Henry Ford Museum

A trip with Adam, Dad, and Charlie.

Merry Christmas :)

It's been a beautiful day of family and love. Charlie and I woke up at the Snearly's and spent the better part of the morning there, opening gifts, eating delicious breakfast, and playing our new speed-Scrabble game (which might just be my new favorite!) Afterward, we joined the family at the Berger house, and opened gifts with Mom, Adam, Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Dave and Aunt Bonnie. The afternoon was consumed with a much needed nap, and later a ham dinner at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Using our new Flip video (so cool... I'm pretty much obsessed. Thank you, Vicki!) we documented our day. We think this little video perfectly sums up our Christmas. Enjoy and have a blessed New Year!

cómo se hace una tortilla española

Only two more days of school until break officially begins! I can't wait. The days are starting to take on agonizing length... I've taken a break from TPRS (other than 7th grade today) to focus more on reading and seat-work. It's been refreshing, but storytelling makes my day fly by in the blink of an eye. The kids are injected with "crazy" this time of year, and I think we're all ready for a vacation. Case in point:

We are taking a quiz--6th grade, 7th period mind you-- and I hear this incessent, obnoxious squeaking. I turn to see a sweet little 6th grader with wild eyes, rocking back and forth in his seat.

Sra. Snearly-- "Johnny, can you please stop? It's hard for others to focus."

Little Johnny-- "Sorry. I just love Christmas."

*At this moment I suppose I fail to see what this quiz has to do with Christmas*

Sra. Snearly-- "How much candy have you had today?"

*A pause*

Johnny-- "A LOT. I love candy, too."

Kids are pretty cute.

Tomorrow is our Spanish fiesta at school, and Charlie was kind enough to help me make four Tortilla de Patata. Que rico :) We made a mess of the kitchen chopping onions, potatoes, and pouring oil in and out of pans. They turned out great, though...and I know my students will appreciate them. It's a traditional Spanish dish.

I LOVE this youtube video of how to make it-- the Spanish accent is to die for, and the woman cooking reminds me of Sabi, my host mom. She is so cutely Spanish. Even if you dont' speak the language, it's still beautiful to watch her make it--sometimes I wish we had our own personal Spanish chef. I'm dreaming I know :)



Happy almost Thursday!

Christmas cards and a holiday update

We are nearly done Christmas shopping, and most of our gifts are wrapped under the tree. It's truly starting to feel like Christmas...slowly but surly. Tonight we're heading to the Zwally's Christmas Party to and we will exchange the first gifts of the season! How fun.

Last night was our school's Christmas party at the nearby Country Club. It was really nice to not have to cook anything. Drinks were $8 a glass, and Charlie laughed looking at the sign and asked the bartender, "Is there a teacher discount?" Several teachers turned around and gave him the look disgust. I thought it was funny, anyway.

In other news, our Christmas cards are finally in the mail! All 50 of them! We printed them at Kinkos and stuffed all the envelopes together watching The Office.

Then, the bright idea dawned on Charlie and me that we should enter everyone invited to the wedding into the computer in a spreadsheet and print each address on sticky labels to put on the envelopes. Oh what time we would save in the coming years! We proceeded to create a complicated excel chart that would correspond to a label template. After Charlie fiddled with the program for 45 minutes and finally got it to work, we printed our first set of labels, and stuck them on the envelopes.

I stepped back momentarily to admire our work and soon realized that our friendly Christmas cards looks more like bills than a holiday greeting. (What with the cold, Times New Roman text and sticky labels). My skin was crawling. I KNEW we couldn't send them out like that. A hand-written card is not something you would imagine would make much of a difference, but when it's missing, you really notice.

We promptly broke out the pens (lucky for extra envelopes), and we proceeded to address each one the "proper" way. A mere 30 minutes later I was done. What we should have done in the first place. Live and learn, right? Hehe.

Sausage!

Charlie and I have been really, really enjoying Italian Sausage. (If your mind is in the gutter, please remove it promptly. Hehe.)

In all seriousness, it's a meat that we have totally neglected, and have just discovered the tastiness of. We've been around the block with chicken, ground beef, and ground turkey. It just gets so old! I suppose sausage was the next logical step.

It all started when I had a coupon for authentic Italian sausage, and I purchased it on a random Saturday at Harris Teeter. Charlie cooked it on the skillet with marinara and spices and it was so delicious!

On our return trip to Harris Teeter the next week, we bought more (buy one get one free), but we weren't charged the buy one get one free price. Luckily, Harris Teeter makes a promise that if they ever overcharge you for ANY product, and you bring it to customer service, they refund DOUBLE what they owe you. (A very little known fact, and very noble of them). So, I kindly brought my packages of sausage to the Harris Teeter lady, to be handed almost $10. We actually made a profit shopping! (something Charlie was quiet proud of), and we have two delicious trays of sausage in our fridge. Yum, yum... sausage night!

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How funny is that!?!?! This is just about my favorite youtube video. You can't help but watch it and smile. What a cute baby! It's funny how people can become famous now with the click of the mouse and a few moments for uploading. Everyone knows that Charlie is a "biter" and about "that guy" who pushed the bride into the water.

