Downsizing

 Current project. Just Improvising.

Cucumber soup

So yes, those are deseeded cucumbers. A friend made this soup that I found so amazing - and apparently, has a slightly aquired taste - that I had to make some for me. Because the temperatures are skyrocketing and I wanted something cold.

Technically I think it should be called a gazpacho. 

This makes a lot. And by a lot I mean at least a half a gallon.

Basic ingredients*:

3 cups yogurt 

2 cups chicken stock 

2 tablespoons olive oil 

3 medium cucumbers

   Peeled, deseeded and cubed

(Basic garden-variety cucumbers, not the fancy pants English cucumbers that you don't have to peel or seed. But timesaver, though, if you can get them)

1 cup sour cream

4 scallions plus tops, minced (omit if garnishing with mint)

2 small garlic cloves, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt 

1/4 teaspoon white pepper

Garnish (optional):

walnuts

Dillweed 

mint

Combine yogurt, chicken stock and sour cream; mix until well blended. Add salt, pepper, olive oil, garlic, scallions, cucumbers. Blend well. 

Garnish as you please. 

* I used non-fat Greek yogurt because it's thicker than the other kind, and nonfat because well, that's what I grabbed. I also used low fat sour cream and a reduced sodium chicken broth that was also fat-free. But not the same brand featured in picture because, well that container was already in trash.

String theory

At the quilt show last  year I bought this bag of scraps that included stings of skinny strips that had been sewn together. My initial impression was to make a wall hanging. Except that, inevitably, I ended up saving my own skinny strips... because a string quilt would be great. Add it to the bucket list.

I have a friend who has made it her goal to be able to pack her life in her station wagen. At the time of that conversation, I knew I had a lot of stuff in my place. I knew there was no way I could pack my life into my new car. To that end, I've been trying not to buy extraneous things, and weed through my life - if something comes, something must go. As for new fabric, I'm trying not to buy any, to use what I have laying around to finish a project [she says as she comes home from this years quilt show with about 8 yards of assorted shirting material...] I did not come home with 8 new spools of ribbon... I'm quite proud of this.

 But seriously. Quilts travel better than fabric. I did buy the grey, to tie it all together; everything else is pulled out of storage or left over from previous projects. This does, however, mean that I am in desperate need of thread. Spools of thread are small though.

3RQG show 2014

'In the Drink' 22x31 Beth Conlin, PGh, Pa

'Cats having Fun' 70x70, S. Schmeltz, Pgh, Pa

 

'Cat in the Hat' 60.5x63 S. Schmeltz, Pgh, Pa

"Twinkle, twinkle' 38x51 Lauren Jonkman, Pgh, Pa

 

'The Little Dipper'  54x 54 Deborah Swoyer, Eighty Four, Pa

'Broken Dishes' 100x110 Kathleen Kucerovy, Pgh, Pa

 

'Ring of Stars' Sharon Hanson, McKeesport, PA

'Emerald Spring' 84x84 Rita Palic, Monaca, PA

'Earth and twig' 41x43 Gerri Bobnar, Jeannette, PA

'Periodic table' 95x65 Beth Conlin

Doll hospital.

All the nekkid baby dolls have found their way to the nursery. Also know as doll Gitmo. Children are unkind to the dolls here... Unless there's a new sibling coming, at which time the child in question is very careful about how to hold a doll, and said child will usually be found rummaging in the diapers because 'baby needs change'. (This lasts about a month)

Otherwise... These dolls never stood a chance. From the 'bad' doll who had an arm almost ripped off to every baby held upside down while someone tried to snip off their fake eyelashes with the safety scissors they managed to squirrel away from the supply cabinet. No chance. At all. 

After working there for about a month and a half, I got very tired of nekkid dolls. So one by one they disappear from the nursery for a bath, surgery if necessary, and a fitting. 

 

The dress pattern for the two dolls [left] is from Ravelry; it's the Kaia Baby Dolly pattern by Rachel Evans.

