January 20, 2023 by suzanne day by day

Five for Friday

I rarely do “five for Friday” because usually I have too many words and thoughts burbling around in my head to limit it to five. But I’m having a hard time with posting lately, so I’m hoping the Five Things Only structure will be useful instead of restrictive.

My daughter’s new alarm clock has had some unintended consequences. First of all, it has proven to be both an excellent purchase and a terrible purchase. Terrible because it does not work in the way it is intended to work. Its purpose is to wake up my child; it does not do that. She sleeps right through the sunshine and the birdsong. (You can set it to wake you up with different sounds, and Carla chose birds chirping.) It is excellent, however, because it gently wakes ME up, even though I am in the other room. I greatly prefer it to the blaring of her old alarm clock. The bird noises are cheerful and pleasant, and when I go in to awaken Carla, the room is already light enough that I can easily navigate the inevitable dinosaurs or stack of drawings or tangle of yesterday’s clothing on the floor. My only complaint is that the birdsong is a short snippet that repeats on an endless loop. I do wish that the manufacturers had recorded a longer excerpt. Maybe that’s what you get when you buy one of the more expensive versions. The other thing is that now I feel like I hear birdsong at odd moments of the day. Has the alarm lodged itself inside my brain, only to go off each day in the late afternoon? Are there birds outside our window that sound identical to the alarm clock, perhaps hoping that by mimicking the sounds of the birds trapped inside the house we will release them? Am I experiencing avian auditory hallucinations? I swear that I hear birds chirping merrily on a three-second loop, but then when I go still and silent to try to pinpoint where it is, I can’t find the source.

Did you know that you can substitute wheat germ for flour? A friend taught me this wonderful secret a few months ago when she handed over her grandmother’s recipe for chocolate chip banana bread. Supposedly, wheat germ has a bunch of good things in it: thiamin, folate, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc. I think it also has a bit more protein than regular flour. What I really like about it is that it adds a different texture to baked goods. Over the long weekend, I made chocolate chip cookies and threw in some wheat germ (I think you can use 1/3 cup of wheat germ per cup of flour) and it gave the cookies a slightly nuttier flavor and a nubbly texture a bit like that of an oatmeal cookie. Yesterday, I made a second batch of banana muffins for Carla and I have been using wheat germ in those, too. I don’t know how much healthier a cookie or a muffin is, just because I’ve added wheat germ. But I like the phrase “wheat germ” and it gives me a very wholesome Laura Ingalls Wilder sort of feeling when I scoop it into the mixing bowl.

*I am sure it is the wheat germ that makes these so appealing and not all the sugar sprinkled on top.*

I have had to make too many phone calls lately. Several of these calls are for work. Part of what I do as a freelance writer is interview subject matter experts. Technically, I quite LOVE this part of my work, because there is nothing cooler than chatting with someone who is an expert about something, or passionate about a subject, or loves what they do. It is inspiring and exhilarating. But I get so worked up in advance of our phone calls, and I get all tongue-tied (at least at first) and sweaty, and afterward I am completely spent. I made FOUR PHONE CALLS IN ONE MORNING this week, and it was awful. I mean, I got to chat with awesome people, but I also had to leave a couple of voicemails (HATE. Even if I carefully prepare what I’m going to say ahead of time, I bumble over my words and take WAY too long to leave a message and yet inevitably forget some important piece of information. Like I had to leave a message about a prescription recently and forgot to leave my phone number. Voicemail is almost worse than having someone ANSWER the phone! Although worse even than leaving a message is the long Schrödingerian moment when the phone is ringing and you have no idea whether someone will pick up or not.) And now I have two more phone calls to make: one to the gutter cleaning service that was supposed to clean our gutters in December and one to my dentist. I have to reschedule a dental appointment. I have known I needed to reschedule the appointment since I made the appointment, and didn’t call at all last week, so I put a reminder on my phone to call the dentist this past Tuesday. Instead of just calling, I have found very real and pressing reasons NOT to call the dentist every day this week. It’s so dumb and it will take five minutes, but I hate appointment-scheduling phone calls. Again, there’s the anxiety of being on the phone. But then you add that to trying to look at your stupid calendar at the same time, and going back and forth about possible days and times, and then – as I did last time, hence the need to reschedule – idiotically making your appointment at a time when you were already committed to something else. UGH. It is all the worst. But I guess I should just GO MAKE THE PHONE CALL ALREADY.

