FF: The I'm Smarter Than I Was Yesterday Edition

Woohoo!! I did all of my week three homework in one day, that means I am much smarter right now than I was yesterday morning. Unfortunately, it also means I'm going to share what I've learned. Mrs. 4's won't care; she's a teacher and all about learning.

And Sara? She's just a smarty, so I'm sure she'll be tolerant of me.


1. Sometimes procrastination pays off. I needed to cancel two doctor appointments this week but forgot and then it was too late to cancel, BUT then the first doctor called to reschedule because she was sick!! THEN I was called and told the second doctor was quitting and we would get to work with a new doctor some time in November. I very calmly agreed to all their schedule changes.

2. This Goethe quote makes me think of blogging...and maybe Facebook:

To know someone here or there with whom you can feel

there is understanding, in spite of distances or thoughts

expressed, can make of this earth a garden.

3. Introverted students prefer quiet study environments. Extroverted students prefer loud study environments.

4. Introverted students adjust to online class settings better than extroverted students do.

5. I am an okay cook and maybe I'll post two recipes I tried. Next week. Here, however, is one for Weight Watchers Pumpkin Soup.

29 oz canned pumpkin

1 Tbs butter

1/2 cup chopped onions

3 Tbs water

14 oz chicken broth

1.5 Tbs Splenda brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp black pepper

2 Tbs white Splenda

1 tsp nutmeg

1 Tbs roman cheese for garnish

*Cook onions in butter until soft.

*Add water

*add pumpkin and chicken broth; stir well

*stir in all remaining ingredients except cheese; stir, stir, stir!

*You may add water or skim milk to this the soup

2 points, adequate taste, lots of intestinal bubbles afterward (just perfect for attending #9)

6. Sometimes it's worth the extra $10 to find a costume that an anxious child feels comfortable in.

7. Walmart won't take costumes back after Halloween.

8. I need to buy Woody's cute exercise machine. Checkered????

9. The choirs at my daughter's high school are amazing!

10. We need a new video camera.

11. If one is in the hot tub on a dark, rainy night and there is no other person in the backyard with said person and the dog begins to chase an animal around the yard, said person yelling for Checkered won't even help if he's not home.

FF: Where IS Caution Headed With These?

Our excursion this week will actually be an experiment to determine if I really am able to post about absolutely nothing. No theme. No pre-thought. No nothing. To assist me, I've joined forces with the most cooperative Mrs. 4's and Sara, who specialize in bloggers just like me.



~Our 9 year old has fallen in love with the theater. He is going to play Winthrop in a local production of "The Music Man" and we have concerns about his ego size. Each time he walks into a rehearsal, dozens of teen-aged girls call out, "Ooh! He's here!!" Our boy then struts into the room. The performance isn't until February and that seems like a very long time for an ego to grow.

~Our daughter, aka a Who in "Seussical the Musical," is not quite so taken with her role. She is to find an "old-fashioned looking dress" for her costume and was told to look at the thrift stores. I haven't yet seen something like this at a thrift store.

~Our 6th grader has a close friend who almost died last week from diabetes. Previously, he had no symptoms and there appears to be no family history, but he carries the gene and then got the flu and strep back-to-back. It is thought that those illnesses and the stress on his body somehow activated that gene and the diabetes. Very frightening.

~I am still a student and have made it through week two of eight. Honestly? I don't mind the hands-on assignment like changing my home page and posting and responding (it's much like blogging :))), but I really am not enjoying having to think (take course objectives from a class I currently teach and classify them according to Bloom's taxonomy.) Blah.

~I found no new and happy Weight Watchers recipes this week. Help?

~Our youngest child has been doing very well in school this year with a teacher he's well-acquainted with and who has a very low-key, highly organized style. But this week, the teacher had the nerve to get sick and call in a substitute. Sometimes just having a substitute come in and change the bathroom rules can absolutely paralyze a child into complete anxiety and inactivity in the classroom. My poor little guy.

~I wish I had the legal right to cut off each middle finger flashed at me. Yesterday, in the dark morning rain, I was partially into a right-hand turn but stopped for a school bus to load. After the stop sign was turned off, I continued my turn only to almost hit another mother who decided to make a left-hand turn right in front of me. Evidently, I didn't accelerate quickly enough for her. She did, of course, flip me off after HER mistake. I am so sick, sick, sick of middle fingers. Such cowardice.

~To end with a happy thought now, I cannot get into Facebook and am worried that maybe my account has been hacked into and messed with. (Yes, I am ending that sentence with a preposition.) So what's happy? I have no choice but to clean my house now.

