i want to be

I'm dipping into your fantastic questions for today's post. Shelly Overlook wanted to know about early dreams of what I wanted to be when I grew up.



In honor of one of my oldest friends Stacie who is going to be in town this weekend, I will tell you a few of weird things that we used to do.

First, Stacie and I would design houses. (I wanted to be an architect or interior designer.) We had our own pads of graph paper, and would take turns sketching a geometric shape (house outline) for the other one. The stranger the shape, the better. Then, we'd draw the rooms inside the shape, thus designing a house. We would do this for HOURS, with all the details of furniture and appliances and everything. It was awesome.

Second, Stacie and I would play school. (I wanted to be a teacher.) We'd set up chairs in the dining room and then force The Little Brother to be our student. My favorite parts were telling him to do homework and then writing notes at the tops of his pages and having snack time.

Third, Stacie and I wrote stories. (I wanted to write.) We did MAGAZINE STORIES, which we would do by cutting pictures out of magazines and trying to tell a story using the pictures. We also worked on continuing stories about (shocker) a couple of middle school girls who lived a fantastic life of huge houses (with FLOOR PLANS, naturally) and lots of friends. They went to a lot of dances and had names with VERY elaborate spellings.


What did you want to be when you grew up? Do you do anything now that is even remotely close?

C-O-N...spiracy

The heater? WE ARE NOT A FAN.

Chip is a very suspicious fellow. It may not be the first thing you'd think about when meeting him for the first time (boy that guy is SUSPICIOUS), but if you give him enough time, you'll hear some of his theories. To his credit, he has taught me a TON about never taking no for an answer, always asking questions, and never ever leaving a stone unturned especially when it comes to MONEY. The guy has some kind of crazy gift for ferreting out an overblown price and we have GREATLY benefited from his suspicious nature.

That being said, I will now share some of Chip's suspicions with THE WORLD.


detergent.
The detergent companies design their bottles to KEEP some detergent in them. So even if they say they have 100 ounces in them, you only EVER get, like, 95 ounces out of the bottle. That way you think you're getting more soap, but you are still compelled to go out and buy a new bottle sooner.


baby wipes.
We are currently in the midst of a pack of Huggies diaper wipes we bought from Costco. Every four wipes (or so), you get an extra long wipe... a double wipe, if you will. My version: I guess the perforation machine wasn't working so well that day. Chip's version: CONSPIRACY. WE'RE USING DOUBLE THE WIPES! THEY JUST WANT US TO BUY MORE WIPES!


car dealership credit score.
Chip tells me that the car dealerships use a "different" credit score than other channels. By "different" he means "tricky and underhanded and intending to swindle the consumer out of thousands of dollars". He's probably right, but I get scared when I think too much about all the underhanded swindlers trying to take my money.


furnaces, forced air, and anything related to heating your indoor space.
I know very little about heating systems and thermostats except how to set them to provide a decently comfortable environment. My husband, however, has taken the Conspiracy of Heating Systems to a new level of crazy. To wit: we'll be sitting at home and the heat goes on. Chip stands to put his hand to the vent and turns to me and says, THERE IS COLD AIR COMING OUT OF HERE. COLD AIR. THE FURNACE HATES US. I can't explain it, of course. I have a feeling (or I hope this is true) that the air just feeeeeeels cold even though it's running at exactly the temperature it should be, but it doesn't matter. According to my husband, the furnace is part of an elaborate conspiracy to cheat us out of heating integrity. Or something. HOWEVER, to his credit, I have recently begun to RETHINK my lack of faith in the whole Heating Conspiracy to Take Our Very Will to Live, and that's because we are staying at a hotel whose entire heating and cooling system is POSSESSED. I spent the first night waking every hour, either turning the heater WAY UP because the thermostat had decided that "68 degrees" should equate to SUB-FREEZING; or waking to turn the heater OFF and also OPEN THE WINDOW because the thermostat had decided to take 72 degrees way on up there to HOT AS THE DESERT FLOOR; OR waking to close the window and turn the stupid heater back on (trying for 70 degrees) because very tiny icicles were forming on my eyelashes. It was not a restful night. The heater? HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATES US.


