There's a Brownie Recipe at the End

Um, hi. CRABBY MUCH? I told you I was hormonal. I mean, what in the blue blazes do I care about how other people mange their blogging hobbies? Do I give two shakes of a lamb's tail? NO I DO NOT.

Seriously! How does it affect me if people choose to focus on promotion rather than on creating something worth promoting? NOT AT ALL, that's how! Do I even notice who's doing it and who's not? No! Did I even know those promotional sites existed before LAST NIGHT? No! So what is in MY bonnet? How come I'm STILL making crabby remarks? I mean, look at that sentence about "promotion rather than creating something worth promoting." BIT-CHY.

And would I want someone else flouncing in telling ME how to handle MY blog hobby? Certainly not! Some people think ads are stupid, and what do I have over there?---->
A big old ad, that's what! Do I want someone saying, "Ads are stupid! What are you, a writer or a BILLBOARD? What are you doing, blogging or SHILLING FOR CAPITALISTS?" No! So what business do I have flouncing around saying that the promotion websites---which, as I say, I spent all of five minutes learning about---are stupid? None, that's what! NONE!

Furthermore, did I even take a few minutes to make sure I was making my alleged "point" clear? No! It was near bedtime, so I just dashed it off and went away in a snit. NICE. So now it's like I'm flinging dirt around at everyone who has ever hoped---utterly naturally---to attract more readers to their blog, and has taken perfectly ordinary steps to do so! NICE. And who was it who just finished saying that when you vent, you have to make sure the shrapnel will not hit innocent bystanders? THAT'S RIGHT.

Sigh. So here is what I am: sorry if you got hit by annoying little bits of my vent shrapnel. Because I didn't mean you. And I can say that with 100% certainty and 0% lying, because I had literally NONE OF YOU in mind, nor have I ever noticed your blog-promoting activities with narrowed eyes, nor do I care what blog-promoting activities you participate in. You know who I had in mind? An imaginary person, possibly based on my pyramid-scheme-participating high-school boyfriend: someone grasping at anything that looks like fame or fortune, no matter how stupid and useless. Someone who doesn't understand that attention for the sake of attention is meaningless and stupid. Yes, that sounds just like him. Well, or like Paris Hilton. And they don't sound anything like you, now do they? And so I should have been a little more careful before I started yelling at them, now shouldn't I?

So let's kiss and make up! I've got fudge AND brownies! The brownies turned out really awesome, too:

Kiss and Make Up Brownies
3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) butter
5 squares (5 ounces) unsweetened baking chocolate
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F, and butter a 9x13 pan. Melt butter and baking chocolate in a large saucepan. When melted, remove saucepan from heat and use saucepan as a mixing bowl. Add sugar, then add eggs and vanilla. Then add flour and salt. Then add pecans. Do not eat all the batter; instead, put it into buttered pan and then onward into the oven. Bake for 28 minutes. Remove from oven. Let cool (HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA---just a little joke there! Do not burn tongue on pecans.).

I Don't Know What You're Talking About [Edited with Clarification]

I have had three---THREE!---emails this week from readers, asking me what I think of sites such as Techsquirrelrati and Skirtaroo and TripOver and Del.i.cacy and Dugg.

Here is what I think: I think I don't know what you're talking about. Are they...for promotion of your blog? That's what it looks like, when I go to them and try to figure out what they're for. They seem to exist solely for promotion and tit-for-tat trading of promotion.

And so here is what I think: I think it depends why you're blogging. Are you blogging as a hobby, or are you blogging as your latest get-rich-quick scheme? Are you a writer, or are you "promoting your brand"? Are you a blogger or a networker? Are you enjoying the act of writing, or are you trading virtual business cards and doing virtual lunch sometime? I'm not saying you can't be/do both, but if you're spending most of your time scrabbling for FAME! and RECOGNITION! and you're trading in comments as if they're currency*, and promoting things that don't deserve to be promoted in the hopes that someone will do the same for you----then it looks like those sites are exactly what you need to do that.

[*Clarification: I don't mean regular commenting, which is when you read a post by a blogger you like, and you feel like leaving a comment so you do. I mean like when bloggers act as if people OWE THEM comments, or MUST comment, or are in any way obligated to comment. Or when people act as if comments are currency: I commented on your blog, so now you have to comment on my blog, and if you DON'T, I'll stop commenting on YOURS. This ends up with people reading blogs they DON'T EVEN ENJOY, just so that they'll get comments in return from people who don't enjoy THEIR blogs. Dumb!]

Um, not that I have an opinion on this. Or that I think there's a right and wrong here, or that you should do what I do just because I say so. Um, clearly. Especially considering I spent all of five minutes on researching what these sites are about. For all I know, they're actually about using blogging to save starving children.

