The terrible awful I did...

I pride myself as being a really smart woman until I do something really stupid.

Which is what I did tonight.

If you have read my blog, you know about my years of cub scout volunteering.

As you may also know, I am done with cub scouts as my boys are both boy scouts now. 

We do not have the best Boy Scout troop around, it is just a plain and simple fact.

We have a scoutmaster who has been running things for WAY TOO LONG!

He is controlling and set in his ways.  Our troop has lost many families because of it.

The troop is like a 'rogue' troop and he does not encourage or like when scouts do activities that are sponsored by counsel.  For those of you not in the scouting 'know', a counsel is in charge of all of the troops in an area.  There are about 10 towns in our counsel and our counsel plans activities for all of the troops to participate in.

Well my boys signed up for one such activity.  My youngest, who has been a boy scout for 5 weeks had to go and get a card signed off for by the scoutmaster and he sent him away without it! Now he signed off on the same card for my oldest scout last week.  When my oldest scout pointed this out, the scoutmaster dismissed him too.  

Evidently he is upset that boys in the troop are going on this activity, WTF??!! It isn't like they are organizing a trip to hang out in the sand pits and drink keg beer!  They are going to earn Merit badges!!

Well my boys came out to the car and told me what happened.

I simply lost it!

I have dealt with this tool for 5 years and because of my role in cub scouts always had to hold my tongue.  I could tell you story after story about all of the Ahole things he has done over the years.

Tonight was the straw that broke this camel's back and 5 years of frustration came pouring out.

I pointed out to him that it makes no sense to me why a scoutmaster would not want his scouts to experience all that the scouting world has to offer.  He offered lame excuses and your basic bullshit.

I would not back down, it was heated.  No f bombs(thankfully) flew.  However I did also have the opportunity to tell him exactly what I think about his 'white trash, idiot, couldn't hold a job at WalMart' wife.  I didn't use that description out loud, but I made my point.  My 15 year old summed it up as, "you looked really pissed mom!" The problem is that this was not how I wanted things to go down.  My 15 year old is fine with it, he deals with this man too so he kind of knows.  

Now for my 11 year old, not so much. Now he is worried that he will be treated differently in the troop and all the other things an 11 year worries about.  The boys want to stay with their friends in the troop so it isn't like we are going anywhere at this point.  

Now it is just me and my walk of shame over the terrible awful I did tonight.  He better hope I don't look up Minnie's recipe for pie, cause I am still pretty mad.

Let them eat cake!

My last Cub Scout cake...

A daunting task to get inspired,

I Just didn't have it in me this year.

It was an emotional time, saying good by to Cub Scouts.

It has been such a big part of our lives for 5 years.

I dug deep and got a little inspired, 

but not very original.

It didn't seem to matter, the boys all enjoyed it.

I have never made figures out of fondant. I was happy with the 

Tiger and the Bear for the Cub Scout side of the cake.

I felt like I took the easy way out copying 

a lot of the same style of decoration from my cake last year.

Oh well.

I am getting used to relaxing my standards.

It makes life a little easier and enjoyable.

My youngest is a Boy Scout now.

Now time for me to relax and enjoy some 

quiet time.

a piece of cake...for 200 people

I needed a lot of this...

 and a bunch of this...

The girls had been laying up a storm, good thing since I needed about 20 eggs for the cake.

Everyone always wants to know what my secret recipe is for my Chocolate cake.  It isn't such a big secret...

I use the Hershey's 'Perfectly Chocolate' Chocolate Cake recipe.  I do tweak it a little, but this is one of the best cakes I have ever made. It bakes nice and level, is dense and very moist.

After all the baking was done it was time to get down to decorating.  This cake was for the Cub Scout Banquet for the boys who were crossing over to become Boy Scouts.

    

I put a crumb coat on it and carved the trail to go up the mountain.

Here it is frosted and I put chocolate chip cookie crumbs down for the mountain trail.

Fondant canoe for the water.

Setting up camp on the top with fire, marshmallows and sleeping bag.

adding some of the water

adding trees, grass and rocks along the trail.

everything was edible except for the string for the fish, the bridge

and the sticks for the marshmallows. 

It was a great celebration for the boys and everyone loved the cake

(which made all of the hours I put into it worth while)

Next year my youngest crosses over and the cake will need

to be just that much more special..

time to get planning...

 

Blue and Gold

It is that time of year again for me.  It is Blue and Gold time aka banquet for

Cub Scouts and the boys moving up to Boy Scouts. 

