Three things I like:
1. The BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad at Wendy’s. I would NEVER have tried this salad on my own. The new Asian Cashew Chicken Salad appealed to me so I tried that one, but both the BBQ-sauce-and-salad combination and the BBQ-sauce-and-ranch combination sounded icky to me. But my mother’s friend made HER try it, and then my mother made ME try it, and now I daydream about the next time I might drive past a Wendy’s at a legitimate mealtime. The Asian Cashew one is good TOO, but I don’t know how many times in a row I’ll have to eat the BBQ Ranch one before I get tired of it and want a change.
(photo from Amazon.com)
This is too early to declare a liking of something, because I’m only 150 pages into the first book of a nine-book series. I’d accidentally chosen the NINTH book from the New Books section, not realizing it was part of a series; I commented to Paul that I really liked this book but felt like I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Derp. So I stopped reading that one and checked out the FIRST book instead, and now I am much happier. I hope I DO like it, because it would be so happy to have eight more books ahead of me!
3. Forest Friends Book of Stickers, bought after seeing the bookplates in a post by Definitely RA.
(photo from Amazon.com)
I bought these impulsively while drinking wine. FIVE DOLLARS for STICKERS!! But I love them. I bought them a month ago and I still have the book on my desk so I can leaf through the pages. I haven’t used a single sticker yet. The fox sticker is a candidate for tattooing on my arm. Maybe with the rabbit. And the raccoon. And the bee.
Six things I don’t like:
1. The occasional mysterious mildew smell in the [top-loading] washing machine. I have looked online about this, and I have tried various things, and still there will sometimes SUDDENLY be a load of wash that smells SUPER-MILDEWY despite not sitting there very long. I am resigned to it, yet also resentful.
2. Monday dinner. It takes me by surprise every week and I never know what to make. On Mondays you can find me irritably trying to cram together a box of past-date instant scalloped potatoes, a packet of Ramen soup, and a package of ground turkey. You’d think I’d learn, but no. I think what I need to do is come up with something I make EVERY Monday. Though perhaps this would just push the problem onto Tuesdays.
3. Signing the kids up for summer activities. I always do it wrong, and what’s especially exasperating is that I always THINK I’m doing it RIGHT. I get out my calendar, I carefully mark everything so there’s no overlap. It’s a tremendous pain in the butt. And then there we are on the first day of summer vacation, with me saying, “…Wait. How did I set it up so that we had to be two different places, both at 9:00? And then one of you needs to be picked up at 10:00, but that’s when I’ll be at a third location with a third child?”
4. MAGAZINE AVAILABILITY. I am quoted in the June issue of Pregnancy & Newborn, so naturally I would like to buy multiple copies and leave them casually open to the correct page. Can I do so? CAN I HELL. I first looked at Target, because that’s where I bought copies last time. Nothing! I looked in two more Targets. Nothing! I looked at Barnes & Noble. Nothing! On the way home I stopped at a large baby-supply superstore. Nothing! I went to my local independent book store. Nothing—with a side of attitude (“We don’t have room for magazines. Sorry”—in a tone that DID NOT SOUND AT ALL SORRY.) Tomorrow I am going to try WALMART, I guess. Also, I took a copy from the waiting room of the mammogram place, so I’m not DESPERATE, just FRUSTRATED. (You can read the article online if you want: click this link and you’ll see a copy of the cover of the magazine; click “Find the perfect name for your babe” on the cover and it’ll take you right to it.)
5. There is a BIRD outside my WINDOW that is driving me CRAZY. Actually, TWO birds. One of them has a strident single chirp: “CHIRP!!……………. CHIRP!!………………… CHIRP!!” He alternates this with a weird scrapey/growl sound in the back of his throat. The other one, Paul says it sounds like a dog begging for a treat: little short whining sounds, very high pitched. “Somebody give that puppy a BISCUIT,” says Paul.
