>It’s coming…the holiday is looming…must plan.

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>Since the fabled fairies of Thanksgiving won’t be here, we started preparing for Thanksgiving ourselves. Here’s the menu.

Thanksgiving Dinner
Thursday November 27, 2008
Tables will be ready at 1:00

Appetizers: Various pickles & olives
Cut veggies & dip.
Deviled eggs
Breads from Daisy’s parental units the Maternal side of the family) and brother & his wife

Entree: Turkey
Sides: Stuffing
Traditional Mashed Potatoes
Yukon Gold Creamy Garlic Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Packer Veggies
Brown Sugared Baby Carrots
1-2-3 Cranberry Sauce by Amigo
Jello from Maternal side of family
Rolls from Maternals and Brother & SIL

Desserts: Pies from maternals and SIL (Brother, I know you won’t do the baking, it’s okay)
Whipped topping and Vanilla ice cream from Husband’s parental units

Beverages: Milk
Various sodas
Coffees, flavored and traditional
Water
Wine & Lambic

Parental Units on the Paternal Side have already assisted us with Tablecloths and a table
La Petite is letting us use a dorm fridge to help with beverages

Husband shopped for the majority of the goodies today. I picked up the coffees, since Tinkerbell won’t be here to do it. We started cleaning today, too. The turkey rests in the refrigerator, the tablecloths and napkins have been through the laundry, and the sides and appetizers will be on my list over the next few days so we’re not too overwhelmed to socialize on Thursday.

I think we’ll make it. Gobble gobble!!

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>Eco-gifts: what are the limits?

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>Is it acceptable to give something secondhand as a gift? Homemade? Recycled or reusable? Something won as a prize, not purchased?

Second hand and thrift stores have decorative items and seasonal knick-knacks. I’m willing to buy these for my own use and for my family. But as a gift? I don’t know. Those cloth napkins: wash and press, and they’ll look new. But would the gift be tacky? I’ve given and received used CDs by favorite performers. These CDs play as well as new and provide hours of enjoyment. Sometimes they’re out of print, too, unavailable in regular stores. Now that the MP3 generation is here, my old CD craze might be irrelevant, but it’s a good starting place to consider the idea of second hand gifts.

Homemade? I’m not a very good artist or crafter, and I’m all thumbs with a sewing machine, so traditional personal gifts aren’t viable options. But let me in the kitchen and….cookies. Bars. Gifts in a Jar. I can wrap the gift jars in a re-used gift bag with a few lovely sheets of re-used tissue, and I have a nice gift for someone. Cookies are good for someone who might not bake for themselves or someone who is really busy. Is it okay, though, to give something consumable like this? Something that won’t last?

Now comes the other tough call: cheap or inexpensive items. Dollar store. Drugstore clearance aisle. Lip glosses, chapsticks, notepads, pens and pencils, and more — for less. Is it culturally acceptable to create a gift package with goodies like this? Or what about gifts won in blog blasts? They’re new, and even if they cost me nothing but time and effort, they will have value to those who receive them. Is that enough?

Well, blogging friends, what do you think? Times are tough all over. Would you be offended by a secondhand or homemade or inexpensive gift? Would you give one yourself?

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>I’ll take Blog Blasts for a thousand, Alex

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>You might be a Jeopardy addict if:

You think the Before and After category on Wheel of Fortune is wimpy (Whistle a Happy Tune-p? Try Notre Dame Fighting Irish Pub).
You phrase average everyday responses in the form of a question.
Your thumbs twitch when you’re watching the show.
Your cell phone’s ring tone is Jeopardy’s “Think Music.”
You talk about Ken Jennings as if you knew him personally (Ken would know this one).
You get upset when a contestant doesn’t know something you think is obvious (It’s Gerald McBoingBoing!).
You know exactly how long the commercial break is between the Final Jeopardy category and Final Jeopardy itself.
You plan suppertime around the evening show.
When the college alumni office calls, you offer to make a donation only if the caller can answer a trivia questions.
Kids tournaments make you wonder how you can get your students on the show.
College tournaments make you want to fix up your daughter with the hot champion who might be almost as smart as she is.
The show “Who wants to be a Millionaire” seems too easy because it offers choices and (gasp) lifelines.

When you pose a question to someone else, you hum the final Jeopardy theme song.

