Due to an ongoing few 'issues' with Vox... Vanilla Icing is moving to type pad.  The new address is:

http://vanillaicing.typepad.com/

Hope to see everyone there!

I promise I won't mention the weather other than to say....look who ran out the front door after his big brothers Bob and  Riley and then wouldn't come in...until it was too late!

(Look how lonely the bikes look behind Eddie.  For those curious, those shoe/booty things are Rick's kayaking booty things)

It was the treadmill again.  Sigh.

 I've got the main part of Maia's new apron sewn...but I still have the 'decorating part' of it left to do.  It's of a good size--plenty of room to grow in.  It's turning out not so bad considering I didn't have a pattern at all and have sort of just been making it up as I go along.

A very good friend of mine contacted me yesterday.  We've been out of touch for years--since I've gotten out of the Air Force pretty much.  I was very happy to hear from her and also found out she now is married with two adorable little girls!  Seeing her email yesterday brought back dozens upon dozens--nay hundreds!-of memories.  We roomed together and spent a lot of time together--ample time to create all of those fantastic memories.  Hopefully, this time around we won't lose touch. =)

Tristyn's piano lesson was canceled today.  We didn't find out until we had already drove there.  I did not appreciate driving in such miserable w-----r (see? I didn't say it) to find out we had gone all of that way for nothing.  But then I remembered the time I had forgotten his lesson and we didn't show up (though I paid the teacher for our mistake anyway) so I figured that now we are probably 'even.'  After the last time I missed his lesson I programmed the calendar function on my cell phone to ring an alarm 15 minutes before we need to leave for the lesson so I wouldn't forget again.  It's really helped.  I think being home so much can make a person lose track of the days very easily.  It's a little scary.

Rick and I watched 'Syriana' tonight.  It wasn't my type of movie but he really seemed to enjoy it.  It was definitely better than the movie we watched last night.  I'm not even going to admit to what it was--but in my defense it wasn't my choice!

Guess which one won?

I was drinking a cup of tea this morning and catching up some of my favorite blogs.  One of them, Cherry Hill Cottage, is a blog I've just 'discovered' and I'm really enjoying so far.  I was reading a few back posts and saw a post about Snickerdoodles.  They looked so yummy that I decided that I would make them too.  I used her recipe, only making one small change--all butter instead of half butter and half shortening (I prefer to avoid shortening)--but kept everything else the same.  They turned out delicious!

Laundry is next. =)

I got to wake up to one of my favorite 'alarm clocks'--a fully fledged thunderstorm!  It seems so rare that it actually thunderstorms in the morning.  It's marginally cooled down around here, which is good because now I can catch up on somethings that I've been putting off doing because it was too hot on the first floor.  Mainly, it's laundry that's behind, but going to the basement entails going through the first floor to get there which just hasn't been a pleasant experience the last few days.

For the first time in about 2 years our cookie jar has been empty for more than a few hours.  I haven't been able to bear the thought of turning the oven on.  Maybe today. 

Riley isn't appreciating the rain as much as I am. 

I finally got around to finishing my last bit of kitten embroidery.  I can't really find any embroidery patterns that I like--it's really really hard!  All the patterns are for machine embroidery.  =(

It rained today =( so no rollerblading.  Just more of the treadmill.  Sigh.

I was thinking more about how difficult it is to find school clothes for Maia.  So many of the things out there look like miniature teenager clothes.  I don't want my daughter wearing short-short denim skirts or skin tight blouses and shirts.  I'm not saying I want her clothes to be billowing and ill-fitting either but surely there should be a happy medium out there?  I'm glad she doesn't like to wear pants because every pair out there is tight.  Why would anyone make tight (or snug) pants for a child.  Even considering that these pants are made of supposedly stretchy material it's still not easy for a child to move freely in them.  Maia will be having gym this year at school and will have to have at least a few pairs to wear on those days and I do not want to buy all these tight fitting pants.  It's times like these that I really wish I could sew clothing well.  And that using my old never-works-quite-right sewing machine wasn't an exercise in frustration! =(

What more do you need? 

 We are only halfway through the day and fairing somewhat better due to an escape--I mean a trip--to the mall.  Our little air conditioned sanctuary proved to be too closed in feeling to spend a second day hiding out in it.  I entertained, briefly, the thought of driving out to the lake or going to the swimming pool but I thought that would lead us down the path of sunburns despite sunblock and being hot anyways.  For a point of reference, at 11 am this morning the interior of our house on the 1st floor was 84 degrees.  I only imagine that the 2nd and 3rd floor was even hotter!!

The mall seemed like a nice alternative, plus it would allow us to get a start on school shopping.  We only found a few things today.  Maia got a short sleeved pink (what else?) blouse and a pair of hair bows and Tristyn got a pair of jeans, a short sleeved polo shirt and a new pair of sneakers.  We had lunch before we left the house but the kids got a little hungry around 2 and they shared a pretzel from Aunt Annes and a wild cherry Slushee.  We decided to go to Barnes and Noble next and take a look around.

This pic is of the kids outside of the mall waiting to go into B&N.  Maia saw me pull out my camera and yelled 'Wait!  I'm not ready!' and leaped up to pose for the picture.  I had wanted to get a picture of looking downwards completely absorbed in drinking her Slushee but she is too much in love with the camera to not pose if she sees it.

