The after party 2013

After the graduation ceremony, put on by the 6th and 7th graders, the parents plan and hold an 8th grade dance.  It is usually the day after graduation, but too many families had other obligations so everything was jammed into one night.  We were very exhausted when the day was over!

Darcy dressed for the dance

Darcy & Madison

The cake

Darcy being introduced

The 13 graduates of 2013

Dancing

Darcy and her peep, Ariel

Darcy graduates 8th grade

Nine years ago my baby started kindergarten.  She got to wear a uniform that year like her older sister.  She got to stay in school a full day instead of the half days she went as a preschooler.  She got to eat lunch and nap at school.  She was truly growing up.

She had a great time in kindergarten.  She learned more reading.  She perfected her math skills.  She loved Spanish.  Before we knew it a school year had passed. 

She spoke at her kindergarten graduation, as all the students did.  She talked about what she enjoyed during her year and how much fun she had with her friends.  Her goal for first grade was to learn cursive writing.

I thought then that my baby was growing up way too fast.  Little I did I know how fast time would past.  Yesterday my baby graduated from 8th grade.  Next year she will enter high school, following in her sister's footsteps into the International Baccalaureate program offered. 

She made a nice speech.  She talked about the friendships she had made and thanked her teachers.  She also thanked her parents for believing in her and thanked her grandmother for supporting her and sending her to the school.

Her goal for high school is to make her own way and not be "Madison's little sister".  We all believe that she will achieve this goal.

So proud of her!  Congratulations Darcy!

My baby is graduating this week!

First day of preschool 2002

Darcy first day of 1st grade - 2005

Darcy first day of 3rd grade - 2007

Darcy first day of 4th grade - 2008

Darcy first day of 5th grade - 2009

Darcy first day of 6th grade - 2010

Darcy first day of 7th grade - 2011

Renovation #526 - Bathroom

When we first moved into the house we live in now we had to do tons of remodeling.  I've talked before about how I sat down and made out a list of all the things we wanted to do with the house, including our big wishes for it like adding a swimming pool.  It took years to complete that list and when it was done we needed to start back over again fixing and repairing rooms.  One of the first things we did was paint and wallpaper.  As the years passed the wallpaper came down until the only room left with it was the girls' bathroom.

My father-in-law had papered this room and he was such a perfectionist that the paper and the room were still in great condition and I had no plans to change it, despite my friend telling me wallpaper was passe.  I had three colors to use for decorating and while I changed up the colors over the years everything else remained the same.

Recently while passing through the hallway after one of the girls had just showered, I noticed that the wall above the shower where it meets the ceiling was stained.  I assumed that it was wet and I yelled at whichever girl had just been in there, "How do you guys get water all the way up there??"  One of the oddities about the bathroom, the home being built in the 60's, is that the only window in the room is inside the shower.  The wetness was above the shower and I ranted and raved about spraying water on the ceiling.  Then I promptly forgot it.

About a month ago I started smelling a foul odor coming from the bathroom.  I was the only one who smelled this, but it began driving me crazy.  I laundered towels daily and changed the trash.  I put in a room deodorizer and scrubbed the sink.  Every time I passed by the doorway I smelled the odor.  One day I was telling this to my mother and the first thing she said was, "You have mold somewhere."  And as soon as the words left her mouth I knew that it was the stain that I had seen previously.  It wasn't water, it was mold and mildew.  The time had come for the wallpaper to come down.

My husband and I stood outside the bathroom that night and looked at the stains above the window.  He was not interested in remodeling the bathroom, but I assured him I would take care of everything because I couldn't live with mold spores raging in the house.  I could feel them attacking my immune system as we stood there.  He, being over six feet, climbed into the bathtub and worked until he got a corner of the wallpaper undone.  He peeled it back and sure enough on the back of the wallpaper was mold.  It hadn't yet gone into the walls so we were fortunate, but before my husband could finish peeling it off, I was on a ladder peeling off the paper on the other side of the room.

It took me two days to get all of the paper off.  I'm an expert at removing wallpaper having removed all of it from my house and a friend's house.  I spent another two days priming the walls with a special mold deterrent primer and by then I had remodeled the room inside my head.  I took Madison with me to pick out the shower curtain so that we could use that as our focal point.  I told her I wanted something different, something bold and colorful.