~So maybe that wasn't a happy ending at all.

FF: The Education is Forever Edition

Fridays always bring my favorite memes:

Thank-you, Mrs. 4's and Sara for hosting. I'm yours forever.

This week is a new experience as I am back in school :( Really, I don't mind learning, but I do mind homework. Here is the first thing I learned this week ~ the shelf life of knowledge used to be 50 (that's how long information you learned was "good" before it was preempted by new research.) Now the shelf life of knowledge is a little more than 2 years.

The second thing I learned is that today's workers will typically cycle through 5 careers/companies. Researchers think our kids will cycle through 9 careers/companies. That's a lot of change.

My daughter is taking a mighty blunt health class, and the teacher says she has been embarrassed by some of the discussions from the students. Sometimes my girl slips and tells us a bit about what they're learning. I have to say, "Hooray," for our district offering this class.

My 25th college reunion is this week in Massachusetts. There are lots of reasons I won't be going, but thank-you, Facebook, for putting me back in touch with some of the former classmates I've missed the most.

Maybe I'll do better at attending my 30th high school reunion next summer. The reunion planners have been sending me reminders for the last several months. I can't decide if I can still claim ignorance and "forget" to go.

I am all about more tolerance when little kids bring Cub Scout knives to school so they can eat with the fork part, and when the girl leaves the butter knife in the back seat of her car after a cake decorating class the night before. But the child who brought an air-soft pistol to our middle school last week? Send him away.

My little boy told me that only one teacher in his building is any good at decorating his room. I'm guessing that evaluation was based solely on the number of Halloween decorations in the room.

Went to parent-teacher conferences at the high school this week. Was not thrilled by the efficiency of the English teacher who simply gave us his spiel and seemed annoyed when we asked questions. LOVED the teachers who introduced themselves to us, asked our first names, and really seemed to know who our daughter was.

On that note, when a teacher has a full-time student teacher for the entire school year, where is the teacher (the one getting full pay for the year, but not teaching??)

Finally, I spoke too soon last week in sharing the week's examples of writing from my own students. On Monday, this charmer was submitted by one of my students at the COLLEGE where I teach. May the Lord add patience to my teaching style:

"Being in english class has teached me how to work as part of a team."

FF: The I Work Edition

Thank-you, Mrs. 4's and Sara for hosting our weekly party. It is, sadly enough, the social highlight of my week.

Tales from school:

~I need to figure out who my students' English professor is. When I do that, I will ask her why she is so crazy about banning cell phones in her class. Who cares if the cells are being used to cheat during quizzes? Who cares if students can't participate in class because they are replying to serious text inquiries like: "Hey" and "wut ru doin" ??

Lighten up, lady!

~Male students have become especially sneaky this term with their cell phone use during class. They put their phones on their chairs but just under their crotches. It looks kind of like they are, well, maneuvering things down there, but they're really texting. If the teacher gets close enough to catch the texting, it looks like she is staring at the student's nether regions.

~Some examples from this week's student writing assignments:

"When I was a child I wasn't allowed to have any friends I could have only one friend."

"My uncle, may he rest in pieces, was a great man."

"Working when I'm 14 teaches me alot. I'm 18 of course."

~Here's an abrupt transition away from school news. The following is a sign from a Walmart in New Mexico.

Is one to flush the paper only or is there a trick to flushing other matter but not flushing the paper? Obviously, much to Checkered's dismay, I'm not smart enough to live in New Mexico.

And lastly (since we're already on a learning/toileting theme):

~The newspaper reading option has been replaced in this house - not that I'll be using that laptop anytime soon.

FF: The Three Chapter Edition

The bragging chapter:

• I have, in fact, fixed my broken links to Friday's Freewrite and Friday Fragments :) Don't believe me? Click the images above. ( please work, please work, please work....)
  
• I may have complained about our too full schedules, but we've added one more with the addition of my daughter's selection for the chorus of her school's production of "Seussical the Musical."

The school complaint chapter:

• WHY, school, have you chosen to do "Seussical the Musical" ?!?!? I attended a performance of the same musical a couple of years ago with my child's class and I arrived home and announced that was one musical we would never have to attend as a family because it completely failed to keep most every person there awake.
  
• My daughter's school has a very strict dress code and it is surely enforced, but dress codes that are strict can be confusing unless each detail is discussed. We understand the no short shorts rule, but my daughter's friends had on blue jeans under their shorts. The girls were found in violation of the dress code. As a matter of fact, there were so many violations (a tank top OVER a sleeved shirt was one) on wacky clothing day that the office ran out of extra clothing. I think the school should go to uniforms or provide a more lenient dress code. Without those, there will forever be too many gray areas. And don't even get me talking about the 1st hour teacher who said the clothing was acceptable but the hall monitors who decided it wasn't.
  
