Works for Me Wednesday: Oatmeal cookie tip

Substitute half or all of the required oatmeal for your recipe with Apple Cinnamon breakfast oatmeal. I also add cinnamon chips and craisins. YUM!

Smiles in my day:
- Working Breakfast with Santa and having to leave 15 minutes earlier than expected because of the poor child who dumped hot chocolate down the backside of my pants. It was funny and we're only 8 blocks away. Breakfast went well. For those of you who read my post yesterday, the mom count? 4. You can't receive if you don't ask.
- My MIL sent home some holiday earrings for me. :) I'll wear them to the Christmas Tea this weekend. I'm hosting a table and they will be very festive to wear.
- I'm in charge of the Christmas party for K-'s class next week and moms finally called me back! Hooray!
- A good place to work, a warm place to live, friends, family and a full tummy.

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Obligations of a PTA mom

Okay, this one took me by surprise. About a week and a half ago, a sheet came home about signing our children up for Breakfast with Santa. It was $5.00 for a breakfast of sausage, scrambled eggs, pancakes, juice, hot chocolate, a picture with Santa and a special treat. So, I kept watching K-'s backpack for information.

Finally, I sent a note to school:
"Breakfast with Santa info? If it is coming home today, disregard my note. If not, what time does she need to be there?"

Teacher response:
"Bring K- to school at 8:15 AM and plan to stay with her."

Hmmm. So I call a mom that I know from the preschool days. I know that R- is her third to do this.

"Kay, what's up with the Santa breakfast tomorrow? Mrs. H- said that I need to stay on, but I have no idea why."

"Because the moms cook the breakfast."

"Huh?"

"The moms cook the breakfast and Mrs. C- will only allow you to make the hot chocolate the 'old fashioned way,' so it takes a long time."

"Um, what time do these kids eat?"

"9 AM. So we do the cooking and clean-up."

"Kay, there was nothing that came home that said any of this."

"Oh, I know. Nothing came home to anyone. They usually don't say a whole lot about it."

"So, I should probably pack my lunch before I leave tomorrow, too."

"Come ready to go to work and excuse yourself when you need to leave."

I don't mind helping. I really don't. My minding is that no one said anything. Parents work. There are extra children in tow. What are they supposed to do? I doubt that there will be 90 parents helping out with this thing. I called my neighbor to let her know what was going on. She had no clue and she worked the Santa Shop this past weekend. In fact, she forgot about Breakfast with Santa altogether. I'll work it, bow out when I have to and shuttle onward to work.

Next Wednesday, they scheduled the Kindergarten Christmas program for 12:15 PM. Hubs cannot go. MIL is going to go with me, but I have to leave work, go and run on back to work.

Is the wacky communication and odd scheduling typical for schools or just ours?

Smiles in my day:
- I'm still happy from all I was able to accomplish this weekend. Almost 23 dozen cookies baked. 35 + packages wrapped and dropped to their proper Christmas tree homes. 18 necklaces crafted. Laundry folded and caught back up. House cleaned. Attended Lowe's workshop, Santa Shop and Pat Catan's Secret Santa Workshop with K- and crafted things at each one. Attended Festival Choir, Advisory Board Meeting, Leadership Meeting and the Congregational Meeting Sunday night, after which I went to the grocery. I also had time to eat and sleep.
- I made a quickie crock pot of chicken soup this morning. I didn't have time to fuss with it, so it was very basic. Hubs made noodles for it this evening, ate it (it was Hubs legal since it was so basic) and he LOVED it. It was good. Hit the spot.
- We had snowfall that stuck! Big fluffy flakes! And yes, driving to work I slid a little on a bridge. It was only about 3 feet or less. Apparently, the bridge had frozen over.
- Heather stopped by this morning with donuts in hand. She called just a bit ago to let me know that they won't be moving to Ontario. At least the transfer her husband will be making is stateside.
- I found a way nifty R2D2 Play-Doh set for K-'s birthday. She was with me and very good when I told her that she needed to stand so that I could take the item I needed off the shelf and wrap it in her coat. She covered her face at the register and didn't want to see what I was getting. We hate spoiled surprises in our house.
- Rachael gets to find out the bean flavor today. I'm feeling all girl about it.

