Claire's First Day of School

Claire started school this week.

There were tears shed.

Tuesday morning we all get up. (Yes, I had to take the whole day off school.) Claire eats her breakfast with no fussing. That's new. Good though. She puts on her new outfit courtesy of Aunt Jojo. She takes her new lunchbox with her snack in it and off we go. All four of us to take Claire to school. And take pictures of her along the way.

We get to her classroom and she balks a little at the door. The assistant lures her to the table with play dough. It doesn't get much better than that. Jason took her snack to her cubby at the end of the hall. I told Claire I love her and then told her bye. She just kind of looked at me so Nicholas and I left. We got about halfway down the hallway when Nicholas just started crying and crying. Jason was walking towards so I thought N wanted his daddy. I put him down and he ran right past Jason and headed back to Claire's classroom. Jason grabbed him and we went straight to the parking lot. Nicholas cried halfway home. I didn't shed a tear though.

When we went back to get Claire at noon, I thought N would be so happy to see her. nope, he wanted to go in her classroom and stay there. I guess we talked school up so much for Claire that he wanted to go as well. Hopefully he still has that same attitude when he is old enough to go to school himself.

Claire is enjoying school and loves her teacher. She talks about Mrs. Hamilton a lot. I am glad. Plus she is making friends but having a hard time remembering their names.

My little girl has come such a long way. I am so proud.

The Tale of The Iced Mocha

I have really been dragging today and need caffeine to get me going. As you know, I make my own iced mochas at home every morning. Well, today I need an afternoon one. But I don’t want to walk a few blocks to my car and drive somewhere to get one. I start checking around to see where on Main Street can make an iced coffee, preferably a mocha.

Bartleby’s Café has them on their menu but they are about 4-5 blocks away. That’s a bit in this heat. Someone suggests that I call the Red Truck Bakery. They just opened up where Mom’s Apple Pie was. I call them. They do iced coffees but not mochas. Decision time. Do I want an iced mocha that badly to brave the heat that far or just get an iced coffee that is closer. I decide to try Red Truck. They just opened a few weeks ago and I hadn’t been in there yet. A co-worker asked me to get a cookie while I was there. No problem.

I get outside and am crossing the street into the parking lot for Red Truck. There is a mom and two young boys exiting the shop. I walk up to the door and try to go in. The door doesn’t budge. I look at the sign and it says OPEN. I try the door again. Still doesn’t budge. I read the sign closely. They closed at 3pm. I don’t have a watch on but know it was only 2:47 when I left my office and it takes less than 5 minutes to walk there and back. I figure the office clock was wrong and decide to go to Bartleby’s. Which is an extra two blocks away at this point. I am over halfway there when the court house bell tolls 3 o’clock. Yeah, the bakery closed early! Grrr!!!

I arrive at Bartleby’s and order my iced mocha. The guy makes it and puts the lid on it and hands it to me. I grab a straw and head out the door. I open the straw, toss the wrapper in the trash, and try to put the straw in the lid. Only my lid was malformed and didn’t have the opening for the straw. My cup was leaking from the top every time I took a step. So I had to walk down the street with my open straw, my leaky cup, plus my change and my co-workers cash. And she didn’t even get a cookie.

Julie & Julia review

I actually got to go see a movie on opening night. Woohoo! I do not go see movies very often at the theater due to a lot of things. 1 – Finding the time to go. 2 – Theater is usually full of people who talk/text or such all through the movie. 3 – Really not that many movies that hubby & I are willing to pay $10.75 per ticket. We usually wait for Netflix.

I went with a friend and saw Julie & Julia. It was a good movie. Not wonderfully fantastic and all things great movie. But a good one. Which I will want to buy when it becomes available.

It is a movie about a blogger, Julie, and Julia Child. The movie didn’t really develop the character of Julie enough for me to really connect to her. She and her hubby had some issues to work out and he left to stay at his office for a bit. I found myself agreeing with him more so than her during that argument. I had a hard time remembering his name [Eric] and never really got the whole lead up to why decided to blog Julia Child's cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I feel that there are some deleted scenes that would have helped with the background. Why Julia Child? I liked her character well enough, but wasn't really rooting for her. Plus, I already knew her blog was a hit. Otherwise there would not have been a movie.

I wish they would have shown more of Julia Child. Not necessarily cut from Julie but I really enjoyed Julia. Also, I would have loved to see her get her start on television. I reality, I would love to see a whole movie about Julia Child’s life, but then I am odd that way. Meryl Streep was perfect as Julia. I could almost forget that I was watching a movie about her, rather watching her life.

