tredding water

I find that I am still having a hard time keeping up with all the work that needs to be done around here.  Why is that?   How can I be staying home and still fall so far behind. 

I spent most of yesterday afternoon making fully loaded pretzel rods for my sister-in-laws baby shower.  That would be a pretzel rod dipped in homemade caramel, dark chocolate, m&ms and  drizzled with milk and white chocolate.  My sister helped and found makeing the caramel tedious.  As a matter of fact she burnt the first batch.  However, after tasting how very good it is she was converted and may never eat a plain old caramel agian.

Today I had to go back to the store to get more bags for them.  The ones I bought were too small for our loaded rods.  I am glad that they are done.  The shower is the 19th, but I am also making three kinds of cupcakes for the party.  Perhaps I will use that new buttercreme recipe.  I also need to make a sweater for a gift.  My sister-in-law will be coming into town early so I want to be able to spend some time with her and not have to work the whole visit away.  I think that Supermom will have to kick it in to high gear.  Now only if the baby will let me sleep.          

No progress will be made tomorrow.  We have school - so I will be teaching (with the two youngest in toe), girl's club, ( so I will be staying down by school all day) , and Movie night.  Perhaps I can get a little crocheting done.   May be we will end up at the zoo for the afternoon. 

Now tonight we have to solidify our lenten efforts.  The rice bowl is in place and Max already put the money from his bank into it ( it was very sweet that even at three he wanted to goive more.)  I want to try this forty days, forty bags thing.  I will fill a bag each day and donate it.  I am not sure if we really have that much that I can part with, but I am going to try.  I will be learning how to bake bread, bought the yeast yesterday now what to do with it?  I want to try to give up raising my voice agian.  It helped last year and I think that overall I do it less, so I am hoping that this year it will get better.  I want to eliminate eating out- we don't do it often , but if you count coffee here and a special treat there not just meals it adds up.  The kids will hate this.  I want Movie night to be Saint stories.  We did this last year as well and the kids and the hubby liked it.  I am not sure if we can really plan our meals around the movie though.  As always we have the cross to fill in with stickers on the door.  A physical reminder of the season and the sacrifices we make, as well as how they pale in comparison to the sacrifice he made.  I know that there is more ,  but I think that that is enough for now.  I will keep you posted.

Fury, Flubs, and Frosting

There have been a lot of things going on lately that have caused me to los heart at life.  There was a group of women who ran the race this weekend with their underwear on top of their running tights.There is nothing worse than watching someone's briefs turn into a thong right before your eyes.  Let me say- Not attractive, not cool and utterely discusting.  ( I tried not to look, but I had to make sure I wasn't about to slip on the ice covered course. 

Then there is the Northwestern controversy.  Might I say that this littereally makes me want to go vomit.  The ver thought of taking what God created to mirror the trinity and renew the sacred vows between a husband and wife while being the vessel for God's life giving breath on earth and turning it into a science experiment to be gauked at by a peanut gallery----well, it is just offensive.  I am offended and all humans should be offended.  We are human beings with immortal souls, not lab rats that are being monitored, breed and disposed of for the sake of "learning".  Is nothing sacred any more?

Today started out horribly.  It is the begininng of lent, Ash Wednesday.  We were going to get up and all go to Mass at school to recieve ashes and start this Holy season properly.   Well, we got up and got dressed after a certian five-year-old ranted for 20 minutes about not having the "right" tights.  We all got out the door and I started to pull out.  I asked Abby to hand me something from the diaper bag (I don't even remember what) and she replied, " I don't see it ,  I don't think that it is in here!"  That was the point that I thought that this very well could be the biggest disaster.  It was snowing hard,  roads were not good, I had no cellphone, no diapers, no change of clothes for the baby, no wallet, little less than a quarter tank of gas to drive the 30 min. to school and back.   And worse of all I had no house keys with which to rectify the problem.  I keep a spare key at my parents, but my mother was gone and no one was answering.  I was really upset.  I was not very nice to Abby.  She had tried to be helpful and in our rush she thought I had it and I thought that she had it .  So I prayed.  I prayed that we didn't have a daiper explossion.  I prayed we stayed out of the ditch, I prayed that we didn't run out of gas, and I prayed to calm down.  Half way to school I apologized.

We survived.  I found two spare diapers in the car.  One size 3 and one size 4.  The X-man wears newborn or 1.  But desperate times call for desperate measures.  We only used the size 3.  We made it to Mass, to library time, to my parents to retrieve the spare and home, with a little gas to spare.  Lets just say that all thay stress made it easy to fast this morning.   I am hoping for a much more calm afternoon.  Perhaps I will have to have one of those left over cupcakes.

Last night I made cupcakes for our Fat Tuesday dessert.  I wanted a chocolate buttercream frosting so I went on line to find a recipe.  After about an hour of reading recipes and not likeing what I read I thought how hard can it be to make my own.  You see all those recipes called for cocoa powder or unsweetened chocolate.  Well I had good  70% dark chocolate that I wanted to use.  I did it.  I creamed some butter and powdered sugar, added the melted chocolate and a little milk and whipped until light and fluffy.  It was cholatey creamy and not super sweet.  I think that I pulled a neck muscle trying to lick every last bit out of the bowl.  I made sure to write the recipe down so next time I will be prepared.  And it wasn't all that hard to make.

Quick blog

It's Monday morning and I am trying to catch up on blogging, email, chores and the such.  We spent most of the weekend on the race.  The race felt great by the way!  I ran with two of my sisters while my brother ran ten minutes ahead of us.  My one sister sort of lagged behind, but we had said we would run together so we stopped for her twice and kept her in sight.  We shouted words of encouragement, that she did't really appreciate.  And I tried to remind her of the free beer that awaited at the finish line.

If I had only known that it would take 25 minutes to not get a beer, before frustration kicked in and children who had been so patient needed to be tended to.  Needless to say being "Supermom", I chose to abandon the beer and hit Arby's before going to a girl friends for a playdate and much needed Hot shower. 

That's about all I can say for now, I will return soon with other pearls of wisdom.  P.s. racing  in 30 degree weather was not as bad as I had imagined.  Standing around in  30 degree weather in sweaty wet clothing----Horrifically Cold-  Down to the bone!