« April 2014 | Main | June 2014 »
This month...
I have been chasing families down all week to gather last minute RSVP's for tonight's cheer banquet.
I do not really have anything nice to say about that process (how can people not respond?!?), so I will leave it at that.
The senior gifts are wrapped...the thank you gifts for the board members are done...and I have a few last photos to add to the 12 minute slide show after I take them at the end of the year assembly this morning.
Tomorrow, May 31st, wraps up my first year of being booster club president. It's been an invaluable learning experience to say the least.
And since they decided to re-elect me, Sunday June 1st, is the beginning of my second year as booster club president. Here's hoping that I might know what I am doing now.
I cannot believe all of these are in my backyard...few things make me happier.
Actually, after getting home at one in the morning from the Hollywood Bowl, I'm a little tired.
However, I got to see Billy Joel sing one of my most favorite songs ever last night and that more than makes up for just about anything.
Oh la la la, di da da. La la, di da da da dum...
We barbecued some tri-tip this weekend, along with lots of corn cut off the cob and twice baked potatoes. These potatoes very well might be the first real thing I ever learned to cook when I was a teenager...you know, right after hot pockets and macaroni and cheese. So that means almost 25 years of twice baked potato making now...and they are still as good as ever. This is my current "recipe", but it really is a throw things together kind of a dish.
Twice Baked Potatoes
Bake potatoes at 400 degrees for one hour. Remove potatoes from the oven and carefully slice them in half lengthwise. Scoop each potato into a bowl. Combine hot potatoes with all the ingredients, reserving half of the the shredded cheese.
After smashing the potatoes together with the ingredients salt and pepper as desired, scoop mixture into a buttered casserole dish, and sprinkle with remaining cheese. Return to the oven for 10-20 minutes until the cheesy crust is puffed slightly and golden brown.
Tomorrow, to kick off the holiday weekend, I am catching up on grading. I just added it up and I have eighteen assignments to get entered from the three classes I still have at the community college...and that's all from this past week. At least everything is organized into neat piles...these bow binder clips are my new favorite thing.
I haven't made any cards in the last few weeks, but I finally made a belated batch to do some birthday gift thanking.
Well Wishes...a homemade card shared on Wednesdays.
We usually get my brother-in-law a gift card to his favorite remote control car store for Christmas and his birthday every year. Now if someone got me a gift card for one of my favorite stores like Anthropologie it would make me awfully happy. Regardless, getting him a gift card time after time kind of made me feel like I wasn't trying hard enough.
So I asked my sister for a list of his favorite beers, Sean and I read up on them, spent a little too much time in the individual beer bottles aisle, and put together a dozen different bottles of new beer for him to try based on what we knew he liked.
That's a decent gift, right? But then I decided the gift had to look cute too. The carriers the beer came in were completely covered in ads for the store, so it would have been like rebuilding an entire box to cover them up, so we ended up at the dollar store for a container. We quickly found a bucket and got in line and then it occurred to me...balloons.
I added some curly ribbon when we got home and we had ourselves a party.
1. I should make this cleaning scrub and stop using Comet.
2. The green ceiling...and every other detail.
3. A dinner of appetizers sounds so good...and it will include these.
I am always, always on the lookout for solutions for my curly hair. It is very fine, turning gray (I'm trying to hang in there and not dye it...we'll see) and at risk for being frizzy.
Lately I love this shampoo, this shaping lotion and I love, love, love this oil. The scent alone is amazing.
There is also a random item that has helped, using jersey material to dry my hair. I have been a turbie twist fan for years, but read somewhere that smooth jersey could cause less frizz than terrycloth. I bought two half yards of printed t-shirt fabric and cut them both in half. The stretchiness of the fabric makes it great for wrapping around your head. Granted, it's not terribly absorbent. Since I do not have a ton of hair, it's not an issue.
I don't need four "towels" for my hair. So if you want to try it. I have a piece of each pattern to share. Just leave a "pick me" and I send them along to a couple people on Friday. Oh and if you have any curly hair tips, I would be so happy to hear them.
The garden journal is growing, along with the way too many plants I could not resist this year.
I wanted to keep track of planting notes for the tomatoes to try to figure out what works best for them, so I made up a sheet with a place to staple the marker (I finally took them out of the ground when I put in the new garden markers) and write down how well they grow and produce.
