Cranberry Orange Scones

I've never made scones before. It was a fun adventure because the recipe was simple so Rose 1.10 was able to add all the ingredients except the eggs (I just am not quite that brave!). They turned out yummy. And the girls didn't care all that much for them so there were more for me!

I like them enough that I am going to make them for Thanksgiving Day breakfast while we are at my mom's and give her a break from cooking that morning. Well, a break from breakfast anyway. (-:

Cranberry Orange Scones

2 c flour
10 t. sugar (divided)
1 T grated orange peel
2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. baking soda
1/3 c cold butter
1 c dried cranberries
1/4 c orange juice
1/4 c half-and-half cream
1 egg
1 T milk

Glaze: 1/2 c confectioner's sugar
1 T orange juice


Combine flour, 7 t. sugar, orange peel, baking powder, salt and baking soda. Cut in butter until resembles coarse crumbs.
In another bowl, combine cranberries, orange juice, cream and egg. Add to flour mixture and stir until soft dough forms.
On floured surface, gently knead 6-8 times. Pat into an 8-in circle. Cut into 10 wedges. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Brush with milk. Sprinkle with remaining sugar.
Bake at 400 for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Drizzle with glaze.


Oh, and I'm taking pity on the girls who didn't like them and will also be making cinnamon muffins that morning, too.

Family Manager

That's the perfect description! I've been struggling forever with using the description Stay-at-home-mom because it's just not accurate. I have had a part time job for years, albeit a volunteer one. But if you aren't paid for a job, it feels wrong to claim it. So, I wasn't a SahM, but I wasn't really employed either.

And now I'm definitely employed at Spitz' office (they give me paychecks!), but the hours are so sporadic, it still feels odd to say I'm an employee there. But I can't really claim SahM status anymore for sure. So, I'm in limbo.

But then, came across the label Family Manager. That is my primary purpose in life. Doesn't matter that I also put in some hours here and there at partial employment/volunteerism. Family Manager is a very appropriate title.

Dermatomyositis

Not eczema.

What I have is an auto-immune disease called Dermatomyositis. I can't even swear that I spelled that right, but I can show you all over my hands what it looks like. So far, I only have the skin problems -- my immune system is trying to destroy my skin. It's mostly inconvenient, sore, ugly. But if I start to get the other symptoms, it can be bad.

Like... my immune system might start going after my muscles. That's pretty much not good since your heart and diaphragm are muscles, too. And the muscle enzymes that then enter your blood mess with other organs. Possibly, it might start on my lungs. Seriously bad - transplant bad. Oh, and 25%-40% of the time, this disease is found in someone with cancer or who develops cancer soon after. Graaaaayytt.

I've had a lot of medical tests (it's a toss up whether the 75 minute MRI or the colonoscopy was the worst) and will continue to have a lot of medical tests. So far, no cancer. So far, the lung test is clear. And my last tests had fewer muscle enzymes than the early tests. But my muscles ache nonstop (no one knows why, but assumes it's all part of the lovely dermatomyositis package). And I can never go out in the sun again. Nope, no picnics, no car washes, no fairs, no days at the beach. *sigh*

But, for now, it's mostly a major inconvenience and other than being too sore to operate clothing latches behind me or being able to stand floss wrapping around my fingers while I clean my teeth, life can go on as normal. At least, indoors.

I wish I had eczema.

School has started again, at least for some of us, and so I'm finding a bit of time to return to the blog. I've missed it. Thought about post topics over and over, but never found myself at the keyboard to share them with the world. Or the three people who might follow this blog. Whichever.

So, some brief blogbits:
Ruth 5.3 informed us this morning that listening to daddy stories (recorded bedtime stories told by her father over the last 2.5 years that are all on computer and she can start and listen to at will) is better than cereal and better than having a little sister.

Yesterday, I caught Rose 1.7 dipping May 7.11's favorite stuffed animal (a squirrel named Ava) into the toilet. And I lost the hardest parent battle and just laughed and laughed.

Been crazy busy in the last few weeks as we chew our fingernails and pray for the last of the construction on Ruth's Montessori school to wrap up. It failed one inspection and then the second was canceled because the work wasn't done. 2 days of school have been canceled. The inspection happens today. If it passes, the elementary kids can start Monday. Then if the daycare license inspection can happen Monday, the younger kids can start on Tuesday. So, Ruth's Kindergarten year is starting a bit late. Hopefully, she will officially be a Kindergartener on Tuesday!

