The Day Teachers Live For! December 15, 2023

Hello, all! Well, today is it. The last day of school before Christmas break. Semester tests were the last two days. Half the kids are skipping. The rest are sitting in classes playing card games or playing on their Chromebooks. Teachers are planning for after Christmas, or putting in grades, or, like me, goofing around with other things! There has been enough food to fill a truck around here in the last few days. So. Much. Sugar!! No more lessons for a couple of weeks, no more kids asking to go to the bathroom, no more locker doors slamming as if they meant to shove it through the other side of the wall. I’ve given tests, graded essay questions, run Scantrons, and taken care of details. I’ve prayed for every one of my kids by name. Now it’s time for us teachers to go do our Christmas shopping, clean our houses, throw up a few decorations, and try to get into the spirit.

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Until next time,

D.

The Latest News and Greatest Hits September 1, 2023

Hello all! How’s things? My world is spinning along just fine at this point. Not much new to report. A new school year is underway once again, and promises to be a pretty good one. I have 93 sophomores at the moment. They come and go. We get a couple of new ones and lose a couple to online schooling such as Epic. I think it works well for most of them, at least I hope it does. I pray for my kiddos every day. We have the flag salute, moment of silence, and dress code check first thing every morning and I always pray for them. Granted, I’m not as churchy as I used to be, so my prayers may not be going much higher than the ceiling, but I’m guessing it doesn’t hurt anything.

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Anyway, this group of students seems to be pretty good so far. There are always the yahoos who want to be smart-aleck and never shut up, but thankfully those seem to be in short supply this year. We’re working on our first novel of the year, which is To Kill a Mockingbird. I’m still following the lesson plans of the teacher I took over from, and that was first on her schedule. After TKAM, they go into writing a formal research paper, which takes us through Thanksgiving at least. Once they’re done with that, we might have a few weeks of short stories or something before Christmas. After Christmas we start on drama (plays) and we study Shakespeare. So far all the years I’ve been there we’ve studied Julius Caesar, but this year I may tackle Hamlet. After Shakespeare we go into poetry and then wind up the year with Animal Farm. I ordered some new novels this year, so we might do a few things differently. I’d like to, anyway. There are so many options, and I’m not as creative as I’d like to be. We’ll see how it turns out.

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I’ve also been working on my diet off and on, which continues to be a struggle. I had weight loss surgery five years ago, and although I lost a good amount, I never got all the way down to an ideal weight. I never could image myself that size, and that may be why I never got there. So I go back and forth on trying to follow different eating plans and nothing really ever sticks. I never did a very good job of following the doctor’s office’s eating plan. I was doing low carb for a while this summer, and it worked out for me pretty well. It costs more, because meat and cheese are more expensive than bread and noodles, but I really feel it’s better for our bodies. If I can make myself get back on it, you can follow my efforts on my other blog, The Low Carb Chronicles.

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I mentioned low carb being more expensive than other ways of eating, and man, has that been a struggle lately! Money is tight, for no clear reason, other than that prices are high in general and teacher pay in Oklahoma is, in a word, sad. I can’t complain too much, though. We got a raise this year, which is very nice. Me being the cynical pessimist that I am though, I figured it would just put me at a higher tax level and whatever the monthly increase averaged out to be, it would just end up being taken by more taxes and I’d barely notice the raise. I get paid in two weeks, so we’ll see.

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One thing I was going to talk about in this post was the problem of a little disease I like to call FDD- Facebook Disclosure Disorder. I found out today in the work room at lunch that our students are so clever that they can stalk us on Facebook and see what we post somehow, even if we’re not FB friends. I posted something the other day about being really angry and cranky about my kids doing poorly on a test and I was told today it was quite the big topic of conversation among them, even though I HAVE NO CURRENT STUDENTS AS FB FRIENDS!! Heaven only knows how they do it. I tried it tonight- I put the name of someone I know, that I am not ‘friends’ with, into the search bar on FB and I could see their posts, but only the public ones. Clearly, they are much more clever than I am when it comes to social media, but that was always a given.

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Anyway, my family and close friends will be the first to tell you, I have an advanced, possibly terminal, case of FDD. I put way too much of myself on FB, but I can’t help it. Really. It’s just the way I am. In my own defense though, I’m not as bad as some people. I don’t share every single meme I see, and I don’t post my every thought. Just… you know, most of them. One thing I don’t like to do is get into confrontations on FB. As soon as a post gets confrontational, it’s either deleted or comments turned off. I hate arguing. Except with someone I know I can trust not to bash me for my opinions or hate me for speaking what I think, like my best friend, for example. I drive her absolutely wacko, always playing devil’s advocate, arguing the other side of the majority of stuff she tries to tell me. But in the end, we still love each other, even when we disagree.

