February 4th, 2015 Challenge

Hi, it’s Christina –

Wasn't she a cutie?

Good Morning! First things first, I want to wish my beautiful, amazing, crazy, fun-loving, witty, sarcastic, goofy baby girl a Happy 16^th Birthday. I love you to the moon and back Bananabeans, and I am so proud of the young woman you have become.

Thank you for letting me indulge in a proud Mama moment. It blows my mind that my youngest child is now 16 years old. In a few short days, she is also going to be the only teenager in the house, because her sister will be twenty on the 15^th.

UGH! I’m going to have two children in their twenties – when did I stop being in my twenties?? How the heck did that happen? Other than aches and pains, but they are due to a back injury, I don’t “feel” different, and I’m pretty sure I don’t act much different either. Aren’t I supposed to? Isn’t something supposed to have happened? In fourteen months, I am going to be fifty years old. I would think, at half a century old, my brain would function differently than it did thirty years ago. It’s like I got old, but someone forgot to tell me. Am I making any sense? I’m not, so I’ll just move on.

PJ an Alex are coming over tonight to celebrate Dani Rose’s birthday with her. Alex’s birthday is in six days, and since her an PJ were going to be away, I asked if it would be alright to celebrate her birthday along with Dani’s tonight. She agreed. Dani chose the dessert – red velvet cupcakes, and Alex chose the dinner – chicken crescent roll bake. It looks easy enough to make, but I have to run to the store to get the ingredients.

After dinner, PJ and Alex are taking Dani to get her ears pierced. She’s getting her 3^rd hole, and her mid-way done. When they’re finished, they are coming back here for dessert and presents. It should be a nice evening, and I’m really looking forward to it.

Okay, I have a lot to do, shopping, cooking wrapping, so I should boogie. I hope you have a wonderful day, and happy writing!

Your Next Challenge is:

It was the best birthday ever…

You have ten minutes (be honest). There is no right or wrong, just write. Spelling and punctuation don’t count, and NO ONE is allowed to criticize what someone else has written. Go.

May 10th

Hi it’s Christina –

Orchid in our school colors

Good Morning! Because I didn’t feel right about not leaving a blog post, I woke up at four. My reward – having a mild coronary first thing in the morning.

I got up, came out to the living room, woke my hubby up, who, as usual, fell asleep on the couch in front of the TV, and told him to go to bed. Then I went into the kitchen, flipped on the Keurig to warm up, let Colby out of his cage, and we went outside to empty the dog.

This is where I had my heart attack. We exited through the garage, and even through my sleep fogged, caffeine deprived brain, I realize my son’s motorcycle is missing. My husband fell asleep on the couch, he never closed the garage door, it was left open all night, omg someone stole my son’s bike. AHHH!! I go racing back into the house, run to my bedroom, flip on the light switch, and yell at my husband, “Someone took PJ’s bike.” To which he replies, “Yup, PJ.”

I guess sometime, after I went to bed last night, my son stopped by to pick up his motorcycle. Hopefully that means he has sold the motorcycle, and can now pay off the loan he still has outstanding, for a motorcycle he no longer rides.

Now that my heart has returned to its normal pace, I can tell you about my day yesterday and share some of the amazing photos. Sorry Facebookers, you’ll need to visit the blog to see them.

What are these things?

As you know, we had Dani’s class trip yesterday to Duke Farms. I had a group of ten kids, nine girls and one guy. These kids were phenomenal, and I even made a point of telling their teacher and the other teacher on the trip. These ten kids, two from each of Mr. Hernandez’s classes, all interacted harmoniously, all assisted each other with the project, they were all respectful, and funny. Even though it was a long day, and we did a lot of walking, and we were all tired, they didn’t get whiny or cranky. These kids were an absolute pleasure the entire day.

These smelled Heavenly

We finished up our morning scavenger hunt early, and headed back to the orientation center for lunch. Then we finished lunch, just as everyone else was arriving to start their lunches. Instead of waiting around, we started the second half of the project, and finished that in record time. This left us with two hours to spend exploring on our own, and by unanimous vote, we decided to go and check out the orchid range. Even Jimmy, our lone guy, was impressed by what he saw. For forty five minutes, we had the entire orchid gardens to ourselves. We got to explore and enjoy all the incredible flowers. We were all laughing, smelling the flowers, snapping pictures. I think it was the highlight of the day for all of us.

It’s so funny though, as soon as other people started to arrive at the orchid garden, the mood changed. I felt it immediately, and then all of the kids said it too. They didn’t want to stay there anymore. “The spell was broken.” One of the girls said, and it really did feel that way. Our magical bubble popped.

We hitched a ride back to the orientation center, and chilled for the remaining hour plus of our trip. We had so much time left over, we went through all the photos we took and matched the photo numbers to the items on the scavenger hunt and the test sheet, so uploading the project will be a breeze.

