Friendship

Do you have friends who make you laugh? I’m not talking about a polite chuckle. I’m talking about laughing so hard you cross your legs, your stomach hurts, your hands sweat, you cry until your glasses steam up and your nose runs. Laughter that leaves you unable to talk and gasping for breath. THAT kind of laughter. Do you? I hope so! At work there are a couple people who can do that to me. I’m blessed by my friends.

Last night we had our sew night after work. Who would have thought that one person could get up off the floor where they had been quietly hand stitching and say something SO unexpected that it caused that kind of sustained laughter…and then went on to say something else that just made it worse (or better?). I’m still smiling as I write this. I’d love to give you the details but much like Vegas we have a rule…what happens on sew night stays at sew night.

Wishing you much laughter….

Food Wishes

Tristan is finishing up his 2nd year in Japan. As much as he loves it there when he comes home there are certain foods he looks forward to because he can't get them in Japan. I suspect lasagna fell off the list because while visiting him I figured out how he can make it in his toaster oven. He's coming home for the wedding so I got the following email with this year's list of food wishes:


I know it's gonna be busy, so if we don't get to all of it, that's cool, but this is what I've got so far.

Food to eat out/order in
Chinese food
Pizza (Papa Johns! extra garlic butter sauce!)
Burgerville
Gustav
Hawaiian Cafe
Taco bell for Tacos

Food at home:
http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/big-sur-bakery-hide-bread-recipe.html
honey nut cheerios
waffles
sourdough bread
Fajitas
chimichangas with mexican meat mix!
Connecticut beef supper
Steak dinner (with the typical side dishes) :)

We have 2 1/2 weeks to get as many things as possible checked off the list! Wish us luck!

Happy 4th!

Here's Patriotic Eeyore wishing everyone a safe and happy 4th!

Oliver

Can you find the kitty in the picture?


Oliver is my shy kitty. He's a big scaredy cat. You will never meet him. Not if he has anything to say about it!

Our backyard is fenced with a Purrfect Fence and while our installation didn't go as smoothly as planned it has been purrfect at keeping the cats in during the past year. But Oliver would run under the deck and hide and I believe the other kitties were using it as a litter box under there so we had to block it off.


After we did that Oliver got a little panicked because there was no where outside to hide. He spent a day in his house inside but eventually wandered back out. Then I went looking and I couldn't find him. We searched and searched and eventually I figured it out. Can you see him now?


AH HA!


Since I found him he figured he might as well come out...he loves me...or maybe he was trying to get away from the camera.


He is evidently very camera shy as well. I was trying to get pictures of him.


and when he saw the camera he actually GOT UP and turned around to face the wall!


His head was actually touching the wall. Silly boy! But oh so loveable.

Nothin' Like Buns 'n Coffee to Start the Day

Over at Quilt With Us (Connecting Threads quilting community) there's a quilt along group called Darlene's Slackers. These ladies are a little crazy...often posting 10 pages of comments in a single day. Since 5 of my co-workers are doing this quilt along I've been trying to keep up with all the chatter. On Friday (one of my days off) while reading along I came across a bunch of posts about an imaginary trip they were planning to visit one of the gals in Canada who had baked cinnamon rolls. Everyone was talking about BUNS and that reminded me of this great mug my wonderful Mother-in-law gave me one year for my birthday.


It just so happened that we had planned a sew day on Sunday at work and all the talk about cinnamon buns gave me the great idea to make some.


From scratch.


With cream cheese filling.


Because there was nothing else I should be doing. Like laundry.


And because Dearsie was afraid he wouldn't get any unless I made a double batch, I ended up making 4 dozen on Saturday evening. Didn't finish until 10 PM.


It was worth it.

YUM!

Cupcakes and the Baby Shower

I love to bake. Not cook, mind you—bake! Kent’s the cook in the family and has done a good job teaching the boys to cook by instinct and not totally by recipe; something I have not mastered.

