Mini-Vacation?

Well, here it is, a Friday night, and I'm home, all alone! Makes me feel kind of like that song "It's Saturday night and I ain't got no money..." and that's partially true, cause no, I really don't have any money, none enough to be worth speaking about anyway.

But it's more for me that "I ain't got nobody" -nowhere to go, no one to see, that kind of "nothing" stuff, ya know.

Why is that, you ask?

Because Mandy and Ken left this morning for an overnight visit down in southern Maryland to see his Dad and the kids are both spending the night with Jenn-Jenn and her husband, Nick, and their kids. Their favorite overnighter spot in the whole wide-world, ya know.

And while it's not totally true that I don't have anything I could be doing -I should be working on the current tablecloth or perhaps reading some more of the new Jodi Picoult book that Mandy bought for us last week (I have finished about 250 pages so far in the book, so I haven't been totally lax there), but whenever I'm here alone, left to my own devices these days, as it were, it depresses me, as I miss those two little noisemakers and squabbling kids immensely.

So what do I do then?

Well, I've been alternating between surfing on the net for various things while I have the chance to hog the computer to my heart's content and at the same time, I'm also in the midst of making a special dessert-type dish to take out to church in the morning to be served for the lunch there for those folks attending a special conference there tomorrow.

And to do this dessert, it doesn't all come together at once and get baked or finished but rather, gets done sort of in steps so that gives me time to continue to surf in between steps.

I'm fixing a really yummy no-bake item called Banana Split Cake and the neat thing about this is there is absolutely no baking involved in it. It's strictly a refrigerator-freezer item. All it requires is a graham cracker crust, topped with a homemade pudding type filling, which you spread crushed (and extremely well-drained) pineapple over, then a layer of sliced bananas on the pineapple and finish it off with a container (large size) of cool whip. You can decorate the cool whip "Icing" if you like with some maraschino cherries and/or some drizzle of chocolate syrup and chill till ready to serve! It's super good and for church-type dinners/dessert needs, it's an excellent item to make and take too! Always gets totally wiped out anytime I've made it and taken it to any dinner there so far anyway.

So right now, I'm at an in-between stage -waiting for the graham cracker crust to chill to firm and for the butter I need to blend for the pudding filling to soften and the pineapple to drain so I was surfing some stuff I had in mind -and don't dare do this if Maya and Kurt are anywhere in the vicinity cause I don't want them to see this stuff, ya know.

Now, what could I be looking at online that I don't want them to see?

Well, for sure it's not anything obscene -certainly no porn sites (mainly because I don't do those sites in the first place -lol) but actually, it's some sites I was told about that I can find neat little gift type things for the kids! Ha ha! See, I told you it wasn't anything bad, didn't I?

Anyway, next month is Kurt's fifth birthday and a very good friend of mine had recommended this site -cause she had used it to get some kids personalized gifts for her grandchildren which were really cute.

I figured what do I have to lose by looking around there and maybe I could find something that Kurtis would like, could use and that I could afford too -all rolled up into one!

And I did find something I thought would make for a cute gift too -that Mandy and I could get for Kurtis as well as something affordable that we could buy for the kids' Dad too what with his birthday coming up in May and then Father's Day in June. Always difficult enough to find something for their Dad but now, even more so to do since he and Mandy are separated, ya know.

But anyway, I found these tee-shirts -with an adult fisherman and a small child on them and you can get them then with "Dad" under the adult fisherman and have Kurt's name under the child fisherman then too. Since Bill does like to try to take the kids fishing when he feels up to and can manage that -and both Kurtis and Maya enjoy those outings a lot too -that a tee shirt like that for Bill and/or Kurtis would make for a neat little present then, that wouldn't require taking out a small business loan ya know!

I'll have to run this idea past Mandy, of course, but I think even she might agree with me that this would make for a neat present for either or both of them.