The thing about my kids is that for the most part they hate change; Madison the most.  She is sixteen and her bedroom is still exactly like it was when she was five.  Both of them said they liked the colors that the bathroom use to be.  I said tough.  We went shopping.  What I liked, Madison didn't.  What she liked, wasn't what I had in mind.  I gave in, although not quietly.  I liked the curtain she picked out because it had great colors, but the main part of the curtain was white.

Along side of the curtain on one side was a line of the blue that was inside the bird.  I thought we could paint the walls that color and was all for the curtain, but Madison didn't want to paint the walls that color.  Even though that color is her favorite.

So we argued some and then I remembered that I was letting her do the decorating and so I bought the shower curtain.  A saleslady suggested we do a tan color for the walls and so I felt better about that as then it would be neutral and I could change things up down the road if I wanted.  We took the curtain home and debated for a few days on color.  Then we were at the check-out line in Target and spotted a gift card with all of the colors of our shower curtain.  The backdrop of the card was a tan and a yellow and so we bought the card to match the paint.  (My nephew ended up with the card since his birthday was next)  I couldn't wait to get it on the walls.

When I did it turned out to be a close yellow color to what I have on my living room walls.  I was, to say the least, not happy.  I don't even like yellow and yet more than half my house is that color.  I call it gold just to avoid the word.  But I had already purchased a gallon of the stuff and edged the walls so I continued for two days painting the bathroom.  Madison assured me it would work and she was right.  When we put the curtain up against the walls it looked real nice.

Whew!  But then we hit another snag on choosing the colors of the towels and rugs.  I wanted one color.  Madison wanted another.  We spent quite a bit of time in Walmart pulling out the curtain, placing various colored rugs on the floor, and draping colored towels over the cart to see what looked best.  When Madison put all of her hers together I had to agree it might just work.  And since I had said she could do this....

The neat thing was that she remembered that we had this little hummingbird stain glass in the same colors (it is above the shower in the above photo).  It came from my in-laws old house.  My mother-in-law had forgotten it, Madison had saved it, and since my mother-in-law didn't want it back it became ours.  It fit right in.  As did this wall hanging that Madison made in math class in middle school.

The next argument came when I said I wanted to replace the lights and the mirror.  Back in the day, before kids, we had hung a small mirror, a matching shelf, and lights on either side of the mirror.  The lights had rusted and the mirror was too small for such beauty as ours.  The girls disagreed.  They liked the mirror and the shelf and the lights.  They lost.

The only thing left is to hang a small towel ring to the right of the mirror, which is the only place for it to hang.  We are fighting about that too.  I will win that one.  I have already purchased the ring and just need a handy man to hang it.  And then the remodeling project will be complete and we will move to the pool deck and backyard.  Whew!

Soon to be Dr. Kristen

I've known my friend Robin since grade school, which back in those days in my area meant K-8th grade.  We have stayed in touch through the years and visit each other when we can.  When she had her first child, a daughter, she lived in Missouri, but soon moved back to Indiana about 45 minutes from where I lived.  I was very excited to see the baby and drove up to spend a weekend with the two of them while Robin's husband was out of town.  I really knew nothing about babies at that time.


I was, however, impressed with how much my friend had taken to motherhood, managing feedings and diaper changings while planning a family get-together and mowing her lawn.  I was there to help her with things, but my baby experience was limited to babysitting a few hours as a teenager.  Robin didn't care.  She was damn busy.  I was there to help so she handed Kristen to me and told me I would figure it out and then she changed her clothes and went outside to deal with the yard.



I got to give her a bottle, change her diapers, and stop her fussing by reading to her while she sat in her swing.  I managed, with a bit of help from Robin as she came in and out for water.  I also fell in love.  Kristen was the cutest, and sweetest, little baby I knew.  The fact that she was the daughter of my old and dearest friend made her that much more special.  Before I knew it I was spending as many weekends with her as I could.




