Sheep and fiber festival

Yarn finally used to double knit a cowl.

Other than the laundry...

I'm ready for the week- at least as far as food and lesson plans until Wednesday go.

Todays creations-

Hard-boiled eggs to be combined a titch of mayo and rolled into a burrito/taquito.

While the chocolate premier protein bars are delicious, they are bigger than necessary so this is peanut butter, oats, coconut oil on the bottom and dark chocolate on the top. I misread the grams and it has twice as much peanut butter and 1/3 as many oats but I think it will be fine.

The main course is from pinterest (as is the above) is vegetarian pot pie.  As I was writing this post I paused to roll out a pastry puff and put it on top to cook for the last ten minutes.  For one brief moment as I gently laid it over the mixture, I felt like a great british baker. Scroll down for the final results.

The microwave was key in todays food prep.  I used it to quickly bake the potatoes used in the potpie. And the chocolate-peanutbutter melted in 30 second increments using only one dish.

Finally the news and the supreme court business is mentally debilitating.  I've taken to wearing this with my school badge.

It's 5:30, there are two loads of laundry to do (which oddly enough I don't mind doing as long as I bring the clothes basket downstairs to carry up said laundry.) and a double knitted cowl that needs my attention.

So much for presentation.

Mountaineer GnoMe

Some say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  I say when life forces you to stay home to tend to your surprise colossal menstrual cycle, make a mountaineer gnome. Hopefully I will be able to deliver it by this evening to our adorable speech teachers birthday dinner.

If I only had the time...

Yesterday was all relaxing.  No obligations.  Today was catch up day and the rare Sunday that didn’t require a relative visit.  (We we’re both there during the week and will be there again on an evening this week.). She’s going home on Wednesday. Greathusbandbob believes his pushing is what made it happen.  Whatever makes him happy.  She was the one who had to walk 200 feet.

I made today Pinterest cooking day.  I was getting tired of eating either salads or quinoa and black beans. Also it was finally cool enough to have the oven on.

Experiment #1. Roasted squash, zucchini and grape tomatoes.  Garlic and Italian seasoning in olive oil shredded Parmesan cheese on top. 400 degrees. 25 minutes. A-ma-zing.  The easiest and the best tasting of the day.  A certain repeat recipe.

Experiment #2. Crockpot Mac and cheese.  Note to self: There are some recipes that require real ingredients.  Do not replace whole milk with cashew milk (in spite of how creamy you see it gets.). It’s edible but in a sort of frozen dinner kind of way edible.

Experiment #3. The big deal was vegetarian enchiladas made with green lentils.  The enchilada filling is a mixture of cooked green lentils, oats, chia seeds, sunflower seeds, cooked carrot, tomatoes onion and garlic and spices all food processed together.  This had several steps.  Cooking the lentils, cooking the vegetables, food processing the big ole pile of stuff, making the enchilada sauce, assembling and baking.  It was initially a vegan recipe but nothing on this green earth will make me ever eat vegetarian cheese again so I went with low-fat mozzarella.

The filling is very filling what with all the protein in it.  It had the texture and color of refried beans.  It didn’t taste horrible but I probably won’t make it again.   I’ll freeze them for lunches and be sure to pack some sour cream for a break in the texture.

I’d like to thank my summer self for exploring and pinteresting recipes.  Otherwise I would have tired myself out just trying to get a handle on what I should make.

And the crack myself up of the day came as I was pumping gas at Sheetz.  I was reading the directions on the pump that included using Sheetz gift cards.  There is a teacher at school who is getting married in two weeks.  They are collecting $$ to give a cash gift.  I bought Sheetz gift cards and will give the gift separately in a card that says may you have many happy adventures and plenty of “gas” in the “Sheetz.”  I am so hilarious.

The Center of the State

Braxton County is at the center of the state of WV.  Home of the town of Sutton and Gassaway.

Downtown Sutton has likely seen better days.

This road turns into a brick road with some beautiful Victorian houses, a typical West Virginia holler and ends with Café Cimino Bed and Breakfast and Old Woman's Run Road.

While the picture in the previous post gave the impression that it sat on the edge of a vast field,  Cafe Cimino is surrounded by the above pictures on either side and a creek behind it.

It was a lovely lunch- a margherita pizza and a vodka tonic and a good friend with plans on the calendar to do it again, possibly including a few friends of friends who also laugh together.  It's no surprise,  given all of our coincidences, but one of her other very good friends from Fairmont is great friends with someone I always enjoyed being around in Fairmont way back in the day. 

It was an intimate dining corner with the few people there hearing each others conversations (and occasionally answering each other's questions)  The best part of our continued similarities was the ease with which we both knew and followed exactly what was going on the same way that most men get distracted watching t.v.  We could be mid-sentence, something would transpire and our mutual A.D.D. would pause, attend, make an appropriate facial expression and return to our conversation (although I would also "shout" SQUIRREL! to crack me up.)

And while this may seem like no big deal to some of you, I got to go three and half hours (on the drive) not saying anything to anyone.

weekly catch up

There is little to report other than a dark start to the week when I found out that retiring at 55 is not financially viable.  I've had 6 years added to my sentence. It made me so sad.

In other news, school is joining the walk 100 miles in 100 days thing.  We will have little subgroups within the school.  I asked the teachers who don't have homerooms if we could have our own group. (I'm always left out with the goofy physed teacher and weird-not in a good way- art teacher.)  We were going to call ourselves The Winners but then I asked if we could be The Best Winners and everyone agreed.  Then I came up with our group motto- We may be homeroomless, but we have class.

