As a frequently lapsing ex-caffeine-junkie, I find this really interesting.

“[Caffeine] drinkers develop a tolerance to both the anxiety-producing and the stimulating effects of caffeine, meaning that it only brings them back to baseline levels of alertness, not above them.

The full study is here.

On a related note, since Forbidden Flavours closed, we haven’t been able to find a good source of well decaffeinated coffee. Most nice tasting decaf beans end up not being very decaf. Forbidden Flavours roasted and sold espresso beans that were quite well decaffeinated, so I could have a couple of double shot lattes and not feel it. Anything we’ve bought since then has given me the shakes after one good double shot.

The least-caffeinated decaf we’ve found so far is *shudder* Starbucks. Anyone else care about this sort of thing and have any opinions?

Backstory Part 1: Neil Gaiman is a fantastic author. He has written so many great things in so many genres that it makes me wonder what it’s like to live in his head. It must be quite crowded in there. American Gods and Neverwhere are on my list of favourite books, and have been since the end of the second chapter of each.

Backstory Part 2: Esther contacted me and told me (she knew from Britain, I didn’t know and it was 2 miles from my house) that a local bookseller had a Hallowe’en party to celebrate the release of Neil’s The Graveyard Book, a retelling of the Jungle Book story set in a graveyard. Bookstores across the continent had parties and documented them so Mr Gaiman could choose his favourite and visit that bookstore for a reading. We didn’t attend the party, but Winnipeg was chosen as a winner anyway. On the tie between Decatur, Georgia and Winnipeg, Neil had this to say:

I wondered if I could legitimately award points for climate, or for whether I actually wanted to go there or not, (suddenly throwing Octavia Books in New Orleans into the lead), or deduct points for it being probably rather cold in, say, Winnipeg, in the winter.

In the end he declared a tie and went to both.

End of backstory. The point of the post is that on December 15, 2009, Neil Gaiman came to Winnipeg and we went to see him, along with about 800 other people:

He read a good-sized section of Odd and the Frost Giants and answered a number of questions from the crowd. He read and spoke at a podium in the center of the large crowd, and we were fortunate enough to be right in front of him:

He was a witty and intelligent speaker, as one would expect from his writing, and he has a deep voice and a not-too-strong British accent. I think he should be required by law to narrate everything. Yes, everything.

Afterwards he went over to a seating area and signed books. Staff was walking around throughout the evening handing out slips of paper with random 1-to-10 numbers on them, and people were to be called in numerical order. All the 1′s first, then the 2′s, etc. We were in the middle somewhere (6, I think) and we were ready for a long wait, and it was after 9pm by this time. Then, in a wonderful show of empathy and class, Mr Gaiman announced that he has kids and he knows how difficult it is for kids to sit for things like this, so anyone with small children would be taken first, before anyone else. I think this took the handlers by surprise, but it was wonderful news for us. (Thanks, Neil!)

He was surprisingly open, and he chatted with the kids for a minute. A very pleasant guy. We discussed the origins of our name and his (they are very similar) and he drew a picture in The Graveyard Book and signed the others with little comments.

Here’s me looking like I’m going to leap over the table and attack him:

Here’s McNally Robinson’s writeup of the event, with more photos.

A good time was had by all, though it was a little late for some:

And, as a sad footnote, that McNally Robinson Bookselller was closed very shortly after in a cost-saving measure for the company.

You know days like this one. Everyone is tired, maybe a little sick. Dad has been at work all day, Mom has been spring cleaning all day, kids have been entertaining themselves all day. Suddenly, everyone looks up and thinks “Hmm. I’m hungry.” and you realize it’s 6 o’clock. There’s nothing ready or even planned for dinner.

So, what’s the default? “Hey, let’s go get some burgers.”

Well, the last time we decided to do that, a meal from A&W for all seven of us was $66(!!!). That includes burgers, drinks, fries and extra onion rings. When we get it home and put it on a plate, it’s not really all that much. Sure, it’s a billion calories and a tonne of fat, but it’s not really that satisfying a meal.

Recently we’ve been taking those “Hey, let’s get fast food.” days and turning them around by going to the supermarket. Chicken fingers and fries, perogies and bacon, pizza pops. They’re all just as fast as burgers and far cheaper, and healthier too.

Today I went to Superstore and came back with this:

That’s:

• 16 beef burgers (healthy ones too!) — 1 meal worth (!)
• 24 All-Grain rolls (this kids love em) — 2 meals worth
• 1 mega bag of frozen crinkle cut fries — 4 meals worth
• 3 cans of concentrated Cranberry Cocktail (Jenn’s favorite) — 3 meals worth
• 24 cans of club soda (I drink it instead of pop) — 2 weeks worth
• 1 bottle of Lime Cordial concentrate (a dash in some club soda, yum!) — 1 weeks worth
• 1 bag of fresh cheese Tortellini (just add a basic cheese sauce or canned tomatoes) — 1 meal worth
• 1 jar Polskie Ogorkie pickles (like crack for us) — 2 meals worth
• 1 jar Yum-Yum sweet sliced pickles (for the burgers) — 2 weeks worth
• 4 packages flavoured rice crackers (low fat snacks for me) — 10 days worth
• 1 bag organic Pink Lady apples (our favorite) — 2 days worth
• 1 bag organic Gala apples (can’t buy them fast enough) — 2 days worth
• 1 double size box of Cheerios — 4 days worth

So, that’s dinner for tonight that ends up being far better and more satisfying than A&W, breakfast for the next 4 days, lunch for tomorrow (bunwiches!), dinner for tomorrow night (we love tortellinis!), snacks and drinks for the week for me, a box of Jenn’s favorite cookies, plus fruit for 3 days plus extras.

