Category Archives: NaBloPoMo

>Grilling Season! Chilled Potato Salad and SuperBurgers

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>Chilled Potato Salad

1-1/2 lb. new potatoes, quartered or red salad potatoes, diced
1/2 cup Miracle Whip Dressing
2 hard-cooked eggs, chopped
3 green onions, sliced

Cook potatoes in boiling water 15 to 18 min. or just until potatoes are tender; drain. Rinse with cold water until cooled; drain well.
Combine remaining ingredients in large bowl. Add potatoes; mix lightly. Salt and pepper to taste.
Refrigerate several hours or until chilled.

Serve with Super Burgers or other delicious main dish cooked on the grill, of course!

Chuck makes a dynamite German potato salad. I thought I’d attempt the American standard on my own instead of making a visit to the deli. Kraft Kitchens called this Pack-a-Punch Potato Salad. Honestly, I found it a bit bland. Any suggestions?

Super Burgers? Since you asked, each cook in the family makes them slightly differently. Basically, my Super Burgers are 1 1/2 lb. ground chuck, 1 egg, 2-3 Tablespoons bread crumbs, Worcestershire sauce, and about 1 Tablespoon McCormick’s Grill Mates. I like their Montreal Steak flavor. Whisk egg, bread crumbs, W. sauce, and spices together. Add ground chuck and mix thoroughly. Form into hamburger patties. Cook over hot coals! This formula makes a tasty burger that can still take any toppings desired, including but not limited to BBQ sauce or cheese.

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>Smartboards and Smart Love of Learning

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>I entered this blog tour with a touch of envy. I’ve sample the joys of interactive boards in other classrooms and I am registered for training before the next school year starts. I don’t have one in my elementary classroom – yet – but I do have access to an interactive board in another location down the hall.

Currently, I have an oldfashioned chalkboard and overhead projector in my room. I share a media cart (laptop and projector) with the other teachers in my unit. My fourth grade students have grown up with technology; they consider a computer as natural as a telephone. Many even have their own cell phones, email accounts, and even Facebook pages. Maybe they’ll friend the Smart Love of Learning page! If you’re not on Facebook, you can find the Smart Love of Learning here.

A Smart Board does much more than provide a writing surface. In fact, it takes the computer and projector several steps farther, incorporating technological options into the projecting surface. This video on YouTube showcases the Smart board’s potential for fun. In addition to its use as a teaching tool, my school also uses the technology in staff meetings to project everything from test statistics to crisis intervention plans to inspirational videos.

MomCentral asked its bloggers to talk about the best teacher ever. I’m biased, of course; I’d like to think I’m the best teacher ever! If you talk to the student who drew the picture below, I think she’d agree. Maybe I’ll keep a small chalkboard around just for kids like her.

I wrote this post while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Smart Love of Learning and Smart Technologies. I did not recieve a Smart Board to facilitate the review, but I did receive an Amazon gift certificate to thank me for my time. I can, however, enter the contest on Smart Love of Learning’s web site with prizes including (you guessed it!) a classroom Smart Board. PTA moms and other advocates, pay attention! Click on the apple, enter the relevant information, and you could win one for your child’s teacher.

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>Mother’s Cookies: the circus kind

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Do these cookies bring back memories?

No? Then you were a deprived child. They’re Mother’s Cookies, the circus kind, with pink and white frosting and sprinkles. The company is expanding into the Kansas City market, so they asked MomCentral for a little help generating excitement for their brand. Of course I said I’d help!

These cookies are a little sweeter than standard shortbread animal cookies, but they’re still mild enough to eat a handful as a snack without overdoing the sugar. Young kids like them with milk. I like mine with coffee. My teenager likes his with Mountain Dew and a computer. Well, he didn’t eat the computer.


If Mother’s Cookies aren’t in your market yet, you can find them at Amazon. You won’t find them at my house until we go shopping again; the two bags provided for the review went quickly. I’m finishing the last of the batch right now – for breakfast. Shh; it’s okay. I’ll have a grapefruit later.

I wrote this review while participating in a blog tour campaign by Mom Central on behalf of Mother’s Cookies and received two bags of cookies and a $20 Amazon gift certificate to facilitate my review. Good timing; I can put it towards an order for Father’s Day. Chuck hinted about a train book….

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>The new garden is in! Meanwhile, back at the ranch…

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>Chuck put in a few blueberry bushes! I hope we get to the berries before the birds do.

Meanwhile, I put in the tomatoes and peppers and a little broccoli.


Meanwhile, I turned to the side and realized that in our attentiveness to the new plot, we had neglected the old.


Chuck repurposed the old fence boards (see below left) to be a walkway in the new plot.

Meanwhile, I raked out as many of the maple helicopter seedlings as I could. Maples are lovely, but geez! They really overdo this reproduction business.
Finally, I planted beans, peas, lettuce, spinach, and squash.
Whew! Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it’ll be time to put away all the clean laundry – but that’s another post.

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>Rhubarb Dessert

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A teaching colleague and fellow gardener shared this recipe. It’s perfect for June, when the rhubarb plants are thriving!

Mrs. Enviro-Teacher’s Rhubarb Dessert

Crust:
1 c. butter, softened
2 c. flour
2 T. sugar
Mix together and press into a 9 x 13 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 10 minutes, or lightly browned.

Mix:
5 c. diced rhubarb
3 egg yolks, beaten
3 T. flour
2 c. sugar
1/8 t. salt
½ c. cream

Pour over baked crust. Bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes. Remove from oven.

