twain on nablo...or something

I just read the following.

Nobody, except he has tried it, knows what it is to be an [newspaper] editor. It is easy to scribble local rubbish, with the facts all before you; it is easy to clip selections from other papers; it is easy to string out a correspondence from any locality; but it is unspeakable hardship to write editorials. Subjects are the trouble -- the dreary lack of them, I mean. Every day it is drag, drag, drag -- think, and worry and suffer -- all the world is a dull blank, and yet the editorial columns must be filled. Only give the editor a subject, and his work is done -- it is no trouble to write it up; but fancy how you would feel if you had to pump your brains dry every day in the week, fifty-two weeks in the year. It makes one low spirited simply to think of it. The matter that each editor of a daily paper in America writes in the course of a year would fill from four to eight bulky volumes like this book! Fancy what a library an editor's work would make, after twenty or thirty year's service. Yet people often marvel that Dickens, Scott, Bulwer, Dumas, etc., have been able to produce so many books. If these authors have wrought as voluminously as newspaper editors do, the result would be something to marvel at, indeed. How editors can continue this tremendous labor, this exhausting consumption of brain fibre (for their work is creative, and not a mere mechanical laying-up of facts, like reporting), day after day and year after year, is incomprehensible.

-- from Roughing It

musical monday: 'too low to get under'

"Michael Jackson-Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"

This was the first song we listened to on our record player. Pic's both a record player fan and a Michael Jackson fan.

butterscotch brownies

everything's ready to go

Last month, we went on a bit of a butterscotch brownie kick. I wanted to make Catherine Newman's recipe, but I was making the brownies for others and I'm never sure if other people will enjoy fruit and/or nuts in their sweets. Also, I had been really wanting to use the butterscotch chips in the freezer. So, I nixed the cherries and pecans and threw in the chips, which eventually sunk to the bottom and formed a kind of base layer. Cardo totally dug them, although they were a bit too sweet for me to eat more than a few bites at a time. Next time, I'd like to do butterscotch chips in one pan and the cherries and nuts in another pan. I also have some cinnamon chips I might try. What else sounds good?

giant brownies!

musical monday: maybe i'll learn to sew

"Dolly Parton - Hard Candy Christmas 1982"

Watching this video, Pic remarked, "Whoa, they have a large family! A really large family!"

declutter eleven and twelve and...

Yes, I'm still decluttering and it's been over a week! I thought I would have given up by now. I'm just hoping that it lasts the full thirty days (and beyond?). The bags went to Goodwill la questa mattina (this morning). Also, we gave away the stroller and the learning-toilet-thingie to a friend this morning. I forgot to take pictures beforehand, so here're images I found on Google Images. (The stroller, we bought used. It didn't have the fun fabric the one pictured here does, but it worked just fine.)




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Two quick notes on our reading around here:

We just finished reading In Defense of Food. Somewhere near the end (I'm going to have to loosely paraphrase here, we've returned the book to the library), Pollan urges his readers to go to the farmer's markets. He says something about there being no processed foods there. I think he's talking about the idyllic farmer's markets I imagine when I think of what they might be like other places. Here, though? I always immediately think of the Sparks Hometowne Farmer's Market, which we've finally given up on. As for the no-processed-foods thing? I just have two words: rubber pretzels. Okay, okay, a few more words. Every time we've been, we've marvelled at the amounts of unhealthy foods (and at the non-food products) you can buy as you choose your produce.

Finally: last night, Cardo worked late. Pic waited up for him so he could read her a book, but she finally gave in to sleep before he was home. At five o'clock this morning, she called out for him and asked, 'Did you forget to read me a book?' so they sat together, read a book and then both went back to sleep. I love her priorities.

october

Welcome to November, aka National Blog Posting Month, or for the more ambitious, National Novel Writing Month!

Okay, now that the welcome is out of the way, I'd like to look back on October.

What would have been a month of mainly me, on my own, beginning a new programme, securing lodging and child-schooling, ended up being very different. It ended up being a month of semi-hibernation, of sorts, and quiet adventures. I wrote about some yesterday (it doesn't take much to constitute an adventure for La Famiglia B).

Very early in the month, we had a chance encounter with a friend I haven't recently seen and who I haven't heard much from lately (yes, just what everyone else is thinking about me, I know and I apologize). Because of that encounter -- and my own hiding out -- I've been doing a lot of thinking about friendship, but I'll save that rambling for later. Let me just suffice it to say that I have amazing friends. Truly amazing. I thank you all for your patience with me while I attempt to figure things out for myself.

