Happy Halloween!

Halloween is like the last "hurrah" before winter sets in...even though some years it has already snowed feet in Colorado before Halloween...this year, the weather has been relatively mild--woke up on Wednesday to 31 degrees and was glad that I moved those last two pepper plants inside.  Plans this year include watching Purdue and Nebraska, visiting our puppy at her foster home, and a little trick or treating.  Here are some links to Halloweens of the past:

2014

Decorating, 2013

2013

Memory Lane

And Bonus--photos from 2013 and 2014, not pictured in Memory Lane!

2013--A minion in a really short skirt and Captain Jack Sparrow (I didn't know Minons wore skirts..)

Twins, 2014

Wolverine, 2014

As well as what appear to be 1993 and 1994 (or maybe two from the same year...who knows)

and one last from 2010--professionally done, with the donation of two cans of food per child...

What I did on my Fall Break

Ok, you caught me...we're only halfway through fall break...but this is a catch all of what I've been up to and what I hope to finish before going back to school on Monday!

Monday:  Cleaning, hauling stuff to Goodwill drop off, picking up The Boy, Guitar lesson, grocery store, Target, Dentist appointment.  The good news is that we have a guest "room" again--bad news is that The Boy has moved into it while we are dog sitting, so he and the dog can bond.

Tuesday:  More cleaning and hauling, watch two episodes of "Outlander"  (it was ok...not worth $1.99 for more episodes though...I'll wait for it from the library), playing with dogs, pick up food to feed 15 freshman volleyball players, pick up The Boy, watch some volleyball, feed 15 volleyball plays, concession stand stint, home to watch Roanoke on the History Channel (meh, it was ok)

Wednesday:  Finish Roanoke while making 4 lasagnas (3 to freeze, one for tonight).  Talk to water heater people about scheduling permit inspection for heater that was installed a couple weeks ago.  Prep to make chicken and rice casseroles for freezer, entertain visiting dog while waiting for her owner to pick her up.  Later today, pick up The Boy at chess club and watch some more volleyball. And pick up some more carbon monoxide detectors, since the inspection requires more than we have.

Thursday plan:  8:00 am coffee with principal at The Boy's School (not just me, grade 3-5 parents), lunch with a friend at 11, COSTO run, pick up The Boy...somewhere in there hopefully run to the post office to mail  gifts to my newest nephew and his brother.

Friday plan: Wait at house for water heater inspection.  Maybe get work done in yard, more laundry (of course).  Pick up The Boy--trick or treat downtown for a few minutes?  Pick up the Girl...run to grocery store to get stuff for Saturdays' adventures

Saturday plan:  Visit puppy at 11, go to friends house to watch Purdue get creamed by Nebraska, drop The Girl off at a friends house to help friend supervise younger sibling trick or treating, take Boy trick or treating with friends.

Sunday plan:  Church and collapse...I need a vacation from my vacation...geez.

Other items on the "to do list"  (let's see how far I really get:  clean yard and prep for winter, dispose of dead dorm fridge, change smoke detector batteries and clocks, work on school work, and the usual....laundry, dishes, bills..egads)

Ups and Downs of Teaching

Tuesday and Thursday were parent conferences at my school this week, nice bookends to a day of testing (Wednesday) and our "last hurrah" before fall  break.  It isn't super busy around here tonight--quite a few parents, but no lines that I can see from my little Special Ed corner.  Needless to say, we do a lot of chatting amongst ourselves on these nights, grade some papers, work on IEP's, check email...and so on.

One of the discussions tonight has made me very thoughtful.  Apparently, one of our former students was arrested last weekend in an incident that was just big enough to make a local small town paper Now, I'll preface this with the statement that I work with good people.  But...some of the reactions to the arrest make me sick, for lack of an alternative description.

There was a picture included and the young person looks nothing like they did when they attended my school.  They look worn out beyond their 18 years.  The student's hair was messy, clearly the result of a tussle. The reaction by some of my co-workers has been to laugh and to joke that "well, we did good work there".  Here's the problem...I think we did do good work.  Yes, this young person is responsible for their choices, and clearly poor choices have been made...but if I rejoice in my students' success, how can I not grieve for their failures?

