Last day before break

Talking to Kel earlier this week I was reminiscing about some past finals weeks and decided to put together a top 10 list, similar to what you would see on the late show w/Dave letterman or in the Farm Talk. So here goes.

10. Knowing that I started packing days before all my friends and they STILL helped to pile stuff into my car at the last second.
9. Dirty Thursday has unsanitarily morphed into Dirty Week
8. Being so tired you have to ask someone what you just said.
7. Ticking off the people who didn't study for other tests, go to class or turn in their assignments by saying that you can get a 22% on the final and still keep your A
6. Sleeping when you can, where ever you land-be it your floor, someone else's floor, the entry way with your snow boots still on, the library, or someone else's bed with them still in it.
5. That "I don't care at this point so it's not really procrastinating" feeling as you and your friends complete the 17th level of word zap.
4. Hall way races.
3. The weekend before shennanigans.
2. Justifying consuming something in it's entirety (ex: whole pizzas, logs of ice cream, angel food cake, cans of Cheeze Whiz, boxes of Cheez-It's, bowls of cheese dip, boxes of peanut butter rice crispies, seasons of Grey's)
1. You all!

sometimes learning smells like apple crisp

Pancakes, it is the first kitchen lab the freshmen do and it is to show them that they THINK they know how to cook and read directions but of course the pancakes always burn and always taste horrible. My sup. came in a few weeks ago when I had the freshman cooking pancakes. My room reeked! The students had burnt batter to the electric burners and had missed the pan completely and sprayed the counter with cooking oil, then used one tablespoon of baking soda instead of 1 teaspoon of baking powder. What was unknown to all of us in my tiny classroom was that even though the vent was on and the windows open the hallway now stunk. The sup. asked me what in the world we were doing? "I replied learning! students, what did we learn today?" They started talking about remembering what a little t means and to read the box before using the item and that "medium high" isn't the same as medium, etc. etc. (with prompting of course-they never just answer freely). My sup. told me that it smelled all the way down the hall, I replied with a huge smile (hoping he and the students would find me funny which they didn't) "sometimes learning stinks" he didn't say anything just walked out but my students all day long would tell people when they asked what smelled that it was "learning."

Today we made apple crisp, sometimes this lab works out well, sometimes not because the students make it in the microwave and if they push the zero one too many times 2 minutes goes to 20 and it's usually 4 or 5 before anyone notices and yeah....burnt apple crisp STINKS!

However I am very very proud of my students they did well, enjoyed it and could tell me (with prompting of course) what they learned. So now I am going to finish my lunch and remind myself that everyday can't be a good day and while there are tons of things to do before Monday I need to enjoy today. Today learning smelled great!

Snowing morning roads

This morning I left a little early so that I could hopefully get a few things done before students get in and I did which began my day out well. What made my morning really nice was the calm quietness that comes with a first real snow. Like everyone is holding thier breath and just looking at the wonder of it. Yes it snowed on Friday but it didn't stick, there was no evidence that it had snowed versus drizzled. So this morning when the gentle wind blew the dusting of snow across my crunchy rock road I smiled. The treat of the snowy morning was when the brilliant moon peaked out from behind the clouds and illuminated the road. It is so pretty when there is just enough snow that it lightly covers the black top but it has silted down through the grass and the road becomes a twisted white ribbon, lying on a fuzzy back rug, that seems to be pulling you into a Alice in Wonderland like maze where you feel like you should be getting bigger and then the road curves and all of a sudden gets wider (due to the turning lanes) and you feel so tiny of a sudden.

Tuesday is the new Friday

Today is Tuesday...but it feels like Friday because there's not school tomorrow. Ahhhh.....I need a few days off which aren't really off. I will be cleaning and cooking and painting and about a million other things. Tonight will be a long evening, staying at school until everything is done and my room is organized and grades are updated.

Last night a friend came over and helped me prime my living room...Cody and I will put the paint on tonight. I secretly hope he does it while I am still at school, we have found that his better half is really terrible at painting. Imagine klutzy me meets not paying attention me meets hyper me holding a paint brush...it's a mess! I will post pictures of the finished product.

In the mean time I will be doing knife usage labs (salsa recipe is below), observing the habits of four and five year old indians and pilgrams eat Thanksgiving Lunch, assist the completion of a money management unit wrap up packet, assess the correct verbal communication skills of my spanish 1 students and then make Sally Lunn Rolls with the Food Science students.

