A New Quote

I like to write quotes on the chalkboard by my front door.  Occasionally one of my children (Braeden) highjacks my quote board and writes one of their (his) own.  (And then sometimes Adam alters Braeden's quote.)  Get your own quote boards.

Here's what I wrote on my board lately.

I need more awesomeness in my life.  I need to think more about what awesomeness means to me.  I need something different.

Maybe I need different weather?  (Dear Seattle:  I hate you...don't worry, I'm fickle.  I will love you again sometime.  Maybe when you stop raining.  Just think about it, OK?)

Maybe I need more sleep?

Maybe I need more time?  More perspective?

Maybe I need to arrange furniture?

I don't know.

I'm going to try to take some time off from some of the things I do.  Some of the dailiness.  Blogging for one thing.  I'll try to figure things out.

I'll be back.

Fat Old Lady Yogurt

There are a lot of reasons to love teenagers.  One is the dose of humility they serve up.  Regularly.

Earlier this week, I packed Braeden a lunch.  I was out of grapes or fruit of any kind (I blame Mark who is always on-the-verge-of-perishing hungry)  and needed something else for his lunch.  I found some yogurt in the back of the fridge and popped it in Braeden's lunch bag to supplement the sandwich, cookies, chocolate milk, string cheese, granola bar.  He is also always on-the-verge-of-perishing hungry.

So naturally, you'd think Braeden would come home from school and tell me how much he appreciated my time and effort in packing him a lunch.  Naturally.

He told me he and his friends had declared it fat old lady yogurt and he brought it back home.

In other words, thanks but no thanks.

I love that boy.

(I keep reminding myself.)

I do not consider myself a fat old lady.  I do realize however, that I am no spring chicken either.  At Disneyland, I noticed the shoes other people were wearing and thought, "Their feet are going to hurt them later."

Then I thought, "Wow, I am getting old."

I seldom do risky things like stay up past 10:30.  When Emma wanted me to take her to the midnight showing of The Hunger Games, I told her it was adorable when she said such funny things.

I also remember going to the midnight movie at the Varsity Theater many weekends when I was in college.

I am getting old.

But there are occasional glimmers of risk taking.  Glimmers that there's life in the old girl yet.

I have a favorite wall in my house.  It's in my stairwell.  I like it because I decided to turn it into a gallery wall.  I decided I should try to place everything carefully, measuring and the like.

Then I told myself it was adorable when I thought such funny things.

I do better when I just use my eye instead of measuring.  I trust my eye more than my accuracy at math.

Here's the wall.

It is far from perfect but I love it and I love that there's space to add more when the mood strikes.

The perfect amount of risk for someone with fat old lady yogurt in her fridge.

Tax Dollars at Work

Yesterday there was a band trip of some description and Emma said that most of the kids were gone from her block of language arts and history classes.  (They're honors classes and maybe there's a correlation, honors classes = band kids.)  Whatever the reason, the classes were sparse.

So the teachers did what teachers sometimes do and showed a movie.

The Disney cartoon, The Jungle Book.

The teacher said if the principal found out, they would say they were watching it because they'd been studying about Africa in history.

Emma said, "I didn't want to tell her it's set in India."

I wonder if someone should mention The Lion King.  You know, for next time.

Springing Forward is the Pits

Saw this on facebook via my cousins Britta and Leslie.  What would I do without you two?

Sunday night no one wanted to go to bed.

Including me.

Then Monday morning I woke up in a definite haze.  I don't even think you can call it a haze.  It was hazier than a haze.  I woke up Braeden.  I woke up Emma.  I went back to bed.

At 7:00, I woke up again, surprised that it was "so late."  (It wasn't late, stupid Daylight Savings Time.)  I took a hot bath which is the best way to approach any day.  Adam staggered in the room and said, "Didn't you wake up Braeden?"

"Yes!"

Adam threw on some clothes and said, "He's freaking out because school is starting."

"Is Emma still here?" I inquired.

"I don't know."

Oh, dear.

But really, what could I do at that point so I stayed in the hot bath.

I worried about Janet wasting her time trying to pick up Braeden for seminary and our house being dark and sleeping.  I decided to call her and beg forgiveness.  (Last week had its share of debacles in this regard too.  Let's just say Janet is very forgiving and Braeden will never flirt with girls again when he's supposed to be ready to be picked up from play practice.  He'd better not.)

But then I saw an email from Janet and there had been no seminary yesterday anyway.

And I had no idea?

Am I maybe the least organized, discombobulated person alive?

When Adam got home from the panicked getting Braeden to school on time, I said, "Did you know there WAS no seminary today?"

