Field Trip

The full time teachers at school are out of state for training.  We took one of our remaining snow days yesterday, but today we had an all school field trip.  A lot of it was my idea so I ended up organizing most of it.    I knew we wanted to go to one of the biggest libraries in town and to the Olympic training Center.  However, that left us a couple of hours in the morning before either opened.  The solution a scavenger hunt at a grocery store.  The store closest to the school is a Super Wal Mart so that was our destination.  I searched the net and came up with some ideas, but came up with even more leafing through the math books.  Some of the things I came up with were:

• Add all the percentages for state and local sales tax calculate the price of a video game
• Compare sugar content between two cereals
• Compare the difference in price on differing sized packaging for the same product
• Compare prices for generic vs. brand name
• Find examples of solid geometric shapes
• Use scales and calculate the price after weighing bananas
• Find the originating countries for produce
• Find all the colors of the rainbow in the produce section
• Compare expiration dates on dairy to find the freshest
• Evaluate the fat and sodium content in snack foods
• Find all the types of sugar in drinks and compare the amounts
• Find the diameter, radius and circumference of a frozen pizza and determine the fraction for one serving

There was more, but that is a sampling.  I don’t think anyone completely finished in the allotted time, but we did cover math, science and social studies.  In that exercise.  If this is of interest to anyone, I’m putting the worksheets I created in the download box on the right side of my Blog.

Next we went to the library were they divided the students into to groups K-5 and 6-9.  The library staff gave the kids a great overview of the services offered.  I stayed with the older kids and we started off with time in a computer lab where they were shown all the online resources offered by the library.  I thought I was a pretty intense library user, but I learned loads.  This library has a room especially for the teens.  Anyone below 6th grade or over 18 must check in at the desk to enter.  They had video games they could check out and use in there, same with laptops, resources especially for the teens.  My kids fell in love.  This isn’t the branch closest to home, but I have a feeling I’ll be stop by there more often.  At the library we covered language arts for the day.

Next we went to Fargo’s Pizza for lunch.  I had made reservations and pre-ordered.  They told me if I called while we were 5 minutes out they would put the pizza in when I called.  They were amazingly efficient and there was pizza left after everyone ate.  My only mistake was allowing the kids to go to the game room when they finished eating.  It took me longer than I expected to get them out of there and we ended up a few minutes behind schedule.

Since we were about 5 minutes late to the Olympic training center we missed the video at the start of the tour,  but were able to watch it after the tour.  The complex is pretty amazing and I would love to have just two lanes of their pool in my backyard — unfortunately, I don’t think it would fit.  The wrestling room was way too warm, but I learned they do that so the wrestlers muscles stay loose.  This stop in our trip covered PE.

The only thing we didn’t cover on the road was Bible class.  I hope the kids were a walking example of what they believe.

All in all it was a good day.  I think it might be time for a nap!

School’s Out for Summer!!!

The boys got out of school for the summer today at noon.  We have been counting down days almost the whole last quarter.  They didn’t use their snow days this year, so they got out a few days earlier than scheduled.  Not only have we been counting school days, this last week we have been counting hours remaining.  I noticed on the white board this morning it was minutes!

The boys go to a very small private school which means there are multiple grades in one class room.  When they first started school, I wasn’t excited by that idea, but it has turned out to be beneficial.  Nolan was in a class with 7th, 8th and 9th grade this year.  Typically the 8th grade raises money for a class trip of some sort.  The 7th graders also raised  money.  There were only three 8th graders and they didn’t raise much money.  Rather than a formal graduation they had a gathering at a local Pizza parlor, ate, received diplomas and played games.  Nolan was in 7th grade and has apparently reached the age where he no longer wants his parents crashing his parties.  We dropped him off on Wednesday night and when we picked him up the teacher had agreed to have her whole class to her house on Thursday night.  The plan was for the girls to spend the night and the boys to come home at some point in time.  Yesterday morning, Nolan called from school and gave me a list of things to bring in the afternoon, including a sleeping bag.  They worked it out so the boys pitched a tent in the back yard and spent the night as well.

The class played laser tag yesterday afternoon, and when I stopped by to drop Nolan’s stuff off they were headed to Walmart to buy food for the evening.