A bit later in the month, we took a short family trip to our western neighbor. The first part of the trip was business-related, but, after that, we made it over to Monterey. We usually go to the aquarium (of course), but we passed on it this time. We had a great (and much-less-expensive) time, nonetheless. (I still am hoping that we will be able to go to the aquarium next time though.)



Recently, we've gone to visit our capital, taking in the Halloween sights as we do every year, playing at a pumpkin patch we happened upon last year and returned to this year.



We also took that Virginia City trip, but I apparently took zero pictures, although I wore the camera so attractively attached to my hip the whole time.

Pic and I made her costume, following a great many of the instructions, ignoring others. We went trick-or-treating for the second year in a row with Coach J and her family. I can't describe how happy I am to see Pic and Destructor together. I love watching Pic grow, but it's been such a treat to also watch Destructor grow and to watch their friendship grow. I feel lucky to have the Coach J family in our lives.



There has been so much more, of course. We've caught up a bit with my godparents. We've made a new family friend who we immediately loved. There has been reading, learning, walking, growing. I've been trying to learn who I am and shape myself into who I want to be. I've been so lucky to be able to watch Pic grow into herself more and more each day.

There have definitely been some rocky times, but overall, I've been soaking up this autumn. It is, after all, my favorite season and I certainly don't want to waste it.

nablo

Okay, so the NaBloPoMo theme for the month is 'beautiful' and, suddenly, I'm thinking that I may take it on again. I know, I know, and I probably won't anyhow, but I really like the theme and the focus on something so positive. I like the thought of seeking out beauty every day for a month, especially to offset some of the gloom. Also, I'm great at finding what I consider to be beautiful in almost everything and everyone, excepting myself (and I'm working on that).

Anyone else taking this on, or are you thinking about waiting until November (or wondering about how much time I must have to be able to post every day)?

routine

July's NaBloPoMo (ugh, I know, can I drone on for thirty-one more days?) is Routine. I'm still actually trying to decide if I want to officially sign up for this month, though.

Here's the general stuff I did today:

-- Slept through one alarm and ignored the other. Finally dragged myself out of bed.
-- Went to HoB and got scones for Pic and me.
-- Went to work.
-- Baja Fresh for lunch. (Note to self: Actually eat at home tomorrow.)
-- Home again, home again jiggety-jig. Watched one Berenstain Bears story (on a DVD with six stories total) and then took a too long nap in our sweltering living room.
-- Went to the Blue Park (as we refer to it) with Pic and Cardo. Pic played in the river. Went for 90-minute walk with Pic and Cardo. (Pic pretty much rides along in the stroller for our long walks. She gets all her exercise at the park(s). I'm really not sure how much I should expect a four-year-old to walk, but that long seems excessive. Perhaps I'm wrong?)
-- Went to Winco.
-- Read Richard Scarry's Best Little Word Book Ever! to Pic.
-- Ate dinner.
-- Watched Lidia cook something disgusting (I'm picky) on Lidia's Italy. (It wasn't as bad as the time we watched her bread and fry something that I'm pretty sure was panna cotta.)
-- Here I am.

The end. I know, my life is exciting. I probably won't always stick to the theme if I do decide to really join in this month. Keep that in mind while you're thinking of things to be thankful for this November.

not-so-glorious food

I have eaten like a total out-of-control person today. I started out okay with tuna, olive oil, oregano, Italian seasoning and plenty of chopped spinach served on wheat crackers (I'm not a traditional-breakfast-foods person). However, after that, the rest of my eating was shot. I've had two kaiser rolls, two turkey meatballs, some baked steak fries (technically, then, not 'fries' but, I suppose, baked potato wedges), a cookie and some ice cream throughout the day. My body is ready to kick me (herself?). Yeah, vegetables and fruits? Apparently not much of a priority for me today. Sometimes I get like this...I'll eat something crappy and then just eat crappily for the rest of the day. Ugh.

