Well, didn't make it to the gym today. Alison woke up with a hugely swollen eye, the result of a bug bite. I didn't want to take her to the drop-in babysitters looking like that before I got her checked out, so we stayed home watching tv until her appointment. Nothing much to do for her eye, other than give her Benedryl and watch it. It might still look pretty bad tomorrow, but should look better by Thursday.

Food journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of water
1 bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
3 chocolate covered pretzels
1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of sweet tea

Not much to say today. Didn't put up my food journal yesterday. It wasn't as bad as Saturday, but wasn't as good as today (at least so far) either. I had a great workout this morning. I managed to go more than 3 miles between my actual workout time and cool down time on the cross trainer and I did well with the weights, too.

Food Journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffing
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
7 yogurt pretzels
2 chocolate pretzels
1 bowl of Bean w/Bacon soup
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
1/2 egg roll
4 oz. low fat cottage cheese
1/2 can pineapple in juice
14 oz. glass of water
cauliflower
au gratin beef casserole
14 oz. sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

I had a total binge on yogurt covered pretzels this afternoon. The good news is that they are almost gone now and will no longer be a problem. :)

Well, I stepped on the scale this morning to find that I lost 3 pounds this week. Yay me! However, today is Saturday, which is a notoriously bad eating day. Today would have been better, but we went to redeem some coupons that came in a card Alison brought home for Mother's Day. At Harry & David, I got two truffles and a chocolate covered cherry, and then we bought chocolate and yogurt covered pretzels. At Bronner's I got a free ice cream with 1 topping, which we all shared. We haven't eaten the Rosettes from Zhender's Marketplace yet. Saturday is also movie night and Alison wanted popcorn, so I had way more than I really needed to eat. Oh well, tomorrow is another day, and at least we were walking around for most of the afternoon.

Food journal:

2 bran muffins
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
7 chocolate covered pretzels
5 or 6 yogurt covered pretzels
1 chocolate covered cherry
1/2 chocolate truffle
1/2 mocha truffle
vanilla ice cream w/chocolate sauce (shared with Kevin and Alison)
1 slice of pepperoni pizza
2 breadsticks
1 small iced tea and a partial refill w/5 packets of sugar (I really need to start tucking some packets of Splenda in my purse so I don't have to use sugar)
way more buttered popcorn than I should have eaten
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
2 chocolate covered pretzels
2 yogurt covered pretzels

So this is the conversation on the way home from the gym today:
(wiggling tooth around) Mom, look at my tooth.
I can't really see it from here, how is it doing this morning? Is it still in your mouth?
Umm, not anymore, I just pulled it out. Oh no, I dropped it.

Fortunately we were very near the high school, so I whipped into the parking lot and hopped out of the car to look for the very first lost tooth. It had dropped into a fold in her shirt or shorts and when she stood up it fell to the floor. We made it home without losing it again, and it is now ensconced in the tooth pillow waiting to put it out for the tooth fairy tonight.

Food journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes w/milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
1 bran muffin
1 McDonald's cheeseburger, plain
15 French fries
1 large McDonald's sweet tea, half ice
4 oz. low fat cottage cheese
1/2 can pineapple chunks in juice
corn
broccoli
skinless chicken thigh
14 oz. glass sweet tea
1 small scoop of Country Inn ice cream (this ice cream is so good, it tastes like a bowl of cinnamon & spice oatmeal)
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

Friday night is ice cream night for our family during our local ice cream shop's season. It's about 1 1/2 miles from our house, so, weather permitting, we ride our bikes there and back. Tonight, we thought we were going to have to drive because it was pretty cloudy and looked like rain, but while we were eating supper the clouds cleared and we got to ride. Fortunately there was a little breeze, because it's been pretty hot and humid the last few days.

Dedication: going ahead and working out despite showing up at the gym and finding out you can't use the showers, restrooms or drinking fountains because the place is running on generators. That also means the a/c isn't working either, so the only thing circulating the air is a few small fans that don't really do anything. I shortened my cross trainer workout by about 5 minutes, because I still wanted to be able to do weights and I already needed to go to the bathroom before I even started. I didn't drink any water when I finished the cross trainer, even though I was dying to, so as not to make the urge to go any stronger. I made it through the rest of my workout and then drank my entire bottle of water in the time it took Alison to buckle herself into her seatbelt. Oh, and did I mention that dh (and I'm pretty sure that d does not equal dear) works out at 5:30, so he could have called and told me about the situation so I could have made sure I went to the bathroom before I left the house?

