Busy Weekend

It was a very busy weekend and started out on Friday morning. My boss decided to let the kids have a Halloween slumber party. Originally I had suggested it in place of the much larger Halloween party she'd promised them and then decided it would be too much work. My thinking was let them each invite one friend to sleep over (the sleep over part would make up for the fact that it wouldn't be a "real" party), they could dress up in costumes, rent a fun Halloween movie and order pizza...Nice...Easy....Simple....

Until my boss got involved....she turned my nice, easy, simple slumber party into a massive amount of work but letting each child invite 3 friends each and insisting that we still do party games, goodie bags, themed food and decorations. Um....wasn't the idea to NOT have to do all the party crap?????

Well, I guess it doesn't matter much to her since I'M the one doing all the work. So I spent a lot of time in the week before planning games, shopping for goodie bags, prizes and decorations.

Starting the moment the kids were off to school Friday morning I started frantically pulling all the sprawling party pieces together. Putting bags together, labeling them all, labeling glasses for the party (heaven forbid the plastic skeleton goblets get mixed up with the massive swine flu epidemic terrifying all of CT!), and cooking every disgusting thing you could imagine for the ever popular Halloween "Guess what this really is" game (oh come on....you remember....peeled grapes as eyeballs, cooked spaghetti as worms....etc etc).

Decorating, picking up guests that needed rides, running last minute "we absolutely have to have just one more thing....just a few more of those....just a couple more movie choices...." errands, and then finally the party began.

I tossed on my Bumblebee costume (which I informed the kids made me a Tickle Bee...no stinging from this girl...tickle attacks only!) and helped attempt to keep the massive histeria under control.

The kids all had a good time running wild and eventually sitting for food and games while the adults drank and socialized...except for me. I was still on the clock of course. So I ran around cleaning up one mess while setting up the next and keeping the kids from spilling electric green punch on the white furniture or attacking each other with the various weapons that accompanied their costumes (a devils pitch fork, an Indiana Jones whip, a ninja's roundhouse kick and a few lightsabers in the hands of sugar-crazed little kids...oh the joy!)

When bedtime finally drew near we dealt with the inevitable throng of kids who had melt downs and pleaded with us to be returned home to their parents rather than staying overnight. Several actually did go home that night. By the time those parents had come and gone it was well after 10 pm. Finally we started getting the kids to bed....and once they were settled I turned to the disaster in the kitchen. Yes, I probably could have left it till morning, but since they'd be feeding 6 kids breakfast there I knew it would only get worse. My wings drooping I stood in front of the sink for another hour washing dishes and wiping counter tops. Finally at nearly midnight I blew out the last of the candles and escaped to my bed, my feet about to fall off.

Thankfully my boss did a lot of the breakfast clean up before I'd even gotten out there Saturday morning. So Saturday wasn't too bad. I stayed in bed all morning, did a little shopping in the afternoon (got a great Christmas present for my sweetie...hoping I'll get the chance to give it to him in person *sigh*) and then spent the evening hanging out with one of the families I used to nanny for.

Sunday was Stake Conference but since the church they were holding it at is really far away and I already felt completely drained from the Halloween slumber party fiasco (and coming down with a cold on top of it all!) I decided to allow myself to sleep in and then spent the day listening to conference sessions I'd missed a few weeks ago and watching a few gospel videos. I took a walk while listening to the Priesthood session on my ipod and enjoyed the gorgeous fall weather. Then when I got back I decided to do some baking. I made my first attempt at Cinnamon Raisin Bread :)

I need to roll the dough thinner to make it more swirly and I need to use more raisins and cinnamon inside, but all and all it was pretty darn good for a first try and tastes really yummy!

Sunday evening I started feeling really sick to my stomach and spent most of the evening in bed not wanting to move for fear I'd get REALLY sick! This morning my boss informed me that she and her husband both were sick last night as well. The kids got the flu mist vaccines last Thursday and we're thinking that we may have caught a mild flu from the vaccine....weird but I guess it makes sense that the vaccine would bring the active flu into the house.

Stomach is alright today but I'm feeling tired and achy all over. Hopefully it'll all pass quick.

