Recipes vs Flossing

Ridiculously easy to make...  Yeah, I'm in!

I happened upon this recipe yesterday in my How to Cook Everything Book that Maddy and Matthew gave me.  Looked easy enough!

 And it really really was...  I rolled it out onto a stone with a piece of parchment paper and a rolling pin and maybe 10-12 minutes later, had this.  

Cooling?!  yeah right.  I was pulling off squares, buttering them and eating my little heart out before they were cool.  There are maybe 6 left and in a baggie waiting for me to make some soup.

 I also wanted to make some wheat bread, but after I'd already started the recipe, I noticed that I only had a half cup of wheat flour and I needed 1.5...  The recipe already called for 1.5 cups of white flour too, but I didn't want to add more, so I improvised.

Every heard of oatmeal flour?  I tossed some old fashioned oat meal into the food processor and made some.  Then used that for the difference.

It came out pretty good and Leon liked it even for toast this morning!  Well, not the crust.  He's a crust snob.

Got a chance to visit with Maddy and her hubs last night as it was his birthday this past weekend.  Meri happened to be home about the same time, so we had a nice DUO session.

The kids all showed off their "floss" dancing abilities...

WHY is this a thing???!

Leon repeated what I told him it looked like and now they all think poorly of me, I'm sure...

I'm not even going to TELL you!

BTW: There are only three more months til Christmas.

YIKES!

Oh to be young and ...

Oh Saturday....  I guess my real stress started on Friday.  Meri texted me at 2:30 and asked if she could bring a few friends over after school to have a cooking competition in our kitchen.  

SHUURRRE...  

I always wanted to be the "koolaid" mom.  The house where the kids felt comfortable to bring their friends over and comfortable enough for me to get to know their friends.  If you know their friends, you know their friends and who they're hanging out with.

If you don't know their friends, you don't know their friends.  I can't stress that enough!  Because it can get scary, especially when your kid starts doing things that are questionable. And then you're kicking yourself for NOT knowing who their friends are.

So with that in mind, who was I to say no?  However, the house looked terrible.  I had been planning on spending most of the day Saturday, leisurely cleaning, vacuuming, ridding the house of dog hair, etc before Meri and a ton of her friends came over for pictures.  

Instead, I was able to jam pack it all into an hour!

Of course, at the end of the hour, I was exhausted. My feet hurt.  My face was all red from over exertion, my hair a mess and my shirt reeked of sweat.  I had worked hard!  And the place looked it.

In fact one of her friends walked in and hadn't seen it THIS picked up before.  Wow...

shut up.

There were 2 girls besides Meri and a boy, who had announced that he'd just time them as well as judge who won.  So the girls got to work.  They scrounged through my fridge and cabinets looking for the ingredients to make a chicken dish and an appetizer.

Leon came home about the time they started and got in on the action too, by making a bowlful of blue food coloring in apple juice with Oreo-o cereal and expired lettuce on top.  He soon lost interest when it didn't taste as he'd expected and went off to play.

SOME of the food was edible that they made and some, well, let's just say, they would have gotten yelled at if it were that angry chef guy with the crazy hair.  I can't think of his name.

Leftover pizza bread chunks and powdered cheese from a mac and cheese pack in a salad...  

eww.

But they had a blast and posted all their food creations on Snapchat or Instagram or somewhere else I can't get my hands on them.

That night, since Robb was out of town for the weekend, I took Leon to his mom's, traded cars with one of the kids, and then just crashed.  I'd been hoping to get some sewing in but it didn't happen.

Saturday...  Since I'd just gotten my van back!!!!  I'm so excited!!!  I decided to get rid of some of the garbage that had been piling up in our garage.  I COULD have taken it in the pick up, but without the right tarps and straps, that's a pain, plus 2.5 times as expensive as loading up the van instead.  So I took two loads down to the waste reclamation center.  I AM powering the electricity in that city for a whole day with just MY garbage!  At least that's why I tell myself.

