Cupcake Wars

I've been working on being more present to my children.  I've read stories individually, forced myself to stop working after 9:00 am to sit with my daughter and play whatever she wants until 10 and in the evening, to try and involve one or two with making dinner and let it be fun.  It's not always easy. I keep discovering all the ways in which I've tried to be efficient and as such, closed myself off.  Opening up those closed efficient ways is not painful, but it is an act of the will. With a triple birthday party in the works, it was very tempting to return to my ordinary ways.

To have enough cupcakes when one wanted strawberry, another chocolate and a third vanilla, meant four boxes of cake.  I made one of lemon just to add variety. We made 77 cupcakes in about 4 hours. But the issue was frosting.

Now my kids watch Cupcake Wars.  It's one of their favorites. 

So presentation mattered. It was like having Florian in the kitchen. 

"You should put butterflies."
"Flowers."
"Sprinkles."
"Strawberries."

But they also wanted to help.
So I told myself to let it happen.

I even walked away to let them be about the business of frosting. It was not easy.  Eventually it was my turn, and I got to show off my skills with the frosting tube.  But the strawberries with their acid started melting the frosting.  I could hear judge Candace Nelson explaining that I should have coated the cakes with more frosting to give a cushion between the cake and the berries.  The sprinkles didn't stick to the cake and I found myself pushing the jimmies into the white cream.  I'd be out before the first round.

But that was a minor skirmish.  One of my children, I suspect just to be contrary, does not like frosting. Not a lick.  Ergo, his cupcakes must be naked.  This was not his birthday, so I opted to only designate one or two that would fit his desires.  But of course, he took pink ones and this upset the girl whose party it is, and who wanted pink cupcakes. She felt her birthday allotment of joy was being infringed upon because she only had 16 cakes, not 18. The plain upon thars cake eater grinned in triumph.  Out in the second round too for presentation. 

How do you parent a child to stop wilfully seeking to tork off his sister when you're reduced to stop grinning evilly and don't take only your sister's cupcakes?  You distract and delegate to help move the volatile situation along.  "Go outside. Ride your bike."  or you divert. "Go play the wii."  or you delegate, "Have you finished your homework?" "Did you make your bed?" anything to come up with something either necessary or more enticing than the golden glow of seeing one's sister miserable.  I can see him thinking about it, but not making a move away. Sibling rivalry is hard. It is a shiny red apple, as compelling as sin. 

But since we had cupcakes, I handed him a chocolate and a vanilla. We'd made 77.  So what's two less?
 "Take these two. Now shoo."

The cupcakes survived the party survived and the siblings survived and I survived. I'm keeping a stash of unfrosted cupcakes in reserve for future distractions. I may create a display to represent the peace I'm seeking, a monument to the no fight zone I'd like to make my home.

Now where are my 10,000 dollars? 

7 Quick Takes Friday

1. Last week was the Erma Bombeck Writer's Conference.  I didn't attend because I'd just spent time in Miami with my husband the weekend before and that would have been too much too much. But I missed it when I heard what all my writer friends were doing. It sounded like a blast. The next one is in 2014 so maybe I'll get to go then...and be a speaker. 

Back in 2008 when I did attend, I did stand up.  I'm putting it here for those who didn't get to see it.  Warning: It is rough (first and only time doing stand up), and bawdy so my kids have not seen it, but it was fun.  And it's permanent, so my kids can laugh at me when they're adults or be mortified that it's still on the Internet.  

2.  Planning a change.  I host Small Success Thursday here on Thursdays (Natch), but it hasn't taken hold. I've asked to move the venue to Catholicmom.com where it seems, it would be a good fit.  I'll let you know if that happens and then we can all go there to post our week's triumphs over minutia.

 I can't work under these conditions...heh.  I just wanted an excuse to post this picture of my Diva Queen.

3. On a more serious note, my daughter is getting confirmed next week. 

Before my sister got confirmed, she'd written me a letter asking "What is an experience of the Holy Spirit?"  The question seemed bigger than anything a new mom at the age of 26 could muster so I asked lots of people to answer the question as best they could. The question still stands because even with all the answers (which were lovely and brilliant), there are still more answers because the Holy Spirit is infinite and speaks and breathes through all of our lives as much as we permit.  