This makes me think, of course, of things like my horribly negative body image. (Self-fulfilling prophecy, anyone?) Every time I think about things like this, I wonder how to not pass this set of neuroses on to Pic. How can I not? Even if I insist that every body is beautiful, just about every other source of information about bodies is telling us othewise. We went to the store tonight and there were these Barbie fairy things that were like freaking twigs [I can't find a picture of these, sorry]. Then, of course, we passed the Barbies and by the time we reached the end of the aisle, we had reached the Bratz dolls. Um, and Disney princesses -- I almost forgot them. Then, there are the images of popular women splashed across the covers of all of the magazines, including some women who used to be more average-sized but who have become emaciated over the years (except their thinness is due to something other than lack of access to nutritional foods and plenty of access to ravaging disease). All that and my very own negative body image. It's not like she'll never pick up on that, right? Don't kids sense things that we think we are hiding oh-so-well? She's picked up on funkiness in our supposed-to-be marital bliss before when she was just a wee(er) lass.

Anyhow, this brings me to two other observations, both media related.

One is Gilmore Girls. I love Gilmore Girls, but I've always hated that these women (mother and daughter, sixteen years apart) eat worse than anyone else ever (except, perhaps, Michael Phelps) and they shun exercise, yet they are both incredibly thin women. What is up with that?

The other: The Women. I watched the 1939 version, which I thought was okay. Then, against the reviews of others, I watched the newer version (because I clearly like wasting my time). At one point, Mary's (Meg Ryan's character) ten-year-old daughter refuses to eat something because it'll cost too many points. As in Weight Watchers points. She declares herself fat. She's a thin little wisp of a girl. While she's told she's not fat (if I recall correctly), no one ever deals with this. This movie was such a disappointment for so many reasons, this being just a small one. (Like, what was up with the [SPOILER ALERT] baby at the end of the movie being a boy and then being passed from hand to hand across a backdrop of a wall painted sky-blue with clouds? Weird savior images abound.) Anyhow, don't watch it. Spare yourself.

Okay, well, so much more can be said about this, but I need to finish reading an article (forthcoming chapter?) on Michel Montaigne's anti-ethnocentrism (which I promptly looked up) and then read Twelfth Night and then read The Tempest and then read part of Stephen Greenblatt's Marvelous Possessions and then read.... (I really want to read Harry Potter again). Please send me some positive vibes (yes, I did just use that phrase) that I make it out of this semester alive...definitely not OD'd on ice cream. Thanks.

sing, sing a song

I came across this while I was browsing around NPR's site. (And, when I type 'came across,' I mean it is listed as Song of the Day.)

It's 'Land, Land, Land,' by Apollo Run.

the stuff of dreams

Is it the end of January yet? No. [sigh]

Here's what I've been dreaming about and desiring lately:

Ice Cream Ireland




from here



from here

These next two, I got from...I know not where. I can't remember. Sorry.




...and, well, Twelfth Night. Yeah, I really need to get going.

dream a little dream

Yesterday, I was pretty much dead-tired all day long. I roused myself long enough to take Pic to the library and then to the grocery store (where I forgot to buy sour cream), and then it was home again, home again jiggedy-jog. Upon returning home, both Pic and I immediately reverted to pajama-clad status. We ate lunch and shortly thereafter, I tried to get Pic to get some rest. I needed to (re)finish King Lear and she really needed sleep after having gone to sleep somewhere after eleven the night before. The child resisted the sleep. Finally, I told her to come lay down with me, in hopes that all of the warmth generated by my body, a covert cat's body and the two tattered comforters on my bed would lull her to sleep. Didn't happen. She did, however warm up my freezing nose by resting her face on mine and breathing directly onto said nose. At the same time, she rested her icy feet on my shoulder. (We were both on our sides, facing one another.) My child is bendy in ways that I never was and, no matter the amount of pilates I do, never will be.

So, anyhow, I slept and Pic bounced around and then went into the living room to read books and play with her puzzles. I slept and I dreamed. I dreamt that I crafted a cat out of black modeling clay. This cat resembled one of the covert cats (who is actually a really dark, chocolately brown, but he deceives us by looking black). My clay cat came to life and then I couldn't discern the real cat from the clay cat. This, people, was a terrifying dream. I'm not sure why, but it was.

Perhaps if I got more sleep, my dreams wouldn't scare the living crap out of me (if there is living crap in me). Or, perhaps I have been cooking with mescaline and I haven't realized it. Hmm.

because everybody should care...

Here's what I had for both lunch and dinner today. Plus, a dinner I had a couple a weeks ago.



