Taste the Rainbow!

I just love St. Patrick's day. It's one of my favorite holidays for the kids. Last year the leprechauns did their usual havoc: magically turning the milk green in the cereal bowls, green pee in the toilet, upturned furniture and they left green and gold treats. The best part last year was when the leprechauns magically turned the cookies green right before our eyes. (You can check out the video and green cereal milk trick here)
This year, I'm sure will be just as fun. Although, for the first time ever, Anthony won't be home. He has a camping trip with Brad. It makes me sad but he's already talking about the mischief the leprechauns are going to cause when he gets home, as revenge. (For the record, he's right,I have so much planned! I have to capitalize on every year he still believes.)


Today the girls (my niece Alana included) made rainbow cookies. I'll admit, I'm usually one to say "It's easy!" "Oh, they were no big deal to make!" These, on the other hand, were a lot of work for simple cookies!

Ingredients
2 pkgs Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix
2 eggs
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup flour
Gel food colorings

Mix the cookie mix according to the package. Using a scale, divide the dough into 6 equal portions. Place each portion in a zip top bag and add a tsp of the food coloring to each bag. Remember, purple is red and blue, orange is yellow and red. The zip top bag lets you mix in the food coloring with out staining your hands.

Now comes the tedious part.

Place one color on a piece of parchment paper and roll out to a 9x5 rectangle. Place onto a cookie sheet, including the parchment. On a new sheet, roll out the next color and once into the appropriate size, stack it, parchment included onto the previous color. Roll out all 6 colors the same way. When you're done you'll have a stack of: parchment, dough, parchment, dough, etc..

Place in the freezer for 20-30 min's.

Remove and onto a new sheet of parchment, start assembling your rainbow. Purple, blue, green, yellow, orange then red.




Using a sharp knife, trim the edges so you have straight edges. Then, decide how large you want your cookies and slice long ways, then short ways into cookies.




Place back into the freezer for another 10 min's then into a 375 degree oven for 8 min's. Switching racks at 4 min's. The extra freeze time helps reduce spreading.

First day

Today was the girls first time at “school.”

I enrolled them into a daycare/preschool for every Monday while I go into work. They will just be going on Mondays for the first half of the day but it’s a good experience for them. Hailey has wanted to go to school for over a year now. She’s was so upset when she heard Sara, my niece, was going to school. Hailey cried! “Mom, why does Sara get to go to school, I’m OLDER than her!” So, Friday, when I took them to Sara’s school to enroll they both were thrilled! Hailey kept telling everyone all weekend that she was “Finally old enough for preschool!”

They did great today. Kenna and Sara are in the same class and Hailey is in the 4-5’s. At first I was a bit worried about Hailey being separated from the girls and I asked that she be allowed to stay with the younger class for a bit to get used to it if she needed to. The teacher said though that when it was time to separate, Hailey was fine going to her “big girl class.”

Last night, despite telling everyone in the store all day Sunday about going to school, Hailey had a total melt down. She was crying for over 2 hours before we could get her calmed down. She started out by asking me:

“Mom, can I get up early tomorrow so you can teach me my letters and numbers?” I told her that she wasn’t expected to know them before she went to preschool, that’s what preschool was for, to help her learn. I think she understood that, but it was just a gateway for her tears. She started  crying and crying saying she was going to miss us too much, she didn’t want to go. She kept repeating over and over that she just wanted to stay home with her family. We tried everything from 4 year old logic to reasoning with her, eventually, watching Phineas and Ferb while cuddled in our bed with us did the trick. She woke up the next morning back to her chipper excited self.

Poor girl was plagued by the night time-worries just like us adults get. Lights go off, brain goes on. At least, in my case that’s true. Maybe she’s just a victim of genetics. Regardless, she survived to tell the tale and is, for now, super excited to go back next Monday.

I was supposed to go to Phoenix this week but fortunately (and a bit unfortunately – I was kind of looking forward to housekeeping service) that’s been canceled so, we’ll spend this week getting ready for those naughty Leprechauns! We are going to make a trap to try and catch one, and we have a few other crafts we’re going to do this week. I love St Patrick’s Day! It’s so much fun for the kids.

Grief

Grief is a strange monster.

I am still processing Ty's death. (It still even feels strange to write that sentence.) It's not like this is my first experience of death of a loved one either. We lost Pappy last year and 5 years ago we lost Papa. Yet, Ty's death feels harder for me to process. I am functioning fine, my house is clean (ish), my kids/hubby are happy, food's on the table and everything is going fine at work. Yet, 4 times now, I've woken up in the middle of the night crying from some dream related to Ty. Maybe I'm not processing it as well as I think I am.

