looked for it, and I found it on clearance for $10, and suddenly I felt all nervous about spending money because we don’t actually NEED a shower curtain. Ours is 8 years old but perfectly fine. I decided I’d buy it when it went on 75% off. Then I got home and wondered what kind of fool I was: neither of us LIKE our shower curtain, and we bought it only because it went with the old aqua fixtures we no longer have, and I LOVE the bird one. So I went back THE NEXT DAY and there were NONE LEFT. I searched at THREE Targets and there were NONE.
Then today I went back to one of those same Targets, and they had five of them. At $5 each. I bought one. I almost got carried away and bought two, but regained my senses in time.
I love this. LOVE IT. 75% off at Target. It looks like one of the upholstery fabrics I kind of wanted to get for our new couch, so it made me feel happy to have it in picture form. It’s the first picture I’ve put up in our dining room.