We had guests last Friday night--my friend Jeanine and two of her boys. (Her oldest son, Joey, is Scott's age and he's attending college in Oregon.) They had just come from cleaning their entire house after the movers finished loading the truck so they were pretty wiped out. We visited for a while (longer than we should have) and then we all went to bed! The pictures below were taken Saturday morning. Jeanine & boys had to be on the road early Saturday morning so we got up pretty early for a Saturday.
Jeanine, Brendan, and Kalvin
Jeanine & I (I'm still in my pajamas)
We will miss them tremendously! I have kept in touch with Jeanine through text messages all week, though. Frank went back to bed for a while after they left but I was wide awake by then so I cleaned out my desk, which needed it very badly. I know we kept busy the rest of the day, but I don't remember everything we did. Frank took the Prius to the car wash and then he & I took the Expediton to the car wash and went to the library, too. Both cars were looking pretty bad after the storm, with leaves plastered on them and so forth. We cleaned the kitchen floor and I started reading the next book club book. It's called Day After Night by Anita Diamant; it's about Jewish Holocaust survivors in Israel after the war ended. It's an easy read and I'm enjoying it, although it's somewhat sad. I should finish it in the next couple of days. Frank worked for several hours--he had a bunch of things given to him Friday at work that had to be finished by Monday. It was nice to turn the clocks back that evening and get an "extra" hour of sleep.
We had church as usual Sunday. Frank had to leave right after Sacrament Meeting because he still had work to finish. He came back to get the boys after church so I could stay for choir practice. We had home teachers come immediately after I got home. By the time we got through all of that, it was time for dinner and family night. We had a lot of things to fast for this month.
The kids did not have school on Monday or Tuesday (this time they were scheduled days off, not weather-related). Monday was a teacher work day and Tuesday the schools were closed for election day (many schools are used as polling places). In church on Sunday our bishop announced that we were gathering winter clothing for storm victims in New York. We were also asked to contribute, if we could, to the purchase of gift cards that can be used to purchase food by those who are helping with the clean up efforts, so that they don't have to buy their own food (mostly missionaries). So Monday morning we went through closets and drawers and filled two large bags with clothing--mostly jackets and coats--to donate. We tend to be jacket hoarders around here and have many jackets that haven't been worn in years that were being saved "just in case" we needed them. I was pleased that everyone immediately realized that the storm victims need them much more than we do. Our coat closet looks much neater now!
On Monday Tanner went to the school for a few hours to help build sets for the upcoming play. I kept busy with laundry, vacuuming, and shopping (groceries and for a YW activity). I also had Jared work on his Personal Management Merit Badge and looked over Duty to God with Tanner to make sure he is on target to get it completed by his birthday. I exercised too--all of that pretty much filled up the day. We had family night activity and treat after dinner.
Tuesday was busy too--I didn't feel like I got any days off, that's for sure! We cleaned bathrooms, I made a grocery list, I went shopping for the YW activity again, and I voted. The YW activity was a cake decorating demonstration. We planned to have two women in the ward who are good at cake decorating do some demonstrations and then divide into teams for a cake decorating competition. I wanted to show them some examples of cake decorating that don't require any particular skill as well, so I planned to decorate a few cakes myself that would also double as the refreshments. So Frank helped me make two cakes that evening that I decorated the next day.
Jared and Tanner have been paying a lot of attention to this presidential election (they even watched all of the debates) so we stayed up a little late to watch some of the election results. We were all in bed before 11:00, though, and by then it was already looking pretty apparent that we weren't going to like the results. I slept badly and then woke up at 4:00 am and never went back to sleep. So I got up and exercised, and I'm pretty sure I didn't sit down the entire day. My feet were killing me by the time I made it to bed! It wasn't the best day--I was pretty depressed about the election results. I've never felt quite that way over an election before. Just very troubling to me that over half of my fellow Americans seem to feel that our country is going in the right direction right now, when it looks so wrong to me. But I'm hoping for the best! Besides the presidential election, there were many important items on the ballot for Maryland, including legalizing gay marriages, allowing more gambling, and approving new congressional district boundaries. None of those items went the way I wanted them to, either. With the first two, it's probably obvious why I didn't want them to pass, but the boundary changes requires a little explaining. The problem with the new boundaries is that they were drawn so that there is a democratic majority in EVERY district. So basically, if you are a Republican living in Maryland (like me), you now not only have no voice in who is elected president, you also have no voice in who represents you in Congress. I hate feeling helpless! So my new plan is that all of us Republicans living in Maryland need to move to northern Virginia, where we might tip the balance a little bit.
Anyway, enough moaning...at least I have the (very small) satisfaction of knowing that if our country goes disastrously downhill in the next four years that I did my part to try to stop that from happening. Thankfully, I was pretty busy on Wednesday so didn't have too much time to stew about the state of America. I had Wal Mart shopping to do in the morning, and then I spent all afternoon decorating cakes. Here's the first one I made:
It was very easy--just a one layer round cake cut in half and frosted. The middle of the butterfly is a twinkie, frosted. Then add the candy and you're done! I think it turned out really nice.
I used the other round layer cake to make this:
Also easy--this cake was also cut in half, then the two pieces put back to back and turned on their sides so the flat part of the circles were down and the round parts made the bunny's back. Frost; add paper ears, a cotton ball in back for the tail, gumdrop eyes & nose, and licorice whip whiskers. Isn't he cute?
