My Point of View: 2012-01-01

Sticky Situations (revisited)

One day in December when I picked up Ava from school she handed me a jewelry party invite. She was going on and on about how we HAD to go. I didn’t want to. I hate the pressure to buy at those parties. Being Christmas time, I was low on money, and I hadn’t washed my hair in three days. Plus Matt was out of town and I just wanted to clean up dinner and stay home. But another mom called me and said she had heard we were going and that her daughter REALLY wanted to go as well but they had company. Next thing I knew I committed to taking not only Mallerie and Ava but a friend as well. The invite said it was an open house from 6-8. We got there about 7. The house is a good 15 minutes up Center Street, past Timberlake’s, far. I pulled up to see we were the only car. Grrr. You can picture it. I wanted to back out and leave. But the girls said, “Who cares if we’re the only ones” (uh, I do.) And we were. We were the only people who came the ENTIRE night. It was a dire situation. There was a spread enough for a RS social; cheese ball and crackers, veggies and dip, chips and salsa, fruit platter, cream puffs, and a frothy drink in a glass punch bowl…all for us. I wasn’t even hungry but obliged by eating a couple puffs and some fresh pineapple. AWKWARD. Why is my life one situation like this after another? We chatted with the host and browsed the jewelry VERY thoroughly. Pressure to buy? You betcha. Good thing everything was just five bucks. And I did still need some jewelry to go with Katrina and Mallerie’s Sunday dresses. I shoed the girls to the car after they made their purchases and then handed over my last fifteen dollars. I mean, really, if I had know what my night had in store I would have taken it easy at dinner and WASHED MY HAIR.

Mallerie found herself in a sticky situation of her own. She decided to throw a surprise party for a friend of hers. I sort of feel for this girl, she is from a single parent family, they just lost their home (literally, it was bulldozed to make room for more McDonalds parking on Main St), so she is living with an aunt, etc...I thought that was sweet of Mallerie to want to throw the party but being December I have zero chump change to spend on a party (I have GOT to plan better next year). I told her to tell people to bring pizza toppings on the invitations and we would make the crust and sauce here. I had all that stuff in my food storage and it was cheap to make a cake as well. Side note, the cake TOTALLY sunk in the middle for a some reason. I scrambled and filled the dent with silk poinsettia's after icing it. Matt said, "Oh, you made a bunt cake?" Who even knew he was aware of such a thing as a 'bunt' cake. Anyway, I had to work the first train that night and got home well after the party was under way. I walked in to the smell of a wood burning stove. This was not a bad smell per say, however, WE DO NOT HAVE A WOOD BURNING STOVE. Mallerie confessed she had baked the pizza ON the wooden pizza paddle instead of the stone. Oops. She was super sorry and offered to pay me $10 bucks for the paddle. I took it. It came in real handy at that jewelry party.

Let the Celebrations begin! 11/24/11

First up: Thanksgiving and my Mom’s Birthday. This was the first year we had to spill over into a church because of our numbers. You do loose some of the homey feel, but no one was ready to offer up their sofas to 280 little fingers. Lindsey had made darling centerpieces and my mom brought tablecloths and it looked cheerful in no time. Another family was feasting till 4 pm so this made for a later than usual start time. No worries, I was glad to have the morning to make my stuffing and rolls. The day before I had enlisted the girls to help me with the pies. I was so happy they were willing to help. This was the only reason we were done in time to go to Orem and see Mike and Donna who had arrived. I had one pie still in the oven when it was time for us to leave. My friend Pam offered to come over and take it out. She called me, “When I went over there was smoke coming out of your oven.” I panicked, “WHAT!” She was KIDDING. Phew.

Peanut Butter Cup Pie: by Ava (next year we need to make TWO). She also made a banana cream pie.

Apple Pie by Mallerie. She also made cornbread and let it dry out over night for Jamie's famous stuffing.

Katrina: Pecan Pie and Cranberry SAUCE. I fear she thought she was making jelly. We won't cook it on hight for 20 minutes next year maybe.

The picture of baking. I made a pumpkin cheesecake pie and orange rolls.

Matt was helpful where ever he was needed. Mallerie had him open cans of chicken broth to put in her stuffing. He opened the can and asked, "Do I drain this?"

The bird! Neither Jon nor Matt wanted to pick at the bones for every last bit of turkey. My mom said to go dump it in the field for they animals, "They love stuff like that." Being her birthday and all, I sent those boys out into the field.

Let this be a lesson to us all why we don't encourage overhead fluorescent lighting people! I yam what i yam.

The food was soooo delish; I look at these pictures and my mouth waters. Eliza brought out a lovely carrot cake when the time was right and then we dove into the pies. I was sorry to see that my pumpkin cheesecake was left untouched. I think mainly because it looked like raisins were floating in it instead of chocolate chips. Also the pumpkin mouse was more the color of eggs. For this reason I put a sign, ‘Those aren’t raisins, their chocolate chips!” But to no avail, I had to bring it again to Granny’s Christmas party the next day. Sadie finally tried some, “Who would have guessed a raisin quiche could be so tasty.” Ha!

The little kids were all sitting at a round table till someone brought out this small one and they moved. This left the round table set up and decorated with no one sitting at it. I noted it was just like a ward party, "That's for the less active that we hoped would come."

The table proved useful for coloring time.

My mom had all kinds of info on the first Thanksgiving with a packet for each family. The kids sat for MOST of it.

For my mom's gift I crocheted around the edge of a soft afghan in beige for her. Graham came up to me and told me exactly what he wanted me to write in the card:

"Granny, we yarned this for you because you are always yarning stuff for other people. We made it long enough to go over your head if you are taking a nap and have a bad dream."

I brought large marshmallows for the kids to decorate with marker and then they saw how far they could throw them. I had tons of marshmallows leftover since I just gave them to the kids in the gym. I didn’t want to go hunting through the church. The next day at the Christmas party I brought the bag of treats again in case the kids needed an activity. We didn’t. Later while the adults were visiting some of the kids were saying they were hungry even though we had eaten a nice dinner. Lindsey said, “You have to eat when the food is out, otherwise you’ll be hungry.” I pointed to my bag of marshmallows, “That’s why I carry this around.”

(Boy word sure spreads fast when there is an open bag of marshmallows.)

**You may stop reading now if you want any respect for me in the future.**

After the party was over the older girls begged me to take them out for some Black Friday shopping. I drove them up to the outlets. There wasn’t even a place for me to park! I dropped them off and went to Wal-Mart. I’ve never been to black Friday and when I saw the throngs of people it was confirmed, “it does exists. “ I picked the girls up and we were home by 2 am. As I was getting ready for bed I got to thinking of a certain receipt that I thought I had thrown away with something I needed to return. I looked in the kitchen trash. Shoot, the trash had already been taken out. I opened the garage and lifted the top sack out. I rummaged through disgusting Thanksgiving debris; giblets, egg shells, oatmeal (with rubber gloves of course.) How can a receipt just disappear? The next day Matt said, “What took so long to come to bed last night.” I couldn’t tell him! It wasn’t one of my finer moments standing outside in the middle of the night in my robe digging through the trash. Then I started wrapping Elder Wasson’s gifts and saw in the bag that blasted receipt! I started laughing and then told Matt of my shame.