Day 12: 12 Timeless Memories

** check out Day 3 for an update and PICTURES! **

A beautiful new mom attended the open house and gave me a little grief about my, er, lack of follow-through with the whole "12 Days of Graduation." I admit, it was a great idea that was much easier with "Hula Girl in a Pineapple Tree." It got a lot more difficult the higher the number...

But, I will finish with the 12 Timeless Memories of the Graduation Day.

1. The family - husband, daughter and I - woke up the graduate. We brought him his presents (college apparel), made fun mini-speeches with wisdom and memories, and prayed as a family. As the busy day took off, I am SO THANKFUL we got that time in to just be. I highly recommend this day-starter!

2. The church slide show. Watching my graduate grow up into the young man he is... tear! He has a great group of friends and has spent the past five years serving in the community and in church. So proud!

3. The graduate leading worship with the other seniors. When he came in eighth grade, he wandered around the house singing all the time. I told him he should join choir. He said absolutely not. So like the pushy mom that I am, I forced him to join choir, with the condition that if he hated it after a semester he could quit. I still remember choir friend coming up to me (we weren't friends yet) and telling me that he was going to be just fine. Singing has been a huge part of his high school experience, including being an all-state choir participant and this summer's Minnesota Ambassadors of Music program.

4. The graduate asking me to button the cuffs on his shirt as he prepared to leave the house for graduation ceremonies.

5. The graduate smiling at us in the stands from his seat during the ceremony.

6. Riding home from the ceremony with the graduate, hoping and praying the rain would hold off. Trying to convince ourselves that the sun was getting brighter the closer we got to our house.

7. Standing outside in the rain with the graduate. Oh well, it never rained that hard or that long - as my mom said, it was Just an Annoyance. I think husband said we're just throwing an authentic luau because it rains just like this in the tropics.

8. Watching the graduate play his host role like a pro. He greeted people, he gave them a lei, he directed them to food. He was great.

9. Racing on the bouncey horses with the family. I was ahead of the grad, he fell of his horse, and then pulled my horse back so I couldn't move! Husband won, by the way.

10. Having the sun come out at 7:30. And a small rainbow.

11. Too many friends and family to list. As far as numbers go, we are kind of at a loss. I bought 300 smoothie glasses and we have about 60 left. I had 300 buns and we had about 6 dozen left (you were right! we didn't need more buns!). I had 225 cupcakes and had about 2 dozen left, but we hid them in the garage by the grad shrine because of the rain and I don't think everyone got one. So we were right around that 200 mark...

12. Sitting up with the grad just before bed, me and him, commenting how great the day was.

Day 10: 10 Minutes Crying!

Well, we all knew it was just a matter of WHEN, not if, I would have the crying breakdown. ChoirFriend was here to support me. We cried and laughed and cried some more. I cried to let out all the feelings I have surrounding the teenager's transition to phase two of life. Today, he found out he received $5400 in local scholarships, and that his GPA was high enough to earn an honor cord. (Oh dear I'm tearing up again). And I got to be a part of that! I am so excited to celebrate his accomplishments on Sunday. I am so proud of him. Tear!

Day 8: 80 Degrees!

The weather report says 80 degrees with a 10% chance of rain.

Make it so, Lord, make it so.

Today was the teenagers last day of school. He said he wasn't going to take his camera and take pictures of the senior hayride to school. So as I commuted to the bus, I took a short detour and drove slowly through the fairgrounds like a major stalker-creeper, taking pictures through the passenger window of my car.

Luckily, I was not arrested. Until tomorrow!

Day 7: Seven personalities

There is happy me! The one that is cherishing the moment, that is taking time to realize that tomorrow is the teenager's last day of school. The me that looks at the teenager and just smiles, because he's done so well.

There is wistful me. The me that is incredulous how fast time went... how can it be five years already? I wasted too much of it worrying about stupid things (Ha! Like about running out of food at the open house?), and not enough time telling him how wonderful he was.

