Boyism of the day

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Our pets are weird

A couple of weekends ago we had a little snow, which just supported our pets' collective weirdness.  Here is Liberty on one of her approximately five million trips out and in and out and in...

 Alice spent the day plotting everyone's deaths--see that look in her face?

 Then she took up stalking Indy and plotting how to get out of the house.

 I mean, look at these photos...does she scare all of you as much as she scares me?

 


 Indy could care less, of course...

 Today my favorite pet is this bunny...it just sits there and looks cute.

 Scary, just scary.

 Notice that Indy moved up to the couch, in a vain attempt to protect herself from that cat.








Scariest photo ever...Indy and Alice snuggling.....eeeeek!

My student, Earl?

At my school, most of our classes for students with a learning or behavior disability are team taught.  This year I am the special education teacher half for one English 9, one English 10, one government per semester, and one US History.  The other day in my English 9 class, the other teacher wrote a mentor text essay to share with the class to show them what we want their finished product to look like.  He gave the essay a fictitious author, Earl Sweatshirt.  When students asked about Earl, my team teacher stated that he was a rapper and was one of my former students.  Turns out he is a rapper, but not one of my former students.  The kids have now spent two days trying to figure out how he was my student when he has lived in LA his whole life.  I don't know if I should laugh or cry....

The continuing saga of Tony da Fish

So we are suckers.  We felt bad for Tony da Fish, and Petsmart (The Evil Empire?) had fish tanks on sale for half off...so Tony got a new tank. Since he was a big as his old tank, I guess it is ok.  Here he is, checking out the new digs...

 And here is is new friend, George the snail.  I tried to video it, but wasn't fast enough (ironic, as George is a snail)...as soon as Tony discovered George, Tony began to head butt George and nibble at his shell.  His attacks seem to have slowed down, perhaps George is now inducted into Tony's Gang.

 Doesn't this give you the creeps?  I mean, if a fish could have a death look, then this would be it...

 Just to review...Tony da Fish was the smallest fish that Petsmart sold, is now about 3.5 inches long.  

A Little Princess

On of my favorite books as a little girl was A Little Princess by Frances Burnett.  Here's the link to the Wikipedia article if you are unfamiliar with it. Last weekend we watched the most recent film version and I kept saying, "Wait, wait, what's happening?"  In my defense, after I re-read the book, the movie was significantly different than the book so I'm not completely crazy. It is still almost as good as when I was twelve.  And the main character's name is the same as mine, so how can it be bad?  This is my greatly loved copy-a gift from my grandparents for my 11th birthday (or maybe my 10th?  or 12th? Any family members remember?)

Liberty the wonder dog

Once again Liberty has hidden her bone so well that we'll never find it.  No, no, wait...that's not a plant growing in my flower pot.

A video boy-ism from the far past...

This is The Boy, age two, checking out where our house was being built...

My second job...or is it my first?

Today was supposed to be my "short" day of teaching--I teach two classes, both in the morning, and then I have two planning periods.  Funny how things work out and interfere with my plans.  All those papers I intended to grade are still in my bag (it is now 9 pm) and the projects I "needed" to do are on my desk. I left school and brought the kids home and spent about 3 hours helping The Girl with her homework.  No, I didn't do it for her, although it took every ounce of my teacher skill set to not just tell her "grrr...write this".  After many tears (from her) we survived, without me loosing my mind or my cool and both kids are tucked into bed.   I have a stack of US History papers to grade and a paper to write so I can earn credit for the conference I attended last week.  I was sitting here stressing a little about all the piles (not only the paper piles, but the laundry piles) and saw that one of my teacher friends posted this article on her facebook page. If you haven't read it, I recommend it...I think it rings true for What Students Remember Most About Teachers as well as what our kids (who live at our house) will probably remember about their childhoods as well.

Deja Vu

The townhouse is under contract (as far as we know) and the other day after church we went over to check on a couple things.  It was totally a day of deja vu...

January 2014

October 2007

December 2004

January 2014

April 2000

January 2014

October 2007

April 2007

January 2014

March 2000

January 2013

November 1999

I guess some things just never change.  On the plus side, our new friend, the plumber, was able to fix the sink issue rather easily and this time Mr. Ranch didn't have to call for help.

Recipe to relax and then ruin it all at once

I spent last Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at the Colorado Council of the International Reading Association's literacy conference.  I'll write a real post about the conference soon--maybe as I write the paper for re certification credit I'll write a fun summary as well.  It was a lovely conference--it always is and I always leave feeling inspired and ready to go back to work on Monday to inspire my students.  This year's conference ended with a luncheon with Patricia Polacco as the speaker. I walked out the door feeling relaxed and inspired, ready for anything!  Feeling the collective love of 2000 other inspired teachers...Well, I was ready for almost anything...my strategic error was to go to Costco...on a Saturday afternoon...AGGGGHHHH.  Oh, my goodness...it was CRAZY.  Luckily I survived and came home to my family, my jammies, and some episodes of Downton Abbey. Ahhhh....

Something to write about...

As I sat here watching Tony da Fish freak out, I thought..."hmm, I don't have any more blogs scheduled". So you get a brain dump...yay!

