Cupcakes be damned.

To continue my recent trend of blogging about weighty things and frivolous things back-to-back, I give you this:

I'm over cupcakes. Oh, sure, they are cute and all, but after Saturday, I'm done. This revelation didn't stop me from downing a leftover cupcake from the festivities this morning for breakfast, but I couldn't really let it go to waste, now could I?

So here is the deal: a party for 100 people, a weighty cake (10 x 10 and four layers deep), and 70 cupcakes. I sliced the cake -- it was a bit messy (because it was a real carrot cake full of carrots, crystallized ginger, pineapple, raisins, and walnuts!!!) and therefore a bit more labor intensive than normal -- but let's face it, cutting a big cake always takes some effort and skill (in grad school I worked for caterers and cut many, many cakes). But it is worth it. Saturday's party-goers filed right past the pretty cupcakes (in four flavors) to wait in line and get a slice of cake from me. Only when the cake was all gone (and I stretched its servings to 48), did people reach for a cupcake. I had the dregs of the cake (the bits that fell off the real slices) and I had a cupcake (okay, there were lots left over... I've had several cupcakes). The cake wins (and not just because carrot cake is the best cake on the planet): the cake/frosting ratio is better, the distribution of frosting is better, and the cake has more moist surfaces.

I'm hereby committing myself to the cake camp. I'm a cake enthusiast.

Sleepover Report

So... the girl turns ten today! To celebrate, she chose to have a small gaggle of her closest buddies over for a sleepover party -- her first (she has sort of reluctant parents when it comes to multi-day kid parties). So, we are in the final stages of said party, the kids are making poster/collages with pictures from the party (E's idea, isn't she cool?) that I printed out this morning.

Here is the breakdown:

Attendance:
Kids invited: 6
Kids attending: 6 (good response rate, eh?)

Theme and decorations:
Citrus theme so lots of cheery light green, orange, and white crepe paper and balloons

Food offered and (mostly) consumed:
Individual pizzas (topped by each kid), large tray of veggies and dip, lemon ice cream cake, yellow cupcakes

Behavior:
Overall decent. They giggled until I thought they would puke. They sat around the dinner table for over an hour taking turns telling stories and jokes. They played team games with balloons. They practiced their numbers and colors in French (E's current interest). On the negative side, I did have to rein in looking up "dirty" words in the dictionary ("What? A bitch is just a female dog..." Yeah, kid, I was a kid once too, ya know); two episodes of tears (both on the part of the little guy); an hour of fluffing about and kids popping up and turning on lights before sleep (still got everyone to sleep before midnight).

Activities:
Screeching, screaming, giggling, eating, present opening, game playing, movie watching (The Neverending Story II), glow stick fun, music making, etc.

Parental exhaustion rating: 6 out of 10; overall it wasn't too bad, E did most of the planning, wrote out the invitations, helped clean and decorate, etc.

Happy birthday, First Born!

Yuletide Overload

It has been a busy weekend: Cookie making at my folks (with Great Grandma) on Saturday. Decorating of the fake tree. Yule shoot your eye party at P & L's Saturday evening. More cookie making at D's on Sunday. Crafting ornaments and the beginnings of a decent Scrabble game at AE's on Sunday. Whew. I got a new camera... can you tell?

Bye-Bye Summer

Here it is. The last evening of summer.

This was not the bloggiest of seasons for me. Like many of the friendly blogs in my world, YesterdayLooksGood got very little attention. Her sister blog, Breaking the Code, got even less.

I meant to record more of my happenings -- they are fun to look back at, a way to solidify memories, etc. -- but many posts were never started and of those that were, I abandoned more posts than I actually published.

Using my calendar and a scroll through the drafts-never-published here are the highlights of Summer 2008:

In May, we went to Traditional Arts Weekend at Wheatland. Just like always, and nicely so.

In June I went to Minneapolis/St. Paul for a conference and research (probably the highlight of my summer in terms of work).