When I got to school at noon today, I asked Nolan what time he went to bed.  1:00? – Later, 2:00? — Later, 3:00? Later — I don’t want to know.  I went in and talked to his teacher.  Apparently, they ate like normal teenagers, and she let them have junk for their party.  She bought four cases of soda pop, baked cookies, was making cucumber swiss sandwiches that were being eaten faster than she could prepare them.  I don’t remember what all they had, but I’m sure I would have loved it at their age.   She made them come out of the hot tub at 10:30 in consideration of the neighbors.  Apparently, they watched movies and talked until 4:00am.  Then she got them up again at 8:00 for school.  Since she had the whole class they came in late.

Nolan was absolutely zonked!  On the way home I told him to take a nap as soon as we got home.  He was concerned about his Friday chores (Friday is the day we clean house!)  I told him the chores could wait until he woke up.  He went straight to bed and he is out.  I even vacuumed in his room and he didn’t stir.  I couldn’t even do that when he was a baby.

As payment for his “wild” partying, I snapped a picture of him after I vacuumed.  Poor tired kid.  I guess he had fun.

It All Happened in the City

That was the name of the play at the boys’ school.  Nolan played Uncle Yule and maintained his accent through the whole play.  He had more lines than anyone else and his teacher and I told him to make some cue cards.  At 4:30pm I asked if he had made his cards yet.  He hadn’t and I told him he had better do it since he was running out of time.  He typed out all the lines and ended up holding them in his lap.  I know he knew the lines fairly well, but it would have looked like he just read them if he hadn’t been so smooth.  I took some pictures, but they were all blurry.  Jesse was in the back row so I couldn’t even see him through most of the production.

I did most of the cooking.  I had one person volunteer to help this time around and she made a couple of large pans of pasta.  I never know how many people will show up.  We had around 40 RSVP and about 100 come in for dinner.  Thankfully I believe in having plenty of food so we still had left overs.  Nothing was burned or spilled.  Dinner was scheduled for 5:30 and the food was ready exactly on time.  So I would classify the dinner as a success.  The play was at 6:30 and we had everything cleaned up and were out the door by about 8:00.  It was very strange to leave one of these events while there was still some daylight.

Snow Day

It has been snowing off and on all week-end. This is a look out the back door on Friday.  It has been a nice wet snow, not our usual.  Shortly after I took that picture it warmed up and I wouldn’t have needed to shovel the drive and walk if I hadn’t already done it.  It snowed again Saturday night and started again yesterday afternoon.  The roads were icy this morning and a two hour delay was called.  The principal called me at about 8am (I’m the school board chair for our private school) and asked if I thought we should close for the day.  Several of the public school districts had closed.  I called Guy to see how the drive to work had been.  He said the roads got progressively worse as he got closer to the school.  We called our first snow day of the year. (March is typically one of our snowiest months.)  The boys were ecstaic.   It was a mistake.  When I went to the bank at about 10am the roads were perfect.

Nolan and Jesse think they should be able to game all day.  I disagree.  They took a two hour break this morning, and I’ve made them give up the screens again this afternoon.  They cleaned their bathroom and this afternoon I suggested they bake cookies.  We still had eggs left from Jesse’s birthday cake (I have stopped buying eggs on a regular basis).  I thought I had everything we needed.  Guy had opened the bag of chips this week-end so we were a little short there, and when we check the margarine we were short 1/4 cup.  I did the math to reduce the recipe and Nolan has done most of the work. He is pretty good in the kitchen with just a little instruction. 

Jesse finds it more entertaining just goofing off in the background.

 

This is probably THE favorite cookie recipe in this house.  You can find it on the back of the Nestle’s Butterscotch Morsels bag.

Oatmeal Scotchies

1-1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. salt

1 cup butter or margarine, softened

¾ cup granulated sugar

¾ cup packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 tsp. vanilla extract

3 cups quick oats

11 oz. pkg. Nestle Butterscotch Flavored Morsels

Preheat oven to 375° F.

Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in small bowl.  Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla extract in large bowl.  Gradually beat in flour mixture.  Stir in oats and morsels.  Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 7 to 8 minutes for chewy cookies; 9 to 10 minutes for crisp cookies.  Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes; remove to wire racks to cool completely.

 

Stop & Breathe

This week is exceptionally busy so this may be my only post for a few days.

Monday was Guy’s birthday he caught up with me once again for a couple of months.  I thought I had actually managed to buy a gift that would surprise him.  He has been talking about this saw for almost a year.  When I checked Amazon.com it was almost $100 less than I could get it here in town with the free shipping.  The scheduled date for shipping was on his birthday, but then I received a notice that it had shipped and was due to arrive on Monday.  How cool is that — here for his birthday and I didn’t have to unload it from the car.  Last Thursday he comes home and says, ”Hey that saw is a lot cheaper on Amazon.”  Oh great, there goes the surprise.  I went ahead and told him it was on the way, because we sure didn’t need a second one showing up on the front porch. 