So what generically is an experience of the Holy Spirit? It is a moment of grace, a moment when we know, we have somehow stepped out of ourselves for others and that this is a gift, a moreness than we would have given if left to our own devices. 

The how of that experience is as diverse as our lives, as our needs, as the world around us.  Being called to prayer, to serve, to listen, to ask the right question, to go be with someone, to live out the beatitudes in that moment, to be present, fully present as the Eucharist is fully present to us, that is an experience of Holiness, and that Holiness is the Holy Spirit at work in us.  Pray for my daughter as she prepares this last week before Confirmation, and for all receiving this sacrament.  It is a beautiful day for them and the beginning of adult Catholic life. 

My daughter at Easter, a gentle heart and modest spirit.

I don't have many pictures of her because she prefers to be the one behind the camera.

4.  Day 6 of South Beach.

So naturally, I'm hosting a party this weekend and will be surrounded by

and

However, I'm down 7 pounds so I am bragging here to steel myself for the weekend.

5. Momentary distraction/rant.  Memo to Hollywood: GO READ A BOOK ALREADY!

Because movies like this:

And this:

are just not going to get me to fork over 20$ to sit by my lonesome, let alone spend valuable date night time not eating popcorn, sitting through CGI created mayhem based on games that I spend countless hours picking up off the floor for fear of a child choking. 

When Hi Ho Cherrio and Checkers make it to the big screen, I'm going to just declare Hollywood dead, host a Cinematic wake using good flicks and microwave popcorn with real butter and wait for someone with a brain to start working in tinsel town.  These sort of films exist because teenagers no longer can afford to go on dates at the movies. I'm sure of it. Bring your own Junior mints.

6. Now I am a visual person. Movies stay in my head forever. So I don't watch scary films because they stay in my head.

My brother gave us a series, Firefly. It's good. We like sci-fi and as such looked forward to watching one show a night to go through the series as a home date. The other night however, the episode focused on one of the villainous races, Reavers, men who go psychotically mad in space and become self mutilating murderous savage raping cannibals. It took hours for my brain to settle down enough to allow me to rest.

Sci-fi is to me one of the most difficult genres, because many people think sci-fi is about the technology. It's not. The technology should be like the technology in my house even though it is futuristic or in space, it should be a source of almost no interest in the same way, I'm not interested in talking about my dryer as long as it's working. The story is humanity carving out meaning and purpose and identity in a universe that threatens to dwarf and diminish the soul by its immenseness. 

So Firefly so far, is wrestling or trying to wrestle with bigger questions than whether the warp conduit is needing a complete overhaul and thus, I'm intrigued. However, I'm just going to keep my Wikipedia spoiler page open before each episode to see if it is compatible with sleeping after night time viewing.

7. Pinterest and me.

This week, I tried Pinterest.  I do not yet get it, but I see other people's pages and I'm thrown back into high school mentality, when everyone else had things much more figured out than me and not only that, what they had figured out was so very cool.   So I'm going to do what I did in high school, hang out near the cool kids and easedroop until I get the hang of things...it may take 4 years.

 

And Now Sherry Rants about Politics...

We have seen that our Representative Republic cannot manage itself. Our government spends money hand over fist we do not have, at roughly 3.97 billion per day or 45,949 dollars per second.  Basically enough to fund a college student for a year at a private school with board, give or take 5k. 

Just 4 seconds of your Government's time, 2 if it's a state school.

We should be screaming at them.

Neither the President nor the Senate nor the House have any actual intentions of dealing with this, as all of the piggies have their noses in the trough. The few that have attempted to restrain spending lack the political capital to get anything to happen. The Senate hasn't passed a budget in three years.  The President's budget is so not serious, not even any Democrats voted for it out of party loyalty. 

Anyone can google the existing programs of the Federal Government and find Waste. Waste. Waste and more waste.  Nothing happens to stem it.

I'm sorry.  It's just way way way too much to spend giving small coctail appetizers exercise. I like my shrimp Jumbo sized.

And all they know is sick shrimpies don't do as well?  I'm sure they know more but that's the selling point?

(In fairness, I watched three different videos of the scientists explaining their work and picked this one because it was 1) shortest and 2) the other two had more about the shrimp being an internet sensation.  I did look at their website and their perspective, but have a mill for a treadmill....and to study shrimp. And this is just the project that we know about. What we don't know about, is all the par-tays the GSA, Secret Service, Solyndra and others have been having on our dime. 