And, on Tuesday, I had a biopsy taken of the skin on my right hand that had a weird rash and the results, while only being partly finished and not conclusive, are not cheerful. If only it were eczema as first thought.

Thursday Routine

Nothing going on today much.

I was driving along this morning with a cd playing and the rain pelting the roof of my van. I could just hear enough from the far back seat to know that there was some disagreement going on. Ruth 5.1 yelled up to me, "May is being really mean!" to which May 7.10 replied, "I just said she looks really cute when she's mad!" Sometimes it's really hard to keep a straight face.

Rose 1.5 is getting so grown up. And her language has just shot forward since she got her tubes in. Next week at her post-surgery followup appointment, I expect to find out her hearing (which was still in a normal range before) has gotten so much better.

May 7.10 decided a few weeks ago that she is ready to be baptized. It is such a momentous occasion, we are trying to arrange a date that will work for all our family to attend. Boy, is that not easy. First, we'd like to do it while Spitz' sister, who lives in England, is in the country in July. We picked a week, then discovered my folks would be in Michigan that weekend and my sister was committed to babysitting the whole weekend. But the following weekend, Spitz' other sister is out of town for a wedding and my parents are camping in Ohio. Nothing is ever easy, is it?

My husband will receive a Father's Day present this Sunday... as long as UPS ever decides to actually give it to me. Yesterday their tracking said the package had been sent out on a truck for delivery. But it never came. Last night the tracking site said UPS had incorrect address info and was attempting to find correct data. I called and they said the driver had returned the package to UPS and marked "address does not exist." !!! Doesn't every UPS truck have GPS or something, surely? So, customer service told me that it would not be reattempted for delivery and gave me an address to come pick it up. I spent 45 minutes trying to find the address this morning (an address that does not show up on google maps, mapquest, or bing, by the way!). When I finally called them back up, they said the package was back out on a truck for delivery today. Ack!

13 Years

Yesterday was our 13th anniversary. It started out with a bang when Spitz' pager went off at 5:30 a.m.
It's quite a jolt to wake to a beeper; they don't seem to come with any settings other than Wake-the-Dead! In the last six years of practice when he has been on call one out of every 5 or 6 weeks, he has only had a single middle-of-the-night page. Well, until this weekend when he got paged in the middle of the night two nights in a row. Ugh!
But despite the fact that it was one of those frustrating pages where he couldn't actually do anything to be helpful in any way, the anniversary was kicked off in a very positive way. The best thing about our marriage is that we can make each other laugh. We can tell each other jokes we would never, never, NEVER tell another soul and always know just what can make the other person laugh. Even at 5:30 when we were just awakened for no good reason at all, we shared a laugh and tried to go back to sleep.
Later in the day, we had some other extremely romantic time together. (-; After dropping May 7.10 and Ruth 5.1 off at Jump-N-Art camp for the morning, we got to go grocery shopping together with just our 17-month-old! Woot! Well, seriously, it was awesome to go shopping with just one child, almost like vacation.
We did get a babysitter and went out for a matinee showing of The Hangover. (It was extremely crude, but absolutely hilarious.) Then we headed to the Limestone Restaurant. Yummy! I love getting Filet Mignon at a place that really knows what to do with it. They also had strewn rose petals all over the table because my husband mentioned that it was an anniversary - a very nice touch. The dessert, a flourless chocolate cake covered in dark chocolate ganache with port-soaked berries, was fabulous. And again we laughed together when I swore the port-soaked berries (which I have never had before, of course) tasted exactly like a childhood cough medicine I remember taking.

Another note about the day - we pulled out our wedding video and watched most of it with our daughters. They were amazed with us at how much their grandparents, cousins and aunts had changed, and shouted out one comment, "Daddy, your beard was freaky!"

Sixth set of tubes

We got it today. Another set of myringotomy tubes. This one is the first for Rose 1.4, and was the easiest so far. She came back from recovery sleepy, drugged-looking, but not hysterical as is the norm for the two older girls. And she never threw up.

So, it was a long, tiring day, but hopefully a productive one. Grandma hopes it will improve her balance and therefore her walking, which even after walking three weeks still looks like drunken wobbling. Spitz hopes she will now start to sleep through the night. (Ha! I'm dreaming of that, too. She has yet to EVER do that, even once. The other two started sleeping through the night routinely about now, but had at least done it periodically before this age. Not Rose. Not once.)

