What Would You Have Done?

   

I just got home from an experience so poignant that I felt the need to blog for the first time in about seven months. I have started working from home, so most of my free time is devoted to blogging or social media for my client right now, which is why this blog has fallen into neglect. But I digress.

Bella started school this Fall and it has been tough to adjust to the new schedule and all the requirements placed on her as a Kindergartener. I found myself feeling that my own inadequacies would end up causing my child to fail or miss opportunities. It's always so awkward to me, as I am a bit of an introvert, to be forced into a social situation like school where people expect you to say "Hi!" and be friendly and talkative. That may have affected what happened today.
   
On the first day of school I drove up to get Bella because I am stupid, and had no idea that driving to pick up my child would be a 45 minute ordeal. Since that day I have driven up to the side of the school, parked on the curb and walked up to the school. I park on the opposite side so I exchange a friendly "Hello!" with the crossing guard every day. It's always the same lady, a sweet, tall elderly lady who probably has a grandkid at the school, or could be a retired teacher for all I know, there's not a lot of time for conversation in the cross walk.
   
Today, on the way back from getting Bella, we were waiting to cross the street and a little boy came up and started talking to the crossing guard. I have seen her banter with children pretty much every day and she seems to know the older ones pretty well, so I didn't think too much of it when the first words out of his mouth were, "Really?! You start letting cars pass as soon as I get up here?" he sounded pretty jovial in his tone. The words, though rude for a young child to direct at an authority figure, were said with mirth and I assumed he was joking, and she did too, and responded, "Well, that's the way it goes sometimes." But the next words out of his mouth, though still spoken with mirth were not so jovial. "That makes me think you are a useless poop-nugget." She and I looked at the little boy in shock, and she looked at me, and then back at him, and said, "What did you say?" He repeated it, albeit slightly quieter. I was completely stunned into silence and unable to find my voice as she looked agape from him to me and back, finally she said, "Do you want me to talk to Mr. O'Conner?" (he's the principal). Quietly the boy replied, "No." So she said, "Then you better not say things like that to me again." As we started to cross the road again I said to her, "Well I think you are doing a fantastic job." to which she replied, "Thank you!"

I felt completely sick to my stomach about that exchange, and wish I had said something to the little boy, even though he isn't mine, and even though he did seem to be joking. I don't know what made me clam up when normally I would put on my teacher voice (I'm not a teacher but I have a great teacher voice) and scolded him until he apologized. I wish I had at least pointed out that what he said was rude and that he should have respect for her and all adults. I wish I would have asked him how it would make him feel if someone said something like that to his own grandmother. I really feel like I missed out on a teachable moment not only for that little boy, but for my own children and I think that is what bothers me the most. I wish I had spoken up.

All I can assume is that maybe it was a learning experience for me, so that I will have time to contemplate this, and know how to handle those situations in the future. When I really started to break it down, it did seem to me like maybe he thought he was being funny, and when you look at the insult, the worst part of it is the addition of the word "useless", which is actually a very cruel thing to call a person. It made me wonder where he heard that insult, and whether it had initially been directed at him. Had someone called him a useless poop-nugget? If so, who? An older sibling? An adult in jest? I wondered if he found it funny or upsetting when used toward him. I have found, from raising my own children, that kids will call a person a name, laughing uncontrollably, but if that same epithet is hurled at them, they will be upset by it. I don't know whether this is short-sightedness, hypocrisy or outright spite.

I think the crossing guard handled the situation admirably, I just wish I could say the same for myself.


Photo Credit: Ross

If I Die Before I Wake... It's Because of This Face Wash

L'Oreal could use the tagline
"I MAKE DEATH BUBBLES TO SUFFOCATE YOU",
but I don't think it would market well.

So, this year for Christmas, I got some new face wash in my stocking. Don't laugh, Santa is getting a lot better, I used to get ball-point pens in my stocking. This stuff was anti-aging and made by L'Oreal so I was pretty excited to try it. And don't get all judgy about my use of anti-aging products, this is the South and we practically bathe in Oil of Olay. Although I was excited to try it, I was never really impressed by it. It comes out of the tube a pure, opaque white, and then slowly expands, kind of like hair mousse. When you start washing your face, it becomes exponentially more foamy than you would have expected, think Palmolive on steroids. Also, it claims to be "exfoliating" but since the cream itself is completely smooth, I can only assume the exfoliants are chemical in nature, which freaks me out a bit.

No matter how much Noxzema I used I never
ended up looking like Rebecca Gayheart.

My standard modus operandi when washing my face is to do as the Noxzema girls did and splash water all over my face and then work up a good lather in my hands before scrubbing my pores. I generally end up completely swathed in face wash foam, so I have to keep my eyes and mouth tightly closed at first to avoid getting the soap in my eyes and becoming a screaming, flailing squid of pain. I've still got to breathe though, I'm not Michael Phelps, so after I get all foamy I usually open my mouth and gasp for air for a second and then continue scrubbing. (And no, I can't breathe through my nose or I end up snorting the face wash like some kind of awful, soapy nasal spray that burns my sinuses. IT BURNS!)