THEN since we only had  one key left that worked for my mini-van, I went to a Ford dealership, willing to fork over almost $250 for a new programmed key.  We REALLY needed a fob that worked!  And I decided that I'd let them do the turn signal and a new gas cap.  While the lady was typing in my order, she said, "OOH!  Give my a high five!!! You have a recall for a new ignition system on this van!!"

I didn't know what that meant, but she told me.  That meant a new ignition plus two free programmed keys!  SCORE...

So I got out of there a little while later for less than $100!

I had sat in their lobby binge watching Netflix on their wi-fi but was shocked when I got in the van afterwards and found that it was already 12:45.  YIKES!!!  I needed to be at Ada's for a surprise birthday party at 2 and still wanted to get a shower in!  I rushed home, eating some fast food on the way.   Jumped into the shower as soon as I got here and then scrambled to get dressed.  I then looked at the clock in my bedroom and it said 12:30...  

huh?  

sigh.  Apparently the mini-van's clock didn't get turned back at the last time change.  So I was a whole hour ahead of schedule and my hair had a chance to dry while I got back into my binge watching.

The surprise party was a blast and a total success!  I asked an aide to go in and shut her shades.  She told Ada that their maintenance guys would be working just outside her window for an excuse so she wouldn't see people she knew from church walk past her window. 

Then when everyone (except her husband, who didn't think men were coming too) was ready, I asked the aide to bring her out.  Give her the excuse that they were going to fumigate her room.  HA!  She bought it and they brought her out.  

Oh my was she surprised!  She even teared up a little!  Someone had brought ice cream, another had brought all the paper products, lots of gifts.  So much fun!  Mike even made it, albeit 45 minutes late.

Then I excused myself and got home to get some last minute tidying done before the kids all showed up for pictures.  And to binge watch JUST a little more.  I was almost done with that series and really wanted to wrap it up and be done.

So people started showing up and since 80% of them were freshmen, so did their parents.  I'm glad I'd done the housework on Friday!  God has a way of just making things work the way it needs to.

Here is Meri in all her beauty.  and the pose that we were taught by my sewing group. 

AND another pose so Meri could show off that it has pockets!  This is the dress that we bought off Amazon.  We love Amazon!

 

A few people, including Meri's date, had to drop out.  Her's with the flu.  Yeah - STAY away for a few days!

So with only one young man in the group, he was surrounded by a bevy of beauties and he didn't quite know how to behave or how to pose.

So they improvised.

Then the obligatory stairs shot.

 And upstairs shot.

 Two other seniors had to drop out of the group, due to one getting some tickets to a game and another just got the times wrong, so Meri was the only one who could drive...  They'd been planning to go out to dinner and THEN to the dance.  So I offered to be a chauffeur. 

What ELSE was I going to do???  Binge watch?  Sew?!  Probably a little of both.  

I got 4 freshmen girls in my car and met up with Meri in a nearby town where all the good restaurants were.  Dropped them off and went to Hobby Lobby for a bit.  Went back and took the same gaggle of girls to Target to walk around for an hour.  I didn't relish being part of that gaggle so I parked in front of my cell phone store and found that they had a guest wi-fi active even after they closed for the day!  WOOHOO!  I finished the series that I was watching while I ate my dinner in the car.

Got the girls picked back up and took them back to the high school.  It's a twenty-ish minute drive and I learned more about these girls that I'd ever wanted to.  PLUS they know all the words to a very suggestive country song and sang along...  There was some other conversations that flew around the car and I found we were all on the same moral ground on a few issues, so THAT was reassuring!  I remembered singing all of 65 Love Affair with SUCH gusto, with my uncle in the car and getting reprimanded afterwards.  So I guess I could relate to the girls.  It was just words to me at that age and I didn't really understand what it was all about.  I forgive them and I didn't say anything.

I did actually get some sewing in on Sunday!  and Meri is loving how the dress is fitting and looking so far!  Whew!  I'm on the right track for Belle.

So anyway.  It wasn't my birthday but every day, I'm getting older and wiser.  And yes, that implies correctly that I also young and stupid once.  

