Party Time

I've been home for 3 weeks and have managed to get 99.9% of the summer crap stashed away.  I won't let myself do any of the fun stuff, like sew, hike for no reason, play with trains, or throw a cocktail party for the girls until the junk is under control.  So now it is, so this Thursday will be Cocktails with the Girls night.  Since most of my friends are either still working and/or caring for the 'rents and/or grandkids, and/or they have real lives, it'll just be a few of us, and I hope you're one of the girls!  Sorry fellas, but next time it'll be for boys and girls.

The real reason I'm having some friends over is because I have to clean the house anyways... DD's class is coming over on Saturday for an outing.  All of the kids in his class have special needs, and few of them have any clue how to behave in social situations.  As parents, we tend not to take our kids to parties because some fracas involving our kids always breaks out.  Subsequently, they often lack anything approaching 'guest' skills.  So we throw a monthly event to try to teach them some, but most importantly, we do it so they can act goofy and nobody cares.  Being stared at in public because your kids are nutty is a pain in the ass.  So we don't go out much.


Anywho, I turned to my dear friend Martha S. for some party ideas. For the kids. . .

Shrunked Apple Heads in cider for the kids.  Easy to make: peel, core, and halve the apples.  Carve faces. Bake at 250 for 90 minutes. Cloves for eyeballs.

 For the girls on Thurs, we'll have this:

Ingredients

• Fine black sanding sugar
• 1 lady apple, chopped
• 1/2 lime, cut into wedges
• 1 ounce maple syrup
• 1 ounce apple cider
• 2 ounces vodka
• Ice
• Club soda
• 1 thin crosswise slice lady apple, for garnish

Directions

1. Moisten the rim of a martini glass with water. Place sanding sugar in a saucer and dip rim of glass in sanding sugar to coat; set aside.
   
2. In a cocktail shaker, muddle together apple cubes and lime wedges. Add syrup, cider, and vodka; fill with ice. Cover and shake until well combined. Strain into prepared martini glass; top with club soda. Garnish with apple slice and serve.
   

 and this:

Nearly any drink, just add ice cubes made with black food coloring....... gunna have to hit the gourmet kitchen shop today, too bad for me.....

I made the Cider Cocktail last night for practice. My oh my oh my.... I loves my sweet drinks and this one is now my fav.......It's so sweet that I could get seriously tanked on this one.... at least I don't have to drive home on Thursday, which is yet another reason to be the hostess....



Other news is that I'm hoping all of you East Coasters are safe and sound, and high and dry.  My Mom grew up on an island in Tampa Bay, and loved when the 'canes rolled in because everyone gathered at the fruit packing warehouse to ride out the storms.  She recalled these times as big parties.  I'm wondering how my Grandpa felt the year a storm completely soaked the island (Terra Ceia) in salt water and ruined his farm.  They had to move to the mainland after that one.

We'll just get strong winds here in Ohio... so far (Monday morning) we're just at sustained 15 mph winds, which is not at all unusual.  We'll run over to the the Lake Erie shore either this afternoon or tomorrow morning to see the waves crash in.  Lake Erie is so shallow that when the wind blows, especially from east to the west, it pushes all the water up.  Fun to watch! And safe, too.

FTD on the Lake Erie Shore on a nice quiet spring day.  He loves to be by himself.  This is one of the few times that he's content.

Again, thanks for wasting your valuable time reading along with me.  I've been catching up on your blogs now that I have time, and have missed your virtual company.  Nice to be back together.

Ups and Downs, au deaux

The past several weeks have had ups and downs. But today, I introduce our newest "UP!"

Draven Gage Veal (yep that's his real name) finally made an appearance. All 10 pounds, 7 ounces of him. He sprang into the doctor's arms using his 22 inches of springy babyness. My niece is just barely my height, so the docs decided a c-section would be safer for both Mama and Baby. I hope the little guy and his family can get settled and squared away quickly. Let's see, this makes Great-kid #17.

And I get to cross some goodies off my UFO list--curtains for all the windows in Draven's house, and a couple more big baby blankets--done.

Back to School
I've been involved with a grad class this semester, offered by BGSU. There are 20 students in the class who hope to be special educators or school psychologists in the near future. And there are 10 of us parents who are 'embedded' in the program. The idea is to be sure these future educators really get what the difficulties are that we families face every day. I got to tell our story last week. The only way I could sort out what we've been through was to turn to my friend PowerPoint for help. DH and I worked and worked to try to remember which school the kids went to in what year. They've been shuffled and shucked around so much and for what? Going down this road again has been tough. And then we get a letter from the State Board of Ed, saying that our district has been selected for a review of the Special Ed program. We were invited to attended a meeting and if we wished, we could make remarks. Now, I give public programs for a living. Doesn't bother me to stand up in front of hundreds of people and talk. But I was shaking so hard when I gave my remarks that I must have sounded like a complete loser. But when my Mama Bear genes kicked in, I was completely overtaken by emotion. And so very sadly, many, many of the same grievances we had 15 years ago are still happening. Can't this school district learn anything from past lessons? So now I have to prepare written remarks to submit, then it's time to re-convene the Parents of Students with Special Needs group that we started way back when. Back to the trenches for me, I guess.

Back to Work
And to end on an UP note, I got my request to re-up at Madison Junction! Hooray! I'll be happy to see my fingerprint cards get here, so we can get that out of the way.