Dance in the Rain

So I saw a sign in a catalog that said, "Life isn't about waiting for the storms to pass, It's about learning to dance in the rain."  I really liked it but it was $40! Plus shipping and all that yada so this weekend I made my own (which is cuter than the one in the catalog, I think):

This isn't the best picture but I would need my photographer sister(s) here to get a decent pic and they aren't anywhere nearby.  ;)  It ended up being a little more involved than I had anticipated but that's mostly due to the time spent figuring out how to best do a long quote on the board. It was kinda fun. I haven't done a craft for awhile but look out - now I'm in that mode!

Snake Update

Here's my mom's "little buddy" the snake-that-lives-right-by-your-window:

I caught him sunning himself the other day (although this is only one of the two that live here) and thought I'd better put a picture of him on here in case you thought I was just looking for empty sympathy. I wasn't. He's real. And right by my window.

hair, hair, hair

Megan & Jeremy went to Thailand last month and they were showing us pictures of their trip (way fun!  You can click on "Megan" in my blog list to see more fab photos she took in Thailand, just scroll down aways once you get there...) and I learned something new!  Teenage elephants have long hair just like teenage humans!  Who knew? See:

So, apparently it's a cross-species thing and both elephants and humans grow out of it.  

New 'do

Ok, I decided it was time for a new do again so here it is...

I don't know if these pics are the best but the ones Justin took were a little random and didn't work so well. So much for my great helper!

I really love it and it's nice and cool. Oh! And ea-sy to take care of. (That's huge!)

Summer School is Crap!

I must rant for a minute. My dearest child is in summer school, apparently he didn't feel his needs were met during the regular school year and he wanted more. Ok fine. Whatever. (Here's where the rant starts.) It costs $150/class (he paid for it) and ruins, I mean, takes up most of the summer. You may or may not wonder what they do during summer school. I didn't, but I was naive. I'm so silly, I thought when he's there to make up an English class they'd do English class type work. Well, no worries, it's a lot more fun than that! It's storytime!!! Woohoo!

What? You think I jest? Oh no, I assure you, that's the nicest way I can explain what they do there. They will be reading 3 whole books this summer BUT rather than expect the widdwe kids to wead the teacher is reading them out loud. I called to ask the Vice Principal about it and he said he has no idea what they do in class as that is not his job. Huh? Whose job is it then? What do the principal and his little wing men do in all their spare time since they have no idea what goes on in classrooms?

Anyway, no homework, basically no written work. Just sit and listen nicely kids. OH! I forgot, they do have 20 minutes each day that they have to read all by their-own-selves, but, lest it become an arduous task, the wee ones can read anything they'd like, even comic books. I thought that was bad enough but don't worry, today was the most fun of all. They watched I Robot. Why? Did it have relevance to something - although I'd be hard pressed to understand why it would be necessary or even acceptable? Nope. It was just fun cause they had a substitute. Apparently subs cannot even read out loud - that task is much too difficult and more than can be expected. Gee, I think I won't be a teacher, I'll just sub - great pay, basically no work.

Here's my main dilema. I must ask this question - what is the purpose of summer school? And why must students take summer school to make up specific credits such as English, science, or math and not gym, foods, or foreign language? If what they should have learned (but apparently didn't learn because they failed) in those classes is important is that not the reason to require that they make it up? They must have passing grades in these classes to graduate. Why? If the school treats summer school classes as a joke, or more accurately as a fund raiser, then it seems that the classes cannot possibly be very important. And if it is, what is wrong with the school?

I realize these are the "loser" kids who failed. I further recognize that while Justin has his issues there are kids there that have way more severe issues. However, just because these kids gave up does not mean the school can give up on them. I realize they blew it. I realize they, for the most part, don't care. Yet, as educators is it not your job to try every possible means to help them succeed? And by that I simply mean teach them the English skills they will undoubtedly need in the coming years (and for the rest of their life) rather than treating this as a joke and filling it with mindless drivel. I also realize that parents of many of these kids don't care either but never should a teacher assume that a failing child has a parent that doesn't care. I would bet I'm not the only parent who is appalled at the lack of substance in this required time waster they call summer school. It is nothing but a fundraiser and a farce. Ok, I could go on but this is long enough. :)

New Toy

I got a rice cooker for Mother's Day and finally tried it out the other day. It's great!! It has a delay timer, which for busy mom's is great news! I can put dinner in the crock pot and rice in the rice cooker and everything is ready at the same time. I was a little skeptical of the delay timer, I mean after all, is rice supposed to sit in water for hours and hours? The answer is yes. It came out perfectly. I recommend this handy product, (that also, by the way, steams food - and you can make rice and steam food at the same time), to all you busy gals. It's available at Target. :)

Some things I've learned...

The last couple weeks have been chaos around here! And amidst the chaos I was reminded of or learned a few new things:

1. New carpet stinks. As in, it smells. And it's a pain in the butt because it's just like you're moving - you have to pack everything up and relocate it so they can remove the old and bring in the new.

2. Toe nails are there for a reason! I was working my way through the mass of relocated furniture, boxes, etc. as the carpet was being installed and stubbed my big toe on something large and heavy and now 1/4 of my toe nail is missing. Toes are very sensitive - to everything - without their little toe nails. And they practically scream "stub me please!" Which is not very nice.

3. When the dentist is removing your wisdom teeth and says, "You won't feel anything but pressure" just know that pressure hurts! Especially when it seems they are going to break your jaw. And a week later I'm still quite tender on that side of my mouth, which I'm told is normal for the circumstances and to expect that to last a while longer...