mortgage paperwork and all the extra charges.
When we were closing on our house, I will never forget sitting at the escrow company's conference table (nervously eating jelly beans) and signing page after page after page. At each page we'd get this little explanation from the escrow agent and inevitably there would be some kind of fee - like, "This is the Page Stapling Charge which will cost you $50" and "This is the Door Locking and Unlocking Charge which will cost you $200" and so on and so forth. We all know where this is going, right? CONSPIRACY. Chip is of the opinion that we need to start a business to just sort of leap in to the Mortgage Piggyback Charges Mafia. I'll let you know how it goes.


chip's newest conspiracy.
You know that Hershey's Kisses commercial where the Kisses are all happily being created in the snappy singy factory? And the chocolate is swirled out of a machine and then flown in happy dancing arcs over the twitchy twirly machines and then wrapped in blissful sparkling aluminum--- only to then be sent in an ecstatic cheerful toss down a CHUTE OF JOY and into the awaiting mouth of a shiny happy girl child? Yeah, so Chip says (every time, with every viewing of this commercial): "You know it doesn't really happen that way. It just doesn't."


I am very happy to report, out of all the terrible evil conspiracies designed to TEAR MONEY AND HOPE OUT OF OUR VERY TIGHTLY CLOSED FISTS--- one thing is NOT a conspiracy. And I have PROOF. PHOTOGRAPHIC PROOF. It's this:


Publisher's Clearinghouse. It turns out they actually DO give away money. Really! Because I saw them in our hotel's parking lot on Tuesday (we're in picturesque south central Washington this week with Chip - Yakima, to be exact). I watched as these two Publisher's Clearinghouse people worked furiously to adhere a million PUBLISHER'S CLEARINGHOUSE decals to a maroon minivan, including a GINORMOUS one to the side. My PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE-SUPPORTED THEORY: they were getting ready to give away a huge cardboard check! To some unsuspecting person who bought a Publisher's Clearinghouse subscription! And Chip? His theory when I told him the story? Are you sure they were going to give away money? I bet they were going to go door to door selling subscriptions (subscriptions that, no doubt, had NO CHANCE OF WINNING A MILLION DOLLARS).


What are your conspiracy theories?

several little known facts

It is one of my deepest and most fervent fanciful wishes to have a Smile Time Angel Puppet for my very own. Not Vampire Smile Time Angel, but Regular Smile Time Angel. I suspect that very few of you even know what a S.T.A.P is (though dear Shelly Overlook is a VERY likely person to know exactly what I'm talking about)--- but I'm not going to explain any more than that. Google, Wiki, whatever if you wish, but just know that I covet this particular Weird Object. I'm curious what your Fanciful Covet Object is. You know you have one. It is something for which you have a great desire, but absolutely no use for.



Chip has, on several occasions, attempted to obtain a Smile Time Angel Puppet for me. Because he is AWESOME and also knows me far better than I know myself. On each occasion, his attempts have been thwarted, whether it's because the seller sold it too quickly or it was the aforementioned Vampire version or it was eleventy trillion dollars and even a Fanciful Covet Object has a price limit.



I have an unholy number of books. There are several boxes of them, in fact, stored in our garage. Books that I can't seem to let go. I dream of having a house with a plentiful supply of bookshelves. When Chip asks me my dream square footage (I have a dream square footage number, don't you?), I quickly answer 2,200. It seems like the right number in which to hold several bookshelves. But, seeing as how we don't currently reside in my Dream Square Footage (and it's just fine, really), I have to be wily in my Book Storage Ways. So. We have three decently sized bookshelves. One in Bean's room. It holds my favorite fiction books. Once upon a time it was alphabetized but now I have them organized in there by size and Level of Prettiness. The Prettiest hardbound books are at the top, with the Less Pretty paperback books behind them (it's a really deep shelf). The bottom shelf of the bookcase holds several of Bean's board books and picture books. The second bookshelf lives in the master bedroom. It holds all of my poetry books and plays. Yes, I have an entire section of poetry books and drama. There is also a special shelf for Books In Current Rotation because I am clearly INSANE and am always reading several books at once. I used to keep the Books In Current Rotation on my wee bitty nightstand, but really that was impossible since the nightstand's surface area is smaller than the smallest of books. They ended up sort of living underneath and around the nightstand which was stupid. A bookcase was in order! So! Poetry books and plays toward the top (top two shelves), Books in Current Rotation on shelf number three, then shelves four and five are for Books I Can't Let Out of My Eyesight (books I love, books I look at A LOT even if they are not currently in rotation, books that I consider to be Very Close Friends and need them beside me). I know: INSANE. Anyway! The third bookshelf lives downstairs in the den. It holds instruction books (think gardening and old text books and a psychology book that Chip MUST keep because I think he wants to stay up late at night and diagnose my particular brand of Book Insanity). It also keeps our inspirational books and religious books together. Oh! And dictionaries! There are several dictionaries and thesauri (I have ALWAYS wanted to write a needful sentence with the word 'thesauri' in it and now I have... I feel AWESOME about that. And now so do you. Because you know all about my book storage system.