Today Quilter’s Anonymous met at my house.  (Guy says first you have to admit you have a problem, but it is actually my mini quilt group.)  We had our gift exchange today.  It was great! Everyone made gifts for the name they had drawn this year and the gifts were all awesome.  There were four quilts, a beautiful fiber runner, an embroidered shirt, hand knit socks and fingerless gloves and last, but not least the gift I received from Joyce, a purse.  We sent emails to our group discussing our likes and dislikes and I specifically said I like blue and yellow.  Isn’t it cool?  It has pockets all the way around the inside, too.      

While we were chatting today we somehow ended up talking about a female police officer that frequents the quilt shop where two of our members work.  I made some comment about how the vests police wear make them look buff.  I then received some teasing about liking my husband in uniform.  I frequently quilt for one of the other members and she has met Guy and she said something about him being good looking even when he isn’t in uniform.  In case I haven’t mentioned it before, Guy volunteers as a deputy with the Sheriff’s office.  The volunteers go through the academy and have all the same authority as any other deputy when they are on duty, they just don’t get paid.  Anyway, the Sheriff’s office recently took formal pictures of the volunteers to have on file.    Since about half the group hasn’t met Guy, I went and grabbed the picture and passed it around.  I got a kick out of the comments — they went something like this — “Oh, he is good looking, he still has his HAIR!”  I’m posting the picture here so you can be the judge (No matter what you decide, I’m keeping him!).  It’s a pretty good picture, but Guy wasn’t pleased that they spent most of the day on the range before they took the pictures so they were sunburned, had hat hair and weren’t freshly shaved.

The final thing that is making this week hectic is the Christmas Dinner Theatre at school tomorrow.   The teachers and students provide the theatre and I provide the dinner.  We are having soup, salad, bread and dessert.  The soups are all homemade (also vegetarian) and I had planned to bake the bread as well.  At this point I think I will be stopping in at Panera tomorrow to buy some bread.  For soup I have a mild Chili, Mock Chicken Noodle soup, Minestrone, Taco soup, and Baked Potato soup.  The first four are finished except for adding noodles to some of them and the baked potatoes just came out of the oven for the last one.  For most of the soups I quadrupled the recipes.  How did I end up with this job anyway?  Oh, yeah it was my idea several years ago to add the dinner as a fund raiser and to get more people to show up.  So now I do it twice a year, at Christmas and in the Spring. 

So until I finish with clean up tomorrow night, I will continue to remind myself to breathe!

Grand Plans

I had grand plans for all I was going to accomplish this week.  Unfortunately reality didn’t turn out quite as grand as planned.  Monday was supposed to be one of my uninterrupted work days, but at 6:40am the phone rang  and the voice on the end of the line asked me to come to my boys’ school and substitute for the 2nd and 3rd graders.  School starts at 8:00 and we live across town from the school.  My normal routine is to get the boys out the door to school at about 7:00 am with their dad and then I get ready.  Getting ready usually includes 3 miles on the Nordic Track before a shower.  There went the exercise for the day.  A mad dash about the house and I made it to school by 8:15.  I will readily admit that if I’m substituting I prefer the upper grades.  My boys are in 6th and 7th and I know the kids in those class rooms.  I know very few of the students below the 4th grade.  All I will say about my day is, teachers deserve so much more pay and respect. 

I also just happen to be the school board chairperson for this school and I think parents expect way too much from the teachers.  In my opinion the education of a student requires at least three entities.  Yes, the teacher is important, but the student has to be willing to learn and to put in the time and work necessary to learn.  Usually the parents are the biggest problem in the education process and they are the third part.  I find that many of them think it is completely up to the teacher to instill knowledge in their children, unfortunately that just isn’t the case.   Yes, there are a few parents that are actively involved in their children’s lives, but by and large most believe they aren’t responsible.  The teachers have no control over how much sleep the children get or whether they are getting a balanced diet.  Also if a student refuses to do their work and the parents don’t step in there isn’t a lot the teacher can do.  With a class room full of students the teacher can’t give one on one time to the same student all the time.  It is up to the parents to help their child after school if they didn’t ”get it” out during class.  (Turn off the TV!)  Enough ranting on my part.

