Cup of caffeinated tea

Large glass of water

B-Complex

Eight (8) ginger snaps

A “the world is a good place” video sent to me by Laura:

[If you are here from the future: the video does not appear to exist anymore.]

This morning started out with a cat accident on the carpet.

Then I looked out the window and noticed that I got distracted and missed the pear harvest: 30 perfectly gorgeous pears were rotting on the ground. I’d been looking forward to those pears since last year, when they were so delicious I ate every single one and barely shared, and then was upset because there were no more. That kind of attention lapse can’t be taken back; I have to wait another year.

I made apple bread for my brother’s birthday. It was cooling on the counter, and I was so glad that chore was done because I hadn’t been sure when I was going to be able to do it. I got myself a drink of water. I spilled the water over both loaves of apple bread. We don’t have enough eggs or enough apples to make another batch.

My tooth is still hurting. The dentist said it might hurt for up to a week just as a result of messing with it. So maybe this is still okay. Or maybe it is a root canal. And then maybe the root canal won’t stop the pain, either, and then we’ll find that OOPS it’s actually an adjacent tooth that is the problem.

I have seasonal allergies, and even with allergy medicine I want to rip my face off.

Henry is “between naps”: he needs more than one nap a day or else he’s fussy, but if he gets two naps he doesn’t go to sleep well at night. So today he cried and fussed and cried and fussed, and finally I put him down for a morning nap when it was really too late to go down for a morning nap.

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Spuddy Buddy is starting a contest for a good cause.

A Little Left of Lost is starting a new contest.

Back from the dentist, and if that’s all I need done I’ll be happy. He said there was a little decay under an old filling, and so he redid the filling. And since the old filling was silver, and the new one is white, I am pleased about this for vanity alone. Also because all my silver fillings are old and gradually need replacing, so I’m glad that the one that needed replacing was an older filling and not a newer one.

He said that unless I keep feeling twinges, this means we’ve solved the problem. Continuing twinges = root canal. So you see this can go either way here, the Happy Path of Nice New White Filling and Not Going to the Dentist Again for Awhile—-or the Sad Path of Nice New $200 White Filling Taken Right Back Out to Make Way for Even-More-Expensive Root Canal.

Another mom at the bus stop this morning said her dentist charges $100 as soon as you walk in the door, so I thought it might be interesting to compare our dental costs. Yesterday, when he looked at the tooth and did an xray, the bill was $70. Today, with the filling, the bill was $200. I know fillings can vary in price depending on how significant they are: when they schedule one, the receptionist is always asking the dentist how much time, and for this filling the dentist said “2…no, 3,” whatever that means. So this was a 2…no, 3 filling, and it cost $200. Is this about what your fillings cost?

Today’s plan: wait for novocaine to wear off; then, eat candy.

I spent most of Labor Day priming the new dining room. I’d thought, “Hey, it’s just one room. How long could it take?” LONG. For one thing, it’s a dining room but there’s also a mud room. And both rooms need not only the walls but also the ceilings painted. Best purchase: the $12 extendable-handle paint roller I dithered over in the store. Mediocre purchase: the $7 non-stick paint pan that claimed I could let the paint dry and then just peel the paint off in a sheet (FAIL—but fun to pick at the paint).

We chose and ordered the floor. It’s Armstrong Laminate, the Black Walnut. It’s the kind of floor you snap together. I hope it’s not going to be too dark/dramatic.

Oh, hi. Have I mentioned we’re putting in a dining room?

I went to the dentist this morning about a tooth that’s been doing painful little twinges. I’ll say this: it is WAY more satisfying to go to the dentist when something hurts. What I hate most is when I go in for a routine cleaning and they find $1,200 of work that “needs” to be done. It’s like when the auto place says the car “needs” $1,200 of work: What if they’re just totally making this up? There’s no way I would know! But if something hurts and they can make it stop hurting (or, for the car, if something is clattering/smoking and they can make it stop doing that), I still hate to spend the $1,200 (panic panic financial panic) but at least I know I’m getting something out of it. …Unless they broke it last time they were in there. Well, not thinking about that.