So far, so good despite the hundred degree temps this week.
And if you are keeping track of some gardening this year, you can download these 2014 planting note forms too.
I've said before wrapping gifts for my mom is my favorite. Honestly, I am a little bit of a horder when it comes to wrapping paper...some of those colors and patterns are just too good. I am always happy to use the best stuff for my mom though.
Happy birthday Mom...can't wait to celebrate with you today.
A minivan trunk full of flowers.
We surprised my mom with three painted terra cotta pots full of flowers and herbs for Mother's Day.
And I couldn't resist a couple hydrangeas and dahlia's.
It's is the end of the semester at one school and there are just a few weeks left at the other, but I am already gathering resources for next fall. Here are three that I can't wait to use in various classes...
Crowdfunding as the Middle Class Version of Panhandling...challenges our perceptions of asking for money.
Learning with Disabilities: One Effort to Shake Up the Classroom...I saved the video too.
Why We Are More Optimistic About Ourselves Than About Our Society..."optimism for me, pessimism about we".
I have discussed how useful it can be to wrap gifts in fabric bags before, and it continues to be the quickest way to make an awkwardly shaped gift look cute. One of the teacher's in Sean's department is having her second son and they had a little celebration earlier this week. We bought several small infant toys to keep handy in a diaper bag...all different shapes and sizes. Half a yard of fabric sewed into a super simple bag and the toys were wrapped and ready to go.
I took this photo last Thursday when I cranked through grading 150 papers and got my desk cleared off. It was partially fueled by the humongous free birthday drink I redeemed at Starbucks that afternoon and it was an exercise in sheer determination to not have that much grading hanging over my head on my birthday. I actually got home from class that night and stayed up grading the work that night's class had turned in so that I could really be done. The clock struck midnight on my birthday and I was grading...joking that it was my birthday gift to myself to get it done.
Thankfully, right now my desk looks like this again after another full day of work. Tomorrow ends the semester at the state school, although I have a final to give for one class on the 16th. Tomorrow my Order and Change class meets for the last time. They have been presenting their Change the World Projects over the last three days of class and it has been better than I could have ever imagined. It has been incredibly inspiring and sometimes emotional to hear what students poured their hearts into...as a class we have all been brought to tears a few times already. Tomorrow we just have a few presentations left and then I will present my project. Thanks to the generosity from a couple dozen of you, and some of my neighbors and friends, I was able to give out a $300 scholarship for the fall semester. I am hoping to continue to grow the scholarship in the future, but then also take on another project along with my new batch of Order and Change students in the fall.
First though, this semester's class is celebrating after the last presentation. I am bringing a big bowl of dip and chips and Sean has made two batches of this.
I hosted the last meeting for the cheer booster board tonight...elections are next week so this was the end of our gatherings for the school year. To celebrate and thank everyone I made a Cinco de Mayo dinner with shredded beef soft tacos, corn cake and cherry lime-aid. I also needed a dessert that could quickly be made ahead of time, so that I could get back to work on preparing for the actual meeting.
I went with one of my stand-by ideas...a trifle. This time it was a caramel brownie cheesecake one.
I baked a pan of brownies to crumble up. Then I mixed together one softened block of cream cheese with one tub of cool whip. I layered both the brownies and cream cheese mixture with crushed Skor bars and a light drizzle of store bought caramel sauce. It seriously is the easiest dessert to make.
And we really needed the sugar to discuss all things cheerleading related.
Since Saturday was National Scrapbooking Day I spent the day celebrating. I was working my way through the end of 2012...the big stuff like a 15th anniversary and the little stuff like a bunch of parties. Amazing to think it was eighteen years ago now that my mom gave me my first scrapbook supplies. Talk about a gift that keeps on giving.
Now that it has been three years in a row, one of my favorite blog traditions is a giveaway on my birthday. This year I have my favorite planner binder (you can see mine here), a cute roll of masking tape and pens in fun colors. They are all wrapped up and ready to share.
Just like last year, I would love to see links to one of your current favorite items or you can always leave a quick "pick me". I will email the winner on Sunday morning to find out your address...please make sure you have linked an email address that you check often.
