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Easter is Sunday in case you forgot like my mom.  We tend to keep it simple.  A few of us gather together and we cook and drink and basically just hang out with each other for the day.  Don’t forget I’m Puerto Rican.  That means we eat and drink for everything.  The drinking part made me think of one of my favorite drinks to have right when it starts to get warm on through to summer time.  It’s similar to a “Lime Ricky” drink but a little more simplified which makes it a little cheaper to make and well, saving money makes me smile.  :)  <– See

Anyhoo.  This drink is really refreshing.  If you like lime flavored drinks you’ll love it.  I am NOT a lime flavor type of girl and even I love this drink. The flavor is subtle and the frozen juice I use has a perfectly balanced flavor to it - not too sour or sweet.  If you try it this weekend with your friends and family, let me know what you thought of it.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Gin ~ Use the brand of your choice. I use whatever I find on sale that day.
1 Liter of Club Soda
1 Whole Lime ~ If you want a garnish. They are usually very inexpensive.
1 Small Can of Frozen Minute Maid Limeade
1 Serving Pitcher

Directions:

Take the gin, all of the club soda, and the whole can of limeade and mix it in a serving pitcher.  I usually slice up the lime and put all the slices in the pitcher.  You can slice them up and just use them as a cute garnish on the glass if you don’t want the actual fruit in your drink.  Make this drink early in the day and set it in the fridge to get chilled.  If it’s still not cold enough by the time your guests arrive serve with some ice.  It taste best when it is served really cold.

This drink usually goes over well during spring and summer because it has such a refreshing taste to it.  It’s also easy on the waste because it’s very low in calories.  The dieters of the group can have a few of these if they wanted to.  It’s cheap to make and low in calories?  I’m sold!  I hope you will be too.  By the way feel free to add more or less gin.  One cup is VERY subtle.  Most people say they can barely taste it.  Sometimes I’ll put more if I want it a little stronger.

My favorite way to drink this is with one lime slice thrown into the glass half full of crushed ice.  I love chomping on ice so this has become my preferential way of drinking it.  You try it though and make it how you want it.  Let me know what you think.

Enjoy!!

Wednesday we went to Busch Gardens - a benefit of my brother working for Anheuser Busch.  We had a late start to our day there, but it is truly for the best.  It makes for a less grumpy hubby.  We were only there about 4 1/2 hours yet, we were all as exhausted as we would have been had we been there 8 hours.  We got to see some animal exhibits and ride some rides.  All in all it was a good day.

The only possible complaint about the park itself I have was the parking attendant that greeted us at the gate where you pay for parking.  Because of my pass we get free parking.  When we pulled up to the window my husband held out the pass and the attendant let out a forced “Hi.” as she snatched the pass out of his fingers.  She didn’t even make eye contact.  I just stared at her thinking she was going to say something more or at least crack a smile.  She probably felt a hole burning into the side of her head.  I know this ain’t Disney but for the amount of money I pay - I mean other people  pay - we damn well should get a smile of some sort.  She looked miserable.  Really miserable.  I believe had someone said something to tick her off she would have exploded.  I almost wanted to say something but I waited until my husband pulled away to gripe at HIM of course for HER wrong doing.  I grilled him on what her name was so I could report her but he didn’t notice it.  I NEVER report anyone so for me to want to report someone means they had to be really horrible.  Maybe she had a bad day or something.  Who knows.

The only other thing that bothered me was the lines.  The lines themselves were fine as far as waiting goes, it was my children that bothered me.  Clearly the person who designed the barricades that stream line your waiting doesn’t have kids.  Most of the barricades are metal bars attached in such a way that it visually transforms into a jungle gym the second a child sees it hence, leading to a frenzy of climbing and yelling - well not yelling, more like low, jaw wrenching, teeth gritting, “Get down now.  You’re hitting the person behind you.” type of conversations.  Apparently those aren’t loud enough because they forget ten seconds later and I find the teeth are still clinched but the voice is a little louder, “I. Said. Get. Off. Noooow.”  It wasn’t just my children.  It was most.  There were parents that didn’t opt for stealth like myself.  One mom let everyone hear how unhappy she was with her child.  By the third time mine climbed up while we were waiting for this one particular ride, I had to say something.  Only, I didn’t say anything at all.  I slowly yet firmly put my hand around their arms and squeezed ever so slightly while I gave the ultimate glare telepathically telling them they are going to die if they don’t stop.  Funny how my silence worked better.  Didn’t have to say another word.

Ahhhh, what good family fun!

