Yes, I Have an Immature Side Too...

When you are raising teenage boys, a point comes when you have to stop pretending that fart jokes aren't funny, boobies aren't hilarious and whoopee cushions are inappropriate for social gatherings.  In other words, you have to admit that part of being an adult is actually embracing your immature side.

Which is why I agreed to frost Jack's birthday cake. 

A week ago, Jake came tearing into the house announcing that he had decided to make his best friend Jack a boob birthday cake for his next visit to Orono.  He then asked me, the resident baking genius, just how one makes a boob cake.  "Get a boob pan," I replied.

The next day, Jake and his best friend showed up with cake mix and frosting determined to make a "practice" boob.  They didn't want to buy the cake pan...they seemed to think they could "carve" a boob out of cake.  It wasn't pretty.

Tuesday I came home from work to find both boys back at it, with boob pan in hand.  Filled with strawberry cake mix, they baked a lovely set of boobs and baked a "torso" out of a white cake mix.  Which is where I came into this ordeal.

Having failed at their first boob attempt, Jake and Nick begged me to frost their next set of boobs.  I could have feigned adultness and told them I am above frosting a "boob" cake, that my time is better spent on "adult" pursuits.  But, I'll admit it, I wanted to say I frosted a boob cake.

So Wednesday I spent an hour frosting, then smoothing, then re-smoothing, then nippling, the boob cake.  Because sometimes being a grown up means giggling with the boys about boobs.

Taking a "Sick" Day

I woke up with a cold this morning.  Yuck.  I hate being sick.  But I do love excuses to do nothing but sit around and read, so I'm taking advantage.  So, on the pretense of "getting rest" and "speeding up my recovery," I'm going to plan on accomplishing nothing today aside from reading a few good books.  (Ok, by "nothing" I don't really mean nothing, I will still do the dishes, feed Ben and myself, prepare dinner, frost a cake and probably vacuum...but nothing aside from those things...unless I decide to take Ben to the playground.)

I started this morning by watching last night's episode of Glee.  (I know, that's not reading, but it is mindless and I enjoy it.)  It was pretty good.  Not great, but pretty good.  (Am I the only one that doesn't really care to watch them sing show tunes?)  After watching that, and getting Ben up, fed and dressed, I hunkered down on the couch to finish Lord John and the Private Matter.  It's a short novel (by short I mean like 300 pages) by Diana Gabaldon, authoress of the AMAZING Outlander series.  (Gonna say it because I have to: If you haven't read these books STOP what you are doing now and read them).  I like the Lord John books, but I don't love them, mainly because they are about Lord John, and not Jamie and Claire and I can't bring myself to "love" anything that is taking Ms. Gabaldon's attention away from Jamie and Claire.  (Yes, I know I have issues...but I'm pretty sure all her fans feel this way about Lord John.)  In any event, the books are pretty funny, well, considering they are mystery novels set in the 18th century featuring a closet homosexual in the rigid upper class, they're pretty funny.  I only started reading this one because I finished The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly (AMAZING) and the next book isn't available from the library until the END of OCTOBER.  I needed something quick, something light, and since Diana Gabaldon will be publishing another Lord John book this fall, I figured now would be a good time to catch up on good old Lord John in preparation for his next book, which, fortunately, features Jamie.  (Yay!)

So that's my plan for today.  Start another Lord John book, do some household chores, and hopefully shake this stupid cold.  I can hear the couch calling me now....

When I Grow Up...

Don and I have been doing a bit of talking lately about going back to school.  The other day I had mentioned to him that when we thought it was time for me to go back to a 9-5 job I thought I would drop off my resume at some local insurance and real estate offices.  I was once a pretty good receptionist and would be an excellent fit at one of the local companies, should they find themselves in need.  And I would love to work close enough to home that I could spend more time with Ben.  Don told me that he thought I should go back to school instead.  Get my teaching certificate and teach, like I had wanted to do when I was in school in the first place.  I thought about it for a minute, but told him I honestly didn't know if that's what I still wanted to do.  I told him I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

He was very quick to jump on me about that, reminding me I had my English degree and I wanted to teach, once upon a time.  So I snapped back at him and asked if he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up.  Ten years older than me, he should have a clue, but he admitted he didn't know either.  He's good at what he does, but he doesn't love it.

