My Daughters

Today, Allie said that she wasn't having children of her own that she was going to the store where mommies drop off their babies they don't like and she was going to get one of those babies. (Her words not mine). I told her that she would be a great mom and that I thought it was great that she was going to adopt a baby. Caroline came in about then and Allie asked her if she was going to have a baby and Caroline said, "no, I am going to be a bug expert!"

Tenth Anniversary

I knew I loved my husband...and every day I love him just a little bit more. But on Wednesday evening my love grew just a little more than normal. Our anniversary was Thursday but Wednesday evening he gave me an anniversary gift.

An iPod!! Not just the normal one but the "touch" one with the touch screen. It is exactly like the iPhone but it doesn't have the phone capability. OMG!!! I totally love it!!

I am currently downloading my favorite music, internet bookmarks (yes I can surf the net wherever there is wi-fi!), photos and more!

It is the most modern piece of technology in our house and it cost more than our desktop computer did just two months ago.

Boy do I love him.

A Project Finished

Check out my finished project here.

Our Christmas Card

Can't decide which one to send...

Dinner

If this looks good then go to Whitney's Cooking!

Nothing new to post today.

Just more of the same today. Soccer practice in a little while. That will end soon. Fix dinner. Work on gifts for Christmas. Bath and Bed.

Speaking of Christmas it is coming up quickly this year. Part of me says ahh it is far away from now and the other part says oh my, here it is already...

We are decorating early this year and I hope it will get everyone in the family very excited. We have wonderful plans this holiday and the kids and adults alike are counting the days. We will be decorating next weekend if all goes as planned.

We have decided to remodel the living room, dining room and kitchen this year and had the contractor out for an estimate. The estimate came back so much lower than we expected that we can also enclose our porch and make it a sun room at the same time. I can't wait! We won't feel so segmented in our house anymore.

Don't forget to check out Whitney's Cooking! New recipes almost daily...

A cold rainy day and voting

Today is election day and the kids have the day off. It is cold and rainy outside so they can't go out and play. We finally turned the heat on in our house. It is now nice and cozy warm. I just posted some comfort food recipes on Whitney's Cooking. Meatloaf and Mac and Cheese! Yum. I think we are going to have stew tonight for dinner. I am thinking about making it in the slow cooker with yeast rolls.

I don't think many people will be voting today. That is a shame because at least once a year we get to perform one of our fundamental ways of participating in a democratic (representative) government. This is exactly what our forefathers wanted us to do; participate in our governmental process. And now people will allow the weather, rain particularly, to determine whether or not they will vote. They truly take for granted our fragile form of government. Remember all the purple-dyed fingers? They were happy to finally be able to vote. I teared up at their proud faces as they voted for the first time fully in their own decisions. For us, ah a little rain, maybe we won't go to the polls...

My husband voted this morning earlier and he said there were no lines and that many people were running unopposed and there was one seat that no one was running for. I asked him if he wrote his name in and he said no. But if the position looks interesting I may write my name in. We will see what happens. Most of the election is for local and state positions.

Dad's Recipes

I have begun sorting through my father's recipes. I started posting them on my Whitney's Cooking blog. Check it out. So far we have a Potato casserole trio and his world famous spaghetti sauce. PS. Click on the link on the sidebar!!!

Donate Rice

A friend emailed me this link. Click on it and play the vocabulary game and the more you get right the more rice they will donate.

Easy way to improve your vocabulary and help others!

http://www.freerice.com/index.php

Nicholas

Nicholas told me last night that his pirate that I made him looked like Tigger dressed up in a costume. He said the arms and legs looked like Tigger. Too cute! Photo of the pirate is here.

My Ghools!!

My three ghools!

Allie

Nicholas

Caroline

I'm in purple and my neighbor is in black.

A bunch of us gather together and canvas the neighborhood trick-or-treating! We take a cooler with adult beverages in it on a wagon that we pull. The kids run from house to house and we all walk together!

Happy Halloween!

"It's a spooky kinda day..."

Last night I finished the pirate doll for Nicholas and I gave the little guys to my little monsters this morning. Caroline LOVES her ghost, Nicholas his pirate and Alexandra her Pumpkin! Tonight they will dress up and I will take lots of pictures. Their costumes are perfect for them. My orderly/rule follower guy (Nicholas) is a police officer, my "princess"(Alexandra) is Jasmine, and my "superhero" (Caroline) is Violet from the incredibles. Caroline said last night at dinner that she told everyone in the class yesterday what she was going to be for Halloween but they didn't understand her. When she says "Violet" it sounds like "Pirate" with her speech difficulties. So last night she got in her costume and I took a picture of her and printed it out for her to take in to SHOW everyone what she is! She truly is a super hero!

