Blissfully quiet

Everyone is out of the house right now and it's quiet. While my daughter attended Sunday school, my husband took my son to his first basketball clinic. In the meantime, I've ignored the mess in the kitchen so that I could do some prep work on my website assignment. I think that I now have enough material for a good start. I still have many hours of quiz prep to do, so that will have to take place this afternoon and this evening. The kids are off from school today and Tuesday afternoon, so most of my work has to get done today. I will probably take them on a field trip to a science or children's museum, depending on what's open.

I was going to make a special soup this afternoon, but I forgot to buy the main ingredient so I'll have to do that tomorrow afternoon. I haven't touched the laundry, but at least the apartment is still relatively clean.

They will be home any minute clamoring for lunch and then my daughter is having two friends over for a playdate from 2-5. Hopefully, my son and husband can go back out for a while to the park. The leaves are gorgeous right now, and I can see a few trees with striking reddish leaves.

I CAN'T believe that you threw that out!

We finally made some progress in tossing out some more things today. My husband went to Ebay to try to sell a few things, mostly books. We had boxes of books in our trunk for about a month, and I had saved a few things for my daughter's Hannukah presents. It turned out that Ebay didn't take a lot of the things. So, he went to the Salvation Army to drop off what they wouldn't take....including the 3 items I had saved for my daughter! When he got home, he proudly announced that he had cleaned out the trunk. I hit the roof. Then he gave me the keys so I could drive (like a maniac) back down to Flatbush Avenue to the Salvation Army to get the items I wanted. When I got there, I breathlessly explained my situation. Turns out they had put out the flower press and the bead kit and had already and priced them! I'm glad I made it there in time.

I dashed back home and had enough time to make a pear galette and dinner for the kids. Our dinner guests arrived later than expected, so it will all work out OK. We're planning to go out for dinner at a nearby restaurant.

E.T.

As a reward for general good behavior during the last two weeks, I rented a movie for the whole family to see tonight. The kids needed some extra encouragement to get out of the house calmly in the mornings and to transition from the idea of leaving our cozy home and going outside for the walk to school. I set up a chart next to the door that includes all of the routines for morning, bedtime and our after-school activities. If there was a smooth morning or evening, the kids got a sticker for the chart. We had more sticker -days than non-sticker days, so I have to say this system is working for now. We have tried other reward systems that help to get over certain problems, and found that it will work for as long as we support it.

Back to the movie. The kids worked out a dance routine to do just before the movie. A "now enjoy the show" sort of routine. Fantastic! I first saw this movie when it came out in the early 80's, and really loved seeing some of the famous parts again such as the wonderful relationship between Elliot and ET, the dress-up scene, the scene where ET hides in stuffed animal.

I need to go back to studying now. The kids will be off from school on Monday, and I have a quiz on Thursday, so I need to work in studying whenever I can this weekend, and even though I will feel guilty doing it, it's a matter of academic survival at this point.

A 25- hour day

Sometimes it seems as if we feel that if we only had a few more hours in a day, we could do more. I think that if we had more hours in a day, we would find more to add to the schedule. This seemed to be the case last Saturday and Sunday, only i wasn't trying to add anything.... It was a snowball effect, seemingly out of control. We were extremely over booked. Here's what the schedule looked like:

Saturday:
son has doctor's appointment in morning
mom makes carrot-cake cupcakes with cream cheese icing
daughter has piano lesson and karate lesson back to back
daughter has play date for the afternoon
son has birthday party in the afternoon
mom has coffee with a new friend (while the party is going on)
back home again.
Husband finally home from playing golf all day in NJ
Mom drops off husbands shirts at dry cleaners and drops off cupcakes at the desert location for the evening's progressive dinner, then goes to shop to buy cheese and bread
Ends up with picking up daughter from playdate.
Home again to get ready for hosting the cocktail party and progressive dinner for school event.
Babysitter arrives
The kids go with babysitter out to dinner at nearby restaruant
Guests arrive for cocktail hour. We expected 10, but only got 6
We left for dinner several blocks away
Back up the street again for dessert at another house
It was nice to see other places in the neighborhood
Stopped at one more house for more dessert
Got home very late -- close to 1:00 a.m.
But it wasn't 1:00, it was really only midnight because of the time-change.

Sunday --
research and write paper all day
In the meantime, daughter has Hebrew School in the morning
daughter's best friend comes over
daughter goes to birthday party in the afternoon.
Son and husband go along.
Everyone meets at home for a late dinner of butternut squash soup

Preparing for cocktail parties and more

I spent the last half of last week getting over Halloween, working on a presentation for one of my classes, studying and preparing for a 6-8-page long written paper assignment. On Friday during the day, I also hired someone to help me clean the apartment in time for a school event on Saturday. The bathrooms and the kitchen were cleaned, the living room was vacuumed, my daughter's room was straightened up and cleaned, and almost all of the important papers were organized badly into piles of paper that I couldn't locate. In fact, this week, I couldn't find a test that I was supposed to sign for my daughter. I found it last night, but not after looking through all of the badly organized piles of papers and magazines. I moved the boxes from the living room to the hallway and should have moved them back to the living room, but they are still there. Then on Friday night, we went to a special potluck dinner and service for my daughter's Hebrew School. She took part in a Friday-night service. I thought the dinner was going to precede the service, and we were a little late. It turned out it was the other way around.

A review of last week's events:
Wednesday - Halloween
Thursday - class and meeting with son's therapist in the evening
Friday - study, cleaning, pick up kids from school, take son to play therapy,
make side dish for potluck, service and potluck at temple

I'm saving Saturday and Sunday for the next blog.

Halloween

I finally had a chance to load up my pictures from the Wednesday-night Halloween extravaganza. We invited two of my daughter's best friends to go trick-or-treating with us, and we all met at the apartment for something to eat and to get the costumes on. All I had to offer was mac and cheese (a huge tray from Fresh Direct) apples, and some cider. I couldn't put together much of a party because I've been swamped with school responsibilities -- for example a quiz the day before and a Power Point presentation, plus a paper due next week! The main thing was that we had fun together.

Our tradition is to go trick or treating and then meet my husband at the parade which starts at 6:30 at 7th Avenue and 12th Street. The parade is attended by practically every family in the neighborhood and it's a zoo! We usually walk with the parade about 16 blocks to Carroll Street where we see a wonderful puppet show and then we do a little more trick or treating and then head home. Check out this video on youtube, which is a show from a previous year. It's set up in the window of the basement of a brownstone. (Note, you may have to cut and paste this into your browser)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hKlYiA9eNY

Butternut Squash Soup

This recipe is one of my all-time favorites, and everybody in the family likes it, even the picky ones! I found it on www.allrecipes.com last year.

Butternut Squash Soup with Spinach Ravioli

Ingredients:

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup sliced onions
3/4 cup sliced leeks
2 1/ 2 to 3 cups peeled, seeded and cubed butternut squash
1/2 cup dry white wine
5 cups chicken broth
1 pinch of cinnamon
1 pinch of ground ginger
3/4 up light cream
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Place the cumin seeds and nutmeg in a large saucepan over medium heat, and cook until lightly browned. Stir in the butter and saute the onions and leeks until tender. Mix in squash, wine and chicken broth. Season with cinnamon and ginger. Reduce heat, and simmer 10-15 minutes.

2. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add ravioli and cook 8-10 minutes or until al dente. Drain.

3. With a hand mixer, puree the soup mixture. Blend in light cream and season with salt and pepper. Mix in the cooked ravioli just before serving.


Enjoy!