Make Time!

Boy, life has begun to get more than a bit busy around here for me and by the looks of things, it's gonna get busier yet over time too!

This past weekend was my birthday and surprisingly enough, that day was nice in all respects -calm, easy, beautiful weather, nice meal, family around -very relaxing and fun. Sam and I went for a nice walk, visited along the road with some of my neighbors, then back home where I had some time to relax with a tabletopper I've been working on. Mandy and I collaborated on fixing supper which made that task easier that way. My son showed up for supper and brought a very nice -also really tasty chocolate cake too that he had purchased. Apparently Mandy had told him to run into town and pick up an ice cream cake and it was really funny the way that played out.

When he arrived here, he came in carrying this big box and Mandy immediately yelled at me to "Look the other direction. Do. Not. Look. This. Way!" And he came through the dining room and disappeared, carrying this big box, into the bathroom. So I figured they had gone into cahoots with each other then to get me another birthday gift but it turned out it was this cake he had bought which was iced but nothing written on it and he had taken it into the bathroom and was "trimming" it, using one of those icing pens, if you know what I mean. Anyway, eventually he resurfaced and carried this box, containing my birthday cake, out to the kitchen counter where we had a good chuckle over the inscription he had written on it -"Happy Birthday Crackerhead!"

The inscription is in reference to a lady we both used to work with at a truckstop about 30 miles from here and that was what she and my son always referred to each other as -"Crackerheads!" It's our own little brand of family humor here but the kids saw that and then, of course, Maya wanted to know what that meant. Don't think I want to be trying to explain that to her just yet!

Supper turned out very nice and surprisingly calm too considering any meal here can turn into absolute pandemonium at a moment's notice if one or both of the kids decides they aren't going to eat what ever happens to be the fare for the day but although we had a little issue with Maya over the potatoes I had fixed, she ate enough of 'em to be allowed then to have a piece of Gram's Birthday Cake.

I don't know why, but for some reason neither Mandy or I even thought to get the camera out and get a video of the kids and my cake as they sang Happy Birthday to me because Kurtis was really quite entertaining in the song department! Time to cut the cake and as I was doing that and plating each piece, passing them around the table, my son says "So, this cake then is just a regular chocolate cake with white icing, huh?" And initially, it didn't register with me as to why he would make a comment like that but Mandy understood what he was getting at. Seems that yes, she had told him to get an Ice Cream Cake and he thought that's what he had purchased because -well, because he got it our of the freezer/cooler at the grocery store not realizing that it was just a regular cake with icing on it stored there, and not the ice cream cake he thought he was buying. Only my son would do something like that! So if anyone reading this ever needs an ice cream cake, don't send my son to the store to get it! However, I have to say that the cake was just fine even if it wasn't ice cream cake and the kids ate every last bite of what they'd been given whereas with ice cream cakes, Kurtis often won't eat the chocolate crumb mixture in the center of those kind of cakes and that part then either goes to waste (gets tossed in the trash) or else, it goes to my waist as I hate to see things like that not get eaten and I really do not need the extra calories at all!

So anyway, the day was all really nice, smooth, very little of the normal fighting between the two little ones which made it even more pleasant for all concerned!

But now, things are going to be changing, gearing up for another birthday celebration this coming weekend with Maya's birthday party for openers. I'm going to have to make some things -food items -for that party in the next couple of days, plus get a few things organized for some activities at church that have to be done by Sunday, Plus, I've got some fabric that I purchased recently to make a jumper out of it for Maya for her birthday and of course, though I finished the tabletopper I was working on, I've already started work on another embroidery project and I have several more needlecraft projects I had hoped to have completed in time to take them to our Fall Bazaar which is coming up the beginning of November too. Then there is that cookbook project as well which is due to come to fruition the end of the month with the arrival of our shipment of cookbooks that we plan to begin selling at the Bazaar too and that's going to be a job and a half to get them set up, ready to go the day of the bazaar too. All those things, along with the food items I'll be involved in baking and preparing for the bazaar too -a couple batches of Swedish breads plus at least one, probably two big pans of lasagne for the dinner that day and finding time in between to bake some cookies or other things for the bazaar too and well, I'm wondering now if maybe I'm getting a tad close to over-extending myself!

By the time all these events come to pass, I think I'm going to need a nice long rest and I'm thinking boy, I could really go for a trip to Texas to visit my cousin but actually use that as an excuse to go to hcg Austin instead!

Well, it does sound like the weeks ahead will be full -for sure -and hectic, yep -that too! But if I start now to plan my days out a little better, I think I'll be able to squeeze most of the things I want to do in -just need to prioritize a bit and most of it -the important stuff anyway -will all come together in the end!

It better happen that way!