Monday, September 25, 2017

Bread Baking, Hmmm

We have a new kid in town.  It is lovely venue, half kitchenware gift shop, half a long bar that sits eighteen where you have a cooking class or a dining experience with a chef.




Rae invited me to a Bread Baking, Wine and Cheese class for my birthday.  It is really a classy place, though a bread baking class was more than a little deceiving.  The baker brought a tub of bread dough and we shaped it and she baked it. She didn't even give the recipe, though honestly, it doesn't compare to what Rae and I already know how to make.  We enjoyed checking it out, and the lovely lady who sat with us, and hanging out for the evening, but we where quite under impressed with what we got for the price.  Oh well, now we know.
Birthdays abound this month and Missy Bugg and Buttercup celebrated being eleven and nine, oh my.
A rather depressing meeting after school today. Found out that the writing portion of the state assessment goes online for my kids this year.  How in the world do you show how you make pictures to work out math problems online?  How are they supposed to get a narrative or essay hunt and pecked? Ugh.
I came home to three little learners who I feel no need to assess.  They  are loving Gramerly's birthday present.

We spend the evening picking bouquets, playing with the chickie girls and discovering where the best bugs and mud puppies are hidden.  


 School has just been incredibly busy.  I orchestrated a service project and refugee simulation with Migrant and Refugee Relief Services last Tuesday for our 5th through 7th grade.  We donated three full car loads of school supplies.
As part of the simulation our kids had to go to school to learn a new language. The teacher here is a recent refugee from Cuba.
 The Captain volunteered to come and order them through the obstacle course.

The forms to register were in a foreign language. Some kids were held up due to sickness.  Food and water ran low and some families were jailed.  After all their work, only one family of nine made it through.
 
I had purchase and borrowed lots of stories about refugees that we passed around.  I did a smaller version of this simulation  with the 2nd through 4th grade.  I wanted this service project to be a little more than just picking up a pack of pencils at  the store.  I believe we were successful in bringing a bit of the refugee situation home to them.
Between the three week camping interact I did just before this and tutoring four mornings a week, I'm just tired, that's all.
This week is conferences and then a break and I am so very ready.



















Saturday, September 16, 2017

Happy Birthday to Me

One more trip around the sun- check.
This birthday felt on one  hand, a little more sober, on the other hand, the sobering thoughts yielding more reasons for celebrating. While such heartache surrounds me- natural disasters, cancer, refugees, local fires affecting folks I know and folks I don't, frail mamas, refugees, hacking and scamming that never ends, littlest bits without good parents, a Cluckingham Palace disaster, oy vey!
 But  the sweetness of  đź™ŚCELEBRATING🙌 -three kids who brought three more to our family that have made a life independent of me,  that I get to see up close, so many precious grandbabies that I get to love and teach, a classroom where I'm allowed to wield my own brand of bohemian instruction, a mama who thinks my crazy hair is all kinds of gorgeous and tells me that every single time I see her, for man who is a gift from God and models Jesus' unconditional love to me every day, and a brother, a sister, a daughter, a niece and some crazy friend girls who love me up and make me feel special and not just on my birthday, freedom to go to church where all words and songs lift up my Savior- my All in All.  My, my, my, such goodness.  Feeling grateful!
Let's see if I can keep from setting my hair on fire.
In the spring, one of my most favorite groups, Over the Rhine, shared of upcoming albums, with a request to pre-purchase said albums.  I did.  For my effort I received tickets to a concert originally set for their farm, but changed due to weather.  Rae and I hit the road early and made a stop at Findlay Market in Cincy.  Oh my, how neat.  So many beautiful things, good smells, yummy treats.  The concert was simply lovely.  And we landed front row seats. Such a wonderful day.


So my herd of chickie girls has been nearly decimated.  Handy Man has trapped and dispensed nine raccoons and two possums in the last two months.  Everytime we've had a decline, I think I will give up chicken keeping. Then I miss them and so here we grow again.
 I told Handy Man those little 2 ounce balls of fluff just never get old.  It was a delightful surprise to my classroom.

The gramerlings never mind a new batch of babies to snuggle either.


 Giddy-Up wanted to try some sushi and I had leftovers from Blue Eye's date, so we fixed some up.  He loved it.

A friend sponsored a family outing through her work for a trip to the Falls and invited us to go along. It is just all kinds of fun to see the same fossils we've found in our own creek.





Ugh, that big boy haircut. I can't.

When Drummer Boy came by with the kids, they were climbing a tree and found a huge nest of these honey bee killers.  This the the hugest bee type thing I have ever seen.  You know I'm the tree hugging, insect loving kind, but these bad boys have got to go!
Sending some love and peace  to everyone facing whatever hard has you wrapped and struggling today.