Strawberry & Peach Cream Trifle

Who wants to invite us over this weekend so I have an excuse to make this from Betty Crocker’s Recipe of the Day feed. I could use an excuse to utilize the $6 trifle bowl I got at Wal-Mart!

Nine reasons why it’s good to be Justin

1. Last week he was elected by his class to be a peer mediator.
2. His first football practice is tomorrow (his team is the Tigers).
3. He can play “Sweet Child Of Mine” by Guns ‘N Roses on the electric guitar
4. He was given the honor of being “Assistant School Bus Captain” by Driver Dan who incidentally must be the very best school bus driver in the entire world (yes, even better than Mr. B.) – this earned him a spot on the ever-popular video magazine “TigerTown News” which is viewed by schoolmates throughout town.
5. Even several weeks into school, he still really likes his teacher Mrs. Hafner, and subsequently is thoroughly enjoying the 5th grade.
6. He’s reading Holes and is almost done (Chapter 30)!
7. He has nearly perfected the intricate skill of flipping an egg to a perfect “over easy” without breaking the yolk or making any sort of disastrous mess.
8. He got to play a Wii at his friend Anthony’s house today.
9. He is probably the most likeable, loveable, joyful, cheerful and optimistic kid I have ever known. What a blessing!

Weekend follow-up

This is what I expect will be a short post – just a follow up to gush about the huge fun we had on Friday night at Takamatsu. The food was okay, but as I anticipated, the company was what made the moment for us. I suppose it helped that Terry, Meechaw and Jim all were doing sake bombers. I was the designated driver and so proved that great fun can be had even without alcohol.

On Saturday at Justin’s team meeting we learned that his practice would be a good 15 minute drive from our house, and in the opposite direction of Eric’s practices and games. They will compete against each other tomorrow (for time, that is) but I suppose we’ll find a way to make it work – we always have.

Headaches, 6 reasons it’s a happy Friday, other news

Wow what a wierd day. I can’t possibly be productive at work right now because I am smack dab in the midst of a migraine – my 2nd in a month, although previous to that I hadn’t had one for over a year! They seem to be getting worse too, as along with the pain, irritability and sight impairments, this one is also accompanied by severe dizzyness/vertigo. Blech.

Other that that, the day has actually been pretty good! Here’s why:

1. My group was not called for jury duty today so I was able to forego the 90 minute drive each way!
2. I finished a massive invoice report (after 3 straight workdays of analyzing numbers and budget codes!)
3. I got a signed contract back from my SVP (30 days in the works!)
4. I got some excellent news on another meeting which will save me and my colleagues tons of work!
5. I am looking forward to dinner with friends this evening at some sort of Korean place where they cook your food at the table. You know I’m not an adventurous eater, but even if I just have a salad, it should be a fun time with the group.
6. It’s only about 2-1/2 hours til the weekend officially begins!

In other news from the past week – some good, some not:

1. Terry’s dad was in a wreck – drove into a ditch with their RV but his guardian angel was with him as he walked away with nothing more than a wrist injury. Terry’s mom was not in the camper at the time.
2. Justin was elected by his classmates to be a “peer mediator” which basically means he’ll get to settle disputes between kids. It’s a pretty cool program which will teach him some valuable life skills – Terry and I are very proud. Of course, the highlight for Justin was “at the end of the year, we get to have a really big pool party!”
3. Eric’s football coaches have been smiling upon him, and he should get plenty of play time at next week’s game. (His back is much better too)
4. I went to a client appreciation event put on by the Scottdsale CVB. I was able to bottle my own wine, however it needs to sit for 3 months before it is at optimum drinking age. That means by my calculations, if anyone comes to visit over Thanksgiving they might just have the chance to enjoy it with me – that is, if I decide to share.

Tomorrow we have Justin’s parent meeting for football. He is really excited about this year. On Sunday, Terry’s going to the Dbacks game, Justin has a birthday party to go to, and I have a baby shower to attend. I’m sure this one will fly by like all the others, but hopefully I’ll get sufficient downtime. I’d better enjoy it now, before we get knee-deep into Convention planning stuff.

My migraine is starting to subside thank God, so I’d better get back to work.

Work hard, party hard, read and bake

After working hard all week it was nice to have a selfish weekend of relaxation with a bit of partying mixed in. The boss was out Thursday and Friday and I got more done in those two days than in the previous whole week! Friday night we went to Eric’s scrimmage and a ceremonial jersey presentation where we parents lined up on one side of the football field, and the kids on the other. They called each player’s name and number, and the corresponding parents met him on the field mid-way to hand over the jersey and hug, shake hands, belly jump or whatever. It was nice, but we didn’t appreciate the 45-minute wait to get his jersey in the first place! Afterwards we went to Zipp’s to celebrate, where the waitress proceeded to dump three mega-sized cups of soda on Eric’s lap. I took him home but felt so bad for the kid – it was supposed to be his ‘big day’!

