Trifle Day 2014

Happy birthday to me! I kind of can't believe I turned 29 on Saturday. My last year before my thirties. My first year having a child, owning a house. 29 is marked as a pivotal point in stereotypes - eternally 29! - but I think it will be pivotal to me for how much change it brings into my life. I may remember 29 as the year of being broke and sleep-deprived!

I always find birthdays, along with New Year and the start of September, make me reflect on the year past and consider the goals I need to be working towards. Some goals I want to keep in mind for 29 are to stay strong on the budgeting front and really focus on sticking to cash purchases. No more credit! I want to be focused on my fitness both before and after baby - ideally I'd like to be back to my pre-pregnancy weight by Christmas. That means not letting my pregnancy weight gain get out of control, and being diligent about actually exercising. I'll admit I've never been good at that. I want to keep up with this blog (I say that every time I set goals, but I struggle to follow through with any regularity). Most importantly, I want to be better about connecting with family and friends. Making dinner parties, brunches, and get-togethers happen more often. Being better about picking up the phone or shooting off a quick e-mail or note. I know that a lot of people find it difficult to balance having a child with their pre-child relationships, and I don't want that to happen to me. My friends are an extended family that has been with me through so much. I don't want to lose any of these people through neglect.

But enough about goals and reflection - my birthday is always celebrated with an annual Trifle Day! Tim and I stopped in town Friday night to pick up trifle supplies. I make enough trifle to really comfortably feed twenty people, or that can be stretched to feed thirty. I make it in a large glass punch bowl/cake plate that I bought at Knock on Wood back in university for this exact purpose. We had twenty-one this year and there was only the tiniest bit left over - I have it in the fridge for a snack. It does feed a lot of people, but I'll warn you that it isn't cheap. I usually spend between $50 to $70 each year, plus it takes an hour or two to prep and assemble if you're doing it on your own. Without any further ado:

Laura's Birthday Trifle

Ingredients:
2 - angel food cakes
2 - 170 g clamshells of blueberries
2 - 170 g clamshells of raspberries
2 - 1 lb clamshells of strawberries
6 kiwis
2 - 1 L containers of Cool Whip, thawed
1 - 500 mL container of sour cream
1 cup of milk
2 - 4 servings pkgs of vanilla pudding mix

1. Prep your cake: Cut the angel food cakes into approximately 1" cubes.
2. Prep your fruit: Wash the berries. Cut the strawberries into chunks the same size as your blueberries and raspberries. Peel the kiwis and cut into chunks the same size as your berries.
3. Prep your cream: Mix together sour cream and milk. Thoroughly mix in both packages of vanilla pudding mix. Fold in both containers of Cool Whip.
4. Cover the bottom of your trifle dish with cream, then a layer of cake, then a layer of fruit. Repeat until you've used up all of your ingredients. I can usually get three layers in my large dish.

From this:

To this:

To this!

Have a happy trifle day!

Our recovery time isn't what it used to be.

I don't know about you, but I'm quickly approaching the thirty mark and something about aging has destroyed my ability to recover after partying. I used to be able to drink heavily Friday and Saturday, barely sleep, and still operate decently well on Sunday. Whereas today, after just one night of drinking, I got out of bed at 9:30, went to the washroom, walked downstairs, and had to immediately lay down on the couch. I was lucky that the remote control was in reach, because I'm not sure I could have gotten back up to get it. I put on cartoons and dozed back off until it was afternoon. I'm glad at that point I decided to get up and get some juice, because there was a mirror on the way and I got to see how terrible I looked. That at least convinced me to shower and put on some makeup before Tim got home and decided he didn't want to marry me after all.

This is the point where a lot of people moan and say that they'll never drink again, but I've never been that type of hungover person. All I have to do is pull out the camera or phone and look at the pictures from the night before to start laughing and remembering what an amazing, fun time I had. And given that last night was my bachelorette party, I earned my hangover the honest way. 

Jenn (and baby!), Lindsay, me, Lisa, and Alana all dressed in black to celebrate!

It helped that my friend Lindsay did a great job setting up the party and I got to celebrate with a few of my favourite girls. The theme was a night in black to balance out my day in white! Lindsay and her husband Cory cooked us a delicious meal and Lindsay had the whole place decorated - even the bathroom! There were funny favour bags with candy, personalized shotglasses, condoms, and penis playing cards that had little tasks on them for the night ahead. After dinner I opened up the gifts that the girls had gotten me. Let me tell you, I think Tim is really going to enjoy some of them! Ooo-la-la!! 

Completing playing card tasks - steal a guy's hat for a photo.

The only embarrassing moment of the night (if you can be embarrassed when you're just with your girlfriends) is when I exclaimed over how I was the only one drinking and Lisa said she thought I was just drinking the punch. Which I was. And it didn't have any alcohol in it. Yikes . . . A few of us mixed up drinks shortly after that. At least I didn't say that I was feeling really drunk!!

Wait, is no one else doing a shot? Okay, I'll just cheers myself!

After Lindsay got a pretty little veil tucked into my hair, we headed downtown. I think they were originally planning on checking out a few bars, but we went to Riley's first and I never wanted to leave! Ever since I moved back to Peterborough, Riley's has been my bar. My Cheers, kind of - where at one point, most of the servers and bartenders knew my name. Now, since Tim and I have been together I don't go out as much (damn boy cramping my style), there are only a few of the old staff still there who recognize me. But it's still my place. My favourite bartender, Guy, was working the bar and had my rum and Coke ready for me as soon as I stepped up. He even gave it to me on the house, seeing as I was wearing a veil and all. After that, things get a little blurry - four hours went by AWFULLY quick. I do know at one point there was four shots in front of me, and at another there were three rum and Cokes. That there is a video floating around somewhere of me doing a muff dive - which is a shot out of a pile of whipped cream that you're not allowed to use your hands to take. I believe that one was on the house as well. I know the guy at the table next to us bought all of us a round. And there was one really geeky guy that kept offering to pay for whatever we needed - until he passed out in his nachos and got escorted out of the bar. Ew - and then another group of people started eating them! He had drooled in those!! 

A natural inability to keep my eyes open in photos, plus a lot of drinking, PLUS a crazy bright iPhone flash = photos where I look more hammered than I am. Lisa looks very happy about it, though!

By the end of the night a few of my other friends had popped into Riley's as part of their own nights and it was good to mingle and visit. We wound up being one of the last to leave around 3:00 a.m. when they had already turned on the lights and were cleaning up. All the staff there are wonderful. Polite and friendly, even when we were keeping them from their own beds. Cory was a sweetheart and drove downtown to pick us up. I don't really remember getting from there to bed, but I woke up all cozy this morning, snug as a bug.

There were actually three of these in front of me, but I couldn't figure out how to pick them all up at once!

Time to reflect. This is my second bachelorette. My first one was everything I had asked for - a laid back cottage weekend with the girls, just very low key. This one was completely different, but I loved every second of it. I was chatting with my sister, Sarah, about it earlier and she said, "It sounds like everything you didn't know you wanted, but did." And she's right. 

It is helping my hangover a little bit to see Tim's. My bachelorette was one night - Tim's was Thursday through to this morning and he is looking like it. It's evening and he's been passed out on the couch already for three hours. Poor guy. Celebrating a wedding is hard work, and it's not even the wedding yet! I can't wait! 

Aw. Poor hungover Tim.