4. The temple is a great, great place and I need to be better about going.

5. When you find a really, really great enrichment leader that's like a dream come true - she'll move! This might bring you to tears (especially when she says this just days after she put on a super enrichment!) but just know, this too shall pass. And you'll find another leader. She may not be as great as the one who's abandoning camp but almost certainly she'll be great. Right?

6. When you host the enrichment cooking class at your house 2 days after the carpet was put in and you have to move back into the house, clean it, and prepare a bunch of food, it means that you are crazy! And your son will refuse to do any work the day after because you wore him out. In fact, he thinks a week without work would be fair compensation. And he won't care that you are tired too. You'll think your son is crazy and wonder if it's genetic.

recipes

Here are the recipes for the ice cream and topping:

Raspberry Ice Cream Topping

1 (12oz) package lightly sweetened frozen raspberries, defrosted & juice reserved
2 Tbsp cornstarch
2 Tbsp sugar
1/3 C maple syrup

Drain defrosted raspberries and reserve liquid. Add water to the liquid, if needed to measure 1/2 cup. In a small saucepan combine berry liquid and cornstarch until smooth. Add sugar and syrup. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture boils and thickens. Boil 1 minute. Stir in raspberries and cool to room temperature before serving.

Luscious Lemon Ice Cream (from Southern Living - one of my favorite cookbooks ever!)

3 C sugar
4 C milk
3 C whipping cream
1 C half-and-half
½ C finely grated lemon rind
¾ C fresh lemon juice

Combine first 5 ingredients; add lemon juice, and stir well. Pour into freezer container of 1-gallon ice cream maker. Freeze according to manufacturers directions.

Pack freezer with additional ice and rock salt, and let stand 1 hour before serving.

Yield: 2 ½ quarts.

Enjoy!!

lemon ice cream

We're having an ice cream social for enrichment tomorrow night with assorted homemade ice creams.   I made lemon ice cream today and raspberry ice cream topping.  Oh YUM!  I taste tested it,  cause of course you wanna be sure it's good if you take it to a party...  It's a delicious treat.  I'm excited for tomorrow - it'll be a scrumptious night!

There's a snake in our yard and he's apparently decided to stay for the summer.   He lives right by my window, which my Mom points out every time she talks about him - which is a lot cause she's just fascinated by it.  She watches it every day and yesterday she was super excited cause she saw him get a drink.  AND he shed his skin and she was way excited about that.  I feel a little grossed out about that.  

Here's my window that he lives right by.  He wasn't there this morning but I'm sure he'll come out when Mom gets home, he seems to like her.  Which is fine by me.

Mom thinks we need to name him now.  I'll leave that up to her, I don't want to get too personal with the snake-that-lives-right-by-my-window.

Budding Photographer

While we were in Utah, my nephew decided it would be fun to learn how to take pictures with my camera.  Now, he's 4 and doesn't need much instruction of course, so I just let him run with it.  Here are some choice photos:Lots of headless, torso shots!  This is because he snaps then moves the camera before the image is captured...

Several cut off heads but then, he started to get the hang of it:

Much better.  Avery started taking pictures too, with similar results.  I think in a few years, with a little practice, we'll have a great brother-sister photography team!  

Flat Tire

We drove to Utah for a short visit last Friday.  On the way we got a flat tire.  We were in Glenwood Canyon and hit a rock (a pretty big rock) and it did my tire in.  So, we pulled over and Justin was the hero of the day and changed the tire (his first attempt ever - and he was very manly and wouldn't let me get near it and made me stay on the safe side of the road) and got us back on the road again.  These visuals might help set the scene for you:

Justin is getting the jack under the car and giving oncoming traffic a nice view of his underwear - owing, of course, to the fact that he wears his pants so low...  (Seriously, how can that be comfortable??)

Then the jack fell.  It was kind of a slow motion moment as the jack and the car just slowly fell back.  I was glad that the tireless part of the car was on the gravel side of the road so it didn't hit the asphalt.  But I was really glad Justin wasn't under the car!

And here's the damage.  It's kind of hard to see in this picture but the wheel had to be replaced as well as the tire.  One of the spokes (?) for the lug nuts had to be replaced too, although that wasn't due to the rock.  

A couple riding their bikes stopped to tell us that our hub cap had rolled across the highway and into the ditch and they were very concerned that we knew where it went so we could go get it cause it'd be awful to have no hubcap!  Apparently they didn't notice that I'm already missing two others, so really, this just makes it a majority.   I think I'll remove the lonely one that's left. Needless to say, we did not cross the highway and search through the knee-high weeds to find it.

So, in case you're ever in a similar predicament here are some pointers.  I was glad we were prepared!  We had an emergency roadside kit that had the lug nut wrench thingy (I'm all about the technical terms!), a nice heavy, hallow bar to use as leverage to get the lug nuts loose (many thanks to my brother-in-law, Chad, for that one!), a cell phone  (to get pointers from Dad as we worked), and wipes (tires are filthy, nasty things!).   And, we were really close to the West Glenwood Springs exit, which was a blessing in itself, but a further blessing was that - provided you can figure out their really stupid Vailesque 20-way round about - there's a Big-O Tire right off the highway.  And their employees are very nice and helpful!   And all this only increased our travel time to about 10 hours and cost around $100 (because the tire has a warranty).