Lauren, Dani & Courtney

It was a good day, but I’ll admit, I crashed for a little while when I got home. Dani did not have the same luxury. She had to get ready for one of her best friend’s sweet sixteen. “The gang” was getting picked up at Lauren’s house, in a limo, and transported to Maggiano’s – a wonderful Italian restaurant – for dinner, and then a sleep-over at Lauren’s afterwards. Lauren, she’s the tiniest one in the photos, is the oldest of the group. Etai, he’s the tallest one in the photos, will be the next in the gang to turn sixteen.

"The Gang"

By the time I dropped Dani off, and took photos of “The Gang”, it was six thirty, and I had to be at the church by seven for a meeting. After a decade’s hiatus, we are resurrecting the holiday bazaar, and although it is going to be a ton of work, I’m really looking forward to it.

The Limo

Okay, it’s after five and I have a bunch of photos to load into this post, so I need to run if I plan on leaving by six. I hope you have an amazing day, and happy writing!

March 3rd

Hi, it’s Christina –

Our Ka-boom went Ka-plop! YEAH!!! We woke up this morning to only a dusting when they were originally calling for 18” – 24” inches a few days ago. WooHoo!! I am so sick of the snow as I’m sure most folks in NJ are as well.

Unfortunately when Lys woke up this morning, she was miserable and on the verge of tears. She’s running a fever, her throat is sore and swollen, everything hurts her, and she didn’t sleep at all night. I managed to get her to take some children’s liquid Motrin, I sent her back to bed, and I left a message on the doctor’s answering machine to call me when they open at nine. Technically, by two weeks, Lys shouldn’t be allowed to go to her doctors’ since they are pediatricians, but hopefully they will still let her come in and be seen. Guess I’ll find out after nine.

Saturday’s party went well. We were an hour late to the party because Lys was finishing up Max’s cake. She stayed up until one baking, then she started assembling and decorating at eight Saturday morning. She didn’t finish until four. The cake came out beautiful and it was very tasty too.

Originally the cake was going to be done in pink and white fondant, but we didn’t have enough, and at $8 for a tiny little container, we weren’t going and getting any more, so we settled for pink fondant hibiscus flowers instead, and just glazed the white icing so it looked like fondant. All totaled, the cake took Lys about twelve hours to make. What you can’t see from this photo is the inside of the cake was a pink and white checkerboard. Keep in mind, we do not have one of those special checkerboard pans, so Lys did that by hand as well. Plus the cake was filled with homemade vanilla custard. It was a big hit, and Max loved his pink “Sweet 16” cake.

Today after I get Lys all squared away, I have a holy mess to clean up. I had a ferocious headache yesterday (not a migraine thankfully, just a headache), but it was still bad enough to knock me out of commission for the day; so today I have the kitchen to clean up. There’s pink icing, pink chocolate, flour, dirty baking pans and decorating stuff everywhere. The kitchen is going to take a good hour to be set to rights. My kids are wonderful bakers and cooks, but when they get done in my kitchen, it looks like a bomb has been set off. In Lys’ defense, if she wasn’t sick, she would have cleaned it up, but since she’s feeling miserable, I have to do it.

After the kitchen, I need to make a grocery run and then I need to start my taxes because the FAFSA’s for college need to be done. Translation, no writing and no editing will be done until I get the taxes finished. Way back, in a previous life, I used to prepare taxes, but it has been eons since I’ve had to do a Schedule C, so this may take me a few days to get everything done correctly. I may be calling my girlfriend Fran in for reinforcements, she’s a CPA, but I’m going to at least give it a try before I bother her. It’s tax season and she has her hands full enough without me adding to her burden.

Okay, I need to get my hubby up and out of the house. We’ll do the writing challenge tomorrow. I hope y’all have a great day, and happy writing!

February 22nd

Hi, it’s Christina –

Now I can add barking like a seal and a low grade fever to my list of complaints. My eyes aren’t watering quite as bad, but then again, I just turned on the computer. I woke up a little before five, coughing my head off, so I got up and left the room so I wouldn’t wake up my husband.

It stinks waking up at your regular time on the weekends. I wish my internal clock had a weekend mode. It is rare when I can roll over and go back to sleep, so once I wake up, I’m up, at least for a few hours. Likely today, I’ll finish this quick post, take the dog out, grab something light to have something in my stomach so I can take some cough medicine, and then go back to bed. Even though I’m okay at the moment, I know, just doing those few things will sap all my energy.

Now that the coughing has started, I know this cold will be hanging on for a few more days. Hopefully, if I take some Mucinex (however you spell it) it will keep the cough from turning into bronchitis. I haven’t had bronchitis in years, and I don’t want it now!

Thankfully this is all happening this week and not next week. I leave Thursday to pick up Lys from Vermont, we’ll be back on Friday and on Sunday we have my nephew Max’s “Sweet 16”. Yeah, our family is a little silly. We make the boys pink cakes, complete with roses and “Happy Sweet 16” on them for their 16^th birthdays. My son and his friends all thought it was hysterical, and now my nephew is actually expecting his pink cake. The one difference from PJ’s cake is Lys will be making Max’s cake. Let’s just say, a week from today I’ll be avoiding my kitchen like the plague.

Okay, writing while coughing is becoming more of a challenge than I am up for at the moment, so I think I’m done for the day. I hope y’all have a terrific Saturday, and happy writing!