Like Friday.

Something About Meri

You remember that I gave Meri the promise of two pairs of leggings for her birthday?  Well, she's wearing one of them today to school.  I hope they don't fall apart on her at school!  And threads don't stick out and look weird...   The other pair is cut out and sitting on my sewing table.  I'll get to it.  Maybe over my lunch today.  

Also I HAVE to get working on the Belle costume for the play!  I dug in my fabric stash last night and found SO many different pieces to use in it.  It needs a lot of variety.  I think it might be free to make.  

I hope so.

I've got lots of ideas to make it work too so that I won't have to be behind the set helping her dress and undress.  Needs to be easy to get into.

hmmm...

AND I won't be making Meri's Sweetheart dress.  She waited and waited and now within a couple weeks away, found one online that she likes.  She told us about it last night and we got it ordered.  

Is there ANYTHING you can't buy from Amazon?  It'll be here Friday.  If we need to make adjustments, we'll have time.

But I guess this weekend's sewing will be all about Meri.

A Day In The Mad Dash Life...

Maddy and her roommate, Leah, arrived the night before. But bright and early Saturday morning, at the crack of 10, they left with Meri and went shopping for the Cinderella shoes that Meri so desparately needed to complete her ensemble for the dance that night.  She also needed jewelry and coffee... badly...

I had been out running errands and picking up the Super Secret Steak needed for the evening.  I met them across a county highway to hand deliver my debit card for them to further complete shopping.

They got back around noonish and while Meri showered, I made Maddy make burgers for lunch.  She REFUSED to form patties even though we had the buns for it and everyone had loose meat sandwiches instead.  I so could have named this post "Buns of Meal"...

 This is the look I get when I attempt to make puns.

After the shower is when the BIG fun started.  Maddy rolled Meri's hair up in curlers and Leah did her nails and toe nails in a glittery silver sparkle.  

 

Once the hair was dry, Mabs pulled them all out and did an intricuit braid around Meri's head.  SO pretty!  

Meri was really nervous, hoping she'd end up gorgeous!  Which she already was, but you know 15 year olds...  Nerves rule.

This is where I was with the dress at 2:30...  Frantically finishing the blasted thing!!!  She WILL be wearing SOMETHING tonight!!!

 Then Leah did the make up and Meri looked like an even prettier version of Elizabeth Taylor! or Audrey Hepburn! or "insert someone you think is one of the beautiful women of the world"'s name.  

Whatever...  Meri was prettier.

Long about 4:30pm, Meri finally had a chance to relax on the big butt chair and snapchat with some friends about the evening plans.  We weren't heading over to take group pictures until 5:15. When she suddenly said, "No way!!  He's GOT to be joking!!"

Due to the nasty blizzard front moving across Iowa, the Sweetheart dance was postponed until NEXT week!  Oh. my. goodness...  Meri hid herself in the bathroom to hide the fact that her makeup was sliding off her face in the deluge of tears.  I went in to try and calm her down and succeeded a little bit.

But after a few minutes, Maddy and Leah came in, the bathroom can be quite large if you squeeze in a little...  They were dressed to the hilt in Maddy's 2 year old Sweetheart dress and Meri's 4 year old brides maids dress, worn by Leah.  They told Meri to get dressed, as we were going out for ice cream!  She hesitated for all of 30 seconds, then said WHY NOT?!  

 I made these dresses!

I insisted on being the designated driver, because it was snowing and I didn't want the girls to end up in a ditch in dresses and heels.  Plus I wanted in on the fun!  

What awesome photo ops I had!!

SO...  the dance is NEXT weekend.  Maddy can't come back and Meri is worried that I can't make her as beautiful as they made her Saturday.  But I've got a few tricks up my sleeve.

And a phone number.

Sew Going to Dance!

A package in a plastic baggie came to our house the other day.  It looked and felt like it had motor oil or something like it all over the package.  The post office had had an accident of some sort somewhere and posted a note on it.  