When I moved to Florida Robin kept me abreast of Kristen's activities sending me pictures and letters of her milestones.  I hated missing all of the "firsts" in her life, but Robin sent me 5x7 pictures of Kristen that she had taken every three months or so and those pictures were framed and hanging in our apartment on one wall.







Everyone who came into our apartment would ask me if this girl was a relative, and upon finding out that she wasn't, were always perplexed by my admiration and love for a friend's daughter.  I would explain that she was as special to me as my nephew.







And she was.  I would visit them when in Indiana or they would visit me at my parents' house.  They came to Florida to visit me.  I watched this little baby grow into a toddler who scrunched up her nose and blew out when sniffing flowers.  I listened as she babbled as a toddler and then began putting together words and sentences as a little girl.





I worked with her in the water when I could whether it was in lakes in Indiana or Kentucky or the gulf in Florida.  I had promised to teach her how to swim, but didn't get home enough in the warmer months to make sure that happened.  I bought her the gifts I always enjoyed as a kid and watched her blossom into a young student and head off to school.




My parents loved her as much as I did too because they loved Robin who had been such a part of our lives growing up.  There is something about longtime friendships that extend to their children and families as well.  We all counted Kristen as one of ours.  She was just a part of our lives as any family member and we loved her like one.

Years later I had my own children.  By that time Kristen was in double digits in age and she became a little caregiver for my daughters whenever we would see her.  Unfortunately, those times were not as frequent as they had been when Kristen was younger.  As she grew into a teenager I had to rely on phone calls and emails from Robin for updates.  She was a great student and very social and she made her parents proud.



We began seeing more of them when Kristen was in high school and we visited Indiana each summer.  Kristen was busy with work and her friends, but she always took time out to spend time with my daughters.  Both my girls have fond memories of cleaning Kristen's room and being rewarded with old jewelry she no longer wanted.






We were there the summer Kristen packed for her first year at college, stacking boxes of belongings into corners.  She was heading to Purdue University to study in the pharmacy program, and I couldn't believe how time had flown.  We saw her at least every other summer and caught up with her as she ran to and from several jobs and social activities. 

This past Mother's Day Kristen graduated from Purdue after six long years in the pharmacy doctorate program.  Robin texted me a picture of her in her cap and gown and I find myself crying.  Once again those emotions hit me as they did the first time I laid eyes on her as a little baby.  I am so proud of all that she has accomplished in her life.  She is a strong, independent woman who has worked hard to get to where she is today.  I am so very proud of her and so fortunate to have been a part of her life. 

5 things that happened in the days I didn't blog

1.  My yard kept growing!  I love to go outside and sit and watch my new grass grow.  The other day I just went outside and stretched out on top of it and stared up into my oak tree.  I don't want to credit the homeowner's association for any of it, but I have to say they got the ball running on it probably earlier then we would have.  Of course we are in a level 4 water restriction right now in our county and on the website (which I discovered the day after we planted our grass) it clearly states that homeowner associations may not force homeowner's to re-sod their yards as long as this restriction is in place.  I wanted to print that out and put copies in all of the neighbor's mailboxes, but my husband wouldn't let me. 

2.  The Jacaranda trees bloomed!  I can't tell you how beautiful these trees are when they bloom once a year.  It is Florida's sign of spring, and since purple is my favorite color I just love them.  Most people agree they are pretty, but say they are messy when the blooms fall into the yard.  I think the layer of purple all over the yards are very lovely and thought how beautiful they would look spread over my new lawn.  I tried to get my husband to buy a jacaranda tree for our new landscaping from mother's day, but I think he sides with those people that gripe about the mess.  I thought vaguely about raking up some of the blooms from my neighborhood and sprinkling them on my lawn, but the last time I did something like that (raked the neighbor's leaves and hauled them into our yard so we could build a leaf house) my father went nuts and my husband reminds me a lot of my father so....