Morning comes early in a house where you need to leave with your spatula in hand. Good day to everyone!

My original post subject is now completely unimportant.

While attending the festival of many meetings tonight at church, I was able to catch up with Jane and Brian to see how their court date went. In a word, bad.

"They sent the kids back."

I cried and cried. All I could do was to hug her tight and keep telling her how sorry I was. S- and R- were every bit their kids. S- came to them very young, but R- came to them brand crinkly new. He was 2 months premature, if memory serves. (S- was the recipient of many of K-'s hand-me-downs. It always put a smile on my face to see S-dressed up in K-'s clothes.)

Apparently, this decision was all against the advice of anyone having anything to do with the kids as far as advocating for them is concerned. The judge chose to ignore the advice and give the kids back to their biological mother.

The children were returned to the mother right after court.

I cried through the two church meetings. I cried when I got home and told Hubs about what happened. I cried my way through the grocery.

Brian and Jane wanted to adopt these two children. Now they are left with an emptiness in their home.

Working through the county system as a foster-to-adopt parent can be rather trying. Hubs and I knew full well that we were being given a child because of someone else's failings. K- was the 7th child to be removed from her biological mother's custody, so the county had everything streamlined by the time they got to us.

Though we had a side swipe that rattled us, it was a blip on the radar that hardly affected the time frame for adoption anyhow.

Unfortunately, that is not the same for Brian and Jane. Please keep them in your prayers as they now adjust to their little people not being there and underfoot.

My heart just absolutely breaks for them.

Smiles suspended for the evening. Prayer requested instead.

It's always good to have goals.

As an artist, I work best when a deadline is looming before me. No deadline, no drive to get finished. It is sad, but it's true.

I started baking my Christmas cookies. When the first batch went flat and frankly, were not the best tasting, it kind of made my drive to bake them go flat. Instead, I pressed on and made the dough. Of course, it didn't strike me until later that perhaps my baking soda had gone kaput and now I've made three batches of dough -- one a double batch -- to bake in the morning.

What failed? I made a chocolate chip cookie dough base with vanilla caramel balls in it. First, the recipe called for 375 degrees, when 350 F would be just grand enough. Secondly, just the caramel balls alone wasn't enough umpf to carry them through to be a Christmas cookie box cookie. So, I've told Kim that she'll be getting them as dessert with the kids. They are edible, just not the most flavorful.

What is on deck? A double batch of Chocolate Mint Chocolate Chip cookies (yes, chocolate base with mint chips and peppermint extract), standard Chocolate Mini Chip cookies and Apple Cinnamon Craisin Oatmeal cookies. The secret behind my oatmeal cookies is that I use breakfast oatmeal. Yum.

We have plans to have Kim and her kids over for dinner. That has been moved up to 4:30 PM, since the H1N1 shot clinic is from 4-7 PM and not 4-8 PM like we had hoped. I didn't do Thursday cleaning since I was busy in the kitchen, so I'll have to bust it and get the baking done, then cleaning.

So the goals for the weekend?
- Get the batches of dough that I have made baked and hoping they won't fall flat.
- Laundry and bathroom cleaning. Scrub the floors.
- Go through the small pile of things in the basement before Hubs kicks them to the curb.
- Lowe's on Saturday morning to build a Gingerbread House.
- Winter Wonderland at K-'s school with her Santa Shop shopping.
- Festival Choir Sunday evening.

Smiles in my day:
- The librarian recognizing me and asking me where my "other half was." The funny thing was that I knew she wasn't talking about my husband! She told me about their Santa this evening, he was a friend of theirs and he had a real beard. Oh, if I weren't so parentally paranoid about pictures of K- on the internet, I would post this one. It was a luck shot that makes my heart happy.
- The principal laughing at us with the hobby horse unicorn in the school yesterday. He is such a down-to-earth great guy.
- It's confirmed. K- did move up in reading color. :) Her interim report card was good. That makes us happy.
- K- has continued to happily eat her lunch each day. Seems as though I was making a lot of fuss about something that should have been way simple. As is the case most of the time, I was over-thinking it. I have a go simple kid.
- Though my brother is sad about his loss of tools, I forgot that my sister was able to haul out as many as she could get her hands on. She was telling me today that she took boxes with her, knew the expensive stuff to grab and got all the things that she could possibly haul out with her. It isn't all of his stuff by any stretch, but at least he isn't left with absolutely nothing. He keeps reiterating the fact that he is glad that he got out alive. For those of you wondering, yes-- he is trying to get his kids.