I’m fortunate to have two relatively intelligent boys that are pretty responsible.  It wasn’t always that way.  When my youngest was in 1st grade he decided he didn’t need to do part of his school work.  In that grade they had workbooks.  If he didn’t want to do the assignment he would rip out the page and throw it away.  When I found out, he had to dip into his own savings and pay for copies of those pages so he could complete them and turn them in.  In fourth grade he had a new teacher that expected more from the students.  We spent hours after school most of that year making sure he finished his homework.  I’m happy to say the tears and frustration paid off.  He pretty much takes care of being sure all his work is turned in by himself now.

 So exactly what did I accomplish this week?  I finished hand embroidering my last snowman block for the “Winter Wonderland” quilt from Crab Apple Hill.  Now I need to piece the sampler blocks that are the border.  Here is a picture of the blocks, they haven’t been pressed or trimmed to size.  (Click to see a larger picture.)   That means for handwork, I’m back to working on the border of my “All God’s Critters Got a Place in the Choir” quilt.  I’ve finished appliqueing the center on that quilt.  The pattern for the quilt is out of print, but it was from Brandywine Design and similar patterns are available from them.

I also made some progress on my Monochromatic color project.  Almost 600 pieces are cut out for the Storm at Sea blocks.  I’ve stitched together all the centers and have the diamond units together.  I still have all the corner “square in a square” units to go.  Here is a picture of the progress to this point. (Again click to enlarge.)

After a very long hiatus from Fly Lady I started back up with that this week.  I actually adapt the program to fit me — I like to go bare foot or wear slip on shoes.  Those 15 minutes a day do make a big difference.   Since this week crossed two months there were actually two different zones to work in.  The first was the living room — I decided to work on the family room since that’s where most of our living takes place.  It looks much better.  I found a large square basket with a lid at Target and it was marked down 50%.  The boys video games and controllers and any other paraphernalia are now contained in that basket behind the TV.  I’m still looking for baskets of the right size to house all the DVDs.  Even the baseboards were washed down this week.

The second zone was the Entry, and dining room.  Our entry basically comes directly into the living room, so the living room is decluttered and so is the dining room.  My mother-in-law had an old buffet she wanted to move out of her dining room, so when my parents drove out from Oregon last month they brought it to me.  I still need to move some things into it, but it is the new addition to the house.  My poor husband thinks I’m trying to fill every available space in this house.  But look at the picture and tell me how I could pass it up.  The color goes great with the dining room table and chairs.  The quilt hanging above the buffet is a Harmonic Convergence quilt made in a class with Ricky Tims.  The fabric for the center is some I dyed and the borders are batiks.

It is my 11 year olds job to dust each week, and he does a haphazard job at best.  So as I was in each zone they got a really good dusting.  Part of doing the entry includes the entry closet.  We do have a closet near the front door, but since we come and go through the garage most of the time it isn’t used much.  There is a large closet near the backdoor that is usually a catch all.  It has all our coats plus whatever else gets tossed in there.  I hauled away a box full of ink cartridges (they are used for a fundraiser at school) and all the extra school supplies were tossed in there so they were put away.  I was actually able to vacuum in that closet and you can walk into it now.  Those were the two zones this week and it is amazing what a difference there is on the main level of the house.  I admit once I got going it was hard to stop.  I even flowed over into the kitchen and the counters are all decluttered.  Next week the kitchen is the zone, so maybe I’ll attack some cupboards and definitely the scary things growing in the fridge!

Thursday an order I had place arrived while we were doing parent teacher conferences (I was very proud of my boys report cards — one straight A’s and the other about half A’s and half B’s — this from the child that did 1st and 2nd grade in one year) and at the orthodontist.  Some fun things were in the boxes.  I ordered “Free Expression: The Art & Confessions of a Contemporary Quilter” by Robbi Joy Eklow.  I’ve only had time to scan the book, but the photography is outstanding.  The quilting is so clear.  She does lots of freehand designs on her work and the book does explain some of them.  The inspiration is there just looking at the pictures.  I also got “Another Can of Worms” by Debbie Caffery.  I’ve taken a class with her and really enjoy her methods.  This book is another one using 2-1/2″ strips.  Those are the only books that came — some more on back order.  I finally caved and ordered the Curve Master Foot and since I was getting it, I got templates for a Giant Dahlia quilt and for a Double Wedding ring quilt.  Those quilts are in my future.  Stick with me long enough and you’ll see I rarely choose the easy in life.

So looking back at the week, it didn’t actually go the way I planned, but it looks like I did accomplish much.