Projects for break

1. finalize dates for trip, contact family friends in Europe, begin making plans for the European trip (thanks for the feedback)
2. make coaster sets
3. re-purpose a pair of jeans into skinny jeans
4. make a tube scarf from fabric found in my (very tiny) fabric stash
5. clean "casket room" and turn it into an office (perhaps paint it?)/turn current office into "spare bedroom"
6. work on roman shades for dinning room

To me this sounds like a relaxing time, but lately anything outside of my job sounds like a relaxing time...

Need a little help here

Calling all cousins! (Too bad there isn't a cousin beacon like the batman signal.)

James and I are planning on attending my host-sister's wedding near Stuttgart this coming summer and are looking for a little European travel advice. By the way we're planning on traversing through three countries - Germany, Switzerland, and France - if all works out and we're able to make a couple of connections with family friends. We're starting to check travel sites and are wondering about car rental vs. rail passes. I love public transportation, but enjoy the freedom of hopping in a car and heading out without worrying about schedules (which seems very American of me for some reason...). Yet there are pros and cons of both. Just curious if anyone has an opinion or advice to share.

Accountability

The new school year has started and with it a load of new questions...mainly, whatever happened to accountability? We hear a lot about accountability for teachers, but what about for students? Last year I was informed that "The Administration is watching you because too many students are failing your class." To be fair, I did have a some students who failed my class, yet the vast majority passed without problem - many of them with IEPs and 504s.

As always, I try to make each year better but I'm already running into the problem (with only four weeks into the year) of students failing due to lack of turning in homework, studying for quizzes and tests, and not turning in work completed in class for participation. I've been told I need to make my class "easier" for struggling students so I have started putting "Basic Concept" questions on study guides that I use verbatim on assessments but I've found that over 90% of students don't fill them out or study them before taking a quiz/exam even if I point out that a concept we're covering in class is a Basic Concept question answer. (And this is just one of numerous examples!) When students can't (or won't) pass basic recall questions on an assessment how does one move on to the next concept or higher levels of thinking? Further, how did those students make it to my class? (I have students who read at an elementary level - second grade - but I am forced to give state mandated tests that are written at a high school level). Also, there is no accountability for their grades because even if they don't pass my class (or their other core classes) they are passed on to the next grade in my corporation, which means there is no incentive to try.

Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe that teachers should be held accountable for teaching state and national standards, content at grade level, using a variety of teaching strategies to hit numerous types of learning, and using valid assessment measures. Yet, we are doing a disservice to our students by shuffling them from one grade to the next without the skills to be successful which just compounds the problem as they get older. Something is broken in the world of education and this is just one bit of the problem. Instead of slamming "bad" teachers, lets give them training on how to help these kids and lets hold the kids accountable as well.

For those who are sick of the education rant, please ignore this post - I just needed to let off a bit of steam.

Menu

I've been contemplating the menu I've planned for August's dinner club. I think I have it pinned down, but I still have some minor choices to make and am looking for suggestions.

Here it goes:

Drinks: sangria, limeade (?), and water

Appetizers: ceviche and avocado salsa

Soup: gazpacho

Entree: tangy yucatecan grilled pork (from Rick B), rice with sweet plantains, and vegetable empanadas

Dessert: flan (perhaps coconut?)

Suggestions welcomed! Currently, I'm looking for a nice sangria recipe. Most of the ones I've looked at look really delicious, but I have a rather picky crowd. Also, I'm looking for a foolproof tortilla recipe...mine never seem to turn out right - always too doughy.

Recuperating

To start off my summer break (as school just ended last Friday), I had a bit of out patient surgery - a D&C with a hysterscopy. All is well and I'm spending the first part of my vacation lounging around in recuperation though I have to say that I feel fine. I even felt well enough to go for a short walk yesterday evening with James and the dog. I'm hoping the rest of the summer will be more eventful as we have a lot planned.

1. A trip to Arizona (besides the extreme heat, I'm looking forward to it!)

2. A large family reunion or two

3. Working on the house (There is some peeling paint that needs to be taken care of prior to arriving family members and some trim/cabinets in the kitchen to take care of also.)

4. Rewriting lesson plans in August

5. Volunteering at SHV, the small farmers market in town, and the Wellness Pavilion

6. Teaching Children's Church

7. Camping

8. Gardening (We actually have a nice garden this year, and our first strawberries -planted last year- were quite yummy.)

9. Canning (Our cherries are almost ready!)

10. Baking some pretzel bread (which is soooooo good)

11. Participating in Dinner for 8 and Gourmet Dinner Club

And the list goes on....

Gourmet Dinner Club

Recently I joined a Gourmet Dinner Club with a couple of friends, and am enjoying it immensely! We've only had a couple of gatherings thus far but the food and conversation have been great and left me looking forward to the next soiree. (I think using a word such as soiree fits in this instance... and its fun to sound a bit uppity every now and then). So far we've had a Greek inspired meal - yours truly making a mean mousaka and another meal that had an eclectic approach - I made a lemony gnocchi that was super delicious! (perhaps due to the pecorino cheese liberally sprinkled on top?)

I am a bit nervous about planning my meal - perhaps something with a Latin American feel? I'm interested in trying out a seviche and a sangria but am unsure of where to head next. Also I need to find some top-notch recipes. So I guess I'm soliciting ideas. Anyone out there with some great recipes or ideas feel free to send them my way!

It has a nice ring to it - "Aunt Trina and Uncle James"

In case you haven't heard, my niece has arrived!