One thing of note, I saw my high school gym teacher at the movie. And not just any gym teacher. This was the one that had the bad temper, broke a desk [accidentally] during driver’s ed, and was the gym teacher all students feared getting. The cliché gym teacher. Anyway, he was there with his wife. It was interesting to see him in that movie of all movies. I could tell he was there when he would have rather been watching G.I. Joe. Made me rethink all the stories I had heard about him through the high school grapevine. No, I didn’t go say hello. I couldn’t remember his name. He probably wouldn’t remember me. I graduated with over 555 other students. I am not athletic. He wouldn’t remember me either.

Working Monday

I have to say that I was so glad to go to work today. Getting out of bed and out the door was rough, but am so glad to get away.

Why?

Claire is sick. Nicholas is sick. Jason is sick.

Nicholas and Jason have summer colds and are all congested. Jason, well, he is a guy and a typical one at that when he is sick. I have already talked to him on the phone a few times today and every other sentence to me is about how awful he is feeling.

What I never say out loud - Wah! Wah! Wah! Try being pregnant!

But for the sake of my marriage, I never voice those thoughts aloud.

Maybe I will stay at work late? Then run errands before going home? I can't do that to my babies though. They need me right now since they are not feeling well. Or at least I like to think that.

I am feeling well though. Would it really matter if I were sick? Are mommies allowed to get sick?

Job Extension and Potties

HOORAY!!! It appears my temporary employment has been extended. Well, if we can get the paperwork through our HR office.

Next week would have been my last week at my job. After my husband got laid off, I got my old job back as part-time temporary with an approximate end date of August 7th. Which is next week. I found out yesterday that they would like for me to stay on for a while longer with no definite end date. I can do that. For now. Hubby has an interview on Thursday morning (if we can find someone to watch our two kids for real cheap!) for a possible job. I hope something happens for him soon. But it is also a relief to know that my job will last longer. We will be able to continue to pay bills and buy groceries. And diapers.

Which reminds me. I am so wishing I could be done with diapers. My son is almost 19 months old. He will tell me when he is poopie. Or he will go into his bathroom and sit on the little potty and go poo-poo. He even tells me "I poo-poo." So I am wondering if he is about ready to be potty trained. But how to do a boy? Teach him sitting at first then standing? Teach standing for #1 and sitting for #2? What if he has to do #1 and #2 at the same time? It was so much easier with my daughter. I just let her run around without a diaper for a few days and she went in the potty every time. I just do not trust my son at all for that. The doctor said to wait til my son is closer to 3 years old to start with him on that. Really??? My daughter was potty trained long before that. I obviously have no clue what I am doing.

But on a good note, I did find out that my local Harris Teeter sells whole vanilla beans on its spice aisle. And Wegman's website says they sell vanilla beans as well. Yay!

Vanilla Beans

I made vanilla ice cream on Monday night. I had most of the ingredients at home but needed heavy cream. So I ran across the street to Bloom. Which is usually not my store of choice but it was getting late and just needed the cream. While I was there, I thought I'd grab a vanilla bean to add to the ice cream instead of the bottled vanilla I had at home. It would taste better and I liked the idea of the black flecks in the ice cream.

Here is a picture of vanilla beans, in case you don't know what they look like:

I didn't see any vanilla beans when I got there, so I asked an employee if they had them and where they would be. He thought for a moment then took me to the canned beans aisle. He thought they would be in with the baked beans, garbanzo beans, etc. The next employee I asked was honest and told me he had no idea what I was talking about. I just gave up and went home to use my bottled vanilla. The ice cream tasted great (I added chunks of homemade dark chocolate fudge) and got great reviews from co-workers.

I don't know. It still kind of makes me giggle when I remember that poor guy looking for vanilla beans in with the baked beans. I know that he didn't know better, but still...

The Next Food Network Star Ep 6

Well, Debbie stayed. Michael went home.

I can see the judges point of view what with Michael repeatedly saying he hates the camera. But Debbie's lack of integrity! Puh-lease!

A few things:
· Debbie's food tasted the best, per the judges. Duh! She only worked on hers instead of helping everyone else.
· Michael was told by the judges that his salmon had no flavor. Maybe Debbie took it out of the marinade too early so that she could focus on her own food?
· Go Melissa for calling out Debbie in front of the judges!

I was never a conspiracy theorist before but I feel I am turning into one now. I really hope that Debbie gets sent home next. I used to think she was the judges favorite and had been picked as the winner since the first episode. Now I don't think she will win. I don't think they would have showed Debbie to be such a liar if they wanted her to have a fan base.

Anyway, in this month's Food Network magazine, Debbie's hot dog stand is mentioned but I also noticed what looked like other NFNS recipes. A watermelon-feta salad. (Eddie?) A jicama slaw (Jamika?) was in there as well.