Self-Restraint [NOT 9/6/21]

9/6/21 brightersideoflife 49

Hi, friends!

What’s something you have no self-restraint with? I have trouble not acquiring plants when I am somewhere with plants. 🙂 A friend jokes that “they just jump in my cart, okay???” and I feel that sentiment.

Sunday I went to a plant store to talk to their houseplant person because I thought one of my bébés was getting root-bound and needed a new pot to live in. Nope, turned out it’s okay and I was watering it wrong. While I was there, I was like welllllll I can’t leave that beautiful pothos which would be a great new friend for my other plant bébés.

Also, my schedule next week is a horrible mess. Folks anyone who wants to do a NOT between next Thursday and the following Tuesday? Please do because I won’t have bandwidth to do them.

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49 Comments

  1. Well, it used to be acid.  Now, it’s chili dogs.  Doesn’t matter if it’s the best chili dog or the shittiest chili dog.  I’ll eat them until I puke, then I’ll eat some more.  Add some cheese to it and look the fuck out.  Even if the chili has kidney beans (which is bullshit), I’ll just work around them.  This is precisely why I haven’t had a chili dog in so many years that I can’t actually remember when the last one was.

    • Interestingly while I love chili with beans, I feel strongly that any chili for chili dogs needs to be bean-free. 

      Hmm, brains are weird. 

  2. Macadamia nuts are my weakness.  Many other nuts I find hard to resist but Macnuts don’t last long in my house.  My brother and I used to hike up in the hills behind our house and harvest them and bring them home and try to break into them, fucking almost impossible to do with out destroying them.  I have no idea how they get such perfect ones at the stores but it doesn’t matter, I just need them!  

    • When I went to Hawaii for work a few years ago, I bought a box of chocolate covered macadamia nuts that I truly intended to share with people when I got home.

      I ate every piece and I regret NOTHING. 

    • They’re so delicious and so expensive. I envy that you used to be able to just harvest them.
       
      I buy nut mixes sometimes, and there was a fairly inexpensive one that claimed to include macadamias. I was like, wow, sure. I swear, there were 4 macadamias in the whole container. Just enough that they could truthfully say they were part of the mix. 

    • I too love macadamia nuts, they were probably my favorite. A little (or a few) goes a long way, though. When I was in Hawaii I bought two huge bags. One bag I brought into my office to share. As part of my job I needed to occasionally meet with pretty much everyone who worked there and it wasn’t always a pleasant experience for them. So I put the nuts in a huge bowl with a spoon, because even pre-pandemic the thought of everyone’s grubby hands on my macadamia nuts was gross. As you can imagine, I ate something like half the bowl myself and to this day get queasy when I see them. I think it’s the fat/oil content that makes the after-effects unpleasant. Cashews are this way too and yet peanuts (to me) are not.

      • I hear you about the fat content. Macadamias and cashews are practically buttery. Peanuts less so, and other nuts far less. Hmm… Now I want to look up the actual fat content… 

  3. I have the plant buying gene also. I have so many nursery plastic pots in my backyard that it’s like that room in Harry Potter where if you touch one – it multiplies exponentially. Sorry for all of the young wizard references today. Apparently, I can’t help myself with those either. 

  4. …books…I kind of have to ration myself about going into bookstores because I can almost never leave empty handed

    …& I have to make it as far as possible from a one-click-purchase deal on amazon/kindle…otherwise that gets out of hand real quick?

    …there are probably other things but that’s the one that would be at the top of the list

    • @SplinterRIP, I  agree that Books are dangerous to the wallet, especially series, where one waits impatiently for the next installment. Or the infamous “if you liked this you will like that” suggestions. 

    • Both of my stepdaughters buy so many books they have literal shelves full of books they haven’t read yet.  One of them is buying a house and so she knows she can’t be spending money on anything for a while, so I said that’s good because it will allow her to catch up on her insane unread book queue.

    • Are we twins?😉😆🤣
       
      I’ve fairly studiously avoided both thrift AND second-hand book stores for the past couple years, because I have too many UFO’s (UFB’s?)…
       
      But then my roommate got me a gift card to Half Price, for *both* Christmas and my B-day… 
       
      So now I have MOAR Un-Finished Books…
       
      But I got a McQueen (and MANY more!)😍😍😍
      And *my* copy was only $9.99😉
      So TOTALLY worth it.😁

    • Any night is up for the taking! I don’t think I’ll be even able to log in during that time range so whatever you want is fine. 🙂

  6. Last year was my first ever successful growing of things (Carolina Reaper peppers). My freezer is still full of them. This year I was slightly overconfident and did the “omg I can grow that, this, and that” thing. I spend all day, every day, even at work, reading up on my favourite soap opera US politics to the point that I’m often too jaded to read up on how to grow what I’m growing so I just bother @butcherbakertoiletrymaker and if I fail I’ll just blame them instead of my own ineptitude.

