dirt don't hurt

GIRL!

By Karrie McAllister It’s that time of year; I’ve got presents on the brain. And I’m reminded of the importance of choosing the right gift every time my four-year-old son pushes the button on the animated singing snowman he received last year. (Worse yet, I was the one who bought it for him!) Trust me, hearing a fat, wiggling snowman sing “Play that Funky Music White Boy” multiple times a day is a stark, yet funky, reminder that you should think before you give. It’s the same old challenge this year, trying to come up with just the right present for just the right person. And in my book, the perfect gift should have the following characteristics: It should be meaningful. You should be thinking about the person you are giving it to, and find something special just for them. For example, if my son was not into disco dancing, the snowman would not have suited him. But unfortunately, it does. It should be quality. There is nothing worse than opening a gift and having it break coming...

By Karrie McAllister At any given Christmas function, you will find me and my mouth full of sweet teeth lingering with a large cup of coffee right next to the dessert table. Easter has it’s chocolate, Thanksgiving has it’s pies, and that’s all well and good. But those holidays have nothing on Christmas and all of the joyous cookies that come along with it. Yes, from cutouts to those little nutty ones you have to stick your thumb in to make a well for the jelly, I love them all. Even the peanut butter cookies with the chocolate kiss so delicately pushed into the center, which I really don’t like, I’ll eat anyway. Why? Because it’s Christmas and I love sugar and getting fat doesn’t count before January 2nd. However, with cookie in hand, there is one line that will stop me in my tracks and lock up my throat like I’ve eaten a McNugget shaped like a chicken head: “My kids made those cookies!” I’m all for kids in the kitchen. My kids have multiple aprons and cookbooks designed for litt...

By Karrie McAllister At this point in my life, I am most obviously pregnant. With mere days to go, I strictly waddle and tend to groan every time I need to bend down anywhere near the floor. While grocery shopping, I lean on the cart like it is my life support, as if that cart is the only thing letting me stand upright and keep mobile while I toss in the food for the week that I will most likely be too tired to cook at home. My clothes have all become snug in places they should not. Maternity fashion designers must not be realistic human women, or else the stretchy elastic band would start at the waist and continue down past the hips because those things tend to expand just as much as a belly during these glorious months. The cute wide-cut shirts made to fit over bellies don’t fit over so well anymore, so if I’m not yanking down the shirts, I’m pulling up the pants so that somehow, someway, the belly button that has recently become horribly convex won’t show more than it has to. It’...

By Karrie McAllister “Do you know what you’re having?” If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me that question, I could afford to pay for a whole gamut of tests to positively confirm the gender of my child. Instead, I give a smart aleck answer. “Hopefully a human baby.” And then I explain that although I had plenty of chances to find out, my husband really wanted to be surprised this time around and wait until the “hopefully human baby” makes its debut as a boy or a girl. Believe me, I wanted to know before hand so that I would only have to unpack and wash half of the baby clothes and so that we could only argue about one name instead of two. I also didn’t want to have to purchase any uni-sex baby clothes, those yellow and green jobs that make strangers nervous to ask anything using pronouns. But I digress. The fact that we do not know the sex of the baby also brings about a fantastic list of old wives tales that people just swear by. Evidently, no matter how kooky the old w...

By Karrie McAllister As usual, the turkey’s not even cooled and sliced and already people are decking their halls and hauling out the holly. The radio stations are taken hostage by the 14 holiday songs that are played over and over, sung by different artists and in different genres, but it’s still the same old 14 songs. The stores are completely insane, and television programming is booked solid with Christmas specials and holiday themed concerts. It’s all well and good, because I, like most people, eat it all up as much as I do the Christmas cookies. My halls will be decked before my husband wakes up from his Tryptophan nap. However, this year I’d like to pitch a new holiday series to the CBS Network for our television entertainment pleasure, so if there are any CBS executives out there reading this, remember it was MY IDEA and that I should be the one raking in the zillions of dollars for this new show. I can virtually guarantee that every female between the 20 and 120 will be w...

I just have to tell the world, or at least anyone willing to listen: I just made the world's most delicious Brussels Sprouts!!!!! I actually had to STOP myself from eating them so that there would be some left for Thanksgiving dinner. Sometimes the little things in life, right?

