Summer Vacation- Day Cinq

Here I am, once again, in a conference room with other teachers, not really listening to Computer Guru, just doing my own thing. Doing my own thing involved taking that photo of my Paris Starbucks cup I purchased a couple of years ago at Charles de Gaulle airport and the lovely little Madeleine cookies I bought this morning to go with my coffee. Then I did start paying attention and learned some stuff, including how to use Blogsy to update this blog. I didn't burn out quite so easily today. Maybe it was the Pi-Lo class last night that relaxed me and helped me get a good night's sleep. Maybe there is something to this exercise thing...

Ok, back to work for one more hour.



Bon appétit, M. Computer Guru!

Summer Vacation - Day Quatre

Today was Day 1 of an iPad Meet-Up, as our computer guru is calling it.  All of our middle schoolers will have those little gizmos in their hands next fall and a few of us are doing our best to learn how to use them in class.  MindMeister, Evernote, Penultimate, GoodReader, nearpod, Qrafter... Just a few months ago I had never heard of any of those apps.  Now they are downloaded on my latest version of the iPad.  I was actually engaged and learning stuff until about 1:00 and then I hit the wall and was on information overload.  I was trying to come up with a QRC, a Quick Response Code, you know those black and white boxes you can point your smartphone or iPad at and get information, for this blog and got totally lost.  Sorry, guru.  I promise to get a good night's sleep and be at the top of my game tomorrow at 8:30 am when we reconvene.
BB, one of my colleagues, took today's photo of her cucumber patch with her iPad.  Go, BB.  I told her today that she should make a commercial for the iPad and Face Time.  She was able to virtually visit with her ailing dad in Maine thanks to this technology.  She also made videos of him when she went for her last visit, as well as snapping some great photos of him. Her adorable daddy even sang to her I am honored that she shared this with me.
Time to get some sleep so that I won't fall asleep mid-morning on Day 2.
And BTW, pilates-yoga was awesome.  Stretched out the sore muscles from lifting weights yesterday.  I like the whole "honor your body" philosophy.

Bon appétit, bonne nuit et dormez bien!

Summer Vacation: Day Trois

 (photo from Pinterest- unsure who took it- sorry!)

This is what I will be doing in just three weeks.  I now spend a lot of time daydreaming about the trip and tweaking the plans the BFF and I have made for our group of 6 plus us.  Three days in Paris, a week in Villeneuve-lez-Avignon, Bastille Day in Paris, Mont St. Michel.  Very exciting, n'est-ce pas?

This is how lazy I wish I could be.  Rusty-type lazy.  He usually gets up with me in the morning.  I make the coffee, he whines for food, I feed him, he eats, he chases his sister, Callie, then he goes back to sleep.  But this morning he broke our routine.  Since Son #2 got home last month, Rusty sleeps upstairs with him.  But last night, Son #1 was home.  Rusty isn't too fond of him so I figured he would sleep downstairs.  But I found him in the box lid next to Son #2's bed.  Son #2 even put a t-shirt in the box.  Good grief.  He didn't even bother to get up with me.
But instead of lazing around and sleeping in a box lid or even napping on the sofa, I am trying to beat my 50+ year old body into shape.  Oui.  I am my own summer project.  Walking with the BFF early in the morning, biking with Iron Woman (who is in incredible shape), and today I worked out with Mario at the Y.  Worked out with machines.  Lord have mercy.  Tomorrow, if I manage to get out of bed, I tackle Pilates and Yoga.  Or it tackles me. Stay tuned.

Skinny Shake
from Joel Fuhrman, M.D., author of Eat To Live, by way of Dr. Mehmet Oz and his Oz-Approved 7-Day Crash Diet

1 cup of ice
4 ounces of pomegranate juice
1 cup frozen strawberries (I have fresh ones since they are in season right now)
Squeeze of lemon

Add all ingredients to a blender and enjoy.  Add water to reach your desired consistency.

I haven't tried this one yet, but it's on my to-do list this week--


Creamy Fruit and Berry Smoothie
recipe from Eat To Live, Hachette Book Group, 2011

serves 2

1 cup pomegranate juice
1/2 cup unsweetened soy, hemp, or almond milk
1/2 cup frozen strawberries
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/2 cup frozen peaches
1 banana
2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds

Blend all the ingredients in a high-powered blender until smooth and creamy.

Bon appétit et bon courage!

Summer Vacation Day 2

Gifts from my students come in various forms. I got several thoughtful thank you letters, one even written in French, making me a very proud teacher. A gift certificate to A Southern Season that the Ex-Ex and I will put to very good use. A cute Lily Pulitzer notepad complete with a pink pen.





Even though I am well known for wearing black, my students also know I am crazy about pink.
One of my advisees loves to bake pies. He baked several of them for us during the course of the year and he came to school with a Key Lime, his specialty, the last day. Much to the disappointment of the other eleven eager eaters, I did not share. I brought it home.




It is delicious. Really, really delicious.
The Ex-Ex ate a piece this morning for his birthday. Son #1 came home to see us and let us take him out to Foster's for coffee and wash his dirty clothes. Very thoughtful of him, wasn't it? Son #2 slept through coffee but went to Wendy's to buy dear dad a Frosty. They are both out with friends now, leaving the nest temporarily empty again. The Ex-Ex is playing Solitaire on "his" iPad that he solely uses for that game. Not an exciting birthday... But a good one, I hope.

