Tea Party

Frankly I have so many ideas in my brain for posts, I do not know where to start. I quickly uploaded all my tea party photos to take advantage of Shutterfly's $10 book deal so I guess I will start there. 

We served a chilled strawberry soup on my collection of milk glass luncheon set tea cups with a blueberry scone on the plate. There are no pictures of these foods, lol. 

I think it was only a week ago, but I am so tired that I can't really guarantee that.  A few weeks before my oldest granddaughter had asked me if I would help her with a tea party for her friends. This is something I have waited my whole life for. I quickly sent her a suggested menu, pictures of the insides of all my china cabinets and other ideas. 

This was a submitted sample of the glassware for the Iced Strawberry Raspberry tea. Unfortunately one of the bases broke from the glass as I was packing them.  I have had them for decades and was too scared to risk serving with them. 

These pictures prove that her mother (my oldest daughter) is as crazy as I am. I guess I will just add the photos and do commentary in comments, lol. 

In the cupboard under one of my four china cabinets was this unopened box of "Guest" glasses. I used these instead, but there was one casualty. The guest was mortified but I showed her the $1.99 price tag on the box, what I paid for them at a flea market.

I chose 4 teas for the menu, two hot and two iced. The hot teas were two Harney and Sons black teas,  Paris and Chocolate Mint. The iced teas were Lipton's Strawberry Raspberry and Harney and Sons Pear and Ginger.  I used some paper spout drip guards on the tea pots and wrote the flavor; the carafe's had little hanging tags identifying their flavors. 

The pink Hall Pottery tea pot came from the tippy top cupboard at my church and was going to be put in a rummage sale.  I made a small donation prior to the sale and brought it home with me. Sugar cubes were a big hit. 

We served the sandwiches and salads (and desserts) buffet style. 

Chicken Salad on Croissants. 

Ham and Swiss on Hawaiian Rolls with Bacon Jam. 

On the right, Cucumber on Bread and Butter and upper right, Carrot Cake Sandwiches (recipe tomorrow's post). 

Salads included Pea Salad, Tiny Seashell Macaroni Salad, Italian Pasta Salad and Fruit Salad in heart shaped foil tins. (She saw those in my box of stuff and wanted to use them). 

I baked Strawberry Cupcakes, decorated with strawberries and Lemon Cupcakes decorated with lemon slices. 

I baked and decorated the heart shaped cookies with gold sugar. The kind people at Aldi provided the macaroons.  And on the top right it turns out we do have a photo of the scones! 

They tempted me and said they were picking up Petit Fours but got a box of assorted tea pastries at whatever store they have in the big city.  

I think I forgot to mention that they live almost 2 hours away. I had to get up at 5 am to leave by 6 am to get to their house to plug in my coffee urn of water and finish preparing all the food for the 11 am party. 

Too pretty to eat! These lovely cupcakes with fondant tea pots were made by a friend of hers - a high school student!  I got a preview and brought individual cupcake boxes if they would like to take them home to admire! Aren't they gorgeous!!!

The guests (and a peek at the pink soup). Everyone was so polite and lovely and had such good manners. 

We overheard some of the guests saying the party was the summer event of the year! I am so happy for my granddaughter who was so nervous. 

She even had a selfie station (she is on the left) for photo opportunities. There are no photos of gramma.  

I am going to try to schedule the prep photos for tomorrow!  I had such a good time.  I love cooking and I love all my dishes and glass and tea cup collections. 

I want to mention my daughter went to Meijers and bought all the flowers in bouquets that she took apart. She created all those AMAZING centerpieces! And she was the one who ordered the tables, chairs and tablecloths.  
 

Still Here

 Busy. Very Busy.  Lots to share when I get time. 

This morning I got up extra early so Mr Merry and I could go explore our county fair for 1 cent each on senior citizen day.  We entered the grounds around 7:30 so we could see the sites and leave. 

The fairboard used 600,000 of Biden Bucks from the state and a family donated about 100,000 and got naming rights to build a new barn which displaced the rabbits and chickens. We wanted to see what a 700,000 barn looks like and what they did with the rabbits and chickens. The barn is unimpressive and the rabbits and chickens,  which used to be in well preserved little barns with active superintendents and 4H workers taking pride in their care, are now in the goat barn. 

Mr Merry had agreed to buy me a breakfast sandwich from the grange.  We were blown away by food prices at the booths. $16 for chicken tenders and fries, $10 for fancy hot dogs. I could not have afforded to feed my family of five children anywhere at the fair.  Entry fee is $10 per person so it would have been $60 just to enter (Mr Merry worked weekends).  

We made it home by 8:30 and I am off to the charity office for the day.  Last Monday we had a record number of applications and our board meeting ran very long.  I am hoping this week might have less clients.  We did receive a bequest in a will so that money will help carry us for a while. 

Last night my dear husband picked a bucket of tomatoes, a bucket of green peppers, and zucchini and eggplant.  I made another pot of salsa, an eggplant casserole and cucumber salad from one of the 10 cucumbers he picked (no more pickles!).  This was after hosting five grandchildren for an overnight.

Eggplant Casserole

Thursday Church Day

 Today our temperatures were in the 70's (after a 20 degree drop last night) and I spent the best weather day of the summer, so far, in the charity office. 

We basically sit in a closet with a small window air conditioner so that we can't open a window. And when I opened the door, it was like opening an oven with the hot air from the whole month of July rushing at me. 

We are having a funeral at my church tomorrow and I am on the meal team.  The first thing I did when I got home was to make an Italian Pasta Salad. 

My first case was a woman whose husband works in a factory while she cares for their autistic elementary aged son. Her husband makes a few hundred dollars a month under their bills and she was exhausted trying to play catch-up month after month. 