MOMMY NEEDS SOME PEACE AND QUIET

This has been the kind of day where I am just one tiny step away from squeezing upper arms. It seemed like every time I turned my back to help one child, the other two children got into mischief.

Edward cried loudly, like he'd been stabbed, and so I went rushing to help him---only to find that he had dropped his crayon (as well as, it seems, knocking over a large pile of books and paperwork) and couldn't reach it. While I got Edward's crayon, Henry tipped over the cat water. He was lying in the middle of this puddle. Cat water grosses me out, so I gave Henry a bath. He splashed me a lot, and he cried when I took him out because he wanted to stay in.

While I was giving Henry a bath, Elizabeth stomped in the cat water puddle. Edward stepped on my notebook and did the twist, so that it got all mangled. I cleaned up the cat water puddle, and Henry continued to cry angrily in his restraints high chair. Then he started sucking on his fingers, and he gagged himself and cried some more. Meanwhile, Edward colored on a permission slip I needed to fill out and get back to the school. And Elizabeth kept talking! talking! talking! talking! to me, until I asked her to please go play, and she stood there with her lip out, sulking. Like this, but a month later and in the kitchen (the photo is from April and the hallway):


When she felt better, she started telling herself the story, "Mommy say, 'Be why-it!' Because we being too yowd. And den I tomp in the cat water. And make big mess!"

I started making sandwiches. The twins started clamoring for taste! taste! taste! and jostling each other on the stepstool. Henry was still fussing. I thought he'd stop when I gave him his sandwich, but he didn't. He ate, but he kept up with the fussing as well. He is a multi-tasker; this challenge is no problem for him. Steam...pressure...rising!

But now, finally, it is naptime---although I hear Henry talking to himself and that's a bad sign, and Elizabeth WILL NOT STOP TALKING TO ME. Oh, I'm sure (*makes sarcastic flappy-mouth gesture with hand*): later when I'm begging her to talk to her old mother I'll be wishing I'd spent more time listening to her precious voice. But right now, OMG! Mommy's ears are FULL! Mommy would like to have THIRTY SECONDS in which she is not tending to some sort of situation that is messy and/or loud! Mommy would like to stop referring to herself as "Mommy" because that is weird and annoying!

Anyway. Here we go into the long weekend. And am I looking forward to it, as if it will be a time of rest and relaxation and fun, rather than a time that will make me long for my usual weekday routine? You betcha!

Solution to the Plastic Baby Bottle Problem

I haven't been completely oblivious to the whole polycarbonate BPA plastic baby bottle controversy, but I haven't been losing sleep over it, either. My mother, however, is a think-outside-the-box problem-solver, and she was ON IT.

Okay, prepare for genius: if you were using Avent bottles (the bottles have bisphenol-A but the nipples are silicone and apparently still fine to use), you can use a glass SMUCKERS JAM OR JELLY JAR as a baby bottle. I know, right??


It's the 10-ounce and 12-ounce glass jars that work, NOT the 18-ounce jars. Take out the jam (or KICK it out!), remove the label, wash the jar, put baby formula in the jar, and put the Avent nipple/collar on the top! (My mom says that when you screw on the top, it'll kind of stop and then you need to give it another little turn---almost like you're locking it on.) OMG, glass baby bottle! Safe! Except for possible shards of glass if you drop it! But CHEMICALLY safe!

Now, my mother would like you to know that this was NOT tested on animals. No, we use only real human babies for our experiments. My mother obtained access to a baby who was accustomed to Avent baby bottles, and we arranged to secretly replace the baby's usual bottle with Folger's crystals my mother's glass-jam-jar system instead. The baby was suspicious, but unable to tell the difference.


For ounce markings, pour a measured amount of water into the jar and use a permanent marker to mark the outside of the jar at the water line. We haven't done any dishwasher testing, but in hand-washing experiments the marker was only just starting to wear off after two days' constant use (we had only one jam jar at the time). For those of you who do not enjoy math: 2 tablespoons is 1 ounce, 1/4 cup is 2 ounces, 1/2 cup is 4 ounces, 1 cup is 8 ounces. You could also fill a plastic baby bottle to each ounce marking, pour that water into the glass bottle, and mark it that way.

The jam sells for, like, $2 per jar, so this is economical, too! Dishwasher safe! BPA-free! Pure, all-natural, organically-grown glass! Reduces worrying by 95%!

Now, what are you going to do with all that JAM? Empty it into plastic containers, probably. Also, the Smucker's site has recipes! Jam meatloaf with jammed potatoes tonight, dear!