We opened it up and cleaned it off as best as we could.  Ryan had mentioned that he'd seen this book in a used book store a while back, but didn't buy it, so Robb found it on Ebay or Amazon and ordered it.

Dancing With Jesus boardbook.

You heard me!

We had to wipe off each page repeatedly, but in the process read some of the dance moves.  The Lazarus Lurch was a funny one.  The instructions are below.

 Last night I jammed 3 weeks of cramming into 1 hour.  That's all I would have gotten done in 3 weeks anyway...  I serged up the seams on the prom dress and gave it a fresh hem with a rolled serge seam.  It's not what I would have LIKED to have done, but it's due today. 

I also sent some photos for printing and Robb picked them up for me last night.  I'm actually entering some photos this year in the county fair!  Why not!?  I know how to mount them on core board..  Helping the kids with theirs over the years makes this a snap.

Got them glued to the core board just before I came out to my office today.

The hard part was deciding which ones to send...

 

Over lunch, since I got the silly serger FINALLY rethreaded again, I plan to serge up the seams on the Spring formal dress that I'd made for Maddy this year.  HOPEFULLY I can get it done before 5:30 tonight with everything else that I have planned today besides work...  

Just so you know...  I plan to do things properly NEXT time and serge the edges up as I'm actually sewing the dress rather than after the fact...  

Will I learn my lesson?  maybe...

whew!  Might need to unwind after a day like this with the Temptation Tango!

Formally Fun!

 Well, the Winter/Sweetheart formal is a thing of the past.  If you didn't get a picture of it, it didn't happen!   So I've got lots to prove it did.  Those poor kids were starving by the time they got away to finally go to dinner!

The dress looked great and so did the sweet couple!

There were 7 couples that showed up at a friends house for cake and punch before the kids all went off to Perkins and then the dance.  Most of them went to another house afterwards for a movie and then HOME before the ice storm hit!  

This is Maddy and one of her best friends.  They were pretending to be conjoined twins, joined at the shoulder since their dresses matched so well. Mad's date was able to pop his head into the picture (on purpose) just in time!  I'm surprised there weren't rabbit ears...

Then these beauties decided to put their pout on, or was it frowns?...  Not exactly sure why...  And it took a few shots because they kept cracking up!  

Oh and here is the back of her head so you can see all the gorgeous work her friend did on her hair earlier in the afternoon.

AHHH!!  Ready to go have some fun!!!!

SEW Tired of Modeling....

Do you ever think Heidi Klum just says, "Just take the darn picture already!!!"

Well... the winter formal/Sweetheart Ball dress is done!  Except for a little hand-stitching inside so you can zip it up without getting threads caught in the zipper and you can get dressed without your mom!  And it needs to be pressed and get the tag patch ironed on inside... if I can find them.

Maddy wasn't too happy to try it on for me last night, but thankfully, begrudgingly she did. 

All she needs now are her earrings, a fresh hairdo, shoes and a real smile! 

So, are we close?   Maybe I should have insisted on the hands on your hip pose...

Now on to the PROM dress!!!  Well, let's hold off on that until at least Monday...

Sweetheart Saturday!

On Saturday morning I got up REALLY early! Maddy was performing with her jazz band in a town about an hour away at 8:30am and I had a lot to do before Meri and I could leave home.

They did awesome! This was the first time I'd heard Maddy play the accordion, but it was kind of quiet anyway. Don't know why that is... I guess she's shy.
When we got home late morning, I got back to work getting the house prepared for the upcoming baby shower. More about my miracle cleaner Wednesday! Let's just say my carpets haven't looked this good, since.. well... forever. Well, I exaggerate. 3 years maybe.

Meri and Tiffany went swimming and then Meri went to an overnight birthday party. Tiffany worked like crazy getting the cupcakes made and frosted. She made 78! Being that we had invited a LOT of people and it was an open house, we wanted to be prepared. Didn't know how many to prepare for, so better to be safe than sorry...

