Two great things are happening right now...pre-season hockey is about to start(you know you are excited, well at least Ivonne is) and Halloween candy can be found everywhere. Oh evil, evil Halloween candy, how I love you so. Bags and bags of my favorite candies conveniently miniaturized for my candy eating pleasure. Only problem is, I have no problem throwing back 6 mini Snickers only to be horrified by reading the nutrition label. Why is it that I would never sit down and eat 3 Snickers bars in a row but I eat 6 mini ones that are the equivalent of 3 Snickers bars! Oh my. I go through phases when it comes to buying Halloween candy. On years when I am dieting of course we hand out candy that I don't really want to eat...which it is pretty hard to find a candy I don't really like. In recent years, I have been buying candy that my husband likes to eat. In the last 3 years we have had 2 whole trick-o-treaters. Two. :( . So we just buy what he will eat so that he can put them in his … [Read more...]
Back to the drawing board…
When you are a teacher there are all sorts of inspirational stories they throw your way. The two frogs one has been told in many forms, but this is the one I always used: There were once two frogs. These two frogs were very good friends but in being so they were very competitive. One day they decided to have a jumping contest to see who could jump the farthest over the fence. The first frog went first, clearing the fence but landing in a bucket of cream. Unable to tell his friend not to jump, the second frog jumped and found himself in the same situation. So there they were, two frogs in a bucket of cream. Both tried to jump to freedom, but the sides of the bucket were steep and no foundation was to be had on the surface of the liquid. Seeing little chance of escape, the first frog soon despaired and stopped jumping. After a short while he sunk to the bottom of the bucket and drowned. The second frog also saw no likelihood of success, but he never stopped trying. Even though each … [Read more...]
Under Pressure….
Oh the pressure, oh the pressure, oh the pressure. You see the Super Soup Challenge is under way again(this is year two) over at the newly remodeled(looks fantastic) Running with Tweezers. Why the pressure? Well, you see, my roasted onion and Gorgonzola soup won last year. I was “souper” surprised when I won and even better was the prize( a lovely soup cookbook). So now, I had to figure out what to make for this year. I decided that just like last year, I would stick with simple flavors, I find that best with soup. I wanted something comforting(as this contest is a tribute to Tami's mother), yet this time I wanted to use some ingredients that were in season. Corn. Corn is one of the few Summer ingredients I am not allergic to and more importantly I love! But what to do to make it special? I have sauted, roasted, boiled and baked corn but I had never smoked corn. I had tasted smoked corn before so I knew it was tasty, so I decided to give it a shot. Other than my … [Read more...]
A rant and a muffin….
When I first started teaching they handed me a binder and said make sure to teach all the things that are in bold and get to as many as the others if you can. That was it. Other than some sound advice from my team leader, “don't leave marks”...and he didn't mean on the furniture(he of course was joking), I was pretty much on my own to do whatever I wanted. Since I had great discipline( I even won an award for it) they pretty much left me alone, leaving the occasional “let me know if you need anything” note left in my teacher mailbox. My first three years of teaching were like this....and my kids flourished. We didn't waste time learning how to take tests. We didn't take “practice” tests. We didn't spend time on learning study skills...we just learned. Some days we even wasted some teaching time having fun(which is highly frowned upon now a days). We will take Thanksgiving for example. Now, I taught the older kids and my first 5 years I taught in an highly urban … [Read more...]