Part of it I know is that I am not in 'action' mode. When Pappy and Papa died it was a slow process filled with hours of bed-side grieving and affairs to wrap up. After they passed we had houses to clean out, funerals to plan, family surrounding us. With Ty, I'm not a part of any of that. I didn't really know his family and we did not have any real mutual friends. A few mutual acquaintances have contacted me to share stories and condolences but most are from so far back in my past it's hard to connect with them. One person, who was an employee of mine and eventually Ty's as well sent me a message saying how grateful he was for the second chance Ty and I gave him many years ago that set him on a better path in life. It was all Ty, he was the heart, I was the business. He kept me grounded when I would fly off the handle. He taught me to always listen first, react second. A lesson I still struggle with today.

I've thought about reaching out to Ty's family more than just the condolence notes I've sent but I feel like I would just be an interloper in their grief. I doubt they know more than my name from a passing reference and the only stories I could share echo all the stories from all the other lives Ty touched. In other words, I don't feel like reaching out to his family would benefit them and I in no way want to remind, distract from or add to their grief. After all, they lost a son, brother, grandson, nephew and uncle in a quick, illogical, tragic death. The best remedy for them is family. That's what got me through Papa and Pappy's deaths.

For me, I guess this is a lesson in processing. Grief happens. Tragedy strikes. I guess, if I'm being optimistic about it, or more true to Ty's style: realistic about it. This is my lesson on processing grief mentally only. I don't have the chance to go into 'do-er' mode and process my grief through functional physical activities. As usual, Ty's teaching me a lesson I don't want but obviously and desperately need.
Thanks a lot punk!

Miss you.

Failed February

Not just fail, Epic Fail!

This whole month has been a basic loss for me. I injured my shoulder during a workout on the 25^th of January, had to take some time to heal from that, started work (in-office) on the 1^st till the 10^th, lost one of my dear friends on the 14^th, got ridiculously sick on the 17^th, and lastly, had a very busy whole weekend of work starting the 24^th. To say that I’ve done much more than the bare minimums for the entire month would be pretty much a lie. Valentine’s day and the day before were the only truly functional days I can think of.

February was supposed to also be my month to commit to doing a load of laundry every day. Let’s just say, no. That didn’t happen. I started out ok when I started my new job, but honestly, by midweek the 2^nd week, I wasn’t staying on top of it. I thought I would just skim past the few days until I was done at the office and pretend I did the laundry every day those days. No one would know but me right? Except then, Ty died, I was grieving and basically just sat on the couch with my kids all day. Then I got sick. So sick. Sicker than I’ve been in years upon years. My chest hurt so bad I couldn’t move for fear of it causing me to have to take more than a shallow breath. I ended up in urgent care with a 102 fever, a sinus and ear infection and the RSV chest infection. Then, as any mom could predict: the kids and the hubby. I spent the entire week in the recliner; I even slept there because I couldn’t lay down flat without a huge coughing spell. Fortunately the kids didn’t get it as bad as I did, they were over it in 3 days, and so was Brad. I think, because I was depressed, it just hit me full force. Even now, I still have a cough and a dry throat.

From the 18^th when I got sick to the24th when I was on call for a very busy weekend, the only things that got washed were the vomit clothes and towels, dirty blankets, dishes (thanks mostly to Anthony and Brad) and occasionally, the countertop was wiped down.  Brad helped out so much but he wasn’t feeling great and had a lot of work to catch up on himself since he took several days off to either take care of me or lay in bed himself.

Monday of this week was the first day since the 15^th, I’ve felt good. I am finally starting to get my house back in order. The curtains and windows are open; I’ve killed an entire thing of Lysoll, Tide and Dawn.

Needless to say, as far as goals go, I haven’t been to the gym since last month, I haven’t written in my journal at all this month and I’d be lucky to count 10 total loads of laundry done this month. 

Epic fail.

It sucks, but, really, I think I’m ok with it. I’m just scratching the month off as a total loss and moving on. I can't change it, I can't go back and do-over any of the things I should have done and lying about it doesn't change anything or make me feel any better. I honestly thought about crossing off the ‘load of laundry per day’ on my list as a loss or fail too but instead I’m moving it to March. I made these goals to stretch myself, to make myself do something ‘more’ than my norm. Checking it off as a fail, would be my norm. Moving it to March would be pushing myself. So, that’s what I’m going to do.

Here’s hoping that March is much better than February. I want to do some crafty stuff this month, I want to come up with some new recipes and I want to finish up my craft space. No one is making me, no one cares if I don’t, these are things I want to do. Things that make me happy and that I enjoy doing. I just have to remember that. Remember that if I don’t get to those things one day it’s not a big deal, they are fun, extra, “love your life” things that I want to do. My real goals for the month are to get back to the gym, do one load of laundry a day and have fun with my family. Those are things I have to do, those are what I will push myself every day to accomplish.