• When an after-school activity is scheduled to end at 5, but ends at 4:10, why does the school require the students to wait outside? My child is not old enough to drive and Checkered and I were both obligated to responsibilities 30 minutes away. My child was the only person outside that building for that half-hour. Think, school, before you change plans. Not every child has access to a quick ride home.
  



• If, during the month of April, a child exhibits behavior which greatly concerns you, please don't wait until a conference in September to tell his parents.
  
• My 6th grader is a good student, but he has had 2-3 hours of homework each night since the first week of school. I understand the theory that homework is a reinforcement of what was presented in school, but I also believe that a child deserves some breathing room during the evenings.
• 
  
  I miswrote something on the board this week (i.e. proname instead of pronoun) and an entire class of 28 college students did not murmur a single, "Huh?" I refuse to believe that they were ALL asleep.

The recipe chapter:

• I love emealz. They send me a list of dinners for each week and a shopping list for those meals. Customers can specify the types of meals they want (in our case it's the points counting/WW type) and the grocery chain. The recipes are not only tailored to diet preferences, but are based on that chain's weekly sale items. Try this quick and delicious soup from emealz:
  

Santa Fe Ravioli Soup

28 ounces of FF low sodium chicken broth

9 oz pkg of frozen cheese ravioli

16 oz fresh salsa

15 oz can low sodium black beans, rinse and drain

9 oz pkg roasted Tyson chicken

1 t. minced garlic

1/4 c. chopped cilantro

Bring broth to a boil

add ravioli & cook 3 mins

stir in salsa, beans, chicken, & garlic

Cook 5 mins.

Stir in cilantro.

Serves 6 little, bitty portions :( BUT it is only 4 Weight Watchers point per serving.

FF: The Eating Edition

I'm making progress on this diet. Nearly three weeks into counting my WeightWatchers points, and after riding the water-weight roller coaster, my poundage is down between 7-10 pounds. I could be more accurate, but that would require more than my cheapo scale. Checkered has taken to weighing in on an industrial scale at work and has invited me to join him there, but using an industrial scale does something to my self-esteem.

The painful research by others: As we get more responsible around here regarding food, here are a few things to consider courtesy of the wonderful newsletter, Nutrition Action Health Letter

Olive Garden's Tour Of Italy is a trip no one should take.
This entree has 1,450 calories, 33 grams of saturated fat, and 3,830
milligrams of sodium. If you add a single breadstick and some salad and
dressing and you will have eaten an entire day's worth of calories (2,000)
in one meal.

The Cheesecake Factory: Chris' Outrageous Chocolate Cake. It looks wonderful. It sounds wonderful. But each "five-inch slice weighs three-quarters of a pound and has 1,550 calories and 32 teaspoons of sugar. By the time you hit the exit, your
arteries have 43 grams of saturated fat circulating in them that they didn't
have when you walked in. It's as though you had ordered three McDonald's
Quarter Pounders for dessert."

Now what about those food frauds (as NAH calls them)?
"Smucker's Simply Fruit . All varieties of Smucker’s
Simply Fruit contain more fruit syrup than actual fruit. And the syrup doesn’t
even come from the fruit in the products’ names, but from
(cheaper) apple, pineapple, or pear juice concentrate.

DanActive 'immunity' dairy drink. This Dannon product claims to help “strengthen your body's defenses.” But the only study Dannon did to see if drinking DanActive kept people from getting sick found that it didn’t!"

Research I've eaten:

*We love chili. Last week we ate Gina's Bean Turkey Chili. Oh my. It was so good that we are having it again tonight. Near disaster was averted though today when I checked the crock pot before I left for work. The chili had been cooking for two hours but didn't smell good yet. Yes, the crock pot was unplugged.

*And then there's dessert! Gina, through Weight Watchers has taught me that one may use any box of cake mix, 10 ounces of any diet pop, and two egg whites to make a cake or cupcakes. The diet pop replaces the oil and fat!! Mix and bake according to the directions on the box. The cupcakes are 1.75 points each. Top one with fat free Cool Whip to make yourself smile! (Hint: the Red Velvet cake mix I used with Diet Pepsi maybe wasn't the best combo. )

*One teaspoon of Splenda's brown sugar is actually higher in points than plain old Domino light brown sugar. ????