Food journal:

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
salad -- romaine lettuce, turkey, shredded cheddar cheese, lite honey mustard dressing (less than 2 tbsps)
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can pineapple in juice
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
Ham mini sub on wheat w/American cheese, a little lettuce, tomato, salt and pepper, a squirt of light mayo and a squirt of honey mustard
20 oz iced tea w/Splenda
part of a bag of Cheetos (shared w/Alison and Kevin)
20 oz. bottle of water
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/two teaspoons of sugar

Thursday nights are tap class for me. I am wiped out and strangely starving, but will try and avoid the urge to eat something. Hopefully the tea will help.

I might have been hungry before bed last night, but surprisingly I wasn't hungry when I woke up this morning. I managed to evade the after lunch munchies by taking a nap. I hadn't intended to do that -- I am working on scraping all the paint off our kitchen cabinets so we can repaint them -- but suddenly I couldn't keep my eyes open. So nap it was.


Today's food journal:

bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
peanut butter and jelly sandwich on multigrain bread - I tried to go light on the pb&j, covering the bread with a very thin layer, rather than slathering it on
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
14 oz. glass of water
14 oz. glass of water
mashed potatoes (they are another weakness, and I ate more than I should have, but not as much as I normally would have eaten)
peas
roast beef
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

My mom called this morning to tell me that she had been at the calling hours before the funeral of one of her cousins yesterday. Sandy was 52, and by all accounts was the picture of health. She ate right, liked to exercise (running, yoga, etc), didn't smoke. And yet a few days after her birthday in May, she began treatment for what they thought was pneumonia, only to find a tumor in her lung. Further investigation revealed the cancer to be everywhere. She had no idea. Her husband remarked that two months ago she was jogging down Michigan Ave. in Chicago, and now she was gone. Kind of makes you stop and think, and wonder if it's all worth it. But I'm not going to use that as an excuse to eat everything in sight, so here is my food journal for today:

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
large mug of English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar
1 small pancake w/syrup
3 sausage links (tried to stop at two, but I love sausage)
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
4 oz lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
brown rice
green beans
pork chops marinated in honey, mustard and ginger ale
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
large mug of decaf English Breakfast tea w/2 teaspoons of sugar

Good grief I'm hungry tonight. My tea is brewing right now, so hopefully that will help. Maybe in a few days I will no longer feel like eating everything in sight.

Ok, so I've got a pretty good exercise routine going. I spend 30 minutes on the cross trainer, "running" just under 3 miles. My thought is that when Alison is back in school, I'll try and get that up to a whole 3 miles. Right now, I'm trying to keep to a time limit. After the cross trainer, I stretch for a few minutes and then spend about 30 minutes +/- a few minutes using the weight machines. They have them separated into a row of upper body machines and a row of lower body machine. I alternate, doing upper body one day and lower body the next, so that over the course of two weeks, I've done each 5 times (except for those weeks when we're not home for part of a week).

So my exercise program is in place and now I need to stop eating like a truck driver.

I've read that people who keep a food journal are more successful at their weight loss program. That is makes them really stop and think about whether or not they really want to eat what they're about to eat because it's going to be there for a family member or weightloss partner to see. Well, I got to thinking, what better way to keep myself accountable than to put my "food journal" on my blog where anyone that happens by can see it. So here it goes.

1 bowl of bran flakes with milk
14 oz. glass of water
20 oz. bottle of water
1 bran muffin
1 large mug of English Breakfast tea w/two teaspoons of sugar
1 bowl of Campbell's Bean with Bacon soup
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
14 oz. glass of water
4 oz. lowfat cottage cheese
1/2 can of pineapple chunks in juice
1 pancake w/syrup
3 sausage links
14 oz. glass of sweet tea
1 large mug decaf English Breakfast tea w/ two teaspoons of sugar

When it comes to my tea, I'm a southern girl at heart I love sweet tea, and I'm not going to give it up. I'm compromising, though, and using half sugar and half Splenda. Now, there have been a few times that I really wanted to go get something else to eat. After I put Alison to bed I really wanted to get the rest of the ice cream that was in the freezer, but I didn't. I guess maybe they're right about the food journal thing. Only time will tell, I guess.