Key Lime Pie
from allrecipes.com

1 9-inch prepared graham cracker pie crust
3 cups sweetened condensed milk (approximately 2 cans)
1/2 c. sour cream
3/4 c. key lime juice (approximately 20 key limes)
1 Tbsp. rated lime zest

Preheat oven to 350˚F.
In a medium bowl, combine milk, sour cream, lime juice, and zest.  Mix well and pour into crust.
Bake 5-8 minutes, until tiny pinhole bubbles burst on the surface of the pie.  Do not brown.  Chill pie thoroughly before serving.  Garnish with whipped cream and lime slices, if desired.


Bon appétit et bon anniversaire, Ex-Ex.

-Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Summer Vacation Day 1

Yippee!  It's here.  Summer vacation 2012.  Not that I am totally finished with my work, though.  I still have a few grades to enter and some progress reports to write.  But I've got until Tuesday at 3:30 pm to finish up.  Hours and hours.  The Ex-Ex and I decided to go out to celebrate.  We sat outside at Satisfaction, ate pizza, sipped Triangle Brewing Company ice cold beer, and listened to live music by Mudbones Blues Review at Brightleaf Square. 
We did not dance, but we had fun watching this lady get her groove on--

The music put this guy to sleep and I couldn't help but snap a photo. 

Bon appétit, bonne nuit et bonnes vacances!

Who are you?

http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/the_who

Just typing out the title of this one makes me start humming... Who are you?  Who Who Who Who... Or whatever the words are to that song by The Who.  The younger generation, which includes Sons #1 and #2, knows the song thanks to the CSI series of TV shows.
We started off this school year with a new middle school director and he used that as the theme for his first Community Meeting talk to his new charges, both faculty and students.  And I, in turn, decided to use it in class as Qui es-tu?  A great way to get kids to talk about themselves and teach adjectives.
The question takes me, personally, way back to my middle school days.  About the time when I really became aware of myself as a person, a separate entity all unto my own self.  Different from my parents.  From my siblings. From my cousins.  I always wondered what made me me.  Do other people sit around and think about this?  I have no idea.  I am not sure I have ever even shared this with another living human being.  Why am I who I am?  And when it comes right down to it, who am I?
I am a small town girl from the Appalachian Mountains.
I am the first person in my family to go to college.
I am the oldest of four children.
I am a French teacher.
I am a wife.
I am the mother of two boys.
I am messy.
I am a cooker and an eater.
I am a lover of all things French.
I am stubborn and independent.
I am a music lover.
I am sometimes insecure.
I am an optimist.
I am an incurable romantic.
I am a hard worker.
I am defensive.
I am a creature of habit.
I am grumpy sometimes, but it rarely lasts long.
I cry when looking at paintings that move me.
I wake up every morning with a song in my head and sing it in the shower.
I regret not getting to know my grandparents better.
I wear my heart on my sleeve.
I usually have too many irons in the fire.
I love my friends and family.
I get so engrossed in some of the books that I read that I feel I am actually in the story.
I believe that people are good.
I want to live to be 95.
I want to live in France.
I want to write a book.
I want to know that I have helped others.
I want my ashes to be scattered in the mountains, in Paris, and in Provence.
I want to see my boys settled and happy.
Actually, I am probably not very different from everyone else.  But I am me.  And note to middle school self-- I kind of like the way we've turned out. But there is still so much more I want to do and see and sing and learn and eat and cook.

Bon appétit, whomever you are!

Au revoir 2012

Teachers don't live by traditional calendars.  Our new year begins in August and ends in late May or early June.  Today is my last "normal" day (is there such a thing in middle school??) of classes.  Exams for 7th and 8th graders begin on Monday.  And while part of me is so relieved that she would do cartwheels if she still could, the other part feels a bit forlorn.  I've taught some of my 8th graders for three years.  All of them for two.  They head off to high school next year.  I know that they will be just fine, but I wonder if I've taught them enough.  Not just about French verbs and vocabulary, but about life.  One class has a list of my little "life lessons."  I know I can't protect them from all that's out there, but maybe, just maybe, my voice will come back to them in the future and something I've said will help them along the way.  Who knows? 

The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love provides a comforting recipe for feelings of forlorn-ness.  The proper combination of sweet and salty.

Chocolate Stuff
in the words of Her Royal Highness, Jill Connor Browne
The Sweet Potato Queens' Book of Love, Three Rivers Press, New York, 1999


Beat two eggs with a cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of flour.  Add 1/4 teaspoon of salt. In the microwave melt together one stick of real butter (I never use unsalted; I think it tastes flat) and 2 fairly heaping tablespoons of Hershey's cocoa.  Get regular Hershey's in the dark brown box-- anything different will screw it up.  Dump the butter-cocoa mixture in the other things, and stir it up good.  Then add a running-over teaspoon of vanilla.  I use real vanilla, but the grocery store kind won't ruin it.  Stir that up, too.  If you decide to go for nuts, use a whole bunch of pecans, chopped up fine.

Pour the stuff into a greased loaf pan, set the pan in a pan of water, and stick the whole business in the oven set at about 300 degrees.  Depending on how your oven cooks, it  needs to stay in there for 40 to 50 minutes.  If it seems crunchy, I'd take it out.  You can't really undercook it since it's good raw, but you don't want to overcook it and lose the gooey bottom so crucial to the whole texture experience.

Trust me.  This is the best thing that has happened to you in a very long time, possibly ever.  From now on, for as long as you live, just the simple act of getting out the bowl to make Chocolate Stuff will have an incredibly assuaging effect on your psyche.  I can say, without fear of contradiction, there is virtually nothing, not one situation, that can't be faced with calm and grace and serenity if you have Chocolate Stuff.  You can eat it and feel better fast, and when it wears off, you can just make another batch.  Believe me, in no time at all, you'll be grinning like a mule eating briars.

The BFF, Her Royal Highness, and moi and a book signing at The Regulator in 2007.

Bon appétit, 2011-12!