Yesterday was Jordyn’s birthday.  He turned 7.  His birthday made me think about my age more than my own ,probably because my husband said, “Him turning 7 so fast just means we are getting older just as fast.”  What every woman wants to hear.  How old we are getting.  I didn’t dwell on it long because when I turned thirty I pondered my age thoroughly.  Turning thirty is a milestone of sorts.  You can no longer blame the stupidity of your twenties yet you have enough life experiences to actually have a snippet of wisdom to offer others younger than you.  You see, I couldn’t dwell on turning thirty two because I want to save all my strength for when I turn forty.  I can only imagine the thoughts and emotions that will pop up.

Seeing Jordyn turn seven is a joy.  I can remember every minute of my labor and delivery all the way up until the morphine.  It’s a little fuzzy after that for a couple days - morphine and vicodin will do that to you.  I remember my hormones raging and how I didn’t immediately click into this blissful motherhood role I was embarking on.  Then, two weeks after I had him home I was rocking him back to sleep at about 3 a.m. when suddenly I was more awake than I had ever been before in my life.  I looked at him and thought to myself, “Look what you did.  You have this amazing little person that you created and now you have to make sure he grows up to be a man that you would be proud of.  I’m a mother.  I’m someone’s mother.  Oh damn, I’m someone’s mother.  Oh.  My.  God.  I’m someone’s mother.”  I sobbed by myself while holding him in that chair as if I had JUST given birth to him.  To look at him now, seven years later, with a newly lost tooth, interests in reading, sports and video games amazes me.  He’s becoming his own person and exploring things he enjoys.  Is he a perfect little angel?  No.  There a lots of times I want to ring his neck.  Yesterday wasn’t one of them.

This weekend I celebrated my 32nd birthday.  I had a great day with my family.  I woke up to the kids yelling, “Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaapppy Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirthday Mom!!!”  They gave me some cards they made.  After we got dressed my husband and the kids took me to Dunkin Donuts for breakfast.  After that we had to go to the store from some medicine because I was sick.  You would think it would suck to be sick on your birthday but the combination of my good mood and good meds the hubby pumped me up with kept me going all day.  I had some sort of either upper respiratory infection or sinus infection.  At any rate despite the illness it was good.

Shortly after we got home my Mom surprised me by showing up at the house with my younger brother.  She was carrying a gift bag, two pizzas and a balloon.  She bought me some work out gear since I’ve been exercising, which has paid off because I started 2 weeks ago and have lost 3lbs so far.  Yay me!  She also made me a cooking apron to wear over my clothes because I constantly ruin shirts with all the cooking I do - must be all the grease from the fried foods I make.  I’m Puerto Rican, I can’t help the grease.

After the gift exchange we had to run to the store for some things.  When we got back my husband was making dinner.  He made chicken parm and pasta for all of us.  Then, they surprised me with a birthday cake.  It was a simple cake from our local grocery store.  Funny how I didn’t notice the fact that my name was spelled wrong until today when I went to upload the pictures onto my computer.  How did four adults miss that?  I have an excuse - I was highly medicated.  What’s everyone else’s?

I was shopping today for some jeans and some shorts.  I went to many different stores and couldn’t find anything.  My husband will never complain about me being a shopaholic because I don’t buy something unless I really want it and it’s within the price range I want.  Anyway, I’ve put on some pounds so none of my shorts and capris are fitting me the same.  The weather is getting hot again so I needed to get some stuff.

After about 3 hours of looking at clothes, trying them on and looking some more, I bought a total of 2 shirts.  I didn’t mind so much until I realized nothing was fitting me right-too big in some parts, too small in others.  Apparently I didn’t feel chunky enough so Marshall’s decided to help me along with that.  It was one of the last stores I went into so I already walked in with contempt towards the place because it’s really the store’s fault that nothing I tried on in the previous 2 1/2 hours fit. (insert sigh here)

There was a lot of great stuff that caught my eye.  I noticed most of their clothes ran XS, S, M, L and XL instead of the dreaded numbers ranging from anorexic..oh…I mean zero to fourteen.  While I was looking through one section of clothes I noticed everything I was looking at was XS which is obviously the wrong section for me-in shirts I wear an XL most of the time.  I carry all my weight in my mid section and back so I like my clothes to be a little loose.

Back to my point.  I looked around to see if there were dividers to differentiate the sizes and there were.  I quickly noticed in addition to the dividers their sizes are nicely color coded.  I looked around and finally saw the XL section and immediately noticed what color it was.  I found myself rolling my eyes and saying aloud, “Thaaaaanks.” The woman in the next row just looked up at me and then looked around trying to see who I was talking to.  I said, “Me.  I’m talking to me.”  She gave me a nod, moved her eyes back down to the clothes and kept sifting through them like I never said anything.  She knew she didn’t want none of this.

I really stood there for a minute staring at the colors of the sizes.  XS was a bright and happy shade of sunshine yellow.  S was a beautiful pastel baby blue color.  M was a vibrant red.  L was a dark murky purple.  Finally,  my size XL was the color of death, black.