Tonight I had to explain hydrocephalus to my 5 year old. She had a bug earlier this week that involved one episode of vomiting, a headache and sleeping on and off for the rest of the day. Now, those three things, especially all together like that, can be symptoms of a shunt malfunction. I wasn't too worried about it because Kevin had had the same thing the week before, and I'd had it the week before that, and she was fine and back to school the next day. But since then, Alison will just randomly complain of a headache. Most likely because it gets her attention, even though I try very hard not to make a big deal out of it. She did it tonight while we were talking before bed and I knew she didn't really have one. That led to a conversation about why it's very, very, very important not to ever lie about having a headache. And that's what led to the explanation of hydrocephalus.

See, Alison thinks that all kids have a shunt. Actually, she thought that all people have a shunt. She was pretty surprised when I told her I don't have one. That's when she readjusted her thinking to it just being something that all kids have. From there she figured that since I'm a grown-up and I don't have a shunt it must mean that once she gets grown up, they'll take her shunt out. And it just doesn't work that way.

She seemed to get the idea that there's fluid in the brain that is supposed to go from the inside to the outside but that in her brain the fluid gets stuck in the inside. She got the idea that when the fluid gets stuck like that it makes her brain blow up like a balloon, but then took it a step further to thinking that if her brain blew up too big it would pop. She seemed to understand when I told her that her brain wouldn't pop because her head (skull) was really hard and wouldn't let her brain get big enough to pop, but it that her brain could get really hurt if the fluid kept filling up the inside of her brain. She already knows that there is a bump behind her ear and a tube that runs down the side of her head, down her neck, across her collarbone, down her chest and into her stomach area. I'm hoping that she now understands that there is a tube that goes from the inside of her brain to the bump (valve) and lets the extra fluid out of her head so that her brain doesn't blow up and get hurt. I'm hoping that she now understands that headaches are one way we know if the shunt stops working and her brain is starting to blow up like a balloon.

We've talked before about how they had to cut open her head to put the shunt in. We talked about it again tonight, how if her shunt stopped working she would have to have surgery to fix it. She told me she did not want to have surgery because she then she wouldn't be able to talk. See, because the only surgery that she remembers having was the tendon release in her thumb and because she had to wear a cast on her arm after that, she thought that she would have to have a cast all over her head if she had to have surgery to have her shunt fixed. I think I managed to convince her that that wouldn't happen.

Things were so much easier when she was little. They just were what they were. Do/don't do this or that because I said so. Now there have to be involved explanations. And it's really hard trying to explain complex medical conditions in a way that a 5 year old can understand them.

I've been using the cardio equipment in the Wellness Center at our Community Center for almost a year. I've decided that really like using the cross trainers. I get a good aerobic workout and it's easier on my knees than running on the treadmill. I've been attempting to lose the ten or so pounds that I gained last year, particularly during the time I took a break from regular workouts (bad idea on my part, but I was burnt out). I've been losing and gaining the same three pounds for the last 6 weeks, so I thought perhaps I needed to mix things up a bit and decided to get my (re)orientation on the weight machines. I used them many years ago, but they've since re-done the gym and have all new machines...some of them work the same way, but others are completely new.

I've been trying to do my orientation since Friday. When it was time to start, I found that the person who was supposed to be taking me around had called in sick and the person covering for him/her really wasn't prepared to do an orientation. I offered to reschedule to make it easier for her. So then Monday was supposed to be the day. Except the Monday times were supposed to have been blacked out because they had some job shadowers coming in that day. So I rescheduled again. Yesterday was finally the day. I was shown how to set up each of the machines and did a few reps on each to make sure I was doing the exercises correctly. Since I am there pretty much every day, my trainer suggested alternating between upper body and lower body each day so I can still get in a good cardio workout every day. It sounds like a good plan.