The sweater didn't turn out the way the pattern and accompanying picture suggested it would... this could have been me missing some stitches somewhere. It's called Ribbed Baby Jacket by Debbie Bliss. Both patterns are free ravelry downloads.

certification lines in the sand

recipricocity of teaching certificates

The things one discovers when one is applying for out of state jobs... Aparently, my certification is good everywhere except the state of Indiana. Live and learn. I'm curious to know why, since PA has one of, if not the most rigorous licencure programs in the country. Was there something we missed?

(Almost) 20 things to do while active monitoring

Talk about the state tests is revving up. Test day is looming on the horizon.

Active monitoring is becoming the byword in all faculty lunchrooms. No zoning out, checking messages on a phone, grading papers... Just walking around a room. Watching students take a test. In point of fact, it's a reportable offense to even have your phone vibrate while giving the test. All phones are supposed to be off and making no noise. Whatsoever.

In the spirit of active monitoring, and making no noise whatsoever while walking around the room watching students take tests… And also, in all honesty, the spirit of fun I give you… Not even remotely close to 20 things to do while active monitoring.

1. Imagine who you would be friends with, if you were this age, at this school. 

2. Imagine what each student would be if they were an animal. Not based on personality, but physical features. 

3. Most classrooms have teacher assigned student  jobs. Imagine this group of students got stranded on a desert island... Now instead of paper passer or lunch count, what kinds of jobs would be handed out? Ie: shelter builder, firewood collector, hunter, resident artist...

4. Think about compelling answers to 'would you rather...?' questions, such as:

Would you rather change gender every time you sneezed OR not be able to tell the difference between a muffin and a baby?

5. wear a pedomiter. better still, make it a contest among others also actively monitoring - how many steps can you log walking around the classroom? Winner gets --- and bragging rights.

6. Take your pulse before and after thinking about the most annoying person you know. See if it changes.

7. Look at the items in the room and think about how you might use them in the event of a zombie apocalypse

8. Buy three different flavors of gum. Time them to see which looses flavor fastest.

9. There is a school-wide hide and seek contest with a $1,000,000 cash prize. Think about where on-campus you would hide.

10. ... you could always use this time to whiten your teeth with whitening strips

11. a parade has just burst into the room with all of your favorite animals, people, etc! What animals are in this parade? what song is playing? who isn't there? Are they throwing candy? what kind?

Happy, healthy test taking to you.

Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance

If only ... I can't read minds. If only I could. [Okay, maybe selectively... all those sci-fi shows where the person who can read minds but can't turn the ability off and has to live alone, in the middle of nowhere. Not worth it.]

I had a conversation with someone on support staff this week who was asking me about sub folders and I laughed and told her I'd seen everything from soup to nuts. The binders with literally nothing; I should have known about the allergy in the room from something other than the allergy alert bracelet around the kid's wrist, no roster, no seating chart, no classroom schedule, no specials schedule, no bell schedule, no school schedule, no I-have-bus-or-time-out-duty schedule... the binders that should have been bronzed and held up as an example - yes, please! do this! because even within the district it was different from elementry school to elementry school. In a world where everyone wants everything to have some kind of standard to hold everything else up to, the last thing that comes standard is the expectations - and the instructions and information - one teacher leaves for the guest in their classroom. However capable or inept that person may or may not be.

So I found this little gem. And I heaved a sigh. No, it's absolutely right. I don't need to know someone's life story that I do not interact with 7.5 hours a day, 5 days a week with for 37ish weeks. But it's nice to know about allergies, and to go to the nurse to learn to use the EpiPen. NOW. Don't open that vaugely labeled granola bar here. You can't drink your coffee unless that's non-dairy creamer. Hope you didn't spill any.

