Birthday MONTH continues, because why not?

Right? Who's with me?!

#BirthdayExtensionPartyPlanningCommittee

Given that birthdays lose a bit of their luster after one turns 21, I think that we should refuse to be constrained to a single day. At the very least, birthdays should be celebrated for an entire weekend, but I'm proposing a full month. I plan to keep dredging all of this up until March, so brace yourselves now. ;-)

And indeed, my weekend was filled with lovely birthday festivities. Thursday evening after our Tea Time together, Mike and I went out for dinner. I put on a new dress, and off we headed to the martini bar, where martinis and Italian food were enjoyed by everybody. I opened some more presents when we got back home, and I felt very spoiled and grateful.

Friday featured a few amusing dance anecdotes that perhaps I'll talk about in this week's Tea Time. One involves a professional gig request that is the epitome of what NOT to do, ugh. Yes, that is better conveyed over a soothing cup of tea, I'm thinking. In other dance news, Sword is super thrilled to be taken to class with me each week for our new troupe choreography, and it looks like he and I will be doing a short balanced floorwork segment at the end that he is VERY excited about. He'd better behave himself, that's all I've got to say. He did well in class on Friday, probably because he knew it was my birthday weekend. ;-)

And birthday weekend indeed, as Anne was invited to her very first classmate birthday party on Saturday, which took place at our local science museum. Birthdays for everybody! She was SO cute, running around with the other kids as they made bubbles and ice cream. Oh, the sugar highs that were managed that late afternoon and evening. Anne was absolutely in her element and thrilled to be a part of my things. My dumpling! She's getting so big. *sniffle*

Speaking of Anne's increased maturity, she has decided of late that she would like to get up out of bed and get dressed in the mornings ALL BY THE SELF. This in fact saves me quite a bit of time, I will grant, but the problem has become the following: at 6:30 am this past Saturday, we hear Anne's little sing song voice as she talked to herself while getting dressed, and then the dreaded: CLICK! of her door opening, with that sinking sensation that there is now a LOOSE CHILD IN THE HOUSE.

Can I tell you how many years it has been since I truly got to sleep in, my friends? Many, many years.

So we came up with the ingenious solution of getting Anne a digital clock for her room, and instructing her on not getting out of bed unless the first number was at least a 7:

"There's a 7, Mommy! See it?"

"No, no, darling, that's 6:27, the 7 is at the end. Remember, it has to be the *first* number? The number closest to your little doll of Our Lady."

Saint dolls doing double duty, right there.


"Oh."

"It would be *even better* if that first number was an 8."

Glory be. If only I had thought to do a little creative "daylight savings time" on her clock for the weekends. Clearly, I have lost too many brain cells in this decade-long lack of sleep program.

Naturally, the first time she has stayed in her room past 7 am on the nose was Monday morning when it was time to go back to school. Naturally.

But no need to dwell on the sleepy. Sunday featured the second weekend of Lent, and lots of announcements in our parish bulletin about upcoming instances of Stations of the Cross, Evening Prayer, and a St. Joseph's Table. Catholic Nerd heaven, right there. And later on Sunday, we journeyed north to my absolute favorite family restaurant, Swiss Chalet. You all know how I feel about Swiss Chalet.

*swoons*

We met my parents there and enjoyed our usual fare of rotisserie chicken and homemade french fries. I usually avoid french fries in restaurants, but at Swiss Chalet I indulge, because, you know, THE CHALET SAUCE. You can dip the french fries in there, and that my friends, is a slice of the afterlife. Mike, trying to make us all look bad, ordered the vegetables instead. ;-) But he doesn't like cauliflower, so he offered those to me. I speared one, and paused.

"You're not going to dip that in the chalet sauce, are you?"

He knows me so well. :0

For the record, I didn't. But I thought about it, I won't lie. ;-)

How was your late February weekend, dear reader? Are you thinking spring yet? I'm not *quite* yet, but I can feel the transition approaching in the air. I have a book review coming tomorrow (check the sidebar for deets!) and then I'm going to start the new Marcus Grodi book, Life From Our Land, which discusses spirituality and simple living. Want to join in?

Of frantic dance prep, upcoming Mass time changes, and voyages to Swiss Chalet...

Morning all! It wasn't an easy weekend in the world news, to be sure. Oftentimes, when I think about heartbreaking situations such as this one, I feel fear, as I'm sure is fairly common. But then I remember the words of our beloved John Paul II, and try not to feel afraid: for my kids, for my friends and family, for our world, for myself. I try. But it's not easy, yes? Let's all stick together and pray for each other and for peace in our world. I know that it brings me some measure of solace to think of us all together in community, and I hope it does you as well.

