What to do next?

It's been a bit of a wild and crazy -very hectic -week here!

We had company again over last weekend -with Jeff and his two little girls here. Interesting. Well, maybe, or most of the time but also a bit harried too.

It was the weekend for us to celebrate birthday boys -starting with Alex, who turned 15 on Sunday and Jeff and Clate -who share the 22nd as their birthday but we won't get into talking the number of years for either of them. I'll be nice and let both of them off the hook -this time!

So, Saturday, I cooked!

A big pot of tomato and meat sauce and then lots of ravioli for supper along with tossed salad for the grandson's big day, just had his special meal a day ahead of time. I didn't bake him a cake -nor did I bake any cake for the other two birthday boys either. But I asked Alex what kind of cake or special dessert he might like and he had said anything Lemon is a good deal for me. So, instead of baking him a cake, I made two pans of Lemon Curd Coffee Cake -which isn't really a cake -it's bread -but for some reason or other, it's still called cake. 

 Here's what one of the pans of Lemon Curd Coffee Cake looks like and it really is very good -wonderful, light, lemon filling rolled up into the bread dough and baked so it actually makes sweet  rolls -not even true bread there either. If anyone is interested in trying this, here's the recipe for it at this website. It's not really difficult to make either. (The hardest thing for me when I first wanted to try this recipe was finding the "Lemon Curd" and this spring, I saw some on the shelves at Walmart, in the jelly section -so I was off and running with this then!)

I did some other baking on Saturday too -made 4 regular-type loaves of Swedish Limpa Rye bread as well as one "kaka" loaf of that bread too. ("Kaka" bread is what the Swedes in this region call the big flat loaves of either rye, oatmeal or the sweet white bread they make.) We polished off almost all of the kaka loaf at supper and the next day, at dinner, we went through a half of one of the other rye loaves.

I gave a loaf of the rye bread to the boys for their birthday present -so that took our rye bread supply then by Sunday night down to 1 full loaf and half of another. However, Monday when I was getting supper ready, I went to slice some of the rye bread and could not find any of it -no where to be found -in the kitchen. Mandy had done the dishes Sunday night and Monday, she finished up the last of the Sunday dishes plus the pots and pans and had cleaned off the counter tops as well as the island in the center of the kitchen so I asked her where she had put that other loaf of rye bread.

Her response to that question was "What other loaf of rye bread?" So I explained to her that we should have had 1 full loaf and about 1/2 of a loaf but I couldn't find it so we both went on a bit of a search and destroy type mission hunting for the missing bread. Sad to say, the darned bread never did surface! So now we have a mystery in the house -"The Case of the Missing Rye Bread."

Remember last week I wrote about Kurtis and his little finger slicing accident with the axe? He was supposed to keep that finger bandaged -and DRY too -until today, when he was supposed to return to the Emergency Room to have the stitch removed and the finger inspected and all that.

Well, that big old bandage on his little index finger lasted till Wednesday morning of last week -not quite 48 hours! And the stitch? That made it through until Saturday when he managed to remove that himself. And, to add insult to injury on the medical community and apparently his faith in them too, by Saturday evening, he had also removed the fingernail too! So Mandy called the ER and asked if she had to bring him back in to have the finger checked then and they said no, as long as it stayed clean and didn't get infected, he had taken care of the whole thing then all on his own!

Saturday evening though brought a bit of drama to the household but not from Kurtis and his finger. Nope, this was all of Maya's doing and her issue that surfaces every time we have a birthday celebration in the house. It's then time for another visit from that darned Green-eyed Monster!

Actually, this episode came from two sources. One was that it was Alex's birthday and of course, he got some presents but the other came from the fact that Saturday, Mandy had gone shopping for the boys' presents and had taken Kurtis with her, leaving Maya home with me. Maya had originally been tagged to go with Mommy but because she didn't listen and clean up her bedroom, she had to stay home and shopping, for Maya, is one of the finest gifts you can give that girl! She is her Aunt Carrie upset in many, many ways -looks like a clone of her for openers but clothes, shoes and shopping -there the resemblance to her aunt really hits home.

The shopping for the birthday gifts wouldn't have upset her all that much to miss out on but it was the fact that her Mom had found not one, but two pair of shoes, in Kurt's size no less, that were super fantastic bargains and so, he had returned home with two new pairs of shoes and that was more than Maya could swallow!

