"It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength."--Maya Angelou
Yes, I started work a week ago today. And no I haven't posted as much this week as I have in the past. Thanks for pointing out my slacking, Kettle. But work is not really responsible for the lack of new posts.
Because, confession #1, know what else I started recently? Logging into Facebook! OMG what a freakin' time suck! People I have not seen in ages, some in over 20 years, are posting pictures as far back as elementary school. Then I remember I have old pictures, and I know where they are after the great closet clean out. So of course I must drag them out, take photos of the pictures (scanner, smanner) and post them for all to see. And then I have to search for more friends. Before I know it, holy shit, it's time to pick up the kids.
Also? Confession #2, I noticed when I wasn't posting everyday I started getting more comments. I'm guessing this is because not everyone obsessively reads new blog posts everyday like me. Who knew? Thus, when there are many posts on one blog to read, people are less likely to take the time to comment? Or maybe when I cut back on quantity my quality of content goes up? Whatever the reason, I likee more comments.
Confession #3 I'm having an hot and heavy affair with my Tifaux. Of course I don't want the kids to know, so we can only get together when the girls are at school. And at night I am recording and watching new shows. Right now I have Desperate Housewives and Pushing Daisies waiting to be watched, with Survivor, Ugly Betty, ER and Grey's Anatomy to record tonight.
Now put it all together and what do you got? Apparently a slackin' blogger. But don't fret, I'm not going anywhere, it's just going take me awhile, um about a month I'd venture, to adjust to the new schedule around here.
Now, what are your procrastinating excuses?
Fess up.
It can be any old confession.
Don't leave me hanging here.
Scene from Evan Almighty:
[Rita voices her disbelieve in Evan's ark]
Rita: Look, I go to church every Sunday.
[Evan doesn't believe her]
Rita: Every "other" Sunday.
[Evan still doesn't believe her]
Rita: I've been to church!
Me too, Rita, me too. And I don't blog about my religious beliefs much either.
But as I was flipping through the channels one morning last week I turned on Evan Almighty. And Pete help me, I couldn't turn it off. I had to watch it. Yes, I saw it at the movie theater last summer. And I'm not embarrassed to say I liked it, as did my kids and my parents. Now that's unheard of. Personally I find the animals following around Steve Carell HI-larious. And my love for Lauren Graham knows no bounds.
But it's the general idea behind the mom praying for the family to be closer and God's answer not being what she expected that intrigues me. It reminds me of one of my favorite songs of all time, Garth Brooks, "Unanswered Prayers". Because although I wish life was as simple as having Morgan Freeman in a pristine white suit to hand out sage advice when needed, it's not.
But I can't help but think it would be nice if were always this easy:
“Better to be known as a sinner than a hypocrite.”
the phone is ringing...the phone... we'll be right there... the phone... the phone is ringing... there's an animal in trouble... there's an animal in trouble... there's an animal in trouble somewhere!
Here's what I found when I opened the dryer this morning in an attempt to find a clean pair of matching socks. Hey it's Friday people, like your kids still have matched socks in their dressers. Do NOT! There they were, not one, but two animals in distress.* This of course led to my calling the girls by loudly singing the Wonder Pets theme song. Then Breanna said "mom this should be your blog today". Smart kid that one. The blogs this week, they practically wrote themselves.
*No animals, real or plastic, were harmed in the making of this blog.
My college confession was fun, so this week I'm going back to high school. I rarely got into trouble while still living at home. I was a responsible teenager. Okay so I had my moments, I drank and kissed boys. But in high school I also held down a part time job, was a summer time nanny, was an honor student, and got into a good college. My mischief was harmless teenage fun. But once, and only once, I was the girl who ruined things for everyone.
As you might recall I grew up in Lakeland, FL then moved to Vero Beach for high school. Our lame ass high school had no senior trip. But Lakeland, damn those kids knew how to party it up right. They went on a Senior Cruise to Me-Hee-Koe. And my BFF was planning on going. She was a straight A student and one of the exceptionally good kids, never in trouble, ever. So when she smiled real sweet and innocent and asked one of the trip sponsors if a friend who moved away, but knew a lot of the seniors, could tag along, they said yes. The hell? I KNOW!
Now, as an adult, I have no idea why we even imagined anyone would go along with this little scheme. But I distinctly remember plotting this entire trip with no question of if it would work just details of how. We planned for everything from getting permission from the sponsors to saving for the cost myself so my parents would go along with it all. Somehow, only Pete knows how, we pulled it off.