Wistful me usually leads to tearful me. My tears are flavored with happy memories, regrets and mourning. People say all the time how much husband and I have done for the kids; but the kids have influenced my life in an equally positive way. I cry for the really hard times, and the really good times - as Amy Grant sings, It's beautiful, the mess we are.

There is focused me. The me that is able to juggle work, party planning and family. The me that makes lists and arranges for salads and coordinates chair rental and rides the bus and obtains certified legal documents from the court house and remembers to send lunch money with the kids and calls a friend to bring the daughter to school since teenager is riding the traditional hay rack to school...

There is anxious me. Readers know her well! Anxious me had a hard time sleeping last night; I woke up at 3:45 a.m. and never went back to sleep. I kept figuring out the lowest common denominator of smoothie ingredients as I lay in bed. I finally got up and cleaned the living room.

Anxious me leads inevitably to bitchy-scary-emotionally-unbalanced me. The me that freaks out when the teenager mows the lawn, then tromps into the bathroom leaving a trail of grass on the bath mats and in the shower; and since I swear he showers with the shower curtain open and shakes off like a dog when he's done, the grass is sopping wet and stuck to EVERYTHING. And when I ask him calmly to shake them out on Saturday, do you think he's shaken them out yet? Of course not! Every time I take a shower, I am reminded that I live with an unthankful, lazy poophead...

This is about the time an external force, often husband, enters to bring about reflective me. The one that realizes I am a massive blob of emotions running on limited sleep and significant stress. The me that realizes I need to take a minute to journal, to pray, to relax. Reflective me does a lot of relationship repair work, is perhaps the most wise part of me, and is a welcome personality after BSEU-me.

It's a cycle, and if my husband blogged he could tell you how fast and how many times the cycle can be completed in a week, day, or hour. He is a good man to put up with me these days, and especially this week.

Signing off until tomorrow,

Reflective Me



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Day 6: Six hundred pictures!

This morning I made my last picture order - 664 pictures. Now, not ALL of these are of Teenager, so I won't be scrapbooking all 664 this week. The large number of pictures is the result of digital cameras, where you download them onto the computer, look at them... and then never print them off. Or if you're like my mom, who has a HUGE memory card, the pictures never make it to the computer! (Although this is the woman who, when film was developed, could find two separate Christmases on the same roll, so perhaps it's not the size of the card as much as her lack of picture-taking).

Sadly, I didn't get a chance to make a dent in the 664 pictures. Besides the usual Sunday events, and the Walmart trip to supplement my party supplies (I expect 200, but am prepared for 250), I made THE LIST. It is a grid of time, activity and identified responsible person. It will ensure nothing is forgotten, and that everything is perfect. (Yes, I realize inevitably something will go wrong. I hope that something is along the lines of... oh no I can't think of one thing I am willing to have go wrong... I don't want it to rain, or be too hot, or to have so many people there aren't enough chairs, or to have nobody show up, or to have the cake fall over, or to have the smoothie bar malfunction... Wait. I am willing to be OK if we run out of buns. Or pop. There.)

I am definitely feeling the jitters of nervousness. Or the massive convulsions of anxiety. So bring it back to the Quest: Cherish the moment. What great memory doesn't have some glaring imperfection that makes it, well, memorable? As I silently pray for peace, I realize that even if it rains cats and dogs, if the bounce horses lie lonely and unused, if the food runs out in thirty minutes, if all the cupcakes land frosting-down in the lawn, if a tornado warning forces everyone into my ugly and disgusting basement... the Teenager will still have graduated. And his friends and family came to celebrate with him.

Oh my gosh now I need to clean the basement.

Day 4: Four Bouncey Horses

In 2007, our family went to the Shafer Corn Maze. While the corn maze was fun, we got the most enjoyment out of racing on four inflatable horses. The teenager, then just a tween, had a hard time getting the hang of the bounce... at one point, he lost a race not only to his parental units, but to his little sister as well. Despite his loss, he managed to enjoy himself, and I have fabulous pictures of that seemingly perfect day.

In an effort to relive that happy memory, for the graduation party we are importing four bouncey horses of the same make and model used at Shafer. We look forward to making new memories with friends and family!



