Ketchup

Why is this post called Ketchup?
Because ketchup covers anything and everything, and I plan to cover a lot today. Hopefully, with a fewer-than-expected number of words.
I haven't checked in since Thursday because by Friday, I was pretty sick. Which really made me angry because I was really sick just a few weeks ago. And I just don't "do" sick. I don't like to be weak and needy.
So, I was sick and I had already arranged for each of my kids to have a friend over. I am not good at arranging for friends to come over, so I decided I wouldn't cancel and I'd pretend I wasn't sick in front of their mothers. I hope it worked, but one look at myself told me it probably didn't. My eyes were red-rimmed and glassy and my skin looked pretty clammy and...well, y'know? It just wasn't good. But I soldiered through. Andrew had his buddy overnight and it was really good for him to be with a friend for a while. They went to their first youth group meeting together (youth group! I'm so not ready for this!) and had a really good time, then stayed up all night long playing XBox. Emma's little friend came over and they dressed up and watched Hello Kitty DVDs and giggled and all that good girly stuff. It was pretty cute.
And I crashed at 9:00. That's pretty crazy, if you know me. I have a hard time getting to sleep at night and an especially hard time if it's before 10:30. And in what seemed to be the blink of an eye, it was time to wake up and make waffles for a couple of hungry boys, who had slept just enough to be able to wake up and play more video games.
Then I got to take Emma to a birthday party and pretend not to be sick again. Which was fun. But little girl birthday parties are so sweet - the girls all sit around the table chatting and nobody punches each other. I understand the punching may start around age 15, but for now, that's the case. The party was at a paint-your-own-pottery place with a tea shop attached to it.
(Opera-style singing voice) Heaven! The little tea man in there picked just the right thing for me. I told him I wanted something herbal, with a strong flavor and preferably fruity. Hello cranberry spice tea. It was worth the whole pretending-to-feel-good stuff.
We managed to get home pretty early and I gathered up the fam to head to my brother's new house. Remember the demolition night we had last week? This was just a continuation of that, in a very serious way. I peeled wallpaper, Andrew took up carpet tack strips and Chris chipped tile and lots of it. Emma...well, she meandered around the empty rooms with a fresh notebook, designing and planning. Sarah (sister-in-law) scraped nasty popcorn off the ceiling and Jon (brother) ripped up carpet and threw it out the second-story window. It was a productive day.


Sunday, I woke up feeling a bit better and we celebrated my other brother's birthday with delicious food and lots of laughing. That's pretty much how most things are celebrated around here. Honey-lime-garlic chicken (on the grill), fresh green beans and a new cake recipe. Blackberry Jam Cake, people. Blackberry Jam Cake.

Oh my.
It. Was. Good.
Cloves, allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and blackberry jam sounds pretty weird, but you will have to trust me on this. I got this adorable cake book for Christmas one year and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes cakes. Lots of versatility and inspiration in that one. So, I tried making some hypo-allergenic substitutions for the first time instead of looking for a specifically egg-free, dairy-free recipe and it came out pretty tasty. Baking success!
When you put my whole family in one room, it gets a little nutty. I must confess that I laughed so hard last night my eyes were just streaming tears and my cheeks were sore this morning from the workout.

And that brings us to my Making Monday. I am afraid they are endangered. Skipping a day of work puts a dent in my paycheck that is just too much to handle. I aim to squeeze a few more Mondays out before I ditch them in order to check some things off my mental to-make list, though.
And, as usual, my list today was over-ambitious and I only finished one thing. But it was quite a glorious one thing. I made Emma a dress for the Equinox party (next weekend! Aaa!) and it turned out so cute. I found this little download-able, versatile pattern on The Handmade Dress and it was so easy to make. It's the "Miss Madeline" and even I did a decent job with it, which pretty much means that anybody could do this. See?


My, my, what a gorgeous little girl that is.

I pity the foolish boy that wants to date this one in a couple of years.

Have you seen the men he has to go through to get to her?

Yikes.

DAILY BLISS: kitchen helpers (potato washers) and Christmas secrets that are piling up in my head