Make It Work // Week 31

I have to wake up before everyone so I can a.) get a little computer time in and b.) make sure the 17 yr. old is up for summer school, he’s taking half a semester over to improve his grade and increase college admission chances, bottom line momma (and dad) don’t accept no Ds. I told him I did the same thing when I was his age, I pulled a D in Biology my Junior year, or maybe I failed I can’t remember either way I DQ’d myself from going to Cheer camp that summer. The only way I could attend was to go to summer school and return with nothing less than a C. I got an A and my mom picked me up and drove me straight to SDSU for camp. Teen crisis adverted. I know my anecdotes don’t really help but I do try to encourage him, and tell him if there ever was a time to work hard its NOW. We are in the process of working with an advisor to help with the whole process, something I am EXTREMELY grateful for. A few people have mentioned after reading my posts they feel tired because I am fitting in so much into seven little days. Well can you imagine me adding in the daunting task of figuring out my son’s aptitude, what schools are best suited for him while helping him study fort he next round of ACTs? Yeah me neither. If you can swing that level of service, let me tell you its worth every penny. They do things like assessment tests for aptitude and vocation as well as targeted ACT study courses in areas where he can improve. I have a hard time believing at this time next month we will have a firm college app list underway.  This time NEXT YEAR (God willing) we will be moving him into a dorm (room) yelp. It’s all happening so fast.

Monday morning I have to get the younger one to fashion camp first. In my infinite wisdom I thought I would get more work done if she was doubled booked. You know what, I was wrong, totally wrong. I spent more time driving back and forth then I did working and after the first night of Twilight Camp camp (3-8pm) Super A was b-e-a-t, by Saturday exhausted, I think she slept 14 hours that night.

Camp Make It Work

Her first Project Runway-esque challenge was to create a dress, she said she was given 4 minutes to sketch and 10 to construct. Can you guess which is hers?

 Camp Do-You-Wanna- Swap

First SWAP done. I sign her in at our school adjacent to the park turn around rush home and try to get more work done. Some of you have been asking me what I do. When I’m not creating photos I am working at a desk just like many of you, although sometimes I have slippers on. I consult for a local company that has a support role in how you shop online hopefully you are already shopping at ShopBop (below) and for men: East Dane, the company is fun fast paced and I lend a hand in financial stuff and HR. I am very lucky I have both and office here and away (see Week 27 when we moved to our new space ).

 I go home to deal with this, yeah that is what my desk looked like Monday and guess what, it still looks like that a week later, different coffee cup. The view is much better after last week’s project.

Cold pressed juices make the best champagne cocktails. Mommy’s little helper with antioxidants.

Grilled Flank Steak

My summer staple. Easy recipe: here we go.  Place a flank steak in a resealable bag add juice from 1 lime, 1/4 C Soy Sauce, 2 cloves of ginger minced (or frozen cubes) splash of olive oil, orange juice, 2 TBL of honey, ginger powder or freshly grated and a dash of worcestershire sauce. Seal and leave it in the fridge for 6 hrs. or overnight <<-best. I place mine on very hot grill for 5-6 minutes and then flip for 5 minutes more then I move it to indirect heat (either other side where burners are off or top rack, close lid and let it finish for another 4-5 – it all depends on the thickness. you have to let it rest so the juice can redistribute. DO NOT throw out any juices that collect on plate dump that into your sauteed mushroom pan heat up for a minute and whammo flavor boost. Slice flank steak at an angle with a serrated knife to get nice even slices. Should be pink in the middle.

cleaning out old stuff making room for her new ‘Prairie’ desk coupled with her pouf/storage/chair. Remember this used to be the camo room. Its slowly finishing, v-e-r-y-s-l-o-w-l-y.

Day 2 of GSTC

Wednesday its my turn to volunteer, this was a requirement in order for Super A to participate, you wouldn’t be surprised if I told you there were not enough volunteers to accommodate all the campers so they ‘drafted’ some. Although I bitched and whined my way through the training, and the test and the gazillion SWAPS made, I have to say it was really fun. You meet others who drank the Kool Aid too and you realize that doing FUN things with your kids is not necessarily a BAD thing.  I wasn’t even placed with my own daughter but that may have been by choice I can’t recall. Either way my group and hers rotated together through stations and she had plenty of mom time.