It seems that now that the sun is falling sooner, my body seems to want to sleep sooner. Have a great weekend, my friends.

Edited to add:
It was the funky cookie and not the baking soda! The rest of the cookies are coming out fine! Hooray!!!

The end of the day total for baking:
6 1/2 dz traditional mini chocolate chip cookies
7 dz apple cinnamon oatmeal craisin cookies
8 3/4 dz chocolate mint chocolate cookies

I've even set aside 4 dozen cookies (c/m/chocolate and the only caramel cookies from yesterday that made the cut) for Festival Choir practice next week. :)

People weighing heavily on my heart.

Friends, Jane and Brian, are going to court today regarding their foster children. Though I don't know the details, I know that they are going to court and they are fearful that the outcome might not be as we hope. Their two foster children are darling. I believe both may very well have been with them since birth. They would love to adopt these two children. Something with the birth mother stands in the way, though she is unable to care for them.

My brother went, by police escort, in the company of my father and my sister's partner, to pick up his belongings from the home that he shared with his children and soon-to-be ex-wife. Not only his wife sell his truck, but also dispensed of $20,000.00 worth of tools. My brother is a mechanic and now has no way of making a living as a mechanic without the tools of his trade. My brother's mother-in-law keeps phoning my parents and harassing them. It's stressing my parents out. My niece and nephew are stuck in between. The upside? My brother got out alive. His wife has continued to abuse drugs so badly that she is now about 120 pounds. (She is about 5' 6" and my guess is that she probably lost 60-80 pounds to reach her reported thinness.)

My lovely friend, Rachael, is having a bit of an aching heart right now. Her sparkly daughter, Hannah, drown during a family outing. Her post just made me cry. In fact, I still am. I can't imagine. If I lived closer, I would scoop Rachael up and wrap my arms around her and that baby she is baking.

I had an acquaintance tell me that she was going in for pre-surgical testing. I thought it was about an injury that she suffered recently, but reading between the confidential lines that she was giving me, it appears as though she is going through some type of breast biopsy to rule out cancer. She asked for prayer. I told her that I would add her to my list.

It appears as though we have another celebrity down. Though I admire him for having not tossed every detail of his life out into the news, the fact of the matter is that he claims transgressions and how many people and children have looked up to Tiger? I know it has nothing to do with the game, but wow.

I haven't dealt well with David Letterman's actions. I was always happy to watch David Letterman if I was up late. Now, I can't stand to look at him.

The wives.

The children.

Ugh.

Do you have anything weighing on your heart that you would like for me to pray about? Feel free to leave it in the comments or click on the e-mail link in the sidebar.

Smiles in my day:
- Interim report cards come out tomorrow for K- and we received a note in her folder today that the teacher is pleased with her progress and does not feel that a conference is necessary at this time. K- brought home a different color book for her 100 book challenge. 6 other children were moved in color, too. I suspect that the move is up, but will find out tomorrow when the report comes out.
- My in-law's giving K- some allowance for having helped wash dishes this evening. They don't do this on a regular basis, but they know that she is saving up money for the Santa Shop on Saturday by doing chores.
- The dress that my MIL sent home for K- for Christmas is stunning. (She found it after Christmas last year.) Truly, the first big girl "gown" she's owned. I'll be hosting a table at the Christmas Tea in a few weeks, and K- will be wearing her very special dress.
- Hubs finished organizing the basement and gave us a tour. He's been off for over a week and has worked his butt off. I was threatening to purchase myself my own set of tools, but he has everything so organized at the work bench that everything is at our fingertips now. Hooray!
- Beating the pants off Hubs tonight on Foosball. We have a tabletop game that we like to play. I get him everytime.
- Our friend, Ford, is out training for his NEW! job. He was out of work for a year and really feeling not his provider worth. My friend, Kim, reports a complete turn around for him. I'm glad to hear this for them. What a Christmas gift!
- My friend, Carolyn, wearing sandals in the cold. I chuckled at her on Sunday, but she said that her feet get hot!
- My new coat. It was on a fantastic sale on Thanksgiving Day. It was marked down to $49.99 and I had a $10.00 off coupon. I needed a heavier coat to wear while walking K- to school in the morning. Not only did it keep me nice and toasty for the walk, but it kept me dry this evening during the cold rains that we've been experiencing.
- K- has a singing part with her friend C- in the Kindergarten Christmas program.
- I have plans to start my Christmas baking today! I'll have to let y'all know the progress tomorrow.
- Snow! We're supposed to get snow! :)