Meringue:
Beat 3 egg whites. Add 1/3 c. sugar, a little at a time, and then ½ t. vanilla. Beat until it peaks. (Don’t make meringue until you have taken dessert out of the oven.)
Swirl meringue over top of baked dessert. Return to oven and bake 10 minutes, or until lightly golden.

This sweet and tart treat was a major hit in the teachers’ lounge. I highly recommend it!

And yes, as the badge indicates, I’ve signed up for NaBloPoMo for the month of June. Why not? School’s out, and the mom/garden/teacher blogger will play!

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>Not bad, for a (insert day of week here)

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>Not bad, for a Tuesday.

Tuesdays are my Yucky Days with a capital YD. My schedule has no breaks in it, I often have meetings with other teachers before school, and it’s just an exhausting day. If it weren’t for recess, I wouldn’t even make it to the bathroom.

But there are ways of seeking relief. There is a bright side to Tuesday – sometimes.

My colleague takes advantage of a strategically scheduled prep time to pick up Starbucks.
Starbucks mixed up my order. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t the Pike Place Blend I usually get. The note on the cup said BU. Bland Usual? Boston University? Boring Underwear? How did they know? It smelled like good strong coffee, so I sipped it anyway.
Whoa, Nelly, that stuff was STRONG. I wiped the sweat from my brow, blinked a few times, thanked the 6th grader who’d delivered, and growled “Get back to work!” at my class. If I start growing hair on my chest, I’ll blame the B.U. coffee.

Let’s summarize the day so far: awards assembly, three of my students honored, parents attended, kids behaved well in the audience. Plus.
Ordered coffee. Plus.
Coffee was wrong. Minus.

So on we go —
That Student (every teacher has one) had major attitude problems after recess and during reading class. Another student is bouncing off this one and causing troubles. Reteach behavior, reteach, reteach. Tomorrow, these two shape up or else; they’ve had their second chances. Minus.
Somehow, I managed to teach reading strategies to a few groups; that’s a plus.
Then a few trustworthy students told me they were supposed to get out early for lunch. What?! I had no information, no communication, so I said no. Oh, my goodness, you would have thought I was the Worst Evil Teacher in the world. Minus for the confusion.
A good number of my kiddos attended the Service Club meeting and signed up to help with a school fundraiser. Plus.

Later on, sixth grade students made an announcement for a special fundraiser. A group of children found out about Water for Africa and decided it was a cause worth supporting. They did their homework, put together a plan, and got it going. Major plus.
Someone or several someones are giving them grief because they should be raising money for Haiti. Epic minus.
I remembered a post on the Art of Non-Conformity regarding seeing the changes in safe water supply on a visit to Liberia. To encourage the students, I found a way to connect them with this post. Plus for the post, plus for the kids, plus for all.

Well, fellow working minions, what is your bad day of the week? And what do you do to make it better? I splurge on (usually) good coffee. How about you?

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>Plant a tree in a Ponzi scheme?

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>It’s really more of a pyramid. A pyramid process, that is; it’s still trees. Bloggers recruit more people to click on tree buttons, therefore planting more trees, and credit goes to the blogger for gathering more clicks for trees.

Does it make sense? Not yet? Okay, here’s the whole story.

Ruba.com is a new travel site that features travel guides and tour reviews. Ruba staff are also very environmentally conscious; they want the natural world to stay lovely for future travelers. To offset some of the negative effects of travel, Ruba is sponsoring a Ponzi Tree Scheme. For each badge planted on a blog, they’ll plant a tree. For each click on a blog’s tree button, another tree gets planted and the blogger gets credited with the tree. No cash changes hands, no swindles take place. Disappointed? I hope not. Ruba is working with Trees for the Future to make a positive impact on our world. By spreading the word through the blogosphere, they can raise the number of interested people and plant even more trees – up to a limit of 100,000. Ruba’s Ponzi Tree-Planting Scheme will run until Earth Day’s 40th Anniversary on April 22, 2010.

I’m a small-time blogger, but my readers are loyal and green. Please click on the Ruba.com tree-planting badge in the right sidebar. If you have a blog, please consider placing a badge in your sidebar, too. It’ll widen the network and increase the number of trees in our still-beautiful world.

This is not a sponsored post in any way. Ruba.com sent me the information and after browsing their site, I decided it was a valid program and a good cause. Earth Day began in Wisconsin, after all. I’m proud to contribute to it’s 40th anniversary.

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>A Day On, a Day to Dream

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>If you know the name Julia Ward Howe, you probably know her as the writer of the lyrics to the Civil War Hymn “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Ms. Howe’s poetic voice also suggested Mother’s Day, long before it became a holiday, as a day to celebrate celebrate peace.

Martin Luther King Jr., believed in peaceful confrontation and nonviolent civil disobedience. I think he and Ms. Howe would have gotten along fine, had they lived in the same century. In recognition of Dr. King’s Dream, below is a re-post from Mothers’ Day 2008.

I dream that differences will be valued, not disdained.
Eye color, hair color, body shapes, and skin shades will be appreciated for their beauty and variety.
Cultural traditions will not disappear, but will thrive and grow together into a rich and fascinating sharing of knowledge and beliefs.
I dream that blindness will be merely a different way of seeing, and deafness impair only the quantity, not the quality of the language ‘heard’.
Children will matter because they own the future. Their education, academic and social, will become and remain of utmost importance.
The mediators and the peacemakers will be recognized as the strongest leaders.
Questions will come from curiosity, not ignorance, and the answers will breed respect.
Knowing each other, knowing ourselves, will lead to knowing that fights and conflicts, wars of all kinds, will cease to be of value.

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