Cinnamon Crust

Today I made some cinnamon crust.
Or rather, I tried to make cinnamon crust.  I mean, what could be easier?  You sprinkle sugar and cinnamon on leftover strips of pie dough and bake. 
Boom. 
Cinnamon crust.
I burnt the bejesus out of it.
As I was looking at the smokey ruins of what was going to be my sooo cool hipster yuppie deconstructed pumpkin pie -
(pumpkin custard made with heavy cream instead of evaporated milk, scooped into antique green depression glass sherbet cups with a lazy dollop of whipped cream and a couple of cinnamon crust pieces stuck helter-skelter around the side and maybe just a scant sprinkling of nutmeg on the top..... -sigh...)
Anyway, as I was trying to scrub the pan of the burnt sugar I realized that I haven't been able to make cinnamon crust that wasn't burnt since Feb 12th, 1975.

How can I pinpoint the date with such accuracy?

Later that night I unexpectedly went into labor with my firstborn, Shayne.

My baby brother Bryan and I had the house to ourselves and we made some cinnamon crust and settled down to watch The Sonny and Cher Show.  (Or was it just Cher then?)  Anyway, Elton John was on and we wanted to see him.  (Don't judge me - it was a simpler time.)

I wasn't feeling well and kept running to the bathroom.  And my back hurt like crazy.

I finally called my dad and told him that my back was killing me and I couldn't get out of the bathroom before I had to go back in.

"Call your doctor" he said. And "I'm on my way home."

I refused to call my doctor because earlier THAT DAY she said that I was going to deliver early, but not until next week.  
And I was holding onto that pronouncement like it was written in stone.  
On MT Sinai.  
By Moses.
Besides that, my grandmother was coming down the next day and we were going baby shopping.  All I had baby-wise were two sleepers that my brothers had worn and a nightgown that had belonged to my sister..  That was it.

Me.  (And Shayne ) about 3 days before he was born.  God, look at that hair!!!

So my dad got home and munched on some cinnamon crust while watching me for a few minutes as I was laying on the couch.

Then he got up and demanded my doctors' number which I grudgingly gave him.

The conversation went something like this -

My dad:  I bringing my daughter in.  She's in labor.
My doctor: Well she might be but I don't think so.
My dad:  I am the oldest of six and I have five children.  How many do you have?
My doctor:  I'll meet you at the hospital.

So, as a favor to my dad, I put on my chucks and climbed into his truck and he took off like a maniac.

(What he didn't tell me until later was that he'd timed my contractions and that they were five minutes apart.)

BTW my first husband was stationed in GA going to school and blissfully unaware of what was going on as I had assured him earlier that evening that I wouldn't be having the baby until next week.

We walked in and the nurse took one look at me and said "she'll be going home within the hour."

They got me all gowned up and checked my cervix and said "OMG she's 5 centimeters!!  She's staying!!"  They then did a few horrible things to me that I am happy to say they no longer do to laboring women. Then they let my dad back in.  His girlfriend Georgia had gotten there and she stood on one side and my dad on the other as the nurses scurried about.  My doctor finally showed up, popped her head in the door and the nurse just looked at her and said HURRY!!
I was being transferred to the delivery room when my mother-in-law Julia showed up.  The nurses waited while she held my hand and told me that she wished she could take the pain away.  I told her her in a most heartfelt way that I, too sure wished that she could.  Then she looked in the labor room and saw my chucks on the floor and said "She wore THOSE??"  My dad told her to be quiet - he was lucky to have gotten me there in the first place!

Shayne was born sometime after midnight.  I asked so many questions that I remember my doctor asked me to please be quiet for a minute so that she could get deliver my baby.  So then I tried to squirm around so that I could see and nearly slid off the table...

Shayne was in distress so they had to send him by ambulance to the next town that had a neonatal unit.

So around two o'clock in the morning I was in my room, alone and totally dazed at the events of the evening.

But, as I recall, earlier I had made some pretty darn good cinnamon crust.

Shayne at six weeks.

Shayne at two years.  See the scrape on his nose?  I was learning how to drive stick and it was the precarseat era.

Shayne at five with baby Joshua.

And that's the night that my life began.

Happy Birthday Shayne!!!  Momma loves you still!!!

Electronic Family

Larry and I ran off to the Hillbrook Inn and Spa Friday, then spent Saturday Civil War site seeing at Harpers Ferry and Frederick.

Around 5:30 pm on Saturday we got a text from Audrey, our stalwart Basset Hound watcher.

Audrey: Hey when are you slack-a-lackins coming home?

Me:  Never.

Me:  FYI. The mortgage is due on Monday.