I made some tuna with olive oil, oregano, tons of garlic powder and chopped up mesclun.* I like to eat this on saltines (we have the whole wheat ones right now...although it's probably enriched whole wheat flour, but whatever).




I started making this black bean soup at eleven of the clock on Sunday night. I'm sad to say that it takes something like four hours so I didn't get much sleep before I headed out to face Monday. I held off on the blending of the soup until tonight, just before I heated it up for dinner. I used two boxes of organic vegetable stock instead of the five cups of chicken stock and three cups of water (because I needed to use the stock). I used nitrate-/nitrite-/hormone-free turkey bacon and I skipped the onions. I forgot to buy sour cream, so I used cotija cheese and asked Cardo to bring some tortilla strips home from work. I think we'll be eating this for dinner tomorrow night also.




Cardo loves me (yes, yes he does...sing it now!) and made me potato pancakes. I thought that I had posted these before but it seems that I had yet to transfer them from the camera to the computer. So, here they be. (Pic insisted that we get Pirate's Booty today -- except she calls it Pirate Booties -- so I feel the need to occasionally talk like a movie pirate.)


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* The spellchecker seems to think that I really ought to have typed 'mescaline' here. Um, maybe next time I make mushroom soup.

stuff and nonsense

Okay, I'm beyond exhausted and my brain is barely functioning. Dear old crazy Lear will have to wait until tomorrow.

I was looking up information on South Carolina when I found this site. Did you know that South Carolina has a state drink? Milk. So, I thought, 'Hey, Nevada's has to be some kind of liquor,' but, alas, we have no state drink (at least not one that is listed). Oh, also SC has a state hospitality beverage: tea.

Oh, wait...Maryland also boasts of milk as the state beverage. And, I might have to move to Massachusetts, which boasts of a state muffin (corn), beverage (cranberry juice), dessert (Boston cream pie) and cookie (chocolate chip). I could do without the dessert and muffin, but I just love that Mass has these.

Ha! Utah has a state cooking pot: the Dutch oven.

Nebraska has a state soft drink: Kool-Aid (aka two cups of nasty-flavored sugar with a few drops of water mixed in).

Okay, so there's more. A bunch of states, actually, prefer milk and square dancing. There's a blueberry muffin honored in one state and the bolo tie as state neckwear in another. And more.

So, sorry to have replaced the useful information in your brains with this bunk (as one of my English teachers referred to such things). This was my pathetic attempt to surf the wavy web in hopes of finding something fun. I got bored pretty quickly and stopped with the states.

mundanity strikes

So, yes. I have other things to be doing right now. I am running out of steam for this whole January NaBloPoMo. Aren't you also gleeful that I'm almost finished? Not as much as I am.

I am in the midst of doing multiple things because that whole, stupid multitasking thing has long been ingrained into me. So, I'm just going to tell you about my evening and leave it there.

-- Have weary reaction to child's sobbing...send her to her room until she calms down and tells me, 'I need a cuddle.' After this, she admits that just answering me in the first place would have been much easier. We get her cleaned up for bed, call Papi to tell him buona notte, we sing and sign 'ABCs' and then 'Twinkle.' She's asleep by eight (for the first time in lived memory).

All other activities going on somewhat simultaneously:

-- Finish up my tv watching for the semester by watching the end of season two of The Gilmore Girls.

-- Idealize fictional small-town life.

-- Wash dishes.

-- Wash laundry.

-- Fold laundry.

-- Make bean soup (although I have no idea what I am supposed to be sorting out when 'sorting and washing' said beans. Ask husband when he gets home and his response is 'rocks.' Mm-kay).

-- Read (for the ninety-seventh time) King Lear.

-- Forget how to spell 'eavesdropping.'

-- Drink forty-ounces of water an hour.

-- Do multiple pee dances while I try to finish just one more thing.

-- Brace myself for the nasty, nasty eye-gouging and -crushing scene.

-- Plan for the next week's worth of classes.

-- Create and print out more class materials.

-- Throw a bra insert thingy for the covert cat so he can fetch it.

-- Add to my course design (the project by which I will be judged for all time...or for my Master's work, whichever).

-- Post this.

-- Consider the merits of Mother's Little Helper.

-- Hang my head and cry.

-- Don't, under any circumstances, sleep.

Good night and please enjoy a moment's shut-eye for me.

biodegradable me

So, I was reading this article in the Reno New & Review (yes, I still read the RN&R because it's here) about green burial practices. It was interesting and got me thinking, once again, of my own impending doom.