But back to baking…I don’t have time to bake much and it’s not the best thing when you are semi-trying to keep an eye on caloric intake…so when an opportunity presents itself I tend to jump in with both feet. Such an opportunity arose with a baby shower planned for May 5th at work.

Teri started planning her own shower by arranging for a cinco de Mayo taco salad potluck after work. Her baby had other ideas. Tyler arrived April 30th--6 wks early. (Mom and baby are thriving) So the baby shower ended up being moved to Tyler’s actual due date of June 9th.

In the meantime I had discovered this wonderful website by Bakerella. OH MY! Just go browse around that site! Talk about creative and inspiring, and for all the wrong things! After poking around for days I decided to be brave and try some new things:

1. I’d never worked with fondant. I’ve seen it many times and marveled at what you can accomplish with it.
2. I collect mini cookie cutters but had never tried icing the cookies with royal icing.
3. I’d never tried candy melts/molds

Because of limited time I didn’t even attempt to make my own fondant. I purchased the only pre-made I had access to, Wilton brand. I found out that it looks wonderful and tastes, um, well, not delicious. It’s not totally gross, mind you, just not yummy. So I hope to find a tasty recipe for the future.


My attempt at frosting the cookies was not even close to professional quality but they were incredibly cute sitting on top of the mini cupcakes and everyone has always loved my sugar cookies.


The candy melts were quite easy and another fun way to decorate the cupcakes. I found molds for a baby carriage and baby booties.


It was a lot of work and it did take me a week to clean up my kitchen but it was great fun and the folks at work were the perfect guinea pigs for my experimentation.

Here's Teri enjoying her shower while co-worker 'Grandma' Judy holds Tyler and a close up of Tyler

Aloha Eeyore

My friend and co-worker, Judy, collects Eeyore items so I brought her a little Eeyore with magnetic hooves from Disneyland after Spring Vacation. Because of his magnets he's been able to stay on top of the wall of her cube and he's become quite the office mascot. Dressing him up for the seasons or holidays is becoming a planned event at work. So, the week before she left to go to Hawaii for vacation, I found a perfect 'Eeyore-sized' palm tree, lei and umbrella so he could get us all in the Aloha spirit. I also found tropical confetti to put on her desk. Normally gloomy, Eeyore almost looks like he's smiling, don't you think?

Mean Parents School

If you’re a parent I’m sure you’ve heard many times “it’s not fair” and “you’re so mean”.

The “it’s not fair” pretty much got outlawed in our house.
--You’re right! It’s not fair. Life’s not fair. Tough!

But “you’re so mean”? That’s one I could get behind. And I heard it again just this weekend from my…uh…23 yr old (gosh Boo, are you really that old?) which is what sent me down this path on memory lane.

At one point when the boys were growing up and I was accused of being mean I said, “yep, your Dad and I went to a special school just to learn how to be mean. Graduated with honors too.” And from then on I’d just remind them that we had gone to “Mean Parents School”.

Now, my kids are smart and even as youngsters they were skeptical—not sure there was such a thing but couldn’t prove otherwise. I have a vague memory that Alan may have even asked where our diploma was…the smarty pants! Ah but one day while rummaging around I happened across our college caps and gowns from graduation at SBI.
“Hey look! Here’s what we wore for graduation from “Mean Parents School!” That made ‘em think hard!

And so it has gone down in our family lore…and it wasn’t even a lie. For we did study child development. Learned that saying ‘NO’ and setting boundaries, time outs and…dare I say it…even spanking (GASP) were effective tools for guiding children along the road to adulthood.

Now, no parent is perfect and I know we made mistakes; but as I look at my kids now…I’m pretty proud we went to “Mean Parents School”. AND I’m pretty proud of my kids too!

Parenthetically, in the parking lot at Safeway right after this I heard a mother telling her daughter—“Yes--Mean and Mom both start with the same letter, don’t they?” I like that answer too!


The boys last summer with their Great Grandmother who just passed away April 23.