By Karrie McAllister Yesterday morning I woke up early. I then proceeded to do the laundry, clean the kitchen, rearrange my daughter’s room, and vacuum under all of the beds. I also cleaned my desk (an immeasurable task in itself) and cleaned the fishbowl. And then I sat down to lunch. Now that I’ve officially reached the point in my pregnancy when I am wearing exclusively slip on shoes, it appears I’ve also conveniently reached the point when I am painfully contorting my oversized body to put Mrs. Cleaver’s house to shame. Officially, it’s called “nesting.” Unofficially, I call it “going meshuga.” The “nesting instinct” is the term used to describe women in the latter months of pregnancy when they have the uncontrollable urge to clean and organize like the Queen of England was coming over for tea. It is defined as a sudden burst of energy that comes out of nowhere and causes women who are normally exhausted from carrying around a few extra dozen pounds to turn into Mrs. Clean. Ma...

By Karrie McAllister This afternoon I will partake in my November ritual. I will don my shoes and jacket and head out to the garage. I will find my leather work gloves and put them on and push the wheelbarrow out the side door. From there I will go past the woodpile. I will go past the plants that need to be cut back. I will go down to the end my driveway and park my wheelbarrow in front of the mailbox. It is time to check the mail. Stuffed inside the little rounded metal box there will without doubt be more paper than I can safely haul back to my house without the aid of my trusty wheelbarrow. There will be a few bills from early holiday shopping and bills revealing the first cold snap of the year, but there will certainly be at least five-thousand six-hundred catalogs jammed in there. I think the mailman must have super-human muscles from lugging these things around—I know I’m getting a good set of my own just bringing them into my home. I’m also thinking that my name and addres...

I wanted to post a little something about ClubMAW, a newer site of which I am a part. It's a very nice community with lovely women, designed to be a meeting place for other lovely Mothers And Wives around the world. The site is set up into "parts of the house" divided for different discussions. For example, you can post about feeding your family in Your Kitchen. Get it? I am the MAWderator for, you guessed it, Your Back Yard, where we discuss outdoor activities and recreation, etc. Nearly anything goes. This site, www.ClubMAW.com , is just getting started. Please drop by and take a look around, and come and visit me "out back!"

I wanted to post a little something about ClubMAW, a newer site of which I am a part. It's a very nice community with lovely women, designed to be a meeting place for other lovely Mothers And Wives around the world. The site is set up into "parts of the house" divided for different discussions. For example, you can post about feeding your family in Your Kitchen. Get it? I am the MAWderator for, you guessed it, Your Back Yard, where we discuss outdoor activities and recreation, etc. Nearly anything goes. This site, www.ClubMAW.com , is just getting started. Please drop by and take a look around, and come and visit me "out back!"

By Karrie McAllister Five little pumpkins, sitting on a gate. The first one said, “I know my fate!” The second one said, “My top comes off with cuts.” The third one said, “And they scoop out my guts.” The fourth one said, “They poke my eyes and nose.” The fifth one said, “And on the front porch I goes.” Then OOOOh went the wind, and out went the light, And the five little pumpkins just sat there, smiled, and rotted until the middle of November, and one u ntil late November, but you really couldn’t tell it was a pumpkin anymore. I love pumpkins. They are an essential part of my favorite season, which lasts from about the second week in October until the freezing rains start knocking down the corn stalks. I love all sorts and sizes of pumpkins. I love the little tiny ones that you set all over your house for decoration to the great big deformed ones we rush to see at the county fair, and everything in between. As a kid, we carved pumpkins every year. And this was before they had those f...

I usually save this blog for writing only, but when you've got kids like this, pictures are worth a thousand words. Or a thousand "awwws!" Are they cute or what? Introducing Annie Oakley and the Red Ninja:

By Karrie McAllister I, The Mom of this, The Laundry Room, in order to form a more perfect home, establish peace, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the remainder of my family members, promote the general cleanliness, and secure the wearability of clothing for myself and my family, do ordain and establish this Constitution for The Laundry Room. Article 1 : The Branches of PowerAll Power herein granted shall be vested in a sole ruler, which shall consist of The Mom, because she is the only one who will accomplish anything in The Laundry Room. Article 2: The StateThe State of The Laundry Room shall be under the control of The Mom at all times, and should never be blamed on The Mom. The Mom typically has other things to do besides just the tasks of The Laundry Room, and anyone whining about the speed at which items move through The Laundry Room shall be punished by hand-washing gym socks without the assistance of rubber gloves. Amendment 1: Freedom of reachThe remaining members ...

