Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Poop Watch Announcement: March 25, 2008
"The canine has excreted solid waste," Nate announced this evening.
A Watershed Moment
For 13 years I've worked part time. A very flexible part time. It has allowed me to be home when I need to be, run errands during the daytime, be one of the "ladies who lunch," and watch the occasional movie in the middle of the day.
Starting today, and for at least 210 days a year, that will all be different. I'm reporting to the fulltime work world for duty. I'm dressed and ready to go. I have my new steno pad, a note-taking technique I have not used for 13 years, and my bottle of water.
And I also have a tiny bit of anxiety. One would think I might be anxious about performing on the job. But that's not it. I have all the skills. I have willpower and energy. So what am I anxious about?
Bear.
Yup. My little dog has been my constant companion since August. Following me around, sleeping at my feet, and licking my elbow when he wants to go out, Bear has been a wonderful little buddy for me. And now he'll go in his bed and stay there all day. He'll handle that fine. I wonder how I'll do with it?
We'll see.
Starting today, and for at least 210 days a year, that will all be different. I'm reporting to the fulltime work world for duty. I'm dressed and ready to go. I have my new steno pad, a note-taking technique I have not used for 13 years, and my bottle of water.
And I also have a tiny bit of anxiety. One would think I might be anxious about performing on the job. But that's not it. I have all the skills. I have willpower and energy. So what am I anxious about?
Bear.
Yup. My little dog has been my constant companion since August. Following me around, sleeping at my feet, and licking my elbow when he wants to go out, Bear has been a wonderful little buddy for me. And now he'll go in his bed and stay there all day. He'll handle that fine. I wonder how I'll do with it?
We'll see.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Virgin Mary Toast
| Item | Cost | Balance |
| House, Wellsville, KS | 249,950 | 750,050 |
| Mercedes Benz SL550 Roadster | 96125 | 653,925 |
| Samsung 42" Plasma TV | 1399 | 652,526 |
| WII | 388 | 652,138 |
| PS3 | 439 | 651,699 |
| Xbox 360 Elite | 519 | 651,180 |
| 15.4" Widescreen Notebook | 2149 | 649,031 |
| A Door | 199 | 648,832 |
| GI Joe Prototype | 200000 | 448,832 |
| 18 kt Gold Gameboy | 25000 | 423,832 |
| Virgin Mary Toast | 28000 | 395,832 |
The goal: spend $1,000,000. That you don't have. All virtual money. It has to be spent, not invested. It can't be used to earn you any more money. You can not have more than 2 forms of transportation, your house can't be more than certain percentage of the total. You can not have more than 4 items that are the same kind of thing...like you can't buy 12 game consoles. The closer you get to spending the entire million, the higher your grade will be.
This is Taylor's project for Pre-honors Algebra.
We thought it a little odd when he decided to buy a house in Wellsville, Kansas, of all places. He could not really explain how he landed there, but he certainly would not budge, despite all our teasing. He was so proud when he bought his first car, which was a Toyota Prius or something like that. Then we explained that he could really spend a lot more than that for a vehicle. A Hummer, perhaps? When he made the connection with car costs and found the Mercedes Benz, that's when he seemed to really get interested in the project.
The Door? A simple door. 200 Bucks. No explanations. He just wanted to buy this door. No reason. Just a quirk. Then last night he stumbled on a website about the most expensive things. An 18kt Gold Gameboy was right up his alley. But the giggles really started to come when he stumbled upon the Virgin Mary toast.
Here is a BBC story from 2004: 'Virgin Mary' toast fetches $28,000.
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Garden & Gun
This just really tickles my funny bone on so many levels. The subtitle is "21st Century Southern America."
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Three bodies
Mensa boy and his mini built this model of the digestive system for science class. It was really fun listening to them strategize about parts and figure out where they were going to go to procure them. I think the project ended up running the greater part of $40, but to me it was worth it. Taylor will get extra credit and the time the two of them spent together will last in their memory for a lifetime.
Sunday, March 09, 2008
Orange Cardamom Muffins
I'd never made these before, but I can tell right now that I will make them again. Honestly, I made these for the church bake sale because I thought, "Cardamom. I can use some of that up."
I've not made a bad muffin from the cookbook "Gloria's Glorious Muffins," by Gloria Ambrosia. I've had it so long and used it so much that I really need to put a rubber band around it. The pages are falling out.
Orange Cadamom Muffins
yield: 12 muffins
Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Wet Ingredients:
3/4 c orange juice concentrate
1 c soy or cow's milk
1/4 c canola oil
1 egg
1/2 cup honey, warmed slightly
2 Tbsp grated orange rind
Topping:
1/3 cup slivered almonds
Preheat oven to 400. Line muffin tins with paper or grease with shortening or butter.
