food and cookies and reincarnation
Breakfast is yogurt and blueberries in a waffle bowl. A great idea but I should've let the waffle bowls air-harden like waffle cones, instead of wrapping them in plastic to freeze. They taste fine but they're soft like breakfast waffles. I wanted crunch.
My little Bug is turning 13 and she asked to make her own cake this year. Her first birthday party, with her bug cake, ladybugs and caterpillars, seems like a whole lifetime ago. It is literally her whole lifetime but it's weird that it also feels like my whole lifetime.
Maybe this is why people believe in reincarnation. The idea doesn't seem like such a stretch because you can sort of be reincarnated while you're still alive, if your circumstances change abruptly or radically. My life before becoming a parent was radically different than my life after becoming a parent. It really does feel like two entirely different lifetimes. It's similar to how life feels after divorce, or after a big move, but more so. The new world is weird for a while but then you get used to it, and everything beforehand seems like a dream. "Did I really do those things?"
Anyway. Bug. She wanted a Black Forest cake, so we got whipping cream and Kirsch. Fun fact, in Germany, cakes can't be labeled and sold as Black Forest cakes unless they have actual Kirsch (cherry) liqueur in them. We tried to get cherry flavouring, because it's a kids' cake, but no luck.We own way too many cake flavourings, like rum, root beer, cream soda, etc, but no cherry. And we couldn't find it for sale. So Kirsch it is.
We haven't tasted the cake yet but it looks great. She made it from scratch with real cocoa and coffee, and when one of the layers ripped, she filled the divot with more cherries. A valid baking strategy. So it'll be very chocolatey and moist. Right now it's waiting patiently under a glass bowl in the fridge. Like a lady under a hairdryer, at an old-fashioned salon.
Tonight we meet the party guests at the restaurant, and after stuffing ourselves with sushi I'll drive everyone back to the house for cake and the parents pick them up here. Should've probably checked with the parents if they mind their kids eating Kirsch. Too late now.
To do today: Clean out the Mazda and pull out the third row of seats to fit all these girls. Bug's doing that right now actually. Having older kids is the bomb.
My job today is cleaning the living and dining rooms. They were messy to begin with and then the Pathfinders cull left a debris trail. Bits of string and random sequins, those kind of things. At least I'm finally done organizing the Pathfinders supplies. All the long-term supplies are tucked away in drawers in the hall closet. There are still boxes and bags in the living room unfortunately but at least now they're neat, and labeled with the camp name and date. So they look purposeful and temporary instead of random and of infinite provenance.
Hopefully this one big clean can push me through to the end of my volunteering stint with Pathfinders. I was hoping that last year's Guiding buddy would take over for me next year but she changed her plans. So I'll probably run the group for two more years.
Girl Guide cookie sales with the Pathfinders yesterday, five and a half cases in 90 minutes on the main boulevard behind the house. About a box a minute. Our best sales yet. Only one case left now out of 20. I'd love to keep them for fall but unsure how the finances work for that. They'd have to be paid for now.
I had to figure out a different way to handle the cookie cash because the fall campaign almost broke me. Twenty cases are over a thousand dollars in cash and I never got the same number twice when I counted. But finally I had to admit that I was out by $120. So I had to pay that out of pocket, which sucked, but it sucked worse that I'd lost two whole cases and didn't know why.
A month after handing in the money I found two cases in the back of our pantry. So the money worked out perfectly in the end. But I was motivated for that not to happen again.
So for spring cookie sales, which just finished, I labeled each case by number in green masking tape, plus made a master list of case numbers by family. As each case sold, I bundled each set of $60 in the green masking tape showing its case number. Piles of $60 are easier to count than piles of $100, and the bills can't slide around when they're taped down, AND I knew what case they were from. The system worked perfectly, which is great because next fall we'll have twice this amount of cookies.
I have to turn in the money to the unit treasurer this week and I'm wondering if I need to unwrap the $60 bundles. Because I'm pretty sure the bills will rearrange themselves into a different total if I do. Weighing the costs of being scolded versus the insanity of having to count and recount and recount. I'm choosing scolding. If the scolding is severe then maybe next time I'll make a different choice. Life is a gamble ha ha.
