One Funny Day

I have so many blogs to write... but I had to pop this one in today. It was just a funny day.

First off, I was very determined today to accomplish a lot. I will be away from school for the next three days due to some in-servicing for a new Data Base program for next year. This is very stressful for me.. since I like to be in total control of my world and everyone else's! Linda and I were quiet, heads down, hard at it... plugging away at little projects and big ones. On a normal day there is a constant flow of little ones coming in the office for snacks, for bandaids, for calls to home. Some bear little notes from teachers who are looking for something. Others come because of behaviour issues, either in the classroom or on the playground. But today, the morning was unusually quiet. We forged ahead, heads down, both in our own little worlds. Recesses came and went with a few interruptions but then it was quiet again... awesome day!

It was shortly after the noon hour recess began that we had our first incident.. with a young fellow falling on a pole and receiving one of the biggest goose egg bumps I have seen in a while. He arrived at the office with his brave but scared face covered with his hand.. and we quickly sat him down, and applied ice. This young fella had a constant round of visitors from the playground to see if he was alright.. Next came several normal scraps, bumps and bug bite needs.

Just as I was about to sit down for the 10th time.. I hear coming down the hall... yelling... and it was coming fast. I got up to see what was happening.. and before I could take a step.. a young blond boy flew in the office, rounded the corner down my hallway and headed into the STAFF washroom... all the while yelling. He was going so fast, I couldn't really make out what he was saying and only understood once he had completely gone by me.

He was yelling... "I have to PEEEEE"... "I have to PEEEE". Once it registered, I rushed down the hall to be of assistance... but just like the Streaker Song..... I was too late. And so was he. The entire front of his little jeans were dark blue with "wet". I redirected him back out to the hall and to the children's bathroom and asked him if he still needed to pee.. and he indicated yes.

I got him safely to the washroom, but by the time I got to my desk, I heard this ungodly yelling, coming from the bathroom.. so off I go. The poor little guy couldn't get his belt undone... geesh.. so I stood in the boys washroom door and helped him get his belt undone.. and I watched him make his way into the stall to finish what he needed to do. Before he rounded the corner of the stall I was treated to the view of his little butt as he unceremoniously yanked down his jeans, undies and all.

He spent the next 30 minutes with me, sitting in a plastic chair, coloring and singing, while he waited for his Grammie to come with new clothes! I would like to add that this little guy from grade 1, came in the doors from the playground, passed his classroom which has a bathroom, ran down a long hallway, to make it to the office to use our bathroom.. for whatever reason.!

The afternoon was not nearly as quiet, but flew by, just the same.. and then it was bus dismissal. One little one couldn't find her sister, and as she reported to me that her sister was not where she was suppose to be, her lip quivered with bravery and fear. We called the classroom, we called the bus lines outside. She explained to me that she and her sister always walk home together. They were in Primary and One. She and I walked outside and walked to the crossing guard to see if he saw her sister. Just as we got to him, the little girl spotted her dad, driving a van towards us. She bolted from my grip and ran out on the road.. giving me, the crossing guard and her dad heart attacks. Apparently, her sister walked home without her today. GEESH!

Got lots done today.. but had to stay until 6:00pm to get it done...

For Heavens Sake

Have you ever heard of blog block. I think I have it. Like how annoying.... I just can't write blogs.

I can only imagine what an author goes through when they are blocked and have publishers hounding them. I really want to blog... but I go through random thoughts.. like...

who wants to hear about that... or that is so boring....

What I have to do is keep in mind the whole reason for writing this blog...

1. keeping in touch with my family

2. keeping a running record of my life

3. sharing funny and interesting stories with those who want to read them.

so... I apologize now for an future boring stories... or things that are not very interesting.. ....

I have to move forward and document a few family items...

Early in April, Terry had his birthday during Easter weekend.

Michelle made this most delicious brownies (Terry's favorite dessert) and she topped the pan of brownies with a hard chocolate plaque depicting some of Terry favorite things. Curling, Golf, bowling and the Wii, of course.

Now I thought I had the best brownie recipe in the world.. but this recipe of Michelle's was BY FAR the best brownies I have ever eaten.

Michelle and Stephanie (plus their spouses) gave Terry a pretty cool gift. When dad was still alive, we often talked about getting a meat slicer so that when I cooked roasts, the leftovers could be thinly sliced for sandwiches...

Well, the kids remembered this idea and this was the year. And so far we have had sliced roasted pork and a yummy smoked ham.

What a great idea, and fun little contraption (and just a little scary!)