My own painful research:
My high school daughter refuses to wear a flashing light on her head, so rather than have her walk the 1/2 mile dark stretch to the bus stop at 6.30 every morning, I drive her and then I return home to get a boy to middle school. Then I return home and get two more boys to elementary school. To perk up and save some calories, I've taken to drinking a cup of hot tea before my first little commute every morning. A little Splenda, a little beneficial green tea and I'm set. It was unfortunate last week that I used Sleepy Time tea by mistake.

P.S. Pushing a shopping cart slowly but steadily around the grocery store does, in fact, count as exercise. I'm sure the really smart people already knew that.

FF: The Causal Chain Edition

I once read a novel about the food photography industry. It was fascinating to learn things like the best way to photograph a turkey is to keep is uncooked and cover it with shoe polish. I suppose now with digital photography and editing, a novel about the food photography industry would be pretty boring: "I raced to my laptop, opened Photoshop and added layers. Next, I added more layers!"

That makes me think about
Gina. She has a blog full of delicious Weight Watchers' recipes. But really makes the blog amazing is her food photography. Not all of the recipes I've tried have turned out good enough to repeat, but maybe they would have if they had looked like the pictures did.

That makes me think about
people and why so many of them post yucky recipes to these online food sites. Have you ever noticed how many readers say, "Your recipe was so-so, but I fixed the recipe this way..."

That makes me think about
my child and how we're on a journey to understand what makes him function the way he does in certain situations. Why, when we need to share an update with someone who has graciously asked about him, does that person always want to say, "Oh, that's nothing. He's just like my child blah, blah, blah." I know I'm guilty of the same thing and I'm not going to do that to other people anymore.

That makes me think about
how I've told Checkered for years that HE needed to exercise and how all that TELLING and not DOING have resulted in this current diet (where we have each lot about 10 pounds in water weight, I know, but I would gladly spend the next year in the bathroom if it meant not having to use a rubber band to keep my pants closed and pins to keep my blouses from having those gaps between buttons.)

That makes me think about
Jillian Michaels and her 30 Day Shred. I've been doing the exercises Comcast shows on On-Demand. They include a 30 minute circuit of 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio, and 1 minute of ab work again and again again. She yells at me about not stopping, but if I don't stop there will be a heart attack and Jillian is stuck in my t.v. and incapable of giving me CPR. You
had better believe I take breaks.

That makes me think about
how this is the first semester ever that some of my students don't leave at break time. Of course, they are killing me with their refusal to participate in class discussions.

That makes me think about
a person I literally ran into this week while we were both trying to go opposite directions through a doorway. I know that person. My child was just in her class for an entire year, but when I greeted her, all she could say was, "Hahweh...." I probably knocked all the air out of her, but I prefer to think she was too shy to speak when removed from her natural classroom habitat.

That makes me think about
science. Did you know that I heard on the news this week that a person may be contagious up to one week AFTER flu symptoms fade?


That makes me think about
my work friend who hasn't taught at the same campus I do for a year and how she said we were now virtual friends. But yesterday, when she ran in high heels the length of a parking lot to hug me and she wasn't even panting from running in those heels (the pesky marathon runners!) I was thinking about how much I love my virtual then real then virtual again friends and how someone recently told me he doubted that my blogging friends were actually real friends.


That makes me think about



.

Thanks, Sara and Mrs. 4's.

FF: The I'm Watching You Edition

To the lady who had a cell phone ear piece tucked under her hair, but came up next to me and made eye contact and smiled, how did I know you were talking to the ear piece and not me?

To the karate sensei who came to the elementary school this morning to enroll his daughter, but stopped first to greet all his own students and tell them he was proud of how hard they were working:

To the Weight Watchers people out there who claim they're so full that they can't even eat all their points in one day: I am so hungry that if I could get up there, I would eat my roof. Every.single.shingle.

To my family who has sat on the floor all week because the clean and unfolded laundry has been on the one and only couch? I love you anyway! But, because I know you each know how to fold and put laundry away:

To Blogger, who informed me that I was already following each of the 10 blogs I signed up to follow yesterday and to the sophomores who talked to my freshman daughter on her first day on the high school bus: a virtual hug since any other type would make you throw up.

To the bus driver who is determined to leave the high school before the students from the other side of the building can get to the bus and to the city of Detroit which hovers on the verge of bankruptcy even while its 13,000 city employees demand lay-off negotiations with their 50 labor unions. Yes, 50.