3.  I got a cilantro plant instead!  This was what I also wanted for mother's day because I LOVE this stuff.  If there was a perfume out there that smelled like cilantro I would buy it.  I love the smell of this herb and use it in so many of my chicken dishes.  I saw that they were selling them in my grocery so I made sure to tell my kids that is what I wanted since last time I told my husband we ended up with culantro.   I told the girls I wanted to have a little pot of it in my kitchen.  They relayed that to their father who found two plants while out buying his landscaping stuff for the yard.  Excited he purchased them, told me he had found them, and before I could glance at them he had planted them in the side of our yard!  I then went to the kids and reminded them that it was my day and I wanted cilantro-in-a-pot-that-I-could-have-in-my-kitchen.  The girls came through and I have it in my kitchen, although after researching how to grow and cut I think I'll have to eventually transfer it to another pot and put it outside.

4.  My new camera broke!  For some reason after NYC I had trouble transferring the pictures on to my computer.  I've always had trouble doing this since I got the camera at Christmas, but after a few times turning the camera on and off it has worked.  Not so this time when I had tons of photos on my photo card.  Turns out the area where I plug in the cord to charge the battery or hook to my computer is shot.  Tom reminded me that I could take out the photo card and use that to download my pictures, and I got them all transferred, but now I'm reduced to using my Iphone for pictures.  I have yet to box up the camera to send it off for repair and the other day I read an article on a new Canon camera that actually has Wifi to allow you to upload to social media so of course now I want that camera.  In the meantime the Iphone camera isn't bad and now that I'm on Instagram I try to post a photo a day. 

5.  Tom landscaped our yard!  His fingers, wrist, and hand finally healed enough that he could plant.  He didn't do much, and I would have preferred more color, but I liked what he did do.  The tan mulch goes nice with the green lawn and my sister-in-law will love the new palm trees which he said he planted for her.  I hate gardening so I can't whine...much.  I plan on adding some hanging colorful baskets to my front porch so that will add some color.  And my palm tree loving-garden loving sis-in-law will be here in a few weeks so maybe I'll have her do some gardening to add some color.

Mock Steak Recipe

I am not a great cook, but I manage.  A few years ago I tried to learn the different sides of beef and where they were located on the cow, but I didn't really retain any of that information.  Since my cholesterol levels are iffy, I try to only eat beef once a week.  I don't consciously try to do this like I should, but my beef recipes are not as numerous as the poultry recipes in my file.  Plus, I'm not really a chef when it comes to cooking beef except for crumbling and frying ground beef. If I want a steak, I go for the filet mignon and my husband prepares that on the grill. I don't do fire.

Each week I try to plan out a menu, and then I shop accordingly.  With my mother in the hospital this past week, I ended up at the grocery without a plan or a list, and I wandered the store trying to come up with ideas. I saw these small pieces of meat, cut, packaged, and on sale.  They were very red and just the right size for my family so I threw two packages into my cart, figuring that if I bought more then I could probably talk my friend Kelly into grilling them for me.  Then I proceeded to finish the meal by buying potatoes, fresh Florida corn, green beans, and garlic bread.  I was very excited that this meal was complete, but as I headed to the check-out I got a bit worried.  I read the name on the package again; mock tender steak.

Hmmmm....wasn't that a little misleading?  I whipped out my phone and looked it up and sure enough the first site that came up started with, "This steak obviously got it's name from an advertising executive since it isn't actually anything like tender."  I whipped back around and put the steak back, but as I searched for a replacement nothing looked as good as those little steaks so I put them back in my cart and went back to the Internet for a recipe.  All of the sites said to braise the steak (which I had to look up) so I bought them.

When the day came to cook them I looked up to see if there were any crockpot recipes and found one site where someone asked what she could do with these mock tender steaks her husband bought on BOGO.  Someone said to cook it in the crockpot with beef broth and onion soup, and since I do that with pot roast I decided to give it a try.

My Mock Tender Steak Recipe:

I used 6 little mock tender steaks (feeds four easily)

 1 can of beef broth

1 package of Lipton onion soup mix

Worcester Sauce to taste (I love this stuff so I pour it on)

Garlic powder

Mrs. Dash

2 tbs. flour

Sprinkle the steaks with the garlic powder and Mrs. Dash.  You can braise the steak in a frying pan on each side for about two minutes if you want, but it isn't necessary. Put the beef broth and onion soup mix into the crockpot and stir it up.  Place the steaks into the crockpot mixture and pour in the Worcester sauce on top of the steaks. Add potatoes and carrots if you want. Put the crockpot on low (or high depending on time) and walk away. Mine cooked on high in four hours. Low setting would probably be a couple of hours more.

