Find the Baby

Welcome to February's Blog with Friends Round-up, a blogging challenge hosted by Karen from Baking in a Tornado. Each month we choose a topic, and then we all create our own unique posts, based on that month's chosen theme. This month we chose "Mardi Gras". Each blogger's post can be anything their heart desires, and their imagination can dream up. It is up to us to interpret the theme any way we like. Posts can include anything from poetry, short stories, craft projects, DIY projects, art projects, and anything in between. The limits are endless, and it gets quite interesting each month.

Embee with One Month Old Gigi

If I am honest, I feel like Blog with Friends, really opens the doors for the participating bloggers to create projects. I am not good at blogging about projects, or even doing projects, so I tend to be the more boring of the bloggers that participate. This month, may just be my most boring post yet. However, the very moment I heard about the theme being Mardi Gras, I thought of something, and I decided I just needed to share it. I am sharing more for myself, than the readers.

My life has been one heckuva ride. Seriously. It has been fun, scary, sad, and everything in between. When I was younger, and I first learned about Mardi Gras, I knew I immediately wanted to go there one year. To be honest, I have always been drawn to New Orleans. I honestly would LOVE to live there. When I got older, and learned more about Mardi Gras, I quickly decided I wanted to make it a yearly tradition. 

I do not know how you imagined adulthood would be, but I had definite ideas about what being an adult would be like for myself. I can honestly say, it has been absolutely nothing like anything I had imagined. Seriously, NOTHING at all like how I had imagined it would be, and not just because I just turned 37, and I have still never been to New Orleans on Mardi Gras. Yes, if you now think I have lived my life completely wrong, I tend to agree.

However, one of my most prominent Mardi Gras memories involves French class and a King Cake. Have you ever had a King Cake?! Honestly, I think they are awesome. I really hope to enjoy some one day, in New Orleans, on Mardi Gras, but if not, it is okay.

For some reason, whenever I think of Mardi Gras, the first thing that comes to mind is my Pamela and the King Cake I made. It was such a fun experience. Our French teacher gave us a recipe, and we had to translate it to English, and make it. It happened to be a recipe for a King Cake. It was such a fun experience. I am pretty sure it tasted awful, and I possibly got some of it wrong, but it was truly beautiful. I wish I had pictures to share.

Pamela was my adoptive mum, who I lived with for a while, until I turned 18 and clung fiercely to being an adult and moved out, and began making my own (terrible) decisions. I translated the ingredients, and she went to the store, to get everything for me, while I worked on translating the directions. I finally finished, but I was so confused. I actually had to call my teacher, and apologized for asking, but told her that if I did not ask questions, I probably would not be able to safely make anything. Sometimes, when translating another language into English, the translation is too literal. That was the case with two parts of the recipe. The first too literal of a meaning was the lemon zest. I do not remember exactly what it translated to, but it was not to zest a lemon, but more like putting the peels of a lemon in. So, she explained my translation was good, but too literal. 

The second part was more humorous. I could not figure out why I was supposed to bake a baby into the cake. I was certain I had translated wrong. I hadn't. I just needed to understand the baby in question, was a tiny, plastic baby. The whole point was for someone to randomly receive the plastic baby, in their piece of the King Cake, and therefore have good luck all year. I was absolutely amazed by the odd, but fun tradition, and we set out to find a plastic baby, to be our lucky baby Jesus. It was honestly so fun. It wasn't as yummy as I had hoped, but as I said, it really was so pretty. My favorite colors are green and purple, and that probably has something to do with why I love Mardi Gras.

Pamela loved my cake. She absolutely loved it. She was so supportive of me. Plus, with her and Rosemary as my adoptive mums, I had everything I needed, and much of what I wanted, for the first time in my life. Looking back, I see that fact so clearly. I saw it then too, but instead of feeling grateful and happy, I felt like a burden, and that led to some of the terrible choices I made, once I was an adult.

