Jun. 30: Month in summary

June is over? ALREADY??? That was fast.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

• Jack “graduated” from elementary school. They had a nice little ceremony and party for the kids, and all of us parents stood around wondering where the time went. Seriously, where did it go? Just yesterday they were registering for kindergarten, I know it. Sheesh. I would be wistful at this milestone, but Jack is so excited about going to middle school that it’s hard not to be happy for him as he moves ahead. Here’s a pic of Jack and Mrs. Johnson, Best Teacher Ever. We love her!

• School’s out! We had our annual last day of school party with lots of fab folks joining us for the celebration. One of Jack’s classmates, who showed up with a car-load of other kids we hadn’t invited, certainly left her mark—she clawed the heck out of two kids AND broke Tina’s fence. I think she might secretly be a Hulk. Scary. Besides the antics of Lady Destructo, though, we had a great time.
• Our lovely, brilliant, tender-hearted and talented niece, Julianne, graduated from high school. Although we weren’t able to attend her actual graduation ceremony in Seattle, we went to her party the next weekend. Here’s a picture of Her Highness that I stole from Sonya’s Facebook album:

• After Julianne’s party, we stuck around to spend Father’s Day with family at Sonya’s house, and it made for a very pleasant weekend. We’ve got some nice family, we do.

Gifts I gave and/or received this month:

• Grad gifts, Father’s Day gifts, birthday gifts, retirement gifts, anniversary gifts… it was a little bit of everything in June.
• I got some very special thank-you gifts for PTO-related doodies. People can be so kind!

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

• We saw Monsters University and all four of us loved it.
• Downton Abbey Season 3 is on Amazon Instant Video, finally! I’m re-watching, and Vic is seeing it for the first time.
• We finished watching the 15 episodes of Arrested Development and are totally bummed that it’s over. Again.
• We watched several DVDs: Zero Dark Thirty (intense), Life of Pi (beautiful), The Dark Knight Rises (really, really good), Oz the Great and Powerful (meh), The Avengers (better than I expected).

New recipes or restaurants I tried:

• These cinnamon roll pancakes. We were underwhelmed, possibly because of extremely high expectations. I mean, LOOK at those! They look delicious! They turned out so-so.
• Dina brought Mexican caviar to the last day of school party. I forgot how much I love it. Even with the tomatoes.

This month’s disappointments:

• I had that kidney stone that was pretty much no fun at all.
• I was standing under a long shelf in the garage when it collapsed and I was showered, ouch-ily, with Little People houses and farms, followed by a big storage box of the kids’ keepsakes. I’ve never hated happy memories so much.
• We were planning to go to San Francisco next week, but when I looked into making reservations for lodging and activities, I realized that our dates coincided with the start of the America’s Cup trials being held there. We decided to postpone the trip for a less crowded time, which bummed us all out. We have some good alternatives planned, though, so the week won’t be a waste.

My accomplishments:

• This isn’t my accomplishment, but it was a huge one for Katie: she sang a solo for her school’s talent show. We were so proud of her—I was amazed that she was willing to get up in front of everyone to perform. She did a great job, and although we have the video to prove it, she has forbidden us from posting it anywhere so you’ll just have to trust me.
• Another biggie: today is my last official day as PTO president. Bittersweet.
• We held a garage sale yesterday to raise $$ for our Relay for Life team. I have eleventy bags of clothes to take to a resale shop before I can figure out exactly how much we earned, but thanks to very generous donations of sell-able items from friends and family, it was a worthwhile weekend.
• Preparing for the garage sale meant sorting through our attic, garage, bedroom closets, and big/deep closet downstairs. I was able to clear out HUGE amounts of space and get rid of things I haven’t needed in ages. What a feat! I love to de-clutter and simplify.

Anything else noteworthy:

The funnies I’ve been collecting for you this month:

<shivers>

 

That’s all I got. Happy July!

Mar. 31: My summary of March

Wow, that month went kinda fast. Yikes.

Special days I celebrated this month and how:

There were no major holidays for us this month, but we did go on vacation for the first time in eleventy years, so that was a pretty big celebration.

We spent six days in Southern California, three of them at the Disneyland Resort. Katie and Jack hadn’t been there since 2006, so this was a completely different vacation than we’d had with them before. There were new attractions to experience, and both kids were older/taller, allowing them to try rides they hadn’t been able to in earlier visits.