An hour before I was ready to eat I snapped my green beans and added them into the crockpot.  When the beans were done I took the beans and steak out, added the flour into the broth and made gravy that I poured over the steak.

The steaks were delicious!  They fell apart on the fork and the flavors together made a tasty little steak that was so easy to make.  The green beans soaked in the broth mixture were delicious as well.  We decided that the meal with the baked potatoes were enough so next time no corn or bread.  We were all stuffed after the meal that we couldn't even eat dessert!

I thought that these little babies were worth blogging about and have now added them to my rotating recipes.  It might just take the place of my pot roast!  Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to my mom

Today is my mother's birthday. She is 79 years old. She is five days out of her fourth hospital visit in two months.  This last visit was only 12 days from the previous hospitalization.  She has COPD and a suppressed immune system and when she goes down she goes down hard and fast.  This last visit she spent six days in the hospital getting IV fluids and antibiotics until her veins blew and they had to start her on oral antibiotics.  They took her down and off of some of her pain medications that suppress her immune system in hopes that she could get over this hurdle and stay out of the hospital.
I don't know how she keeps on doing it, but she does.

She is still living in a wheelchair and rolling around in her condo with the help of a lady in the morning and a good friend in the evening.  They cook her meals and help her get up in the morning and put her to bed at night.  They also entertain her and break up a day that is usually filled with nursing visits, therapy, and Rays baseball.  She misses the beach, the golf course, and the outdoors.

I keep trying to stay positive that she will heal.  I hope that her foot will finally close enough that she can get back up on her feet.  She has bad days.  She has good days.  I try to hold on to those days.  I wish for her today that it is a good day.  I wish for her today a happy day.  A Happy Birthday kind of day! 

New York City - Day 4

The next morning we awoke to the sun and warmer weather.  We took our time getting started.  Gila and Ariel were going to an afternoon play and staying another day.  Darcy and I were meeting up with Kelly's sister, Kathy, and her son, Ryan and leaving that night.  We had breakfast at a little place that Gila knew, sampling pastries and more Israeli dishes.  We walked the city some more popping in and out of shops.

Then Gila led us to the park where we were said good-bye and met up with Kathy and Ryan.  I had asked Darcy what she wanted to do in NYC before we left Florida and she said she wanted to see Toys r' Us, much to my chagrin, but I wanted to honor that request and since it was in Times Square I figured she would get something out of it.

"You can see Toys r' Us in Florida," Ryan said when he heard what Darcy wanted to see.

"Not with a Ferris Wheel," Darcy told him. "This one has a Ferris Wheel."

"There is a Ferris Wheel in Toys r' Us?" Ryan asked shocked, and when his reluctant mother fessed up that there was he was jumping up and down with Darcy to see Toys 'r Us.

We walked to Times Square and climbed the stairs to take in the view.  The Square was packed with tons more people then when I had been there last.  The city was crowded the whole day we spent on Sunday, more like what I had imagined in the first place.  I think everyone was just so happy to see the sun!

The line for the Ferris Wheel was minimum so we paid our money and stood in line.  We got to sit together and the wheel definitely let us see the entire store and all of its floors.  We wandered through the store and the kids purchased some candy and took part in some toy demonstrations.

Once back outside we walked through Times Square again and then walked more of the city showing Darcy Radio City Music Hall, the CBS studios, and the ball that she watches drop every near year.

I told Kathy that I had seen everything in NYC for the most part except for the Empire State Building and the Statue of Liberty, which was closed for repairs.  Kathy made sure that I caught a glimpse of both.

We had a snack and then toured Grand Central Station.  Ryan had written a paper on it so he showed us some of the finer points of the station and gave us a little background on it.  We bid them good-bye outside of the station and walked back to our hotel.  We picked up our luggage, joined Linda and her kids, and shared a van with them to the airport where we all headed back to Florida.

It was a good site-seeing trip for me and a good educational experience for Darcy.  The next time I go back I will stay longer, see a show, and visit when the weather is warmer!