But... on the off chance it's a kid's birthday, is it okay that I get the birthday stuff from your closet/desk/whatever -  or don't? Because you want catch up with them when you get back? How am I supposed to know any of this? If you care - or don't? You didn't say - it's seemingly minutia, but people keep all kinds of things all kinds of places. I will not rummage in someone else's room because I don't know what I'm going to find. Not everyone labels a drawer CONFIDENTIAL. I'm smart enough to stay out of that. I also won't just walk into someone's room when they're not there and I'm a floater [no one place to be for the day]. Then you get the "Why are you in my room? Who are you? I'm calling security" questions before you can flash a smile and calm someone down. If I learned anything in 6 months it's that some teachers can get incredibly territorial about their room. Especially their desk. So you wait for them to come back first, and enter with permission. [Walking in and finding the regular teacher there, even if you're supposed to be in that room, is always fun, too. Especially when neither of you have any idea who each other are.]

Don't sweat it, I'm over planning. Get what you can get to. This is enough, but on the off chance you finish early... please. Tell me right off. I can't read your mind. The other teachers say, eh, it's okay, we didn't lose anyone today, but sometimes I wonder how okay it really is. You may feel like you're repeating yourself saying again and again "I'm over planning" everytime someone walks through your door. But I don't want to mess up. I know I messed up when I came back for you, uninvited, and the first thing you wrote was, "Please, don't try to cram in everything like last time. I'm overplanning." Thank you for telling me though. Because the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly, getting the same results, but expecting a different outcome.

Sometimes I think people see the sub tag and they think I've been there - or maybe at least subbing - forever. So I fumble, from tiny faux pas to Oh. No. She. Didn't. and it's God, there's another awful sub. Can't we do better than this? (Am I making this up? Sometimes I feel like I must be making up the words in my head... like the title of that book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? [And Other Concerns] )

The two things I think I would add as musts to this list are the phone numbers to the office and the nurse. Seriously. Kid goes down, you don't want to wait sending a runner, and if you don't know there's a panic button in the room, it doesn't do you any good. Kid has a melt down, I want to know how to reach the principal - or at the very least the secretary, who can tell the principal that someone's coming down, so look out for them.  Rookie mistake number one. Not knowing, or having someplace easy at hand, the office phone number.

Knit 4 purl to marker

If I start now, it will be done in ... 6th months?

Raising the Bar

I tried making a cowl for a friend of mine for Christmas, and it would have ended well. She loved it. It was long and loopy; could be worn like a giant fiber necklace or twisted in two and worn a little closer to the neck when it was really cold. It was Lion Brand's amazing yarn in strawberry fields. And I figured that, with only 10% wool in it, my friend's allergy to animal fibers wouldn't be a problem. So little wool...  Such a big reaction. She started itching immediately. So the best gift turned into one of the worst. We stopped at Natural Stitches and I handed her hanks of alpaca, angora and super wash merino, hoping maybe the allergy was limited to el cheapo wool. To no avail; every animal fiber. So we found an acrylic she liked instead.

She's waiting for her results for the bar exam for Pennsylvania and we've been running together when the weather isn't subzero ( which hasn't been lately ). I've been running with my purple cowl over my face (it's cold. My lungs don't like it). But I think I like this better, its leas drapey. I'm calling it Raising Thue Bar. It was knit in the round on US 9/ 5.5mm circular needles. It's cast on in a multiple of 10 stitches - I did 90 for something that would stand up on its own and hug the face a little bit.  Begun in garter stitch, there's four rows of garter for the basis of picot trim (row 5 is *k2tog yo*) and four more rows of garter. Then five rows of double rib (*k2p2*). 

And then I don't know what the stitch is called, but it's a five stitch, five row repeat and creates a spiral: 

R1: *k4, p1*

R2: *k3, p1,k1*

R3: *k2, p1, k2*

R4: *k1, p1, k3*

R5: *p1, k4*

Repeat rows 1-5 until desired length is reached. Double rib 5 rows. Garter stitch 4, fifth row *k2tog, yo*, garter stitch 4 rows. Cast off.