One HUGE step was that Victor and I actually separated from the kids a couple times and went off to do the too-scary-for-our-weeeener-kids rides (Tower of Terror and California Screamin’) ourselves. We were proud of them for being conscientious—they quickly responded when we texted them—and for Jack allowing Katie to be in charge for brief moments. However, we’re still a long way from leaving them on their own OUTSIDE a Disney park.

Cars Land, the newest area of California Adventure, definitely lived up to the hype—it was like walking through a set of the movie! The refurb of it’s a small world was very cute. Vic and Katie loved World of Color (Jack and I napped at the hotel instead). I’ll write up a more thorough trip report when I get the chance, but for now I’ll just say that *almost* start-to-finish, this was one of the best vacations we’ve ever been on.

Books I read this month:

• Disney travel books, mostly.
• The new book by my favorite Crappy Blogger, Parenting: Illustrated with Crappy Pictures. Very funny.
• My attention span is still frustratingly short and although I’ve started reading several books, I haven’t finished much. During April we run a reading incentive program at school, and I plan to participate along with the kids, so hopefully April’s month-in-review post will be more book-y.

Movies and TV shows worth mentioning:

• Wreck-It Ralph was way cuter than I expected.
• United 93. You forget about the intense emotions of that day in 2001 until you watch this kind of movie, this very dramatic, incredibly sad story, and then everything comes flooding back. It took a Disney vacation to get me out of the funk—I don’t mean to make light of it at all, but for me, it requires a complete removal from normal life to get 9/11 out of the very front of my mind.
• I know I watched other movies and TV shows in March, but the fact that I can’t remember them now probably means they weren’t worth mentioning.

New recipes or restaurants I tried:

• I’ve eaten at In-N-Out Burger in the past, but we tried it again on vacation and I had forgotten how tasty those burgers are! Yum. Why the company prints Bible verses on all their paper goods, though, I do not know.
• California Adventure has a new beverage that we thought was surprisingly delicious: Red’s Apple Freeze. It’s apple-flavored with a hint of toasted marshmallow and fruity foamy topping. Sounds gross, but it wasn’t.

Special or unusual purchases I made:

• A cape. Yes, this was an unusual purchase. Do you buy a cape every month? Katie needed one for Super Hero Day at school, and we’ll all need them for Relay for Life this summer, which is super hero-themed, so I’ll be ordering a bunch more soon. Yay!
• This phone case for Vic, possibly one of my favorite etsy finds ever:

• A dog bowl. I know, super exciting, huh? Lucy tends to inhale her food, and sometimes that makes her sick but mostly it makes her want MORE FOOD RIGHT NOW I MEAN IT, and that’s annoying. I found these fancy dog bowls with big raised sections in the bottom that supposedly make dogs eat more slowly, but I knew they wouldn’t work for Lucy because they are plastic and she thinks plastic equals chew toy. Fortunately, I was able to find a stainless steel bowl that promises the same slow-eating effect. It was ridiculously expensive, but Lucy is eating more slowly now and not being quite so demanding. S’good.

This month’s disappointments:

• I found out that I didn’t actually have all the dental work I needed done last month. I could have SWORN they said “You need a root canal. [blah blah blah…] We’ll do that for you today if you’d like.” Apparently they just did the prep, so I go in next week to have the actual root canal done. Grrr…
• We saw Nicole Richie and Joel Madden with their kids in California Adventure. Here’s the disappointing part: why no Lionel?
• I was absolutely exhausted just two days into our trip. At home I feel like my energy level has improved so much since going through my zapping chemo regimen, but trips like this—the go-go-go kind—remind me that I’m still not back to normal. Or maybe I’m just old and feeble. Either way, bummer.
• I came home with several blisters on my feet and a bad sunburn. (And yet, totally worth it.)
• Still no pony.

My accomplishments:

• I take no credit for this myself, but the kids had dental exams and OMG, no cavities! Considering the fact that Jack’s dental hygiene techniques are typical of an 11-year-old boy (when he says that YES, he brushed his teeth, we have to ask a follow-up: “TODAY???”), this is very good news and an accomplishment to be celebrated. With Pixy sticks and cotton candy, obvy.
• Another accomplishment I cannot take credit for is the fundraising we did for a new baseball field at the school, inspired by a sweet first grade boy who died on Dec. 31. We raised $2,000 easily—having a great cause certainly made all the difference.
• I always try to clean thoroughly before we leave home for any length of time because it’s so nice to come home to a neat house. In the end, though, the rush to get packed and out the door means lots of cleaning tasks are often left undone. Not this time! We managed to do all the laundry in the house, scrub the floors, straighten bedrooms, clean the kitchen, and leave the house virtually spotless. Coming home from vacation has rarely been so lovely.