This particular brand makes these really inconvenient, enormous, indestructible bubbles, and last night when I opened my mouth to inhale, it created a soap film that covered my entire mouth. I was, unfortunately, unaware of this, so when I tried to breathe, I inhaled a massive chemical face wash bubble. It coated the inside of my mouth and I swear to you I felt it pop on the back of my throat. I have probably never been so assaulted by the chemical nature of a product I use as when I got this nasty slop in my mouth. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but the inside of your mouth really doesn't need exfoliants. I was spitting and gagging and coughing and just generally sounding like I was dying, so much so that I woke my husband up from sleep and he, being ever so concerned, popped his sleepy head in, eyes half open and demanded "What are you DOING?" Oh, nothing, don't mind me, I'm just choking on my face wash.

This is my favorite, it hasn't tried to kill me once.

I have never had a more harrowing experience with a personal hygiene product. Suffice it to say I won't be buying this one again, and will be giving Santa very explicit instructions next Christmas. I normally use Olay Pro-X cleanser, it has a gentler exfoliant and doesn't make giant death bubbles on my face to suffocate me. I could probably write a sonnet about how much I now hate this L'Oreal product, except I have no desire to study the rules of iambic pentameter again.

My Funny Valentines

Bella enjoys her Valentine's Day treats!

Valentines day has always been a fun time, but it's getting even more exciting now that I have little girls to shower with love! Today was no exception, Vivi and Bella got some new toys, and were allowed to eat chocolate BEFORE BREAKFAST! Then I made them a special meal of heart-shaped strawberry pancakes! They were super sticky afterwards, so they got to have a pink bubble bath, and they are now all decked out in their Valentine's day best! Later on we will go visit my best friend from my childhood, Ashley, and her daughter Alexis, who is Bella's best friend. 

Vivienne loves her pancakes!

To make the heart-shaped strawberry pancakes you simply add 3/4 cup of chopped strawberries and 3 drops wilton pink gel food coloring to pancake batter (however you prefer to make pancakes, I use Aunt Jemima's pancake mix) I cut a heart out of the middle of each pancake using a cookie cutter. Next, I put strawberry jelly between each one, and drizzled honey over the top, and finished the whole thing off with a sprinkling of powdered sugar! The girls really loved them!

Heart-shaped strawberry pancakes with honey!

My Epic Pinterest Fail and the Ensuing Discovery

Have you ever walked into a store and just been hit over the head with a glorious aroma that makes you want to weep angel tears of joy? I have always wondered how certain retail establishments get their mystical, magical fragrances. Recently I came across a pin that said that I could make my own house smell like Williams Sonoma simply by sautéing some lemon, rosemary and vanilla, so I gave it a try last week.

Now my house smells like a
Willams Sonoma that's burning
to the ground

My experience was not precisely what I expected. The lemon and rosemary overpowered the vanilla completely, even when I put in double the amount of vanilla. Instead of smelling like a pricy purveyor of pots and pans, my house smelled like I was preparing to cook some fish. So I decided to dump some brown sugar in the mix to amp up the sweetness. I never achieved a Williams Sonoma scented house, even though I simmered my mixture for an hour. It smelled vaguely nice if I stuck my head over the pan, but the smell was not permeating the rest of my house as promised. I decided I would burn off the rest of the liquid and then just throw the lemons and rosemary in the trash, so I turned the heat up to high to boil it off quickly. As always happens in my house, I was distracted by my children and completely forgot about my pan of aromatic vegetation and sucrose until about 20 minutes later when I smelled smoke. I ran into the kitchen and found the contents of the pan on the verge of spontaneous combustion, so I quickly turned off the stove and doused the pan with water. So now, instead of a lovely aroma that evoked visions of shopping and copper utensils, my house smelled like a rancid volcano erupting with scorched lemons and burnt sugar. On top of that, I was stuck with a saucepan that had half a centimeter of charred sugar cemented to the bottom.

I tend to find humor in my foibles, I don't get easily embarrassed by my failures, so I turned to Facebook to share the hilarity of my idiocy and get ideas of how to salvage my one and only quart sized saucepan. My best friend's brother reminded me that oven cleaner could be used to remove bad scorches from pots and pans as well as ovens, and I just happened to have some! So I ended up using Easy-Off to remove the scorches, and burning candles to get rid of the nasty smell... which is what I should have been doing in the first place rather than trying to extract essential lemon and rosemary oil on my stovetop. So if you are ever curious if you can make your house smell like your favorite retail establishment, I would highly recommend a trip to Yankee Candle instead. And the next time you create a tiny Mordor on your stovetop, remember my Pinterest fail, and turn to Easy-Off.

Book Lovers Never Go To Bed Alone

I am so behind on my blogging, thanks to the holidays! I still haven't posted the blog about Vivi's birthday, but I'll link to it when I finally do. Tonight I'm up late doing a little Cyber Monday shopping. We just got back from our Vegas vacation a week ago and I was finally able to do a little reading. I have been slowly trying to fill my library with quality, leather-bound editions of the classics. Barnes & Noble has been selling some really beautiful ones, and I bought Wuthering Heights, because I'd never read it. What a disturbing book it turned out to be! The characters are utterly worthless, evil creatures who are completely bent on creating hell on earth for everyone around them, most particularly those they love. It ends as well as can be expected though, and if I were to take a moral from it, it would probably be that no good deed goes unpunished.