By Karrie McAllister I play this little game every morning. It’s kind of a race against fate. The object? I must wake up early, feed the dogs, get the paper, make coffee, drink coffee, eat breakfast, pack a lunch, and assemble two book bags before the sound of grouchy morning feet come stomping down the stairs demanding chocolate milk and cartoons. The prize? Serenity. Needless to say, I rarely win. But that doesn’t stop me from setting the alarm clock early every school day. Someone asked me why I don’t just put on some sweats and throw the kids into the car, and while my answer that day was “because I don’t like sweat pants,” now that I think about it, it’s really about the preparation for the day. I want to make sure that I have everything as ready as possible for my kids before sending them off to school, even if it means a little less sleep for myself. And while I really enjoy my morning coffee, it’s packing those bags that gets me out of bed in the morning. For my preschool...

Some kids can name every type of truck. Some kids know each and every Polly Pocket doll name. My kids are learning their nature, which my husband says makes them look like big nerds, but I think makes them look pretty cool. A few months ago, we were taking a walk at a local state forest preserve and met up with a friend who frequently walks there for exercise. We decided to do one loop together, and because we usually point out plants and animal signs along the way, my kids (then 3 and 5), did their normal thing. "Hey, mom, pointy leaves equals red oak!" "Ooh, jack in the pulpit!" "Did you hear that blue jay?" And so on. Needless to say, she was very impressed that a three-year-old knew more than she did. But our favorite (and the most impressive plant in their eyes) is the spicebush. Found in rich, damp soils all over the eastern US, it has these spectacularly scented leaves. It's a lemony scent, and you can use the leaves, berries and twigs to...

Some kids can name every type of truck. Some kids know each and every Polly Pocket doll name. My kids are learning their nature, which my husband says makes them look like big nerds, but I think makes them look pretty cool. A few months ago, we were taking a walk at a local state forest preserve and met up with a friend who frequently walks there for exercise. We decided to do one loop together, and because we usually point out plants and animal signs along the way, my kids (then 3 and 5), did their normal thing. "Hey, mom, pointy leaves equals red oak!" "Ooh, jack in the pulpit!" "Did you hear that blue jay?" And so on. Needless to say, she was very impressed that a three-year-old knew more than she did. But our favorite (and the most impressive plant in their eyes) is the spicebush. Found in rich, damp soils all over the eastern US, it has these spectacularly scented leaves. It's a lemony scent, and you can use the leaves, berries and twigs to...

It’s really my own fault. I’m always pressuring my kids to think. “Before you talk, THINK.” “Use your brain and THINK.” Or the all-time classic, “Sit here and THINK about what you’ve done!” But all the yelling aside, there’s not much actual thinking done by kids these days. Serious thinking. Critical thinking. Even creative thinking. Sure, they decide what they want to eat, and decide creatively about what they will draw, but they don’t think about the consequences of eating only cheese for a day or what will happen when they use an entire bottle of glue on one piece of paper. This is the thinking I’m talking about. The “if this, than that” type of logical noggin-work. So, wearing my dorky mom hat, we like to have intellectual discussions around the dinner table. Over such delicacies as bologna sandwiches and canned corn, I have explained earth history, social conflicts, and yes, even such wonderful things as why poop is brown. All to get their little brains turning and moving...

I like to call it the Abby Syndrome. As a teenager, when I started to realize what was going on in this world, we had a basset hound and a black Labrador retriever. Upon coming home, the Lab, “Cinder,” would run right up to you, stopping whatever she was doing, and welcome you with excitement, kisses, and hugs. “Abby,” the basset, would instead scurry around the house, looking for something, anything, to find and present to you. A bone, a toy, an old sock. Anything that really didn’t matter to the person would eventually show up and be dropped at your feet. That was Abby. Her frantic panic when someone arrived was what helped coin the phrase the “Abby Syndrome.” Truth was, as a teenager, I saw this very disease attack my parents, but mostly my father. Whenever we’d have guests over, my mother would prepare what needed to be done to welcome the guests into the house. She would clean the parts of the house they would see and usually whip up some delicious food that they would eat. ...