Anything else noteworthy:

Just a few things that gave me chuckles…

That’s all I got. Later, doods.

I’m not even gonna try to pretend this month-in-review was on time. I changed the post date so it would stay in March where it belongs, but I actually wrote it on April 3. I know this matters to no one.

Jul. 13: Poor me. Yeah.

Tonight, as I tore a chunk off a fresh, crusty baguette, I wondered if I might not have cut the correct amount of brie to go with it. Isn’t that the worst, when your brie-to-baguette ratio is way off? You try to fix it and suddenly the whole baguette gets eaten by me.

My computer died suddenly last week, and I spent this week researching replacements, purchasing the replacement, and transferring files from the old to new computer. I can’t remember the last time I bought a new computer and was excited about it—nowadays they have such short life spans that they’re never really an upgrade from the previous one. I’m not excited; I’m just all pissy that I have to fork out the $$ for a new computer. Grrr.

This new laptop has a number pad (bonus!) but the keyboard layout is just different enough that I’m mis-typing everything. Here’s the same sentence with my fingers on the keys that *feel* right:

yjod mre ;s[yp[ jsd s mi,nrt [sf z9npmid@) niy yjr lrunpstf ;supiy od kidy foggrtrmy rmpihj yjsy O

, ,od-yu[omh rbrtuyjhomh/

Vic has all next week off work, so we were hoping to get out of town for a few days. When I put all of Jack’s football clinics and camps on the calendar, though, it seems that football-related things might just keep us from going more than a couple hours away, and we’re definitely not going anywhere overnight. As if I didn’t already have a good enough reason to hate football (my reason: “just cuz”), I super-DOOPER hate it now. Pfft.

I had a really great story to share on my blog about when Victor and I first started dating and now I can’t remember it.

Yup, those are Jen’s First-World Problems of the Day. Week. Whatever. I’m whiny.

Feb. 8: Plaid pancakes

I’m no food blogger, but I want to share a recipe I made up in my head. The last time I made waffles was not what anyone would call a success, but this attempt had a much better outcome. Don’t you love when your cooking WORKS? Unfortunately, I didn’t take pictures at each step because then you would have seen my messy kitchen and that would have made you sad.

I gave my recipe a fancy name to go with the fanciness of its fancy fanciness:

gaufres au chocolat

Ingredients:

• pancake mix
• water, cold
• vegetable oil (or canola oil or safflower oil or whatever kind of oil you want, I don’t care)
• Dutch baking cocoa
• confectioner’s sugar
• love

Have handy:

• Band-Aids
• Fire extinguisher
• Cereal

Directions:

1. Follow the recipe on the box for waffles and then throw in a little cocoa and about twice as much powdered sugar.
2. Forget the love. With that much powdered sugar you don’t need love.
3. Mix it all really well even though the box says it should be lumpy. The box is an asshole. If you leave it lumpy then there will be little white spots in your waffles and your kids will ask what the white spots are and when you tell them it’s just little nuggets of pancake mix they will not think that’s OK and they will put the waffles down and refuse to eat any more and then you’ll say FINE I WANTED THEM ALL ANYWAY YOU INGRATES and they will cry. Your kids are weeeeners.
4. Since you don’t have any cooking spray, make a half-assed attempt at spreading oil on the waffle iron. (Oh, I forgot to mention that you’ll need a waffle iron for this recipe. If you’re lucky, you didn’t ruin it the last time you made waffles.) It is really hard to spread oil on a waffle iron, BTW. You should get some cooking spray.
5. Pour the waffle batter on the waffle iron and close the lid. Hope for the best.
6. Watch Super Bowl pre-game stuff until you smell waffles burning.
7. Peel the waffles off the waffle iron with a spatula, which is only slightly effective. Burn your fingers repeatedly. Curse. Throw waffle on a plate and shove it at your kids because you blame them for all that’s wrong with the world. Well, your burnt fingers, anyway.
8. Repeat steps 5-7 until the batter’s all gone. It takes forever. Ugh. Whose idea was this?