I'm in biiiiggg trouble. My arms and shoulders were sore this morning after just those 3 or 4 reps on each machine that I did yesterday. I did a full upper body workout this morning. I figure that by tomorrow or Friday, I won't be able to move my arms!! Tomorrow I'm going to do a lower body workout. By Saturday, there probably won't be a part of my body that doesn't scream in pain when I move. Just have to keep reminding myself that it will be worth it in the end.

Well, not much is happening. Yesterday I took Alison to meet some friends for lunch and play at Chuck E. Cheese. All in all, it was not bad. She's big enough that I felt comfortable letting her go off and do her thing....as long as she only had about 4 tokens at a time. That way she had to keep coming back and checking in with me if she wanted more. She actually at two pieces of pizza and I didn't have to harp on her to get her to eat them either. I was stunned.

Today has been a pretty laid back day. I tried to sleep in this morning, but I've picked up Alison's cold and I woke up coughing and couldn't get back to sleep so I finally gave up and got up. After that, I accomplished nothing other than taking a nap this afternoon. So now I am wide awake when I should be thinking about going to bed. The time change tonight is going to make tomorrow really difficult!

I could have killed Kevin this morning. Alison said last night that she wanted to go out and play in (what's left of) the snow today. He thought about taking her sledding at the City Forest and I immediately vetoed that idea because she has school pictures again on Tuesday and an orthopedics appointment on Wednesday and I didn't want her coming home with her face smashed up or a broken bone, which is not outside the realm of possibility on the hill at City Forest. So they just went out and played in the yard instead. And he still managed to bring her in with one whole cheek, her upper lip, and her nose scratched up. He was pulling her around in on her sled and dumped her off and she did a face plant in the hard/icy snow. He assures me that it's going away and she will be fine by Tuesday, but I'm not so sure.

For the rest of the night, I'm going to ignore all the things I could/should be doing and kick back and watch a movie. I haven't decided which one yet....Pride and Prejudice with Kiera Knightly is on TV, but that's not my favorite version to watch and I don't know if I'll keep it on or not....so I guess I'll finish this up and peruse our movie collection to see if anything piques my interest.

Not a whole lot to write about today. Thursdays are kind of busy here, though. Alison started taking a new tap class last session, which is an hour later than her previous class, so she is able to be in choir at church now. So we go to choir, inhale some dinner afterwards (Subway, unless it's Papa John's pizza night for school) and then go to dance. Then Kevin comes and picks her up and I have my class. So that's what we did tonight. My class is going pretty well. It's a beginner class, and I'm not a beginner anymore, but it's still ok. I figure it's a fun way to get a little extra exercise.

Tomorrow, we're going to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch with a few friends. It should be a good time, at least for Alison. It caused a problem today, however. She was adamant that she was not supposed to ride the bus home because I was going to pick her up. I was standing at the bus stop when the school called me to see if she was supposed to ride the bus or not. The other to ladies picking up kids were like "they're still there." And I to say that yes, they were still there and it was Alison's fault because she wouldn't get on the bus. @@ They laughed. If it's not one thing it's another with this kid.

I've only been back at this blogging thing since Monday, and already I skipped a day.

Yesterday ended up being quite busy. Alison had PT in the afternoon. She actually did a really good job for a change, which Eileen and I were very happy about. From there, we raced over to a friend's house so she could have a playdate while Kevin and I went to a meeting with her teacher. She had a great time and we had a good meeting (more to follow). After that I raced back to pick Alison up. It took me nearly 20 minutes to get settled down enough to get her shoes and coat on so we could leave. Then we were off to Petsmart for a contribution for the Dog Lover's gift basket that her class is putting together for the silent auction at the school carnival next week. Then we were finally home for the evening.

The meeting with the teacher went well. We wanted to find out why her evaluation made it sound like she the worst child on the planet and no one had bothered to tell us. It really wasn't as bad as it sounded. We know she doesn't have poor self-help skills, but she'll often be in such a hurry to get back to whatever is going on in class that she doesn't always get her pants back up before she comes out of the bathroom. She's so easily distracted that it's very hard for her to get her work done, even when she's off by herself. Most everything goes back to the distractability. She can tell a great story, but her writing skills are not so good so she can't get it down on paper. We are working with her at home, and she's going to have an OT evaluation, which will likely result in OT for next year, so hopefully we'll get things straightened out. The teacher knows that we're as on top of things as we can be and she appreciates it.