Hope everyone else has a lovely Monday :)

XOXOXOXOX

Fourteen Years

Adam Joseph Willis

January 9, 1987 - October 19, 1995

I love you Spuddy, still miss you every single day

XOXOXOXOX

Angels

Fourteen years ago this evening there was a knock on my door. It was a lady in our neighborhood named Joanne, she was holding my dog and informed me that my mom and little brother, Adam, had just been in a car accident. My mom had given our dog to her and asked her to bring her home and tell me the news.

The next morning our little Adam left us, but in the months after the accident, Joanne became our very close friend. She and my mom bonded and she invited us into her family with open arms. We got to spend family reunions with them, Christmas parties, Friday night dinners out with her and her son. I spent several Thanksgivings with Joanne and her family in Park City, UT and they were without a doubt some of the very best Thanksgiving memories of my life. She taught me how to play Settlers, which has now become a family obsession and she taught me how to solve a Rubiks cube.

For almost as long as we knew her, Joanne battled cancer and yesterday it was time for her to be at peace and stop fighting.

Joanne entered my life in the moment Adam left it; now along with Adam I know we have another Guardian Angel watching over us.

We love you Joanne, thank you so much for letting us be a part of your life and for brightening ours during such a dark time and in the many years since.

XOXOXOXOX

Bagels: Perhaps third time will be the charm???

I absolutely LOVE bagels! I was going through my cookbook that was given to me by my lovely sister-in-law, Martha Jane, and I found a recipe in there from her for making bagels. Now baking has never been a friend of mine. I remember in high school trying to make breadsticks that came out hard as rocks. I'm sure yeast was the culprit...I just can't manage to use that stuff correctly! Anyway, it made me nervous to attempt any baking project but I decided to be brave.

I started my baking adventure with homemade choc chip cookies also using one of MJ's recipes...they turned out DELICIOUS and gave me confidenct...but as making cookies is the most basic of baking accomplishments I didn't even bother to take a picture haha

So after my cookie success I started making the bagel dough. Warm water....yeast in....okay...looking right (I think)...smelling right (again..I think)....

When the dough was done it looked good to me...now the test....to let it rise!

So I waited for a bit (recipe said just 20 mins) but didn't see any difference. Rats! Let it go a bit longer...Okay, maybe a little different. Decided to give up and keep going. When all was said and done I had bagels that came out of the oven looking like this:
White and weird looking...UGH! I tried them to see how they taste and though it didn't taste bad it didn't taste good either...it didn't really taste like much of anything. *sigh*

I did have a little dough leftover but by this time it was after midnight so I stuck that dough in a container in the fridge not sure if I could try to make something edible with it the next day.

Well now its the next day. I pulled out the dough a few hours ago and it had actually risen really well! YAY! So at least I got the yeast part right. I formed bagels and let them rise some more. They did and looked better than yesterday so I felt encouraged. I cooked them as directed only this time I also brushed them with egg whites to help them brown nice and pretty and sprinkled a little salt, pepper, garlic and parmesan on them to hopefully give it some flavor this time around. Wasn't much I could do about the shape of them....bagel makers must be masters cause I can't figure out how to make them look nice and properly round!

Into the oven.....wait wait wait.....and.....

Ta da! Okay so still don't look great but at least this time they look cooked! Already a vast improvement! See the difference? Lets make a closer comparison....

Yes indeed....MUCH better! Now to taste...I cut the bagel open and made a tuna salad sandwich. I'm eatting it right now as I type this blog entry. It tastes alright. Nothing monumental unfortunately but definitely better than last nights batch.

But still I think my bagel making has a long way to go before I'd let anyone else have one. Anyone out there make bagels (Martha help me!) that have some tips for me? How do I get them shaped right? The ones I've made don't seem to puff up when baked like I would think they should, any idea what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks!

"Italian" Food

ITALIAN FOOD!

Okay so not really Italian food...in fact Italians would probably cringe (I know because I work for real Italians and one is a really good chef! LOL) but still...LOL

I love Olive Garden and always have. Sure its a chain restaurant, sure a real Italian or anyone who knows real Italian food could probably argue its authenticity but to me, who is neither Italian nor a food professional, thinks its delicious.