Have a wonderful day!

Works for Me Wednesday: The concept of the three gifts

Since the summer when the "Santa can bring me that" started, we've been discussing with our dear child the concept of the three gifts. Simply put, we tell her that if three gifts were good enough for Jesus, they are good enough for her.

It has forced her to really weed out the drivel of just wanting everything. She wants a Barbie themed Christmas. That's fine. We can deal with that. We have the Barbie Vet, Barbie Doggie Park and the Barbie Glam Vacation House. (I found the BGVHome for $40.00 at Toys R Us after Amazon pre-saled it for less, but never received it and wasn't slated to have it until well into the new year.)

Now, it isn't that we couldn't afford to do more. It isn't that I'm not having a hard time thinking, "Will that fit into her stocking?" We think that it is important to concentrate on the reason we are celebrating the season. We have lavished many lovely (clearance) items on K-, with the outcome turning into a Hanukkah style Christmas, since she suffered from gift opening fatigue. We have found that our best way to deal with Christmas is to go themed and go small. I mean, last year when she announced, "I want that!" and I realized the commercial she was watching was for shampoo, I knew that we had to nip the "I wants!" in the bud. When I told her that it was for shampoo, she laughed and said, "Oh."

That is what works for us!

Smiles in my day:
- Beginning our Jesse Tree Advent devotions in the evening.
- Julia and I resolved to have a better day. I put forth a very conscious effort to have a much better day with even the most demanding customers.
- Though we have lost our friends as walkers with us in the morning, we're still hoofing it and having a great time. They said it is too cold for them!

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Agida

Julia discusses agida. State of mental aggravation? Check.

The retail public puts me into a crabby mood this time of year.

Everyone is in a hurry.

Everyone assumes I'm an idiot because I work behind a cash counter.

Everyone assumes that I'm unable to take a price tag off.

Everyone assumes that I can drop the customer that I'm currently helping in order to help them.

Everyone needs every blasted thing wrapped, regardless of whether it is 50 cents. What the heck is up with that? I mean, really. If you don't want to wrap it because it is so small, it doesn't mean that I want to do it anymore. (I'm not kidding about the 50 cent thing. They were erasers.)

Everyone assumes that I know exactly who they are every trip they make past the counter and drop items off because they CAN'T CARRY A BLASTED BASKET TO KEEP THEIR TINY PURCHASES WITH THEM! (Keep in mind that I help other folks as they "add to their pile.") I mean, do you really have to walk by the counter and drop off every $2.00 item individually because you can't be bothered to carry it or a basket to contain your items? I only have so much counter space.

Free gift wrap is just that. I do a beautiful job. Please don't stand across the counter and whisper complaints to your friend because I didn't wrap your Christmas items in red and green. I can hear you. I'm not deaf. When you questioned my use of brown on a Christmas gift, I showed you what I was using and defended my choices. You seemed fine. Your friend told you how gorgeous the $5.00 magnets were that I individually gift wrapped for you.

Do people really need to come to the gallery drunk in the middle of the afternoon? Oh, my favorite is when they fall all over themselves playing with very loud toys in the toy room.

