Related to omphaloskepsis, the pondering of one's navel. (which I find annoying when my children are doing it, but do not find faint-inducing. :tongue_smilie:)

Yes! Exactly! The word thing is infrequent, and I probably wouldn't notice except a friend saw me do it an called me out on it.

Per the discussion with the author of Quiet..., I think it's because we've gone from a culture of character to a culture of personality, and now being socially awkward, or not attuned enough to keep up with inundation of social cues that no longer follow a standard protocol, is outside our cultural norm. Like standing with your back to the door in an elevator. :D

I think that is a perfectly normal thing to find skeevy.

Yup, me too! Now, I find that it's an impediment to finding things, since items can be easily hidden from me if they don't match the mental image. I also "see" sounds, like homophones as they come out of someone's mouth, or harmony/melody pattern overlays.

STOP SAYING IT! Any kind. You touch yours, touch mine, touch someone else's, I'm outa there. Seriously. I've dug people's random body parts out of strange places, cared for the mangled parts left. I will decompess your chest, try to stop your arterial bleed, change your diaper, clean you... You pull your belly ring out? I'll pass out cold. Oh, and I really, really don't like the feel of wet acrylic fabric. :ack2:

I was 18 the first time, divorced the ex at 21, married again at 29, still married at 41. Eta: And just so as not to be held up as an example of how young marriages don't work, I should note that Iarried the first one because we had an unplanned child together, because I didn't want to wonder if I'd done her a disservice by not trying to provide her with a two parent household. I had happily scraped him off before I discovered I was pregnant, only told him because people (my mother) insisted I should, and I never had any delusion we would be happily married or stay so for the long haul.

Kilt. I don't consider either to be inherently positive or negative. There are positive and negative aspects of either way. On a personal level, I don't really understand the desire to avoid confrontation, but that's only because of my particular personality; I'll confront someone/thing that needs confronting, but I don't seek out confrontation. I'm sure there are facets of my being others don't so much understand, either, because it's not part of their makeup.

Navel touching. Shudder.

I have a glass Kerplunk tea bottle (for loose tea) and absolutely love it. They also have single wall glass water bottles. I all honesty, though, most people I hang with go around with a quart mason jar for water, which leads me to... Those are fabulous!! I will be ordering some this morning. Or... Wait... I might be ordering these!

:iagree: "Prefolds" being the operative. The birdseye flats are too thin, but the prefolds are multi-layer. (We did cloth diaper. I used other, thicker prefolds for that)

That is the number 2 reason we homeschool... Probably not the way she thinks, though. :D

It DOES! That happens to me, sometimes, when I accidentally go to a very B-52s place with the eyeliner. :lol:

:lol: I just like to have eyes. We can hang out - all of us - in the minimalist green room. :D

I will offer up that it could be Burt's Bees tinted lip gloss. That's the color I smeared willy nilly and sideways around my mouth before running into the grocery store once. I thought it was regular lip balm. My 16yo did not mention I looked like I was off my medication and on the run. :glare:

Oh, honey. I'm so sorry. I wish we could all come and take turns giving you a hug.

:iagree:

:iagree: (and it's slated for the 90s here this weekend) Get the things that *must* be done done. Are we talking usable plumbing and electric needs to be done, or are we talking fixtures? Is the flooring ugly, or are you walking on joists? I would pick late entry to the market over the expense and upheaval of moving twice, though. And I would call every contractor in the book to see if anyone can do your stuff sooner. Busy season doesn't mean they don't have a project ending ahead of schedule and the next one not ready to begin.

No pessimism! No! (and stop looking at studies, you'll drive yourself mad) More baby dust for you! :grouphug:

Oops! Duplicate.

I'm :lol: at the Cool Whip. Last time I read someone wax on about the "wonders" of WIC, it was trying to figure out what to do with the growing stockpile of mandatory tuna and milk! I was thinking they'd come a long way in giving people the ability to make their own food selections (or "food", in the case of Cool Whip) from approved items. My mother ate frozen CW out of the tub and claimed it was just like ice cream, too. :ack2: and, last I checked, the label said "non-dairy", though that was probably 30 years ago while I was trying to employ logic in the argument that it was not like ice cream at all. Eta: the $100 pumps are single user. The $500 pumps are sealed and appropriate for multiple users with new tubing and such. I would guess some places had enough of a problem getting the loaners back (or back in time) that it was more cost effective to get the single user ones. Or maybe, they had so many breastfeeding mamas, they simply didn't have enough $ to supply everyone with a loaner at the same time, so they spread the $500 to five people (with pumps that can be used more than once, by them). :) It is legal to sell a pump, but you may have trouble getting new tubing and whatnot. Medela was very persnickety when I needed new tubing kits when my boys were born... They wanted us to give them the receipt details from when we bought it almost 4 years prior. As if!

Yes, you're right. I wasn't clear in my musings. In my experience, SC prices on most fresh foods is not appreciably different than my local grocery store and, other than meat, you can't really store those items long-term. (the stuff from their freezer - ie, processed food - seems to have a better price point over smaller grocery store packages, and long term storage ability) So, 2 hrs away doesn't seem all that great. I had a membership 20 years ago, and off and on until about 5 years ago. Last time it was time to re-up, we did a lot of comparison shopping for things we *actually* purchase (not lots of 5million coffee stirrers, for instance) and really didn't find a good reason to continue. Literally, the only thing my husband saw an advantage in was toilet paper (and then only because he works in the same town as the one 45 minutes from home)... Totally not reason enough to keep the membership, even with 5 of us, lol. The two hour drive is why we also don't have a Costco membership, and they have a much better selection of items we do actually purchase regularly. Sorry for the confusion and the judgy-sounding thoughts. I just abbreviated my long-form thoughts. Sometimes, brevity is not best. :D

I agree. If we ate a lot of processed food, it might be worth it - quasi-extreme couponing probably would have a better return in that case - but we don't. We buy in bulk at our localish butcher, and at a produce wholesaler (or farm stands, in season), get better prices than we did at SC, and don't have to pay a membership fee.

Congratulations!! You don't have to try to describe the complete jaw-drop of a response to the rest of us with surprise twins! I think my husband and I have just stopped that, and ours are almost 8! :lol:

Me, either! C'mon, Nance! We KNOW you're there... What, no live streaming from your phone?? :D More happy thoughts coming your way!