Since I was in a pensive mood, I did something I do about every six months...I looked up one of my favorite former students (I'm not joking, he was one of my favorites) on the State Corrections Website to see if he had a successful parole hearing this time.  Turns out he did, and a quick google search turned up his facebook page (no, I didn't friend him), stating that he is working as a nurse's aide and filled with notes about his activities with his church.  While all is certainly not right with the world...this certainly makes me feel a little better about the seeds I planted there and makes me hopeful that the recently arrested student will also turn things around someday.

What's for dinner?

As you may recall, we had three lovely (small) butternut squash from the garden this year.  Unfortunately, Alice the Cat decided she likes to attack the butternut squash, so storing them long term seemed like a bad choice.  Luckily, today was cold and rainy, a perfect day for squash soup.  Here's the recipe I started with with notes of the changes we made...

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/235965/sunset-soup/?prop24=etaf:  Sunset Soup

And here is what I actually did:

Last night I baked the butternut squash, cut in half, in a little water for about an hour at 350 degrees, until soft, scooped out of shell and refrigerated.

Cut up, added a tiny bit of water, cooked in microwave for about 5 minutes, until all soft:

3 carrots, peeled and sliced

4 little turnips (from CSA basket), peeled and chopped

2 small gala apples that were bruised and the children refused to eat, peeled and chopped
4 little onions from the garden, chopped

While the other veggies were cooking, put squash and a can of beef broth in the blender and blend until smooth.  Transfer to pot.

Put other veggies in blender with another can of beef broth, add to pot.

Season with cumin, curry, chilli pwd,  and paprika.  

It had the seal of approval from the whole family...so yay!

What I read in September 2015

At Mother-Son bowling for The Boy's school, another mom, who also has a 9th grade girl, and I were chatting about how we kind of think we've lost our minds because we can't "get our acts together" this school year--the business never seems to stop.  Fall break for The Girl was this week, which gave us a little break and my fall break is 6 days away...maybe then we'll have time to take a breath.  In the meantime, most of my reading is done while doing my 5 minutes of tooth brushing every night and about 15 minutes after I fall into bed. Even then, I managed to read (or listen to) 8 books in September--here they are...

1.  Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire--on CD in the car

2.  Go Set a Watchman (Harper Lee).  Against my will, I liked this book.  I'm not sure I loved it...but I didn't even like To Kill a Mockingbird the first time I read it, so I'll read it again and someday and see what I think.  It was interesting--I'm not convinced that it was a lost manuscript" though--there were too many issues in it that seemed very current and relevant. I think it stands alone well,  but I'm not sure it is a good companion or sequel to Mockingbird.

3.  The Rosie Project (Graeme Simsion)--Fiction book written from the point of view of a man with autism who is looking for a wife.  It was interesting and cute--a good read.

4.  The Rosie Effect (Graeme Simsion)--Sequel to Rosie Project--again, interesting point of view and cute story.

5.  Shooting Kabul (N.H. Senzai)--One of the Battle of the Books choices for our local library's middle school program.  It was interesting--about a family that escapes from Afghanistan.   The teenage son is a photographer.

6.  Kensuke's Kingdom (Michael Morpurgo)--Another Battle of the books book--about a boy shipwrecked on an island and finds someone else already lives there.  It was a fairly recent publication, but I feel like I read the story before--it was a lot like Hatchet and Island of the Blue Dolphins ,I guess. In any case, a very quick read.

7.  Searching for Sunday (Rachel Held Evans)--Nonfiction, about the author's relationship with God and her experiences with church over the years.  As with all of the author's books, there were parts I loved, parts I identified with, parts that made me uncomfortable, and parts that I disagreed with.  A good read, very thought provoking.

8.  Demigod Diaries (Rick Riordan)-on CD in the car--can you tell I've been riding with The Boy only a lot?

October is off to an equally slow start--partially because I'm back to reading Diana Gabaldan's 1000 page books....

Progress?

When we moved into the Ranch in 2007, there was very little built between our house and the interstate--about 3 miles of lovely prairie and rolling hills.  It was such a large area, that instead of mowing, horses were hired to keep the grass down.  In the almost 8 years since, we've watched neighborhoods and a few businesses move in.  The last piece of (fairly) uninterrupted prairie (other than the frequent and permanent open spaces) suddenly has orange fencing around it. The horses have moved on and the parking lots are creeping up.... I'm feeling more than a little sad about losing this.  I'm not sure that trading horses running is worth a Costco.  Sigh.