I bought the cream paint for the dining room. I chose a color called Sea Salt, which is what most closely matched the color we have now, a totally inappropriately-named white called “Clear Yellow.” Clear Yellow! I ask you! I almost couldn’t choose it at the time, even though it was the one I wanted, because Clear Yellow sounds like….YELLOW.

But it is not. It is white. Well, cream. I kept asking the painter to reassure me: “It’s not yellow, right?” and he’d say, “No. It’s white. Well, cream.” And I’d say, “Because…it’s called Yellow.” And he’d say, “I know. But it’s white. Well, cream.” But even so, the day he started painting I was antsy and had to go peek at it under the pretense of bringing over a few more boxes.

Anyway, Behr’s Sea Salt is pretty much the same color (Toasted Marshmallow was close, too, but it bothered me because TOASTED Marshmallow should be a light golden brown, not cream), so I went over to the paint counter and asked for a gallon of Sea Salt. The permed, forties-ish clerk mixed it up and put it in the shaker, and we all stood there waiting for it to be fully shaken. She started a conversation with her co-worker about how she thought Sarah Palin didn’t actually like John McCain.

Then the paint was ready, and she got to the part where they pry up the lid of the mixed paint to let you double-check it. She stopped mid-pry, gave it a whack with the mallet instead, and said wearily and I thought a little scornfully, “It’s pretty much just white.” And she gave a little half eye-roll, like I was some crazy person who was custom-ordering a specific shade of white like it mattered.

Clearly she has not found her calling. “Pretty much just white,” indeed! For a color called Sea Salt! That is such a GIMME. If I’d been feeling a little perkier and sassier and less distracted by the low-grade stressiness of the decision I’d just made, I would have said back to her, “Oh, no no no. That is not your line. Your line is: ‘Oh, Sea Salt! I LOVE Sea Salt! It’s such a clean, fresh, lineny white—but not too STARK, you know what I mean? Just the teeniest HINT of yellow to warm it up. It’s just the most perfect white. And the name makes me think of those photos where there’s the white sand and the bleached wood and the beautiful ocean and those tall faded grasses.'”

Depending on her reaction to being schooled, I could have continued: “See, then you lift up the lid to let me peek, and you give a happy little sigh. ‘See?,’ you say. ‘Perfect.’ You pause a moment too long, as if reluctant to stop gazing at it. Then you mallet the lid back down cheerfully [here I’d demonstrate cheerful malleting] and hand it to me and raise your eyebrows and say, ‘Good choice!’ and you put a firm little emphasis on each word, like you’re not usually impressed with a paint customer’s choice, but you’re impressed with mine. And as I walk away, you say to your co-worker in a voice just loud enough for me to hear, but as if you didn’t realize I could hear you, ‘I just love Sea Salt. It’s one of my total favorites.’ …I can write this down for you if you need to study it for next time.”

Seriously. A paint-counter employee! Saying something is “pretty much just white”! I felt like applying for her job on the spot. “Trust me, I could do this better,” I’d say to the manager, tying on an apron.

My mother-in-law is coming in five weeks. She’s staying for 12 days, which is only 2 days less than 2 weeks. Last time, she visited for one week, and by Day 5 I was thinking, “Good thing she’s leaving in two more days, or I’d probably throw out my back digging such a big hole in a lonely field.” That was with a nursing baby that let me escape to another room for close to an hour, six or so times a day, and it is too late to manufacture a new baby in time for this visit.

Actually, let’s not talk about it. Let’s not talk about it AT ALL here, not even in the comment section. Let’s talk about something else, and pretend the MIL situation is not even happening.

I decided what color to paint the new dining room. Cream. I had an epiphany about paint color: my reason for choosing cream paint time and time again is not that I am a Big Indecisive Wuss, as previously theorized. No: I keep choosing cream because I like cream walls. This was a huge shock.