Last Friday night I treated myself to take out from Olive Garden for a quiet movie/dinner night at home. As I sat eatting my favorite Zuppa Toscana soup I realized that somewhere someone must have figured out the recipe for this soup and since I'm trying to become Chef Amanda Extraoridinaire I thought it would be a ton of fun to try to make the soup myself. I Googled it and found a recipe that claimed to be based on Olive Garden's own. Having no idea if it actually would turn out anything like the original I love, I took my list to the store on Saturday and bought all the necessary ingredients. That night I cooked the soup and to my delight it came out PERFECT! It looked and tasted exactly like the soup I get from the restaurant! This is a big deal in the world of inexperienced Chef Amanda!!!
I had also found a recipe for Olive Garden's alfredo sauce that I tried making on Sunday. I ended up altering the recipe once I had the basic down so that it became a spinach mushroom and bacon alfredo sauce which I served (to myself haha) over spinach and cheese ravioli. It was also soooo delicious! YAY ME!

So its not real authentic Italian cuisine...but its one giant step forward from Chef Boyardee! Hahahaha So I'm quite pleased :)

"The Waiting Place"

I'm beginning to gain a genuine understanding and appreciation for the idea that having a set date in mind when focusing on a goal is the only way to see it through. And it's not just for goals, really its for anything in life. Things you look forward to, things you dread, whatever the "event" I think it must always be better to know the time frame for it.

In the book, Oh The Places You'll Go, Dr. Seuss describes a dreadful place...

"The Waiting place, for people just waiting..."

I'm stuck in "The Waiting Place" right now wishing I could break free from it somehow, just as Dr. Seuss promises I will. I've been in this place for almost 5 months now. I guess in the grand scheme of things 5 months doesn't seem like much at all, but in "The Waiting Place" 5 months seems like an eternity. The worst part about being stuck in "The Waiting Place" is not knowing when you get to leave it. Which of course brings me back to my original thought....its better to have a time frame. 5 months has been a long time to wait, but I had a rough idea of time in mind and that gave me a point of reference to focus on. However, now that "rough idea of time" has been reached, but I'm still waiting, I still don't have the answer to the question, "When?"

It could be this weekend, it could be next month. It should be before Thanksgiving or before Christmas, at least. But what if its longer? Or what if its almost here? It could even be tonight? But I don't know and the not knowing is torture. Remember being a little kid and asking mom and dad over and over again "Are we there yet?" and after the frustrated "No" asking simply "When?" If you can see the destination, even if its further away then you want it to be, at least you know and it makes it seem attainable. But even knowing the final destination, if you don't know how long it will be before you arrive there, it makes you feel like you never will get there. Like its a mirage, a silly vision you've been foolishly holding in your mind that will never actually come true.

Every day being stuck in "The Waiting Place" is getting harder and harder and every day the thing I'm waiting for seems to travel further and further out of my reach rather than feeling like its getting closer, as it should and truly must be...all because there's no time frame. How do you stay put in "The Waiting Place" and not lose your mind? Dr. Seuss makes "The Waiting Place" out to be a terrible trap you must avoid...like its a place a smart person would never dare find themselves in. But that's not always the case, I don't think. Some things are worth waiting for. If they weren't, those who are stuck there would never bother staying so long. Its not like waiting is fun.

When you're stuck in any sort of waiting place, you look for any way to track the time you will be trapped there. In a grocery store line you are constantly glancing at those in front of you, calculating somewhere in the back of your mind how many people there are until it is your turn and how long each will take based on any factor from how many items are in their cart, to the age or experience level of the person doing the "checking". At a hideous place like the DMV, they at least give you a shred of mercy by giving you a number. You can watch the sign that tells you what number they're currently on and even if you're number 103 and they're only on number 7, at least you know where you stand and how long the torture of waiting will last. Even at the doctors office, though you don't have any indication of how long the wait will be, you still can't help looking around and making a mental tally of others in the room: "They came in before me.....they came in after me....that person looks sicker than I am, perhaps their situation is more urgent..."

Our minds, our sanity needs to calculate time in some way in order to outsmart "The Waiting Places" of our lives.

My time in "The Waiting Place" is certainly self imposed. I could leave it at anytime I wanted to, but at the cost of something much more precious. There are ways around "The Waiting Place", ways to out smart it, and escape it before it tells you its your actual time to go. But I can't do them. No, waiting is the only option I have, which makes me feel even more trapped. Oh how I wish that I had that time frame to look to. A way to cross off time as it passes by, to count down to the moment I can finally bid "The Waiting Place" farewell. But that won't happen, there is nothing to count, nothing to cross off.....just me, waiting.

The most wonderful time of the year!