She wasn't allowed to breastfeed after midnight last night. I hadn't fully realized how often she searches for me and latches on in the night until I wasn't supposed to let her do it. We did not get much sleep last night. At all. Probably why I have a migraine this evening.

But it's done, and we can go on with life tomorrow. Fortunately, kids bounce back, and she'll seem just like normal tomorrow.

Ruth's birthday Ruth-isms

Ruth was on a role on the day of her 5th birthday. (Oh, can I say I can't believe it's been 2 months without a post?)

She asked as we walked along at the zoo: "Does mommy have more money than daddy?"

In response to my exclamation of "oh, my word!" as I passed a gas station whose price was 50 cents higher than 2 days before: "Maybe they just want to get rich."

Shoot. I know there was one more. That's the reason to write these things down. They just disappear out of your mind....

Ruth-isms

I'm collecting special comments from Ruth this week:

Those look like magic. Are those magic, Daddy?

I'm going to poop, so you probably should.... *waves me back*

You still freak out about being late.

Hurray!

My brother called last night to say that he and his wife are 12 weeks pregnant with their first baby! We are so happy and excited! They've been trying for about 2 years and were starting early fertility treatments and other medical options to assist and have been successful. Ruth 4.10 predicts a girl. May 7.7 predicts a boy. (Actually, just before bed time last night she revised her prediction to a cross between a boy and a girl. *cringe* Not a sensitive thing to say to someone who had trouble getting pregnant and has some endocrine issues that were causing problems with pregnancy.) Overall, the girls are just overjoyed. They are saying, "We are going to have a cousin!" as if they don't already have any. They actually have 5, but they are so much older that my girls don't really realize they are cousins!

I'm on pins and needles today as the potential lease for the new site for Ruth's preschool goes through the final approval stages (zoning and otherwise). Cin said that the school is already receiving calls from people who've heard of our proposed location and are interested in enrolling. Yay! Praying it all goes well.

Nothing Says "Happy Birthday, Daddy!" Like Puking in His Bed

Happy Birthday to the love of my life!
He was awakened, as was I, at 5:45 this morning when Rose 1.2 threw up in our bed. At those moments, I'm always grateful that we only use waterproof mattress pads. At those moments, I'm also the receptacle used for the vomit; my pajamas catch it all and in an effort to let the poor, sick child sleep, I lay there cuddling her throughout all the rest of it. She threw up about 6 times in the next 2 hours; the whole time she would heave and be asleep before she was done.
This on top of the two ear infections she was diagnosed with on Tuesday.

Our birthday plans may have to change. We were planning on going bowling this afternoon with family. I expect that I'll be staying home from that and also from the yummy dinner we were all planning for at Bonefish Grill. *sigh* Maybe I can request that they bring me the huge brownie from Bonefish (and just the brownie) for my dinner.

Well, the auction is over. It was a huge success as far as the evening went. The room was beautiful. The emcee and auctioneer were hilarious. The crowd had fun. The glitches were nothing too major. The fund raising was only mediocre, but for our first attempt at a large formal party, it went amazingly well. We learned a lot. In a month or so we need to start planning for next year. I harbor a great secret fear that no one will step up to run it and it will fall on me. I really enjoyed my part in it this year - the production of the event. I did not have to hire the tech company or speak or line up speakers. I got to hire a caterer, arrange for volunteers, organize the auction, collect the money.

I've been offered a job. Spitz' partners at work have periodically asked if I was interested in working for them, but they've never all agreed they were comfortable with the idea. Spitz came home Thursday after having been approached by N with a request that I take over some of what their CPAs do. It would be paid, part time, flexible and seems like every dr. partner is fine with it this time. They would want it to start after they move into the new building in the fall. I'm waiting on more info on what the functions are and how many hours it typically takes the CPAs right now. But I'm a little excited. More surprising is that Spitz is willing to talk part time preschool for Rose! He is so against it in general, but would consider it for me to be able to work with him.

So much to think about!

Update

The annual family calendar is out. The year end payroll tax reports are complete (except one) for the school. I've made appointments for all the open odds and ends I need to wrap up (new main water shut off valve is getting replaced tomorrow a.m. so that the next time we lose power in winter, we can shut off our water and not stress about broken, frozen pipes!). The refinancing on the house should close this week. The caterer is all lined up for the benefit auction except for final headcount.

I feel like I've accomplished a lot, which is good. And it kept me busy and not blogging. I guess I should just admit to myself that a couple of entries a month is sufficient for my life and move forward without the guilt.