*My husband surely has nothing better to do at work than respond to my complaints about making phone calls.*

I am doing a new thing where I (try to) soak my feet every morning. The recommendation comes from my acupuncturist, whom I am seeing for my plantar fasciitis. (Would anyone be interested in a Swistle-style report about my acupuncture experience? With the understanding that I realize I am not, nor will I ever be, Swistle.) She gave me a specific list of things to include in the foot soak: Epsom salt, rosemary oil, and eucalyptus oil. She specified that the water should not be boiling, but should be more than warm. While I do find it difficult to set aside twenty minutes every morning to soak my feet, it is quite luxurious. (“Go soak your head” is a dismissive expression of annoyance; “Go soak your feet” is a gentle suggestion for self-care.) It gives me a chance to listen to my audiobook and sip my tea and feel like I am following doctors’ orders rather than wasting time. After I’m done, I slather my feet in lotion (I think Nicole – HI NICOLE – recommended this specific lotion awhile ago and I love it.) and put on some warm socks. The whole thing is rather lovely. Except for the part where the water is too hot and I overcompensate and make it too cold and then I have to heat it again.

Do you know about LibraryThing? I am sure the website is full of excellent resources for book lovers, but I have used it specifically to help me identify a book I cannot remember. I guess I’ve only used it successfully one time, but I recently posted a new query. The first time, I was looking for a book I remembered reading in fourth grade. It was a mystery, and the only things I could remember about it were as follows: The protagonist was a middle-school aged girl. The story took place at a ski resort. There was a tertiary character named Eunice (I remember this specifically because I can hear my fourth grade teacher saying, “Usually, this name is pronounced ‘yoo-NEESE,’ but in this book it is pronounced ‘YOO-niss.’” and I thought at the time, how could she possibly know that? and to this day I wonder. Did she have an in with the author? This was in the eighties, so there were no podcasts. Mysterious.). (Still, to this day, I have never encountered a real-life person named Eunice. So I still have no idea how to pronounce it. For all I know, it could be Gaelic and sound like “Chelsea” or “Bruce.”) The protagonist couldn’t ski well, and the climax of the book saw her being tricked into going down a black diamond run in a snowstorm. That was all I could dredge up from the depths of my memory. And yet I could not get the book out of my head – for YEARS – and was desperate to know what it was. So I posted my question in the Name That Book group and someone figured it out!!!! The book is called Mystery at Snowshoe Mountain Lodge by Lisa Eisenberg and I keep dithering on whether I need to buy it and read it again. Anyway, it is so amazing to have the answer, finally, to a question that’s been nagging you for years! I am hopeful that my most recent question will find similar success, although my memory of the book series in question is even fuzzier. (A middle grade/young adult series from the 1980s or early 1990s about kids solving mysteries, but maybe there’s a werewolf? Maybe the word “shadows” in the title? It’s really bugging me, but my brain isn’t helping.)

*Extremely blurry image from LibraryThing.com*

Well, that’s the long and the short it, my dear Internet. I hope you are having a lovely Friday.

December 4, 2022 by suzanne day by day

Sunday Randomosity: Mainly About TV But Also a Little Christmassy with a Soupçon of Melancholy Edition

I seem to have a bit of a NaBloPoMo hangover, and I MISS EVERYONE.