Saturday morning he had practice followed by his first-ever chiropractic appointment. Dr. Miller took X-rays and found that the pain and breathing trouble he was having breathing was the direct result of a misplaced vertebra from a hit he made at practice. The adjustment Doc made on him yesterday aligned him perfectly, but he was warned that it could happen again very easily, so we are wondering about his ability to play football. Doc told him to take it easy and no practice on Monday or Tuesday – instead more adjustments.

Last night we went to the Marquee Theater and enjoyed B/S (AC/DC / Bon Scott tribute band), the Atomic Punks (Van Halen tribute) and a few others. It was a lot of fun hanging out with our neighbors. Today is a typical lazy Sunday for me other than my morning trip to the grocery store. I did make a 7-Up cake which I think turned out pretty good! I also finished reading The Nanny Diaries – I thought it was okay, this may sound odd but I expect the movie (coming out Friday) will be better than the book.

My next book will be another early reader edition – the third book about Sarah Agnes Prine, one of my favorite all time characters. It doesn’t come out for a few weeks but I was lucky enough to jump on someone who put it up at BookMooch and it should appear in my mailbox this week! Hopefully by Friday’s jury duty session as I believe I will have ample opportunity to read it there.

This morning Terry got a call from a friend who is in a tournament and had a spot open. “Free golf – NOW” got him out the door in like, 5 minutes. I bet he had fun, but whew – with the temps at 113 he must really be roasting out there!

Tomorrow back to work with a ton more to do, and on Friday JURY DUTY! Ugh, not looking forward to that. Plus, I have to drive for about an hour and a half just to get there!

7-Up Cake

Cake:
1 pkg white cake mix
1 (3 oz.) package lemon Jello
4 eggs
1/2 cup oil
1 cup 7-Up

Glaze:
3 cups confectioner’s sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons 7-Up

To make the cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a Bundt pan.
2. Put all cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat 2-3 minutes at medium speed. Pour batter into pan.
3. Bake at 350F 45-60 minutes until cake tests done and just barely begins to pull away from the sides of the pan.
4. Cool 15 minutes on cooling rack; remove from pan and transfer to cake plate.
5. Glaze with lemon glaze while still warm.

To make the glaze:

Sift confectioner’s sugar into medium bowl; add lemon juice and 7-Up slowly while whisking. If needed, add more 7-Up. Drizzle over warm cake with spoon or paper cone.

WordPress: Awesome or archaic?

You may have heard that those born under the sign of Aquarius – like me – seek change. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ve seen it go from something simple and plain, to something very pink, to something desert-like. I guess maybe I haven’t found its true “identity” yet. I really like the header photo and how it matches the title of the blog, but I don’t like the plain and simple look that WordPress forces me to use with it.

I’ve spent a lot of time surfing, looking for ways to spice up the blog’s look, but haven’t really found a template that I like. It doesn’t help that WordPress – the free edition anyway – forces you to use one of their templates, some of which don’t allow for much personalization.

And don’t even get me going on how they don’t allow anything other than plain HTML widgets for the sidebar. I found a really cool polling site that I couldn’t even use because WordPress blocks the code! They say it’s for “safety”, blocking code that might allow hackers to penetrate the system. Well, if it’s really that much of a concern, why not put something else in place? Do the other blogging services really have such a tough time? Why punish people like me -  literally a kid in an Internet candy store, full of all kinds of gadgets, graphics and  goodies that would make my site a more fun place to visit.

What I do like about WordPress is the ease of use. I like how easy it is to navigate and manage your pages. There is somewhat of a community, though it’s a little hard to get to.

I don’t really want to move my blog again, but I sure wish I had more options here. If you have any ideas for me, please post in the comments – I’d really appreciate it!

Weekend winding down

It is late Sunday afternoon and has been a good weekend so far (which probably won’t change). “Good” meaning not having to work, clean house or be anywhere at any given time.

Friday evening started out with an adjustment from Dr. Miller which included a special wrist snap for rolling well at BUNCO. I guess it worked, because I had the 2nd most wins that night, which netted me one of the $10 prizes, a decorative spice rack. Of course there was more fun in actually playing and interacting with the ladies, especially since it was enhanced with a six pack of Mike’s Hard Light Cranberry Lemonade, only 2 points per bottle. I was especially glad to see our newest player, my friend Dana, enjoy herself despite some mortifying xxx-rated stories from one of the subs. After the game, some of us girls joined the guys at Jim & Kathy’s where the fun continued until after midnight. We just have the BEST friends!

