I buy them whenever I'm at IKEA! Good call. They have lots of cheap and lovely baked things, but the mazarins are one of my favourites.

Oddly, I'm not afraid of death or dying as such, though slow and painful, yeah. Very afraid. I'm afraid my illnesses will make me suffer badly down the road, though there's no reason to believe they will. Well, different stats say different things.

Fear of snakes is one of those hardwired things in your brain, though clearly not everyone has the same version. I've had a snake as a pet and loved playing with it, and I dated a guy maaaaaaaaaaaaany years ago who had big snakes. Still, nothing at all to be ashamed of there. My bee thing is much more stupid, lol

I'm always curious what people think about the US and fat. It's like the olden days when the streets were paved with gold, only now it's fat, lol.

I've heard just this story from young people in the US, too. It's slightly cheaper, yes, but not easier in general.

If you go through the old threads, you'll see ideas for how to gain cheaply. There is surely some kind of cheap snack food in the Netherlands. Perhaps going to the bakery late in the day and seeing if they sell things cheaply? I don't know, but there will be some kind of solution, if only you can find it.

Good luck!

I am terrified of: the house of cards we call a global economy and what happens when it tumbles; the nonsense we call govt in most of Europe and NA at the moment; hatred of all kinds.

I am irrationally terrified of: too many people too close, heights, and bees. I had a spell of being completely frozen terrified of bridges, but it was only one summer. Came and went without invitation or explanation.

It's definitely partly a genetic thing. But it also changes with age. I was always somewhere between pear and hourglass, all my life. In the past five years or so, much of my gain seems to go to my belly.

My new shape is associated with Type II Diabetes, with which I was eventually diagnosed, but it remains unclear (to my knowledge) whether the shape is cause, effect, both, or only a correlation to the condition.

There is also a difference between subcutaneous (often called soft) fat, which is thought to be encouraged by estrogen, and abdominal (aka hard) fat, associated with testosterone.