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, “A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.” To this, I respond with, “A friend is one who will not leave the room or slap me when I start to think aloud. Instead, she will smile and nod and accept me for who I am.” As much as we love hanging around with people who share similar thoughts and interests, I love to find diversity in my own circle of friends. Not only do they comfort me when I am thinking aloud, but each and every one brings a little something to my life that makes me a better person. From all of their traits and quirks and stuff that makes them tick, I only hope I can grab a little of what they teach me to put to use in my own life. So in tribute to a few of the many great ladies I know, I’d like to share some of my favorite things about my favorite people… “Deana” is my friend that is just a little too nice. If I called her up and told her that I really needed another finger, she’d promptly chop off her pinky and drop it off on ...

At a recent outdoor weekend event for women, I learned that the opossum, our country's only naturally occurring marsupial, has the lowest brain to body size ratio of any animal. That means that it's brain is extremely tiny for it's body, and that it only knows how to eat, sleep, and make more opossums . It has also apparently been too dumb to catch on to evolutionary traits, has a mouth full of different teeth even though it doesn't use them all. So why am I posting this wonderful info here? Three reasons. For one, you can use these facts to entertain your children next time you see an opossum . Secondly, this new found trivia also confirms the fact that my dog is indeed not the dumbest animal on earth. Thirdly, to help coin the phrase "O-brain" as in "Opossum Brain." It will sound much better than "pea brain" in public when I'm yelling at my son, who incidentally is also off the hook for "world's dumbest animal" al...

At a recent outdoor weekend event for women, I learned that the opossum, our country's only naturally occurring marsupial, has the lowest brain to body size ratio of any animal. That means that it's brain is extremely tiny for it's body, and that it only knows how to eat, sleep, and make more opossums . It has also apparently been too dumb to catch on to evolutionary traits, has a mouth full of different teeth even though it doesn't use them all. So why am I posting this wonderful info here? Three reasons. For one, you can use these facts to entertain your children next time you see an opossum . Secondly, this new found trivia also confirms the fact that my dog is indeed not the dumbest animal on earth. Thirdly, to help coin the phrase "O-brain" as in "Opossum Brain." It will sound much better than "pea brain" in public when I'm yelling at my son, who incidentally is also off the hook for "world's dumbest animal" al...

A break from the kids! Hiking in Tucson, Arizona, sans kids. A nice getaway for my husband and I, and as much as we enjoy our kids, we don't like dragging them past the second mile on the trail. Because of the summer heat, we left as soon as the coffee shop opened. It was a wonderful reminder of how spectacular the outdoors are in the morning, something that is exceptionally hard to do with our kids. They are more of the "late night campfire" type, not the "let's eat breakfast on the trail" type. Maybe someday I'll wake them up extra early just to let them experience it. Of course, that would mean I would have to get up, too. BRAIN FOOD: The sagauro catci, like the one I'm standing in front of, starts growing "arms" when it is about 15 feet tall and about 75 years old. Kind of makes my 30-year-old body feel young!

A break from the kids! Hiking in Tucson, Arizona, sans kids. A nice getaway for my husband and I, and as much as we enjoy our kids, we don't like dragging them past the second mile on the trail. Because of the summer heat, we left as soon as the coffee shop opened. It was a wonderful reminder of how spectacular the outdoors are in the morning, something that is exceptionally hard to do with our kids. They are more of the "late night campfire" type, not the "let's eat breakfast on the trail" type. Maybe someday I'll wake them up extra early just to let them experience it. Of course, that would mean I would have to get up, too. BRAIN FOOD: The sagauro catci, like the one I'm standing in front of, starts growing "arms" when it is about 15 feet tall and about 75 years old. Kind of makes my 30-year-old body feel young!

By Karrie McAllister My son was attacked this week. His tiny body, weighing in at a mighty 32 pounds was no match for what he was up against. It took just a few short minutes of his innocence, and he’s got battle scars all over his forehead, arms, and legs. I have to apply medication constantly. Anti-itch, medication, that is. Mosquitoes. He’s got a bite the size of Rhode Island that looks like a second brain growing above his right eye, and an unknowing person might swear that he’s got the chicken pox. Meanwhile, despite the fact that I am equipped with a super-sensitive poison ivy radar and can spot the three-leaved foe faster than you can say “Calamine Lotion,” I somehow ended up with a cute late-summer rash on my legs. Keeping all of these things in mind, it is no surprise that my family and I have taken to chanting and cheering, “WE WANT FALL!” We love fall around here. It is, by far, our favorite season. We love it all: the leaf raking, the football games, the apple cider, pumpki...