Painted Toe or How I Spent My 3 Day Weekend

My dear friend Shair has been an inspiration. Early on in our friendship I told her I enjoyed painting (as in decorative/tole painting). She said she LOVED to paint too. So I suggested we get together and paint something…like a flower pot or an angel. She said, “I like to paint WALLS!” I’d never painted a wall. She says her house is held together by all the paint on the walls. A wonderful day for her is to go to the paint store and find what she calls ‘boo-boo’ paint for $5. She will happily bring it home and start in painting a room in her house. Occasionally, part way through the job, she runs out of steam and her loving hubby comes home from work and finishes it up. Not a bad arrangement really.

Well, as I said, she has inspired me to try painting walls. We’ve lived in our house 15 yrs now…the longest we’ve EVER stayed in one place…and things are showing their age.
So over Thanksgiving we undertook the remodel of our master bedroom. We painted the entire room, laid laminate flooring, and built some wonderful closet space using the Ikea Pax system.

That went so well that with the 3 day weekend approaching I told my hubby we were going to WORK reclaiming the upstairs bedroom and turning it into a guest room. For the past 15 yrs it has been the boy’s bedroom.

It was Alan’s while growing up (it’s the bigger bedroom), but Triss moved upstairs when Alan moved to Seattle. That was only the start of the fun--Triss went to college in Seattle and Alan came home. Alan went to Japan for study abroad and Triss came home. Triss went to Japan to teach English and Alan came home to finish school. WHEW—they are great at tag-teaming us so we’ve never really experienced an empty nest (and boy do I want to!). But now, Now—Alan got married and moved next door. Triss is about to start his 3rd year teaching in Japan and will probably stay for a 4th—so NOW was my chance.

Friday afternoon Triss called us on Skype (it was Sat morning in Japan). After chatting for a few minutes I told him we had to head out to the paint store and the following conversation took place:

Triss: “what are you painting?”
Me: “the guest room”
Triss: “guest room??” pause “you mean MY ROOM?”
Me: “you don’t have a room”
Triss: “you’re so mean!”

And off we went to the paint store. I bought some color packets to try and didn’t like either of them so went back Saturday and settled on Ginseng. I wanted something that would still make the room seem light and bright but cool at the same time.


So Saturday we packed up boxes of left over boy-stuff, took down posters, took out furniture, washed 15 yrs of crayon and pencil marks off the walls and started taping everything off.
We finished up in time to go to our church's Saturday evening service. Sunday morning we painted. I did the edges, Dearsie manned the roller. When it got over my head we switched.

Because we found out that painting wasn’t THAT scary we went ahead and invested in canvas drop cloths with an eye toward future jobs. They worked great…with one small exception. I was wearing shorts and crawling along doing the edges by the baseboards…that night I realized my knees were red and sore! (and an elbow and some knuckles). Basically it was the rough canvas that had abraded my poor sensitive skin. OUCH!

We finished in time to make it to the church picnic where a new plane was being dedicated for MAF to use (a story for another time). We didn’t stay long as I was exhausted and the plan was to shampoo the carpet the next day.

Up fairly early the next morning I went in to survey our work…and there…in the morning light…I saw places with white peeking out from under my beautiful Ginseng! Our walls and ceilings have a small bumpy texture to them, and some of those bumps didn’t get coated on all sides! As I walked around the room—paint brush in hand—I kept finding place after place. It all seemed to depend on how the light was hitting it and how close you were as to whether or not they were noticeable. (Dearsie hardly noticed a thing). So after an hour or so I decided to be DONE. But let me warn you—if you come over and happen to look up and say, “you missed a spot” I”ll be handing you the paint brush and telling you to knock yourself out!



OH, and I did wash the carpet. It was in remarkably good shape. It does still have a few stains that didn’t come out but it was hardly worn at all…an unseen benefit of a boy’s room where clothing and paraphernalia usually covered the floor so completely it was easy to forget the color of the carpet underneath. Who knew?

My painted toe...