Audrey:  That sounds like the banks problem....

we could have stayed forever.....

Sorry to Interrupt Your Monday...

Sorry to Interrupt Your Monday...

But I just watched Sommersby again.

And I am sad to say, they still haven't found a loophole.  Or an appeal.

Jack Sommersby still died.

I've been watching this movie for twenty years.

And he always dies.

You may go back to your previously scheduled Monday.

I am going to wipe my eyes and go back to mine.

Sigh...

It's the Little Things

Last night we were all upstairs tucked into various beds watching Despicable Me 2.

Obviously the grandbabies were spending the night.

The opening scene has a huge magnet that draws everything metal up into space.  And as I was watching it, my menopause addled brain had a thought - 

Me:  Wow!  If there really was a magnet that size would it mess with the polar axis?

Larry:  uh, no.

Me:  But were you impressed that I used the phrase "polar axis" in a sentence?

Larry: well, yeah.

HA!     Still surprising him after 34 years!!!!!

aren't we cute??

Corrupting Our Nations Youth - One at a Time

Last week we were getting ready for Miss Audrey to move back in.  
Sue and Larry and I painted.
Sue and Lance and I cleared out the room.  And oops Larry too.
Grey and Neve even got in the action and helped move things out and up and down the stairs and  the pulled up painters tape that I had painstakingly placed on the baseboards.

BTW - Taping things in prep for painting is going to be my new job in hell.  Just sayin.

So with all that hard work they deserved a little Amazon.com time.
After we had ordered Neve asked if she could get some Crocs. We looked and couldn't find any on Amazon.

Then she said "Don't they have a buycrocs.com or something like that?"

Indeed they do.

When I go to the website it always says "Welcome Kimberlee!"  

So off we went to crocs.com.

And in the sale section we found PINK HELLO KITTY crocs that were sheepskin lined!!

Well of course we ordered them.

They came in this morning and they are just as cute as can be.

Corrupting the nation - one pair of Crocs at a time.....

Start as You Mean to Go On

I've always heard that for the New Year you should "start as you mean to go on".

And since we've had the grandkids over for New Years Eve for the last few years, we figure that we're starting the New Year out just fine.

However, let me tell you about last night.

We hadn't seen the kids in a couple of weeks - we went out of town and then they went to Wisconsin.  

So while they were gone Larry and I were living life kinda crazy....staying up until almost 9 pm...  (That's the earliest we could risk putting the dogs to bed)  

Last night we were yawning by about 7 pm.

OK.  We're old.

Then it came up on 8pm and the kids shown absolutely NO signs of slowing down.  We figured that it was time to take some slow down measures.

"Neve", I asked, "would you like to put your nightgown on and then put lotion on your legs?"
"Sure Mimi" she replied.
So I am sitting in a chair and she puts her foot on my thigh which puts her knee pretty much level with her nose.
I tried to remember the last time that I could stand on one foot with my other leg hitched up to the sky and 1) not immediately fall over or 2) not be shrieking in pain as my hip sockets broke.  I turned around to Larry and said "when was the last time that you could stand like that?"  He just shook his head in wonder.
Neve looked up at us and said kind of nostalgically - "I used to be able to put my leg up higher, but that was last year...."

Last year.  When she was three.

Sigh....

Neve playing with the Nutcracker while the universe was imploding with Grey...

Playing hard

They didn't drift off until after midnight when I finally put on The Bishops Wife which (thank God) bored them to death. I had been drifting off and on thru 3 sets of Max and Ruby, one episode of Doc McStuffins and Despicable Me 2.  Larry, Lucy and Ellie and Scottie Jane had been upstairs asleep since 9:20.

Our resolution for 2014??  Learn to stay up past 9:00!!!!!

Electronic Family - Driving in Ice

I don't like driving in the ice and snow.  Actually, don't like is such a pale word to describe how terrified I am when faced with driving and snow and/or ice.
This phobia is well known in my family.  And as the only one in my family who fears snow and ice, I am roundly made fun of every time there are one or two flakes lazily floating down to the earth.

So on Monday I was less than thrilled with the weather.  We waited until the sun came up and then scraped off the car.  

Here is a text between Mary and I:

Me: The government is delayed for 2 hours.  We are figuring out if dad is going to drive himself to the metro or not.

Mary:  Alrighty.

Later....

Me:  Are you going in late?

Mary: Getting ready now. Lance is de-icing my car.

Much Later....

Me:  Oh did I say that I was taking dad to the metro?  By that I mean that dad is driving to the metro and I am in the passenger seat in a fetal position hiding my face and crying because i have to drive home.

Mary: LOL.

Yep. No respect.