how you can become a gourmet chef too

The other day, my friend sent me this pic ...

Of course, it would look better if the damn this would rotate for me, I don't have time to try again. I called her a rock star when she told me she made those cakes. She replied back "LOL". She has 3 times more kids than I do and a full time job, and still manages to keep active and stay sane without the help of alcohol or narcotics. She is far more superior than me in this area, I am a domestic retard. You saw what my poor kid ate the other night as her special end of summer meal! And for any of you that read my blog, you've probably seen other pics of cakes and cookies that I've screwed up so bad I wonder why my kid hasn't applied for emancipation.

Well .... let me show you what I did last night. Made us a gourmet meal that turned out fantastic. Beef tortellini with a rose sauce, asparagus, and garlic parmesan cheese toast. GOURMET. Look at this plate of yumminess ...

I am a rock star.

Thank you Olivieri. From my belly and the bottom of my heart.

Breathing a sigh of relief ... School started today

On my first day of grade 9, I wore a pair of black (knock-off because we were poor folk) doc marten boots, tall green socks, and a black long sleeved dress. Today is Sydnerella's first day of grade 9. She's wearing a pair of black Doc Marten boots, striped tall socks, a black skirt, and a band t-shirt. Cannibal Corpse? The only differences between us on this day in both our lives are a few inches (in height and bust - to her benefit, not mine), black eye-liner, and eye-brow threading.

Today couldn't have come sooner. Not that I want my baby to continue to age at these speeds, but having a 14 year old daughter unsupervised while I worked all summer was the cause of many near panic attacks, lost sleep, sneaking out of the office early to get home, getting to work late because I had to stay up late to listen for the doors opening, and just a general feeling of uneasiness. Not that I don't trust my own kid, but I kinda don't. A little bit, but not entirely. It's not just her, it's all of them. The agendas of  kids that age are on a totally different page than ours ... hell, in a whole other book!

Today, right now, I am at ease.

The weekend before school starts is always a busy one. For nine years now, they've pretty much been the same. We do our last minute clothes and supplies shopping, grocery shopping for breakfasts, recess snacks, and lunches, house cleaning for a fresh start, tons of laundry, one last mother-daughter outing, a good dinner the night before school starts, and quite a bit of fighting. This year was no different. Actually, it was a little different. Ok, completely different. I took Thursday and Friday off work, so we did her shopping Thursday. No fights. I haven't been grocery shopping, I did get some laundry done ...

We did make it out of town on Saturday - lunch in Banff - and that's really about it. No fights. No hair cut. And dinner was nothing special. Literally ....

In my defense, Sydnerella chose this and I gave her the option of any restaurant she wanted. I swear it. And I was cravin' Asian, so this was my dinner ....

And it turned out pretty good for $6.99 at Safeway.

So Sydnerella has one more year in junior high and I can't say I wont be on edge until end of June. Praying that just because she dresses like I did, she wont get into the same shit that I did. Praying HARD that my little Athiest doesn't turn my hair white.

New Kids on the Block, let's rock

 

1:30am, last Friday night. Saturday morning? I was, as always, on the couch fighting with my eyes to stay open because New Kids on the Block were on ET and I wanted to see them. NKOTBSB actually since they've teamed up with the Backstreet Boys, who ever they are. First thing I noticed was Jordan Knight is still a major babe. I was part of the New Kids mania that started back in 1988, and will consider myself a fan for the rest of my life. During a commercial of ET, I had to run up to my room and dig through my closet to make sure I still had this ...

Phew. What is it? A near 100 page scrapbook put together by yours truly between 1989 and 1991. I actually feel a little guilty going through it, I think I spent more effort on this than I did my daughters baby book. But I guess at the young age of 11, there's not much else to occupy your time. Here's a peak ...

I have over 30 posters ripped out of Tiger Beat, Teen Beat, Bop, and the Big Bopper that I had plastered all over the walls in my bedroom. I had every last pic of all the same magazines neatly cut out and taped to loose leaf. Stories, diary entries, newspaper articles, bios and even a hand-drawn picture of Jordan Knight I included in a project I did for French class ..... Uncanny.

And I still have these in the same wooden jewelry box I've had since I was a little girl

I was 9 or 10 years old when I discovered NKOTB with my then-bff, J. We lost touch over the years, which broke my heart when my daughter was born. We reconnected half-assed a few times, then tried with a more honest attempt when our friend passed away last year. Both her, and New Kids on the Block are a huge part of my childhood memories. One of my favorites was trying to convince everyone in my class that I was related to Danny.

New Kids on the Block, let's rock, it's Christmas time, we gonna celebrate it with a rhyme. Danny D are you ready? Ready as I'll ever be steady. You know Joey Joe is ready, Jordan and John, yeah come on, we got a Funky Funky Christmas going on .....

I swear on my cats life, I just typed that from memory, stopping to dance a little. Sad?

My interest for the New Kids started waning when Donnie Wahlberg was arrested. I literally, literally cried when I read this in the paper. Then, I did what any rational 11 year old would do after hearing their soon to be husband started a fire in a hotel, I scratched his face out of the clipping and added it to one the last pages of my scrap book. 

Fast forward almost 20 years, and New Kids on the Block were making a come back. I took Sydnerella to an NKOTB concert where Lady Ga Ga and Natasha Beddingfield opened for them. The arena would have been like shooting fish in a barrel for any late-20's to mid-30's man looking for a wife. A wife with baggage I suppose. Every woman in that age group in the city was at that concert, and all of them brought their kids. The men stayed far away from that concert, so no new baby-daddy for Sydnerella. Not that I was looking, I was there to introduce my daughter to little bit of my past. And I was so happy that the NKOTB t-shirt that I got for my 11th birthday still fit .....