He said, "Yeah, Braeden remembered on the way to school."

Sheesh.

Later Mark, who tends to grouse about whatever seems available, was complaining about Benjamin Franklin and Daylight Savings Time.  He refuses to accept the new time.  He keeps telling me what time it "really" is.

I don't know.

I just want to feel like I have a handle on my life.  Is that asking too much?

When it was still light after dinner last night, I felt happier about everything.  I think I can be friends with Daylight Savings Time after all.  

My Own Special Touch

My sisters and mom are the only people on the planet that will get the title of this post.  It's still worth it though.

I decided to make a cake on Friday.   I found this recipe called Grandma's Chocolate Layer Cake.

(Which is sort of misnamed if you ask me because the cake is not chocolate, just the frosting.)

(But who am I to judge?)

I more or less followed the recipe.  (Following recipes to the letter is not exactly my forte.)

I don't know if I didn't grease the pans sufficiently or if I should have taken them out of the pans earlier (it was silent reading time and I lost track of time) or maybe it was something else altogether.  But the cake would not come out of the pans.  I tried all my usual tricks and ended up with this:

I (naturally) nibbled some of the crumbs and the cake was very good.  I had to salvage it somehow.

I remembered cake pops which are delicious but troublesome.  They are made with cake crumbs and frosting.  (And I had cake crumbs!)

I cut the frosting recipe by 1/3 (probably--my math in my head skills are dodgy).  And why 1/3?  I don't know.  I also had neither bittersweet chocolate nor milk chocolate.  I used a combination of semi sweet, unsweetened and white chocolate.  It worked.  Can you go wrong with chocolate?

Then I added pieces of cake:

It resulted in a sort of indefinable creation:

It was the consistency of cookie dough and reminded me of the pudding cakes Adam used to bring me back from London.  Delicious.

Later, after dinner, I arranged balls of the concoction with raspberries and whipped cream.  Gavin was here with us and watching me arrange. He asked, "Are you making faces?"  I told him I was making something much more exciting than faces.

He said, "What is more exciting than faces?"

Probably nothing now that I think about it.

But if ever you ever wreck a cake, don't despair.  This was pretty good.

2012 Election

Things are heating up.

I mean, have you seen all the election signs?

Mark is running for "leader".  He needs a campaign manager to help him with spin though for the gaffes he makes in front of his constituents.  On Wednesday, before scouts, he told me, "I think I will like scouts better since you aren't my leader anymore."

(We have new leaders for the 9-year-old Bears so now I just have two very sweet and docile 8-year-old Wolves.  And guess what, Mark?  I think I will like scouts better since I am not your leader anymore.  You're pretty...energetic.)

When Adam saw Mark's campaign signs, he helpfully pointed out Mark doesn't know how to write the letter a.  Not my fault.

We're blaming his school teacher.

A Bad Combination

My girls.  Olivia didn't like this picture so much because she was very pregnant...it was taken a few years ago.  She's still cute though, isn't she?

There are a few defining characteristics about my mom.

She wants to help.  It's how she expresses her love.

Also, she doesn't really want anyone to help her.  She is the queen of I-can-handle-it-alone-thank-you-very-much.

My mom has three daughters.  We are all more or less the same way*.  When my mom was preparing for her mission, Marianne and Olivia showed up on her doorstep from time to time declaring they were there to help.

My mom resisted.  She argued.

(They wanted to help + my mom didn't want help.)

Marianne and Olivia inherited my mom's strong will though.  I think they overpowered her occasionally.

I felt bad being so far away, not helping.

(Not that my mom would have wanted me to help.)

Olivia is expecting a new little cherub and without my mom there I am going to go help her when the baby is born.  Marianne is her neighbor and as efficient as a Costco checker...you know, the one in the line next to yours, the line you should have chosen...but I want to help anyway.

Olivia told me I didn't have to.  She said it wasn't necessary.

(I want to help + she doesn't want me to help.)

She finally relented.

Then I talked to Marianne.  She was indignant, slighted.  She said, "I can help Olivia!  Why does she think I can't handle it?"

(I want to help + Marianne doesn't want me to help.)

I said, "Oh Marianne.  You are too much like our mom.  So is Olivia.  So am I."

She said sadly, "I know.  It's a bad combination."

I was telling our brother Enoch about this exchange.  He chuckled.  Because he knows.  He said, "Yeah, there's a tendency to be a little territorial."

There may not be much hope for us.

Still, I love my sisters.  And if we are going to be like our mom, we could do a lot worse.

*I think I may differ slightly from them.  I have to believe that if any or all of those three showed up on my doorstep, insisting to help me, I would accommodate them.  I mean they could make a dent around here.