People really need to teach their kids that when they tell them NO they mean NO. If you tell your kid to follow you (we thank you for that, by the way), then you need to actually make them follow you, as opposed to bargaining. You are the parent. They are the child. Wear the mama pants and BE THE PARENT!

They purchased new white paper for us to wrap in. It is like wrapping in crunchy organza. They may have been trying to save money, but I have to use extra amounts of it. I'm costing them more money.

I have a co-worker who has issues with personal space consideration. Keep in mind that I am claustrophobic, so this time of year can put me on edge. The entire counter can be empty and she'll be standing right. next. to. me. Move down, please. I did find a way to work around it. I just need to get ribbon from our drawers instead of off the rods. She has to move down to let me in.

When I leaving Giant Eagle the other day, I noticed the Salvation Army worker silently standing there next to her kettle. I grabbed a buck and put it in, as I was saying, "They don't let you ring the bell, do they?" "No, they don't." SHAME ON YOU, GIANT EAGLE!

And for the top of my venting list today:

To the person in the parking lot of Hallmark,

I stopped by Hallmark to purchase a Star Wars ornament set for my daughter. They didn't have it in stock, so I was in the store for just 5 minutes or less. I just wanted to let you know that as I briefly shopped, you allowed your stray cart to bash into the driver's door of my year and a half old vehicle. You managed to dent my car door in two places because you were unable to take your cart to the corral. There are many in the parking lot. The funny thing? I had three free parking spaces on either side of my car. I don't know how you managed to do it, but now I'll be paying to fix the dents that you left behind. Thank you for costing me at least $100.00 to fix the problem from your laziness.

I hope that your vehicle doesn't become victim of someone's negligence like mine did.

Few people realize that there are people out there that take care of their vehicles. We purchase our vehicles and have them forever. I wax mine (no small feat) a couple of times a year, as well as wash it regularly. That particular side of my car has already been repainted twice due to a stoning with a weed eater (and a blown window.) So, thanks. The car isn't paid off yet, though I have two lovely cart dents staring at me every time I get into my vehicle. It's like the knife is being twisted slowly.

I know, I know. It is just a thing. Even so, it irritates me. I park at the back of parking lots and hike into stores. I steer clear of cart corrals and on Black Friday, I even parked at Staples in order to go to Kohl's, clear on down the parking lot.

It's not like I'm a front space taker.

Please put your cart back in it's proper creature home. Oh, and if you do bash into someone's car, at least a note of apology would be nice.

Thanks.

Smiles in my day:
- Leftovers warmed and on the table for dinner when I got home.
- I made it to the post office this morning and the Christmas cards are on their way. So is the package I needed to send out. Little did I know then, but I do believe that the recipient really needs a lift this week. Hopefully the surprise box will make them smile.
- K- writing her first, middle and last name on her paper. Because we sing it to BINGO, she knows how to spell it!
- My dad coming to check out our fuse box. Good news is that everything is fine and I was just being paranoid.
- I cleaned our computer desk Monday morning. Wow. It needed it.
- Taco leftovers for lunch.
- K- actually ate most of her lunch on Monday! It's been forever since that has happened. I bought some shaved chicken lunch meat for her to have a sandwich and made little crinkle cut carrot coins. Both were almost all gone. Hooray!
- I hung the K-'s school calendars up on our kitchen door so that I don't miss another Show and Tell. She was very forgiving about it this last time, but I felt horrible. With this month so jam packed, I didn't want to miss anything. I'd rather have the calendars hanging, then to have my kid miss out because mommy was so preoccupied.
- $5.00 subscriptions to Real Simple and Southern Living Magazines through Magazines.com. I was able to purchase a few for gifts!
- Free shipping at Snapfish, so I was able to order a minimal amount of photos with free shipping. It only cost me $2.68! I ordered the picture of the chalky kid hands holding the lime green nicotiana to use as thank you cards for K-'s birthday. Perfect!
- 10% off and free shipping at the Vitamin Shoppe! (We get Hubs' work out stuff through there.)
- More points by buying all that stuff through Mypoints.com! That means more gift certificates! I'm saving for Easter for K- right now. Hooray!

Forgive me for my venting. (Tuesday is my day.) Thanks for lending an ear.

Have a great day!