    To follow the trending food theme in the comments, olives. I am all in. I will eat EVERY olive, even as a guest at a gala, with zero shame.

    • Sounds like a solid plan, look forward to seeing you post your Reaper porn pics & a FYCan’tE because it will scorch your face off post.  I’ve been eating a little Scorpion pepper hot sauce with everything I eat trying to get my system to be ready for this years hot pepper harvest.  Not sure it is working but it has made the morning routine more interesting.

      • I encourage you to get used to the heat. I’m at 11,000,000 scoville extract so anything less is not at all hot for me. The peppers are less to me than chili flakes to the average person, but I don’t try to impress people or make lame youtube videos of me doing it like some who likely shouldn’t even be attempting it…it’s just a beautiful journey to embark upon, imo.

  7. #1 is yarn. I’ve been good this year and only bought yarn once but I still have enough yarn in my stash to make at least a dozen sweaters.
    It’s hard to pick just one thing though, looking around there are a large number of dishes, sewing machines, flower frogs, utensils…

  8. Graphic novels and/or comic trade paperbacks. I have probably hundreds and need to cull the herd desperately. I have stacks I haven’t read — I find them at discount stores and stock up and then don’t have time to read them. I will, though. As God is my witness, I will. 
    @brightersideoflife, I’m willing to tackle a NOT. It’s time I started pulling my weight around here. 

    • @bryanlsplinter Speaking of self-restraint…I’ve had to restrain myself, for a year-and-a-half, from nagging you (which is hard for me) to write some of your awesome posts the way you did on the OG SplinterRIP.  I have tried to encourage others to nag you on my behalf (because I know how intolerable you must have found me to be back then, and probably still, which is understandable) to no avail.

      You’re going to write a NOT?

      FINALLY

      • All right, I will take Friday the 18th. Now that myo has put all this fucking pressure on me. @brightersideoflife
         
        You better be on call, myo, because I remember almost nothing about WordPress. 

        • It’s not hard! The silliest thing that stumped me the first time I wrote one was the scheduling part. It wasn’t even hard, I just was dumb and like where is it what do I clickety clickety???

    • ooh…
      I used to be more of a comic/graphic novel geek, but I tend to get drawn in too easily, and there is just TOO MUCH now for me to actually buy stuff…
      Luckily, I live literally down the street from the main branch of a really great public library system, and I have easy access to at least two other large, good, public libraries.
      So, in pre-COVID times, I would browse the graphic novel section, and if there was something specific I was looking for, I would put in a request for it.
      I’d love to hear some of your favorites or more notable ones if you care to share…
      I loved Vaughn and Staples Saga, I rather like almost everything Greg Rucka puts out, I like pretty much all of Warren Ellis’ stuff (although I think there were credible allegations of predatory behavior recently…), most of what I’ve encountered of Gail Simone, Terry Moore, Alan Moore, Mike Mignolia (mostly Hellboy…), Matt Wagner (mostly Grendel), some of Grant Morrison’s stuff, and a bunch of others I’m forgetting…

      • Saga is so damn good!!! I wish they would finish it.

      • …this was one of those questions where I couldn’t narrow down my answer enough for it to be useful…so these are kind of a random selection of things culled somewhat arbitrarily from what might laughably be referred to as my shortlist?

        …if you liked all the references to source material/literature in gaiman’s the sandman there’s a fair chance you’d enjoy fables

        …if you like a bit of dystopian manga style that winds up covering some impressive ground & didn’t have to be flipped around & translated before english-speaking-types could read it you could do a lot worse than kabuki

        …if you can find a copy…barefoot gen is really something

        …& the lone wolf & cub series is pretty great

        …I also enjoyed the DMZ series

        …&…I really ought to stop there before I do this all morning?

  9. Sour patch kids. I eat them until my tongue bleeds from whatever toxic sour chemicals they use.

    • I think it’s just powdered citric acid? So basically just straight abrasion causing the bleeding. 

      Also, I will eat myself sick on Swedish Fish or the Trader Joe’s version of them. 

      • Yes on the Swedish fish and Milk Duds for me too.

    • Oh my goodness. They’re objectively terrible, and yet I haven’t been able to resist them since I first tried them as a kid. They’re my most-likely-to-get cinema candy.

  10. …wait…so…are we saying it’s a lack of self-restraint to consume cookies/candy/&c by the packet?

    …because I was under the impression that was just a serving…which it is possible but by no means obligatory for a person to share?