So things are not working. And Romney or Obama, Congress shall remain its spending don't look a problem in the eye kick it down the road CHARGE it in practice.   Except we can't go on indefinitely.  If we took away all the money of all the millionaires and billionaires in this country and even took the entire fortunes of the fortune 500, we'd still not be able to  finance all that we spend and certainly not what people want spent today and tomorrow and the tomorrow after that.  

MEMO to both parties: If it's bad when THEY do it, it's BAD when YOU DO IT.  See: Gitmo, Guantanamo, suspending habeas corpus, drone strikes, torture, restricting religious liberties, taxing on top of taxing, wasteful allocation of funds, crony capitalism and crony federalism, no bid contracts, factually devoid hit pieces on opposition, lewd, crude and socially unacceptable behavior of every flavor, spin, lies, revolving door lobbying, and for sale access. Corrupt is Corrupt. Stink is stink.  Evil is as evil does and a letter R or D is irrelevant.  

I know in part why we're not out there screaming. We've yelled. We've voted. We've done Occupy or Tea Party and had 15 seconds of coverage and now there is nothing.  No difference. The glaring absolute shrug of shoulders by those in power to any of the grievances about all of this tells us, we are no longer a free people.  We are the funders of those in power, who get to keep what those in power deem appropriate.  And we get to fund whatever they want, for as long as they want, regardless of our own objections, be they religious, fiscal or political.  Pay your taxes, shut up and go home. 

We have a hydra on our hands with as many heads as it has dollars.   First rule in fighting a hydra. 
We need to at least stop creating new heads. 

If we just were to keep spending at a fixed level until we begin to clear away some of this...2008 levels in all things, it would be a start.

If we also froze Congress pay so they can't give themselves pay raises anymore, that would be a symbolic recognition that the government ought to show the same restraint that the private sector must when times are tight.

And, if the government opted for shaving simply 2% of its entire budget --leave the actual cuts to the actual departments but they must submit a budget that is 2% less than last year's. No auxiliary. No extra. No getting around. Everything must be included. No accounting tricks. No funding tricks. Everything.  Then we might start to recognize that budgets are like diets. They require discipline and consistency and most importantly, time. As a country, we're not giving ourselves even a starting chance at this; it's like we start every morning with a bucket of fried chicken and a whole chocolate cake, wash it down with a six pack of beer and say, "Today, I'm going to lose 10 pounds!" It's not happening. 

But that's a lot of "Ifs."  Frankly, I think my odds are better if I wish for a pony. 

We need a constitutional amendment to demand that Congress live within the means provided by the tax payers and not institute taxes that are retroactive or proactive to fund today. We need it because the politicos of today lack the moral courage to do this with the power they've been given absent the force of law.  

It's been a long time since I did a political post, mostly because this year, I'm just discouraged. I do not see anyone the least bit interested in spending less. I do not see anyone the least bit interested in reducing my family's tax rate. I do see people spending money like mad and with nary a concern about results, effects or reality. I have no faith in the GOP --Romney? Really? The guy who can do great in the blue states...but won't win a one of them?   Thanks. If the Republicans lose the White House, I hope they learn to get rid of the tired argument, "It's His Time." Dole and McCain ring any bells people?

And Obama? Please. The man has in three years, spent more than any President in the history of our nation.... Combined.  He doesn't think there's a problem his government can't solve.  He doesn't see the problem. He's shown zero leadership in this area and all the pretty speeches in the world aren't going to make me believe that he's suddenly become a fiscal hawk.

Remember when the DNC used to howl about deficit spending under Reagan and how bad that was? Remember when the DNC wrung its hands about how crazy Bush was for spending so much? I do. I agreed with them. It's not often that happens.  Does anyone in Washington actually know how to get things done that don't involve creating more entitlements or spending more money?  We used to know. Not that long ago either I might add. 

Our government need not continue as it has, but it will take people of courage to do otherwise.  Here's hoping there are enough people left in the House and Senate who could make this the priority, this the purpose, so that government of the people, by the people, for the people, might not vanish from the Earth due to lack of funds.  Because the alternative...no matter what political stripe you root for, won't be pretty.