She Rambles

Before I forget, the Carnival of Homeschooling is up, right HERE, at Dewey's Treehouse.  Sorry, I haven't been over there yet, so I can't even tell you what's going on.

Okay where are all my organized friends with menu plans for the summer?  We are having overnight guests over the weekend and again during the following week, with a picnic to follow (yes, all this within seven days!), and I need some help.  Anyone want to come over and do some planning and cooking for me?  Bring your recipes.  And your cookware -- mine's not very good.  I do love having company, really and truly I do, but I always stress out over what to feed everybody.  And summer. That means as little cooking as possible! And no, we don't have a grill.

My BIL just left us after a very short 18-hour visit.  Emily walked out of her bedroom in tears this morning, pouting that Uncle Alan had left already.  He is the Best Uncle, because he brings gummy worms. That is not to say the other uncles are bad, but they don't come to see us.  If they did, they could be in the running for Best Uncle.  We had to let him experience what it means to really be hot, so we went to the lake again yesterday for an afternoon of convection oven hot air and shivers at the same time. I know you don't know what I am talking about unless you have been here, so I won't even try to explain that.  We went home, ate supper complete with The Best Ever Banana Cake, had a short musical talent show so Best Uncle could make a little video for the cousins, and then it was good night.  OTR truckers need their sleep, you know. Al isn't really an OTR trucker, but he is this week.

About that cake, oh is it good. If you go to Recipezaar and look at the directions, it is a little different from your normal cake recipe. I followed it exactly except I used powdered buttermilk (you add the powder with the dry ingreds and then use water when it says to pour in the buttermilk).  And yes, you really do bake it at 275°.  Elisabeth was a bit (okay, a lot) disappointed when I slathered it with cream cheese frosting, because her favorite thing in the world is banana cake with PEANUT BUTTER frosting. But after a taste test, we agreed that the cake was superb and that next time we will experiment with a peanut butter/cream cheese frosting.  What do you think, cooking friends of mine?  Jenn, you're married to a baker.  Any tips?

Next subject, ordering for school. I was going to get some Uncle Eric books for Alison for history, but after reading the Amazon reviews of his WWI and WWII books, I think we'll just stick with his economics lessons for now.  I really need to sit down with her and her dad (I've been saying this for years) and make a plan for the next four years, because waaaaahhh this is the beginning of the end of her homeschooling. As I told my friend, Daisy, I just got her!  And now we are getting ready to get rid of her!  I just don't like to think about that one bit. Anyway, it's important to me to get both her input and her dad's about her high school years. I feel like I have only four years to teach her everything she will need for the rest of her life, which isn't really true -- there are always gaps to be filled. Little sigh. It's no fun.

Next subject, tangles.  I have a child who gets dreadlocks overnight.  Every day I threaten to cut off all her hair, and of course, that does not endear me to her.  After getting online and googling "tangles", we came up with some solutions that actually work! One, use regular conditioner in her hair before combing, and don't rinse it out. Two, pull it back into a soft scrunchie before going to bed.  Three, don't go to bed with wet hair (guilty of this one 99% of the time, but no more).  And four, use a silk or satin pillowcase.  Well, we don't have any fancy stuff around here, but we found that dressing up her pillow in Elisabeth's slip works great.    We have now had three tearless mornings in a row (thank you, Lord)!

I've been reading in the book of Judges lately.  What a mixed up time that was, when every man "did that which was right in his own eyes"!  Does anyone else see a correlation between the recent marriage ruling in California and the 800+ wildfires that they are battling this week?  Hmm...

Don't forget, I need your feeding-a-crowd summer recipes.  Just call before you come over; I'm still not ready for unannounced company (you church ladies know what I am talking about ).