6. I need to go through every single post on my old Blogger blogs and take out the photos and transfer them to this blog. The pictures from all those old posts LOOK like they’re here, but the transferring process means the photos are still hosted THERE—so if I delete the Blogger posts, the photos disappear here as well. And I have to delete the old posts because there’s this new search engine thing that means sites with duplicate content get skipped; those old posts, because they also appear on this new blog, are duplicate content. This is going to be a long and tedious task, and as with the mildew smell I am feeling resigned but resentful.
I love the Tales of the City series and I hope you do too! I think they are probably my ideal light/summer/vacation read: funny, compelling, and well-written. Plus it’s kind of like time travel and makes me wish I could visit 1970s and 80s San Francisco in person :)
Hmm, this is the first I’ve heard of the search engine thing. Does it skip both sites with the duplicate content? Or just the new one? That’s SUPER annoying. If you (or I for mine!) make the old blog hidden/password protected would that solve the problem while preserving the photos?
Oh, and also, my pediatrician’s office gets DOZENS of copies of pregnancy & newborn and even has a sign up saying “take one!” Maybe try a pediatrician near you? I’ll be at mine on Thursday for the baby’s two-month checkup so let me know if you’d like me to grab some.
ANOTHER good idea! The twins go for their check-ups this month, so I can get some then!
That’s a great idea! There was a setting for making the blog invisible to search engines, so I chose that! We’ll see if that fixes it!
I had the mildew odd smell randomly (I have a sensitive nose…my husband could never smell it) and I found it was the detergent. Specifically using too much of it in the front load HE machine. If I use even slightly too much, boom! It was a lot of trial and error until I found the exact right amount and for a while I used the extra rinse on almost every cycle until all the clothes stopped smelling. I’m certain you’ve probably found that through your searches but I thought I would mention it anyway, just in case!
If it is a front-loader, it can be the door gasket. I wipe it out once a month and use that Tide front-loader cleaner (you pour it in and run an empty washer load).
I once left a load of wash too long and now, seriously OVER A YEAR later, the things that were in it still smell kind of funky when they’re damp. Of course, that load included towels and gym clothes – things that never get damp AT ALL.
So my idea is, maybe one bad-load-left-too-long wound up distributed across your more recent loads and the ones that smell off contain an article or two of the old bad load?
I feel the same way about the Grilled Southwest Chicken Salad at McDonald’s. It makes it possible to take my son there whenever he wants because I have a fairly low calorie thing to order. Also, I HATE the crow that lives outside our house. That extremely loud “CAW, CAW, CAW” at sunrise (5:00 am) makes me crazy!
Oh, the Tales of the City series is one of my favourite series of books ever! I do hope you like them, I found them utterly addictive and have read them all at least 3 times each. And, like a previous commenter, it totally makes me want to visit 1970s San Francisco (even 2014 SF, to be honest, but that’s not likely to happen any time soon unfortunately)…
You’re famous!!! Great article.
I remember watching Tales of the City and Laura Linney was in it. Mini series maybe? Anyway, I loved it, but never got around to the books.
Oh man, oh man, oh man! The Tales of the City series was airing on PBS when I was recovering from back surgery, my senior year of high school. Oh, how I loved it (and had to hide watching it from my mom-naked bottoms, sex, etc. that she would NOT have approved of). I loved the first few episodes so much, that my friend and I made a trek out to a Tower Books to buy the first book. Oh, I just devoured it! There are some corny, crazy “WHAT??” storylines, but it is just so much fun.
And yes, I totally wanted to time travel back to 1970’s San Francisco. I like to imagine my life would have been a lot like Mary Ann’s!
I have your Monday dinner solution: breakfast for dinner. Every Monday I do this. It eases me back into the dinner-week, and everyone loves breakfast for dinner.
I even use your baked oatmeal recipe on occasion. Tonight is cranberry pumpkin muffins and scrambled eggs. Ah, breakfast!
My mom puts a cup of white vinegar in every wash load to combat the mildew smell, and also leaves the lid open anytime it’s not being used. Not sure if you have already tried these tactics but thought I would mention.
I work at an indie bookstore and we stock hundreds of magazine titles, so you are not crazy for thinking they should have some. Sorry you had a bad experience there! It’s so disheartening to me when people have bad times in bookstores.