It is early and I am awake, so here’s some Randomosity for you this Sunday morning:

I have yet to put up a single Christmas decoration.
However, Carla and I have begun reading Christmas stories. She rejected the Christmas countdown reading calendar, which makes me sad. Her reasoning was that she doesn’t like being “forced” to read things, which… girl. It’s a paper calendar. We can have the calendar and color it and ignore every single word on it and no one will know or care. But she hasn’t really figured out the line between Follow The Rules and Some Rules Can Be Bent yet, and I suppose for now it’s better that she leans to the left on this one.
I’ve collected a few books from the library but for now I am reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson to her. She seems to enjoy it so far – it is quite humorous. I had forgotten that there’s quite a long section about making fun of fat kids, which is so gross. I feigned a coughing attack while I quickly skimmed the text until I got to a less objectionable passage. “Wow, you should win a world record for that,” Carla remarked. I’m not sure she meant I should win a world record for the subterfuge or for the coughing attack, although I hope she meant the latter.
It’s not typical that I censor my kid’s books. Sometimes I read her things that were once, unbelievably, acceptable and use them as Instructive Moments. But sometimes I just want to read a book to my kid.
We’ve had a nicely Christmassy weekend so far. Yesterday, we delivered the letter she wrote to Santa; there’s a special mailbox in a nearby town and we go there every year. Sometimes, an elf will send her a letter in return which I think is so magical. Then we bought a gift for a friend and a couple of gifts for her cousin. Afterward, we came home and watched two Christmas movies, back to back.

The first movie was Spirited, starring Octavia Spencer and Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. I was not looking forward to it, I’ll be honest. First of all, it’s a new take on A Christmas Carol. Secondly, it’s a musical which is not usually my favorite genre. But it was so cute. I ended up loving it. It was a fresher version of the story than I’ve seen before, plus the songs were really cute and catchy. And there was a nice wholesome Christmassy message. Also: Octavia Spencer. She was a secondary character, which is a misuse of her considerable talent, but she kicked butt in the role and is just so adorable. It wasn’t quite appropriate for Carla, but it worked out okay.
After that, Carla watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and I played games on my phone and then made us all cheese and cracker plates for dinner. An ideal Saturday.
Once Carla went to bed, I watched Game Night. I think I read about this on a list of “Best Family Movies to Watch at Thanksgiving,” but then realized quickly that it wasn’t appropriate for a) children or b) watching with one’s parents. (This was an accurate assessment.) But as soon as I read about it, I needed to see it. How did I miss it when it came out in 2018? Jason Bateman! Kyle Chandler! Sharon Horgan! Chelsea Peretti! Jeffrey Wright! Other people! It’s about a game night gone horribly wrong and it was thoroughly entertaining. (My husband had no interest in watching it. His loss.) Kirsten Dunst’s husband (Jesse Plemons) was in it as well, playing a wonderfully creepy neighbor. It was not the best movie I’ve ever watched, but it was amusing and entertaining. There was a very uncomfortable scene with a gun, where the characters thought it was fake but it was real, and there was a scene where people seemed like they might vomit, and since those are things that I would want to know before I watch a movie I am sharing them with you now.
Maybe it’s clear that I’ve been trying to distract myself. I think I’m in the middle of losing one of my oldest and dearest friends. I’ve tried to write about it a few times, because it’s been at the forefront of my mind for a couple of months now. But it always comes out so maudlin. Plus, it makes it seem like I don’t realize that a) relationships of all sorts end for a variety of reasons, or b) both parties rarely get a say in the dissolution of a relationship. Plus plus, you only get my side, and of course I think that I should be forgiven, that my friend is misreading the situation or overreacting or not giving me the benefit of the doubt, that my friend is placing too much weight on third party interpretation of the inciting event, that I should be given another chance… which isn’t fair. (And doesn’t everyone feel that way, when they are the cause of a breach?) The thing is, I don’t think I can do anything about it. I’ve done what I can: I apologized, I tried to listen and improve, I’ve tried to show that I still value and want our friendship while trying not to put too much pressure on my friend to forgive and forget. I can’t do anything else. If my friend decides our relationship is unsalvageable, well. I can’t salvage it. I know all this, and yet it’s agonizing and deeply, horribly sad. So. Distraction.
What is everyone watching, TV-wise, these days? My husband and I are between shows. We just finished Dahmer, which was okay – I was appalled to learn how he targeted gay men and men of color, because that was one aspect of the horror he perpetrated that has somehow eluded me. I appreciated that the series tried to devote time to telling the stories of some of the victims, and found their stories very moving. Niecy Nash was amazing in her role. But it also felt like a) there was too much effort to make a serial killer seem sympathetic or blameless for his actions and b) the show was aware how exploitative it was and yet barreled ahead anyway. I am more than ready for something new.
We also recently started watching Station Eleven, after I loved the book so much. The first two episodes have me actively disliking the show, though. They are just too different from the book. I should have waited a bit longer before watching the show, I guess – until the plot isn’t quite so fresh in my mind. Right now, I keep getting very huffy and impatient and “that’s not what happened!” I am sure it is a joy to watch it with me. Everything I’ve heard about it is that the show is really good, though, so I want to give it a chance.
My husband sent me an article that made a compelling argument for watching 1899. It’s about a mysterious ship, people. Enough said. At least, that’s enough for me to want to watch it.
To deviate from TV talk, I bought myself a pair of leggings from Loft on Black Friday. They are SO soft and I love them. So much that I wore them two days in a row. But by the end of the second day, the inner thighs were all pilly and gross. So disappointing. I get that my thighs are generous, but a pair of pants should last more than two days, I think.
I have to go to a holiday party. It’s for my husband’s work, and I get that it’s important for his staff etcetera, but I don’t wanna. Aside from the fact that I don’t like people, I don’t really know any of his colleagues or staff. Plus, I don’t know what to wear. My husband thinks I can just wear any old thing, although my instinct is, of course, to shop my way out my anxiety. Probably what I will do is wear black dress pants and a black blouse or maybe a burgundy sweater I bought more than a year ago for the only other dressy public event I’ve attended since 2019.
But what I WANT to do, aside from exchanging my body and face for someone else’s, is to buy clothes that will transform me into a stylish woman who is at-ease around other humans. Something sparkly would be nice.