Black?  Really?

Why couldn’t we be a green for “Go ahead and eat another big mac…you’ll still look good in this shirt guuurl.”  Or why couldn’t it be a lovely shade of orange for “Go ahead and wear this bright orange blouse chunky, people will see you a mile away.”  Even white would have been great for “I’m at peace with my XL wearing self.”

It’s a well known fact colors have different meanings.  The psych major in me wonders how the colors were chosen.  Of course you do know if I was a size XS I wouldn’t have noticed the colors.  I would have either been too damn happy to notice or too damn hungry to care.

Aryanna’s room has been a mess for a couple weeks.  It looks like it threw up on itself with stuff everywhere.  I don’t understand how a five year old little girl can be so messy.  She just drops her clothes where she takes them off before bath time or leaves her pj’s wherever they fall when she’s getting dressed.  She doesn’t understand that it’s actually a little more work to let them drop on the floor and have to walk around them or step over them or even kick them out the way to get to where you want to get to in your bedroom.

It took her 2 hours to clean her room today.  Two hours.  Two hours to clean something that would have taken me 15 minutes.  I do so much though that I decided to use this as a lesson.  Last time her room was this messy we BOTH cleaned it.  Not this time.  I refused to help.

She spent some time trying to bargain “I’ll do half today and half tomorrow.”  or “How about you help me?” with a huge smile planted as if I’m going to jump up with joy and say, “I’d looooooove to help you clean yet another mess in this house that I had NO hand in making.  Oh really??  Can I? Can I? Can I?”.

Now even though I refused to help, I did support by way of staying in the room and giving her instructions like a drill sargeant through a mini megaphone.  Really.  It was soooooo much fun being so bossy.  I wonder if it would work on my husband.

A girl can wish.

She thought the drill sergeant act was hilarious.  I just kept giving her small tasks at first and then the lists got a little harder-by a five year old’s standards.  We took a five minute break after the first hour.  I was going to let her do a little today and then a little tomorrow but her father had already said she needed to finish it all today.  Of course I stood in the united front against her and made her do it alllll today.  I had to exercise some major restraint because the housewife in me wanted to rip through that room like a tornado and have it done but I think she’ll never put every toy and piece of clothing possible, under her bed again-not after having to crawl under it and take everything back out again and then put whatever she took out away in it’s proper place.

When we laid down for bed she looked at me and asked, “Why did I have to clean my whole room all today?”

Me:  “Because Dad said you needed to clean it all today.”

Her:  “But you said I could do half today and half tomorrow.”

Me:  “Yeah well, that was before I knew Daddy had already said you had to do it all today.  So I have to listen to Daddy.”

She looked at me the same way I would look at her if she had told me that she “had” to listen to any man.  She raised one eyebrow, shook her head, gently put her hand on my cheek and said, “Mommy use your own brain.  It’s what I do.  I just pretend I’m doing what I’m upposed to but I just ignore it.”

Me:  “It’s supposed to, not upposed to.  And ignoring what your told to do is what get’s you in trouble because we eventually notice you are not doing what you’re supposed to.”

She raised her eyebrow again, smiled and said, “Heh.  Not always.”   Then she turned around and laid her head on her pillow.

I gave up.

I confess.  Lately I have been in an epic battle with writer’s block.  I have been struggling with this for weeks.  After New Year’s I was doing so well…posting every single day or every other day…then BAM…I hit the brick wall.  I’ve been really trying to figure out what my problem is and I KNOW precisely what is wrong.

I am just one of those pencil to the paper kind of girls.  Writing for me is cathartic.  I prefer writing in a notebook and then copying what I’ve written onto the computer.  For some reason, when I’m writing on paper my thoughts flow out of me smoothly and at some point after I get started in my writing, my pencil becomes unrelenting in it’s mission to transcribe the thoughts in my brain to the words on the page.

So that is one part of my problem.  The other part - and this will come as no surprise - is that I forget what the heck I wanted to write about by the time I get to sit down at the computer.  I will sometimes sit and stare blankly at my screen as if the monitor is going to play back what happened over the course of the day in an effort to remind me of what I wanted to talk about when I suddenly blurted out at some point, “Oh I have got to blog about that today.”  Short of video recording myself all day, I need to carry a notebook and pencil or one of those pocket voice recorders so that every time I have a thought about something I want to blog about, I can jot a quick note down.

I am seriously going to try this strategy and see how it pans out.  I’ll be letting you.  Well actually, I guess if you start seeing more frequent posts again you’ll know it worked. :)   Now I remember why I never make New Year’s resolutions.  I NEVER keep them as you see.  Not all of them anyhow.