Summer activity planning has been the bane of my existence for six years and since Youngest just starts K in the Fall it appears it’s going to be the bane for years to come. Because we both work FT outside the home we have to figure out, pay for, and coordinate 11 weeks of summer.
We have a spreadsheet. We plan ahead. I check it multiple times before signing Oldest up for camps and YET every Summer I manage to sign Oldest up for his one week of sleepover camp the same week we have some incredibly important family event or sign him up for the one camp that doesn’t have after care or I try to coordinate with another parent and end up signing him up for the wrong week of the shared camp. Honestly, every April when I begin this process I feel like taking up drinking in large quantities on the regular because I know something is going to get screwed up. BAH
Oh! Those books are on my to-read list! I’m glad to know you like them. Maybe. Or at least that it’s looking good so far.
I have been in a constant battle with my washing machine for years. The mildew smell was terrible no matter what I did until I changed from liquid to powdered detergent. Using powdered detergent eliminated the problem with mold growing in the front gasket, for some reason. Also, we start getting the smell right away if I use Tide, even in powder form, so we use Gain or Arm & Hammer, and like the other person said, the amount of soap is so important. Also also it smells sometimes (just a little) even now when the weather is warm, so I run a load of only bleach through it almost every time I’m going to have a laundry day. I do keep the door all the way open when I’m not using the machine, so that’s not the problem. I don’t understand WHY this is such an issue. I don’t remember my parents’ machine ever smelling that way, or being such a delicate little flower. Grrr.
Holy moly, Swistle. I just had this problem with my top loading washing machine. I was going crazy, because I feel bad because sometimes I do start a load of laundry and forget or not want to go back out to the garage to move the washer stuff but it started to smell even when I didn’t! I took out the, um, middle piece that is like a cup? It had a lot of old detergent in it and I washed that out and then I took a metric assload of Lysol wipes and cleaned the crap out of that machine and it’s been better. I found a lot of gunk up under the rim of the, um agitator? And the lid of the washer. I just scrubbed it like a crazy person.
That was a great article!
The leading through stickers and not using them made me smile because i am 99% sure one of my random crap bins has the “I didn’t cry” sticker from when I broke my arm in third grade. I used to admire it regularly. Now I buy cute stickers for CDPs and whatnot and lose them before I can use them. Fail. And the double blog thing sounds like a royal PITA, hope your fix works!
Cheesecake Factory has THE BEST BBQ ranch chicken salad.
I can’t believe Barnes and Noble didn’t have the magazine you wanted! I always just assumed they had every magazine known to man. If you have Safeway stores in your area, they usually have a whole aisle of magazines. Or Walgreens. Or there might be a way to order single issues of magazines online somehow, but I’m not sure if you can do that without buying a full subscription. Or maybe (and this might be a little weird but it’s worth a shot), are you or anyone you know going to the airport soon? Airports are usually one of the best places to find magazines!
I INHALED the Tales of the City series when I was supposed to be studying for comps in grad school. I will admit that most of what I know about San Francisco (where I am moving in FIVE DAYS) comes from those books. Should be interesting.
I second the vinegar in the machine thing. I have used it in every load, not only does it eliminate summer armpit smells from clothes, softens them, it prevents that super mildew smell from coming especially since we are potty training right now.
I read your blog first thing when I get to work and this post made me so amicable to whatever stupidness is going to come my way (famous last words).
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the Forest Friends book plates (http://www.amazon.com/Forest-Friends-Bookplate-Book-Labels/dp/0735336296/)! I tear off a set of 10 for baby gifts, and they are cute and whimsical enough for babies and not gender-specific. A onesie + baby books + book plates is my new favorite combination.
I have the same problem with Friday suppers and have recently decided that EVERY Friday is going to be BLT and fruit salad. Though I also like the breakfast-for-supper thought Emily mentions, maybe I’ll alternate those (I could probably do that for months before the family would catch on to what I’m up to).
There are washing machine cleaner tabs called Affresh. I find that they work super!