I made punch for a baby shower last week, and it received high praise...I found it online (by searching by rating, which I've found yields the best results on allrecipes.com) and adapted it according to reviews. I had no less than 10 requests for the recipe, which is not bad considering there were only about 15 people there! So, if you have a function coming up, try this! If not, file it away...It's truly a keeper!

Luscious Slush Punch (adapted from www.allrecipes.com recipe)

Ingredients
* 1 cup white sugar
* 6 cups water
* 2 (3 ounce) packages flavored gelatin mix (I used one blackberry and one strawberry - I think just about anything would be good.)
* 1 (46 fluid ounce) can pineapple juice
* 2/3 cup lemon juice (or one lemon-shaped squeezer)
* 1 quart orange juice
* 2 (2 liter) bottles ginger ale

Directions
1. In a large saucepan, combine sugar, water, and flavored gelatin. Boil for 3 minutes. Stir in pineapple juice, lemon juice, and orange juice. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Divide mixture in half, and freeze in 2 separate containers (I used gallon-sized zip top bags, and just set them in a container so they would stay upright while I ladled in the mix). I kept the mix in the freezer overnight and it was slushy, but not frozen solid, in the morning.
2. When ready to serve, place the frozen contents of one container in a punch bowl, and stir in 1 bottle of ginger ale until slushy. Top with orange slices or other fruit.

You could use jello with the appropriate color to match your function! I made this for a boy's baby shower, but didn't try to do blue or green...I wanted to try it with more normal punch flavors first!


Enjoy!

Destination: Crazy.

I feel like I'm losing my mind. Everything around me seems to be at warp speed. I left the house with no make-up yesterday (no make up!). And no coffee (no coffee!). How is it Friday already? How is the first semester over? Grades are really due?

I want to curl up with a book, take a hot bath, sleep...pray, pray, pray.

I think I've always been a bit introspective, never really depressive, but I feel I'm wrapped up in thoughts of me, me, me right now, and I need to break out of it. I'm feeling overwhelmed, and nothing has actually happened to me. Here's what's weighing so, so heavily on my heart - cancer, cancer in 12-year-olds, muscular dystrophy, adoption, foster care, miscarriage, MRIs, divorce, babies with pneumonia, mortgages that can't be paid, NICU babies and their parents...And here I am, perfectly healthy, employed, happily married, beautiful family. And I feel like I'm drowning.

I've pulled out my copy of Disappointment with God by Yancey. I've never been in this place before, this place where everything is going right for me, and things are going very, very wrong for several of the people I love. Wrong by my version of fairness, not God's...And there's a quote in Yancey's book that I keep going back to -

"Without somehow destroying me in the process, how could God reveal himself in a way that would leave no room for doubt? If there were no room for doubt, there would be no room for me." Frederick Buechner

I don't really have a direction with this post, except that my feelings right now aren't matching my situation. I'm internalizing a lot of what's going on around me, and that's not necessarily a new thing, but it's never been this intense before...never so weighty. I'm spending the afternoon knitting, praying, and thinking about how to be active in all of this.

Update on my student, R:

Late yesterday afternoon a diagnosis came in - R has a very, very rare form of sarcoma that causes large tumors in the abdomen. It usually goes misdiagnosed for a long time because it can look like other cancers due to its location. It is a childhood cancer and is primarily found in boys. I am praying that her prognosis will be good because this diagnosis came so quickly and she has not already been treated for the wrong type of cancer. Her mom cautioned against using the internet for information on this type of cancer - because it is so rare, the information is not up to date and the most current treatments are not factored in to the survival rates. Of course, I couldn't help myself, and she was right - the most current info I found was from 2001, and was grim. Please specifically pray that R's doctors will quickly determine the stage of the cancer, and begin the appropriate treatment immediately. Pray for R to respond well to the treatment, and pray that her little body will stay strong enough to keep her sunny spirit! Also pray for her mom, K, who is just beginning to process this information. And huge praise for a diagnosis, as just knowing what she has is a huge step towards a cure!

After school today I am co-hosting a baby shower for a friend at work. I made a new punch recipe, and I made a gift! If they turn out to be successes, I'll post about them over at my sister's blog, Tiny Tidbits. If not, well, let's forget I even mentioned it.

Happy Tuesday. Hope your day isn't as icy/snowy/sleety as it looks like mine is going to be...but then again, judging by where most of you live, I'm afraid we're all in the same boat. At least school isn't canceled up here! Stay warm.

I know it's becoming redundant for me to say this, but I have a very, very special class this year. Every week I feel like we become stronger, closer and smarter! We hit some huge math milestones last week, cause for huge celebration - especially for a few strugglers. However, we spent that whole week without one of our classmates. This sweet girl, R, has been battling minor illness all year, one thing after the other. She is a trouper, though, and is always quick to catch up on her work...and she brings lots of smiles to our room.

I received information yesterday that sweet R is in the hospital, her thin body riddled with tumors, lesions on her lungs and liver. How can this be?

I'll be heading up to the hospital in the morning for a visit - she was in and out of surgery and procedures today to remove tumors, biopsy tumors and bone marrow, and to insert a central line to begin chemotherapy. Her mom sounded tired, confused, and above all incredibly worried for her little girl.

Please include them in your prayers. And me. This is such hard news to even begin to absorb.

I am so tired, and I have no good reason...I even had Monday off! Today I have meetings before and after school, and a whole house in need of a good scrubbing. I'm settling into my single-parent (to two dogs) mode. At first I half-mope/half-enjoy-the-alone-time, next I clean (because it stays clean so much better), then I join life again - go for walks, go to the gym, shop, etc. I haven't made it to step 2, yet, which if fine since Will left yesterday. But, when he's only gone for a month I don't have quite as long to make it through my three step program. I'm planning to make it through the cleaning by the end of the weekend. We'll see...

I finally put up Christmas. As bittersweet as it is, I was so ready to do it. I hit the point of just being annoyed by the tree, the decorations, and the clutter. I'm ready to get the 2009 ball rolling.

We're catching up on laundry, cleaning, and drying out from our last bout of bad weather. Things will barely have time to settle down before Will heads out to I.P. School. It seems non-stop between schools and deployments and trips, but we're trying to enjoy the precious few days we live "normal" lives.

So I'm off to finish dinner, catch up on email, and wait until Will gets home for our nightly Jeopardy match. I'm due for a win, so let's hope we've got some vocabulary/literature/word play categories tonight!

An update by way of pictures...

We were snowed in and decided to play a little game of Scrabble (not Will's favorite)...Now he has Risk (thanks, Santa) so the next time we're snowed in we'll play that instead!

Our mailman got stuck in the snow while delivering our mail...He had to be towed - this picture makes it look like it was the middle of the night when they finally got the mail truck out, but it was really about 5 pm, it just gets really dark here really early.

I got to spend a few days with this cutie pie while Will was on a duck hunt in Arkansas.

Sunset in Uvalde...We snuck in this picture (probably my favorite of the two of us that day) during our family photo session. I love the sunset in the back (even though our camera isn't the best).

The girls all watched Mamma Mia! on the "widescreen" - and afterwards we watched several of the songs in sing-along mode...Fun, fun, fun!


And now I'm out the door to work, even though the kids are coming two hours late due to flooding! Crazy place, this Washington.