This week has again been full of interesting adventures due to the cold.  I had two mornings when it took me an hour or more to get to work (usually a 32 minute trip).  Yuck.  Luckily, I didn't have a class at 7 either day, so it's all good.  The hot water pipe under the kitchen sink froze again--and again we were able to thaw it out using the trusty hair dryer. Unfortunately, the water pipe that leads to the refrigerator water dispenser is also frozen and despite cutting two (small) holes in the wall, we haven't been able to thaw that one.  The Girl is freaking out because "What is there to drink?!".  Um, water.  From the sink?  Right.

The townhouse furnace passed the inspection by the official furnace guy...but somehow was turned off after that inspection was done. So, when the plumber arrived today to fix the drippy faucet he called Mr. Ranch to say it was 38 degrees.  Uh, oh. Thankfully the plumber is a competent adult and sorted it all out...the heat is on, the faucet is fixed...Mr. Ranch is going to confirm that tomorrow though.  And I had a lovely conversation with "the window guy" today (that is fixed, too).

I'm attending a literacy conference this week--today was a long day.  I got to the hotel about 6:30 am and secured on-site parking (yay!) which meant I could stay through the last session (ending at 5) and still pick up the kids by 6 pm.  I'm hoping to secure on site parking again tomorrow so I can do the same drill again.  Great conference though--today I saw Patricia Polacco signing autographs...but since I'm trying to attend 15 hours of actual class I wasn't able to stand in line.  I was also able to secure a ticket to the luncheon on Saturday where she is speaking.  Tomorrow I get to hear Henry Winkler speak during lunch about his career as an author--not as The Fonz or Barry Zuckercorn, but I'm hoping he works those into his talk. I also ran into a couple folks that I don't see often (a group of teachers from the kids school, an English teacher from my school) and met some very nice people.  I have to write a 2-3 page paper to earn my 1.0 college credit, so maybe I'll just post that here and kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.

I think I am going to go find somewhere warm (my bed?) and read--I do "owe" you a "What I read in January" post I suppose, so stay tuned for that "soon".

Granola Bars from scratch

I'm so tired of buying overpriced "granola" bars...ugh...so I decided to try to make my own. I've tried before, with various degrees of success.  I think this is one of the best recipes I've made with some small changes..
Granola Bars III Recipe from allrecipes.comGranola Bars III Recipes from allrecipes.com
Recipe by IHARVEY
Original recipe makes 1 - 9x13 inch pan
 2 cups quick cooking oats
 1 cup all-purpose flour
 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
 3/4 cup raisins (I dislike raisins very much, so I used chocolate chips)
 1/2 cup wheat germ (Um, we didn't have any, so I used flax seed, which we seem to have a bunch of)
 1/2 teaspoon salt (forgot to put it in)
 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
 1/2 cup chopped English walnuts (We did have chopped walnuts...I don't think they were "English" per se)
 1/2 cup vegetable oil
 1/2 cup honey
 1 egg
 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 9x13 inch baking pan with aluminum foil or parchment paper, and spray with vegetable oil spray.
In a large bowl, stir together oats, flour, brown sugar, raisins, wheat germ, salt, cinnamon, and walnuts. In a smaller bowl, thoroughly blend oil, honey, egg, and vanilla; pour into the flour mixture, and mix by hand until the liquid is evenly distributed. Press evenly into the prepared baking pan.
Bake 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven, or until the edges are golden. Cool completely in pan before turning out onto a cutting board and cutting into bars.

They have passed the kid and husband test and are firm enough to be individually wrapped in Saran Wrap...yummy!  And since most of them are gone, less than 24 hours after I made them, I guess I'll be making another batch for school snacks.

A brave new world

The kids went to the sledding hill by themselves on Saturday afternoon.  They didn't want to go alone at first, but were finally convinced (somehow) by Mr. Ranch.  We did give them Mr Ranch's phone, in case they needed to call us.  As soon as they got across the street, The Girl called and asked if they could go to the next hill over, because there were kids (boys) there. She was amazed when I said I was watching her from the window and she better zip the phone into her pocket before going any further, but sure, go ahead. We've been enjoying watching the fun from our warm window.  They just called to say they are on their way back and would I meet them half way to help...the (plastic) sleds are really heavy.  Um, no....so much for independence.  When they returned, the report was that "The Boy is the slowest walker ever" (no surprise there) and that the granola bars I made are "tasty".  Excellent.  Now they are watching the X games...Mr. Ranch and The Boy are commenting on everyone's abilities and The Girl is picking out cute boys.  Oh, boy, no pun intended.

Do-da-da-da-do-da...The Simpsons...

When the Simpsons first aired in 1989, I was a freshman in college and thought I was a rebel because I watched it even though my mom  it was crude.  Funny that it is now accepted as a piece of American culture--clips used by my co-workers to teach The Raven, government, economics...and that "everyone" in America recognizes phrases from the show.  Today we learn that they might be able to tell the future...check out this clip, showing the Broncos vs the Seahawks.  Since it has been proven that the Simpson have told the future before (refer to this link), well....We'll chat on Monday, I guess and see if they were right.