In June, E finished 4th grade (which she loved) and O finished Kindergarten (which he tolerated). They understood that they were supposed to be happy about summer, but they didn't quite know what to do with themselves with day after day of unstructured time. Apparently, they didn't feel the chores I assigned them was the kind of structure they were looking for, however. They did a week of low-quality day camp that convinced us they were better off rattling around the house bored and beating on each other than in that environment.

In late June/early July, we went to my folks' cottage. This is a trip I have done for years, but this particular trip came with some twists. I went without my dog, for one. It was her favorite place in the world. She was dune colored and loved to romp there. [sniff]

In July, I became a stay-at-home mom. I struggled with this for awhile. I finally had to accept that my sabbatical was over and stop trying to parent and write at the same time. Things got much easier after that. I scheduled playdates so I could launch a new article and get ready for classes, but I also took other people's kids on adventures with us, rode bikes with my pups, went blueberry picking, hit the pool and the waterpark, danced to the bands at Crossroads, became a regular at the Tuesday farmers' market, and visited many area parks. The kids and I even rode our bikes in the Heritage Festival parade (which I think we all found pretty boring).

In July, E went off for a week at sleep-away camp. I loved camp as a kid and went for multiple weeks (regular, horseback riding, competitive swimming, and, my favorite, sailing) so I was rather excited for her. She did great there but was incredibly tired when I retrieved her. The promised "vegetarian option at every meal" also turned out to be salad and peanut butter sandwiches, so she was mighty happy to have a plate of pasta plopped down in front of her. I had hoped that a week apart would get the kids out of the negative patterns of taunting they had developed. It didn't. Almost as soon as I had fetched her I heard from the backseat, "mom, he's looking at meeeeeeee!"

July also meant beerfest and I had a lovely time with my dad, brother, and many buddies. I didn't pick a "best beer" this year, but I enjoyed several ryes... and I really enjoyed that there were several ryes to enjoy. Worst beer: Jolly Pumpkin's Perseguido. It almost doesn't seem fair, since I don't like their beers/sour beers in general, but EVERYONE in my universe that day agreed that this one particularly sucked.

In August, we went to Dunegrass, the music festival in Empire, MI. Year #2 for us and it held up well, which is not surprising because the kids are now old enough to be fairly sturdy on such outings, we took the camper and therefore had cushy digs, and there is a beautiful beach with great dunes just down the way. moe. wins for best band, I think. Particle was the same as always, only I was too tired to get into the groove this year.

Also in August, S finally got me to play water polo. Okay, yes, it is fun. Water polo easily slid into the hole left by us quitting clogging (E lost her interest and I wasn't going to force it). The kids could swim in the shallows while mommy dunked the college boys... then we would all go home mellow and tired. E wormed her way into one game and played well. I'll coach a tweener team next year if the pool folks will let me! Most of my other exercise came from the bike. I think my fitness level peaked somewhere in late August. If I had to pick a day, I'd say it was when I rode (read: held on for) the local shop ride: 32 miles in about an hour and half. Otherwise I rode with Bike Ypsi many Sundays and took to early morning roll outs so that I could do 20-30 miles and be back in time for W to leave for work. (Tom's right: it's a great time because there is no wind!) My favorite ride became the Saline-Milan route (40 miles), though it was hard to squeeze in on weekday mornings.

The last bit of August contained my birthday weekend. I celebrated Bike Ypsi's first birthday, helped break in Andre and Stephanie's new house at their first party there, closed the pool for the season, and celebrated my many revolutions around the sun with my extended family.

September saw me not only enter my forties but also take on my first big administrative job: department chair. The kids went back to school. We celebrated surviving that momentous week with a bonfire at the party barn, including a birthday king and queen, and chocolate cake with a milk fountain built in.

But the signs of fall have started to arrive. E started soccer, the rain pushed the last Crossroads act (Black Jake and the Carnies) inside, and it was time to make pesto. I rode 50 miles last Saturday to help make 35 pounds of pesto at Jeff's house out in Chelsea. It poured for much of the ride, but it was warm and I loved it except for my fogging glasses. On Sunday, I rolled out in the ran again to ride Tom's Taco Tour. Five taco stops over 19 miles and we ended -- very wet -- at the Corner.