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Day 5: Five Laps at Costco!

Today I was introduced to the mega-sized mecca called "COSTCO."

My guide was friend SuperSaver. SuperSaver is a card-carrying member of this suburban club. A perfect example of SuperSaver's gift is when she turned to me while shopping and said, "So, do you keep a running total of all your purchases in your head as you go?"

My look of disbelief spoke for itself. She claims that this way, if the register's total is off, she knows the cashier rang something up wrong.

I am in good hands.

My first experience with member-only warehouse shopping was kind of amazing. SuperSaver was concerned Costco closed in an hour, so I was short of breath, and felt kind of panicky. So much to get in so little time! I pushed aside my sudden desire to purchase a tropical plant or two, maybe a hanging basket, a pallet of paper towels and a crate of mangoes. Instead, I stuck to my list and got 70 bottles of water, 98 cans of pop, 200 plates (yes, I'm gambling it will be 200, thanks to all the posts from yesterday!), 9 bottles of BBQ sauce, a crate of bananas (for the smoothie bar), 72 small containers of flavored yogurt (also for the smoothie bar) and seven large bags of chips. (Yes, there was more, but you get the idea). I picked up the bananas, pop and water early in the trip... and spent the rest of it having to get a running start to force my cart forward. I was sweating by checkout.

SuperSaver was an excellent guide. Not only did she help me navigate whether something was truly a good price or not (she warned that Costco might not give you better prices, but rather better quality for the same price you'd pay somewhere else), she simply couldn't stand to see other shoppers make poor consumer choices. In the process of loading up my yogurt, we overheard a wife tell her husband to "get out his cell phone" so he could calculate which yogurt was a better price. When the wife began reaching for brand A, SuperSaver knocked it out of her hand and yelled, "NOOOOOOOOOOO!"

Not really. She restrained herself and simply said, "Well, that brand might be cheaper but it is actually a small size container so you aren't getting as much." They then got into a deep conversation about the "flavor" of plain yogurt. As we heaved our carts forward, SuperSaver met my incredulous look with a shrug. "They looked like they were having problems with their calculations." I guess just an average day for SuperSaver - helping one more person save a nickel per ounce of yogurt.

I like to tease SuperSaver, but in all seriousness she was fabulous! She patiently waited as I zigzagged several times through the same aisles looking for different things, she heaved lots of heavy stuff into the cart, and she even drove me back up to my park and ride lot and helped me unload. I hope you have a SuperSaver in your life - I don't know what I'd do without mine! (Probably buy small containers of yogurt for twice the cost...)



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Day 3: Three Layered Cake

See this beautiful cake? The only time in the past month that I drove below the speed limit was when I was transporting this beautiful creation from the cities to my home. If my own personal stress wasn't bad enough, as I drove white-knuckled a girlfriend calls (I know, how nervous could I be if I was still willing to take a phone call... blah blah blah) and starts telling me the story of how a woman she knew took a fast turn and plastered the wedding cake against the dashboard.

I slowed down another 5 MPH. Miraculously, the cake made it home safely.

My high school friend, Mary Bakes Cakes, is pretty amazing. She started off making cakes via Betty Crocker boxes for our get-togethers, and over the years became a self-taught cake-maker. As you can see from the above picture, this isn't your typical graduation sheet cake! Our luau guests had nothing but constant and consistent praise for the decorations and the quality. Besides the three-layered cake that my family will consume this week, she made 225 cupcakes - 75 white with raspberry filling, 75 chocolate with raspberry filling, and 75 carrot cake with cream cheese filling. And to my delighted surprise, each cupcake had its own unique fondant decoration upon either sandy-looking or sea-blue frosting, including mini flippy-floppies, surfboards, palm trees, pineapples...

I highly recommend you get onto Mary's calendar if you have a special event that requires a fabulous cake. And, if you mention this blog, you will get a 5% discount. Check out her link above for more pictures and information.

Day 2: Two Hundred Guests

The million dollar question when you are throwing an open house - how many people do you plan for?