In other Things I Am Shopping For news, I am on the hunt for a pair of comfortable boots I can wear while walking in the snow. Note that I did not say “snow boots,” although I wouldn’t be opposed to snow boots. But maybe what I am looking for is a pair of hiking boots? I have a pair of snow boots, and they are warm and comfortable enough, but if I walk around in them for any amount of time they chafe at my heels. A friend and I have pledged to walk every Monday, and another friend and I have pledged to walk on a less regular basis but still outside. So I need good, quality footwear that won’t hurt my feet and will keep them warm and dry.
This is where I say quietly that my feet have been feeling a teeny bit better. I have been babying them for a long time, and then I went for a walk with Friend 2 from the previous paragraph and we ended up walking for nearly five miles. My feet were in agony when I got home, but I stretched them as I do daily, and the next day they felt better than they have in months. So I have made an effort to go for some long walks this week – once for about an hour outside and another time for 90 minutes on my treadmill. I’m not saying I’m cured or anything, but I am cautiously optimistic. Maybe what my feet have been telling me all along is to get off my rear and WALK already.
The other thing I have been doing is wearing shoes in the house. They are brand new shoes that have never seen the light of day, but it still feels very strange to wear shoes IN the house. My dad (who noted matter-of-factly that the only real solution for plantar fasciitis is time, and that no single solution works for everyone) (I was already gloomily getting that sense from everyone’s comments) recommended that I start wearing them. Also, NGS mentioned that she never goes barefoot. I really LIKE going barefoot, but I also like walking around without pain so…
We have been enjoying our Christmas countdown calendars. My husband got the three of us a No Exit calendar, because we like the mystery games. We have to solve little puzzles every day to figure out which door to open up next. Carla got a Jurassic World calendar, and each day she gets a new little figurine. She has two dinosaurs so far and a little person; she isn’t awake yet so I don’t know what she’ll get today.
It’s rare that I’m awake before Carla on a weekend. She can sleep straight through her alarm during the week, but on the weekend when we have nothing to do, she’ll wake up at 6:00 or 7:00 sharp when some internal mechanism reminds her that she can watch TV. But I have been having trouble sleeping lately; I keep waking up too early and not being able to fall back to sleep. Sometimes I just go through phases, but this morning I blame the wind and sadness.
Carla and I are trying to come up with some fun things to do over winter break. So far I have “make zimtsterne and sufganiyot.” I also want to make cranberry crumble bars. Carla and I have tossed around the idea of making chocolates, which was my tradition with my dad when I was a kid and has been something I’ve done inconsistently with Carla. But… there should be other items on the agenda besides baking, probably? What kinds of fun plans do you have for the winter holidays? Are there any traditions you like to do each year?