Once again, Cardo and I both confirmed that we each want to be cremated.*

I know that the whole taking care of the dead process is expensive, but reading this article made me realize just how expensive it really is. Here's a paragraph from late in the article:

For example, a biodegradable casket begins around $1,900 compared to $2,800 for a bronze or copper casket. Cremation, which Fanelli considers the greenest funeral service, is also the cheapest. And Northern Nevada Memorial carries a variety of biodegradable containers and urns for the ashes, from recycled paper to hemp.

Twenty-eight hundred dollars?! Really? Holy freaking crap. Not that this was the option I was considering in the first place, but, well, now I'm really not. Besides, after biology in high school, with the dissection of the pig hearts (and then Bio II with the dissection of the fetal pigs...I really hope Pic has the option of computer programs for this stuff**), I know that I hate the smell of formaldehyde. Okay, so, yes, I'll be dead and most likely not smelling the crap they'd potentially fill me up with, but I don't even like the thought of formaldehyde and such in my body. Anyway, if they did pump me full of that crap, they'd have no choice but to put my body into some titanium (or something) coffin because otherwise I'd leach that crap into the earth. There're just so many things I find wrong with that whole concept. I can't believe in, and teach Pic about, cycles in life if the cycle is abruptly cut off when our bodies are filled with toxins (moreso than they are when we eat and whatnot) and we're buried in mini-fallout shelters in big park-like areas.

So, anyway, I told Cardo, 'Geez, just dig a hole and bury me in the yard.' Or, you know, have me cremated.

I know, though, that death is a touchy subject. I know that some people want to preserve what they remember. I know that many (most?) people have different views on what happens after we die. A bit earlier in the article, Kerlin acknowledges this with the following:

While many like to feel their loved one is protected in an enclosed vault where they can always visit them, others are looking for ways that complement natural cycles.

I don't believe that my loved ones would be visiting me, rather they'd just be visiting my body. And, well, this brings me to another point. Things like preserving the body or memorial services, even, are more for the living than the dead in many cases. At least they seem to be. I just hope that my loved ones will be able to accept that I loathe the thought of my formaldehyde-ridden body being locked away in a plushy casket (because my dead self would need to be comfortable, right?) for all eternity.
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* Every time I type 'cremated,' I first type 'creamated.' As if I'll be turned into some tasty dessert to be served alongside Mrs Lovett's meat pies.

** I actually didn't give that much thought to the animal parts we used for dissection in high school. I'm not sure why. My views have shifted since then, though. I can't say that I see the value in having high school students use actual animal parts...especially when most of us weren't going on to becoming doctors anyway. I'm sorry little Babes.

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P.S. I know that I seem to make light of death and all things involved with it. I don't mean to offend anyone. Death freaks me out, sometimes to the point where I can't sleep. I've always been this way. I've experienced death in my own family. I watched my uncle die in my living room. I had to say goodbye to my beautiful Grammie almost five years ago. There's been more, just as everyone else experiences. It's not a subject that I take lightly, but I use humor to deal.

blog sprint

One Minute Writer from inauguration day: If your walls could talk, what would they say?

Um, probably, 'Put on some pants.' Ha! I refuse...unless it's really cold.

the beginnings of a panic attack

Okay, so yesterday was my first real day back. I don't have any school activities scheduled for Tuesdays so I got a late start this week. (This also means that my Monday class doesn't start until next week and somehow this makes me feel like I'm behind.)

Yesterday, I met with Dr Chair. (Still needs a better pseudonym, no? Dr Syrah? Dr Sirrah? I'll think about it.) Just before that, I met with Dr Jones. On top of taking two seminars and teaching one class, I'm also completing my final MA project. Most people know this as the comps process, but I'm designing a course. I'm going for something like English Renaissance Literature: Sex in the Renaissance (thanks for the suggestion from Dr Syrah). I also have an apartment, a husband, some covert cats and a very-soon-to-be four-year-old (which means birthday party planning). I've restarted regular Pilates workouts and Cardo and I are planning to join the climbing gym February 1st. In order to use our membership wisely, we'll need to go at least three times a week.