By Karrie McAllister I know. I do the same thing. I see a woman that I know is expecting, and I ask the same thing: “How are you feeling?” It is a gut reaction, like asking someone, “how are you?” even though they’ll tell you the same answer no matter how they really are. “Fine.” “Good.” Something like that. But now, as my own abdomen grows to unrealistic proportions, I am finally having to deal with the question, “how are you feeling?” on a daily basis. My family asks me. My husband asks me. Neighbors ask me. Friends ask me. Strangers ask me. And I tell them the same thing. “Oh, pretty good.” And it’s a big, fat lie. Like most other pregnant women, although they’ll never tell you otherwise, I’ve really felt better in my life. Wanna know how I’m really feeling? I feel big. My clothes are in constant limbo. In my early pregnancy, maternity clothes were far too large to wear, and I promise that I spent entire days thinking “I look like I’m wearing a tablecloth...with a dust...

By Karrie McAllister I don’t always give my husband credit for his supreme parenting skills. In fact, most of the time I’m rolling my eyes and mumbling things under my breath when he oversteps the boundaries I’ve worked so hard to set. Being the person who is in charge of the children for the majority of the day, I tend to make the majority of the rules and do the majority of the disciplining. And when he comes trotting home from work and tells the children they are allowed to do something they I normally don’t let them do, it not only makes me feel small, but it makes me feel like the wicked stepmother. But he has recently stumbled upon the most glorious parenting tactic that I have ever seen. And judging by the success we’ve been having, I dare say it was quite a stroke of genius. Like most families, our meal times come with our fair share of struggle. We’ve got picky eaters. One won’t eat vegetables, one won’t eat meat. One would rather sit there and talk about absolutely nothi...

***This article can be found at www.momwriterslitmag.com/SmallTownSoup.htm beginning September 24, 2007! Please visit!!! ***

By Karrie McAllister This week I will send my oldest child to kindergarten. We have been preparing for weeks for this next step in her academic career, when I take the baby bird I have been raising and grooming and teaching and drop her out of the nest and into the care of someone I have never met, and then trust that person to love my child half as much as I do. But back to the preparing. It seems that being a first-time school-mom should come with some sort of handbook. I have been living my life for the past few weeks trying blindly to prepare my daughter for her first year in school. I just want to make very certain that my kid has a great beginning experience in school, and very, very certain that if she doesn’t, it wasn’t because I messed up or forgot anything. So we prepare. First task: the infamous school supply list. I’ve been carrying this list around in my wallet all summer so that I wouldn’t lose it. Folded and crinkled like an old receipt, I studied it long and hard be...

By Karrie McAllister I have yet another skill to add to my motherly resume. Along with chueffeur, chef, and laundry goddess, I think it’s time to insert one more: master of illusion. Being a highly skilled magician was never anything I dreamed of. Sure, I can steal the noses of my kids and separate my thumb in two, but those are mere child’s play compared to the grand scale of illusion I’m finally realizing that I have achieved. My magic skills are multi-faceted. There are virtually no limits to my powers of deception, and I find that I practice my trade nearly every day. And I’m guessing that most other moms do, too, unless they are aliens, robots, or have obsessive cleaning disorders. But if you’re not sure if you, too are a illusionist, let me share with you some examples of my most famous tricks… The Great Vanishing Act. This is a fantastic trick to use whenever you are expecting house guests and lately your house has been a catch-all for everything. If there are more puzzle ...

By Karrie McAllister Every once in a while, I actually get to go out alone with my friends. On average, there are four of us, and we’re usually sitting around a table eating, laughing, and discussing the wonderful times and not so wonderful times of being a mother. We each have our ups and downs, but we always end up smiling a lot more than crying during these gab sessions. And apparently, two of us are faking our smiles. And when we willingly go back to our families at the end of the night, one and a half of us doesn’t know how we’re going to have the strength when we get home to get the kids to bed, clean the kitchen, etc. It’s not very often that I get to watch morning news programs, because flipping the channel to anything non-animated would wreak havoc on our household. But one morning a few weeks back, the kids actually slept in long enough for me to catch a few minutes of the Today show. According to some recent research, a survey of 1,000 moms showed that 47% believe they ar...