For some reason, I woke up at 5:15 this morning. That really sucked, because I didn't need to be up for 2 more hours. I layed in bed trying to go back to sleep and finally succeeded between my 7:07 and 7:14 alarms. I have no idea why I woke up so early and I hope it doesn't happen again tomorrow.

This week, Kevin started working out in the mornings before work. It's been great for me because he can sign me up for the cardio machine of my choice, which lately has been the crosstrainer, and I don't have to worry about them all being taken when I get to the gym. I can just walking, hit the bathroom, and hop on my machine. Even better, he signs me up for the #1 crosstrainer, so I'm in front of a brick pillar and the person on the treadmill behind me can't see/watch me. I know it's highly unlikely that anyone behind is paying any attention to what I'm doing, but it makes me feel less self-conscious.

One other thing did happen today that I was not real pleased about. We take latex precautions with Alison bcause she's at high risk for developping a latex allergy. It's in her IEP that contact with latex is to be limited. So what does she tell me that she did in gym class today? They got to play with balloons! So I e-mailed the teacher to see if they were playing with latex balloons in gym and, if so, could she please tell/remind the gym teacher that Alison isn't supposed to be around latex, and if the balloons weren't latex, could she find out where they got them from. I didn't hear back today. Hopefully I'll hear something tomorrow.

So it's been a long time since I've blogged regularly. I've decided to give it a try again, though I don't know if I'll have much worthwhile to say. Today, Alison stayed home from school so we could see if her yo-yoing fever from yesterday was really gone or if it was merely yo-yoing again. It's been down all day, so she's back to school tomorrow, which is good because she has a playdate tomorrow afternoon while we go to a meeting with her teacher. There's a long involved story about why we're having a meeting with her teacher, but I don't have the time or energy to get into that right now. I had a pretty productive day around the house, since I was kind of tethered to it. I've got all the laundry washed and half of it put away, so that has to count for something. I also, finally, finished a blanket for Alison that I've been working on -- in fits and starts -- for nearly a year. It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself.



That's about it from here. Time for me to do my part in getting Alison ready for bed, and then go off to bed myself. Back to school for her means back to the gym for me, so I need to get some sleep so I don't fall asleep on the crosstrainer. :)

Well, now isn't this a fine kettle of fish

It's December 8, and I am supposed to be baking cookies. And that's what I was doing this morning. I have dough for two kinds of cookies in my refrigerator waiting to be baked. I have two batches of bar-pan type cookies that I baked this morning waiting to be cut. So why am I not actually baking any of the waiting cookies? Well, that would be because the oven kind of blew up just as the second batch of this morning's cookies was finishing up. Ok, maybe "blew up" is a little exaggerated, but the heating element did start arcing (which caused a very tiny fire) and it shorted out the oven control board. Our oven is toast. And a new oven was not on my Christmas shopping list. I guess it is now, though. With limited funds for this type of purchase, I went shopping at HomeDepot.com and found a range that looked promising, and it was even on sale. We checked it out tonight after supper, and while I don't love it, I can live with it, for a few years at least. They don't have any in stock, though, so the earliest we could get it would be Wednesday. I happened to find the same model at Lowe's -- in stock, but not on sale. If they will give us Home Depot's sale price, we'll take it, because there is no place one can go to do one's baking when the oven is on the blink, as opposed to being able to take the laundry to the laundromat when the washer or dryer is on the fritz, and you don't realize how much you use the oven until it's not available. At least I didn't.

I haven't blogged in forever, but today I'm having a really crummy day.

At our church, we have a group of paid sitters that we use for childcare for various church functions. I'm in charge of scheduling these people when they are needed. We have one older woman, a grandmotherly or even great-grandmotherly type lady, who has been my go-to sitter for the last couple of years. She has been Alison's sitter on the Sunday nights when Kevin and I are working with the middle school youth group since Alison was about 18 months old. Today I called her to see if she would be available for a sitting job on Monday morning, and found out that she is having some medical problems, which could be quite serious. She was going to call me tomorrow to tell me about it, because she won't be able to do childcare for the near future. I felt so bad for causing her to have to tell me about it before she was ready to. I've been crying all morning because she is such a wonderful person and I don't want her to be sick. She's, obviously, very upset, and not just because of the possibly serious medical problems. She truly loves taking care of these kids and is upset at the thought of not being able to do it anymore.