So, Spring Break of 1988 we headed off on the S.S. (shit ship) Veracruz to Mexico with a bunch of horny teenagers and a couple of high school coaches. A sign of things to come should have been that we missed the first morning's breakfast. It was breakfast, no one cared if we ate, right? See as soon as we hit the water the afternoon before everyone started to drink, then we hit some rough waters, and the S.S. Veracruz was a tiny ass boat. So when breakfast rolled around, we were tired and hung over and a bit sea sick. And it was just a meal, right? Well no. That is when the class reviewed emergency procedures and such. Uh huh, the and such? That would come back to bite us in the ass later.
I believe we stopped in Playa del Carmen and Cozumel. Our first stop was during the day and we shopped. My BFF? Her family is Cuban. We got some cute cheap ass jewelry thanks to her negotiating skills or her adorable big doe eyes. Either way, fun.
Our next stop was at night. We took a ferry boat to shore and hit the bars. There were other ships at port that night too. One of which also had a senior class. So there were tons of teens in the club we were dancing in. Boys were buying us drinks. And funny side note, us smart girls remembered the don't drink the water rule, so we didn't get any frufru drinks, we had rum and coke. How could that be bad? Hello smart girls, how do they make a rum and coke cold? With ice. What is ice made of? WATER! We didn't have any adverse affects from the drinks, on our stomachs anyway.
Being responsible young women, we listened to the nice man driving the ferry who told us that the ferry would leave for the ship every half hour and the last ferry would be at 1:30am. We decided we would head back for the 12:30 ferry. That way we would still have 2 more chances to catch a ferry if it was full or we were late. See we were SMART girls.
So back to the drinks, and dancing with cute boys, and more drinks. When out of NO WHERE one of the coaches was in the bar, arm around each of us, asking what the hell we thought we were doing? Seems that meeting at that breakfast we missed? Yeah, that one. They discussed how everyone was to come back by 12:00am. And everyone did, except the two of us and one other guy. OH SHIT! Did we not notice when the ENTIRE senior class left the bar? Um no, not really. Did I mention we were getting cute boys from the other ship to buy us drinks and dance with us? We didn't care about the people we saw all the time. Needless to say we were lectured about how my friend was such a responsible kid and how they bent the rules to let me sneak in on their cruise and this would be the last time they would ever do that again. Whoops. As we arrived back at the ship on the ferry escorted by the coach we received a round of applause from the rest of the seniors who were just happy they weren't the ones in trouble.
The ONLY reason we were not locked in our room for the trip back? Because the guy who was missing? He was on the other ship with some girl he picked up in the bar! I am not kidding. So he was sent to his room for the duration and we had the joy of breakfast with the coaches for our trip home.
Of course there was more to the cruise than one night and one bar. However, for the life of me, I am not remembering it. Yes, I have pictures from the cruise.
Um, yeah, so I thought that guy was hot. His name I honestly do not know, they called him Bear. And he was a good kisser. And apparently I stalked him the entire cruise. Because I have NO pictures of me and my BFF or anyone else for that matter. Only this guy.
Alright, it's your turn. Fess up. Don't leave me hanging here.
My mom calls me today asking for THE Pumpkin Bread recipe. What makes this funny, is that it's her recipe. She has somehow misplaced her recipe card. Yeah, so turning into my mom, I know. Amazingly enough I actually found my copy of the recipe, in her handwriting, exactly where is was supposed to be... What is that you say? You think that is because my hubby is the one who deals with most of the recipes in this house? La-la-la, can't hear you.
Anyway, since I was typing in the recipe to email to her so she could bake bread tonight to take to church tomorrow, like she promised, I figured what the hell I'd post it for you. Share the wealth, two birds one stone... What's that you say? Lazy blogging at it's finest? Well normally I'd agree with you. But this pumpkin bread is seriously delicious. My mom used to make 3 batches when my sister and I would come home for a holiday. One batch each for us to take home and one batch to eat when we were at her house. Really, 9 loaves of bread for the two of us. Don't be thinking we actually shared with anyone else. My sister is 16 years older than me and I am not exaggerating when I say we nearly came to blows over the last of the pumpkin bread.
Pumpkin Bread
Makes 3 small or 2 large loaves
3 cups sugar
31/3 cups flour
2 cups pumpkin
1 cup cooking oil
4 eggs
2/3 cup water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp all spice
Beat eggs, cream sugar, add pumpkin, oil, water. Sift dry ingredients and add in.
Grease pans and bake at 350 for about 1 hour.
The loaves can be frozen and eaten later. However, there will be no leftovers from only 3 little loaves, so freezing is only for the ambitious that make multiple batches. And it's yummy when still icey, just thawed out. It also tastes great heated just a bit and slathered with butter, or if you are in the mood, cream cheese. But it doesn't NEED anything, it's so moist it melts in your mouth. And because it's pumpkin and bread it totally counts as breakfast. Oh yes, it does... What's that you say? La-la-la, can't hear you.