When she discovered that, she went immediately into the "Poor me, woe is me" routine followed by "Nobody loves me, guess I'll go eat worms" kind of behavior and ended it by announcing in one really wild and bad hissy fit that she has no "matching shoes" and not a single pair of shoes in a Size 3 either! (Maybe the fact that she only wears a size 2 shoe has something to do with not having any size 3 shoes in her boxes of shoes -note, I said "Boxes" because she has two good sized boxes that are stuffed to overflowing with, you guessed it, SHOES! And the only time there is a pair of shoes that aren't "matching" is when she hasn't bothered to pick up both shoes to a pair and put them in one of those two boxes! So, trust me -the child is definitely not being deprived of shoes, not in any way, shape or form!

After that, she picked a fight with or over Jeff's older daughter and it all bounced back to the shoe meltdown-which by that time, Mandy had had more than her fill of Maya's misery so she got sent to bed. Even that ended badly too as Maya just wouldn't give up the ghost on the whining and crying so Mandy then removed the tv set from her bedroom as punishment for her behavior.

Sunday morning, I was afraid the whole darned scenario was going to go into a rerun when Maya got up -finally -and was sitting on the sofa, still pouting, and made a comment then about how her Mom had taken her tv set out of her bedroom and she'd done that "For no reason at all too!" Uh oh, I thought for sure the crap was going to hit the fans all over again but either Mandy didn't hear that comment or she chose to simply ignore it by considering the source. Wise move, any way you cut that one!

This week I've been working whenever I have a chance on a tabletopper I am embroidering -not sure as yet who or what it will go for but I'm trying to get it done by this Sunday anyway. And between that, trying to cook supper, keep track of what these two hooligans are getting into every day as well and I've been busy! Plus -making more phone calls and such about our upcoming class reunion tossed into that mix and I had more than enough to keep me moving.

Wednesday was my day this month to go over to the cancer clinic for my monthly "port flush" and since Mandy had to work that day, of course, the kids went to my appointment with me.

The morning was moving along fairly smoothly and it was time to hop in the jeep and head out but when I turned the key in the ignition, I got a bit of a fright in that all I heard was a couple little clicking sounds and no engine turning over! Not exactly what I wanted to have to deal with for sure. I tried again and again -several times more -to get the buggy to start, which finally it did start but it stalled out about 2 seconds later. Had a heck of a time to get it to start and to stay running but finally, it did kick in and away we went! I was a nervous wreck then at the cancer clinic worrying that when we went to leave, what if the darned jeep wouldn't start up at all then? But thankfully, it came through and was kind to me so we made it over there and back home with no more problems from the jeep!

Today, I had plans to go to lunch at the home of one of the girls in our monthly lunch group and we were going to spend the afternoon working on getting things in order for our class reunion. I was worried how I was going to manage this lunch today initially because Mandy had work today too and the thought of going to my friend's house to eat and put stuff together while taking the kids along and having to keep track of them and keep them from snooping in everything under the sun there too were taken care of though when the kids TSS aides made arrangements that they would take Maya and Kurtis up to Curwensville Dam for the day and give me some much needed relief by doing that!

We got the copies of the school newspaper all rolled up and tied up like it was a mini-diploma, along with a copy of the last Football game program of our senior year and they are ready to go into the gift bag each classmate will receive at our reunion -along with two cds being made up especially for our classmates featuring favorite old songs from 1961-62. We don't have the cds in our hot little hands as yet but they are expected to arrive any day now. We also had wrappers done up to put around Hershey bars which will be at the table setting of each person attending our reunion and the wrappers have a photo on the front of our old high school with the words on each side of that photo saying "West Branch Area High School and Class of 1962." The candy bar thing was copied from the kids of the Class of 1961 as they had those at their dinner too and they really do look cute as all get out!

I offered, in addition to doing up a small poster board in memory of the nine members of our class who have passed away, I said I would also do up name cards that have the graduation photo of each classmate who is attending the reunion too. So this evening, I sat down at the computer and put to use the little bit I learned a year ago about working with Microsoft's Publisher! It only took me about three hours to put all the pictures of the kids from our class who are going to attend our reunion into a file with their names under each picture and print this out on photo paper. Now all I have to do is cut the photos and clue them to the name tags we got and presto magic, a name tag with a photo of how each of us looked 50 years ago! (I'm not particularly fond of any photos of myself and especially not my graduation picture, but well guess I'll survive the ordeal, won't I?

And now -I do believe I'd best go to bed as my eyes are not cooperating at all and 7:30 a.m. will be here in no time!

More to come,so stay tuned!