Of Cooking and Baking All Night and the Morning After Clean-Up
I've started making bento for my sister again, which means a lot of prep the night before. Today was her first bento; the first is always messy, but I think I made it work. Being that the box I bought her has three tiers (a Sailor Moon Crystal bento no less!), I decided to do breakfast, lunch, and a snack. For breakfast I made Icelandic pancakes, which are kinda like crepes, though maybe not as sweet. I put strawberry slices and powdered sugar on them then rolled them up. Serena's a huge fan of anything Scandinvanian so I knew they'd be a hit. For her lunch, it was a little more slapdash: some mini potato croquettes, cauliflower, and rice. Her snack ended up being a bit of shortcake and more whole strawberries sprinkled with sugar. All in all not a horrible start.
Being that it was almost six in the morning by the time I was done making the pancakes, I left the enormous mess in the kitchen for whenever I woke up. I slept like a rock until one-thirty (after three months of no sleep, it's even harder to get out of bed now!), then trudged downstairs to clean. I stopped by my desk on the way to check my phone and saw an FB message from my sister, Debbie, stating that our inconsiderate brother had managed to swindle Mom out of $300, leaving her with barely $200 for the remainder of the month. Now Mom's been helping us here by sending $300 every month until I'm well enough to work. It's only used for bills and small household needs, basically things that my paycheck would take care of were I employed. It's never used to buy personal items. My brother's reasoning amounted to him wanting $100 for his birthday (have I mentioned he's in his forties?) and an extra $200 for 'car repairs'. The real insult happened when he told Mom not to tell Debbie, who is more or less in charge of managing Mom's money. Debbie would have seen the withdrawal on the bank statement so I dunno what he was trying to accomplish. Regardless, Mom told Debbie and Debbie immediately called him and chewed him out. He'd tried to pull me into it, but she shut him down right quick. My circumstances are significantly different. Mom did send me some birthday money, but it was a twenty stuffed into my card, which I was very grateful to receieve since it'll be food money for Musikfest this weekend. But I digress.
Even when Debbie told him what state he'd left Mom in financially, he was still unapologetic. Mom'll never see that money again and now she has to wait 21 days until her account is refreshed. The poor woman has been racking up almost as many medical bills as I have and needs to stay on top of them. Now Debbie's had to cancel an important appointment. I have no brother. I am seriously thinking about finding out how to disown him, if siblings can do that. I can simply deny him as a relation, but it doesn't have the same impact as disowning him entirely.
Despite that bit of bad news, I was able to focus on cleaning the kitchen, ranting at Pas about the incident the entire time. I hope to make less of a mess tonight, if only to save myself from doing this every morning. I'm gonna have to get really creative since our kitchen isn't stocked for bento making right now. Serena can always pick up some things for herself on Thursday if she wants. Otherwise, it's up to me to squeeze varied and tasty mini-meals out of what supplies I have. Challenge accepted!
I think that about does it. I'll post about less teeth-gnashing things later.
Being that it was almost six in the morning by the time I was done making the pancakes, I left the enormous mess in the kitchen for whenever I woke up. I slept like a rock until one-thirty (after three months of no sleep, it's even harder to get out of bed now!), then trudged downstairs to clean. I stopped by my desk on the way to check my phone and saw an FB message from my sister, Debbie, stating that our inconsiderate brother had managed to swindle Mom out of $300, leaving her with barely $200 for the remainder of the month. Now Mom's been helping us here by sending $300 every month until I'm well enough to work. It's only used for bills and small household needs, basically things that my paycheck would take care of were I employed. It's never used to buy personal items. My brother's reasoning amounted to him wanting $100 for his birthday (have I mentioned he's in his forties?) and an extra $200 for 'car repairs'. The real insult happened when he told Mom not to tell Debbie, who is more or less in charge of managing Mom's money. Debbie would have seen the withdrawal on the bank statement so I dunno what he was trying to accomplish. Regardless, Mom told Debbie and Debbie immediately called him and chewed him out. He'd tried to pull me into it, but she shut him down right quick. My circumstances are significantly different. Mom did send me some birthday money, but it was a twenty stuffed into my card, which I was very grateful to receieve since it'll be food money for Musikfest this weekend. But I digress.
Even when Debbie told him what state he'd left Mom in financially, he was still unapologetic. Mom'll never see that money again and now she has to wait 21 days until her account is refreshed. The poor woman has been racking up almost as many medical bills as I have and needs to stay on top of them. Now Debbie's had to cancel an important appointment. I have no brother. I am seriously thinking about finding out how to disown him, if siblings can do that. I can simply deny him as a relation, but it doesn't have the same impact as disowning him entirely.
Despite that bit of bad news, I was able to focus on cleaning the kitchen, ranting at Pas about the incident the entire time. I hope to make less of a mess tonight, if only to save myself from doing this every morning. I'm gonna have to get really creative since our kitchen isn't stocked for bento making right now. Serena can always pick up some things for herself on Thursday if she wants. Otherwise, it's up to me to squeeze varied and tasty mini-meals out of what supplies I have. Challenge accepted!
I think that about does it. I'll post about less teeth-gnashing things later.