The good thing is that, even after all that work, your gaufres au chocolat turn out beautifully:

Best enjoyed if you are temporarily blinded by the smoke of your kitchen’s flames.

Remember, it’s never too early to start drinking. So says Chef Jen.

Nov. 29: A Manullang Thanksgiving

Manullangs are known for gathering together and eating huge meals—so unlike every other American family, right? We don’t really need a holiday for an excuse to do this, but last week we used one. For Thanksgiving this year, Victor’s sister and her family offered to host. They’ve been living outside the U.S. for 14 years and I think this was the first Thanksgiving they were on U.S. soil in all that time. We’re glad to have them “home” for a few years.

On Wednesday evening we drove up to Issaquah in horrible weather and traffic. Vic and I came back Thursday evening—in rain but less traffic—because he had to work Friday like a sucka. In other words, our Thanksgiving was short but so lovely that all the driving was worthwhile. My sister-in-law is an amazing cook. I shall now document our day with pictures I stole from her Facebook albums:

Victor posted this on Facebook with the caption:
“I'm thankful for many things this day, my family at the top of the list.
At this very moment, however, #2 on the list is this cheeseball.”
(It was really, really good.)

 

Nothing makes me feel more like a grownup than sitting at the kid-free table,
where everything is breakable and no one is spitting food

 

Darlene and her grandsons—Alec, Jack, and Jacob
AND THE FOOD, OMG, THE FOOD!!

 

The girls had their own table, which was oh-so-giggly

 

Here are three of the five Manullang girl cousins—Abby, Julianne, and Katie.
Those are Jack’s fingers over Katie’s head.
(Jack is a turd.)

Thank you again, Sonya and Chris, for hosting us this year—it was definitely your turn. You made our Thanksgiving a very nice holiday in your comfy, welcoming home. Please tell Julianne I’m sorry I peed her bed. Next time I’ll bring my own plastic sheet.

Jul. 4: Currently

Happy 4th of July!

I’ve been doing a Daybook post semi-regularly for a while now, but half the time I can’t think of anything to write and I delete sections and then forget to add them back in the next week and basically, I’ve totally farked up the Daybook as it was meant to be. Today, I’m giving this variation a try. I found it on Pinterest (of course).

Currently…

1. listening

I’m listening to the dogs snoring. I keep humming, which is driving me crazy—I swear, it’s involuntary. Birds are making noise outside. OK, I can’t take the humming anymore; Pandora it is. No noise from the kids this morning, since they’re at G&G’s. Their cousin is there for a week or so, and I’ve seen very little of Katie since Julianne arrived. Katie is the biggest Julianne fan EVER, obvy. Heck, even Jack likes Julianne. I know, I can’t believe it either.

2. eating

I’m not eating anything right at the moment. When it’s time—and I know you care—I’ll be eating cereal. Mmmmm. You are jealous.

Yesterday, however, we had a delicious lunch over at Vic’s parents’ house. Burgers, ribs, homemade potato salad, beans, corn on the cob, pink lemonade… it was perfect. If Vic wasn’t working today we all would’ve gathered for lunch today instead, like normal Americans.

3. drinking

I just finished drinking a huge mug of coffee.

Oh, speaking of drinking, I need your opinion. The other night Vic came home with tonic water, limes, rum, and Sunny D. He added this to our already very well-stocked liquor cabinet shelf. Is he making it easier than ever for me to get my drink on, and if so, why?

OK, never mind. I know why.

4. wearing

I’m wearing yoga pants and a tank top right now. It’s a shocking change from absolutely nothing.

5. feeling

I woke up with the cat on my head, so I’m feeling a little cat-stabby. Waking to a beautiful blue sky is the perfect remedy, though—and honestly, I love the kitty’s loud purr, though less when it’s accompanied by her claws kneading my scalp. And now that I’ve been up for a several hours—I’m a slow waker-upper—I’m feeling eager to getting things accomplished today. I already went through the week’s mail, did some organizing downstairs, and now I’m working on things in my office. I’ll continue being productive, I think, unless I get on Pinterest. I can get lost in Pinterest for hours. Pinterest is the devil.

6. weather

Along with the beautiful blue sky, the forecast says we’ll get to 82° today. Portland frequently has sucky weather for 4th of July, so this is a nice little surprise. Good weather for pulling weeds in the front yard too—that’s the excuse I’m going to use to spend an extended period of time out in this weather perfection.

