Every time I make a peanut butter sandwich for my kids I marvel at how expensive PB is. We buy the natural kind that is just ground-up nuts with salt, and I’m sure I could do it myself if I had the right equipment.
Does anyone out there make their own peanut butter on a regular basis? How do you do it? Fancy nut mill? Cuisinart? Is it cheaper than buying it in the store?
Lots of questions, I know. But I have an inquiring mind — and I’m cheap. Help me out, please!!
Oh, aren’t they cute! I just love ants…
Wait… that’s the people at Disney.
Me, I HATE ANTS!
Now that’s what I’m talking about. This is a photo of a now-dead ant-object. It was on my counter with lots of its friends. After a 3-day seige, they have “vanished”. Hmmm.
My hero!!
Seriously, what happened to the Do Not Call list? When we first signed up we were treated to months and months of blissful silence. We don’t get many phone calls, and when the phone would ring I knew it would be someone I wanted to talk to. Or at least family!
But now EVERY DAY I get calls from mortgage A-holes. It is driving me to the point of insanity!
I’m considering answering the phone “Blow Me!”, but then of course that would be the one time my mom calls instead of emails me.
So what happened? Does anyone know? It drives me nuts! Today I answered the phone and heard the clicky-clicky of the autodialer. And like all the others before her, when she finally came on the line she acted like I called her.
She says “Hello?” like she can’t figure this out either. And I say “Hi! Are you a mortgage broker?” She says “Huh?” And I repeat the question.
I heard a gurgling sound, and then she hung up. I wouldn’t call this a victory, but it was mildly entertaining for me.
Unfortunately, I can’t say what I really want to say because Robbie & Mike — like all kids — are sponges. After I hung up today, I heard Robbie talking to Mike about “borgage garokers” and how they call on the phone all the time. It could have been so much worse!
———————
UPDATED to add that when I was looking up the URL to the registry to add to this post, I thought I’d plug in our home number to see if it was still on the list. IT WAS NOT! Good Gravy, that’s disturbing. We registered right when they first started the list, and I guess we got dropped off the list. (Geek humor alert: Mr. Plain said “Maybe they switched over to PeopleSoft”. If you found that humorous, I’m so sorry…)
MORAL OF THIS STORY: go to the Verify a Registration page to see if you’re still on the list!
I was looking at the two oldest the other day and lamenting that I’d have to take them for haircuts very soon. The woman who cuts their hair only works on Sundays, is a 25 minute drive away, and books up by Wednesday. So this all requires pre-planning and scheduling — and something ridiculous like $12 per boy. But she’s incredibly sweet and the boys never cry, so we’ve been doing going to her for a while.
I asked Robbie & Mike if they would let me cut their hair. The general consensus was “no” because at the “haircut store” they get a lollipop at the end. When offered a lollipop at home — unheard of! — they said “sure” and the matter was settled!
Well, I already cut Mr. Plain’s hair. He doesn’t have a ton of it, and likes it short, so there’s not really a lot of ways I can mess it up! But our clippers were getting pretty old and gross, so I ran out to get a new set. Thusly armed, I set out to butcher elegantly trim my children’s hair.
Robbie went first and did fine. He’s not a big complainer, and it was pretty easy. Next was Mike. He screams like I’m stabbing him when I wash his hair, and I think he has a really sensitive scalp. He also likes to complain ;)
He too did fine, but at the end there was a lot of fussing. I tried to remember how the fabulous lady at the haircut store manages situations like this, but frustrated mom won instead.
[photo removed]
After the dispensing of lollipops and brushing off of sticky hairs, all was good again. Next time, however, I’ll use some baby powder to get all the hair off their cute little backs. And I’ll try to be more like the “incredibly sweet” lady at the salon.
All in all a success, but hopefully better next time. I think that describes my parenting in general!
It took Mr. Plain and me almost 5 years to get pregnant with our first biological child. In that time we did it all — medically speaking, you have such dirty minds! — and here are some notes I made that I’ve been keeping in a file called ‘whatIknow’. Yes, highly creative name. If you’re having trouble getting and/or staying knocked up, here’s “what I know.”
First off, there are some tests that are simple to perform that amazingly some people never get. I’ve heard of people who get all the way to IVF without having done a simple semen analysis — yikes!
Tests for the woman: prolactin, FSH, thyroid, estradiol, & progesterone. Some of these are done on certain days of your cycle, so the scheduling can be kind of a pain.
Test for the supplier of swimmers: semen analysis. If it looks questionable, then go for a ‘strict’ analysis to get more details.
I don’t recommend sticking with a regular OB for very long. It was hard to think of myself as someone who needed help with fertility, but it was much more efficient to go right to the specialists. Going to a Reproductive Endocrinologist meant that I was getting someone who had been extensively trained in what we needed.
My final assvice to you is to advocate for yourself. What finally ended up working for us was MY idea to try. No doctor had ever suggested it, yet I got pregnant and stayed pregnant the first time. That’s Robbie. We did it again, same result, and that’s Chip. If I had never spoken up, we wouldn’t have these great knuckleheads today.
So speak up for yourself. Make yourself a total nuisance if you have to. Change doctors if you have to. My RE was pretty good, but I’d have left his office in a heartbeat if I found someone better. For me it just couldn’t be a personal thing. It was too important to worry about hurting the doctor’s feelings!
And then there are the folks who say “why don’t you just adopt?” Maybe they’re well-meaning, but I still say you should be able to kick them in the shins. (Note that we adopted our first, Mike, and maybe that will be another post. Although frankly, I don’t know as much about adoption as I do about infertility. By the time we got to adoption I was all researched-out!)
So that’s what I know. These tips are obviously nothing earth-shattering, but there are still people out there who don’t touch all these bases. Have better infertility tips than mine? Stick ‘em in the comments.