I am a Cubmaster of our pack, yes it has taken me a few years to say

'I am a Cubmaster' with a

straight face.  My friends totally bust me for it,

but hey someone had to do it and I was tired of

it being done sub par.

We have a HUGE pack.  There are 84 boys and organizing 84 boys and families can be exhausting.
Thankfully we have a really good team in place that works really hard, but when things go bad
everyone always looks to the leadership.  So much to do to get ready but my big job is the cake. 
We have about 200 people in attendance so that is a lot of cake.

Last year I had a clear vision and was happy how I executed it.  I had just gotten back from vacation and had 2 days to put it together.  On top of that my MIL was here and y'all know how that can put me over the edge.

This is what I made last year:

It was all chocolate. I smelled like chocolate cake for days.  I couldn't get the smell out of my hair. 
I need to start baking tomorrow night.  I have so much to do, with just a sketch and 'kind of a vision' for the cake for this year.  I am nervous...

an honor...

As I have blogged about before, I am a scout mom (leader, committee member and cubmaster extraordinaire).  I spend many hours a week for our cub scouts and boy scouts. For the most part I enjoy it, but there is a ton of not so enjoyable stuff I have to deal with as well.  There is not much glory in it, only knowing that I have my hand in a program that has a direct impact on my boys and the boys in my community.

Today there was a little glory.  I took a photo of my youngest when he was helping the VFW retire flags before Memorial Day a couple years ago.  I LOVE this picture.  It is my face book profile from Memorial Day through the 4th of July.

There was a photo contest by our local scouting organization looking for photos of 'scouts in action'.  I submitted my photo and it was one of the top ten photos and it is now featured in our local scout store. I thought the crocs he was wearing and the silly bands(yes remember that craze) really dated the photo but that was one of the things that they liked.  They wanted the photos to show scouting through the years and this captured a time period.

They had an open house to honor the winners and unveil the photos this evening.  My scout and I went.  It was great to see my photo being recognized.  It was one of those, 'you like me, you really like me moments.'  You know when you think you are on to something but you aren't sure if others get it.
 

Staycation Bucket List Recap...

1. Have breakfast at Carl's Dinner. (when you see the pictures you will understand why)

We had a massive breakfast at Carl's Dinner.  So good, so old school, love that place. 

PC wanted to eat at the counter.

I could only eat about half of mine and PC filled up pretty quick.  My man had 3 more eggs...

They DO NOT want anyone leaving hungry so they will just keep giving you more food.

 
2. Clean my scrapbook area and actually scrapbook.(when you see the pictures you will see why it is impossible for me to get any scrapbooking done)

It was too beautiful to be inside, I have tabled this to a fall rainy day.

3. Clean out my kitchen closet(again the pictures will speak for themselves, it isn't pretty)

It was too beautiful to be inside, I have tabled this to a fall rainy day.

4. We have sworn off movies to save some cash. There is a theater that costs $5 a person.  Who can pass that up? We will be going to Pirates of the Caribbean.

Pirates of the Caribbean it was.  Not my favorite of the series but for 3 of us

to go to a movie for a total $9($3 Tuesdays) who can complain? 

5. Help my youngest pack his footlocker for his first week at away scout camp.

 Here he is packed and ready to set up camp...

He had so much fun!

6. Bring our meat birds to the butcher(their bucket list to follow)

As I blogged earlier here, this mission was complete.

Their bucket list was...

eat, eat and then eat. We obliged them. 

7. Walk my dog everyday, the good long walk, not the short one that I have been doing(total slacker I am)

I was still a little bit of a slacker on this one, I am working on it.

8. Try not to make a fool of myself when I meet Tillie and her owner tomorrow.

I only made a fool of myself once, I referred to my love of children's book as "crack, 

I just can't get enough of them." In retrospect I probably could have found a different analogy.

9. Sit by my pool for a minimum of 1 hour a day to read or relax(no talking on the phone or txting)

I totally had this one covered, it was such a beautiful week.

10. Finish Eat, Pray, Love(I have been so slow with this one)

Not done yet, but I am enjoying it. I spent more time catching up on some magazines I had.

Did I tell you that magazines are like crack for me? I just can't get enough of them.

(see I did it again)

11. Take my youngest to check out archery lessons(I think he might have some talent for it and he has passion for it...worth exploring)

We both decided to table this to the fall/winter.  

We were enjoying the outside too much to spend a day inside.

12. Go somewhere and do something we have never done before.

It was very hot!  We went with  good friends so that was fun.  PC had fun too but,

- It cost $5 for one chance to play a game.

- It cost me an PC $23 for two plates of chicken strips and fries(no drink included)!

- The bathrooms were nasty!