I hope you all have a marvelous Thanksgiving. I am thankful the most in my life for the people around me--we had a great weekend and for those of you who could not making it to our weekend. See you in December!!!!

Fresh Salsa

5 Roma tomatoes

1/2 large onion

1/2 bunch of cilantro-mostly leaves

Juice of 1 lime or 1/4 cup lime juice from a bottle

dash of salt

Chips

Finely chop roma's and onion. Cut off ends of stems of cilantro and pull off any bad leaves or sprigs. Push all of the good pieces into the bottom (may have to do this in 2 segments) of a glass-like the kind you drink out of-and use kitchen shears to chop through them making them tiny pieces. Put veggies in a bowl add lime juice and salt, Mix together well....if you are doing this for a party or something you should leave it out at room temp for an hour or so the refrigerate left overs. This will keep for about a week. To keep the flavor nice you may have to add some more lime juice and cilantro. Store extra cilantro loosly in a ziploc bag that is NOT zipped closed.

salsa image is from a blog-original blog link is here: http://mexicanfood.about.com/b/2007/06/27/learn-to-make-salsa.htm

Going international again

Anja is getting married!! The first or second weekend in June Anja will be getting married so Cody and I will fly out probably the week before and stay 2 or 3 days after with her family. I am very excited for her and Andy, they will make a wonderful family. So far I have found round trip tickets with one stop each way in New Jersey for $980 each!! Only down side is that there is a long lay over in New Jersey but that will be okay, give us some time in case of bad weather or delays. Hopefully this time I won't leave my boarding pass on the back of the toilet in the terminal! It is exciting to plan this trip with some fun vacation activities. Unfortunately we will not have the time or the dollars to go to Paris and see Claude Monet in the Louvre, but we will go to the National Museum in Berlin.I read they have some more pieces added to the Impressionism exhibit.....can you guess how excited Cody is?? I am so lucky to have a tolerant and caring husband.

We are super excited to see you all this weekend and to tailgate, it's gonna be chilly but hopefully someone got assigned to bring hot chocolate!

I can't get no...consentration

BAH! Mondays..500 million things to do, only 24hours. Yes, it's 7:45 and I am still at school-went to the board meeting as a teacher representative and used my time between 4:00 and 6:45 to get some stuff done. Nothing exciting just reworking some classes hopefully. I have big ideas but with next years budget cuts I am trying to assess the risk..try something new that the state may not provide funding for but will be more beneficial to my students OR stick with the same ole same ole classes and try to make them work? Decisions decisions. On an up side (yeah I'm gonna brag) the school board president tonight told me he thought I was doing a good job and had heard good things from others also. I am hoping his approval gives me a little job security.

Glitter

This morning I was dreading going to school. I really like school it's just that I sort of dislike going there after a rough day. I believe us teachers have decided that Wednesdays are by far the least fun day of the week. Nothing in particular that is bad except that the students are rediculous, there's too much week left to be excited for the weekend and not enough week left to get everything done. AND there is inservice tomorrow which is like Latin for "hurry up and wait, and do 15 activities then rush to your room in order to get some stuff done before the veteran teachers start coming around and talking to you and you get nothing done with your 4 hour work day in which you wanted to get caught up on grading and potentially clean out a cabinet!" Okay, maybe not latin but definately spanish...I should know, I teach it also. :)

Back to this morning, so I was dreading school and then after turning off of hwy 75 and onto hwy 58 there was a slow moving grain truck. I am all for farmers and don't mind driving behind them as long as they don't throw stuff on my car and chip my windshield (visual: me in my car, hair wet with my arm raised in a fist shaking it as a rock hits my windshield-but no chip!!).

As we come around a curve I see something large in the road and a black plastic trash bag fluttering from one edge as if it is trapped underneath this dark slimy mess. Cramming the breaks as the grain truck soars over it (we were going down hill) the dark slimy mess is pushed up into the sky but the rear tires and I am immediately encased in a snow globe effect of red, yellow and gold glitter. The dark slimy mess is actually a trash bag of leaves that has fallen out of the back of someone's truck and has been torn open. The morning's rain has dampened the leaves so that has they are sent airborne into the brilliant morning light red, yellow and gold glitter falls upon me. Luckily I am still cramming my breaks because the momentary heaven ceases as the leaves plaster to my windshield. The wipers just sort of slide them around as the damp fragile leaves are torn apart and trapped under my wipers.

