Breakfast Idea

Over the Weekend

I'm supposed to write more.  I used to feel fabulously witty as I made my blog posts.
Plenty to catch up on.

• We enrolled Rose at a new school this fall and wow.  What a difference.  She is really supported and is making friends.  She is gaining so much independence, too.  We are very glad we made the switch.
• Andy did graduate from high school, not without drama, and went off almost immediately to boot camp.  Now he is stationed in Ft. Bliss, TX, in the Armored Division.  I don't really know what that involves, and he's not especially communicative, but he is proud to be in the Infantry and really proud he made it through boot camp.  We're proud of him too!
• Book club has continued.  I've been going almost every single month for 12 years!  I remember that Rose was a baby when I started.  We are reading Tinkers by Paul Harding. 
• I have an art show in December which means I need to hang out at the studio A LOT more and get a bunch of stuff framed.  
• I am going to an instructional coaching conference next week.  It's in Lawrence, KS.  I'm hoping to learn a lot and improve my strategies!
• Going to a mountain retreat with my friend Cindi this weekend.  I hope to make a photo album of this past year.

Over the weekend, I:

• got a flu shot
• raked leaves
• went to a fall festival
• bought Halloween stuff for Rose
• developed some photographs

It was a very autumnal couple of days.

Long time no see.  Without going into detail, I have been sidelined by a couple of things and it should be very therapeutic for me to get back into talking to myself.  If any of you lovely people are still  checking in, thanks for your faith. 

• Andy is a senior in high school and still supremely confident in spite of life's little setbacks.
• He is not  quite on pace to graduate, due to some of life's little setbacks, but could certainly pull it off.
• I ordered his graduation announcements and his cap and gown today, because I'm looking for him to pull it off.
• He is thinking of enlisting in the Army after he graduates,
• Which I mostly support.
• His sister is in sixth grade and
• Has a locker!
• Which she can't actually open yet but I think she'll catch on eventually.
• I have a new studio in a lovely art gallery close to home.
• I have been making art in fits and starts and am determined not to let life's little setbacks completely block the productivity.

September 10 is Long Gone

• I was actually worried that I wouldn't know my password to the blog.  That's sad.
• 9:15 AM here and the household has long-since settled back into a stupor.  Christmas morning lasted from about 6:30 - 7:30.
• Delighted to report that I have my two Christmas breakfast standards: the cheeseball my mom used to make, and cranberry-orange bread.  Of course, the cheeseball recipe has been reduced to 3 critical ingredients that don't need measuring, and it's just spooned into dishes now, not carefully molded like Mother did.  Oh, and the cranberry bread?  From a mix, I'm afraid, with a healthy handful of pecans added.
• Both are acceptable alternatives to the labor-intensive versions.  Delicious, even.  (Not that I wouldn't welcome the real things.)
• Last night was spent around the bagna cauda again, as last year.  If you don't remember what that stuff if, you could look it up.  It's good, in a once-a-year kind of way.
• We also played taboo, and even Rose did a great job for her team.
• For the evening party, Rose insisted on wearing her fancy dress, tights and new dress shoes.  Then she earnestly turned to me and asked, "Can I choose my own jewels?"  She had plenty to choose from, thanks to her Aunt Teenie, and loaded on several necklaces and a couple of bracelets.  She stopped short of a tiara but we put a giant bow on her hair.
• My throat hurts, in a raw way like I've been shouting.  And smoking glass shards.
• There has been a guilty throat here in the household for a couple of weeks and I think it's spreading.
• Rose sounded suspiciously hoarse this morning and said her throat felt a little weird.
• The Avalanche tickets I got for Andy will have to be passed on to someone else.  I bought them before he was gainfully employed.
• That's right, gainfully employed.  At a movie theater.  We are all very happy about this.
• Grades?  So far acceptable.
• No point in trying to catch up from September.  We are happy here on Christmas Day, and hope you are too.

Pears

I worked on this piece today and I guess it's finished.  I used several techniques that were part of my summer online painting class, including the basic composition.  I had already used most of the techniques before, just not together. 

Miscellaneous

• Rose has a cold, after a week of school.  She's biserable.
• Speaking of a week of school, it's not clear if she is feeling accepted in her class.  I am hoping she was just tired and achy as the cold descended, but she has been very reticent about her classmates and her teacher.  I am REALLY NEEDING this not to be a repeat of third grade.
• After an earthquake, Irene visits my friends on the east coast.  Thinking of them and hoping it's just a big rain storm.
• Art club today- it seems like forEVer since I've spent uninterrupted time just playing.  I am very excited about this.  We are working with plaster gauze- yes, that's right, the stuff they used to use for broken arms.  It's going to be messy fun!
• We had to have our sweet boy Rex- a.k.a. Arfie- put to sleep this week, as his cancer had invaded everywhere and he was failing.  Needless to say this has made it hard to be home. 
• The last time we had to do this, we did not have Rose or even Andy.  Rex was 14, and lived with us for almost as long as Andy has.  The personal devastation now has an added dimension as I grieve with my children.  Very, very painful.
• But let's not talk about that any more.
• My new job is keeping me on my toes as I face the challenges of coaching teachers both willing and unwilling, addressing large groups with little or no prep time, working on the district science website, mixing it up with the "suits" of the district on a regular basis (hence the new clothes) and spending a surprising amount of time with my head in professional literature.  I am enjoying it very  much.  I could, however, do without the record heat wave, as I spend a lot of time in my car.
• Andy  has changed high schools, after spending the summer trying to decide.  He chose a smaller school, with more emphasis on and access to sports, somewhat less rigorous academics, and a really stellar audio/visual lab.  He does not seem to have second-guessed this decision.  He and I attended his back-to-school night on Thursday, and it was apparent that he has already made an impression (good, so far!) on his teachers.
• Book club is coming here next week!  I haven't had my friends here in some time, and it does seem like forever since I had my head in the game.  A year or so of depression robbed me of the joy of reading, and hosting my friends was kind of a last-minute thing the last couple of times.  Sadly, one of the most memorable events was hosting them when I neither did my own cooking NOR read my own book choice.  Not so this time.  I did spend some time choosing the book- The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie- and I did read it.
• I liked the beginning of the book, mostly because of the voice.  The main character is a quirky 11 year old amateur sleuth/gifted chemist.  Deeper into the book, plot takes over and the author doesn't have quite the zing in the prose, but I did enjoy it.  It's a 3, "Tell a Friend," on a scale of 1-5.
• I still haven't come up with a menu.  I remember the first time I hosted the book club I spent about a month researching recipes that fit the book.  Many, many times, I have subsequently ordered take-out, without apology. I am not an especially enthusiastic cook, and I am a nervous hostess.
• Very few friends make it into my house, because I am also a sloppy housekeeper who nevertheless wants to impress.  If I am hosting an event, I want the place to look its best, which requires more effort than I generally exert.  I think the book club suspects the truth, however, after a decade of friendship...
• Anyway.  It'll probably be takeout again, but I did arrange for the cleaning lady to come on the same day.  Ha.
• I HAVE TO GO TO THE DENTIST THAT AFTERNOON, TOO.  Timing is everything.  Yep, it'll probably be takeout again.

A Little Knowledge

I hear a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.  Today in a meeting with a principal I piped up with a concept I had just been reading about- just STARTED reading about- and I seem to have talked myself into giving a two hour presentation about it.  In two days.

I'm not sure that's exactly what the originator of the saying meant (the internet says it showed up first in Alexander Pope's writings), but that's what it means to me today.

An equally meaningful lesson would be "keep your trap shut," which this same principal has suggested to me (wisely, with respect and humor) time and again in advance of these types of meetings.