This evening we had parent conferences.  No one wanted to conference with me so I kept my door closed.  I had a list of multiple things that I wanted to get done.  Then I started putting new strings on ukuleles and spent two and half hours doing only that.  It makes me crazy when I get so fixated on a thing I can't stop.  What also makes me crazy is the learning curve.  It took an hour and a half to restring the first one and figure out why it wasn't holding.  Then I did three more in the last hour.

This weekend I am getting a short break from the routine.  I am meeting my favorite friend from Charleston WV in Sutton WV at Cafe Cimino Country Inn.  She is in her second year of retirement. She doesn't know about my new status but she does know of my near burnout.  She is also the friend that took up knitting the same time I did and is a fan of crazy B horror flicks.  We came to that place independently of being together.  We are soulsistahs.  It couldn't have come a moment too soon.  The routine of life as I know it was beginning to drive me mad.

teaching opposites

This morning started with those high school kids.  It was a catch up day.  The ones who were caught up got to relax a little.  The ones who were behind were cajoled into getting their work done with my assistance.

One of my favorite parts of the class is when they come in and when they leave.  As long as I am not behind in preparation I like to make sure I say good morning to each one as they come in. They didn't know what to make of it at first.  Now each has his or her own way of responding and it's usually as they grab a snack for class.

My other favorite part is at the end of class as they leave.  I tell them they are my favorite part of my day and I love them and to have a good day.  There are eyerolls, smirks, and smiles.  I don't care.  They know I mean it however they respond.

At the end of the day I had a kindergarten class that needs to learn how to log into computers.  Except they don't really even know their letters.  Except the ones that their names start with.  It's impossible to tell the difference between zero and the letter O.  I say "find an R."  They say "what does it look like?"

I printed and laminated computer keyboards.  I passed out whiteboard markers and erasers.  And then we played "office" and they had to get to work finding letters and coloring in the boxes.

 I said "get to work or you'll be fired."

They ask "who's the boss?"

I answer "I am."

Then they begin to say "hey boss, hey boss hey boss."  It was cracking me up.

 They were getting a little squirrelly and I made them take a break at the imaginary water cooler.  I said "go stand in groups and talk about what you saw on television last night."  They looked confused, got up, went to the back of the room, looked at some of the pictures on the wall and started talking to each other but I don't know if it was about what they saw on tv.

I called them back to work "hurry hurry or you'll be fired."  One little guy said "are we almost done?  I'm tired."  I said "going to work is really hard you'll just have to deal with it."

It really was the most hilarious thing I've done in a while.

Notes from Underground

With little to report I've turned to some observations (Facebook and otherwise).

I've ordered jewelry (bracelets) from the PuraVida Bracelet Company so they appear on my Facebook page pretty regularly.  Today there was this:

It's wax coated string. String.  I couldn't look to discover the price. It was too silly.  I know I've overpaid for a trendy cute bracelet more than once, but this is absurd.

Item number next- I am a member of a Facebook group called "I'm a general music teacher."  Today I saw this post:

To this I say, NO ONE NEEDS about 50 cheap top hats.  Ever. It's for an elementary music program. While others may embrace the theatrics, I'm very grateful to have never gone down this path.

And finally, in preparation for a lesson on the Star Spangled Banner, I asked my high school students to write about their opinion on the Nike Colin Kaepernick Anthem saga.  I was not surprised by their answers.  I could easily tell which kids were of a fixed mindset and which were of a growth.  Sadly those that were in favor of Nike's actions were very reluctant to state so specifically.  I'm sure it had a lot to do with the fact that they feared they were in the minority in the room and instead stated that they had no opinion.(Although I was the only one who was going to see their answer.)

On Tuesday (9/11) I asked them to write the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner from memory (they had just listened to an instrumental version.) I would say one third of them could do so with minimal error (I even forgot were so gallantly streaming under pressure) But the majority of those who could not do so were, in fact, the ones vehemently opposed to Nike and the protests.  As I mingled among those of seeming like mind I rhetorically (but quietly) asked, Which is more unpatriotic, kneeling in protest or not knowing the words?  I was answered with nodding and knowing grins.

We watched iconic versions of the anthem (Jimi Hendrix, Whitney Houston, The Mormon Tabernacle Choir among others) and while searching for Roseanne's horrendous version I found this clip of the top 10 anthem fails.  To be fair, the biggest fails were the ones sung by non-native Americans at Canadian sporting events and to me that doesn't really count.  

There's also a clip in the "dishonorable mentions" of a 13 year old girl with a beautiful voice and a complete brain freeze on the words accompanied by a monotone basketball coach (Mo Cheeks) who stood behind her, supported her and helped her through.  To me that was the opposite of fail. And the best monotone I've ever heard.

It's getting hairy again.

I'll spare you the details but a whole lot of care taking and very little exercise has been happening here.

As I left Aunt at the rehab I stopped at a place called C Fruit Life.  It's next to a Japanese restaurant and seems to be an Asian fruit/dessert sort of place.  (google research says it originated in Hong Kong.) Think bubble tea, fruit stew and fruits I've never heard of.

Menu screen shots-

The first time I went there I got a watermelon smoothie. Today I stepped a little further out of the comfort zone and got a strawberry smoothie and a banana crepe.  This is what the crepe looked like.  Slices of bananas surrounded by fluffy white cream and a barely there crepe that holds it together.

It was so much fun having food I've never tasted before.  I foresee several more visits and know the trickiest part is going to be deciding what to try next.