I thought I'd share a fun little book-hack I've come up with. I always get these beauty catalogs in the mail that come with four or five of those paper samples of perfume or cologne. Usually these things fall out on the floor or in my lap or end up in Vivienne's mouth, thereby making her whole face smell like Justin Bieber's "The Key" or something else equally nauseating. I actually do like some of these samples and tend to go through them to see if I want a new fragrance on my Christmas list, but they tend to pile up. I got the idea recently to use them for bookmarks, for the dual purpose of holding my place and making my books smell lovely. I've started sorting through them each time they show up and putting my favorites in my books. I think this adds a fun little sensory experience to reading, as if your leading man is right there in the room with you.

Ah well, time to hit the hay, as they say. I hope I can get back on soon and post the rest of my blogs that are piling up inside my brain!

Autumn is Here... Time For Punkin' Bread!

The Amazing Disappearing Punkin' Bread!

I still need to write the blog about Vivi's and my joint birthday party, but in the meantime I'd like to share my Punkin' Bread recipe! I have already made this three times this fall, it's completely addictive and the perfect complement to a cup of coffee on a crisp Fall morning! I call it Punkin' Bread because my little punkins just love it! Bella christened it "punkin' cake" because it's so sweet. I make it in a bundt pan, and there is always enough left over to fill a small loaf pan, and I usually give the spare loaf away. It doesn't really need any kind of adornment but I usually put either cream cheese or butter on it because I like to mix salty and sweet flavors. This Fall though, I tried something different. The first loaf I made was for Vivi's party and I had also made a cake (obviously, it's a birthday party) and I had kind of panicked thinking I wasn't going to have enough frosting for the cake, so I whipped up a batch of buttercream frosting from scratch using this recipe. When the frosting I had turned out to indeed be enough for the cake I was left with a preponderance of unassigned buttercream frosting, which can be totally dangerous... Imagine Liz with a spoon and a bucket of buttercream frosting, huddling in a dark corner muttering "my precious, my precious!"... So I tried putting it on the punkin' bread, and it was mind-blowingly delicious. Since that was so good, this last time I made it I tried some browned butter icing, which is also excessively scrumptious! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! (Punkin' Bread and Browned Butter Icing Recipes follow)

Punkin' Bread!

Ingredients:
3 Eggs
1 Cup Vegetable Oil
2 1/4 Cups Granulated Sugar
2 15 oz cans of Pumpkin
2 Tablespoons Vanilla Extract
3 Cups All-Purpose Flour
1 Tablespoon Cinnamon
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 1/4 Teaspoon Baking Powder
1 Tablespoon Pumpkin Pie Spice

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350.

Beat eggs, add oil, pumpkin and vanilla. Add sugar and continue to mix until smooth.

Sift together dry ingredients and slowly add to pumpkin mixture until fully incorporated.

Grease the pan before adding the batter to bake - I use copious amounts of  Pam cooking spray.

Makes enough for two regular sized loaf pans, or a standard sized bundt pan and a small loaf pan.

Bake at 350 for one hour for cake/loaves, or 10-15 minutes for muffins.

I remove my Punkin' Bread by putting the cake carrier base over the top of the pan (while it's still warm, but not straight from the oven) and (using potholders so as to not burn your hands) turn the pan over on top of the cake base, it should slide right out, with a little wiggling.

Punkin' Bread stores well in a cake carrier or cake stand, out on the countertop for about five days, or longer if you can fit it in your fridge. It can also be frozen.


Browned Butter Icing:

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon butter
2 Cups Powdered Sugar
2-4 Tablespoons Milk

Instructions:
Melt butter in a small saucepan on medium-low heat until it is golden brown and bubbly, but be careful to not scorch it.

Remove saucepan from heat and mix icing in the pan itself.

Add Powdered Sugar, do not mix

Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, mixing with a wire whisk.

Icing should be smooth and runny but not watery. For best results, store the icing in a tupperware in the fridge and warm it up by the spoonful, one with each slice of Punkin' Bread (in the microwave, 15-20 seconds on high.) You can put it directly on to the bread and warm them both together, or warm the icing itself in a ramekin and then pour it over the Punkin' Bread.

Punkin' Bread and vanilla latte!

When warming up the icing, put it on the punkin bread cold

then microwave them both together for 20 seconds

it's not as pretty, but just as delicious!

My Library

This place is my sanctuary. I love curling up in the papasan chair with a good book and a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. I have just recently added a children's section to the library, and moved the papasan... maybe one day I'll finally have the upright piano I want so badly and it can go on the opposite wall. I added a couple of Bella's overflowing collection of stuffed animals, specifically the ones that are literary based, next to their books kind of like the children's section of a bookstore. It's fun, and the girls love going in there and playing with the toys and reading! And it went a long way toward getting some of the stuffed animals out of Bella's room!