All for $72, pretty much the same price as eating out. And I didn’t even scrimp. We bought what we wanted, not what was cheapest. For essentially the same price as one unsatisfying meal at A&W.

If you really want to save money, this isn’t necessarily the way to do it. You can get a couple of boxes of No-Name Mac and Cheese for $1 and drink water. But if you’re already set on eating out, try getting far more bang for your buck, a far more enjoyable meal and a bunch of bonus extras by hitting Superstore instead of Burger King.

I recently posted about how we are starting our search for community from scratch. I’ve been contemplating this for a while, and yes, it may sometimes seem like we are starting from zero.

But we’re not. Not really. We’ve got a wonderful community around us, and I really feel like I should be acknowledging that.

Yes, there were friends, and entire groups of friends that have pretty much flat-out rejected who we are now. But, more importantly, there are friends who have not.

Snowy and Ash are our closest friends. We got to know each other on the worship team at church. They come for dinner at our house every Thursday night without fail. We have talked about our decision, and we are both open about it. They still come. They still actively seek our company and support us and love us and treat us no differently.

Our family has been very supportive. For the most part, when they heard our announcement they didn’t even really react. There has been no change at all in our relationships. My brother and sister in law have been showing up at our door for coffee regularly, and we truly appreciate their presence. We are the ones who have been dropping the ball on that relationship, in spite of their active attempts.

The bible study group that we’ve been a part of for years has enthusiastically expressed their desire for us to stay. We have a potluck every second Saturday and spend the evening talking. Much of our time was spent in simple relationship-building and chatting, so the group has graciously decided to make every second meeting just relationship and chat with us attending, and they will meet every other time for bible study. They’re a great bunch of people so we’re excited to be able to maintain this group.

We’ve had a number of people call and express desire to get together and spend time with us (Hi, Chris! Hi Mel!) and Jenn and the kids have gone out to see Dorothy and the kids a couple of times already. Dorothy and Jenn spend time on the phone a couple of times a month still.

In our neighbourhood we are always surrounded by people who attend a previous church, and we haven’t been treated anything but warmly and as happily as ever. Our kids have a couple of adopted grandmas from that congregation that still keep them well-supplied with goodies.

As dark as it seems sometimes, we need to stand up and recognize the folks in our lives that are shining lights. Thank you. Thank you to those that I am positive that I missed in this. If I didn’t name you specifically, don’t be hurt, I’m just trying to get this finished before dinner and as you know, my brain is iffy at the best of times…

Life is good.

Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver, the other gold.

One of the biggest reasons that it took so long to move away from our faith was the loss of community.

If you belong to a church, it’s instant community. Just by entering the building you gain a group of kids for yours to play with, and (likely) a group of peers to associate with at events that someone else plans. Boom, instant social life. Chances are you find another couple or two that you click with and boom, instant friends. You already automatically have the shared experience of a few hours on Sunday mornings to fall back on for conversation if needed.

When we left the church though, we discovered an uncomfortable fact: we’ve never had to make new friends on our own. From the time we were married we’ve belonged to various churches wherever we’ve lived. There’s a base of support, of familiarity, and of help if needed. Suddenly we were without that, and it’s scary.

Our existing social group, including a sports night at a local gym, is mostly with a circle of Christian families, and it has been made reasonably clear that the group no longer wishes to have us as members. It’s been polite, but meetings (we’re staying until the end of the school year) are rather tense.

We aren’t fans of sports, so community clubs are out. We have 5 kids from 14 down to 4, so many of the usual events like Scouts are difficult to manage. Each child would be in a different group on a different night, which defeats our family-centered philosophy to life.

Our city isn’t that large, so the secular homeschooling community is rather small. There is a “secular” homeschooling organization to match the Christian association, but (oddly enough) the members are almost all Christian. It’s still uncomfortable to come out and say that we’re not believers.

We recently, on the advice of Dale McGowan from Parenting Beyond Belief, started attending a Unitarian Universalist church in town. The UU is creedless, and there are atheists, Muslims, Hindus, humanists, Buddhists and all sorts of other -ists that attend. It’s a church, but without any dogma. They do have the potlucks and events that we love, though. There are issues with the place, but there are issues with any place real people meet together, so we’re staying there for a while. I’ll post more about our experience with the UU later.

I’m not really asking for advice, and I’m not really whining. I feel like there are some things that we’ve been going through that I haven’t read about anywhere else and I want to share them. Has anyone else felt this type of loss?

*As a side note: if you want to comment, please don’t trash our old group or Christians in general for their response to our choice. We’re not here to bash where we’ve come from, we’re here to move forward into a new life.