I'm stressing out trying to figure out how I'm going to cover all the babysitting jobs that she was set up for, especially since there are jobs that I was having trouble staffing before this. The Associate Director of Children's Ministries, who I work with on childcare, is currently in Liberia and will be there until the end of the month. I talked to her counterpart to get some help today, which was hard because I needed to tell her that there was a problem, but it's not my place to tell the details. I didn't know what to say when she asked if I thought L could use a ministerial call or visit. She knows L well enough to know that it's a physical problem, because that's about all that would keep her from watching these kids.

And then there's the whole issue of what, if anything, to tell Alison. For right now, I don't think I need to tell her anything, but we'll probably have to in a few weeks. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Today is my birthday.

I'll even tell you which birthday it is.

Today is my 35th birthday.

So this year, my husband actually remembered that my birthday was coming up. Last week he commented to Alison that he needed to go to the grocery store. I kind of looked at him funny and then realized that he meant he needed to order me a birthday cake. So he asked me what kind I wanted. I told him he knew what kind I wanted and that it just wouldn't be the same coming from the grocery store bakery. Then he said that he could buy a box mix and a can of frosting and make one that way. Yeah, that's true, but it still wouldn't be the same. And somehow it just didn't seem fair that Alison gets a homemade cake for her birthday (even if it is is just a chocolate cake) and he gets a Mississippi Mud Pie for his birthday and the only way I would get my favorite cake for my birthday would be to make it myself.

So for the last week, Kevin has been making plans to bake a Red Velvet Cake with Ermine Frosting....from scratch. They got hit with a (computer) virus at work last week, so he spent just about every free moment all weekend at work fixing computers so no chance to make a cake. Therefore, today was the day of the Great Cake Bake.

Alison had PT this morning, so he came home after we left and got started. I gave him some efficiency recommendations (do the cooking part of the frosting first, then mix the cake and the frosting should be cool enough to finish when you're done). Still, as I'm sitting and watching Alison go up and down the hallway on a scooterboard, the phone suddenly rings. "Where is the cocoa powder?" So I tell him and he's good to go. About 5 minutes later, the phone rings again. "I don't see any more flour and I'm a little bit short." Well how short are you? Since he was only half a cup short, I told him to use the white whole wheat flour and it would be fine. Crisis averted.

When we got home from PT, the cooked portion of the frosting was cooling and he was in the midst of mixing the cake. I just left him to his work and got Alison a snack. I did notice, at one point, that he was mixing the cake with a teaspoon, which I thought was a little silly, especially when there were plenty of mixing spoons in a crock on the shelf, but I didn't say anything. When we were ready to leave for dance class (about 20 minutes later) he was just putting the cake in the oven and getting ready to finish the frosting.

When we arrived home from dance class, he had gone back to work. The cake was done (sitting on the top of the stove to "cool" -- I did move it to a rack on the counter for him) and the frosting was waiting in the fridge. Alison wanted to help "decorate" the cake, so the two of them went to work on it after lunch (I got the cake out of the pan and onto a cake board for them.....the scraps that stuck to the cake pan tasted pretty good.). Kevin's not used to baking, and he's really not used to having a "helper," but he did let her do a little and the cake is sitting on the counter right now. It actually looks pretty good. :)

Can't wait for tonight to be able to eat my homemade, from scratch and not by me, Red Velvet birthday cake with Ermine frosting. :)

For one reason and another, I got messed up in my Christmas plans. I was going to have all of my baking done by the end of last week. I tried a new recipe for one type of cookies I was making and it totally didn't work. Unfortunately, I had made a double batch, so I had to throw away a lot of cookie dough. That put me behind schedule and our activities last weekend threw me off even more. I'm back on track now though, I think. I have one more batch of cookies chilling, waiting to be baked tomorrow, and the Cut Out cookies to frost and then I will have all my cookies ready to go into the mail. Then I have one more batch of Diamond Cookies to make for us and I think Alison and I are going to make Gingerbread Cookies just for her to decorate (since she's not going to get to help frost the Cut Outs). Then that will be it for the cookies this year.