Sift together the dry ingredients.
Whisk together the wet ingredients.
Pour the wet into the dry. Mix just until all the dry is incorporated. No longer!
Fill muffin cups nearly full. Top with almonds. Bake 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven and brush lightly with canola oil. Let rest for 10 minutes in the pans before serving.
I've not made a bad muffin from the cookbook "Gloria's Glorious Muffins," by Gloria Ambrosia. I've had it so long and used it so much that I really need to put a rubber band around it. The pages are falling out.
Orange Cadamom Muffins
yield: 12 muffins
Dry Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1/2 cup unbleached white flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 1/4 tsp ground cardamom
Wet Ingredients:
3/4 c orange juice concentrate
1 c soy or cow's milk
1/4 c canola oil
1 egg
1/2 cup honey, warmed slightly
2 Tbsp grated orange rind
Topping:
1/3 cup slivered almonds
Preheat oven to 400. Line muffin tins with paper or grease with shortening or butter.
Sift together the dry ingredients.
Whisk together the wet ingredients.
Pour the wet into the dry. Mix just until all the dry is incorporated. No longer!
Fill muffin cups nearly full. Top with almonds. Bake 15-20 minutes. Remove from oven and brush lightly with canola oil. Let rest for 10 minutes in the pans before serving.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Hot Pad Fleet
Mini Mensa Boy created this fleet of ships with the hotpads his grandmother makes for us.
Simple Pleasures
Here's a good, old-fashioned recipe for you:
Dice some leeks. Simmer them in 1/2 a stick of butter until soft.
Add some homemade chicken stock.
Add peeled and diced russet potatoes
Maybe some rosemary.
Salt
Simmer that until the potatoes are cooked through. Then get out your boat motor blender and blend until you've got it the consistency you want.
BUT...while those potatoes are cooking? Get out what's left of that whole-grain bakery bread you bought at Harris Teeter. Butter both sides of each slice and then sprinkle liberally with black and red pepper. Cube the slices. Toss the cubes in a pan and toast them, flipping them often, until they are browned up nicely.
The spicy-ness of the croutons on top of the potato soup? Oh. My. Gosh.
Dice some leeks. Simmer them in 1/2 a stick of butter until soft.
Add some homemade chicken stock.
Add peeled and diced russet potatoes
Maybe some rosemary.
Salt
Simmer that until the potatoes are cooked through. Then get out your boat motor blender and blend until you've got it the consistency you want.
BUT...while those potatoes are cooking? Get out what's left of that whole-grain bakery bread you bought at Harris Teeter. Butter both sides of each slice and then sprinkle liberally with black and red pepper. Cube the slices. Toss the cubes in a pan and toast them, flipping them often, until they are browned up nicely.
The spicy-ness of the croutons on top of the potato soup? Oh. My. Gosh.
Wednesday, March 05, 2008
First Hurdle
Apparently I'm the "running writer." Yup. I've been given the Track & Field season to cover. It'll be fun. I won't be at all the meets, though. Many of them are far away and the travel would cost more than I get paid. But I'll no doubt make it to a few meets. The home ones, for sure.
This is a 7th grader jumping over hurdles for the very first time. Yes, I know she doesn't look that efficient in this shot. But like I said, this is her very first time. I took this a week ago at a practic, and I I imagine she looks better already. Their first meet is tonight. GO WARRIORS!
So that's part of the latest news I have to share with you. There are many other things that have been happening since I dropped off the blog world. I'll give them to you in bits and pieces over the next few days.
This is a 7th grader jumping over hurdles for the very first time. Yes, I know she doesn't look that efficient in this shot. But like I said, this is her very first time. I took this a week ago at a practic, and I I imagine she looks better already. Their first meet is tonight. GO WARRIORS!
So that's part of the latest news I have to share with you. There are many other things that have been happening since I dropped off the blog world. I'll give them to you in bits and pieces over the next few days.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
My Shadow
Taylor shadowed me as I worked a story the other day. The story was about the job shadowing program at the middle school. I gave him a camera and we drove the guidance counselor around to visit 8-10 students that were shadowing friends and family at their jobs.
At the end of the day Taylor had to write a brief reflection of his experience. He said he learned that photographers have to move around a lot. And he thinks he doesn't want to be one because he likes "to stay in one spot."
At the end of the day Taylor had to write a brief reflection of his experience. He said he learned that photographers have to move around a lot. And he thinks he doesn't want to be one because he likes "to stay in one spot."