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I’m looking forward to this weekend. My birthday is coming up next week and my family will all be getting together. My sisters and I are probably going to get pedicures tomorrow. I haven’t had one since Moses was in diapers, so it ought to be nice.

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Well, I think I’ve rambled on long enough for this post. Another nice thing about this school year was that I received full funding for my DonorsChoose grant, which resulted in me getting, among other things, the laptop computer I’m now using. I’m hoping it will allow me to get back to being more regular with blogging. We’ll see.

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Until next time,

D.

Saying Goodbye March 24, 2023

Hello, all! It’s been a while. How are you? I’m doing really great. I’m emotionally and mentally stable and feeling good for the first time in a while. I feel mostly positive, and hopeful, and strong. It’s a good way to feel, for sure. On the other hand, it’s the getting close to the end of the school year. This is the time of year that starts to make me sad. The seniors have mentally checked out. They’re looking forward to prom, taking their pictures in their caps and gowns, getting ready to graduate and head on out into the world. I love the excitement they feel. Most of them, anyway. I’m sure some of them are scared silly. Some of them have no clue what they want to do or where they want to go, and I know that has to be a really scary feeling.

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It always surprises me a little when we get to this point in the year and I start feeling all sentimental toward the graduating class. It’s been two years since they were my students, and at that time they probably drove me bananas, and yet I get all teary eyed thinking of how much I’ll miss some of them. I don’t form attachments easily, and I never know how students really feel about me as their teacher, but some of them truly are special to me. This year there’s one who, when he was in my class, didn’t want to leave on the last day of school. He hung around for a long time after the bell because he was going to miss school so much over the summer. One girl was pretty indifferent in my class; she never could stand some of her classmates, because they talked a lot, and I was always worried that she blamed me for not being stricter on them, yet she came to me to show me her scholarship award. I just love that. It makes me feel like I’ve made a difference to at least one kid. Anyone who thinks teachers don’t care about their students, that we’re all just a bunch of boring, burned out lecturers, counting our days until retirement, can just bite me. I love some of these kids. Some of them I kind of want to shake until their teeth rattle, but ALL of them, I pray for every day. We have a moment of silence at our school, after the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, and I pray every single day for them to be happy and healthy and make good choices and have good lives.

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This week we’re wrapping up our unit on poetry. I bored them to death with analyzing and responding to a bunch of poems for a few weeks, followed by their test over the terms and technical elements, but then they get to watch a movie. I am showing them Dead Poets Society. I absolutely love that movie, even though I want to sob uncontrollably at the end. I wanted them to see how poetry can be inspiring and how most teachers really feel about their teaching. One of the assignments I gave them was to create a visual representation of one of the poems we had looked at, and I got the best thing ever. All it required was a drawing at the very least, but one student actually created a painting on canvas. The poem she was referencing was actually one of mine I had shared with them, and it really spoke to her, so she painted her representation of the poem. It was incredible.

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Anyway, I’m going to start working toward writing more. I have a dear friend from theatre who is always after me to work more on my writing. I know I need to, and I’m going to start working toward that. With poetry it’s hard. I always wrote the best stuff when I was suffering from crippling life events or drowning in depression, and I’m not doing that at this point, thank God! My friend always said to just set aside a certain amount of time every day to write, no matter what. He ought to know- he’s written stories, and short books, I think, and he’s an artist as well, on TOP of being one of the creative forces behind the theatre sets for years and years.

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Well, I started off talking about the graduating seniors, and got off topic. It’s only a brief few weeks until I’ll watch them graduate, hearing that stirring graduation song, Pomp and Circumstance, hardly recognizing them in their regalia. Another year almost down. It feels like it has flown. Ah, well. I’m off to continue to Seize the Day. In the words of Robin Williams in DPS: Carpe Diem!

Until next time,

D.

Tonight’s Kitchen Adventures March 17, 2021

Hello all! I just want to say, I am glad this medium exists. I know my regular Fb friends probably couldn’t care less about what I fix for supper every night and they are probably sick of seeing my cooking journey!

That being said, I have been looking forward to tonight’s meal for a couple of weeks now, ever since other people’s posts on the EveryPlate community page started popping up raving about it.

I’m kinda pooped tonight, kinda worn down and tired and bordering on bummed. I am way behind on cooking my meals because I decided to try another service- Home Chef. For a couple of weeks I was getting both of them! Then the meals started piling up and I skipped one or both of them for a week or two, and I’m still not caught up!

In truth, I was thinking about canceling EP and just going with the other one, because they are a little lighter and there are choices in degrees of readiness. But now I am waffling again. The other one is also more expensive, even though it includes more of a variety of vegetables.