Tristyn finally reached his limit of both Slushee and waiting outside.  He tried several times to pitch the drink in the trash but Maia wouldn't let him and kept drinking and drinking.....very slowly.  You can see how miserable he is.  He thought he was dying and said he could hardly breathe because it was so hot.  (I think he meant humid but I don't think he knows that is the word for what he was feeling)  Finally, Maia finished and we went inside to enjoy the cool air of Barnes and Noble and the stacks and stacks of books.

The last few days have been a test in the non-melting capabilities of humans.  It's been so hot and muggy that today the kids and I have finally retreated to our 2nd floor family room (where there is a window a/c).  Here, we have run the gamut of 'stuff to do.'  We've drawn pictures, colored, cut and glued stuff.  We've watched movies and cooking shows.  (Well, okay I watched the cooking shows).  And we played games.  Lots and lots of games.  Silly made up games.  Jenga.  Twister.

The weather has been too miserable for me to get outside much so I've been sticking to the treadmill.  Yesterday, I got in 30 mins of the treadmill on the incline and 45 minutes today.  I'm hoping the weather will be more co-operative tomorrow so I can get some rollerblading in.

When Rick came home, he quickly saw the wisdom of our retreat (after all, it was him who suggested it!) and joined us in our little fortress.  Dinner was very, very simple--we had a picnic lunch!  The kids are braving their rooms for a bit to play and put away some of their playthings before coming back downstairs for a movie night.  On long hot summer days relaxing in a cool air conditioned room and enjoying movies together is a real treat. =)

One of my favorite things about summer is making strawberry jam for the year.  There is no store bought brand that can compare with homemade strawberry jam.  Nothing.  At All.  This year Maia was finally big enough to really help and was very excited about it.  She did everything up until it came time to make things hot.

First she opened up all of the new jars and separated them into their pots for sterilization.

Then, while I removed the stems from the berries, she donned an apron.  She had to wear one of mine because she's outgrown hers.  (I'm going to attempt to make her a new one soon.)

Maia pours about 1/3 of the berries into the pot to start with.

Crushing the berries was a bit tougher than Maia thought it would be.

She persevered and crushed all 2 quarts of the first batch!  All by herself!

I must add that she was quite relieved when they were all crushed.  She wiped her brow and said "Whew!  That was hard work, Mummy.  Good thing I did it for you!"

I took over from this point and she stood on a chair near the stove to supervise.  Here, the crushed berries-pectin-little bit of butter mixture is just starting to boil.

Here is our favorite part!  The sugar!  A whole heaping lot of it!  (This pot does contain 8 8 oz jars of jam in for you anti-sugar nuts out there---so it's not so much when it's all spread out like)

I use many spoons for the spoon test to see if the jelling point has been reached. (Why in just a second) In this picture, it has.  What you don't see is the pile of freshly licked clean spoons that were off to the side from my 'supervisor' and her brother who showed up on the scene just in time to get some of the first tastes in.  They didn't mind that it wasn't quite jelling yet when they tasted it so long as I tested with an even number of spoons so they got even tastes!

Ladling hot jam into smallish jars is always the messiest part for me.  If I haven't managed to get burned by boiling hot sticky jam at least twice by this point I usually make up for it by spilling it on me at least two more times.  Luckily (for the jars) all that it takes is a quick wipe of a damp cloth to clean them off--which is necessary anyway prior to putting on the lids to dampen the rim.

Almost done!  In this picture, I've just removed the first few jars from the first batch going into their boiling water bath.  I'm always glad this size of a jar only takes 5 minutes to process because I'm always worried I'll have to re-process the few jars whose seals didn't go down and I'm usually hot and sticky and tired by this point.  (All jars have sealed as of 10:00 p.m!)

Tada!  All finished!  Seventeen jars of homemade strawberry jam to last our family until this time next year!  =)

Despite my best attempt at fixing Rick's old bike it still wasn't quite right so he decided to upgrade his old bike to a full suspension (one of the things we picked up at Dick's last night) bike.  He got to try it out today when we went on a bike ride from our house the roundabout way to Shadyside.  We 'toured' Shadyside and some surrounding neighborhoods and then made our way back for a grand total riding time of 102 minutes (yes, those 2 minutes count!).  It was a lot of fun and a nice change of pace from regular bike trail or Frick Park trail riding--though we did cut through part of Frick on our way home!  The whole time we were riding there was a light drizzle...until the last 15 minutes of the ride and it began to come down really really hard.  Every inch of me was soaked through to the skin.  Complete with water running down my arms and legs and dripping off the tip of my nose.  It was fun! (And very refreshing too).  My pulled muscle thing has seemed to 'tighten' down into a hard small knot of tissue and isn't bothering me nearly as much. =)

After a brief respite (meaning shower and change of clothes) we went out for a late lunch/early dinner at the Olive Garden.  Not very original, I know, but after fighting re-directed Parkway traffic the last two days we really didn't want to deal with any more long waits in traffic.  We also went to Barnes & Noble where I picked up a 'how-to' cake decorating book (I'm determined to pipe icing perfectly one of these days!) that was on clearance.  Then, we headed over to the mall where Rick bought me a fantastic Dooney & Burke purse for my birthday!! =D  He really is so sweet and generous--I've had a perfect 'birthday weekend!'