Speaking of books, I just finished reading Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry. I absolutely LOVED Time Traveler's Wife and had high hopes for Her Fearful Symmetry. I'm not naive enough to expect a second book to be the same, exactly, but I do usually hope that we can expect a similar tone. And I didn't get that with this book. Where Time Traveler's Wife is extremely intimate, a very up-close-and-personal glimpse into characters that I have come to absolutely adore, Her Fearful Symmetry is a distant passing glance into several characters that I have a really difficult time relating to in any way. I'm curious if any of you read it and what you think. I just started my annual read of Lord of the Rings. I'm really late in starting - usually I start on or around September 22nd, since that's Bilbo and Frodo's birthday and it always seems right to start the book in the Fall. However, in September I was reading the latest installment of My Guilty Pleasure Series of Books (not to be discussed now, but at some future date, I promise, because it merits an entire post for itself). So. September I was reading mumblemumble and then I picked up Her Fearful Symmetry and just finished it a few days ago. Lord of the Rings is currently on the rotation (along with some non-fiction books). I'm keeping the Rotation shelf pretty much empty right now because there is a lot going on and not a lot of time for reading.


You know what there has been a lot of time for (or at least I'm making time for it)? Baking. And since Swistle asked, I will tell you some of my Baking Opinions. I will offer this disclaimer: I don't pride myself on being terribly vocal about any of my opinions, particularly when they are in the family of Controversial Opinions. And I think that food is one of those kinds of topics. So, um, there's that. I'm going to tell you what I do and what I think about what I do - but I sort of don't want to hear it if you don't agree... I guess you'll tell me anyway if you feel that strongly about it, but I wanted to put this out there anyway, just in case. KISSES! I do use Cricso, on occasion. And I know that some people feel VERY STRONGLY about Crisco. (See disclaimer and special request if you feel passionate about The Crisco.) Mostly I use it for my mom's chocolate chip cookies. They turn out better with the white stuff and that's just how it is. (They are seriously yummy.) However, since the whole Peanut Allergy Extravaganza, I haven't been doing much of anything with chocolate, which eliminates the cooking of mom's chocolate chip cookies. Primarily because only a very few (and VERY EXPENSIVE) chocolate chips are made in factories that don't also process our friend, the sneaky peanut. Not that I really let Alice EAT chocolate anyway, which I don't. I'm going to do some experimenting with other brands of chocolate (I used to use Nestle), but haven't yet decided to dip into our SAVINGS ACCOUNT to do so. In other cooking-related things, I'm only opinionated if it affects Bean's health--- so she only consumes organic milk (I worry about the hormone levels in non-organic milk), and mostly organic veggies if they don't cost the budget of a small country. As for baking pans and such, I use what works. Silpat mats for my baking sheets (LOVE), nut cups for my cupcakes (ALSO LOVE - and they're adorably cute), and parchment paper to line bread pands when I'm baking quickbreads (banana, pumpkin, etc.). I don't have many of the silicone baking contraptions because I haven't wanted to shell out the money for them, though I am always tempted by the rainbow selection of colors and shapes.


On children's names, there are a few that we're holding onto for possible future offspring, but there are some I can tell you that we didn't use with Alice and we most likely won't use in the future. Alice was thisclose to being named Brooklyn. We also didn't name her Violet or Grace or Audrey (Chip was in strong opposition). I absolutely opposed Allison and Megan. The boy name arena is a little trickier because we do plan to have at least one more kid, so we're holding some boy names very close to the chest. A few that I know will never be considered because Chip wasn't keen: Quinn, Angus, Gilbert.


I do put sugar on grapefruit halves. When I was little, the sugar was the only reason I even attempted to eat grapefruit. It was one of the only times my parents would let me just POUR sugar on something.


Though I own several pairs of glasses (like 5), I only ever wear one. Because the other pairs are the wrong prescription. I desperately NEED to get a new pair of glasses. I don't wear contacts because my eyeballs won't fit into them (astigmatism).