So I can’t decide on that, but for tonight I had decided to prepare this particular meal despite my mood. Or rather, because of it, actually. I had read a lot of positive reviews of this meal and was in the mood to be wowed. I NEEDED to be wowed. I wasn’t terribly hungry, but I knew if this meal was as good as others had said it was, it would be well worth it.

So I pulled the bag out of the fridge and patiently started prepping. Diced tomatoes, chopped onion, minced garlic, zested lime. I enjoyed cooking this one, because it didn’t feel like I was rushing. Sometimes when I am cooking something like pork chops or chicken breasts, I am always in a race against the clock to get the recipe done the right way before whatever is in the skillet burns. (I know, I turn the heat down and it still wants to burn before it gets to the right temp inside.)

So I cooked the meat, seasoned it, prepared the tortillas, did all the things. I rolled the filling in the tortillas and created the flautas. I stuck them in the oven and started cleaning up. This was the part that took longer than the recipe card said it would. It always seems to do so. The flautas were supposed to be lightly browned and crispy, but I knew it wasn’t gonna happen in the 10-12 minutes the recipe said. I kept resetting the timer for 2 or 3 more minutes until they were finally done.

I plated them and added the toppings- lime crema and pico, and of course took my usual photo. I sat down and ate, and tried to muster up the energy to savor the flavors. They were definitely good, although I felt like the filling was the tiniest bit bland. I had experimented with the last little bit of meat left in the pan after I filled the tortillas. I tried adding cayenne pepper, which didn’t seem to give it the kick I was looking for, so I added some Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning, which I could seriously eat on everything. Tony’s definitely made it perfect, but I didn’t add any to my plate.

So here is the photo of tonight’s Southwest Pork Flautas with Lime Crema and Pico.

Maybe one of these days I will come up with something else to say besides my food adventures.

Until next time,

D.

Sssssmokin! (But Not On Purpose) March 8, 2021

Hello all! Tonight’s kitchen experience was by Home Chef, and boy, when they said 15 minute meal kit, they weren’t kidding! Okay, I’m not sure how long it actually took from start to finish, but if tonight’s supper had a soundtrack, it would have been Flight of the Bumblebee!

The meal of the day was Pineapple Pepper Jelly Pork Chops with stir fried vegetables, and it was supposed to look like this.

So the first thing I had to do was to cook the pork chops. Y’all, I don’t know what it is about something sizzling in a skillet that just makes me feel like I am in a rush! Once that skillet is cooking, I am on a deadline and whatever I am cooking in the skillet is going to be lucky if it’s not burned to a crisp by the time I’m done!

Tonight was one of those nights where if you cruised by my house and peeked in a window, you might have thought we were like, hot-boxing in here or else, once again, we had set the house on fire. Those with a less dramatic imagination would simply think to themselves, “Oh lord, she’s cooking again!”

I think maybe I got the skillet too hot. (I know, “Ya think??!!”) But seriously, I had tried not to do that, because it is my newest and best non-stick pan. Also, I think maybe I was a tiny bit light on the oil this time.

Whatever the problem, I got the chops going and got the second skillet going with the vegetables. This recipe included an onion and bell pepper mix, which you were supposed to cook for a bit and then add another package containing bok choy. The only seasoning for that was garlic salt. This is a nice break from EveryPlate, which tells you “Season with salt and pepper” after EVERY STEP.

So while all that was going on and I was trying to keep the chops from burning, I then had to make the sauce- pineapple with jalapeño pepper jelly. It cooked down pretty small and dark compared to the picture, but I was pleased that it was not super spicy.

To finish up, all I had to do was take the meat off the burner and transfer it to a plate. Then I divided the veggies in half and topped the meat with the sauce and there it was- super speedy supper!! I could have probably taken the meat off sooner and it might have been better, but it still tasted good! I just need to learn to make that choice sooner! Here’s the end result

Yeah, it’s not what I’d call beautiful, but it was good enough to fill my tummy after the day I had. I discovered several members of my first hour class have been getting up to shenanigans during THE MOMENT OF SILENCE!!! (While I am, apparently foolishly, standing there with my head down and my eyes closed!) Needless to say, I will be delivering some particular remarks tomorrow morning!!

Just now while I’ve been writing, the grandbaby got into the diaper bag and found some balm for little windburned cheeks, and was giving herself a beauty treatment. Oh vey. 🤣

After supper I took Daughter S’s dog outside to do her business and at the same time I was texting someone about making a birthday cake. (The Squirrel will be 2 on Thursday) Trust me when I say you haven’t lived until you have tried to text on FB messenger while walking a dog at the same time. I’d wrap the leash around my arm and about the time I was ready to hit send, the dog would run off in some new direction and I’d not only lose my text, I’d come close to losing my arm. 🙄

Until next time,

D.