When we first moved in to this house, we hired painters, and I assumed the reason I chose cream for the entire house was that it was too stressful to choose paint colors for a first house purchased mere weeks before the due date of my second child, and also that we hadn’t bought much furniture yet and were still working with handmedowns. Could I really choose robin’s egg blue walls for the living room when we were still using the burgundy/camel/navy-plaid loveseat from my parents? And I thought it was that I didn’t have “an eye” and couldn’t figure out what would look nice.

But no. None of those was the reason. I like the cream walls, and the only thing making me feel uneasy about them is that the style has been to choose “COLOR!” It’s always said in capitals, with an exclamation mark, as in, “Let’s add a punch of COLOR!” On those home decorating shows, when the homeowners are asked what they’d like to do to the house, they always say, “Well, I’m not sure—but I do know we want to add some COLOR!” And the decorator nods approvingly: Yes. Color.

Lucky for me, there’s also the increasingly popular “beige but with better names” (biscuit, cafe au lait) style now. I’ll call my walls “Latte Froth” and people will nod approvingly: Yes.

Okay, okay, so you are not tired of pay-it-forward updates yet. Contest-entering is way down (bloggers were emailing me saying, “Could you remind people again? because only, like, four people have entered even after you posted about it”) and so I thought maybe the blush was off the rose, if that’s the expression I want and I’m not at all sure that it is. Well, all right, never mind then, I’ll keep posting updates. I think I’ll start doing them once a week, on a weekend day maybe. Perhaps if they’re in a clump rather than scattered randomly, that will help?

Here are the promised before-and-after first-haircut photos of Henry:

Before

After

My friend May says it is time for updates on a few subjects.

Weaning: Done. We went gradually down to once a day and I wasn’t sure when that was going to stop, and then one day I woke up and felt Done With It, so I tried skipping it and Henry didn’t mind either, and so then we were done. That was about a month ago.

Hormones/emotions: I am a little berserk right now, I hope from the weaning and/or from the Pill I started this month, and not because this whole motherhood idea was a terrible mistake. I called the OB about switching to something else (other than the Pill, not other than motherhood), and the nurse said it often takes a few months to adjust to the hormones. Isn’t life just a CONSTANT MESS OF HORMONES when you’re female? There aren’t enough of them with pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, weaning, regular cycling, and menopause—no, we also add them for birth control.

Diet: Hee hee hee!

Whether I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo this year: I did NaNoWriMo two years ago when I was pregnant with Henry, and it turns out I dislike writing fiction, and also that I’m bad at it. Genuinely bad, not comically bad. But it was a great distraction from the queasiness at the time, and I recommend it as an absorbing activity for anyone who is trying to take their minds off something else.

Dining room: We got the flooring samples and we were like, “Hey, this is great! ANY of these would be good!” Then days went by, and uncertainty grew. Last night we spent some time looking online at projections of how various samples would look in fake houses, and we’re getting closer but also feeling even less certain.

How summer went with 5 at home: Sometimes it was total chaos, but I spun that to my advantage. For example, the younger kids lovvvvvve chaos, so if the two older boys were all giddy and crazy, I’d send them all to the playroom together. I’d shut the door and sink down into my computer chair. Ahhhhhhhh. Also, the big kids can be set to work. They’re like Roombas: they’re not very efficient, but they get the job done without me having to do the work.

I’d say the enthusiasm is dying down for pay-it-forward stuff, so if you still need to have a contest have it quick! I’m going to stop doing updates here pretty soon.

We need to do the results for Lorraine’s contest. Lorraine writes:

Ok, 18 comments…random number generator is 7 year old son…and the winner is lucky number 17! “A” in Arizona! Congratulations! I’ll send out the parcel as soon as I get the address info~!

“A” in Arizona—email me (swistle at gmail dot com) and I’ll forward your email address on to Lorraine.

Living and Learning is showing the giftie she got (from Australia!) and starting a new contest.

Walking on Sunshine is showing the giftie she got and starting a new contest.

Pickles & Dimes is showing the giftie she got.

I feel like I have so much to tell you! And yet, so much of it is kind of boring!

For example: I’ve started taking B-Complex, as an experiment. We’ll see if it improves mood/energy/metabolism. I’m guessing I should take it in the morning, instead of in the evening with the rest of my vitamins.