Surprisingly, Saturday started with no hangover, just some dehydration and general feeling of scumminess which was easily washed away in a hot shower. Terry had the unfortunate duty of taking Eric to football practice from 7-9 and after having new tires put on my Santa Fe, I went to Trader Joe’s and picked up some of my favorites – organic apples & bananas, frozen margherita pizzas (which proved to taste incredibly similar to the ones we devoured in Rome), Italian red table wines and the ingredients for my favorite Caprese salad. We went to the 4pm Mass and Terry and I decided to go see The Bourne Ultimatum which was just as good as the first two. Jason Bourne is my hero! And I just love Julia Stiles so it was nice to see her again, though I wish she had more of a role in this movie. Her hair was completely adorable and I think I might go with that look after the summer heat has gone for the year.

I was proud of myself today as I was able to go to the grocery store and return before noon, allowing me to throw the necessary ingredients for chicken & dumplings in the crock pot for dinner. Boy, it sure smells good! I have been using my crock pot for summer dinners more and more often – it’s just so nice not to have to fuss over a stovetop or with an oven. Last week I made Barbecue in it, using bone-in pork ribs that were on sale for $1.99/lb. I simply placed them in the crock pot, added a little water and cooked on low for 7 hours. Then I removed the bones, clear liquids and fat chunks, and broke up the meat. I poured in a bottle of barbecue sauce and continued to cook for one more hour – which produced the most wonderful and tasty barbecue sandwich meat! And the whole dinner (with plenty of leftovers) was under $10.

Tonight’s Chicken & Dumplings started with a couple pounds of boneless chicken breasts, a can of cream of chicken soup, a can of cream of celery soup, cumin, seasoning salt and a finely chopped onion, with chicken broth to cover. Cooked on high three hours, then added a bag of frozen vegetable mix and 1 can of refrigerated biscuit dough, torn to small pieces, cooked 3 more hours and done!  I’ll just serve it with a salad and sliced bread and it’s dinner.

The week ahead will be filled with work and more work, kids’ homework, and the other usual stuff. Friday Terry and I will be presenting Eric with his game jersey for football, followed by a team barbecue party. On Saturday we’re going to the B/S (AC/DC tribute band) concert to see Kevin play and hang out with his wife Kathy and many of our friends & neighbors. I’m looking forward to that, and also catching the Van Halen tribute again too. Oh and how could I forget – the season premiere of Weeds is on tomorrow night. I can’t wait to see whether Nancy, Silas and Shane come away from their perils as posed in the season 2 cliffhanger!

Today I also finished up a book called Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot. It was a cute book, but not as good as anything Sophie Kinsella has done. Maybe because the main character Lizzie is younger – fresh out of college – and I don’t relate to her as much as Kinsella’s Becky (Shopaholic) or Emma (Can You Keep A Secret?) Now I’ve started a book called The Guardians by Ana Castillo. It was given to me for free from Random House – they sent it to me with the only stipulation being that I write a review on LibraryThing and Amazon. Pretty cool, huh?

Speaking of babble, this has been a long post so I’d better sign off now.

Back to school, work updates, pictures

Another “first day of school” come and gone. Eric only has three left now, how depressing. His bus picks him up really early. He was close enough to walk to school last year and hasn’t been on a bus in a while. Fortunately I know the bus driver as he has been Justin’s driver since we moved here two years ago. Some of you may recall me talking about “Dan” when relating one of Justin’s “lost boy” stories from 2005 when he got off at the wrong stop.

Speaking of Justin, his teacher is really nice. We met her on Monday night and she’s not your average conventional educator to say the least. He said today was his best ever first day of school and I hope the rest of the year is as good for him. She preferred to forego the traditional fluorescent lighting her classroom for softer Ikea milk bottle lamps. She also had some aromatherapy and I think I might have heard a mini fountain going, though it could have been my imagination.

Eric was pretty excited about starting high school, though his 11am lunch period has none of his friends in it (according to him). This year his electives include Spanish and Business Technology which I think will be good foundations for him. He’s enjoying football practice too – Terry and I will be ceremoniously presenting him with his jersey next Friday night. Hopefully he’ll make the A team as the B team only has 5 games. His first one will be on Wednesday, August 29th (regardless of which squad he is on) so mark your calendars!

Work has been “ok” for me but I’ve been spending too much time in my boss’ office going through budgeting and financial stuff that should have been done months ago, and in fact we have gone over it all ad nauseum. Terry is enjoying work a lot more since his deadbeat former boss is gone. He reports, “we’re actually getting a lot of stuff done in our department.” I’m jealous – not that my boss is a deadbeat or anything, he just requires me to sit in his guest chair way too much, and often unnecessarily, which makes for a very unproductive and frustrating day for me.

Friday is BUNCO night which I usually look forward to, but we seem to be having trouble getting enough players this month – we need 3 subs! I hope we find some, since it’s just not possible to play with only 9 people. I really hope our group doesn’t dissolve but when it’s so hard to find players it hardly seems worth the effort. I guess the least we can do is just hang out, which will still be fun, just not the same.

I finally got around to downloading the photos from my camera so I’ll leave you with some miscellaneous shots – some recent, some not so much.

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