School Days

p-butter-jelly-torteSchool has barely started yet and the requests and the obligations are already starting. I am not complaining. I love to do and give. I am the first to respond to the emails offering my services. However, I am wondering where the time goes. Didn’t the kids just get out of school? Didn’t we just begin 12 weeks of lazy days, biking at the beach, basketball in the back yard and staying up late playing Apples to Apples and Bananagrams? Oh, how I am going to miss these long, lazy days of summer.

It is now time to return to packing lunches, the morning rush, the dreaded homework, racing to all the after school, extracurricular activities and driving, driving and more driving. This past week was jam packed. I think I spent almost everyday in the kitchen. I somehow managed to survive.

This torte was the last thing on my very long list. Our school has a tradition of welcoming the teachers and the staff back to school with an appreciation lunch. Nothing says “back to school” like Peanut, butter, and jelly” and this torte was may way of saying, I appreciate all that you do for our community and my children.

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tracy_charlotte.jpgThe song you’ll hear after the jump is about driving my daughter Charlotte’s teenage carpool in 1998.  The absolute horror of it.  All I can remember about it was how much I hated it.  Then, today, I was reading through my journal from back then, and come across the following entry. I must have been writing things for Charlotte to read in later years.  She’s 26 now, so Charlotte, this is for you:

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back_to_school.jpgNow that school is back in full swing (our second week), the dreaded morning scuffle has also returned.

I was hoping a more streamlined ritual would fall into place, but alas it's business as usual.

You see, I have one child who does everything he's supposed to, when he's supposed to do it. I have another child who couldn't be bothered with the type of work and effort it takes to get to school on time.

It's time to get up....."I can't".......It's time for breakfast....."I'm busy"....Are you dressed...teeth brushed...hair combed....shoes on....."no".

Ugh.

It makes me crazy.  I feel like I've tried everything to help facilitate the morning madness but nothing seems to light a fire under his behind.

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breakfastbites3Back in the day, I did buy pre-packaged granola bars. The ones that we were told were “good for you”. The more I got into making homemade everything, the more I realized that most things in a package, bottle, or can contain lots of ingredients that are not only manufactured but one’s that I cannot pronounce.

As of last week, packing lunches has become part of my morning routine. Always a protein, some sort of veggie, a fruit, rice crackers or nuts, water, and if I have it on hand, a little sweet treat. Cutting out gluten is not as challenging as one would assume. It’s more the sweet treat that’s a challenge. I don’t have a” cookie jar” filled with the latest and greatest. Instead, I bake off frozen cookie dough, 8 or 10 at a time, which doesn’t leave a lot of room for leftovers. However, it was more the “granola” type bar that my kids were missing.

After several attempts at a no bake “granola” bar, I was frustrated with them not staying in one piece. Although they tasted good, they fell apart in my kids hands, making them the perfect topping for homemade ice cream. However, I wasn’t looking for toppings. I wanted a bar that I could put in their lunch for snack time. After the first batch, I pulled out my silicone muffin cups and voila, something magical happened.

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military-vintage-sailor-pants-300x300Shopping for vintage clothes was for me something of an art. Or maybe a sport.  I had a little talent for it.  When I was a teenager, I almost exclusively wore antique (what we called it then) dresses.  Shirts and coats as well.  The only vintage pants I remember buying were those old high-waisted navy sailor pants.  Those were so friggin’ bitchin.   But they were made of wool and itchy.  I was all about the look though, and an itch I could tolerate for the look.

When I started driving, I would head out to a favorite store on Wilshire in that strange hood just before Santa Monica, near Barrington.  The Junk Store.  A semi-nasty person owned the place and when I tried to purchase my first item there — a black velvet 1940’s coat with big padded shoulders and white, sorry to say, elephant ivory buttons — I was told to go straight home and get a written note from my parents.  

A lot of parents were coming in complaining about and returning their kids’ purchases.  I thought, “WHAT?  My mother loves my style and everything I buy and wear.  I also make my own money and it’s not my parents’ business.”  But I went along with it, and I’m such a goody-goody that I brought back a legitimate note.  I could have gone outside and written my own.  I’m slow.  Everyone went to The Junk Store for the must-have ski sweater and the patchwork quilts.

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