Around 4:30, I went over to Maddy's friend's house where the pictures for the Sweetheart ball were being taken. The girls and their dates were going out to eat before the dance, and I wanted to see them in all their glory.
Even tho the zipper was hand stitched in, it held! She looked beautiful.
They DID have shoes! They're just sitting by the door...
Her friend did most of the girls hair from info she found on Pinterest.com.
More merriment about Sunday tomorrow. What's that old saying? "A story about Sunday is worth a hamburger on Tuesday?"

That doesn't sound right.

Wearing of the Green & Perceptions of a drunk.

On St. Patrick's Day, Robb and I took Meri along for our bagpipe binge across Des Moines, Iowa. This was the first year for her to go and she was so looking forward to wearing all of her green things and was insisting that I make her a kilt. That didn't happen. It was good though that she wore jeans as it was a fairly chilly day.

Yes... We were taking our 11 year old to bars.

DON'T JUDGE ME!

We don't drink. I have a very rare wine cooler on occasion but that's about it. But we made it all about the band, so she was the roadie this year.At the first pub, someone gave Robb a green cap and he wore it while the band played there. Afterwards, he gave it to Meri to wear and she adored it!As the afternoon wore on and 4 pubs later... Meri isn't too thrilled anymore with being along with us. People are getting off work early and drinking all afternoon. So they're getting a little crazier with each pub. At the last one we attended, she got the most critical. This pub has it's celebration under a huge tent in their parking lot, so you have to park several blocks away. That in itself was a criticism...

Pros for this pub
- Look at that guy with the green mohawk wig! Where can I get one of those?!
that was probably the only positive comment from her...Cons for this pub
- People just keep bumping into me and they're not even going anywhere!
- That person thinks they're so funny, but they haven't said anything that's even a teeny bit funny!
- Look at those people! They think they're doing such cool Irish jigs and all they're doing is the pee pee dance!That one was my favorite! And no... an Irish jig isn't supposed to look like the pee pee dance...

My little girl is growing up! WAHAAAAA!!!

My 15 year old went to her first high school dance. She was asked by a bunch of her girl friends on behalf of her very shy date, via the overhead projector in her classroom. Now the teacher thinks she "enjoys" being the center of attention... NOT SO... As her face changed to various shades of crimson.

The big gala started on Saturday when she had to be up and out of the house by 6am. She had a jazz band performance in a town just over an hour away. We drove down, stayed the 15 minutes for their performance, then headed back home. Maddy got back into town with the band early afternoon and then went to a friends house to get ready for the dance. One of her friends moms did the girls hair and Maddy texted me photos of herself that afternoon. At 5:30, I took pop out to one of the boys of the groups house where all 11 (5 couples + 1) of the kids were having dinner before hand. Another mom runs a diner so she cooked a fabulous meal for them, which they were too excited to eat hardly any of. The girls all ran off to the bathroom to brush their teeth before going to the dance. I don't see why... Garlic breath is perfectly fine for them tonight I think...
So then we drove all the couples to the dance. I felt a little weird dropping her off there with a boy to hold the door for her. I guess I have to get used to this. She danced all night until some mosh slam dance thing which she sat out for as she didn't want to get punched in the face. Why do kids like that???
After the dance, I picked up the girls and after they changed to more comfy clothes at one of their houses, we drove back out to the boys house again where they ate goodies and watched a movie.

It wasn't a GOOD movie and most of the kids fell asleep. A couple of the other kids were in jazz band too and had been up early that day also. A few parents chaperoned and as SOON as the movie was over (2am), I hustled the girls out to the car, as they were staying over at my house.

Have you ever heard the term "herding cats"? Oh my... After an additional 20 minutes of saying, "You know girls... I have a Sunday School class to teach in the morning... and they're going to wonder why I'm not making any sense..." they finally got in the car!

Since all their parents were expecting them for their Sunday School in the morning at their churches, I made sure they were all bright eyed and bushy tailed in the morning and out the door by 9am. They weren't as talkative at that time of the day. hmmm..

So now, I guess this same group of kids want to get together next weekend too for a movie night at one of the other houses. This is turning into a weekly group date... I think we'll get our turn eventually.

It better not last until 2am...