So I just smiled and held onto my bits of glitter and called Kel to tell her that Thursdays are always better than Wednesdays.

Lemon Pound Cake

Friends,
I am making a very amazing lemon pound cake for our christmas get together. Somehow a little bit of heavy pound cake with light sweet lemony finish is amazingly refreshing on a blustery winter day especially after all of the heavy Thanksgiving/Christmas desserts...and for you lemon-haters (yeah, you know who you are!) I am also going to make another dessert. I really need some baking therapy. If you have been craving anything let me know and I will experiment. I want to make something that will WOW! a crowd but I can alter so my students can make it. Thus I should get practicing!!

Dia De Los Muertos

My students have a hard time keeping the Mexican holiday "dia de los muertos" seperate from halloween. Dia de los muertos is more like our memorial day - the graves of loved ones who have passed are decorated and the passed loved ones are remembered. Halloween is now a day to run around and have fun with friends and eat candy. When halloween nears I also have a hard time determining the difference between the two.

Many types of dermatitis

So...there seem to be many types of dermatitis. Which makes sense since "derma" is the skin and the "itis" part means inflamed. Which explains why my lips burn! Yes, lips! I went to the doctor today about my fluffy, itchy, bumpy, oozy (making you a little hot around the collar eh??) red, tingly lips. It looked similar to when I had poison ivy but felt a lot different.

Before my lips felt like bumpy leather that was itchy but painful because they were so swollen.

Now they feel like I have put on the lip plumper stuff and they tingle ALOT, like someone is tickling my lips and it is pissing me off.

So I went to the doctor he poked and proded as doctors do and after running the gammet of possiblities he decided that I have a lip dermatitis which he thinks is acually going to turn into one big cold sore on both of my lips --which I guess would technically be two.

I have some pills that look like tic-tacs and taste like chalk but after just two pills my lips are less swollen.

While this may seem like a bad deal I am trying to look at the bright side....there are certain things I can't do in my condition that involve predominantly the lips. I may have lip dermatitis forever!

Homecky Becky

Last night was regional volleyball here at CHS we didn't do so good. I got volunteered to do the "hospitality room" for it. Which was fine but I was not about to do it all on my own time so I switched some lessons around and Food Science got to do a cutting lab and cut all the veggies and cooked the meat (we just talked about how heat changes food either chemically or physically or...gasp...both!) for the potato soup and chili and veggie trays and Resource Mangement made cookies and cookies and cookies. So right now I am feeling very "Homecky Becky" I never minded when you all would ask me to sew something (although it might be a while--sorry about your pants Cindy) or how to get a stain out but you didn't interupt class time to do it or ask me to wash your coaching shirt 30 minutes before game time!! So I have begun to do what no "Home Ec" teacher has done before--I have said "no" WOW!!! Okay so usually it's just "not right now" but if they don't come back you don't have to worry about it!

I do have to admit...the potato soup and snickerdoodles did turn out well...my kids have a knack for cooking--this may be a good year, good enought to gain a few pounds!

Skoo Jail

Did your life in college ever make you feel like you were in school jail? Not like you had been bad but that you just couldn't escape? I thought I was past that, apparently not. Some days I feel like I am in school jail....or more like on the school jail chain gang because it follows me home, reminds me it is there during supper, during dishes, during laundry-waiting to be graded and planned and revised and discussed with whomever will answer their phone...and what makes it worth it? Is it the 12 hours a day I work? Is it the "summers off"? No....it's those ungrateful urchins that I am so excited to see everyday who when I crack a joke look at me like I am an idiot then gradually smirk and finally giggle when they see my eyebrow raise as if I am saying "aren't you going to laugh at my joke? I'm waiting for the applause sign to light up and you to follow the directions." Only sometimes I'm the one who has to keep from laughing, has to keep that composure and I erupt into laughter at a comment that while inappropriate and unrelated has to be addressed and acknowledge because my kids are witty and funny and smart and dumb as a rock, and mean, and hurtful and playful and clueless and they share the same cell that I do here in skoo jail.