Yes, Autumn....my favorite time of year! It starts with the kids returning to school and ends with Christmas, can't beat that!

I love this time of year with the leaves changing and the air getting cool. Its perfect outside weather. NY in the fall is beautiful:

I always feel really good in the fall, I'm totally a person whose mood is effected by weather. I feel all inspired to get things done and be creative. I've started a few things that I'm really excited about.

The first is my writing:

One of my dreams is to be a published author. For years I've been creating stories in my head, jotting titles and ideas down in notebooks and a couple years ago I even started to actually write a book. As much as I want it and love to write and create, I've always had a hard time keeping the creative juices flowing and really commiting to my writing. I've decided to quit that and make a conscious effort to really work on my writing at least once a week (really it should be more but lets start slow haha). Last week I got an idea for the story to go with a title I jotted down 2 years ago. Finally I have a direction to go with it and that got me so excited to write. I went to the library and spent several hours writing while the kids were at school. Not sure if its some slight form of Adult ADD or if its my Gemini roots but I always have found it hard to stick to the same project for too long...its too easy to write myself into corners or just hit a creative wall. But I think I've found the solution. Right now I have 3 different books started and still have a notebook full of other ideas. It's gonna take me who knows how long to finish one simple book (I'm so pathetic haha) but if I have multiple projects in the works at the same time I think there will always be something I can be creatively inclined to work on. Here's to me, with a little luck and a lot of hard work, finally getting published someday...what an awesome day that will be!

Another project I've undertaken is learning to cook:

For me, for my future hubby and my future kids I've really decided to make a good effort to cook and cook well. I'll never be some incredible chef but I've discovered that I really enjoy finding recipes that look good or fun to make and giving them a try. In that spirit I've decided to pick out 2 or 3 recipes each weekend to try out and see where it gets me. As I go along I buy the supplies and ingredients I need and slowly but surely my kitchen is become pretty well stocked. I've had some really big successes and some failures too but I'm having a lot of fun. I'll post some of my successes another day once I get a chance to upload the photos of them from my digital camera haha

Another thing that fall has brought me this year is a renewed love affair with my longtime magical boyfriend, Harry Potter:

I've loved Harry since the moment we met. I saw the Sorcerer's Stone movie and I was instantly (and quite surprisingly) hooked. I spent that summer reading the first four books and the next few years swimming in the Harry Potter fandom anxiously awaiting the final 3 books. In my time obsessed with Harry I attended 2 conventions, numerous wizard rock concerts, reading and rereading the books again and again, listening to fan podcasts discussing theory and theory and even convinced my mom to sew me a wizards robe and knit me a Hufflepuff scarf! (I also embarrassed the friends who refused come journey into these extreme lands of geekdom with me!) Yes, I was a total and complete dork but I proudly admit it because that dorky obsession with a series of books gave me some of the greatest friends and most wonderful memories I have. It is also what inspired me so much to try my own hand and writing fantasy books and planted the seed for my dream to be a published author.

When I started dating John in 2007 I became so caught up in it that a lot of my passions slipped away from me. I know that once things settled I would have found them again, but unfortunately there wasn't time for that because I got my heart broken and after that I had a hard time finding joy in much of anything. I've gone to Harry a few times but have never felt that same excited spark I used to feel. I thought a lot of it had to do with the fact that the books were all out and maybe that was part of it too. But I've started watching the movies, listening to the books on my ipod while I fold clothes and even listening to the podcasts that dissect the stories bit my tiny bit and once again I'm falling in love with Harry. People who haven't ever fallen in love with Harry won't understand any of this but those who have know exactly how magical it is and its making me very happy :)

Of course though, the thing making me the most happy is the real love of my life and hopefully very soon there will be more to say about that....for now I'll just say, I love you Phil XOXOXOX

And finally, my current obsession is actually completely Phil's fault....enter Farmville:

Farmville is a ridiculous Facebook game where you build a giant farm from just a few plots of land. Earning coins, ribbons, and levels as you plant, harvest, and tend to your animals. Its such a silly waste of time and it is completely addictive! Haha If you haven't been snatched up by the Farmville bug yet I suggest you stay far far away from it! If however you're already a victim then send me a neighbor request! I only need 13 more for the blue ribbon! LOL

That's all for now folks, hope everyone has a great day!

Love to all,
XOXOXOXOX