Here is a picture of the pirate I finished for Nicholas!!

Scroll down for pumpkin carving pictures!!

Pumpkin Carving

We carved pumpkins today!!

Wanna see where I work?

Here it is...

This is the view from my desk which sits in the "back" of the classroom by the door. This is looking toward the left and the other is toward the right.

Notice the windows with the bars. The board that I use is a state of the art "Smartboard". It is hooked to my computer and I can project the computer screen up on it by my LCD projector mounted at the ceiling. I can touch the board and control the computer like a touch screen. It is pretty cool and the kids love to come up to the board to use it. I also have a regular white board that is on the right side of the room. The tables are weighted and weight a ton. The chairs are made of a durable plastic and are one piece.

For the most part it is a pretty normal classroom. I can't have too much stuff out sitting around. There is no bulletin board as we can't really use staples. The kids come in to class in small groups of 8-10. They are mixed in age and grade levels so they area all usually taking a different social studies course. I teach about 10 minutes to the whole group and then they begin their individual work, independently. In the first 10 minutes I tend to think of it as similar to Jay Leno's monologue. I stand up in the front and talk for a minute about whatever is on my mind. Recently it has been my frustrations in playing the McDonald's Monopoly game on the Internet. (Windows 98 vs. Vista) Then I instruct about some little topic, many times it is a skill of some sort or we watch CNN Student News for current events. Then they get settled in their books. They each have assignments on the regular white board that I didn't take a picture of. I walk around and help them out or sit with one person and instruct on a specific event in history or a concept.

The weird stuff: I have to flip mentally from Ancient World History to Modern (1500 to present day) World History, American History, and US Government in a flash. I can be helping someone with the definition of a complex civilization or why mummies in Egypt pulled their brains through the nose with an instrument that looks like a fish hook to answering questions about the electoral college, then to the first battles of the American Revolutionary war and back again. I have to count pencils going out and being collected each class period. When a child breaks a pencil lead we have to find the lead that got broken off. I can't use paper clips, real adult scissors, or leave my stapler out on my desk. I can use staples in paper only when absolutely necessary and then I have to be ever vigilant about watching the kids who have staples in their papers. We can only use pencils, not pens, not mechanical pencils. The kids can only use yellow legal pad paper. They can't use regular notebook paper to write on AND I have to give it out one sheet at a time. I have to report every doodle on every paper, book, or table.

A majority of my students go to school intermittently when not locked up with us. Therefore, they often won't get much credit for the work they do in our school. They do get credit for the time they are with us, don't get me wrong but when they go to a new school after they leave us it is up to the new school to decide whether or not to give the kids credit for their work with us. Knowing this, I often will work specifically on lifetime skills that will help them in real life and not require them to memorize massive amounts of bogus info that they won't ever use. I am not stupid and I do realize that most people don't love history like I do and I don't hold it against them.

Oh, did I say I love my job?

Turkey Time

Last year in January, I came across a huge sale on leftover turkeys. They were 16 cents a pound and I decided to get one. The one I chose was 22 lbs and cost something like 4 bucks! Kenneth went through the freezer on Saturday morning and announced that the turkey was still residing in the freezer and suggested that we cook it. So we thawed it out and had it for dinner tonight. Man, the house smells amazing! Just like the holidays!! What a great start to the holiday season.

Here's how I prepared it. I cleaned him out and dried him off. I put him in a Reynolds Turkey Bag and melted a stick of butter, added a teaspoon of minced garlic, several sprigs of fresh thyme, a teaspoon of kosher salt, and a several shakes of pepper. After mixing it all together and letting it cook for a second, I poured the mixture all over the top of the turkey making sure that the thyme sprigs were all on the top. I tied the bag and stuck him in the oven for 3 hours until his button popped. I let him rest before cutting.

If you have never cooked a turkey in a bag you will find that he is juicy and delicious. He isn't dry at all and often when you attempt to move him from the pan to a platter he will completely fall apart. Now that is the sign of a juicy turkey. In the bag there is no more basting every 30 minutes and you don't open it at all while cooking. Now you can't really put more than vegetables in the cavity. If you put stuffing in it you will find that it just turns to mush. So leave the cavity either empty or just put some rough cut vegies in there like carrots, celery and onion.