By Karrie McAllister I have a friend whose belly is bigger than mine, and of that I am jealous. I am jealous that her pregnancy will be over by the time the chaos of the holiday season strikes. And I am jealous that she and her husband know they are having a girl and that her name will be “Florence.” (Well, it’s NOT Florence, but I try to protect the innocent here.) Rounding the half-way point of my own pregnancy –and I do mean “rounding” – my husband won the coin toss and we have decided not to find out the gender of our child during our routine ultrasound. He says that since we found out with our other two, and have one boy and one girl, that this one should be a surprise. And trust me, I love surprises. I do not, however, love the thought of having to wash and separate the basement full of baby boy and baby girl clothes that we have accumulated. And even more than laundry, I really do not love having to decide on both a boy’s name AND a girl’s name. Choosing a name for your bab...

By Karrie McAllister I love living in a small town. I love the fact that I recognize the same people around town. I love the idea that most people are related to someone I know. I love the thought that I’d better always keep my game face on, because surely if I do something wrong, my mother-in-law will find out. I am, I admit, a transplant to this area. Having grown up in the suburbs of Cleveland, my vision of small towns in this area was anything but pleasant. Certainly they must be full of terrible gossip and nosiness, not to mention always smelling like a cow pasture. And while it’s true that news travels as fast as the farm odor on a windy day, before living in a small town, I didn’t realize just how sweet a place it really is, how people you don’t really even know can offer a hand in an awful situation. For example, after leaving the doctor’s office with the possibility of bad news coming my way, sobbing my way out the door I saw the local children’s librarian. Overwhelmed w...

By Karrie McAllister Pick up a magazine, turn on the television, click on your computer and sure enough, they’ll be the latest and greatest news about skin care, complete with a long list of dos and don’ts. For me, the list has always seemed ridiculous. If you followed all of the rules and latest finidngs, it would take an hour’s worth of preparation just to go outside and check the mail, let alone get your children ready to head to the park. “Bah,” I would say, the Ebenezer Scrooge of sunblock. And normally, the stress of trying to be a good mommy would force me to squirt down my kids a little, leaving me too tired to apply even the slightest bit on myself. I would simply take the leftovers that had accumulated between my fingers and rub it on the top of my ears. “I don’t burn, I TAN.” Somehow, that made it all better. And somehow, things were better. And they remained better until a couple of weeks ago when I finally cashed in a Christmas gift for a facial. I’m not typically the...

By Karrie McAllister Sometimes you just need to get away. Sometimes it’s good to step out of your real life and into the life of someone else, somewhere else, where besides the things you crammed into your suitcase, you have no real connection to your regular home life. No phone, no email, and for me this past weekend, no children. I have always practiced “attachment parenting,” not so much by choice, but by instinct. Since my children were little, I couldn’t help but hold them and carry them and sleep with them and love them and basically never leave their sides. And now, six years later, and I have finally unattached myself for more than 24 hours. This statement, I’m sure, sounds ludicrous to some people. I know plenty of mothers – good, loving mothers – who have gone out of town and left their children for a number of days without packing a bag full of the big “G.” Guilt. But I was terrified that I would pack more guilt than clothes. Of course I cried when we dropped them off at...

By Karrie McAllister Germophobe: N. A person absolutely terrified of germs; someone suffering from the disorder Germophobia. There is no known cure for Germophobia, but symptoms can be treated with travel sized bottles of hand sanitizer, wet wipes, and the general avoidance of public restrooms. My name is Karrie, and I am a Germophobe. I wasn’t always a Germophobe. I used to have no fear when a piece of food fell onto a picnic table at the park, or when I pushing the shopping cart at a big, busy store. It wasn’t until I had children that I began to realize the amazing amount of germs that linger in our world—good germs, bad germs, and just plain curl-your-lip disgusting germs. I try to keep it under control, and to not scare my children, but when I see my children putting their lips right against the water fountain, my stomach turns inside out and I run screaming for the soap. After much consideration, I am fully convinced that the heart of my germophobic problems stem from my general ...