To some mighty special ladies who have agreed to be my healthier living accountability partners (even though I feel that having accountability partners exposes me about as much as if I danced naked at work):

AND

To the student who signs every email, "The girl with the pink hair":

To the stores which put away their school supplies the second day of school and before my child got his final supply list:

To Fiber One who tells me that their products may cause gastrointestinal discomfort: put that in larger print next time so I see it before I eat.

And finally, to

and

for letting me be fragmented each and every Friday:

FF: THIS IS the longest ff ever

THIS IS Friday, so it's time for Mrs. 4's and Sara to host my jumbled thoughts. They really could be my newest BFF's for doing that.

THIS IS Marlene. She told me I could steal her Facebook image and post it here any time I wanted. I would have loved her even if she had said I couldn't.

THIS IS Hallie and she never said I could steal her FB image. I am, however, going to be a guest on her someday cooking show. She specializes in cereal for dinner. I've branched out to instant oatmeal.

THIS IS Jennifer. She gets more done by sunrise than the Army does. She is also a fantabulous photographer - though she refers to herself as just a farmhand. If, in three summers from now, she isn't the official Obama family photographer, we may well take a ride to Virginia so she can take my daughter's senior pix.

THIS IS my niece. Oh, how I love this girl! We are the only two lefties in the family, and she really gets literature. She also talks to me on FB. That's brave considering how old I am.

THIS IS Jeannelle. I think that if I put her picture on this blog every.single.week she will eventually give in and come visit me -- even if just to forcibly make me stop posting her picture.

THIS IS my dad, Checkered's father-in-law, and grandpa to a whole slew of kids. We're going to help him blow out a few birthday candles this week-end.

THIS IS a picture of two of my children getting ready to walk Pepper.

THIS IS how their brother dressed to walk with them through the neighborhood.

And THIS IS Pepper giving her valedictory address. We were shocked to learn that she's not such a great reader! That may well change where she goes to grad school.

FF: I Thought I Was Empty

Amazingly enough, I am nearly fragment-free this week, but I shall give it a good college-try. What that means is a mystery to me really, but I've never let not understanding stop me before.

Okay, Mrs. 4's and Sara and all you who participate in:

Here we go!

*Took my high-schooler to get her schedule and was thrilled when she was put in a homeroom with my new friend's son. That family is very controlled and conservative and the kids are soooo polite. I thought the boy would be a nice "friend" for my daughter. The very first thing the boy did when they got to their homerooms? Loudly rated the girls' chests.

*Pepper the dog graduates next week. By virtue of having only 2 dogs in class, she is assured the valedictory or salutatory spot. Can't wait for her speech.

*Went back to work this week. Haven't taught during the day for many centuries, but think I shall adapt to it.

*I often wonder if I would still teach even if I did NOT get paid. The answer: almost yes.

*Why, on the first day of school for me, when it was raining in a Noah's Ark-type manner and my shoes got wet, did one shoe start to emit soap bubbles?

*Did you know you can change the size of your font by pressing and holding ctrl and turning the wheel on your mouse?

*Kim-d's post made me laugh and laugh and laugh yesterday. Thanks, girlie.

FF: The Happy Edition

Fine. Fine. Fine! I'll be an optimist again. To prove it, here are things which have made me happy this week.

10. My child, candidate for Pickiest Eater in the Milky Way, has decided that he likes tomato soup.

9. Checkered is reading a book! (the final Harry Potter)

8. and he sat next to me last night to read it.

7. My youngest boy now prefers the History Channel to Cartoon Network.

6. My child's doctor actually understands not only what I say, but what I don't say.

5. My daughter has been hearing about her friends who have spent the summer smoking and drinking, and she is disgusted.

4. My garden of grand intentions has produced 10 cherry tomatoes AND 5 ears of corn.

3. I return to work next week and I'm ready with completed syllabi and course plans. Okay, fine. I'm not ready, but I will be BECAUSE I'M AN OPTIMIST, OF COURSE!

2. Loving Patrick Taylor's An Irish Country Doctor and An Irish Country Village. I've been thinking in a brogue all week.

1. We will attend a wedding next week for the daughter of my dear friend. That I have not a thing to wear will certainly pale in comparison to the joy of this most unexpected love.

0. I can admit that maybe I lied when I said I was okay with nothing to wear to the wedding.

-1. The Boy Scout now has all his badges on. Thank-you very much, Miss A Corgi and Betty (why didn't you tell me your new blog was up????) for telling me to take the sewing machine out of the box and read the directions watch the dvd. Now on to the Cub Scout shirts and brag vests.

-2. Thank-you, Miss Chesapeake Bay Woman, for the suggestion. It turns out that Checkered is a sewing maniac.