I vote scented soap and detergent, all the way. I tend to lean toward the fruity end of the Scent Spectrum. I'm crazy about scents, though I've had to seriously scale it back due to Bean's sensitive skin (I have to double-rinse ALL of our laundry or else she breaks out). On a side note, can I just say that I could swim in a POOL filled with Dreft and be perfectly content? As far as I'm concerned, Dreft smells like heaven.


So I guess that gets us started on the Wheel O Reader Questions. You guys rock. Thanks for playing. Hope I didn't bore you. More on the way.

bucking the trend

With so many others posting on their blog every day for NaBloPoMo, it seems only fair that I should try to balance the scales. By not posting.

Please carry on.

Come back tomorrow when I'm more well rested.

And we can talk about your questions.

fantastic friday, the random edition

If I find something that works, no matter how UNfancy, I go with it. Our Whimsy Family pasta sauce is a great example of this philosophy. It is as UNfancy as UNfance can get. A jar of pasta sauce, a couple of special additions thanks to ingenious Chip, serve over pasta of choice. ENJOY.



Eating leftover pasta (let's call it day-old pasta, shall we?) is one of the finer pleasures in life. At least I think so. I don't know what it is: the pasta soaking in the sauce overnight in the refrigerator--- it becomes something sublime. My favorite way to enjoy Day Old Pasta is in a cereal bowl, heated in the microwave for 2 minutes. Two slices of buttered bread on the side. Commence eating by spooning bits of the pasta onto the bread and eat. DELICIOUS. DELECTABLE. AMBROSIA. Words that do not understate my enjoyment.



I am usually Alice's Designated Food Service Person. (If you're feeling UNfancy -like UNfancy food-, you might just say that I'm usually the one to feed Alice. Whatever.) Anyway. "Feeding Alice her dinner" is misleading. It's mostly about handing bits of things to Alice and waiting for her to eat them (or not). Then there's the bits that she decides she no longer wants cluttering her work surface (read: tray). She'll gather the bits in her fist and then wave down the Designated Feeder (read: me) to retrieve the bits and whisk them away. It can be a full service gig, though I usually try to multi-task. She knows when I'm not paying particular attention and does everything she can to remedy that by talking to me or asking me for things or by repeatedly throwing pea-size bites of food at my head. You know, whatever works. My favorite thing she does is ask for more. I love expression of need, the way she points to the palm of her hand and says MO, MO, MO. I love that she usually can tell me what she wants MO of, her pointing at the toast or the last green bean or a chicken nugget. It almost makes up for the sheer exhaustion from the 47 trips to the kitchen and back.



Last night I was enjoying Whimsy's Day Old Pasta and also performing my duties as Dinner Waitstaff to Bean. It was not a good mix of duties. The pasta needed my focused adoration, as did Bean. I tried to split my time: a stir of the pasta, a deep breath of its tomatoey goodness, scoop onto buttered bread, bite, smile and swallow--- cough, cough as Alice demands more green beans, stand up, push back chair, take steps to refrigerator, grab more beans to convey back to the Bean, sit and repeat. After a few rounds I decided to just gobble down the pasta, ignore the bliss, just eat the food so I could focus on getting Bean to eat some yogurt. I was not happy about it, but I did it anyway. I might have done some grumbling as I scooped yogurt to her waiting mouth. As she took a bite, she gathered up the crumbs on her tray and handed them to me, "ALL DEN" she smiled, waiting for me to take the crumbs from her hand. I couldn't believe it. Here I RUSHED to finish my dinner and she's DONE? NOW? Maybe she saw the look on my face, the fact that I wasn't so very happy about the turn of events, but she waited until I was leaning in close enough to grab the crumbs from her hand--- I asked her, "You're really all done?" And she tilted her head, smiled, and then sort of whispered in this excited secret voice "APPLE!"
"You want an apple?" I couldn't help but smile.
"APPLE!" she answered.
I got her some apple.
She ate two bites.
It was still awesome.



You guys, I'm feeling very... simultaneously empty and full. I don't know where to go with it. And I know that there have been a million stops and starts at The Creamery in the last few months. So at the risk of sounding very full of myself, I wanted to open the floor for questions. Any question. You ask, I'll answer. Want to know what happened on Halloween itself and if we ever went trick or treating (hardly interesting---- the answer is NO, and WE ATE CHILI AND WATCHED A MOVIE, but see you'd do so much better with the questions than I would. So that's it. Ask me anything, I'll post on Monday with some answers. Go!