I'm kicking myself for not getting out more and making friends but I was always friends with people I worked with.

This was always true in my case as well. We move so often that usually I make friends pretty quickly. At least at work, you usually have some things in common. One of the hard things (for me, at least) with making friends with other moms with young kids is that "moms with young kids" is a pretty broad category and a lot of times, I feel that's all we have in common. If all you have in common is that you are both parents, but you have chosen to parent in different ways, things can get awkward.

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I am amused that you guys are TOTALLY ENABLING MY PERVY PURCHASE.

But, dude. It's like having outtakes from Thrillkiller, so what's not to love?

Which reminds me: Jilli, do you happen to know if anyone in town wants to spend $20 on a pair of US size 6 platform old school Fluevogs? I have realized that they're never going to be worn again, not even a little, and so I should sell them, but am lazy about the eBay thing. (If you can't think of anyone, I'm going to delazy myself and list them and two of my pairs of hard to find Docs.)

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One of the hard things (for me, at least) with making friends with other moms with young kids is that "moms with young kids" is a pretty broad category and a lot of times, I feel that's all we have in common.

Amen. Plus, buffistas has set the bar a little higher for conversation for me.

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It's times like this I'm glad that 99% of my friends are of the invisible-people-in-the-internet-box variety. (Actually, I'm glad of that all the time, because the internet just works better for me. Is that strange, to be happy that one has no meatspace friends? Oh well.)

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I don't cook with soup, either. (See above re: texture issues.) I'm pretty much a meat-and-pasta/pasta-and-veggies/meat-and-veggies type of cook, though I can make a mean stew.

Plei, for those of us at work, what is your OIAL purchase?

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I don't cook with soup.

How can you afford soup when you're buying porn in the middle of the night?

FWIW, I also recommend the stroller walks with baby. Particularly if you've got a coffee cup caddy on your stroller. That makes all the difference. When I was at home with baby Emmett, I only survived because I'd take him out for 90 minutes in the morning and 90 minutes in the afternoon. Out to the Aroboretum and back. Very sane making, and frugal.

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I can't cook with soup, because MSG gives me hives and migraines. There are a few canned soups that don't have MSG, but aside from tomato, I don't like them.

The only cooking with soup my mother ever did was boneless, skinless chicken breasts with a can of cream of chicken soup poured over them, baked in the oven. That wasn't bad for soup cooking.

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Out to the Aroboretum and back. Very sane making, and frugal.

It works even when you don't have any place pretty like an Arboretum to walk to. It's just good to get the daylight in your face. If it's a walk around a boring block, it's still better than sitting inside, only talking to us, all the time.

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Cook's Illustrated has a version of turkey tetrazini (and probably one of tuna casserole) with homemade bechamel and sauteed button mushrooms instead of cream of mushroom soup, but as much as I trust that their version is a vast improvement over the canned-soup kind...it's still a casserole made out of leftovers. And making a bechamel, as easy as it is, seems like the kind of work I want to do for real food, not laziness-comfort food.

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Oh. I'm having a thought. Now I'm having a plan.

makes shopping list

And now I'm having a wiggins.

Plei, I approve of your purchase. Oh, yes. (Though, of course, I have *current* Batgirl and Robin in mind, because I'm just built that way. And they belong together in their freaky silent craving-approval-of-the-scary-Batgod way.)

t edit And damn it, why isn't there more Tim/Cass being written?

t edit again And Plei, I got your e-mail and fully intend to reply, but lo, I am lazy.

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