Nothing ordered  is as it is on the menu. We have to hold something or have extra of something. I swear that I can hear the cashiers fighting over who will have to take our order when our car rolls up.  Of course, we could plan ahead and write it down but that would make sense and make it easier, and the confusion becomes a form of our entertainment. What’s the fun in being all organized and efficient?

The only trouble is that the lack of it can impact the accuracy of our order and then the complaints get on the heavy side. And that is a good way to kill an appetite.  Or someone in the backseat. Just kidding.

It probably takes a village to fill our order – a more accurate description for this post.

Now I dread drive through windows just like a visit to the dentist.  Both drills give me a headache, empty my wallet and cause me to ponder the number of cavities in my head. However, I get a new toothbrush and floss at the dentist in a cute little bag. They are much more practical than the crappy toys I have been stepping  on for years and we do all leave the dentist with fresh breath.

“The art of giving orders is not to try to rectify the minor blunders and not to be swayed by petty doubts.”
~ Sun Tzu (Chinese General and Author, b.500 BC)

Thanks to the wonder of the Internet, I have completed all my Christmas shopping. The only thing yet to do is make the sign for the door on the side porch where the UPS guy keeps leaving my gift items in the rain and wet to direct him to the large, covered wrap-around porch that is ten steps further but will keep my gift items dry. I am working on a graphic for that now. Perhaps just a big “DUH” would do the trick. It’s so hard to be nice when people are so lazy and stupid silly.

One of the items that the lazy little UPS guy left in the puddle collecting by the side porch door where it’s wet, was the amazing 10×14 Easy Canvas Print that I had made of the family when we were “dunh” dropping off my son for his first year at college.

It is a family favorite as we all look good in it and it is before I began sobbing hysterically so my eye makeup is still intact. You won’t be able to tell because I don’t post photos of my family online where you can actually make out anything for privacy reasons, but I just had to show it off in some form because it is awesome. I was a little afraid that putting our favorite photo on canvas might ruin the detail, but it didn’t. It looks great. I liked it so much, I friended them on Facebook too – just in a jolly holiday mood, I guess!

The next task to complete for the holidays is baking cookies. I wonder if the wonder of the Internet can somehow perform that for me too? I have the best recipe for cookies and the trouble with that is that people request them, and then you are stuck. In retrospect, it may have been smarter to use a dry and bad tasting recipe as this is the 20th year of me having to make cookies for the whole crowd that get eaten before the meal so I get complaints after dinner that I didn’t make enough.

Lucky for me, the girls will do the decorating if I make the dough. I guess hand mixing the cold hard butter into the flour and sugar is good for my biceps. I think that’s how Jillian Michaels gets hers.

It reminded me of all of the costumes we made over the years and especially of the one that I made when my other daughter wanted to be a salad. She ended up winning a contest so I think I did okay with what I thought was a very strange request for a costume from a child who didn’t touch a vegetable for another good ten years.

And speaking of vegetables, after my art session, I ran home to babysit my nieces and was amazed that someone so small had the fine motor skills to be able to actually pick ONE pea out of a bowl of peas with the serving spoon when I told her she had to have a very small helping of them. I let her get away with that just out of sheer awe.

I let them stay up pretty late, eat cake and ice cream, drink soda and then they ratted me out to my brother when he came home. No good deed…

So I am not sure if I will get any more babysitting jobs but at least I am assured that I am still considered a good pick for costume making. Nothing like job security.

“If the cut of the costume indicates intellect and talent, then the color indicates temper and heart.”
~ Thomas Carlyle

Yes, the kids brought home a science project for adults and just like the old days, left it for mom to finish while they one went on a trip and the other back to work.

So my brother calls and asks if I can watch his two young daughters and all I can think of is giving them a bath straddling the three huge containers of fermenting wine juice. And what will they tell the teacher about their weekend?

Not only do I have to watch the cat, now I have wine duty. And both of the girls already checked in on the wine to make sure that I had correctly followed the directions for the next step. Newsflash. It is not rocket science, more like baking as you measure yeast and stir. I think I can handle it.

They asked if I would make them labels for their bottles and I was to come up with the name. Oh that is my specialty. Vino di Flush. Chateau Potty. Nature Calls. In the Drink. Ripe Wipe. Niagara Trickle. Back ‘o Noir. I could go on all night.

“We will serve no wine before it’s time.” Orson Wells

You might think this is a bad thing because parties are a lot of work (like babies) but no, it’s a good thing for the following reasons:

• It makes me plant/weed my flowers and clean my bathroom at least at these times each year. (The trouble is that this is usually no more than three times a year and, well, it’s hard to get me motivated to clean. I started writing a blog so that I look busy instead of cleaning.)
• It gives me more reason to prod the hoarder (husband) to get rid of the CRAP in the garage that he swears he needs for some reason between now and never.
• The kids vacuum, dust and mop my house for me – and I don’t ask or criticize their work. (Well, not too much.)
• They insist on making the baked beans, salads, alcoholic beverages, etc.
• They feel bad that they didn’t do 100% of the work.
• Their sangria is amazing.
• I get to invite my friends and family and they think I am a great party planner and executer. (I almost feel guilty. The sangria helps with that.)

The whole experience leaves me scratching my head. When I figure out what I did right in this parenting-child social equation, I will let your know or write a book or something. Perhaps I will then get rich in addition to having parties without any effort on my part.

Naah. One can’t get too greedy.

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“Plans made swiftly and intuitively are likely to have flaws. Plans made carefully and comprehensively are sure to.” ~ Robert Grudin

This weekend I was asked to make a couple of new recipes that turned out rather well when I made them for the Super Bowl. So, I am off to get the ingredients and hope they turn out as well as the first time. I don’t usually measure anything so I never get the same result twice. I am also notorious for making on-the-fly substitutions when I don’t have an ingredient and you never know how that is going to work. Here’s hoping for some type of consistency.

If you are a good cook and people ask you to cook for them, I think it’s only fair that they clean up afterwards. All of  the mess.

There is a thing that I call the cooking-to-cleaning ratio. It should be even. If I cook a meal for hours, the same amount of time in cleaning reciprocity is called for. While it rarely is ever called for, there is no way the cook will ever have to do dishes if this rule is followed.

If you don’t abide by this rule in my house, you won’t get called for. Especially at mealtime.

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“Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table.” ~ William Powell