December 31, 2008

1. Still cranking out the Christmas Cards.  Hooray for me!
2. Is it insane that to buy sale wrapping paper at IKEA, that I drove out there during rush hour?  Probably.  But I moved pretty efficiently, and even made it back in time to meet AB and some work friends for happy hour downtown.  I have to say though, the valet parking makes it possible to go downtown efficiently.  I’m a big fan of that.
3. Stressful moments when the sink backed up, but the neighbors did too, and he called the rental company (since he is renting, and they sent someone to fix it, and fixing his clog, fixed my problem too, and I didn’t have to write a check!  Hooray!  Now I can do dishes again.  Hooray?
4. Chris’s Christmas Report:   “Speaking of other countries, we have a large French contingent here at Phoenix.  Their job is to run the ANA staff college and NCO school system nearby.  They live in one corner of the camp which they have marked off and dubbed “Quartier Lafayette.”  For all of some Americans’ bad mouthing of the French, even to the point of renaming french fries “freedom fries” the French are intensely proud of their role in our Revolutionary War.  The buildings in the “Quartier” are all have names like “Valley Forge”, “Yorktown”, “Rochambeau” and “Louisiane”.  For Christmas, they built a very elaborate mechanical Christmas Nativity scene, which is apparently a Foreign Legion tradition, with platoons competing for the best one.  This one showed all of the local area and had a narrative of and american and a French soldier sharing a beer and talking about life at the camp.  At one point the French soldier talks about the crazy traffic, and seemingly unaware drivers and pedestrians running through the streets on Route Violet which runs in front of the camps.  I turned to one French NCO and said “I have driven in Paris; it is the same!”  He had a laugh at that.  At the climactic moment of the presentation, part of the Afghan mountainside is lifted away to reveal the creche.”
5. Reports from our friends visiting up north.  Hooray for a babies that coo and gurgle!

 

 

December 29, 2008

1. I am about to head over to my parents where we are having a party tonight with the Berry’s to celebrate 30 years of knowing one another.
2. I am very glad of this, but reflective about the idea of friendship, and how often I fail at following through on simple things like calls and cards and emails that will maintain friendships.
3. My college roommate, with whom I have been a shamefully poor communicator has given me yet another chance and inspired me by sending me a Christmas card with her new address.  I am quite resolved to do better and indeed have written 7 cards today to family and friends who have continued to write to me, even though I have been silent lo these many years.
4. Kitchen sink is backed up.  It seems to be a contagion, effecting the whole building.  On the one hand this is a plus because if it is effecting the whole building the condo association will pay for the repair.  On the other hand, should blame be able to be assessed, say if a large ball of yarn or cat hair is found to have made the blockage, then bills will no doubt be assessed accordingly.
5. Chris called on Christmas day and is well.  Pictures of the French troops nativity construction competition to follow.

December 26, 2008

1. We had a really nice Christmas dinner last night. 
2. Church at 5 was also great, where once again my ego vied with my love for the Lord and I swung some crazy smoke as thurifer and thought, “Damn baby, I am swinging some crazy smoke!”
3. Fondue and presents with Pauls’ family.  M and B gave us Rock em, Sock em Robots!  Awesome!
4. AB and I took M and C to the new American history museum today.  That museum better not be finished in terms of displaying the collections, because if they are the American Taxpayer needs a refund.  The place is better lit than it used to be, but bare.  I want them to pull all of the stuff out of the attic and lay it out!  I know it is now trendy to  create a narrative and have lots of white space, but I kind of think it should look like one of those Oklahoma junque/antique shops.  Wall to wall stuff, and you make up your own damn narrative.
5. I will be able to join the digital tv revolution!  I’ve been, sadly, mesmerized for much of the day  by the crystal clear picture on my new TV Paul got me.  and to have channels like rader scan 4.2 and the A-Team, Magnum PI 7.3 is pretty exciting.