7. wanting

I am really, really wanting a vacation—a real one, involving an airport. Right now I don’t want anything else. Maybe a cookie, but mostly a vacation.

8. needing

I am seriously needing to punch some people—specific ones—in the face. Repeatedly.

9. thinking

I’m thinking it’s time to stop writing. I need to tackle my list of projects and spend time in the sunshine. Just one more thing…

10. enjoying

Last night we watched Up in the Air and enjoyed it very much. Like my post about The Hangover the other day, we’re way behind everyone else seeing this movie, so I’m not going to be THAT dork by going on and on about it.

Divine has sweet coconut frozen yogurt right now! I love that stuff. I’d love to enjoy it a lot more than I should.

In closing, here’s a visual of things in my brain these days:

Have a fab holiday.

Jun. 16: Birthday cake fudge sweat

I’ve mentioned Pinterest, haven’t I? There are so many fabulous things to be found there, and it’s a total time-suck and I love it so much that I almost hate it. Every time I realize I’ve wasted an hour searching and pinning and repinning and liking, I curse Sherilee’s name a little. She’s the one who introduced me to Pinterest and that means she’s a very, very bad influence on me and my new way of wasting tremendous amounts of time IS ALL HER FAULT.

Anyhoo…

Among the many lovely/evil things I’ve found on Pinterest are recipes for many delicious-looking foods. Do I have examples? You bet I do:

• crockpot mac and cheese
• strawberry bruschetta
• cinnamon roll waffles
• sugar cookie truffles
• watermelon balsamic appetizer
• gin and tonic cupcakes
• veggie bouquets

See what I mean? How’s a girl NOT supposed to pin those things??? And make them? And eat them? And regret eating them?

The night before our last-day-of-school party last week, I made birthday cake fudge, another Pinterest recipe find. It’s like regular fudge, but has a bit of cake mix thrown in that’s supposed to make it taste like cake. It also has a lot of sweet things to make it taste like fudge. It was quite sinful. I don’t know if I’d ever made “real” fudge—the kind that requires extensive stovetop work and things not normally found in my kitchen, like marshmallow crème—and I didn’t really like how much effort was required. The ingredients, though, could only turn out to be delicious, so I forged on.

Three cups of sugar, evaporated milk, and butter, boiled to perfection… white chocolate chips, marshmallow crème, aforementioned big ol’ spoonful of yellow cake mix, vanilla… spread in a shallow pan… topped with sprinkles… is your mouth watering? If it isn’t, it’s because you’re body is too busy sweating sugar right now; how could it NOT be? This is some very sweet stuff.

The recipe said to swirl blue food coloring on the top, but I thought it called for a more summery color, and went with a light orange color instead. It was very pretty. After putting the pan in the fridge to cool, Vic and I “cleaned” the spoon and saucepan—can’t waste all that chocolate, right? We both felt sick within a couple minutes. Did I mention how sweet this stuff is?

The next day I cut the fudge into small squares and arranged them on a plate, then put it on the table with the other snacks our guests brought. And there, next to bagel chips and a veggie platter, my fudge looked like cheese cubes. Cheese cubes with sprinkles. See for yourself:

If I were to make birthday cake fudge again, here’s what I would do differently:

• Use less sugar. Even a nibble of this stuff was overwhelming. Seriously. I love sweet stuff, but this was insaaaane.
• Swirl a color other than orange. Why would I want fudge to look like cheddar cheese? That was a bad choice on my part.
• The only thing “birthday cake” about this was the sprinkles. I don’t know if more of the cake mix would make it taste more cake-y, or maybe less sugar would do the trick. I didn’t think it tasted like cake at all, and that was disappointing.

What I liked about this recipe was that the ingredients were all yummy things. There wasn’t anything offensive—as in strong orange or mint flavors, for instance, like some fudges surprise me with—and although I would use them in different proportions in the future, I would probably stick with the same stuff. There’s big potential for this being extry-good. I also loved how fun and festive the sprinkles looked on the top. The recipe source shows a photo of the fudge cut and packaged in cellophane bags as party treats—what fun, different goodies! I love doing fun, and I love doing different.

Let’s move on to a savory recipe now. Today might be a good day to try that crockpot mac and cheese. Or maybe I need to head back over to Pinterest for some more searching and pinning and repinning and liking and OMG SHERILEE YOU’RE GONNA GET IT.