I was also going to have all the presents that need to be mailed wrapped last weekend and that didn't happen, either. There was a mix up with the wrapping paper that Kevin's company prints. It was supposed to be ready last Friday, but because there had been a mix up with the deadline for the kids to get their pictures in, it wasn't ready until the middle of the week. And then, they didn't print as much as they did last year, so Kevin only got 15 sheet...5 sheets of the three different layouts. Which would have been fine, except that Alison actually colored some pictures this year, so we wanted to make sure that we used her paper for most of our presents. Unfortunately, despite everyone else having two pictures printed, she only got one of hers printed (and it wasn't the better of the two). We were kind of disappointed at that. Still, Kevin managed to trade 5 of the sheets that had somebody else's kids pictures on it for 5 more of Alison's. I think a lot of people were disappointed with how the paper turned out this year. Kevin's supervisor has two kids and they both put in two drawings and they got put on opposite sides of the same sheet of paper. Needless to say he was trying to trade to get more, too.

Anyway, my new target date for having all this stuff on it's way is Tuesday. Kevin has three days worth of use-it-or-lose-it vacation to take, so he's taking Tuesday off. That means he can take the packages to the post office for me and I won't have to try and manage them and Alison. I've done that before and it isn't pretty.

And here's my Christmas funny for the day. This afternoon, I wrapped most of the presents that we are going to be mailing out. As I finished them, I put them under the tree. When Alison got up from her nap, she came into the living room and saw the presents under the tree and said "WOW! Santa Claus came already?!?"

Tonight, after calling to verify that it was still taking place, we bundled up and headed to Dow Gardens for their Christmas walk. I think this is an annual event, but, as with the Santa Parade, we often forget to go to or are completely unaware of these things. There are so many things going on in our town this weekend and I wish we could do them all, but alas, time and money are in short supply. We have to miss out on The Nutcracker, but we made it to the Christmas Walk.

It was really very nice. There were light displays. They had luminaries set up along the path that they wanted us to follow. Many of the trees were decorated. There was an area of "stars," luminaries in one of the open areas sponsored by the Hospice. There were choirs, standing out in the cold, performing and sax and keyboard duo performing in the conservatory (two men from our church...didn't know they were playing until we walked in! Bill is behind all the greenery). It was very, very cold, but with the barn open as a warming area, where they were selling cookies for $.50 and hot chocolate for $1, and the opportunity to listen to the music in the conservatory, it wasn't too bad.

And since it was so cold, it meant our crazy trip to the mall was well worth it. After being at Dow Gardens for over an hour, Alison was still ready (read warm enough) to come home and play outside for almost another half an hour while I got supper ready.

We were supposed to be getting a pretty bad winter storm today. Last night, we had sleet, ice, and snow. This morning it was more of the same. The forecast was calling for the sleet/ice to change over to all snow later in the morning. It was also calling for snow to accumulate an inch an hour, 2 inches in some places, with a total accumulation of up to 9 inches. Schools all over the place were closed. (Alison has got to be the only kid on the planet that's disappointed when there's a snow day.)

Well, it didn't happen.

To be fair, the roads were pretty bad this morning. I know this because I was out driving on them. The car needed a little extra oomph to make it over the pile of slush at the end of our road and I did a little fish tail as I was making the turn. Why was I out driving in that crap? Because I waited until there was actually a snow storm (or a least the threat of one) to go out and get Alison's snow clothes. The good news is that, even though I couldn't find a coat/snowpants set, I was able to find snow pants and a coat that match fairly well, so risking life and limb wasn't all for nothing. At least I didn't have to try and find boots....I bought those in October. :)

Anyway, I thought that it would be better to go early this morning since we were expecting all this snow and the roads would certainly be horrible if I waited until this afternoon.

Wrong!

Well, at least we made it to the mall and home in one piece -- which is more than I can say for the car in the ditch that we passed on the way home -- and Alison was set to play in the little bit of snow we did get,