Friday, February 22, 2008
It's Not Like I've Been Doing Nothing...
How do you like that for a double negative?
This has been a very busy week, with not much to show for it. But it looks like things are settling down just a little bit. I've spent most of the week getting the new laptop up-to-speed (still working on a nagging security issue with my connection to the Cleveland Company) and also have lost a lot of time on Nate's mp3 player issues.
Nate's Creative Zen V Plus was a great little player. Until it stopped playing with our computers. I found the Creative site to be no help at all with his particular issue. The player would not be recognized by either Napster or Windows Media Player. Even Creative's firmware that I downloaded fresh would not see that the player was connected. After losing several hours and plenty of hair, I finally toted it to Best Buy.
That ended up being a happy experience. When I bought the player last summer I paid for a Product Replacement Plan...not a "performance" plan. So when I showed them the player, they sent me to pick out a new one for the same price. They don't carry Creative anymore, so I chose an Insignia player (Best Buy's own brand) with 8GB of memory. And so here we are now with a happy guy and a nice mp3 player.
Nate's car is also being repaired and hopefully it will return home late next week. He has to have a new hood, headlight, radiator and air conditioner condenser. The original estimate called for many other repairs because they couldn't get the hood open so they made wild guesses. Once Mensa Boy and Nate popped the lid with crowbars, the damage was re-assessed and the repair bill went down $1000. So the total cost of the project will be $1600 and Nate will pay half. That will double the value of his car to us. We paid only $1800 when we bought it! But since it has a fairly new engine, it seems like a wise decision.
And this morning I'm finding myself to be pleasantly surprised by Windows Vista. I've been skeptical of the whole operating system. I never really felt like I had heard much positive about it. It is true that it's a nag, but you can control many of the nagging bits off. What I found this morning that I like is the parental controls. With Nate's new mp3 player only being usable on my computer right now (his computer needs some desperate overhauling), I'm having to set up a user account on my computer for him to use Napster and Media Player. I found that Vista allows me to control everything the guys can do on this computer, including which programs can be run. So I set up an account for them that is not password-protected that will only allow them to use those two programs. They will have to use their own computer for everything else, including surfing the net.
So. That's my story. Today I need to work on some accounting and then I can start doing some paying work. OH! I'm going to be covering the Track team! I guess I'm the "running writer" now.
This has been a very busy week, with not much to show for it. But it looks like things are settling down just a little bit. I've spent most of the week getting the new laptop up-to-speed (still working on a nagging security issue with my connection to the Cleveland Company) and also have lost a lot of time on Nate's mp3 player issues.
Nate's Creative Zen V Plus was a great little player. Until it stopped playing with our computers. I found the Creative site to be no help at all with his particular issue. The player would not be recognized by either Napster or Windows Media Player. Even Creative's firmware that I downloaded fresh would not see that the player was connected. After losing several hours and plenty of hair, I finally toted it to Best Buy.
That ended up being a happy experience. When I bought the player last summer I paid for a Product Replacement Plan...not a "performance" plan. So when I showed them the player, they sent me to pick out a new one for the same price. They don't carry Creative anymore, so I chose an Insignia player (Best Buy's own brand) with 8GB of memory. And so here we are now with a happy guy and a nice mp3 player.
Nate's car is also being repaired and hopefully it will return home late next week. He has to have a new hood, headlight, radiator and air conditioner condenser. The original estimate called for many other repairs because they couldn't get the hood open so they made wild guesses. Once Mensa Boy and Nate popped the lid with crowbars, the damage was re-assessed and the repair bill went down $1000. So the total cost of the project will be $1600 and Nate will pay half. That will double the value of his car to us. We paid only $1800 when we bought it! But since it has a fairly new engine, it seems like a wise decision.
And this morning I'm finding myself to be pleasantly surprised by Windows Vista. I've been skeptical of the whole operating system. I never really felt like I had heard much positive about it. It is true that it's a nag, but you can control many of the nagging bits off. What I found this morning that I like is the parental controls. With Nate's new mp3 player only being usable on my computer right now (his computer needs some desperate overhauling), I'm having to set up a user account on my computer for him to use Napster and Media Player. I found that Vista allows me to control everything the guys can do on this computer, including which programs can be run. So I set up an account for them that is not password-protected that will only allow them to use those two programs. They will have to use their own computer for everything else, including surfing the net.
So. That's my story. Today I need to work on some accounting and then I can start doing some paying work. OH! I'm going to be covering the Track team! I guess I'm the "running writer" now.
Saturday, February 16, 2008
A Financial Tornado
To say these last couple of days have been "interesting" would definitely be an understatement.