Pamela unfortunately passed away in 2006, before I was able to truly make amends with her, and I regret that every day, but I look back at my time with her so fondly. I am so grateful she was in my life. I am grateful for all the ways she built me up, rather than tearing me down. Like the day I made the King Cake, and gave her a piece of the "extra", and rather than say it was garbage, she ate it and smiled, and congratulated me on doing such a wonderful job translating the recipe. She also calmed my nerves, and convinced me I would get an A. 

I think I got a B, and that was probably over generous. It really did taste awful. It was dry and weird. I have had a few King Cakes since, and can honestly say, none of them were remotely like mine. Part of my heart is sad, remembering back to this memory, but more than anything, I am grateful. Grateful I experienced it, grateful I can remember it, and grateful for my Pamela.

Oh, coincidentally, I found the baby. It was quite fitting, considering that was probably one of the best years of my life.

Do you like Mardi Gras? Have you ever been to Mardi Gras in New Orleans? Have you ever had King Cake?

Please, do yourself a favor, and check out these other, more amazing Blog with Friends posts:

Karen of Baking In A Tornado
Nutella King Cake, a fun and easy interpretation of the classic Mardi Gras treat.

Kia of The Ground Beneath my Feet
Let the Good Times Roll!

Melissa of My Heartfelt Sentiments
Jazz It Up!

P.J. of A ‘lil HooHaa
Masks and beads and food and drinks OH MY!

Lydia of Cluttered Genius
Carnival in the Spanish Classroom

Snapshots of the Past #UseYourWords

Welcome to November's Use Your Words blogging challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked four to six words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That is the challenge, here is a fun twist; no one who is participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

At the end of this post you will find links to the other blogs featuring this challenge. Check them all out, see what words they got and how they used them. 

My words are: comedian ~ dribble ~ excretion ~ fugitive ~ snapshot

They were submitted by:  http://theblogging911.com/blog (Thank you for such varied and awesome words!!)

When I read these words, the reality was, that I was drawn back to high school. I wonder where they brought your mind. I must admit, I may have been in a high school state of mind, when I read them, and that could be why my mind went there. So, I immediately thought... Well, I have nothing to say about high school, so I will just keep pondering these words. So, I pondered and pondered and pondered.... I just stayed in high school. I guess I should tell you guys, thankfully, the one word that did not fit with my high school thoughts, was fugitive. I mean, I wasn't a perfect kid, but fugitive definitely did not fit me. So, I guess I did something right eh?

Right before reading my words, I had been thinking about pictures. More accurately, a lack of pictures. I really do not have pictures from my childhood. I wish I did. I would love to show Gigi where I came from, my family, me growing up, and my memories. I would even just love to have a snapshot or two of me at different ages. Just something for her to see me as I grew up. I really want her to be able to see the family members I tell her about. Maybe help her see my life, through my eyes.

Over the years, I lost pictures and mementos I had saved, but had always managed to hang on to the more important ones. Then I lost everything, including my life's mementos, in a fire. I managed to find a few, while at my dad's in 2009, but not many. Sadly, many of those were accidentally destroyed by Chad during a move. So, I am back to having very little to show from my childhood. 

I know my sister Luci has some pictures from my prom. Well, she had them. I am not sure if she still has them all these years later, but it is possible. Unfortunately, I never think to ask her, when we talk. I am usually focused on updating her on Gigi, or catching up with the current events of her life. So, I really should ask her, but I will probably just keep forgetting to.

That is the other reason I wish I had snapshots from my past... My memory is getting worse with each passing day. When I think back on specific points in my life, I am finding more and more blocks of forgotten memories. Memories that are just gone or are so fuzzy, that I don't remember the details. I guess, I have the cysts in my brain to thank for that. Before they came along, I had a very good memory, and not having snapshots, was not that big of a deal. 

The word that really pulled me back to high school was dribble. Maybe because of all the years I spent on the basketball team, but not really. It was actually because of dribbling a basketball. I have so many memories over the years of working on memorizing things for school, while dribbling a basketball. I am not sure if focusing on my dribble, while focusing on whatever I was studying, really helped, but it definitely did not hurt. I will let you in on a secret. I do not know my multiplication table. I did not memorize it. Of course, I never worked on trying to memorize it, while dribbling a basketball. Coincidence?! I'm not sure, but I am tempted to work on memorizing it, while I dribble a basketball, and see if the information finally takes. It can't hurt eh?