I am good at commiserating with people and after we talked for awhile, we came up with a plan.  I believe we can help her complete her renegotiated mortgage payment for July. I reminded her tomorrow is August. I gave her a list of charities and foundations and social service agencies to contact to try to get her August payment so she could use his check to catch up other bills. We talked about trying to keep current or even ahead.  Then we had a talk about a part-time job to be able to keep up every month. She suggested babysitting and I suggested she contact the county to see if she could be certified as a county babysitter.  She does not really have job skills or the skill to have a job (if you know what I mean). But she was very sweet and I think she could be a dependable babysitter.  I made careful notes of our plan, who to contact, phone numbers and suggestions for her to take with her and she seemed very excited to get busy on the plan.  I hope it all works out. 

The second project was baking a pan of brownies for the funeral. 

The next client was a man who is unable to read or write and is a little slow. He did have a good friend who came with him to help with his application and help him out. He is on SSI and used his taxes to purchase his mother's trailer, pay the back taxes and wants to move in. He needed the security deposit and first month rent for lot rent which will be affordable for him. 

Another church is willing to do one if we do the other. He has a court date for custody of his son who is currently with a family member. CPS has already inspected and approved the trailer and he has him registered in school.  I provided information about area food banks and blessing boxes as well as other places to assist him.  He will be fine as long as someone mentors him. And that might have to be his 11 yr old son.  

If you buy a house on my street, I will bake you a pie. The house across the street sold to a free spirit friend of my middle son and he has just moved in. I assured my neighbors his waist length blonde dreads are not scary, he actually works the early shift in the area foundry and is already working hard on the landscaping. 

The third client was an application and interview from another volunteer yesterday. A woman in her 30's who has been in our country for almost 15 years as a green card holder and has been trying for citizenship but just hasn't had the funds.  Her renewal was not processed before her card expired and she is unable to work until it is renewed.  

She need funds to pay for a lawyer so that she can work through this (hopefully) and also money for some fees to go along with it since her green card is now expired. All in all, she needs about $1500.  

I don't want to say too much information but she is of Scandinavian descent and has four children born in this country. She also has a husband whose behavior is concerning. The church we usually partner with has voted not to assist as they are concerned they could be audited at some point and be liable for something or other from the government.  Another tricky part is that the fees need paid on the internet and we don't bank on the internet. We found a church of our denomination in a neighboring county who is willing to assist with us (although we may have to involve more organizations) and is able to transfer funds on the internet.  So this will be our big dilemma at our board meeting and I hope we don't get too many more applications by Monday. 

Cherry.  He was already asleep by the time it came out of the oven.  My husband, who gets up way to early, says he leaves around 4/5 am as they are trying to work 8 hours before it gets unbearably hot in the foundry and he should be home by 2 tomorrow.  I will take it over then. 

I apologize for the color changes and font changes and all the other goofiness. I am just too tired to figure it out.  

Updating.

In my younger days I used all my vacation time to volunteer with youth organizations. Here I am posing with the Ohio State Fair Cardinal (as is my youngest daughter who was already a teacher) as we served as judges for 4H food and nutrition projects. I think judging used to be 3 days and 2 nights and our pay was a shared hotel room (one night was five women in with two double beds and a pull out couch and ONE bathroom), breakfast at the hotel at 6 am and a meal voucher. Since morning judging always stretched from morning into afternoon judging, we would use our voucher for supper. 

I wore this outfit on Monday. I have no sense of style.  It is my new summer adult outfit. New is eleven years old. 

On Monday my daughter and I packed up the kids to meet my oldest daughter and my oldest granddaughter who is participating in an art competition where artists (even real ones) have registered to paint in their town. They sign up for locations on street corners, parks, schools and residents can even sign up their address and state a purchase price for their favorite painting.  

We ran into detours that added an extra 45 minutes to our hour and 30 minutes journey and went to my granddaughter's location for the day 

The background is a different detour. They have gutted the main drag for a project to rebuild the road and infrastructure as well as add two traffic circles.  

It was over 90 degrees outside with a heat index in the 100's.  Our original plan was to hold down a table inside in the air conditioning and take turns eating and sitting outside to supervise our artist who is old enough not to need babysitters, thank you very much. 

We were thwarted. The restaurant was closed on Mondays. As well as every other restaurant in town (some due to the construction I am sure). We had some bottled water and managed to stay alive melting in the shade for two hours. 

We picked up another grandson and drove across town to eat lunch at 4:00. 

Don't judge me. 

First eggplant. I believe we are now out of zucchini. It could not keep up with the heat. This is sad because my daughter gave me a great and easy recipe. Slice the zucchini and cut the slices into strips or cubes. Mix in a bowl with oil, grated parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, seasonings of choice (I used Italian seasoning and garlic powder) and cook on high in the air fryer at 450 for 10-15 minutes.  Delicious. 

I finally got enough tomatoes to make another batch of freezer salsa. This smelled amazing, but we were out of tortilla chips. I did buy some chips but it just looks so nice stacked in the freezer. 

The cucumber crop exploded.  I made my last batch of pickles. Again.  And I gave away all the cucumbers I could.  Then I posted this photo on our community facebook and finally got someone to take them. It was a full brown shopping bag. 

And we had half that many again the next day (Monday) and I took them up to my daughter. 

Yesterday was Mr Merry's birthday and we had visitors all day.  We had two families arrive at once, both with cakes.  I guess next year I should coordinate a celebration whether he wants one or not.  

My youngest grandson assured me that his retired railroad worker grampa wanted more wooden railroad pieces and I complied with a boxed set. 

A sweet story. On our long car ride home, this grandson said he wants to make applesauce with me and wants me to write down the recipe so that when I am up in heaven, he can make Mimi's applesauce with his children.