On Valentine's Day this happened:
The boy is ok, but he's in mourning. And of course he's concerned about the state of his financial affairs. He'll have to help pay for the damage, that's for sure. But at this point he's really the only member of the family that has money that is not earmarked for bills or whatever. We are still waiting for estimates. We suspect the engine will be fine, but perhaps he'll need new motor mounts. Radiator, of course, and headlight.
He says there was a driver behind him that was weaving in and out of traffic and then riding his bumper. He was coming up to a light and was watching the guy behind him rather than the one in front. So he didn't stop at the light in time. Apparently the hit-ee was pretty nice. He said he didn't care. Old truck. He was one of the original construction guys on our neighborhood many years ago. He rehabs Camaros for a hobby. Has several in fact. We are glad he wasn't driving one at the time!
So Nate is without wheels for now and that means Mom's taxi service is back in business. yippee.
Friday morning I woke up to new computer problems. My desktop computer was built to my specs in 2001. It has served me very well. But for the past few years it has had a steady diet of new RAM, new hard drives, power supplies, etc. Friday morning it was just rebooting over and over. It's done that before, and probably could be fixed. But I thought it was time for a new computer. The old one just does not have the kind of power to run multiple programs. Especially that I need for processing photos. So I bought a new laptop. Cha-ching!
When I brought the new laptop home I set it up and downloaded my email. In my inbox was a notification from the SC Department of Education. They are awarding Nate $3,200 in grant money if he attends a private SC college! {{head spinning around}}
SO! That part is pretty cool!
He says there was a driver behind him that was weaving in and out of traffic and then riding his bumper. He was coming up to a light and was watching the guy behind him rather than the one in front. So he didn't stop at the light in time. Apparently the hit-ee was pretty nice. He said he didn't care. Old truck. He was one of the original construction guys on our neighborhood many years ago. He rehabs Camaros for a hobby. Has several in fact. We are glad he wasn't driving one at the time!
So Nate is without wheels for now and that means Mom's taxi service is back in business. yippee.
Friday morning I woke up to new computer problems. My desktop computer was built to my specs in 2001. It has served me very well. But for the past few years it has had a steady diet of new RAM, new hard drives, power supplies, etc. Friday morning it was just rebooting over and over. It's done that before, and probably could be fixed. But I thought it was time for a new computer. The old one just does not have the kind of power to run multiple programs. Especially that I need for processing photos. So I bought a new laptop. Cha-ching!
When I brought the new laptop home I set it up and downloaded my email. In my inbox was a notification from the SC Department of Education. They are awarding Nate $3,200 in grant money if he attends a private SC college! {{head spinning around}}
SO! That part is pretty cool!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Monday, February 11, 2008
Do Not Touch!
Originally uploaded by Food Fanatic
I found this folder in a Sunday School room at the church.
Friday, February 08, 2008
The Shot in the Arm We Needed!
A letter from Erskine College informing Nate that he is the recipient of the Garnet Scholarship. This is an $8,000 per year scholarship. HOO HOO! Only $20,000 more to find!
Pretty soon I'll have to break the news to him that he needs to take the SAT again. Or the ACT. Or both. He's 10 points shy of getting a $5000 per year grant from the state of South Carolina. He's taken it twice already, and his scores improved quite well the second time around, but his combined Critical Reading and Math are 10 points shy. So. We'll do that!
Pretty soon I'll have to break the news to him that he needs to take the SAT again. Or the ACT. Or both. He's 10 points shy of getting a $5000 per year grant from the state of South Carolina. He's taken it twice already, and his scores improved quite well the second time around, but his combined Critical Reading and Math are 10 points shy. So. We'll do that!
Wednesday, February 06, 2008
Ash Wednesday
"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."
Pastor Ed Galloway, who is the minister at our sister church, gave a short sermon tonight at the Ash Wednesday service. He said "There's a longing in our hearts to come before our Lord and acknowledge our sin. Only He can redeem us. Only He can cleanse us from our sin.
Ed reminded us that we can wash the ashes off our foreheads, but "We have been marked with an indelible blessing that has been inscribed on our hearts."
Pastor Ed Galloway, who is the minister at our sister church, gave a short sermon tonight at the Ash Wednesday service. He said "There's a longing in our hearts to come before our Lord and acknowledge our sin. Only He can redeem us. Only He can cleanse us from our sin.
Ed reminded us that we can wash the ashes off our foreheads, but "We have been marked with an indelible blessing that has been inscribed on our hearts."
Sunday, February 03, 2008
Friday, February 01, 2008
Electile Dysfunction
Electile Dysfunction : the inability to become aroused over any of the
choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election
year.
choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election
year.
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