best friend = pneumonia

husband = probable bilateral ear infection

teaching partner = sinus infection

both children = survivors of the aporkalypse 

me = waiting.

NaBuKiMo is winning.

Did not really get to enjoy Eli on his birthday today becuase of all-day parent-teacher conferences.   We did manage cupcakes after dinner and he was super proud to wear his paper crown given to him by his first grade teacher. Simple joys.

Husband sick, best friend sick, best friend’s husband sick. Who will prepare my Thanksgiving Feast?  I am surrounded by fevered, coughing chefs. This is dire. May be Worst Thanksgiving Ever. However, even in his fevered state, my husband took my car out for a new battery. Even sick, he is the best husband ever, always seeing to my needs. Isn’t that nice?

Sam and Eli spent today with Grandma and Grandpa seeing how many gluten and dairy filled items they could request and have granted. Hopefully the consequences will be minimal and we can chuck out the special diet. That would be fantastic. Especially for Sam.

Got to see my girlfriend Cindy today, the one who moved to Toronto. She was here for a short weekend excursion getting her belongings packed up and moved to her new house. When I saw her I wanted to cry.  It’s hard to be separated from so many people I love. But I tend to live very “in the moment” of my life.  My personality doesn’t allow me to spend time dwelling on who or what I don’t have.  But when I am confronted with the reality of the people I miss in my daily life, like Cindy in this case, it’s hard not to be overwhelmed with emotion about what is missing. Ah, life.

Please enjoy this angsty mid-cycle blog. I will now go knit, maybe, and probably go to bed early. Happy birthing day to me, and happy 7th Eli.

We had the kids in Eli’s class to his yearly Pump It Up birthday celebration.  See a few more photos by clicking through the picture below.

Eli had a great time and got lots of fun presents. The kids were sweet and adorable – what a nice class. Eli is so lucky to be in such a nice group.

Happy Day!  Tomorrow is his real 7th birthday.  I will be in parent-teacher conferences starting at 9am, ending maybe around 6pm? Whee!

My parents are here! Let the wild Thanksgiving-Eli’s Birthday Rumpus begin!

That’s all the enthusiasm I can muster for this blog entry. I am completely exhausted.

I will keep trying! NaBloWriMo is kicking my butt! NaBuKiMo! Ow!

Thanks for your support and responses on my post yesterday about Sam. I went ahead and protected it. If you are on my “protected” list you should be able to see it – if not, you can message me and I’ll add you to my protected list. You might have to register for xanga to do this. 

My delightful husband went out in the dark, cold, rain to get me a delicious homemade brownie from my best friend. Isn’t that nice? Aren’t I lucky?

In completely unrelated news, do you use a slow cooker?  Can you share some recipes? Vegetarian and not vegetarian?

I think my brownie might be home…

Here is today’s recipe,  invented at dinner to assuage my poor hysterical son who desperately wanted a “special drink” with dinner…

Strawberrry Cream Supreme: Dairy- and Gluten-Free Frozen Drink Treat

By Mommy and Sam

(Beware: All quantities are approximate guesses. Requires straws, blender and whipped cream dispenser. Substitute generously to your family’s taste.)

Ingredients:

1/2  bag frozen strawberries

1 – 2 Tb sugar

1 cup cream-substitute – We used Mimic Crème

½ – ¾ cup “So Delicious” coconut vanilla milk

Instructions:

1.      In your blender, puree strawberries and coconut vanilla milk. (Save one or two frozen strawberries for garnish.) Thick consistency desired. Add liquid to achieve frozen thick pureed fruit base.

2.      Put your cream-substitute in the whipped cream dispenser, add your nitrous oxide and shake that stuff up as best you can. It gets a bit fluffy – not truly like whipped cream, but enough to fluff up the strawberry base.

3.      Fill up your drinking glass about 1/3 full with the strawberry base. Add a layer of whipped faux cream. Serve layered with a frozen strawberry on top and a straw. Mix together layers before drinking. The cold strawberries and the fluffy cream should blend together delightfully.

Enjoy!

I drank wine tonight!! Husband’s birthday in 2 minutes!! Going to be his best birthday ever!!

Gotta GO!

The laugh-out-loud moment of my day…  Students in a classroom about to say a blessing before a meal…

Students: (in a disorganized fashion) Baruch ata blam fmms fslkd …

Teacher: You know, if I was God, I don’t think I’d be too impressed with what’s happening here!

I dunno, maybe you had to be there.  But it was pretty funny.

Tonight Scott and I went out to dinner with our buddies Sarah and Tim. Afterwards we all went to the roller rink to skate with Krista.  Unbeknownst to us, it was black-light night and also double-teen-birthday-party night. We skated a bit and then we came home and played some new Mario Bros. game that is Eli’s early birthday present.

Birthday weekend continues!

Tonight was knitting night at the hippie coffee shop with some mama friends, Karen, Christy and Melissa. Sarah came along because she no longer hates knitting! It’s a new group, and aside from the hippie kids playing bongos a bit too loud, it was great fun. But even the bongo guys were entertaining when they sang me the birthday song. My sweet friend Karen got me a stack of four cookies with a “0″ candle on top because she says I am ageless. Awww!  

A jewlery-making coffee shop friend spontanously made me this cool ring in honor of my birthday.  Neat!

It was a fun night and I feel so lucky to have such lovely and entertaining friends. And also a new black sweater which I am wearing in the photo. Peruvian alpaca! Happy birthday to me, again. Tomorrow night: roller skating! Saturday night: wine tasting! Sunday: date with husband and Husband’s Birthday!  Whee – we’re in the birthday zone, people!