The weather report says.....

RAIN!!!!!!!!!!! Well, of course it does. We planned an outdoor Renaissance themed wedding in a redwood forest with people coming from all over the country dressed in costumes with hats and swords. Why wouldn't it rain?

The weather report says there will be a chance of showers on Saturday. But I'm thinking that we'll be up on top of a mountain so it will be too high for those rain clouds. Yup, that's it. There will be no rain. No panic here, nope not from me. Tarps, that's it, we need tarps and big long pointy sticks to poke in the ground and put the tarps up with....

How about umbrellas? What did umbrellas look like in the 16th century?

I'm just not going to think about it. I'm taking today off to go shopping for the rest of the food. I'll let someone else panic about the rain. Oh honey........

Rice for 100

Panic! So how do you make rice for a 100 people? Ok really, it's only 80 people, but still....

My friends and I are catering my sons wedding ourselves. The wedding is small and the food is fairly simple. So as I make the final plans of who is doing what, I asked one of my friends if she would be in charge of the two side dishes. Now you have to understand this group of friends, we put on at least one to two parties a month. Sometimes it's 10 people, sometimes it's 20. We've done upwards to 50 people ourselves. But the panic in my friends eyes when I asked her at lunch the other day to make rice for 80 people told me I better look at that a little closer. I told her not to worry about it, I would handle the side dishes. My apologies to my friend for even asking her to make rice for that many people.

So, I went back to work after lunch with my friends and proposed the question to my office mates. How do you make rice for 80 people? I had no idea. One person said I needed a really big pot. Another person said she bakes her rice. Bake rice? Ok, I"ve never done that. Whenever I cook rice in a pan I always have the urge to look at it and stir it. It never comes out right. I don't have a rice cooker and I'd probably need an army of them to get the job done. So I had some research to do. When I looked it up on the internet, I had to look up how to cook for a big crowd. A big crowd is considered 100 or more. So armed with that information I dug in. I found a great website Ellen's Kitchen and I also looked up several recipes on how to bake rice.

First I tried the baking method to cook the rice recipe for the wedding in normal portions. It worked perfectly. Next, armed with my new baking knowledge, I converted the recipe to a larger quantity. I have no fears now. I can cook rice for 1000, if I need to, but please don't ask. When my daughter gets married, I'm handing over my credit card and hiring someone else to do all the work!

Mom Socks

My 20 year old daughter is working at a restaurant and has to wear all black. So she went out and bought some flat black shoes that were a little dressier than her normal tennis shoes or flip flops. She was getting ready to go out the door the other day and she pulled up her socks and said, "Look, I'm wearing 'mom socks.'" She had borrowed a pair of my trouser socks to go with her new dressier shoes. All she owns are athletic socks. She said, "I guess I'll have to go out and buy my own 'mom socks' now." There was an audible sigh.

Let me take you back a few years. She was in junior high and my friend Martha and I had taken her to shop for a needy family for Christmas that our office sponsored. We did it every year and we thought this year she was old enough to help us out with picking out the items for the family. We always chose a family of five and we purchased outfits and items that the profile said the family needed.

There was a teenage girl in the profile this year. So Martha and I sent my daughter off to find something on the list as we chose socks for the family. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the options of socks for the teenage girl. We were quite aware of the whole "mom sock" theory that my daughter would denounce us with on a regular basis. They had to be just right. We thought we did a great job weighing what we thought were mom socks vs teenage socks. We wanted to show my daughter how "in" we were. All my daughter could say was, "Oh my God! Those are 'mom socks." She then put them back and picked out something else. She could not have any teenager wear something they might be ridiculed in. I think at that moment in time it didn't really matter which socks we picked. We were just lame in every way. I accepted that, and proudly wore my mom socks anyways.

But to hear my daughter say at age 20 that she had borrowed my mom socks and was going to purchase her own, made me think that maybe she was on her way to being that adult she once thought was so lame. Funny how a simple sock can be a precursor for adulthood.

Wedding Planning

I've been busy wedding planning for my son's wedding. I thought it was going to be easy. I've planned many big parties and events before. So many details! But there is something emotional tied to doing your child's wedding. Maybe it's the letting go of something old and bringing together something new. The combining of families. The meeting of new people. The hope for the future....wow that's a lot of stuff. No wonder I'm exhausted! It's all worth it. It's great to watch two young people starting off. I know all the trials, tribulations and triumphs they still have to go through and all the laughter and tears they will have while they experience it. Life is an adventure and a journey to savour and enjoy. I'm glad to help send them off with our good blessings and hope for a wonderful journey.

Must be Friday!

This printer was just asking for it. It was old, temperamental and noisy as hell. We think it's about 15 years old. It just wouldn't die. But it finally gave out and forced us to send the files we printed with it electronically to our printer. One of those weeds you just keep stepping over. Now we are asking ourselves, "why didn't we do this sooner?"