December 22, 2008

1. Oh how we struggle through the last days before the break.  The kids are happy and full of energy, and the teachers are just done!
2. I’ve received several charming gifts from the children, my favorite a homemade card and ornament.
3. Went for a holiday pedicure with AB and Ali, then we went and had fancy cocktails at the Ritz and then shopping.  Lots of fun!
4. I feel completely unprepared.  Some of my gifts may come post Christmas.  I still need to finish blank for blank and blank and there is major construction to be done on the blank for blank.  I hope blank likes her blank, I was able to work a great deal on that.  I still need to purchase the blank for blank.
5. Made cookies for the custodians tonight and will buy bagels for the sociology class, then 8th grade art project for the next four periods, then classes are cancelled for the volleyball tourney in the afternoon.  Don’t be in front of my car at 4:06, because I will run yo ass down ass I head home! (stopping at the blank store to buy blank’s blank.)

December 19, 2008

Gingersnap recipe with commentary.

They are our absolute family favorite, and the recipe is attributed to my Great Grandaunt Zelta Esther Peace.  Unusual name, no?  I don’t know what was in the water out there in Oklahoma, but the Peace sisters were: Zelta Esther, Bessie Arzona, Evelyn Geraldine, and Opal Vinnie.  Other notable names among the Peace Family: Okie Lucinda, Edphard Bemus, and Hobart Waldo.  May they rest in peace.

Aunt Zelt’s Ginger Cookies

1 C. granulated sugar
3/4 C. shortening
1/4 C. molasses (Green Label*)
1 egg
2 C. flour
1/2 t. salt
2 tsp. baking soda (yes soda, not powder)
1 tsp. ginger
1 tsp. cloves
1 tsp. cinnamon
granulated sugar
Stir sugar, shortening, molasses and egg together.  Combine flour, salt, soda, ginger, cloves and cinnamon, stir into molasses mixture. Chill dough thoroughly for easier handling.  When chilled, make dough into balls the size of walnuts.  Dip one side of balls into suger and place, sugared side up, on baking sheet.  DO NOT FLATTEN.  Grease the cookie sheet for the first time only.  Bake in preheated 325 degree oven for 10 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE.  The gingersnaps will seem soft when they come from the oven.  Store covered.

Historical Notes:

* The Original recipe says, in bold and threatening letters “BRER RABBIT GREEN LABEL” DO NOT SUBSTITUTE ANOTHER BRAND OF MOLASSES, YOU MUST USE BRER RABBIT GREEN LABEL.” – I have not been able to find Brer Rabbit for years, so I use Grandma’s with the green label, but I am pretty sure I am going to hell because of it. 

I recommend a heavy duty stand mixer for this dough.  We made it with a bowl and wooden spoon growing up, because it gave us character so we could handle life’s challenges, but now that I am grown, I bust out the Kitchen-Aid.

I also use a silicone mat for baking instead of greasing, but it doesn’t matter.  My mom has three cookies sheets, expressly for this purpose, that she greases up every year. (She also still uses the bowl and wooden spoon method, but she is much tougher than me.)

For the most recent batch I did not chill the dough and I think that might account for the cookies being so thin.  Experimentation on this issue will continue.

I like all the capital letters in the instructions.  Clearly Zelta did not put up with any nonsense.  It’s all true though, I have done both the flattening and the overbaking, and I am the lesser for it.

I have never made a single recipe of this.  I always double and I do that about 3 times.  I mean, what is the point otherwise?

December 18, 2008

1. Baking gingersnaps tonight for the staff party tomorrow.  Also testing a cheese straw (or rather disc) recipe, for some savory deliciousness.  (Later note, the cookies were a big hit.  I sent out the recipe to the staff with witty commentary, which perhaps I will post here.)
2. Very good field trip to the national Building Museum yesterday.  The kids built a house and a geodesic dome.  That is such a beautiful building!
3. I’ve been trying to post for days, but I keep falling asleep in my chair.
4. So I had an electrician come to fix a little home improvement project that I should not have attempted on my own.  He did a great job, but unfortunately, since he left after Paul had gone to work, he locked the bottom lock on the door, which we never use, and for which, I for some reason, no longer have a key on my ring.  So I had to have a locksmith come, adding to the total electric repair in a notable fashion, since it was overtime. 
5. All these deferred maintenance projects, though needed, are definitely banging up my bank account.  If only I could dip into maintenance reserve!  If only I HAD a maintenance reserve!