So we're both stuck now, not knowing what we want to do, how we want to go about doing it and how to pay for furthering our educations.  But we do know two things.  First, Jake has to get into school and get his financial aid set.  Second, something has to change. 

Who Is Angus MacDougall?

After Don and I went to the Scottish Highland Games last month, we vowed to start putting money away for a trip to Scotland to visit the Clan MacDougall lands and castle.  Before making this trip we thought it would be a good idea to start working on a MacDougall genealogy so we'd know when his ancestors came over from Scotland and specifically where they came from.  Since it's going to take us approximately our entire lives to save up the money for this trip, we weren't exactly rushing on the genealogy bit.  Then, two days ago, while digging through Don's Nana's photo albums (that have been annoyingly living in my dining room for well over a year now even though my husband promised he'd give them to his uncle after a few weeks....grumph) I happened to stumble across death certificates for Don's grandfather and great-grandfather.  The death certificate for his great-grandfather (John) lists his father's name (Don's great-great-grandfather) as Angus MacDougall and his mother's maiden name (Don's great-great-grandmother) as Jennie Chadwick.  I showed them to Don and he was amazed, he had no idea there was an Angus MacDougall down the line.  The death certificates also revealed another fact: The MacDougalls are from Canada. Canadian Scots? What are you talking aboot?  So yes, it appears that the MacDougalls originally immigrated to Canada, which I believe was actually a pretty common thing, as I discovered some of the counties and town in Nova Scotia are actually named after towns and counties in Scotland.  Go figure.

Now that we had this little bit of information, Don and I decided to see what we could track down on our own about the MacDougall family.  And that has become my new obsession.  I think I have spent like 20 hours in the last two days hunting through documents online and trying to piece together the location of Don's family in the late 1800s.  And I'm sad to say that damn old Angus MacDougall is as far as I can get without another death certificate.  Who'd have thought that THREE Angus MacDougalls were born in Nova Scotia in a 2 year period in the 1860s.  Seriously people, Angus was the best name you could come up with??  Needless to say, since I can't figure out which Angus we're talking about, I can't move much further with the MacDougalls.

So, I decided to look at MY family.  Since my family came over from Italy in the early 1900s I thought we could just track them down and exchange our Scottish savings to Italian savings and go visit them!  That was until I discovered the town my great-grandmother came from was destroyed by an earthquake in the 1960s.  Damn.

So, if any of you HAPPEN to know of an Angus MacDougall born in 1864 in Canada....could you let me know?  Looks like we'll be trying to go to Scotland anyway...

A Book About Tea? Yes, Please!

Well, my plan for today's blog was going to be to write about a discussion Don and I had Saturday about going back to school.  But....I just finished an AWESOME book, so I need to write about that first.  Priorities you know....

So, back in June, Don's cousin Michelle, who's a huge Diana Gabaldon fan, recommended that I try reading Jennifer Donnelly's "The Tea Rose."  it.was.awesome.  Don picked it up for me at the library on Thursday, I started it right away and found that by Saturday, I didn't want to be torn away from it.  I stayed up late finishing it last night, and it was so worth it.

"The Tea Rose" is the story of Fiona Finnegan who grows up in the poor district of London at the end of the 19th Century.  Jack the Ripper is roaming her neighborhood.  Workers are being exploited on the docks and in factories.  Unions are just starting to form, and to strike.  Fiona Finnegan and her best friend/love of her life, Joe, dream of owning a shop together and rising above their poor beginnings.  At this point you should be wary, as I was.  Books that start out with a happy love affair at the beginning are troublesome, obviously something HAD to happen.  And it did.  The rest of the story is how Fiona and Joe work hard to realize their dreams in London and in America. 