Around my small part of the world, it's looking very fallen leafy and windswept here in WNY these days, very reminiscent of this photo:

It was a busy weekend for us, as we gear up for the holidays and for Advent. At our parish, the Mass times are changing, which I'm a tad chagrined about, but I'll adjust. I love our 10 am Mass, and it's switching to 11 am, which will at times not be nearly as convenient for us. Right away, early in Advent, we're going to see The Nutcracker for a Sunday matinee show, and the 11 am Mass will get us out too late to make it without rushing quite a bit. I think what will most likely happen is that on weekends like that, we will be attending the vigil Mass. We'll develop a new routine and get used to it, but as we anticipate this I'm mourning our beloved 10 am slot a bit. :)

In cute Catholic kid stuff, Anne relayed a precious story to me on Saturday:

"Mommy, we say the Pledge of Allegiance in school."

"Yes! We always said that in school, too. Have you memorized it?"

"Yes, want to hear?"

Of course I did. :) And she took the duty very seriously.

"That's excellent, sweetheart."

"Mommy, did you know that when you say the Pledge of Allegiance, you only need to put your hand like this, over your heart? And not make the sign of the cross after? My teacher told me."

Oh snort. I can only imagine how this went over in Anne's public pre-K. She must have thought it was like when we say grace at meals. I liked how she automatically wove in the tie between a physical gesture and saying aloud something important, a ritual. She's a natural as a Catholic child. ;-)

In other news, my dance troupe is in heavy rehearsal mode for the hafla this upcoming weekend.We have a bunch of group pieces that we'll be performing, and at this point it's always a hodge podge of old and new numbers, combined in new and exciting ways. ;-) So, we have a new veil piece paired with a new baladi number, but also an old pop piece paired with a new drum, and then our newish Saidi piece as a standalone. 

Solos are going to be in the second set, and mine is in there, towards the end. Lots of time to sweat leading up to that. Although I'm hoping that my little birthday party adventure last month will make me appreciate the easier-to-manage hafla atmosphere this time around, and consequently be less nervous about performing in such venues. I have my music all edited and ready to go, and general idea of how I'd like to structure things in my usual improvisational way. 

Running through my music reminded me that I needed to decide what costume to wear, and so a lot of sewing ensued this weekend. I sew about as well as I bake, so you can only imagine how well these little sessions typically unfold. Mike comes out of his office from grading student papers and finds me casually passing him in the hallway garbed in jeans and a costume top with only half a strap, trailing behind me a super long length of black satin. Anne is adorning the walls with random pieces of adhesive Velcro that I gave her to prevent her from causing too much damage in the notions bag.  

"You're probably wondering what is going on out here, aren't you?"

This is a common occurrence in our house whenever I have a dance gig. ;-) Dance costumes ALWAYS require a lot of sewing. If they're new, they never fit perfectly, and so need a lot of work to make them presentable. If they're old, they're losing beads or need new hooks, or have stretched out a bit and could use some tucking. I did not get a separate costume for when I was pregnant with Anne, I just wore my skirt under my belly throughout the second trimester, if that is any indication of what we're working with here. :0 Our costumes are generally stretchy, but don't maintain the same level of stretchiness over time, for sure and for certain.

So I now have black satin straps on my new black and bronze costume, which I'd like to wear for the solo, but the skirt is extremely heavy and needs some more tucking for it to stay put on my hips. Working on that tonight. We're getting there!

To complete our weekend, Mike asked on Sunday if I'd like to go to dinner at Swiss Chalet. Um, YES. You all know about my love affair with Canadian rotisserie chicken. I *love* it there, and given that we now have to cross an international border to get there, I don't get there as often as I'd like. However, this experience has shown me that it really doesn't take all that long to get to the Niagara Falls, Ontario location, and thus we really need to be doing this much more frequently. ;-) At any rate, we packed up the kids and headed north. Yes, for chicken. 

But it's all about the chalet sauce, remember? And we had a delightful time:

"And I think that that way, we can...wait. What happened to all of your sauce?"

"I ate it. Are you going to use all of yours?"

*I eye his cup like a vulture circling it's prey*

"No, I guess not. But...what else do you dip in there besides the chicken?"

The man is so cutely naive of the ways of the Chalet. If he's going to go all HEALTHY and choose the vegetables over the french fries dipped in sauce, well then I just can't help him. :0

And the waitress who gave me an extra cup of fresh sauce for my takeout container? Let's just say she got a very nice tip. And very nearly a round of applause.

#ChaletSauceRules

What did you do this weekend, dear reader? Write in and tell me all about it. :)

"Are we THERE YET?!" Fun family adventures in the car...

Hi all. I'm going to be up front and admit that I am far too exhausted to even begin finding an image to go with this post. It's just that kind of stretch for me right now. ;-) And the weekend, well...it had its pluses and minuses. I'm trying to look on the bright side of the minuses. So why not settle in with your tea, yes? I need to go brew mine, one sec...