And finally the sign that Merv Griffin counted on you for ratings: You know you’re a Jeopardy addict if —
You actually know the title of the Jeopardy theme song!

This post suggested by Parent Bloggers Network and their partner du jour, Oliebollen.com. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what Oliebollen’s “fun stuff for kids” really means, but they’re offering an Arm Chair Holiday Shopping Sweep that sounds, if not like a Daily Double, pretty darn fun!
Oh, the theme song? Hint: Merv Griffin’s wife. What is……

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>NaBloPoMoPhoBia: Sandwiches.

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>No, not the PBJ kind. This sandwich is generational. We’re caring for our kids, teens and twenty-somethings that they are, and caring for our parents at the same time.

Both sets of parents are moving.

Husband’s parents are moving out of their home of forty-odd years. They are life-long packrats. They’ve been the type to hold onto everything, stock the shelves in the basement, fill the freezer, keep their sons’ toys and never, ever throw anything away. Getting them to purge the place and prepare to move into a condo has been like pulling teeth from a shark; every time we empty a room of “stuff” they seem to grow more.

Husband moved all of his personal possessions out of their home years ago, successfully purging anything without value. The mouse-eaten pup tent joined the trash can. The old broken airplane models did, too. The trains? He still plays with those, and it’s okay. They’re small (HO scale).

His brother ten years younger and just a tad OCD, wasn’t quite as good about leaving home. His toys and games were still in the closet of his childhood bedroom. Husband filled our minivan with them and dropped them off at the brother’s house for our nieces and nephew to enjoy. We hope our sister-in-law still likes us after that stunt.

To make a long and tedious story shorter and more tolerable, Husband’s making a final trip (or two) to the old homestead with my minivan this weekend. Moving the remainder will be the job of the professional movers. I’m just happy that the in-laws actually agreed to hire someone to take care of this, as Father-in-Law is the ultimate DIY Guy. It’s been difficult to convince him that he’s not what he used to be after two back surgeries and double knee replacement. He shuffles across the room and pretends he doesn’t need his cane or walker, all the while saying, “I can handle those boxes. I’ll vacuum the basement.”

Denial aside, they’ve also set aside quite a bit of trash that might be someone’s treasure. We’re lined up to host a rummage sale next spring or summer to sell it off. Maybe by then Father-in-Law will admit that he no longer needs his riding mower and his two behemoth snowblowers, and Mother-in-Law will have decided just how much of her birdhouse collection will fit into condominium living.

Luckily for all of us, my own mom is moving from one apartment to another. She’s already downsized. Professionals will handle the furniture and the piano. We’ll just provide a few boxes.

In the meantime, I’ll keep reclaiming the various rooms in our home, dejunking as much as we can. I don’t want my children to have to clean piles of junk out of our basement many years in the future, so I’d better start cleaning now.

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>It’s winter. We’re teachers. We’re creative problem solvers.

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>It snowed Monday. Briefly. But a brief snowfall was enough.

People called it a “five minute blizzard.” Within those five minutes, one of my students looked toward the window and cried out “It’s snowing!” and seven, I’m not kidding you — SEVEN kids rushed to the window like they’d never seen snow before.

We live in Northeastern Wisconsin. They’ve all seen snow. Lots of it.

I managed to corral the wayward dogies back into their seats, closed the shades, and attempted to hand out the spelling homework. Hah! Dream on, teacher. Whether they could see it or not, the snow was on their minds. I shifted gears, as good teachers will, and brought them to the rug for some read-aloud time which lasted only a few minutes.
After several gear shifts, a chaotic rendition of Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, and a final dismissal bell, I grabbed my bags and headed out the door to find my minivan coated with a thin layer of frozen winter wonderland.
I reached for the snow brush we keep in the minivan most of the year. It wasn’t there.
I started the defrosters and searched again behind the seats. No luck. So I attacked the windows with my gloved hands, hoping that perhaps I could borrow a brush or scraper from another teacher as the rest of the staff left.
No luck there, either. My friend the reading teacher set her car to defrost and came over to ask if she could borrow my — “Oh, I see you don’t have a snow brush or ice scraper either. Good thing we both wore gloves today!”
While the defrosters blew warm air at the windows, I dug under the seats one more time and found….an old plastic air freshener shaped like an orange.
The plastic was soft enough not to scratch, but strong enough to hold up under my assault on the elements. I used it to scrape enough frozen precipitation off the windshield that I could run the wipers and get the rest. My colleague took it next, and we were ready to hit the streets.

