H's big "invite all my friends!" bday party is next weekend, I'm gone most of next week, and I'm doing my best not to full on panic. I took him with me into town to start choosing some party favors for his friends and check one thing off my once-again growing to-do list. We found a few things and he spent quite a bit of time deciding what he would buy with half of his garage sale earnings. The other half was going into his savings account, and thankfully he hasn't started to argue about that (yet). After making his choices, we went back to the cottage and got ready to go on the boat for a bit. The weather wasn't perfect but it wasn't raining, so we went for it. We spent some time at the park and H got to play on the beach a little. I keep thinking it's almost August, and pretty soon this boat will have her winter cover on! Depressing!
When we got back to the cottage, we got ready and went to the township park to utilize their nice playscape before dinner since we got rained out the morning before. We weren't there long due to some behavior issues, and when we got back, low and behold, my mom was in the middle of making dinner and the power went out. Luckily we were mostly using the grill, but it was still so crazy that it was such an inconvenience! There are some people in the world that have no power, and no running water, neither of which I could stand. I pray for those people. I hate to camp, and that's what this felt like, minus the sand in my sleeping bag. We went to Dairy Queen sort of out of desperation and apparently everyone else on that side of the lake was in the same boat. Pleasant! Nightfall and still no power. We sat by the fire for awhile but finally had to get H ready for bed somehow. iPhone flashlights to the rescue! We also learned we need real flashlights in every room, with full batteries, ready to go. Some extra jugs of water for toilets should also be standard. We ended up bringing buckets up from the lake!
Six hours after it went out, the power was finally back on. I was so grateful! What a bizarre day overall.
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Day 28 - July 29
Never have I been so sad to see a Friday in my whole life. This Friday though is a sad, sad day, because it signifies the last Friday of my wonderful unemployment. Next Friday I'll be officially on a payroll again, working for someone else, and missing my son desperately. And speaking of missing my son, I have to travel next week to their office in Indiana, and I am flying out early Monday morning and I won't be home until sometime on Thursday. It will be so hard to be gone!
But it is time to make the best of what's left, so we waited for a break in the weather and H and I headed out. He hopped on the ATV, and I ran, and we made it two miles before the ATV started to really sloooooow down. That was enough for me, I didn't want to risk having to push it back!
Once back at the cottage, I had H help me in the kitchen with a few things I wanted to try. The first thing was easy: red, white, and blue rice krispies treats! Both H and my stepdad are obsessed. He did a great job with those, even carefully stirring them on the hot stove.
Next I sliced cucumbers to make a light cucumber dill salad to use up the remaining cucumbers I had left from my own Martha Stewart friend Jamie. She is amazing and talented and grows most of what they eat on their farm. And she works full time at a big job for the state, travels frequently overseas, and raises three babies ages 5 and under (who happen to be H's closest friends). Did I mention she even cans?!?!! Anyway her veggies were delish.
Finally I had my eye on a Pinterest recipe called Cherry Pull Apart Bread that suggested it was an excellent Christmas morning breakfast. Why wait for December 25? July 30 morning seems as good a time as ever to give that a try! So H and I got it ready and then covered it up for baking in the morning. I will put the recipe here:
But I do have a few modifications I will suggest here:
*Add more cinnamon that what is called for
*Add flavor of some sort to the icing (it was pretty plain tasting)
*Add pecans or almonds (says my mom). I would suggest sliced almonds, which then means you could add almond extract to the icing.
Would I make it again? For sure, but I would spice it up. My stepdad even suggested a crumble-like topping (brown sugar, oats, butter) but that sounds like we just turned it into a Christmas day dessert.
H and I also launched the Angry Birds for awhile (its our ongoing contest using the McDonald's toys), and set up the ping pong, which he was doing much better at than when we tried a couple weeks ago which I have to think has something to do with the tennis he's been playing. He certainly has his moments that land him in timeout (is he ever mouthy sometimes... apparently that's me, rewind 32 years ago!) but all in all we really had fun together. I had a lot of favorite parts of today with running together and baking together, but I think my favorite part was when he crawled into my bed and we read a giant stack of long books together that we don't normally read during the nightly bedtime routine. It's those moments I want to hold onto him, force him to stay little, and never let go.
But it is time to make the best of what's left, so we waited for a break in the weather and H and I headed out. He hopped on the ATV, and I ran, and we made it two miles before the ATV started to really sloooooow down. That was enough for me, I didn't want to risk having to push it back!
Once back at the cottage, I had H help me in the kitchen with a few things I wanted to try. The first thing was easy: red, white, and blue rice krispies treats! Both H and my stepdad are obsessed. He did a great job with those, even carefully stirring them on the hot stove.