That's better. :) Oh, and look, I worked up some Canva energy:

OK, so Saturday. I haven't even started writing the details yet, and I already heaved a long suffering sigh. It was like this: Mike and I decided to surprise the kids and get us all tickets to Medieval Times. Super, duper fun, right? I've never been there before, though Mike has been to the location in Orlando. We don't have a local one, but there is one in Toronto, which is about an hour and a half drive for us. The tickets were discounted for the end of the summer, and we figured PERFECT! We bought the tickets, loaded the kids up in the car, and off we went.

I think that this is a lesson in when when things seem too good to be true, and all that? Yep, that. :0 We headed to the Canadian border. Only a small wait, no problem. We drove north. Also, no problem. An hour later, we are on the outskirts of Toronto and here is where things turn ominous. There is a LOT of traffic coming from the other direction. Glad that's not us!!!

#epicfail

As we exit the Queen Elizabeth Way, we become ensnared in a traffic jam. No sweat. This is The Big City, traffic is normal, and we left nearly two hours of buffer time before the show started at 4:30. We knew that this particular location of Medieval Times had no parking lot, so we were at the mercy of public or street parking, and we built in plenty of time.

We missed the street we were looking for, so we had to press on until we could turn back, inching along all the while. By this point, I really need to use the restroom, but didn't want to say anything, because I figured we were almost there. Right?

Let me make a long story short: It took us over an hour from that point to even approach Medieval Times due to the traffic, and parking? Nonexistent. And do you want to know why? The Canadian National Exhibition. In Toronto. Which we hadn't realized prior to that moment. :-\ Cars EVERYWHERE. It was taking us twenty minutes to move less than a mile. No wonder the tickets were discounted.

And when I say that parking was nonexistent, I'm not using hyperbole. There were public lots charging an exorbitant amount to park there. We were willing to pay it. And they were FULL. Street parking? I won't even bother snorting out loud, the idea is so preposterous. There was nothing.

At first, we had held out hope for a lot, and so navigated somewhat away from Medieval Times in our quest. By the time we realized the dire nature of our situation, it was far too late to salvage our tickets. Mike couldn't even drop us off at that point and lose just his ticket sitting in traffic. The kids and I couldn't even walk to the place from our current trapped location, and the show was starting. So after our hour and a half drive, we spent two additional hours in traffic. All to no avail. Right in the heart of the city, the snarl was so bad that we were moving millimeters at a time. We were imprisoned in traffic, and made the difficult decision to abandon hope of getting to Medieval Times.

Crankiness abounded in the car as we finally were able to get back on the highway. The kids were disappointed. My bladder was about to burst. And we still had an hour and a half drive home. Good times.

"Do you want to stop for dinner somewhere?"

Mike was trying to cheer me up.

"I want to go to Swiss Chalet."

The kids weren't the only ones who were cranky. :0 And at that point, Swiss Chalet was the only thing that could make me happy.

I'm certain Canadians probably wonder why I have such a love affair with a casual chicken and ribs restaurant, but there you have it. It's a Canadian based chain, but we used to have a few in WNY when I was growing up. I LOVE their food. But the American locations all closed some years ago, and so the only way to get my Swiss Chalet fix is to cross the border. Which does seem a bit extreme for a simple quarter chicken dinner, I will grant. But want to know the secret? Their Chalet Sauce. That stuff is like an addictive controlled substance to me. And it's hard to describe. It's thick, like barbecue sauce, but it tastes different from any other sauce I've ever consumed.

*swoons*

We found a Swiss Chalet sign off the next exit and exited. We were soon ensconced at a table, me ordering my chicken dinner with delight. Usually, when french fries are an option with a meal, I choose something else. Trying to eat healthy, and all of that. But I am a firm believer in balance, and sometimes you should allow yourself to eat the food (even if it isn't the healthiest option in the world) that you enjoy. At Swiss Chalet, I always order the fries, because then you can dip them in the Chalet Sauce.

#boom

We let the kids order whatever they wanted, trying to make up for the disastrous afternoon, and soon they were both happily sipping some sort of S'mores milk with marshmallows. Henry and Mike both ordered chicken as well (Anne opted for cheeseburger sliders) and so when our food came, the waitress delivered three bowls of Chalet Sauce. Henry didn't want his, so I quickly co-opted it. Mike was dubious:

"What are you going to do with all that sauce?"

Oh he of little faith in The Power of The Chalet Sauce. We were all starving from our ill fated road trip, and made quick work of our meals.

"How's your chick...wait. Where did all that sauce go?"

"I ate it."

I seized the opportunity with him being distracted to dip a fry in his own cup of sauce.

"Wow."

Clearly, we need to indoctrinate him further on the Ways of the Chalet. By the time we had all eaten, we were feeling a lot better. We still had over an hour to go in the car, but it was much easier to manage going back.

Later, after the kids were in bed, Mike and I had cocktails and watched "Wayward Pines." Although the day didn't go as planned, we made the best of a bad situation.

How was your weekend, dear reader? :)