Okay, this may not seem like much -- the list is long, but these are normal things -- but yesterday, things got added to this list. Both Dr Jones and a friend informed me of impending Renaissance Mafia meetings. We are planning to meet once a week to discuss the larger issues regarding English Renaissance literature (it's so easy to get bogged down in the minutia of the texts that we are looking for that good ol' Ren forest here). Also, Blood, Love and Rhetoric is scheduled to start up again this semester. I told Dr Syrah that I would be interested in organizing one, but he said that he'd be perfectly okay to do it this semester (very nice). We're planning four plays, but I'll have to report back later on what these are (I can only recall Merry Wives of Windsor and The Devil Is an Ass (which I think we already did)). Dr Syrah also said he was thinking to initiate a Renaissance film night (films of productions of Renaissance plays and such...obviously not films from the English Renaissance...just thought I'd clear that up). I might be able to squeeze one of those in (especially if I bring a book and a book light). Finally, a friend (who will remain nameless unless she cares to identify herself*), suggested a knitting/crocheting group. I'd really like to learn either of these skills, and both would be great. It'd be nice to be able to do either of these while I watched tv (y'know, when I can begin doing that again in earnest after this semester is over), instead of reading while watching tv which makes concentrating on either medium difficult.

Oh, and Cardo will be taking a class this semester also. He's finally beginning to take some automotive classes, which he's wanted to do for quite some time now.

I joked to Ms B yesterday, after class, that if I can just make it through the next four months without sleeping, I'll take a nice long nap this summer.

So, to totally bastardize a prayer I've known my whole life:

Grant me the serenity to make it through this semester without melting down,
Grant me the courage to make it through this semester with some confidence,
And grant me the wisdom to earn a freaking Master's degree.

It's going to be a long one, baby.

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* I'm only not identifying this person because she was convinced that we were going to laugh at her suggestion. I think it's a great suggestion, but just in case, I'll let her choose whether or not to out herself.

things that make you go "hmm"...

Why is Humpty-Dumpty usually portrayed as an egg? (Is he ever not?) Why does this make him even more freaky to me? I'm not a fan of this impossible-to-reassemble character.

pop open the bubbly

Okay, so in our case that bubbly is sparkling cider, but whatever. So, as soon as we can get the munchkin to bed, Cardo and I are going to sip our cider and watch the incoming of Obama and Biden. A nice way to relax before I start what should be my last semester here.

As for said munchkin, I'm ready to bundle her in some soft, cushy blankets, stuff her in a box and send her to anyone willing to take her. I'm trying not to engage in the The Great Food Battle, but argh this child makes me in-freaking-sane. It takes her seventy-five years to finish dinner. I'm about to give up on having any dessert-type items because that's all she really cares about. Believe you me, I'm all sorts of cheesy when it comes to promoting the healthier fare. 'Mmm! Broccoli! It's so great! Isn't it great?!' I'll also share stories with Pic about how sometimes you have to try a certain food a lot of times before you like it. I tell her that she has to at least taste everything we put before her. There are many nights when she ends up not having a treat and I tell her, in a not-exactly-nice tone, 'If you're hungry later, that's what you're eating,' while pointing to her largely-untouched dinner plate. I am tired and now I'm battling with myself. I keep thinking, 'I don't care. I don't care what she eats. I don't care if she ever eats dinner again. Just give her what she wants so the crying stops.' But, ha! I refuse to travel that road.

To be fair, the crying is a seldomly-heard occurrence. I try to remain calm. I'll tell her, 'It's time to eat dinner, so please eat. That's the end of the conversation.' (I know those final words there will come back to haunt me all-too-soon.) I'd like to think that my veneer hasn't cracked yet, but underneath, I'm seething. I'm thinking my parents might have felt the same with me and I remain one of the pickiest eaters ever, but I still eat my freaking healthy food (or my 'grow food' as Pic refers to it).

I know that I don't want to make food a huge issue with Pic, like it is with me. I just don't know how to do that. I know that others have it much worse than we do. Our child does not solely consume boxed pasta with powdered cheese sauce (excuse me while I retch). She loves fruit and some vegetables ('leaves' for example...her word for spinach (and thanks to Ms J for bringing some raw spinach over because now we know Pic likes it)). She doesn't complain that I only let her have one cup of watered-down juice a day. It's just that, at the end of the day, I'm tired and my patience has worn thin and I just want her to eat what's on her plate.

Please just remind me that consistency now is worth it no matter how much I just want to go to sleep and let her eat whatever. Thanks.

That's the end of my pathetic, whiny rant...for now.