I found there was a lot of suspense, quite a bit of action (though that was a touch lacking in some of the middle parts) and plenty of romance and heartbreak.  And lots of Tea.  Fiona revolutionizes the tea industry and since I'm a tea addict, almost as bad as books, this little background aspect kept me intrigued as well.  (I'm actually drinking a cuppa as I write this).

So, thank you Michelle, I appreciate your recommendation, and, yes, I have the next in the series on hold at the library.  With a little luck it will be almost as good as the one I just finished.

Ten Years Later....

So first, I have to say, I was completely flabbergasted by how many people last night said they read my blog.  I had NO idea!  So, um, thanks for reading, fellow GNG high school classmates. 

Last night was really great.  Sam and Aaron did an excellent job organizing a simple, yet classy, shindig.  And while I was a bit saddened by the small turn out of grads, it was nice to get a chance to talk, ever so briefly, to almost everyone that came.  There were a few people I didn't get a chance to talk to, that I really wanted to say hi to, and a few people that I only got a quick "hi" to, but not a chance to actually talk to, that I would have like to have said more to, but not much I can do about that now.

But I did get to see a lot of people that I really enjoyed talking to in high school and haven't been in touch with, aside from on facebook, since.  What fun it was to see people and talk to them and see how much, and how little has changed in the last ten years.  I think what I enjoyed the most was seeing that no matter how different a path someones life may have taken, whether they have become super successful in their career, or have a happy, growing family, or be in the midst of the ups and downs life throws at us, the good parts of them, their smile, or the way they talk, or the way they laugh, or their sense of humor, hasn't changed at all.  There is still that familiar part of all of us that takes us back to who we were, and who we are, and who we will be, when, in another ten years, we get together again.

When we left last night, I think the first words out of my mouth were: "I miss having friends."  And I have some friends now, I'm not a complete loner, but I think I miss the familiarity of those friends I was close to and the easy way that after ten years we can still chat about nothing and anything.

I didn't get many pictures, but this is a nice one Gabrielle posted.

Happy Ten Year Reunion Everyone! 

My Garden...The Finale

Well, my garden is pretty much finished for the summer.  It was not the most productive garden in the world, but it did alright.  I certainly learned a lot for next year!  For starters, I will double the amount of green beans and peas I planted.  It ended up getting plenty of green beans, but it was so spread out, I only got to enjoy them with a few meals since it took days to save up enough to make a decent amount to cook.  The peas barely survived, I really only got a few to snack on.  But, Ben loved them, and I really like them, and I think I'd like to try again with more in hopes that even if a few plants die in the heat, a few others might survive.

My tomatoes actually did pretty well, aside from the fact that I could barely keep them upright.  I think I will plant a couple more next year since the spaghetti sauce I made was a hit with the family but I only had enough tomatoes to make one batch.  I will also invest in some heavy duty tomato cages!  The cherry tomatoes were Ben's favorite, he's been eating a few of those almost every day.  The cucumbers did alright...they are rather oddly shaped, but I think that's a common occurrence.  They still tasted good.  As for the rest of the plants, well, it was fun, but I don't think I will be doing carrots, cantaloupe or hot peppers again.

My plans for next year include adding at least one more square foot garden, possibly two, and adding zucchini and squash and beets to my list.  I think I will also try a variety of lettuces...perhaps a bit of arugula?  It's been fun, and pretty easy since I didn't have to battle much in the way of weeds or bugs.  Making my own dirt was worth the hassle and the investment since I spent zero hours weeding.

In a few more weeks I'll put the garden to bed for the winter, digging up a few herbs to see if I can get them to survive the winter in my bay window, and day dreaming about another crop of veggies next summer!