Weaning

You guys, I hope I am not going to be too much of a DOWNER around here over the next few weeks. I'm starting to wean Henry, and I have learned from experience that this is a hormone shift to be faced with teeth clenched and elbows out. I KNOW that it is temporary, and I KNOW that it has happened before and I have come out on the other side, but BEEZUS the mood swings! Even taking the process slowly just means the mood swings last longer.

Yesterday evening I was sitting with Elizabeth while she fell asleep (sleep issues with her AGAIN), and I started thinking about how I was in the prime of life, and about how it won't be long before my little mirror-time frettings about whether my skin is or is not getting saggier, and whether that wrinkle is or is not deeper than before, are going to be totally MOOT as the skin basically starts melting off my face in folds.

And then I was thinking about how one day my CHILDREN would be showing signs of aging, and this is when I started thinking, "Hey. Self. Remember how this happens when you're weaning? Maybe you should STFU and go self-medicate with some bakedy stuff or something." But I was stuck there in a darkening room, quiet and cool and not a baking pan in sight.

So my mind continued. My mind informed me that one day Paul and I would be dead. I was a little sad, of course, but it's not like I hadn't realized that. It's one of the reasons I like having a big family: my kids will have each other. So my mind told me something I hadn't realized, which is that one day my children would start to lose their siblings. And the immediate mental image I got of this future situation is what told me I'd better stock up on baking cocoa and mint chocolate chips.

This is totally par for the course for me: when I'm weaning, I tune into the "Your Children Will One Day Get Old and Die" channel. This is not a subject there is any point thinking about. There is no sense at all in sitting around thinking heavy thoughts such as "In 100 years ALL of us will be dead," is there? IS THERE?

No. Because that is the way things go. It is only because I'm in a "good for the preservation of the species but bad for my psyche" mothering mode as well as under the influence of the weaning hormone cocktail, that I am plagued with such thoughts now. I am not mourning, am I, that my great-grandfather grew old and died? No, I am not. Am I mourning it for the species in general? No. Only for my dear babies, and OF COURSE I would not want to think of it in their case. The word "duh" comes to mind.

I have already been to the kitchen while writing this, to mix up some peanut butter and powdered sugar and oats in a bowl and eat them. It is a fortifying mixture: the fast boost of sugar and fat; the lingering comfort of protein and fiber.

Pay it Forward Contest Winner!

There were 138 comments on the Pay it Forward Contest. I used a random number generator, and the random number generator chose ME! No kidding. It chose my answer to someone's question about whether they could still enter if they didn't have a blog (answer: yes).

So I spoke sternly to the random number generator and asked it politely to see if it could perhaps choose a VALID ENTRY this time, and it chose Melessa! Congrats, Melessa! Email me (swistle at gmail dot com) with your address and I'll get a package on its way to you!

Pay it Forward Contest

It seems almost too SOON for a contest, doesn't it? We JUST HAD contests. We are still a little WRUNG OUT from contests. Nevertheless, we are having another contest! Because I won Jess Loolu's pay-it-forward contest, and now it is my turn to send a package!

First, let's take a look at the awesome package Jess Loolu sent me:


That is a polka-dotted terry sundress for Elizabeth and a set of extremely cool gift-tags (I'll use one on the package!). Both items from, as Jess puts it in the pretty card, "your boyfriend Target."

It will not be easy to measure up to the glory that was that package; I love BOTH items SO MUCH. But I will try! And as I mentioned in the post about my date with Paul, I have one item, an item PAUL-APPROVED for cuteness. It is this tube-shaped pencil tin:



I think you can see it larger if you click on it. Inside the tin are a dozen colored pencils with those same little pictures on the sides---and the pencils are rounded-triangular, so they don't roll away. ALSO, the cap has a lion's face on it! Oh, it is so cute! Do you see in the photo how my hand is sort of CLUTCHING the tube, like I am unwilling to let it go? THAT IS NO ILLUSION.

And that is just the START of the package I am assembling! Who knows what else I will put in there? WHO KNOWS?

So now let's talk about the rules, and how this thing goes. If you want to win the contest, you will leave a comment in this post's comment section before Tuesday, May 20th, noon, United States Pacific Time. You don't have to say anything in particular. You can say "hi!" You can say, "I like squirrels." You can say, "Roses are red / Violets are blue / I want to win this contest / So let me." It does not matter what you say---and there is no sense either kissing up or working the pity angle, because I'll use a random number generator to pick someone, and the random number generator's mathematical heart is unswayed by kissing-up and pity. UNSWAYED!

And! If you win! You must pay it forward! In this context, that means you must assemble a package and mail it to someone else.

Now go comment if you want to be entered. If you need help deciding what to say, why don't you tell me if your face is dry, oily, or combination?