Next I sliced cucumbers to make a light cucumber dill salad to use up the remaining cucumbers I had left from my own Martha Stewart friend Jamie. She is amazing and talented and grows most of what they eat on their farm. And she works full time at a big job for the state, travels frequently overseas, and raises three babies ages 5 and under (who happen to be H's closest friends). Did I mention she even cans?!?!! Anyway her veggies were delish.
Finally I had my eye on a Pinterest recipe called Cherry Pull Apart Bread that suggested it was an excellent Christmas morning breakfast. Why wait for December 25? July 30 morning seems as good a time as ever to give that a try! So H and I got it ready and then covered it up for baking in the morning. I will put the recipe here:
But I do have a few modifications I will suggest here:
*Add more cinnamon that what is called for
*Add flavor of some sort to the icing (it was pretty plain tasting)
*Add pecans or almonds (says my mom). I would suggest sliced almonds, which then means you could add almond extract to the icing.
Would I make it again? For sure, but I would spice it up. My stepdad even suggested a crumble-like topping (brown sugar, oats, butter) but that sounds like we just turned it into a Christmas day dessert.
H and I also launched the Angry Birds for awhile (its our ongoing contest using the McDonald's toys), and set up the ping pong, which he was doing much better at than when we tried a couple weeks ago which I have to think has something to do with the tennis he's been playing. He certainly has his moments that land him in timeout (is he ever mouthy sometimes... apparently that's me, rewind 32 years ago!) but all in all we really had fun together. I had a lot of favorite parts of today with running together and baking together, but I think my favorite part was when he crawled into my bed and we read a giant stack of long books together that we don't normally read during the nightly bedtime routine. It's those moments I want to hold onto him, force him to stay little, and never let go.
Day 27 - July 28 - Sale Day Round 3
Ughhh. Nothing like waking up knowing once again it's time to hustle your baby gear to a bargain hunter. We were ready to go by 8am but this time around we were shutting down at noon so we didn't waste the entire day and could get on the road to the cottage. We had far fewer customers and I was afraid the attempt would be a bust. H wanted to sell water again but had no patience for sitting around outside again and yelling "get your water! only a dollar!"
Just before noon our friend stopped by with her little boy--who happens to be just enough younger than H that she cleared out the rest of our 5T stuff and a bunch of our shoes. So exciting! The sale wasn't a bust after all. To top it off, our boys got to play together while we had a chance to catch up. That's a win! I also had someone stop after we had packed up that was desperately searching for baby boy items as she had just found out her son was having a third child, unexpectedly, and had no baby items left anymore. Turns out I know her son, and I was happy to give her a deal on what she was able to get for him after combing through the two bins that were left. Congrats to Bubba and his wife. ;)
We didn't get on the road to the cottage until later that afternoon, but man oh man! Our car was loaded like a family of seven was traveling! Two dogs squished in the back next to the carseat and H, my mom in the front with a dog on her lap, and me driving. What a sight! We asked H what sounded good for dinner and he chose a place with decent chinese takeout so we agreed to that.
The best part was that our neighbors were up too; their family of five is living in Italy for two years for a temporary position and this is the middle of that two years for them, so they are home for a few weeks. H was so excited to see his friends and their mom T and I couldn't bear to separate them until it was almost dark and the kids were hot, sweaty, and out of breath. So much fun to see! What a great summer day.
Just before noon our friend stopped by with her little boy--who happens to be just enough younger than H that she cleared out the rest of our 5T stuff and a bunch of our shoes. So exciting! The sale wasn't a bust after all. To top it off, our boys got to play together while we had a chance to catch up. That's a win! I also had someone stop after we had packed up that was desperately searching for baby boy items as she had just found out her son was having a third child, unexpectedly, and had no baby items left anymore. Turns out I know her son, and I was happy to give her a deal on what she was able to get for him after combing through the two bins that were left. Congrats to Bubba and his wife. ;)
We didn't get on the road to the cottage until later that afternoon, but man oh man! Our car was loaded like a family of seven was traveling! Two dogs squished in the back next to the carseat and H, my mom in the front with a dog on her lap, and me driving. What a sight! We asked H what sounded good for dinner and he chose a place with decent chinese takeout so we agreed to that.
The best part was that our neighbors were up too; their family of five is living in Italy for two years for a temporary position and this is the middle of that two years for them, so they are home for a few weeks. H was so excited to see his friends and their mom T and I couldn't bear to separate them until it was almost dark and the kids were hot, sweaty, and out of breath. So much fun to see! What a great summer day.
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