December 10, 2008

1. Yesterday was the crazy workout circuit. They keep upping the ante.  100 pushup situp and squats, 25 laps and now 200 jump ropes (it used to be only ropes, then only laps, now we’ve got it all.)  I’m slow like a turtle on those laps and was last to finish, but I finished.  Hooray!
2. I’ve completed my wreath based on the Starbucks Yarn Ball Wreath concept.  I think it came out nicely.  It hangs on the front door, giving a warm yarny greeting to all.
3. In a total impulsive move, I said I’d take a student teacher from January to March.  I kind of thought I had waited too long to answer the memo, but I got a response back pretty quickly.  I had a student teacher once before at my other school, and that was a pretty good experience, and that teacher is now a really great one.  I didn’t have much to do with her being good, but I feel good that I gave her a place to get going.  I think that is the idea that I like, that I am giving up my time so someone else can get started.  Also, frankly, this could really help me, if it allows me to focus on my high school classes while she does the middle school.
4. Our long term sub  was part of the impetus for this.  He is going to teacher school, and in the course of a misunderstanding about when I need him for a field trip (I thought this week, it is next) he went ahead and taught the lesson yesterday.  I observed him and then we talked about it later.  Seeing someone else do it is kind of engergizing and gives me new ideas.
5. I’m trying a little experiment from now until the break where I try to get out of the house by 5:50 and have from 6:10 to 8:20 to work at school. These times are all A.M. F.Y.I.  I just don’t have the time I need in any other spot.  I used to do this many years ago, regularly got moving by 6.  We shall see….

December 8, 2008

1. Just watching Charlie Brown Christmas, and the part where Lucy is chewing people out and Snoopy is behind her making fun, always makes me think of Chris because he will do the Snoopy part.  If I (or mommy, or melissa) are going on, he will put his hand on his hip and shake his finger and pretend to be us,  just like snoopy.  I love it when he does that.
2. Dear Santa, I would like an electric blanket and more energy and focus in the evenings.
3. Is this the amount of time that passes after which everyone who has been in counseling calls their old counselor and says, ok, you can come back now?
4. Maybe it is the winter and the dark.  I wake up way to early, and I want to go to bed way to early.  My lists are not getting done!
5. If I could write as well as this at age 82, I would be quite happy.

December 3, 2008

1. Did I say I was feeling excited about being altar guild president?  Did I say I thought it would be fun?  Did I?  Well that must have been before I started looking through the binders (The three, three inch binders.  A holy trinity of information.)  See, I never thought about things like cleaning off and rebagging the billion plastic candle holders, and other such things.  I’m not cowering under the bed.  Trembling.  And I’m only through the first quarter of the first binder!
2. One issue that must be solved is that of a desk.  I need to have a place where all these items and my computer are out and handy.  It would be good to be hooked up to the printer all the time too.  Maybe for 6 months the craft table with have to go into retirement.  It’s not like I’ll have time to play around with yarn and Styrofoam balls anyway.  Also, when I sit in the big chair and use the computer, Violet comes and has an extended period of walking on my stomach and kneading, then she lies down on my forearms.  While this is cozy, it make typing a little awkward, and flipping though papers and making notes absolutely out of the question.
3. Time management will be critical.  There is basically no time to work on things at school.  Even answering emails is challenging.  So everything will need to be done on weekends and in the afternoon and evening.  I’ve got to bring all the organizational pieces together here in the next month, so I don’t go insane.
4. Speaking of Styrofoam balls and yarn, I am working on my own version of the Starbuck’s Christmas wreath.  I saw it Thanksgiving day when the put out the Christmas decorations and it is very cool.  I wish I would think of things like that.  Very clever.  They also have used sweaters (or sweater fabric) to cover the bottoms of the tables and that made me think that it would be great to make a felted sweater tree skirt, but when I stopped by Goodwill yesterday afternoon, they didn’t have any red wool sweaters available.
5. I am going too fast in classes.  I am rushing them through stuff, and they aren’t all getting it, and not really connecting with the material.  Must slow down.  Must have more fun.