- On top of paying $50 per person to get in, they charge $15 to park!

A very nice employee told me to bring PC to the paintball area rather than waste $5 on one chance to shoot at some targets. She said no one ever wins.  PC was very happy to just shoot at some targets for fun.  Forty paint balls cost $6. I could live with that.

I am glad we went, PC had wanted to go so badly but we won't be going back.

remembering...

my scout...

Hope you all had a great Memorial Day.

I survived...

So, I may not have survived cancer or a natural disaster this past weekend, 

but I did survive tent camping with ten boys under the age of 10and their fathers.

On top of that, tent camping in New England in May is... 

shall we say... a crap shoot.

It can be really hot or it can be really cold, oh and rainy too.

We got the later with pouring rain and cold.  

As I checked the weather and my Facebook page from my Blackberry 

at 11:30pm after the rain began, I did get some "tehehehe's" from my chick friends 

who thought I was crazy to go on the camp out.  

I went for one reason... this guy

who in this picture is fishing with 

an old school fishing pole of a stick and line, 

just because it is cool to kick it

old school from time to time...

This guy doesn't seem to think about, or care that I am a chick.  

He had the choice of me or his dad and

he picked the chick.  

Now his dad is about as "outdoorsy" as they come, but me and my boys do have

a bond with scouting.  

So... when all the dads were packing up with their boys for the big camping weekend,

there I went.  

Granted, being a tomboy growing up and spending lots of time camping helped.  

I also made a promise to myself that I would not be the 

"token chick" and get stuck doing chick stuff.  

I did not prepare one ounce of food and did not clean any dishes.  

So, even though the temp dropped and the skies opened up at night, it was a great weekend that I will remember for more than just what we did, but how it gave me a better understanding for how my son sees me in this world...

TMI

Being new to this blog thing, I am starting to catch on.  I will be starting a section to list all of the instances when I get WAY Too Much Information from people. 

Case in point and TMI #1...

Here is the set up...

At Boy Scouts with my oldest last night for a parent meeting about a big up coming trip in which shower facilities will be limited.  There is a mother/father duo that I particularly can not stand...

Dad says,"I'm not going to be able to take a shower the entire weekend?"(stupid question because they already said this 5 times!)

Scout Leader says,"No."(should have said "Duh")

Mom says to Dad (for all of us to hear),"You are going to look like a terrorist if you don't shave all weekend.  I will send you with a package of baby wipes for you to clean yourself."

Ewweee!  Did not need to hear that last sentence.

It was the best of times it was...

the Sunday night and the end of school vacation week.  I do love my boys, don't get me wrong, but a girl needs some SPACE!  I love it when my boys are on vacation, it means I get to sleep late(yippee!) Working from home, I don't have to start until 8:15.  When you work from home, you don't even need to brush your teeth (if you are really tight on time) before you log on to start the day.  The only person in my office is Ginger(my dog) and she doesn't mind, as long as I keep the milk bones a commin'.  When school is in, that  means up at the ungodly time of 5:50am.  I took Thursday and Friday off last week and took my boys into Boston. We had a great time, cannolis from Mike's in the North End, a ride on the swan boats, tour of the state house.  We even got to go to the 30th floor of the Custom House to see the Peregrine Falcon that nests there sitting on her 4 eggs(hello to my second latest addiction, web cams of birds, I swear that web cam of those eagles is like crack to me!  I just can't get off of it.  Now I have a new addiction as we watch for the falcon chicks to hatch in the next few weeks.) Again, great trip into beantown, but no escape/break from my boys.  Did not really feel like the mini vacation I was hoping for.  To top things of, though I work from home, my main office is in Boston, of which we had a view of out of our hotel window, again not exactly the break from work I was hoping for.  Cut to today. At my mom and dad's for a nice Easter dinner with the fam.  My sister asked(maybe because she knew not to assume) if I wanted to sit with my boys at one table or with the adults at the other table.  Oh surprise, surprise, I said "No I don't want to sit with the boys." I believe I was getting ready to accept the bad mother of the year nomination and ya know what?  I don't really care!  I was with them 24-7 for the past 3 days and now they are all hopped up on Easter candy and the endless supply of Mountain Dew my mother supplies to them on holidays, you bet your ass I don't want to sit with them!  Now it is 10pm and they have crashed hard after winding down with a little Swamp People I had on the DVR(I can't get me enough of them Swamp People).  They will be totally Jonsing for some chocolate tomorrow and I say good luck to that... Mommy is starting the Dukan diet tomorrow and she is cleaning house!  Nite, nite time for me...5:50am comes too quick for this tired chick.