The Queen's Rambles

October is my favorite month of the year. I love the cooler weather, the pumpkin patches, the cutesy Halloween decorations, the birthday party planning, Halloween–everything! I’m so glad it stopped raining and we can go outside and enjoy gorgeous weather.

I think I have things under control for Erik’s party. It’s at a nature center and they are taking care of most of the program. I just have to take care of the food and favors. They have an indoor area with tunnels, so the kids are getting a little flashlight, a couple of plastic frog things and a ring pop. Erik is obsessed with ring pops. Doesn’t sound like much, I guess, but I can’t ever bring myself to hand out a bag of crap that will be thrown out and forgotten within minutes. It’s not financially or environmentally responsible.

Erik wants a dirt cake with lots of gummy worms, snakes, spiders and lizards. I’ve got gummy worms and plastic snakes and spiders. Haven’t been able to find lizards, so I guess he’ll just have to deal. I found some beach buckets at the party store this afternoon, so I’ll make two giant dirt cakes and serve them with the toy shovels that came with the buckets. It’s just weird to have such a deep, narrow opening for a cake and to scoop out the dessert. Who cares, though, right? It’s not a real cake.

I was thinking that the adults wouldn’t want to eat it, but after I looked up several recipes I realized it is basically just “Better than Robert Redford” cake with crushed oreos and no bottom crust. I don’t know a better name for it, but it’s delicious. For the BtRR cake, you bake a sweet crust with some pecans, then you layer cream cheese/powdered sugar mixture with chocolate pudding. You also mix cool whip in there, but I can’t remember if you mix it with the cream cheese layer or the pudding. Goooooood stuff.

Except I no longer eat artificial stuff, so the thought of instant pudding and cool whip makes me gag. Maybe I’ll make real pudding and real whipped cream. Do I really have time to make two buckets full of real pudding?

I also read a few suggestions to make cake cubes to add to the thing, kind of like a trifle. Sounds like a plan to me. It will add a lot of volume so I don’t just have giant buckets of pudding. I’m anticipating about 35 people, counting adults. Insane, I know, but it was really difficult to cut down the guest list now that he’s in school with all the neighborhood kids. Thankfully his birthday is early in the school year so he doesn’t have a big connection to any of his school friends, except the ones that live in the neighborhood.

Of course, October is also big because of Halloween, my very favorite holiday. He’s decided he wants to be Draco Malfoy for Halloween. Or a fireman. Or Harry Potter. I’m pushing for Draco, just because I think it’s funny that he often wants to be the bad guy.

Except sometimes its not so funny and I worry. But there are lots of people who like an anti-hero, right? I’ve never been one of them. I’ve never liked bad boys, either. Never understood the love there. I like stability. I like to be treated well. I like people who will do the right thing. Maybe because I’ve seen what the bad boy becomes when he grows up. Believe me, it ain’t pretty.

If only my sewing machine was ready, I could force Erik to commit to something so I could start sewing. I was at the Party Store today and ain’t no way this mama is going to spend the money on a HP costume when each accessory costs at least $10.

You know what I hate? Parenting communities that refer to mothers as “mama.” Makes me gag.

Anyway, if my sewing machine is not ready tomorrow I am seriously considering going out and buying a new one from a place with a very liberal return policy. I know it’s not right, but I have things to sew! And very little time to sew them!

Did I ever post about the Harry Potter quilt I’m making? I know I posted early on, but not sure if I posted the latest. The project has 30 blocks and I completed 28 of them before my friend wanted her sewing machine back. You can see my blocks HERE.

I was really excited because I thought I would finish in time to be in the running for the Harry Potter Paper Piecing’s contest for getting the top quilted, but alas. No joy for me. Ofenjen has created such a wonderful community amongst Harry Potter quilters that I shouldn’t say no joy. The whole project has been a joy, which is why I’m eager to finish. I must admit, I am glad I am getting to see a few finished quilt tops before I go to put mine together. Some of the completed tops have gone beyond a basic finish and look like real bookcases. I want to do something similar, so it’s nice to see what others are doing.

They’re having a school visitation day tomorrow, so that should be enlightening. It says we are able to observe in the classroom but that the instructional day will continue as always and we are not supposed to disrupt things. Shall be interesting to see how that plays out in a kindergarten classroom. I’m looking forward to getting a look at what’s happening since Erik won’t tell me anything. Mike doesn’t work tomorrow, so we’ll both get to go. Mom can take care of Elsa, hopefully. She’s been watching her for me here and there, but on Friday Elsa was PISSED. She wouldn’t go to her, look at her, or have anything to do with her. I guess she was tired of mommy leaving. Today she went up and held mom’s hand, so maybe she’ll let us go without too much howling tomorrow.

Ok, gotta end this and go to bed. I’m going to be very sorry I stayed up so late in about seven hours.