    • I recently bought what I consider a regular size bag of Skittles…labelled “for sharing”.

      • I love buying the “for sharing” bags so I can share with me, myself, and I!

        • I can eat a giant bag of Reese’s Pieces, Peanut/Almond/PB M&M’s, or Almond Kisses in one sitting.  Which is precisely why I don’t buy them anymore.

  11. My self restraint issue is takeout in general. The pandemic reset us, because we were being super cautious and early on there was a lot more concern about surface spreading. Now that we’re doing takeout again, I’m having to work so hard to hold myself back from getting it all the time. We saved a lot of money not doing takeout. 

  12. Everything?
    my lack of impulse control and poor judgment is only mitigated by my excessive laziness and apathy.
    If I actually have enough energy/drive to do something, I’m going to overdo it.  M&Ms and beer for dinner…

    • Perfectly well balanced meal as long as some of the M & M’s were green.

  13. It’s a toss-up between yarn and books. I have probably 200 books that I haven’t read yet, but I can never pass up a garage sale or second hand shop that might have books! And let’s not even consider the (over 4000) ebooks/kindle books… or my library hold list… or the stack of books borrowed from my sister…
     
    Yarn is just as bad. I look at pretty yarn and think, “oooh, I have the perfect idea for that!!”, buy 6 (10,15) skeins of it, bring it home, and forget about it for the next 3 years except when I am digging through my yarn bins looking for something else. Yes, that was binS. I have enough yarn to keep me occupied with crocheting for the next 10 years.

  14. Adhd and the edge of Autism-land has meant a literal lifetime of Executive Function Disorder (part of that being Impulse Control issues!🙃)…
     
    So my latest impulsive/”slightly impulsive” thing was fiiiiinally buying a Cricut Maker.
     
    they had a pretty bangin’ sale for Memorial Day (still going on, fwiw), with the “Everything Bundle” for $369. (The new version of the machine was recently released, so the originals are now under $350 on sale)
     
    That is better than the old sales used to be for *just* the machine, so I fiiiiiinally pulled the trigger & got one with part of my tax return.
     
    Partly impulse, buuuut since I also had to call my bank to bump up the allowed amount for a debit-card purchase, also not😉
    But in light of ☝that, and the fact that I also got myself a bottle of the perfume i adore, I’m having a BAD case of the “I want(s)!” tonight, & am trying to talk myself out of buying one of the somethings over here;😉
    https://www.bunkyechohawk.com/
    I found out about Bunky Echo Hawk’s art because of one of the books in my Indigenous Studies class, and his work is TOTALLY my style😁
    Subversive, irreverent, snarky, colorful, and just damn FUN, and I pretty much want one of *everything* right now!😉
     
    The “Not Your Mascot” sticker, in particular, with it being a take on *that* picture of Geronimo (Goyaalé), is absolute perfection, imo–a modern-era reimagining of basically exactly  what I’d suspect his opinions on those modern mascots would be.
    The color, the balance, the snarky little details… *everything* in Echo Hawk’s artwork is just FUN, imo😉
    And a part of me REALLY wants to buy the whole sticker collection, then have a few of them framed, as the tiny artworks they are.

    • Oooh! What are you going to make first with the Circuit Maker? I waaaaaaant one so bad but I don’t have time to make anything anymore. Plus learn the skillet needed to use the Circuit Maker. I would be make felt “quiet books” for the kids.

      • I’m not quite sure, tbh😉
         
        I won’t have time to do much of anything with it until sometime next week, tbh, because I’m REALLY behind on my homework…
        It’ll probably be sone paper-based stuff to start, simply because of time.

        • We should talk about the stuff we want but don’t buy because of the fear of not using it. I have a very expensive cat perch shaped like a floor loom giving me the side eye right now. I want a drum carder, but I rarely spin, but if i had a drum carder…

  15. Pistachios.  My entire nuclear family eats them without abandon.
    Not the limegreen Cali ones which are big and not flavorful.  I’m talking the small yellowish ones from… (did not know this till I looked it up) Iran who was the 1st or 2nd largest exporter in the world which is why I was annoyed about the sanctions being dropped on them again by  Trump.
    I’ve eaten Pistachios from Greece and Italy (so bloody expensive but also so good.)

    • Nuts.com [no, i don’t work for them] has a mixed nut blend that includes macadamias and pistachios. I have to  hide it from myself.

      • They sell Sour Patch Kids too! And their chocolate covered pretzels are onomnomnom.

  16. Among regular people, nail polish. I have over 250 bottles, plus over 100 stamping plates (for nail art). But that’s actually pretty low among the nail art community. Go on instagram or youtube and most nail art diehards have 1000+.
     
    I’m not trying to get there.

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