This camp is very much like the camp I went to as a scout myself. From the looks of our t-shirts this was Daisy Faire Day Camp Laguna Niguel 1980. That’s me in the Boston cap. You can see where I spent my summahs. PS one of my blog readers is in this photo with me and its not my sister.

Here’es my sister. The back of this photo says “Leslie standing in front of my game poster. 81” I remember those camps, there was a huge swimming pool and all I remember is the adults warning us if we peed in it a dark blue trail would result and we would be yanked. I can’t believe I fell for that but I’m sure it worked.

Day 4 – I was called up again the next day as an emergency fill in. As I left in a hurry (as I always do) I heard the sound of gushing water. The washer drain hose became dislodged and emptied its entire contents of hot bleach-y water filling my 4′ x 20′ room.  Oye! Thankfully I had just done a huge load of beach towels and down they went. At least when you are at camp you forget about all your worries. It was fun and I recommend if you have a girl scout that you go through the training so you can volunteer to be an RA at one of these events. And here’s a tip you can BUY SWAP kits on eBay! WHY DIDN’T I EVEN THINK OF THIS!?!? I was only told to check out Pinterest for ideas.

See that middle photo, this was the pièce de résistance, a hand crocheted SWAP and a Gecko at that. The adult admin. bless her heart would bring an allotment and there would be a line at head quarters that would always end abruptly and not without groaning. I was so happy to see we came home with a rainbow one on the very last day. Whew. Camp was great and I didn’t lose a single child. A funny side story one of the camper parents came to pick up his daughter and we know each other from high school, 30 years and we still recognized one another!

Friday Friday Friday … quick trip to the office to gather up mail and files to work on and then rush to make the fashion show happening on the last day of fashion camp.

Totes Adorb

Look at what she she made …. circle skirt, bag and hair band.

Friday I cooked. Halleluja here’s my fast and easy Pork Chops. Recipe to come….

The weekend was another blast from the past, my dearest childhood friend was here from Oregon, she has been up north since leaving sunny So Cal after college.  We basically grew up together, her mom (photo below in sunglasses)  is the one who introduced me to Dutch toast and I was forever changed. We all miss Hanneke, she left the party way too soon.

Class of 86′

 Her big brothers new wheels.

Best friends don’t let you go out in public in head-to-toe cheetah alone. Leslie you got lucky with the mask.

I think the last time we saw one another our kids were toddlers. We met up with my sister for dinner Saturday night. The seafood stuffed chili relleno was totally worth the hour and a half wait for a table. Those are shrimp taquitos by the way.

  DOCTOR! DOCTOR!  …. Thompson Twins concert and (the original) Jellies.

Get used to this BIG 80s  flashback stuff, I’m using this blog as mojo to get my ass out of this chair and into my garage to scan old albums.

And here’s where we get meta or blog about blogging. This is my Sunday. I usually download my photos, save the week’s iPhone photos in backup #2 (dropbox is synced to grab copies via WiFi for backup #1) I usually do some light editing in LightRoom. I finally opened the photos from Week 30 and was thrilled to see what another photog had captured. Her images were great SOOC (straight out of the camera) that’s how you KNOW they are good. Mine were a bit dark so I played around with Totally Rad!’s RadLab and then here’s a tip: Save your “recipe” and then you can just apply it to similar photos in that roll without having to recreate the wheel. I call this filter Avabava. RadLab users I think I will upload a couple and let you try them out – what do you think?

Click any screenshot below to enlarge.

 

Used a recipe I saved as Crystal Cove.

Here’s how I edited this shot. You can see I used Oh Snap! Sugar Rush Divine Light and Lights On.

 

I still have about 6 weeks to catch up on from April through June… I’m not sure when that will happen, they might just be photo galleries at this point, depends how the WordPress Gods are treating me. lately things behind the scene have been not pretty, lots of security threats (but no real take down like last years blog implosion) and plugins not playing nicely with one another. Sometimes I wonder if it would have been better just to stay on Blogger, it wouldn’t be as fun and cool but I wouldn’t be able to break my site either. I have picked up a lot of knowledge about WP on the way and designed a couple sites on the side but lately its been a PITA. I’m trying to come up with some create ways to offset cost, if you know anyone who would like a spot in my sidebar let me know or I may be forced to place a donation button instead. 😀

Let’s Do this again next week!

Peace out.

Oh and Kristi I did not forget. Ta-dah.