I served it with red skin mashed potatoes, broccoli, and rolls. I didn't want to make a traditional Thanksgiving dinner because it wasn't Thanksgiving.

Update on "the experiment"

I tried it and the results were average. I put it in the oven on 350 for about 30 minutes. Cakes usually take about 40 minutes to cook so I figured that I would see something in 30 minutes time. 20 minutes into it I couldn't stand it so I checked and it still looked like dry cake mix on top and nothing going on underneath. At 30 minutes nothing had changed and I started searching for some recipes on line similar to this.

One recipe said to take a large can of mixed fruit, a dry cake mix and mix the two together and bake. Mmm... that sounded good and also gave me the idea that it needed to mix together a bit. Another said to mix the cake mix with eggs only and put on top. Eww. Another said to put butter pats on the top. I remembered that one of the guys said to pour some butter on top. So I went in the kitchen, pulled it out of the oven, kinda chunked the mix into the now-hot peaches beneath and I put a half a stick of butter in the microwave and melted it and then poured it on top and stuck it back in the oven for another 20 minutes. When I pulled it out it was looking much better. It was slightly crunchy on top and the cake mix now looked more like baked cake and the peach juice was bubbling all around the edges. I let it cool down a bit and after the kids went to bed I spooned some out and heated it back up in the microwave oven and then scooped some vanilla ice cream on top.

It turned out more like a cobbler than a cake. It was all gooey underneath with moist cake on the top with some crunchies from the butter.

Would I do it again, you ask? Yes, I would if I were serving it hot with ice cream that same night.

So here is the recipe...

One large can of fruit in juice
One box of yellow cake mix
1/2 stick of butter

Pour the fruit and juice in the bottom of a baking dish. Layer the dry cake mix on top evenly. Melt the butter and pour on the top all over. Bake at 350 for 35-45 minutes. You will know when it is done when it looks like cobbler. Let cool slightly before serving with ice cream.

An Experiment

I was talking with some co-workers and we were talking about how to make "Apple Betty". The conversation moved to an easy way to make a fruit cake. The men explained that you take a can of fruit in juice, put it in a baking dish. Then take a box of cake mix and pour it on top. (Yes the dry cake mix). Then put it in the oven and bake. The other gentleman said that he does it all the time with his boy scout troop in a dutch oven while camping. He said it works. The third gentleman then chimed in and asked me if I was going to make one. I said, "I'm game. Will you eat it if I bring it in tomorrow?". He agreed as he loves anything that I bring in to share. It is in the oven now. I will let you know how it turns out.

The Ghost

I started the purple fuzzy monster and I didn't like it so I decided to do a ghost. I got some white yarn and started on what I thought would look like a ghost. I finished the first side and it turned out to be a triangle. It didn't look like a ghost at all. I then got on line and started looking for bell patterns. I found one and started to work it up and it didn't look like a ghost at all. Then I started playing around and voila, I got my ghost. I added eyes and a smile and there he was. A few arms and we had our ghost.
Now I am off to work on the pirate and I will have all three done before Halloween.

20th High School Reunion

Last night was my 20th high school reunion. It doesn't seem that long since I graduated but it has been 20 years they tell me. I certainly don't feel that old! I am not real sure why I was nervous but I was. I didn't RSVP until the very end and even yesterday I had thoughts about not going. But as I told my husband when we went to his, if it is bad and we want to leave then we will go and have a nice dinner somewhere. As it turned out we arrived around 7:45 and before I knew it, it was midnight! Everyone looked just the same. Some of the men had turned grey and some had lost some hair. The ladies really all looked very much the same. I would have recognized them in a heartbeat at the mall. Speaking of which, I am not sure why I don't run into more of them. Most everyone there lived still in Richmond. We have spread out a bit but I was surprised to find out many still live within the same high school district that we lived in growing up.

So to anyone out there reading this and thinking that their reunion is coming up and it questioning whether or not to go. GO! You will find that you will have a really good time. I can't wait until the next one now!!

When all Else Fails...

use Italian Salad Dressing. Or if you like a good Ken's Caesar does well too. No, I am not talking about eating salad. I AM talking about marinades. Italian salad dressing is great on fish, chicken, tuna, pork and turkey. It is also great on shrimp! You can also marinade most kinds of vegetables if you are going to grill them. I am talking about zucchini, squash, onions, eggplant, and even fresh green beans. What a versitile item!!