I had a lovely evening with the girls. Three of us left the bakery at the same time and so today we got together to see a movie and have dinner. We talked about a lot of different things including our time at the bakery. We laughed a lot! I gave the one Elf a pretty pie server and told her it was her scepter because she was Queen of the pies, cookies and brownies. And I gave the Icing Elf a pretty new icing knife and told her it was her scepter because she was Queen of the Icing. (The kid could make icing better than anyone including BL!) They seemed to appreciate that and it made me happy to do it. I noticed that three of us left with nothing out of the ordinary from BL, no token of appreciation, no real acknowledgement at all. I got a hug because I asked for one, that was it. I didn’t want it left that way, we each made a significant contribution to her business. That sort of thing deserves to be recognized. Little did I know they had both been promised that they’d be able to learn how to decorate cakes and possibly move up into my position – which would have been entirely possible for the one girl who has a real natural talent for such things. But it was like a lot of things, it never materialized for them and I didn’t know until it was too late. Just like the things I was promised. Oh well. None of us got what we hoped for there. And in the end, the fact that BL would promise one thing and deliver another came back to roost. And yet we each genuinely care about her. I guess that’s what made it all so hard. We laughed, we reminisced and then it was over. A lovely evening.
]]>Saturday evening we spent by the river in Bridgewater with family. My Aunty and Uncle are back in the country from an extended time in Trinidad. They are in the middle of a mission term there of two years helping the Mennonite church there. And it was our only chance at seeing them while they are back on furlough. So we had a delightful time catching up with them and enjoying my family. We’ve got some exceptional Mennonite cooks in the family and it’s always great to see what they’ve brought from the garden or pantry. We took hubby’s home-made chocolate chip oatmeal cookies garnished with the expensive cookies I brought from work. They were a hit. A cousin’s child nearly grabbed the plate right out of my hand before I got to the table. He’s a cutie cute! (And a rather hyper one after all the cookies he got that evening.)
One pair of cousins are starting the adoption process and working on a domestic adoption through a tiny little Christian adoption agency. Believe it or not, their agency has taken all the legal and intrusive paperwork and ratcheted it up about four notches by trying to have the couple PROVE that they are Christians, very conservative ones. They have to sign a paper that there will never be alcohol in their home. We already had to sign that we would not use corporal punishment. I was listening to her talk and just thinking to myself that what she was describing was soooo over the top. But she just kept saying what a ministry it was. Good for them but I’m not religious enough to want to spend an additional month on paperwork to prove my religion on top of every other aspect of “worthiness” I have to already prove in order to buy a child. With domestic adoption the parents have to be chosen by the birth mom. They’ve only dealt with infertility for three and a half years, not like our fifteen, so they don’t mind all that I guess. I, on the other hand, knew that after all I’ve been through in these fifteen years did not want to put my future at the whim of a fertile sixteen year old. It’s not like there aren’t children out there in the earth just waiting for parents. With our international adoption it won’t be about some Mom choosing us out of a book because she liked my eyes and my hubby’s tan and we happened to be wearing her favorite color or some equally ridiculous and arbitrary attribute beyond our control. So anyway, it was an interesting evening and we enjoyed spending time with family!
Monday morning we were off to the Professional building to paint a suite of offices for my landlord. He’s going to give me free art studio rent in June for painting these offices for him. Hubby put down paper, spackled all the holes and took down switch plates. I rolled the walls and then we both started with trim. We got a good bit done but had to quit in time for another party Saturday evening.
By that time I was really tired but we showed up for the 3:00 Memorial Day party with a group of friends and enjoyed some more great food including pulled pork that had been on the grill for hours. And a friend of mine brought a cake and acted very embarrassed about it in front of me which was funny. It did look rather sad, like the icing had been put on while the cake was still hot and had just melted into the cake. We took a watermelon and the cookies that hubby had made garnished with the expensive cookies I bought from work. They put a couple kites in the air in the back yard while it was sprinkling. That was fun. Then it rumbled real loud and they started to bring down the kites and I hid under the overhang of the house enjoying the cooler temperature and the occasional raindrop on my skin. After we got home I curled up on the sofa and didn’t move much until I woke myself up enough to go off to bed.
]]>Yesterday Mom and I both had some time off work so we went shopping for chocolate and ingredients for the chocolate for our “Art & Chocolate” fund raiser. “Art & Chocolate” is a fund raiser we are planning for our adoption process of bringing home our children from Colombia. It was good to have her along and I was surprised how supportive she was and interested in brainstorming for other chocolate formula ideas. She is an expert at this and it’s good to have her as a resource. It will be interesting to see how all these formulas come together. I have more testing to do. I have so many pounds of excellent quality chocolate at my house… it must be close to heaven. Maybe after the pressing projects of this week are done I can start in with the first stages of prep. Now that is going to be fun!
My parents were not going to come to the “Art & Chocolate” fund raiser because of a scheduling conflict with their small group and seeing friends they haven’t seen in a long time. But when she heard that hubby’s parents were coming in from Indiana for the event, it really turned the tide for her. I think she pretty much decided on the spot that they wouldn’t be able to go to their small group thing after all. It’s hard to want to be in two places at once and I knew the choice was hard for them. However, I just got a call that they are coming and bringing the whole small group to the event. Yay! Some of those folks are loaded – so it will be lovely to have them there from a financial perspective. They are close friends of my parents, so that means there will be the emotional connection. They are generous and good people. And they have a tradition of making chocolate together each Christmas. So the event is perfect for them. I am delighted!
]]>I had a delightful weekend with Ginger Sister here! The hubby made pizza dough and we loaded up the crusts with all sorts of marvelous goodies and loads of cheese. Yummmm… We spent a little time with her playing my piano (which sounded so cool!) and the two of us singing together. If I wasn’t singing on the worship team we’d have played hookie, but since I did we went to church. We ended up singing twice in the service Sunday. First was "606" which came with a heavy dose of nostalgia for me and sounded really cool with two sopranos though we both missed the tenors and basses just a wee bit. I took the high part and she put together elements of the alto, tenor and bass lines and made her own part. Yeah baby! We also sang a Misty Edwards song at the end which got a really good response. I Loooooooooove singing with Ginger Sister again after all these years! How I wishes that my music buddies lived sooo much closer! I tried to tell her that there was this adorable little cottage available to rent that would be perfect for her. I guess it didn’t look enough like London to entice her. Tsk! And she was willing to play carrier pigeon to our adoption announcements to save us money on postage to our friends that live near her. That was lovely. Yes indeedy!
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