Baby steps here.. this is my first "catch up" blog... several more to come..

Regrets?

I recently heard a saying... on TV... . I have thought about it a lot over the last few days...

I’d rather regret the things I’ve done,

than the things I haven’t done.

Do you have any regrets...

I thought about what I might have done in the past that I would regret... and you know, I can't think of anything that I have done, that I regret... If you have a "things happen for a reason" attitude.. you usually don't have many regrets.

But do I regret things I haven't done... well, that one is a little more thought provoking. How about you?

Crater Cake

What do you do with your rotting bananas? As I have explained before (and now I am thinking I have an obsession with rotting bananas) I have compiled a couple of absolute family favorite recipes to use up those "toooo brown" bananas in the house. Our families' absolute favorite recipe is for these banana muffins that I have made for 18 years. I tried a million banana muffin and banana bread recipes and when I found this one.... I stopped looking. These were perfection.

The second treasured recipe for using up bananas is called Crater Cake.

Not much to look at, really. Many years ago, a dear old friend brought along this cake for a potluck. When we all went nuts over it, she said.. "well, geesh, you gave me the recipe book that it had the recipe!" How funny was that... and that was the start of our Crater Cake obsession.

I think the reason for the name is that once you take this cake out of the over, it sort of sinks down a bit in irregular patterns... and the inside is moist and filled with chocolate and cinnamon... The picture above shows the furthest cake has been out of the oven for 30 minutes and the closest once is still quite puffy.. as it just came out of the oven.

Crater Cake

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs beaten

3 ripe Bananas

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

3 cups flour

1 cup sour cream

1.5 tsp cinnamon

3/4 cup Brown sugar

Cream together butter and sugar. Add beaten eggs and beat until smooth. Add vanilla and mashed bananas. Mix until smooth. Mix together flour, baking powder and soda. Add the flour mixture to the banana mixture alternating with the sour cream. Ending with dry ingredients, (Chantal, that means you add some flour, then half the sour cream, then more flour, then the other half of the sour cream and then end with the rest of the flour-you wanted specific instructions)

Pour half the batter in your 9 x 13 pan (Chantal, you can use your lasagna pan). Combine the sugar and cinnamon, and sprinkle half of this mixture over the batter. Top that with half of the chocolate chips. Then spoon the rest of the cake batter using a big spoon, putting dollops of batter evenly over the chocolate chips. Then spread the batter smooth, sprinkle with the rest of the cinnamon/sugar mixture and then sprinkle with chocolate chips. I never measure the chocolate chips.. I put on what I think looks like enough.

Bake in a 350 oven for 45 to 50 minutes. (my oven takes 50 minutes). Let cool for at least an hour. (good luck with that, its a painful wait) It gets lumpy and shallow sink holes...

Greenwood Closing 2010

What a weekend. As always, the Greenwood Ladies Closing was a great event. I have blogged this event a couple of times over the past few years... here is 2007 when our theme was Countries and here is 2008 when our theme was Holidays.

This year our theme was the RED CARPET which was the Oscars. Debbie and I were organizers this year which involved creating posters, correspondence with teams, buying the prizes and organizing the draws for a couple of months before this weekend. The weekend itself was pretty hectic as organizers but pretty fun just the same. Our entire club works very hard to put on a great event each year. Our regular Ladies League of 7 teams (28 ladies) prepare all winter for this event. Each team is responsible for

a different aspect of the weekend... Decorating, making up gift baskets to sell tickets on, selling 50/50 tickets. There is a Meet and Greet on Friday night with finger foods that we for and put together.

Another lunch for the Sunday curlers that needs to be organized. The dinner is organized by another couple of teams....

Our league may be small but we are a great group of ladies who are all truly friends. We work well together and we take pride in this bonspiel every year. I would recommend that if you like to curl and like to party.. you should mark the date on your calendar for next year... April 8, 2011... and our theme for next year will be the 1970's .......

This year though, our bonspiel had 18 teams and just about every team dressed up in some sort of costume for our Saturday night

Dinner.

Our dinner and dance has become the Highlight

of the weekend with the actually curling coming in second!

Some pictures of the night

The reporters for the evening. They stood by the door and greeted every one of the teams and it was hilarious to actually arrive at the dinner... with red carpet and reporters.... Mary got some fabulous pictures..

Some of the VIP's (as they called themselves) were hilarious.

They were seat fillers for the Oscars, you know those "special" guests who make the audience look lively!

We had our "home viewers" arrive with their pajamas on, their popcorn and their TV for watching the Oscars at home!