In high school, I spent my Sophomore year as a bit of a comedian. Seriously, the funniest I have ever been in my life, was that year. Well, at least the beginning of it. The Summer before Sophomore year, I went to Summer Camp in New Hampshire, and I really did some growing up. A few things happened that Summer before camp, that I think really set up the foundation, for me to do some growing up at camp. It's funny how my memories are fading, but the memories I most want to fade, are still pretty strong and vivid. 

I had an amazing time at Camp. We sang, we played sports, we explored the world around us, we hiked up mountains, we went to Mass daily, we grew, we forged friendships, and some of us (myself) became comedians. I am not even sure why or how that happened. I am not even sure I had ever really been funny prior. I would like to think I still have a tiny bit of that comedian I found that Summer, inside of me. I do think I can occasionally be funny, and that is a good thing. 

Unfortunately, Sophomore year was also the year I came the closest ever, to being a fugitive. So, I think my inner comedian did not last long. I ended up getting expelled from school, spending a month being home schooled, and then going to the local public school for the remainder of the year. I finished that year with good grades. Of course, I did have a C in French, so they weren't perfect grades. It was decided that I would attend a private school the following year, a different one than I was expelled from, and that because my Sophomore year was so rocky, I would repeat it. Now, I don't regret that choice, but if I did it over again, I would choose to continue on a Junior, and never repeat a year that I had passed with A's and B's with one C.

By the time I was a Senior, I had more than enough credits to graduate, and I was miserable still being in high school. I was more than ready to be done with high school, and to be out in the world living my life. That was the downfall to repeating a year needlessly. I guess the good part, was that after repeating my Sophomore year, rather than staying at that new school, I was sent back to the school I was expelled from. It was agreed that the entire situation was mishandled. I was treated like a full blown fugitive, when I was really just a kid who had an accident, and handled that situation poorly. I am glad I went back to that school. I think it is important that I finished high school where I started, with that group of people. It was my home. It is where I belonged.

As you have probably figured out, I had one word left, that I have not used. I am going to use it now. I am going to change names, to protect the innocent, and I am going to tell you about something that happened before high school. It was actually when I first started using the dribble while I study technique. 

My friend John* and I would study together, usually spelling words or science, and we would usually study at the basketball court. We lived together in a group home, and we spent a lot of our time playing basketball. In between games, or while waiting for the rest of our teams to come to the court, we would study. We were studying science, and we were learning about the word excretion. We somehow decided that saying we were excreting, was way more cool than saying we were sweating. So for a few days, we would tease each other about how much we were excreting. 

I don't know. I was young. He was young. We were not the sharpest tools in the sheds. Who knows? So, a few days later, John and I were in the computer room working on something for school. As usual, we were talking way too much, and probably not focusing enough on our work. We had just finished a basketball game, and were trying to get a bit of work done, before we had to eat dinner. Our other friend Jamel* was in the room, and working on schoolwork. John started teasing me about how much sweat I had all over me, but of course he was not calling it sweat. Jamel asked what were we talking about.

So, John and I explained to him about how we did not say sweating anymore, because we wanted to sound more intelligent. Jamel took it upon himself to give us a full explanation of excretion. All the meanings, including non-textbook explanations. Suffice it to say, John and I never used that in place of sweating again. We also felt a bit awkward for a few days. Jamel of course teased us for a while, but he was at least somewhat kind about it. All in all, it was an eye opening experience. I guess the best part, is that I can laugh about it now. 

So, there you have it. Now, tell me, do these words remind you of anything in particular? What do they bring to mind for you?! 

Don't forget to go take a look at all the other Use Your Word posts!! I will meet you there, as soon as I make myself a cup of coffee!!

Baking In A Tornado

Cognitive Script

The Blogging 911

On the Border

Southern Belle Charm

Bookworm in the Kitchen

TaylorLife

Climaxed