Also: Paul purchased and installed a new toilet seat. The old one was worn down to the wood in places from the potty-training seat we’ve had installed since 2001. It is so nice to have a brand-new shiny white seat. I think the screws need to be loosened, though, because when I put down the toilet seat the lid came slamming down with it.

And: I gave Henry his first haircut. (My left hand is curled oddly because I’m collecting hair for the baby book.)

We put TV on to distract him, can you tell? I think I cut his hair too short, but Paul likes it.

I also gave haircuts to all the other boys, including Paul. I don’t like to cut hair but I CAN, and it saved us $60 plus tip, not to mention the tremendous hassle of bringing everyone in carefully-planned shifts to the barber shop. I plan to siphon that $60 out of the budget without mentioning it to anyone, so let me know if you think of any good little luxury products to spend it on.

Now who is going to cut MY hair? It needs it badly. You know how some cuts grow out into a series of different styles, and other cuts grow out into something that looks like you haven’t had a haircut since high school? My last cut was the latter.

I bought some Tide with Febreze. It cost more than any laundry detergent I’ve ever bought, so all I can say is it better be GREAT. I’m still not happy with the way our laundry smells, even though Paul cleaned the drain pipe on the washer and said in a nauseated tone of voice that that DID appear to be the source of the problem. I suspect there’s lingering scent residue on the clothes.

And I bought a refill for the long-empty Glade Plug-in, because our house is really smelling like Cat, and that’s not a situation likely to change in, er, natural ways for a few more years. I know some of you are all ANTI-TOXINS and so forth, but it sure smells nicer now. Like toxin lavender instead of like toxin cat.

I found Elizabeth some dinosaur sheets. They’re really cute. I bought them at the same place where I didn’t buy the $300 dollhouse headboard, and at $11 they were an easier decision to make. I’ve looked at dinosaur sheets for her before, but they always look kind of….um, ugly. These sheets are nicer: an antiquey/vintage look, and the dinosaurs are more like pastel watercolor sketches. I wish I could find a photo online, because that doesn’t sound very pretty. Oh! I know! They’re like “classic Pooh” as opposed to “Disney Pooh.”

I tried Newman’s Ginger-Os, which are like Oreos made out of ginger snaps. Report: pretty good, but not causing cravings for more.

I replaced our old white-vinyl-coated shower caddy: the white vinyl had cracked and the metal underneath had rusted. It’s been like that for, um….several years. I love it so much. I feel like it single-handedly remodeled our bathroom. It’s just like this one, except brushed metal instead of shiny:

And Paul purchased and installed two new windowshades to replace the ones in the nursery we’ve been planning to replace for SEVEN YEARS. I hope it doesn’t lower us in your esteem to find out what terrible, terrible procrastinators we are. This isn’t some kind of isolated incident: we’re like this about EVERYTHING. For example, right now I have a rear windshield wiper replacement blade sitting in the car, and I feel like I am doing really well to have already bought it, even though the rear windshield wiper blade broke only last winter when I was scraping ice. I’ll get around to installing it, I WILL.

I tried running again last night. Nope, still hate it. The thing I hate most about it is the time it takes in addition to the running part: the changing clothes, the stretching, the cleaning up afterward. I can make myself give up 30 minutes of free time to exercise, but not the hour it actually takes. Too bad, body. You lose.

Do you like this “dollhouse” headboard?

I came VERY CLOSE to buying it for Elizabeth yesterday. It was $300 down from $1500. But $300 is still $300 even if it’s “down from,” and that price doesn’t include the frame (just the headboard itself), and it’s HUGE for her small room (it’s 5’4″ tall), and those cubbies would look cluttered unless they were carefully and decoratively arranged, and she probably wouldn’t want it anymore once she was in middle school, so…. Well, it was a hard decision.

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Pay-it-forward updates:

Emblita’s External Monologue is showing TWO gifties she got, and starting TWO new contests.

Amy Quarry is starting a new contest. She’s the one who did that awesome handbag for the Guess Swistle contests, the one we were all fighting over.

3Giraffes is starting another new contest—they’re in a loop!