A brand new team from New Glasgow, really came prepared to party with their flapper dresses and they brought their own reporter as well.

As you can probably guess, our team arrived as Marilyn's and what a blast we had. Thanks to Lola and Cheryl, great friends of our team, who traveled to the city to get our wigs and accessories, who also created our "dresses" from a bed sheet.... Lola and Cheryl came as "our" paparazzi! (Lola also kept us looking "good" all evening.) I seemed to have a problem keeping my red lipstick in tack. Could be that I kissed just about every thing I saw, from the door prize gift bags to our sexy waiters for the evening!

We had such great costumes, but I think the fact that there were 5 of us all the same, gave us the nerve and a "grander" entrance as well!

There were a few Marilyns

Some royalty arrived, as well, along with her own body guards!

... and even more bodyguards.... with glamorous movie stars...

The work crew was there and they were all named "Bubba!". They announced they were there to hammer anything we needed hammered! They were deadly with the hammers they had! I believe I kissed a few of those hammers... More Lipstick Lola!!!!

Speaking of hammers.... our two lovely bartenders.. Bonnie and Phylis who helped with the "hammer" situation for the evening!

And of course.. we did SOME curling over the weekend.... everyone was guaranteed 3 games but we curled 5 and some curled 6... depending on what game you lost, and how many you won after that!

A great time.. for sure. If you are at all interested in the sport of Curling, please make sure you come to our club in the fall. Not only is it great exercise, but the people are so wonderful. You will truly enjoy your Tuesday night Ladies Curling!

A picture is worth a thousand words...

Greenwood Ladies Curling Closing Bonspiel.... need I say more. I will... just not today!

Good Easter Hunting

So this was the year... the first Easter in 21 years that we wouldn't have a hunt. I had been threatening a "no more hunting" Easter for the last 7 years. You know.... the kids were too old for this stuff.. and frankly... so was I. But then... well, when Michelle got her drivers licence, we figured .... how fun would it be to have a "driving" Road Rally Easter Hunt... and then, well, GPS technology came into being.. and we had to have one or two, or was it three of those kinds of hunts... with cars, and on foot... and then Sean came for Easter for the first time.. and we had to have a hunt with Sean, and then last year.. well, it was the last Easter that Stephanie was going to be home for a while... soooo ............... this Easter... no hunting.

Michelle told me that she didn't want any chocolate.... she works in Chocolate and sweetness every day.. and Scott felt the same (sort of). They didn't want little foolish gifts either. Easter Morning together as a family was all they wanted. So.. I was game for this.

But then something fun happened. Sort of a transition.... we had company for Easter. My sister in law, Kim and her youngest Caleigh spent the weekend with us. Last year, during March Break, Caleigh helped me come up with the clues for the Hunt we had last year. How could I let this Easter go by without planning a hunt for her. Michelle and Scott, who are new to the "planning stage" as well as Kim, who is new to our kind of "Easter Hunt" all assisted in this special morning.

A pair of bunny ears, and one lonely little note was all that met Caleigh on Easter Morning. She had to wait until everyone had gotten up and was sitting contently on the couch with coffees in hand before she could open the note.

The note explained that she had to solve the clues to find the eggs. In each egg was a puzzle piece, a clue to the next egg's location. Also, with the egg, was a gift.. for someone else. Clues included "wear clothes go to get toasty warm"....

Yup. the dryer. Lame, I know.. but its not as easy as one would think to come up with clues!

In the dryer, hides a gift for Michelle... a Birdfeeder, just so you know.

After 6 eggs, 6 gifts and 6 puzzle pieces.... Caliegh had to put together the puzzle which had a X marking the spot as to where the last treasure (her Easter Gift) might be!

Hum... outside, me thinks... and off she goes, with slippers, bunny ears and pajamas on, she head out to where X marks the spot!

Can you see the treasure?

A fun little basket of goodies which included some sweets, socks, and a beautiful spinner ring (not exactly like this one but it explains what it is)

It was so fun to plan a Easter Hunt for someone who has never had one, and even better still, to have Michelle and Kim to help me plan it.

It was our first Easter without Stephanie at home with us but with skype, it was fun to spend an evening chatting with her and visiting with her new cat Atticus... Also it was our first Easter with Lucy. She even got a little treat from the Easter Bunny.

As always, Easter is a lot about the food, and this year, Scott made the ham and I made the potato and veggie. Scott tried his mom's recipe and I must say, it was tender, sweet and not salty.... I loved it! Thanks Scottie

yum....