Rose started cruising (just a little) while we were living at Spitz' parents' house this past week. She absolutely loved living with grandma and getting to see her all day long. It was a nice change for a bit, but I admit to being completely thrilled that our power came back on and we returned home on Sunday night. I did not look forward to driving in to school all the way from Corydon (40 minutes or so), and I missed my own bed.

Our back yard is quite a mess. Half of the magnolia tree is on the ground, just short of the swing set. I was glad to see it hadn't damaged the set at all, seeing as it is not even a year old yet. The power company guys came out while we were gone and moved our power lines from under the fallen tree from next door, but our cable line is still trapped underneath. Speaking of that, I probably need to call Insight to get them to come reattach that properly; it was mostly ripped off the house and is barely still connected. Lots of other limbs are laying around the yard. Today was yard waste pickup, but shoot, the snow needs to melt off some before we can tackle the cleanup. Today is dropping to bitterly cold and has gotten really slick again with a new inch of snow or so.

I think I'm on my way to having mastitis. I'm trying to get Rose to drink, drink, drink! I actually have a circle of red, sore skin over a painful area. I've never had visible symptoms the few other times I've had plugged ducts. I'm hoping that gets better, not worse; I've heard bad, bad things about serious mastitis. Ouch.

Well, the girls have ballet today. They seem to really like it. Having both of them go on the same day right after each other makes for a crazy day. Get May from school 3pm; Ruth's ballet 3:45 pm; Ruth ends, May starts ballet 4:30 pm; get home after 5:30 pm end to have dinner ASAP because Spitz' sister eats with us every Tuesday before she heads out to Tuesday night church.
We had to get leotards that were specific colors for a dress code this year. May is lavendar. Ruth is baby blue. Yes, that means next year, we won't be able to reuse. And that sucks.

A baby calls. Not patiently.

Big Growth

Well, Rose is now 1.0, and she is celebrating in style! Her week has been fraught with milestones. Tooth number 6 is keeping her up nights. She has started pulling up on anything she comes to (she pulled up to standing for the first time in late October, but only did it occasionally since then). Yesterday she climbed to the top of the stairs (with her daddy following along below her) for the first time. I asked him how many times she fell back against him, and he said none! If we hadn't been paying attention, she would've been at the top without any falling. We will definitely keep an eye on her because we do not need another toddler with a broken leg!

Her birthday celebration this past weekend was entertaining. I baked her a special 6 inch teddy bear-shaped birthday cake all of her own (and then several mini bunt-shaped cakes for everyone else). Ruth 4. 8 selected the cake mix; it was white cake with sprinkles mixed through it and princess edible images to lay on top of the cake. When the teddy bear was set in front of Rose, she picked the entire thing up and took a big bite, as if it were a great big sandwich! When she was done, there was nothing but a large pile of crumbs (the cake was a bit crumbly anyway) and she and Peanut looking very happy.

Peanut is her best friend at meal times. Rose often leans to the side of her highchair and passes Peanut (our beagle puppy) some choice bit of something she doesn't want. I have never seen a dog that would eat absolutely anything, but probably that comes from being starved as a puppy before she was rescued by the humane society-type group we adopted her from. She is food obsessed. (She jumped up and ate pizza right off a plate I was not actively guarding the other day.)

And finally, beyond the climbing and tooth emerging, Rose has really been making a wide range of verbalizations, constantly. One of her favorites is to make a sound and alter it up and down in pitch, on and on. Ruth declared, "She does a great Tarzan!"

Imaginary blog with Puppies!

Most of this blog is imaginary. I can't tell you how many times I begin a blog post in my head but then never remember it when I'm at a computer or never get time to log in and type it up.

I think I need to make my aspirations a bit more reasonable. I'd much rather post short blurbs of our life on a daily basis than write grand, deep thoughts about earth-shattering issues every 2 weeks!

Ruth 4.8 has a fever today, so she is home from school. What that means to me is that I got to shut off my alarm last night and "sleep in." I got to stay in my fuzzy fleece jammies (still there now!) and pass up the 7:40 run to school. Yay! The good news is that it is just a fever and headache. So far, no vomiting; she's still got an appetite. I HATE vomiting. Ruth is finally old enough to seek out the toilet when she's going to vomit, though. That is such a bright spot in child development!