Groceries and "twins"

Inspiration struck during the 10+ snow days this year and felt groceries were the result (as an upcoming baby/kid gift for an expecting friend). I was able to work on them a bit more this past week during spring break and so far the count is up to:

1 grocery bag

1 banana

1 yellow squash

1 donut

1 oreo-type cookie

3 strawberries

6 eggs

1 egg carton

1 potato

1 eggplant (not shown)

3 carrots

Also, Tiff and I had a bit of fun playing dress up before St. Patrick's day, but we were missing the real twin in TX.

Cabin fever

While the weather outside looked like this...




I was working on this...



All I did was take an old sweater, cut off the sleeves, sew a hat, crocheted a little flower and then attached it with a cast-off button. While its my first attempt, I think it turned out ok. (I won't show the first flower I tried to crochet, but at least the second one looks a little like a flower!) Granted this little hat won't fit any heads in our house, but next I plan on trying an adult sized one using the bottom hem of the sweater.

The past six months or so

I've had four days off due to snow and ice, and perhaps more next week with the dumping of snow that's currently falling so I thought I'd finally take the time to update you about life the past couple of months. Its been packed with trips and changes, but its also been very normal as always. No winning lottery tickets (I guess we'd actually have to play for that to happen), no mysterious benefactors, and no surprise foreign vacations, instead its just the normal work, play, and the occasional trip out of town and that suits us just fine. Though if there are any readers who happen to win the lottery and believe they would like to become mysterious benefactors, please feel free to send me on a surprise foreign vacation!

In the meantime, here's a couple of highlights of the past six months.

1. We spent some time canning this summer, though my measly garden didn't produce much (the raspberries and rhubarb won't be coming back this spring). I did spend a lot of time canning with my in-laws as their garden is huge and my father-in-law gardens for our church also, so the vegetables are bountiful all summer long even if ours didn't grow too well. (We've since enlarged our garden and tilled in some lovely manure thanks to an uncle in town who has a lot of Amish customers. Our favorites this year were the end of summer salsa (made with carrots so it has a sweet flavor), amaretto-cherry jam, and a tomato basil sauce. We're already through the salsa and jam, but we still have a few sauces left for the rest of the year. I'm already planning our garden for next year and am looking through canning books. I'm thinking about trying to can some kidney beans and growing some peas (last year it didn't work so well).



2. In June, James and I joined his family on a trip out to South Dakota for the 90th birthday of his grandfather and grandmother. It was the last big family trip out to SD as his grandparents finally sold the farm and moved to Arizona full time. We had a nice time playing with younger cousins, visiting with aunts/uncles and older cousins, meeting people my mother-in-law knew growing up, playing Annie-I-Over and cards, and touring the town (which only took about 10 minutes as it only had five streets). We also stopped at the Wisconsin Dells and Madison on the way back home to visit some family and friends. We enjoyed a hike around the University of Wisconsin's arboretum, a tour of the capital building, and a tour of the war museum in Madison. James and his brothers went back out in August to get their grandfather's tractor (a Farmall 400), which was in our garage until recently. It finally has a permanent home at his uncle's farm.


3. Jobs have also changed in our family this year. Instead of teaching high school, I've been moved to a middle school in my corporation and now teach 8th grade social studies. Its been a bit of an adjustment and I can say that I honestly prefer the upper grades, but the transition has been mostly smooth and I've made it halfway through the year. Also, I have some added responsibility of being a mentor teacher this year to our guest teacher from Anshan, China. Its been extremely interesting to speak with her about the differences in teaching, education, society, and to some extent government between our two countries. Its been a huge adjustment to her, but she seems to be enjoying her stay and is planning to return to our school corporation next year. As for James, he finished his degree in December and was working part-time at an engineering firm, which offered him a full-time position at the beginning of the year. He seems to be enjoying his new position, and especially enjoys the lack of homework or studying in his current schedule though he is contemplating taking a professional licensing exam that he doesn't have to take but would enhance his resume and career.

4. For my job, I was scheduled to go on a trip to China again this year, but we didn't have enough student interest to warrant the number of chaperons the school was planning on taking (yours truly being one of them). I voluntarily postponed my return trip with the hopes of going next year, but was very surprised when I found out that I was scheduled for another student trip - to Washington D.C. over my birthday! I had only been to D.C. once before and enjoyed it immensely. This trip was very nice also though I can honestly say that if you're going to D.C. its better to tour without chaperoning 150+ students. I did get to see quite a few memorials that I hadn't seen before, but the schedule was so packed that it was hard to take everything in and keeping students interested in history/government for that long is a HUGE challenge.


5. The last big change for us has been a new addition to our household - Tipper has come to stay with us. For those of you who remember the large brown/black mutt that my parents had at their house (some of you better than others - sorry Melissa!), she came to stay in July and promptly became very ill. We thought she was feeling down due to homesickness and was just marking the yard with her frequent urination, but we had to rush her to the vet when we discovered her down on the back porch without enough strength to stand. It turns out that Tipper is diabetic, we were given two options - treatment or putting her down, so we've decided to keep her. During the past couple of months I've learned quite a bit about diabetes in dogs and surprisingly its very similar to diabetes in humans. I never though I'd be giving my dog shots of insulin every day, but she does well. If only we could now get her to kennel in the house without putting up a huge fight. Does anyone have any suggestions? Giving treats is out, but we've tried tons of positive reinforcement and assimilation to the kennel, but all to no avail. She's extremely stubborn and will only go into the kennel when she's ready. That's no problem unless we're ready for bed and need to kennel her for the night when its too cold for her to be outside in her garage kennel.



Other than that, not a whole lot has been happening in our neck of the woods. Please let us know how you're doing.