We had 250 invites printed. We included an invitation in the church bulletin; our church size is about 200. We still have about 40 at home. We have been inviting anyone who wants to come celebrate with us. It's an open house! The more the merrier!

Based on this, you may think a million people will attend. Doubtful. Most of the 250 went to relatives that live more than an hour away and won't be attending. The open house is on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, a time when many are at the lake or doing other non-graduation type of things.

And regardless of how many people pass through, how many are going to several open houses and won't eat anything? How many are planning to "pig out?" (pun intended, we're having a hog roast). Is it better to be eating graduation party food all summer and sending frozen care packages with the teenager as he leaves for college, or to run out of food thirty minutes before the party ends?

I started off planning for 200. In my mind, I figured half the church would come, fifty relatives, and fifty of the teenager's friends. And part of me still thinks that number is solid.

But then I think, what if everyone in church comes? My parents, siblings and spouses plus husband's siblings plus our own household is 14 alone... I mean, I WANT everyone to come! But I don't want to eat shredded pork for the next month...

So slowly my numbers have been growing. We told Pig Man to plan for 200. We ordered 225 cupcakes (more on that in future posts). We ordered 250 cups for smoothies. And now, the bun debate.

Husband: "Did you order the buns yet?"
Me: (keeping in mind I am the one doing all the ordering) a terse "Yes."
Husband: "How many did you get?"
Me: "Eighteen dozen" (216)
Husband: "Do you think that will be enough?"

*Pause*

My internal monologue: NO I INTENTIONALLY ORDERED 2 DOZEN LESS THAN I THINK WILL BE ENOUGH.
Me: "Would you like me to order more? How many more should I order?
Husband/teenager: Silence.

See? NOBODY KNOWS THE ANSWER! We all have this fear that it's not enough, but nobody knows the magic number of what IS enough!!!

So let's take bets. Post your guess of how many plates we will serve at open house. If you are correct, I will give you a FABULOUS prize.




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Day 1: A Hula Girl in a Pineapple Tree

Thanks to JW for dropping off a plethora of great decorations for the graduation luau!

The vision: Sunshine. Colors. People milling about, laughing with colorful drinks and little umbrellas. Leis. Children frolicking about, teenagers racing on bounce horses.

The challenge, of course, is transforming a small city lot into a tropical paradise. My Craig's List friend directed me to 20 tiki torches for $50, I purchased 200 leis from an ebay store, I am borrowing a tiki bar used for a church luau a few years back, I purchased a banner, a cute tiki bar chalkboard sign, and plastic cups with brightly colored hibiscus flowers on them. Friends have come up with enough grass skirting to fill a large garbage bag. And JH's recent delivery takes care of table centerpieces!

Overall, I think the decorations are taken care of - but if anyone else has ideas or donations, don't hesitate to comment!


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Quest #3: The 12 Days of Graduation

Seven years ago I got married. What do I remember from that day? While I have many good memories from May 18, 2003, I also remember being stressed, tired and exhausted. I was late the entire day, I forgot many things and had to frantically send friends to get flowers, earrings, etc., I was stressed about paying the DJ and about how much it would cost, then stressed if we tipped him enough, etc. etc. etc.

Here is what I want for May 30, 2010: I want to have fun! I want the teenager's open house to be a celebration that I participate in, and not an event I am working for everybody else's happiness. As several people have pointed out lately, planning the teenager's open house is very similar to planning an outdoor wedding at our home!

So my Quest is to learn how to cherish the moment - I am resolved to prepare for the next 11 days the best I can, and to then simply enjoy myself at the open house. This will involve an attitude adjustment. Instead of trying to please/impress/gain the approval of my guests, the motivation for the party is to celebrate the teenager's success individually, and the family's success as a whole. The teenager is my husband's younger brother, and we have been parenting him since 2005. He is a statistical miracle, and our Graduation Luau Party reflects how thankful we are that, by the grace of God, the teenager is a first-rate guy. He has overcome some enormous odds, and I need to keep this in mind when I begin to worry about what people will say if we run out of food...

Let the 12 days of Graduation commence!


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