To say the past 2 weeks have been hectic would be an UNDERSTATEMENT. And my Martha-izing the house totally came in handy. :)
My ex-husband's parents came to visit. Together. Keep in mind, THEY have been divorced for over 12 years. It's cute that they're still best friends but still kinda creepy. Oh, and I can't forget to mention the fun fact that my ex-mother-in-law hated me the entire time I was married to her son. I divorced her son over 11 years ago and now I'm the best thing since sliced bread. I really don't get it. I guess I wasn't good enough for her son but I am good enough to raise her grandchildren (who she totally dotes on), or maybe it has to do with the fact that her son repeatedly started fights and arguments between the two of us and now that he's out of the picture, everything is fine. Who knows?
Oh, did I mention that my ex-mother-in-law is Jewish Italian? Yeah, that's a great combination! Her favorite saying to me and my ex-sister-in-law's husband is: People say an Italian mother-in-law is horrible. And a Jewish mother-in-law is worse. We're the "lucky" ones to have an Italian Jewish mother-in-law and everyone should pity us. (She seriously says this all the time.) Oy! And when she left Italy in the early 1960's, she moved to New York City. That should say it all. lol
Well, thanks to following Martha's cleaning schedules, my house was totally ready for her inspection... I mean, visit. Instead of running around like a chicken with my head cut off, scrubbing floors and wiping down walls and polishing furniture, I was able to wait until the day before they arrived and spend an hour getting ready. Talk about an amazing feeling! Plus, they commented on how relaxed and calm I seemed, and that living in the Midwest really agrees with me. I haven't told them about my Martha plan because I want them to think I'm making all these changes on my own and not because of some stupid challenge. And I really enjoyed hearing them say how great the house looked and asking if I had the hardwood floors redone. I didn't, I just changed how I was washing them and stripped off all the product build-up that was on them. It was just a really nice feeling and one of the nicest visits we've had in years. :)
I then spent their entire time in Mentor (they stay at a local hotel and come over every day) cooking and baking for them. We decided to celebrate Frankie's 13th birthday late with them (we, also, had a small celebration with our little family on her actual birthday 10/27), so I baked Frankie's favorite cake - a cannoli cake. For those unfamiliar with it, a cannoli cake is a VERY rich, dense butter cake sliced into 4 thin layers, filled with cannoli filling (ricotta and marscapone), covered in freshly whipped heavy cream, and decorated with shaved chocolate. I won't even consider how many calories go into something like this, as I'm pretty sure it would blow an entire day's Weight Watchers point allowance. Either way, it is AWESOME and totally rocks. However, I was disappointed that Martha doesn't have a recipe for cannoli filling in either of the 2 Martha Stewart cookbooks I have. The recipe I used was the one from Sargento cheese's website and I substituted 1/2 of the ricotta with marscapone, as that's the way I remember my grandmother making cannoli filling. (Yeah, I might have one of the most Scotch/Irish names out there and I definitely look Scotch/Irish, but my grandmother was 1/2 Italian.) A nice bonus for me was hearing my ex-mother-in-law say how beautiful the cake looked and how incredible it tasted! IMHO, the only thing that would have perfected it would have been if I had served gelato instead of ice cream, but oh well...
One perk of their visit was that it inspired me to clean out my crafting closet. I tossed out any sheets of craft paper that was less than half the original size and sorted it by color in file folders which I put into a tall hanging file folder Rubbermaid box, I organized my stampers by season/holiday and put them into Rubbermaid shoe boxes, I stacked my ink pads neatly in a separate Rubbermaid shoe box, etc. I really let my OCD fly on this one. Now I'm actually feeling inspired to make my holiday cards this season. Usually I kind of dread doing them and last year I used photo cards (we had an awesomely funny picture of the girls with Amelia in mid-tantrum and the older girls trying to get away - it was the last picture taken when we had family portraits taken earlier in the year. The cards were printed with "Peace on Earth" under the picture and when you opened the card, it said "May there be peace in YOUR household this holiday season. I've gotta post a pic one of these days.)
In addition to surviving their visit, we had the last 2 cheerleading functions of the year - the roller skating party and the year-end banquet. Yes, I said roller skating, not roller blading. It was hysterical watching all the girls who probably have never seen roller skates in person, trying to figure out how to skate on them. There were only 2 problems with this - one of Maura's friends from her cheerleading squad fell and fractured her wrist and (why am I not surprised by this?) Coach didn't show up even though this was an officially sanctioned MYCA function. The best part of the night was having all the other mothers come up to Frankie and apologize for giving her such a hard time during the season, that they didn't realize that Coach did nothing all season and that Frankie was managing as best she could. That made both of us feel good. Then there was an announcement over the PA system, asking for a parent from Falcon Red Cheerleading to come to the information booth. A bunch of us went over and found out that, while Coach picked up the hoodie sweatshirts that the girls "earned" for cheering this season, she left behind the trophies and one of us needed to take the box of trophies and make sure they get to the banquet. WTF? I was ready to lose it but 2 other mothers blew up about Coach before I got a chance to say anything. The cheerleading association better have a new coach lined up for this squad next year or there will be a mutiny. I, personally, don't care as Maura is moving up to the "big" squad, as our friend's son (who Maura cheers for) is moving up to the "big" team and she is following him.
The banquet was great! Other than the fact that Coach was seated at our table and decided to sit next to Frankie. I was impressed with the amount of restraint Frankie showed, as she was polite and cordial to Coach. I would have told her off. lol Anyway, we had a lovely dinner, the girls were presented with their trophies and sweatshirts, and the Coach acknowledged Frankie and all her work. She actually said that there was no way they could have survived the season without Frankie, as she taught everyone (including Coach) all the cheers, ran great practices, and really motivated the girls on game days. I was surprised to hear her do that, then she presented Frankie with a gift basket from Bath and Body Works. Very nice surprise. However, when Coach saw that the team present to her was a bouquet of flowers, a beautiful key chain engraved with her name, the team name, and the year, and a "thank you" card from the girls, I guess it wasn't enough. She finished up the presentation and when the rest of us were getting ready for the football players' presentation, she packed up and left... without saying goodbye to anyone. Classy, huh?
Now I need to bake a chocolate cake for my niece's birthday. She knows about the challenge and when my sister asked her what kind of birthday cake she wanted (she turns 17 tomorrow, Thursday 11/19/2009), she said she wanted one of my famous chocolate mint cakes. To make those, I bake chocolate cakes in mini bundt pans, ice them in white buttercream icing (with peppermint extract added instead of vanilla) and decorated on top with crushed peppermint candies. As the stores have been ready for Christmas for at least 2 months now, I should have no problem finding candy canes to crush instead of using Brach's starlight mints. With the recipe I'm using, she'll have 6 mini cakes to enjoy and I'll earn tons of "free babysitting" credits. lol
Gotta run, as I want to get the cakes started before I have to pick up Amelia from preschool.
Later,
Mary
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