The last cake I decorated took more time because the cake was quite soft so it got pretty messy when I tried to frost it. I did a base coat first and then put it outside (covered) to get really cold before I frosted the top layer. I thought it was a clever design, though--it started out as a rectangular cake and all I had to do was cut off a pice of each corner to make the corners rounded. Two of the pieces I cut off were turned and put together to make the tail, and the other two corners were turned a different way to make the top fin. Then I frosted the cake in two colors and added the peppermint patty eye, the swedish fish mouth, and the Necco wafer gills:
I was pleased with how all of them turned out. None of these cakes were difficult, but making all three in one afternoon was a bit much! I got two of them done before the boys came home from school but I was still working on the fish when Seth got home. He was very excited about it and wanted to "help" me. Which meant he wanted to eat all the frosting:
See the frosting on his chin? He wanted to pose with the cake when it was done too:
I barely got the cakes done and dinner made, and then it was time to get over to the church to set up for the activity. All the work was worth it, though. We had more girls come than usual and they were very attentive while the demonstrations were going on. One sister showed them how to do fondant and gum paste (I want to try that out sometime) and the other one showed them how to decorate with frosting (pastry bag & tips). Then when it was time to decorate the cakes, they jumped right in and did a beautiful job, laughing and visiting while they worked. We meant to have 3 teams but ended up having to use one of the team cakes for a demonstration so we only had two teams instead. Here are some of the girls on one team with their finished cake:
Here's a close up of their cake:
Isn't it awesome? I didn't get a picture of any of the girls who worked on the second cake, but here is their finished product:
Totally elegant! They made the gum paste roses and leaves and everything; I was so impressed! After they were done decorating, everyone enjoyed the cakes I brought. (And not just the girls--a lot of the boys kept poking their heads in, hoping for a piece. After I made sure all the girls had a piece, I offered cake to the boys and I think nearly every person in the building {including adults} had a piece before all was said and done. I even had one piece left over to bring home to Frank.) After cleaning up, I was exhausted by the time I got home and ready for bed!
I was really happy with the way this activity turned out because not only was it fun and the girls learned something new, but also a few girls who rarely come came this time and the next day I was able to take the two cakes that the girls decorated to some of the girls who haven't been coming lately and both cakes were appreciated and well received.
Thursday was full also. I had laundry, grocery shopping, and vacuuming to do. I also worked on Personal Progress, called a few friends to see how they're doing (one is moving and the other is unemployed), went to a parent education night at Seth's school, did the personal history post just before this one with more pictures of Mom & Dad, and (as mentioned before) delivered the cakes. Frank worked from home yesterday and so we took a break and had a lunch date. I tried the shrimp burrito at Baja Fresh and it was so yummy! (It was also 700+ calories, so I only ate half of it and saved the other half for lunch today.) At the parent education night, I learned more about the sensorial and math materials that Seth is using. All of the adults there mentioned how much we would have liked to have the Montessori math materials to use when we were in school so that we could have understood math a lot better. They are amazing!
Today's been a busy day too. I purchased dye and dyed more clothespins:
I updated the budget, exercised, and helped with a move. That last one is another example of "be careful what you pray for". I've had a goal lately to do more service and to pray for opportunites to serve each day, but I don't feel I've been doing very well on it and often forget to pray for opportunities to serve. This morning I remembered, so I prayed for an opportunity to serve and a willingness to serve even if it was inconvenient. Well, I had just returned from dropping off Seth at school and purchasing the dye for the clothespins, and I was getting ready to dye them and start working on the budget when I checked my cell phone and noticed I had a message. It was the RS president, trying to find a few people who could help two sisters who live in our ward who were moving to a new apartment. The men are going to help them move all the furniture and such tomorrow, but they were anxious to move some of the things that didn't go into boxes well--such as lamps--today. Well, I knew the clothespins and budget were going to take most of the day and was anxious to get started on that so I was really tempted to just ignore the message and then all of the sudden I remembered my morning prayer. So then I knew I had to do it! The RS president was thrilled to have another helper (only she and one of her counselors had been able to help) and then when I got to the sisters' apartment, they gave us all hugs and expressed thanks profusely, and kept saying how wonderful it was to have a "family" to help them. They are fairly recent converts (joined the church about 2 years ago) and only have each other. They reminded me how blessed I am also to have an "extended church family" wherever I go. It only took us about an hour to move three car loads of small items over to their new place and it meant so much to them. The funny thing is, I'm sure the men could have done it all easily tomorrow but these sisters were anxious about it and for that reason I think it was really important for us to help them today. They needed to know that the Lord loves them, is aware of their needs & anxieties, and will send them help when they ask for it. I felt like I learned a lot from that experience and was overly blessed for my one hour of service.
Frank has been exercising again this week and both of us are trying to eat more healthy. I've been working on trying to educate myself more on the kinds of foods we should be eating. I have a long way to go but I'm making a little progress.
That sums up our week. I keep forgetting to mention that Scott has been officially hired as a member of the "tech crew" at BYU-I. He's been working for the last two weeks. They have a play coming up soon so apparently he is very busy with that. We're grateful he is getting paid for some of that work! Tanner has also been very busy with play prepartions. Besides going in for a few hours on Monday, he also stayed after school on Wednesday and again today to work on that.
That's really it!
1 comment:
fun cakes!
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