OK have to get going with the day. I've been cleaning in between puttering at the keyboard but I need to close the laptop and get moving. Maybe more coffee to help with the cleaning.
My little Bug is turning 13 and she asked to make her own cake this year. Her first birthday party, with her bug cake, ladybugs and caterpillars, seems like a whole lifetime ago. It is literally her whole lifetime but it's weird that it also feels like my whole lifetime.
Maybe this is why people believe in reincarnation. The idea doesn't seem like such a stretch because you can sort of be reincarnated while you're still alive, if your circumstances change abruptly or radically. My life before becoming a parent was radically different than my life after becoming a parent. It really does feel like two entirely different lifetimes. It's similar to how life feels after divorce, or after a big move, but more so. The new world is weird for a while but then you get used to it, and everything beforehand seems like a dream. "Did I really do those things?"
Anyway. Bug. She wanted a Black Forest cake, so we got whipping cream and Kirsch. Fun fact, in Germany, cakes can't be labeled and sold as Black Forest cakes unless they have actual Kirsch (cherry) liqueur in them. We tried to get cherry flavouring, because it's a kids' cake, but no luck.We own way too many cake flavourings, like rum, root beer, cream soda, etc, but no cherry. And we couldn't find it for sale. So Kirsch it is.
We haven't tasted the cake yet but it looks great. She made it from scratch with real cocoa and coffee, and when one of the layers ripped, she filled the divot with more cherries. A valid baking strategy. So it'll be very chocolatey and moist. Right now it's waiting patiently under a glass bowl in the fridge. Like a lady under a hairdryer, at an old-fashioned salon.
Tonight we meet the party guests at the restaurant, and after stuffing ourselves with sushi I'll drive everyone back to the house for cake and the parents pick them up here. Should've probably checked with the parents if they mind their kids eating Kirsch. Too late now.
To do today: Clean out the Mazda and pull out the third row of seats to fit all these girls. Bug's doing that right now actually. Having older kids is the bomb.
My job today is cleaning the living and dining rooms. They were messy to begin with and then the Pathfinders cull left a debris trail. Bits of string and random sequins, those kind of things. At least I'm finally done organizing the Pathfinders supplies. All the long-term supplies are tucked away in drawers in the hall closet. There are still boxes and bags in the living room unfortunately but at least now they're neat, and labeled with the camp name and date. So they look purposeful and temporary instead of random and of infinite provenance.
Hopefully this one big clean can push me through to the end of my volunteering stint with Pathfinders. I was hoping that last year's Guiding buddy would take over for me next year but she changed her plans. So I'll probably run the group for two more years.
Girl Guide cookie sales with the Pathfinders yesterday, five and a half cases in 90 minutes on the main boulevard behind the house. About a box a minute. Our best sales yet. Only one case left now out of 20. I'd love to keep them for fall but unsure how the finances work for that. They'd have to be paid for now.
I had to figure out a different way to handle the cookie cash because the fall campaign almost broke me. Twenty cases are over a thousand dollars in cash and I never got the same number twice when I counted. But finally I had to admit that I was out by $120. So I had to pay that out of pocket, which sucked, but it sucked worse that I'd lost two whole cases and didn't know why.
A month after handing in the money I found two cases in the back of our pantry. So the money worked out perfectly in the end. But I was motivated for that not to happen again.
So for spring cookie sales, which just finished, I labeled each case by number in green masking tape, plus made a master list of case numbers by family. As each case sold, I bundled each set of $60 in the green masking tape showing its case number. Piles of $60 are easier to count than piles of $100, and the bills can't slide around when they're taped down, AND I knew what case they were from. The system worked perfectly, which is great because next fall we'll have twice this amount of cookies.
I have to turn in the money to the unit treasurer this week and I'm wondering if I need to unwrap the $60 bundles. Because I'm pretty sure the bills will rearrange themselves into a different total if I do. Weighing the costs of being scolded versus the insanity of having to count and recount and recount. I'm choosing scolding. If the scolding is severe then maybe next time I'll make a different choice. Life is a gamble ha ha.
OK have to get going with the day. I've been cleaning in between puttering at the keyboard but I need to close the laptop and get moving. Maybe more coffee to help with the cleaning.