Contraband Confections

My creativity is being stifled! My goal of being the most-hated snack mom in the school district is in danger of being crushed. Last night, as I began creaming the butter and sugar for some scary but delicious Yummy Mummy cookies http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipes/detail.asp?id=8073&page=1&per=1&keyword=yUMMY%20mUMMY#content_area I suddenly remembered: only STORE BOUGHT foods are allowed for school parties! What is a creative, recognition-mad mom to do? I scoured the school and district web-sites for loop-holes, but to no avail: the policy is not even mentioned. How can I get around a policy if it isn't even publicly proclaimed? I guess I could have claimed ignorance in hopes the teachers would make an exception, but I ended up taking the cookies to the parent-teacher meeting instead. The remaining cookies went to the teacher's kitchen for the staff to eat.

Wait a minute--I can feed the teachers and staff, but not the children?! Just what is the purpose of this ban, anyway? In the absence of actual facts, I have come up with my own list of possible rationales:
1. The school district is afraid some rabid parent will want to poison all the children in a classroom, including their own. Apparently they are not worried a parent will try to poison a teacher, however.
2. The administration is concerned about food-borne illness. But how many cases of food poisoning have ever been linked to school cupcakes? If we were bringing in day-old fried chicken or raw eggs, it might be a valid concern, but for cookies and candy?
3. Allergies. Of course, if they were really worried about allergies, they would have bans on specific foods, like peanuts, instead of just all home-made stuff.
4. The grocers lobby has successfully infiltrated the district administration in hopes of increasing sales.

I think the most likely answer is a group creativity-challenged parents just wants to level the playing field. If they don't have the time or inclination to Google "Halloween cookies" and make Yummy Mummy Cookies for their kids, none of us should be allowed to do it. I guess I'll have to think of another unworthy ambition...maybe most-hated costume maker? I still have sixteen hours before they get on the bus on Halloween morning.

No Leaves, but Plenty of Pine Needles

We had the first winter storm of the season Friday. It dumped some snow--not measurable, but also left lots of pine needles to clean up. We thought we were escaping the fall raking tradition--boy were we wrong.

But, as "green" as Oregon is, most people burn the needles vs bagging and having them hauled to the landfill. I guess after months of smelling wildfire, a few more pine needles to reduce fuel for future fires isn't so bad, is it?

About 90% Open and 50% in Final Resting Place

Victory is within reach...one garage bay is clear and car capable, the other is about 2 weeks away from the same status. Julia and I spent about 5 hours opening, sorting and relocating boxes in the house and garage. We also made a trip to Home Depot to look for a better clothes hanging system then the 9 1/2 foot wood dowel that served as the previous occupant's closet. We put the first 30 or so items on the dowel and one of the plastic end supports gave out. We certainly didn't want a full closet collapse like at our last house, so we've had stuff hanging on our roll around racks we bought in Germany (land of no closets). $50-60 and we should be good to go. Julia is getting into the idea of getting to design her own closet interior.

Anyway, here are a couple pictures of our garage with the car inside and a wall of boxes to its left.

Back in instant contact again, finally

Yesterday, Todd the Cable Guy came out to the house to "install" our cable. Not sure why it takes just a phone call to "uninstall" but a scheduled "anytime" (any time between 8am and 7pm) visit, three weeks later to "install." But that's how it works. Finally we're back online! Huzzah!

School conferences were last night, today and tomorrow, depending on which school. The middle school is crazy--all the teachers are at tables scattered around the "commons" (aka lunch room) and you have find your kid's teachers, figure out who is waiting for that teacher and not the teacher next to yours, then stand in line behind them. Fifteen or twenty or forty minutes later, you get to sit down with the teacher, in the huge, noisy room, to discuss your kid's grades, in front of the other families who are waiting in line. Fortunately, the room is noisy enough you don't have to worry about everyone there hearing all about your child's shortcomings. Then you repeat this process up to seven times. Wow, fun.

It was so much fun, we left after talking to two teachers. I'd been informed by another mom waiting in line, that Wednesday night is the worst time to go--everyone is hoping to get their conferences out of the way so they can take off for a four-day weekend. So now one of us will have to go back tonight to finish the job. The same mom told me tonight should be very sparsely attended so it should go quickly. We'll see how reliable her information is. I should have gotten her references.

Speaking of references, we've been filling out "background" check information out the wazoo! Fortunately, as David pointed out, unlike your credit score, your background check score doesn't get lowered every time someone runs a check. These days everyone wants to check your background: the school if you volunteer more than once in a blue moon, the church if you help out with religious ed at all, the Girl Scouts if your daughter is a Daisy and you just want to help the troop during meetings. You'd think they could figure out how to work together on this and only pay for it once.

Fall is definitely here. It has been a real Winnie-the-Pooh-style blustery day today--windy, rainy and sunny all at once. There was even some snow mixed in the rain! Fortunately, the pines in this part of the country have deep roots, so we're not too worried about one falling on this house.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

And to really top it off, here are some catch-ups on the photos from this month:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?&conn_speed=1&collid=8537530603.486035624503.1192759045139&mode=fromsite

Quick Update

Hi all,

Our furniture is here and our garage is full of boxes. We took delivery Sunday. The mover’s claim we had 25,000 lbs of stuff and that was after the re-weigh. That’s bad news, ‘cause if the government follows up we’ll owe for the extra weight stored and moved. As always, there was some damaged and missing items. The most notable was that about half of the kiddos big Rainbow swingset is MIA…that will be expensive to replace.

In other news, Bridget will be visited by the tooth fairy again tonight. She has lost a second tooth since the last blog entry.

David made it back from Virginia in near record time after a stop for 2 days in NY. Thanks to the team of Karen and Juliet for taking the van to the airport and finding an easy spot to find it at 6 AM when he arrived from the redeye flight.

More soon with some new pictures.