What this summary, focused on specific events and dominant trends, glosses over is the emotional terrain of my summer. It is hard to characterize, but I think I have spent much of the last three months trying to get my head in the game -- whatever the game may be. I've been sad, I've been unfocused, I've raised indecision to a near art form, and somehow I became a procrastinator. I've decided I'm angrier (in general, or maybe it is that I am easier to anger) than I realized. This is not to say that I was not happy this summer. I was, at times, but these other things had me pulled off in too many directions to focus on the things that made me happy. So this is the problem I am tackling this fall: how to be in the right place... or at least how to be in the place I am. How old-school hippie-ish, eh? Yeah, well, I seem to need to go back to that school. To frame it positively (and find a way out of this post!), my goal for the fall is to be good with where I am and what I am doing in that moment and not overthink where else I might be. I'll be in that other place soon enough.

Sickness, a party, bikes, and bars...

I had a couple of intense days of parenting lately with a short school week last week and a boy who sprouted an unexplained but lingering fever. After pulling full-time duty on Friday and Saturday, I was mighty happy to head out to the Burns' Night festivities -- even if I did show up a bit late. Andre once again hosted a lovely party with a fine mix of academic friends, music friends, neighborhood friends, and friends of friends (and yes, some people fit into multiple categories). The kitchen reeked of Scotch by the time I got there, but considering the occasion and the host, that seemed fitting. I somehow ended up staying until 3:00am!

I don't sleep-in well and had been out way late the night before and that made getting my butt in gear for the Worst Day of the Year ride on Sunday a tad difficul. It was a realtively balmy 32 degrees and the roads were wet but plowed -- though the promised sunshine never appeared. I had a stupidly hard time choosing which bike to ride, but finally committed to the road bike (which has commuter tires and an insufficient back fender on it at the moment) and headed out to grab Andy on the way to the start at Kerrytown. We rolled up just in time to grab some coffee cake and jump onto the back of the 12-mile group. People bunched up and strung out quite a bit, so we opted to push up toward the front, but eventually ended up riding mostly with only each other. We would pick up another rider or a pair here or there, but there wasn't much "group" on this "group ride" -- and where were the ride leaders? I only saw one and he had this sort of annoying habit of riding way out into the lane in order to look back at the group and yell at us. I didn't mind losing him. Anyhoo, after a bit of creative route taking and a bit of cursing (on my part) of route planners that had us climb that stupid Broadway hill (I know North Campus is nice to ride through, but I'm still suffering a "decline in fitness" post surgery) we rolled up to Arbor Brewing for a beer and munchies at the after party. It was interesting to take in the crowd and find almost no bikey people we knew. Definitely an older crowd, but lots of pretty committed pedalers, which was very cool.

On Monday, the boy was still sick, so I accomplished little work but did make it out to the Bike Ypsi meeting. Put May4 on your calendars, people -- it'll be our big spring event with morning rides, some food, and afternoon exhibits/polo/other fun bikey stuff to be determined.

After the meeting there was a movement afoot to grab a beer at the Corner. Most folks bailed, however, which is a shame because it turned into a much later night than I was expecting, full of frivolity, flirting, new acquaintances, odd conversations, and general silliness when we ran into Bethany and her buddies. We were in a bar and we were drinking, so I'm thinking that the stories from the table should not be blogged about, but I'm gonna encourage ya'll to come out to SheBang when they have live music and meet Bethany (who does the organizing and sound). She's a hoot and I've enjoyed both bands I've seen there so far.

Party Shoes

With the children off enjoying a few days with the grandparents, I put on my party shoes and headed out for three different parties. Thanks to John and Dave, Natalie and Kristen, and Laura and Dave! I chatted, I ate, I sang, I kissed, and I wandered the three blocks home from the last party through the deep, perfect snow at 4:30am. It was a lovely night and bodes well for the year to come.

Happy New Year, ya'll!