Rose 1.0 (at least she'll be 1.0 in 2 days! Woot!) is sporting a new tooth today. It finally broke through yesterday, and so she actually slept last night. I'm a bit on the sleep-deprived side from the few nights before that when that tooth was really bothering her. Now, if the whole family were fever-free, I'd finally be able to catch up on my sleep, too. The next logical prayer for me to offer today is that the bug that Ruth has would not spread.

My sister is coming to visit today to spend the weekend and enjoy seeing Rose dig into her first birthday cake. We plan to go rollerskating/blading also. It isn't really a very nice way to celebrate Rose's birthday since she's way too young to skate, but everyone else really loves to do it and with additional adults to pass Rose around to, I'll get to skate much more than normal., maybe even without holding anyone's hand for a few laps! (The little things in life that bring joy!!)

Yesterday, we had a visit from a friend, Beth, and her new little puppies! Beth's 1-year-old great pirenese had 7 puppies 10 days ago. Unfortunately, the mommy immediately fell ill with infection and several days later did not survive. Additionally, she smothered 3 of the puppies, so Beth is now bottle-feeding 4 little puppy orphans. They were so cute, with still-closed eyes and trying to suck on anything they touched! Ruth loved them! She didn't even mind when one peed on her. Rose was interested and tried to touch them. May 7.4 was sort of scared to touch them. We gave the little puppies some pacifiers that we are done with. They sucked and sucked and seemed to like them.

Mmmm, Mojitos

Last night we tried a new restaurant. If you ever hear that phrase come out of my mouth (or my keyboard), you know that Spitz has been looking up reviews and/or heard of a new place he'd like to try. Me, I'm happy to go to familiar places and order the food I've tried before and enjoyed. But he urges me to stretch my comfort zone and try things. He's really good for that, because I totally admit to enjoying many of his plans once we are there. I like to think I've gotten better about being willing to try new things, too.

Well, last night he looked up recently reviewed restaurants in our area and found one owned by some folks whose food we've enjoyed before, but in a different place. Havana Rumba is a Cuban restaurant near us that is fabulous yummy. (That one we heard about from my hairstylist and tried out a few years ago.) Its sister restaurant does Spanish tapas. We headed out to find it last night with all three kids in tow. I doubt too many people bring 3 kids under the age of 8 to Mojitos. It was classy. Didn't completely break the bank, but it was nice.

Spitz and I loved it. The salad with cranberries and pear (and who knows what else I can't actually name) was yummy, and the sweet potato fries with smoked honey were delicious (how do you make honey taste like that?). The melty cheese on bread from the Blue Dog Bakery was also really, really good - couldn't believe we couldn't even get May to try that one, though she loves cheese. The shrimp and beef tenderloin were also yummy; next time we'll pass on the paper-thin pieces of ham. The downside, as I hinted at, was that the girls ate, well,... not much of it beyond the bread and pear slices. Much griping was had. The good side was that at a tapas place, we could order many different things to try. Oh, and they did eat the shrimp.

Then we ordered dessert, because what else could we do at a place where everything was one big experiment? Churros con chocolate and Trio de chocolate.... Oh. My. Word. The chocolate with the churros (the girls loved the "donuts," of course) had espresso mixed in it. mmmmmm The trio of chocolate was pretty good, too, but the dark espresso chocolate... I ended up eating most of it just with a spoon, forget the churros! And because of the espresso, we didn't let the girls have much of it.

We will definitely be going back, but next time we'll be taking adult friends with us, not little girls who'd rather be eating mac 'n cheese.

Pffft and some rambles

Well, I am looking forward to settling back into a normal routine when school starts back up next week, both for my sanity and for the survival of my house. Having all the girls home to play all day and create art all day... we are buried in it! And boy do they like to create art.
There comes a point when a mom has to determine what to keep and what to throw away. It feels awful to pitch the hard-worked, colorful, unidentifiable paper or cardboard constructions. And you have to find a way to do it without the child seeing it in the trash or the hurt in their eyes will just paralyze you. But if you aren't strong and decisive, the sheer volume of paper and yarn and paint and tape....
Some moms I know do not let their children have tape. May has always loved stickers and tape. I have given it to her freely. What harm can it possibly do? Most surfaces in the house can just be un-stuck as long as it is not left too long. And children love tape. Love it. It just seems like a cheap way to entertain without much downside. It's not a battle I think is worth having, and it is an entertainment source worth exploiting.
The baby cries, so I cut this train-of-thought ramble short. She and I need a shower.