*These photos are all from prior years, to remind me of how delicious these items are.*

My mother-in-law arrives this afternoon. The house is clean, but could use a quick tidy. We are going out to dinner tonight, so I don’t have to worry about making anything. But I should probably go give Carla’s bathroom a quick once-over and set out the guest towels so it feels fresh. Then perhaps I will address holiday cards and listen to Christmas music.

Well, that’s all I have for you on this blustery first Sunday in December. How is your weekend going so far?

November 14, 2022 by suzanne day by day

Monday Randomosity: Updates and Mediocre Photography Edition

We had our first snowfall of the season over the weekend! It started with some big, fat, gently falling snowflakes on Saturday and then by Sunday it was wet, heavy, drenching snow. While I miss the beauty of the fall — especially the gorgeous yellow tree in my backyard neighbor’s yard that leans over our hedges into our yard — the trees had long since lost their leaves anyway, so I am pretty pleased with this introduction to winter.

Since I am not doing Dinners This Week, this week (I did a double last week), I thought I would post some updates about random things.

The State of the Ceiling: The plaster expert is gone – after four days in my house instead of the originally-stated two – for good. (I am a little concerned for him, because he told me a lengthy story about how one of his other clients is sexually harassing him. It was a story that I listened to with a Very Serious face, and at the end, I told him, “I am so sorry you are being harassed.” at which point it became clear that he was telling the story in the hopes that I would think it was funny? “I guess I know what it’s like to be a woman now! Har har!” he said, and I nodded very seriously and said, “That must be an eye-opening perspective, although what an awful way to attain it.” He went back to work.) Despite his tendency to talk too much, and about subjects that made me slightly uncomfortable, he did a wonderful job on the ceiling. Here’s a little before and after for you. I’m sorry it isn’t more exciting.

*Perhaps I could have made more of an effort to take these photos from the same angle.*