It's amazing the things we can do on the internet nowadays...my students visit my Wiki for missed homework, study guides, videos, and Spanish fun. I update people around the country with what we were doing here, now and today on our blog. I jump on forums and other blogs and make comments and post remarks. I can upload videos of our vacation, pictures of our weekend. My facebook status can be updated by the minute from a cell phone, and I can video chat with anyone around the world on Skype. Most of our Christmas shopping was done online.

I was thinking as great as all of this technology is, it makes anyone who shares their information with the net subject to viewing by the world, and in turn, your life is aired for the world to see.

Now that I have a very unique last name, I am a #1 hit on a google search. Anyone can find me via the internet. Luckily, I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. It's worth thinking about, though: one picture, one video, one post that is uploaded can't be erased...ever. Even when it's "deleted." It can damage your reputation, or worse, prevent you from being hired. Sometimes I think this is something that the next generation fails to see...

I was watching MTV this weekend, something that has faded out of my life in the last 3 years, but I was captivated by a show, and even more fascinated by a commercial that came on. In "this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs" fashion, the commercial exposed the risk of teens posting inappropriate or private information on the web---their slogan is "Think before you post." I thought it was pretty powerful and speaks to a reality of today. Real-life and the internet have begun to blend.

As our digital age grow and changes, it will be interesting to see how about attitude toward the internet changes as well. For now, I'll stick to keeping my personal life private, and my "willing to share" life a part of this blog :)

Weekend's end...

How is Sunday here already!?! The weekends always seem to fly by in the blink of an eye!

Our nut party was a huge success...we chatted, had a few drinks, made caramel turtles, and cracked pecans (realizing it was much harder than we originally anticipated!) It was a whirlwind of a day cleaning for the party and getting everything ready, but it was worth it! Very relaxing.

All the ladies!

Aunt Katy, Luna and Me! :)

With tons of Christmas shopping under our belt, and a Christmas tree skirt blanketed with presents, our home feels very festive. I can't believe the holidays are approaching so quickly!

After church today, we were in need of some R&R. I watched some of my favorite DVRed shows, and enjoyed the couch...I may have even dozed off a few times. I got some candles on sale at Kohl's when I was doing Christmas shopping. One is "Sugar Cookie" and the other is "Warm Apple Pie." They are to die for. I think they encourage me to sit around and do nothing. This is going to be such a busy week I'll be kicking myself tomorrow!

Christmas gadgets!

Chinese is on the way, dog is walked, tree is lit, and we're basking in the beauty of Friday :) (Charlie's reading his book, he wanted the world to know. And I'm blogging!)

Tomorrow I'm off to get some Christmas shopping done... I have my list and everything.

It's funny to read about those "hot" items that are flying off the shelves this year. You know, the kind that kids whine in cry that they HAVE to have... like this year's little robotic hamster, Zhu-Zhu. Have you heard of him? Why wouldn't you want to spend $60 on ebay on an $8 robotic hamster that crawls along the floor, glides up ramps and makes a flushing toilet noise when it enters the bathroom?

Ha. Sign me up.

When I was a kid I remember I just had to have a Oopsy Daisy. I was completely hooked by the commercial:

Christmas of 1990, I had my dream baby, opened her up, let her crawl and fall...and then I was...bored. That's all she could do! Her limbs couldn't bend, so you couldn't hold her, or play with her...I don't think Oopise had much fun after the 25th. Doesn't sound too far off from little Zhu, Zhu, now does it?

Now one gift I just can't quite wrap my head around is nook. It's another sold-out item...it's like an i-Pod for books! You can upload any novel you want, and read it in the palm of you hand. I've never seen one up close, and it looks cool...but there is something so liberating to me about being able to hold, touch, and smell (yes, smell) my books. I love fluffing the pages, holding it to the light at night, and writing and highlighting them. Maybe I'll change my mind...does this make me a fogie? LOL.

Happy Friday!! :)

Hump Day, Nut Days

Humpf... rain, cold, and the middle of the week.

On the bright side, we are having our first annual "Nut Party" this weekend, where friends get together and make "nutty" treats! Should be fun. :)

First on the list are caramel turtle candies...yum, yum! I found the recipe online, and they sounded delicious. We bought two small bags of pecans and a "nutcracker" that was on sale. It's much cheaper to buy your nuts shelled than de-nutted (I don't know if my "nut terminology" is up to snuff but you get the idea). Plus, it's much more fun to do it yourself. Reminds me of Spain :) I love the nut displays around the holidays!

Here's the recipe...hopefully it's as easy at it looks....

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

• 18 soft caramels
• 72 pecan halves (about 1.5 cups)
• 5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips

Preparation:

1. Prepare a cookie sheet by covering it with aluminum foil and spraying it with nonstick cooking spray. (I also read to add wax paper so they don't stick!)

2. Arrange the pecans in clusters of 4 with each pecan pointing in a different direction (like turtle legs).

3. Place a caramel on top of the center of each cluster. Put cookie sheet in a 300 degree oven for 3-4 minutes, until the caramels have softened and mostly melted over the pecans. The tips of the nuts should still be showing.

4. Remove from oven and allow to cool fully.

5. Melt chocolate chips in the microwave or over a double boiler. Spoon the melted chocolate over the cooled caramel, being careful not to cover nut tips.

6. Allow to fully set. Store refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a week.

Source


I love the internet.