Vaccines: My husband and Carla are now both boosted! (They each already got their flu shots several weeks ago.) Despite all plans to the contrary, I forgot Carla’s vaccine card at home. SIGH. What IS it with me doing that??? Her doctor gave me a little sticker to put on her card at home, so it worked out okay and I remain the only one ~~in the universe~~ in our family who has three vaccine cards. Carla had a very mild fever and some arm pain after her vaccine. My husband felt pretty crummy the day after his; the same thing I went through, with the skin sensitivity and the aching and the general yuckiness. No fever though. And now we are all boosted! (As are my parents, who are visiting us VERY SOON!!!! Hooray!)
The State of My Feet: I continue to struggle with plantar fasciitis. I got a third injection a few months ago that, like the other injections, did nothing. I continue to dabble with things that are supposed to help: wearing my brace, icing my feet, doing stretches, rolling a ball beneath my feet, trying to pick up a washcloth in the shower with my toes (they are incapable of doing this). I have purchased foot insoles and special socks. I bought a new pair of shoes. I have even tried just Powering Through, and walking even though my feet ache. Nothing is helping. No wonder; what I have trouble with is trying a variety of things that a variety of people have suggested, and doing it inconsistently and haphazardly. What I need is A Real Plan. I can follow A Plan! But I need a medical professional to tell me The Plan so I can initiate it. However, I don’t think I can go back to the podiatrist. He seems… overly invested in the injections. The person who referred me to him claims he is a miracle worker, and that he worked with her extensively to fix her own plantar fasciitis, but he hasn’t been quite as attentive to me. He just says, “Let’s try another shot.” I want him – or some other foot expert – to say, “This is what you do. Do these specific exercises in this order, daily for 15 minutes. Wear this brace every day for two hours. Buy this specific pair of shoes and wear this specific insert.” Not, “Oh, well, let’s check back in two weeks and maybe you need another injection.” Speaking of needles: a (different) friend who formerly had plantar fasciitis said that acupuncture had cured her, so I have an appointment with her acupuncturist later this month. My husband is being very supportive. I told him I am excited to try it, and he said he is excited for me. I said, “Do you think it will work?” and he said, “No.” Sigh. We’ll see.
Treadmill Desk: My husband bought me a treadmill desk for my birthday waaaaay back in February and I loved it. But then my plantar fasciitis kept getting worse and worse, and I stopped using it. I have every intention of getting back into the habit. Maybe when my feet are in less constant agony. (There will come a time when they are in less constant agony, yes?)

The State of My Skin: I read every single comment with great interest. So many great ideas, so much comforting commiseration. My best guess is that, as many readers suggested, the skin thing is a result of age and/or hormones. Which means I probably just need to tough it out. I have definitely had Skin Stuff before, usually precipitated by trying a new skincare product. But it didn’t seem to linger quite as lengthily as this most recent issue. Anyway, the action I took was to put all my faith in NGS’s comment. She said, “I have terrible eczema and I use Neutrogena wipes to clean my skin every night and don’t worry about the environmental cost because any time I’ve changed it, my skin has gone insane.” So I went back to my old, environmentally detrimental cleansing process. My skin has responded quite well. It is no longer unbearably itchy, and the only remaining problem area is a rough rectangular patch of redness between my eyebrows. This does not mean I am going to give up on trying to find a skincare routine that doesn’t involve disposable wipes. I am going to try again – looking to your comments for ideas. But for now, this has been helping to alleviate my misery.
Calcium: I still worry about Carla’s calcium intake, and the variety of foods she eats in general. Especially in this busy season of our lives, the majority of her diet seems to be chicken nuggets, peas, and rice, interspersed with tacos and the occasional filet of salmon. I know this isn’t the worst combination of foods, and she is still growing and thriving, but… I would like to expand her diet to include other things. She ate a bowl of snow for breakfast yesterday, but that’s not what I mean by “other things.” One of the issues, it seems, is that Carla doesn’t have a great grasp on which foods include which nutrients. Like… she’ll indicate that she thinks white rice has protein in it, or that eggs contain calcium. I’ve tried correcting her in the moment and talking to her more generally about which foods fit into which nutrient group (and I wrote some lists on our whiteboard of which foods, in which nutrient categories, would be good for breakfast), but it’s not sticking. It might be useful to find some book resources, but I’m having a hard time finding anything that doesn’t seem too young. I’ve ordered Are You What You Eat? from our library, and I might order Good Enough to Eat by Lizzy Rockwell from Amazon. We’ll see if they are useful.

*Why is it that I can never take a photo with the proper proportions so that it looks straight?!?!?!*

Are there any topics I’ve raised in the past that you are burning for me to revisit? (LOL.) If there’s something I brought up awhile ago and you’re curious about the resolution, let me know in the comments or on my Ask Me Anything form and I will post about it.

It seems as though I am doing NaBloPoMo this month, which is 30 blog posts in 30 days. (Will I make it??? Only time will tell.) Details at San’s blog here.