In our school building we are nothing if not compassionate professionals. We pulled in together the next day. I waved my new snow brush at her, picked up my coffee (both purchased at a convenience store on the way to school) and stepped out of the car. She said good morning and handed me — my air freshener.
I think I’ll put this little item back under the seat in my minivan. You never know when it might come in handy. At the least, it’ll be good for a laugh. Someday.

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>Easiest Cranberry Sauce Ever

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>1-2-3 Cranberry Sauce

1 cup water
2 cups sugar
3 cups cranberries

Bring to a boil, then simmer 20 minutes or until all the berries have burst. Add cinnamon to taste. Serve warm.

Now, the backstory. I brought this recipe home from kindergarten on a sheet of construction paper. We made it at home since it was so easy. It became a standard at Thanksgiving dinner, the tradition lasting long after the original paper faded.
A generation later, my kids started helping me make it every year. If we have leftover cranberry sauce, I use it in jello or add it to muffins. This little piece of my “saucy” childhood continues, along with Thanksgiving memories that will never fade.

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>Reasons NOT to schedule SSR first thing on a Monday Morning

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>SSR. DEAR time. Drop Everything And Read. Silent Sustained Reading. Self-Selected Reading. As some kids say it (but not within earshot of the teacher) Sit down, Shut up, and Read.

Our normal computer lab time was cancelled due to the lab being used for state testing. I substituted time my students enjoy: extra silent reading. Normally they’d take a little time to find their books and magazines and then settle down to enjoy them. Today? Nope. But why? In typical teacher form, I analyzed the situation. Here’s the end data.

Kids who haven’t eaten well all weekend are too hungry to concentrate.

Children from (shall we say) “unstructured” homes have forgotten how to behave in school.
Sleepy kids aren’t awake enough to keep their heads up.
Kids who have been off their meds all weekend haven’t come down yet and won’t until their morning dose kicks in.

Good readers finished their books at home and have nothing to read.
NFL football fans who are still depressed after yesterday’s game might not want to read the Sports magazine for Kids they picked out last week.
The one who broke his glasses Saturday in Pop Warner football hasn’t had them replaced yet and can’t read a word.

Forgetful kids don’t have a clue where their books might be. Home? Locker? Desk? Did I have a book on Friday?
Maybe I’ll stick to SSR on Fridays. Oh, no, can’t do that — they’re already checking out mentally for the weekend, meds are wearing off, kids who don’t eat well on weekends are starting to worry….

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>NaBloPoMoPhoBia: writers block

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>Let’s see:

Family.

Kid is a teenager, complete with angst-laden life. Homework, social life or lack of, the latest music on the market, celebrity crush…I can drag a post out of something on this list. If nothing else, there’s always the saga of his months on the stomach ache circuit.

Husband borrowed my minivan on Tuesday and I haven’t driven it since. Is there a post there? Probably. I just hope he refills the gas tank before he gives it back to me.

Daughter has returned to the land of the normal now that the election is over. That is, normal for a college senior with a huge workload and a part time job on campus and an apartment to clean and bunnies to feed and care for….I’m sure there’s a post there somewhere.

Work, a.k.a. school. No child left untested. Full moon. Indoor recess. Poor scheduling, leaving us to scramble, which ended up with math cancelled again.

Holidays!! We’re hosting Thanksgiving again, so there will be stories. Hopefully all will go well and there will be no mishaps to report. And if those Thanksgiving Fairies do their jobs, it will be lovely.

The inevitable Christmas shopping, wrapping, and giving could provide a few posts, too. In fact, I need a bigger crate in the attic now that I’ve started stashing holiday gifts. I have plans to use the Amazon packing material for wrapping paper if I can get it to look decent…but Martha doesn’t live here, so I’ll wait and see.

Not to mention the unpredictable Sunday afternoon entertainment we call the Green Bay Packers….

As Amigo often says, “Mom, you should blog about this.”

Writers’ block? No problem.

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>Feeling a bit testy

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>Ah, yes. The bubble tests. The ones that bring fear to students and frustration to teachers. The tests that sorta kinda measure kids’ abilities right now, but the results won’t be back until mid-March at the earliest. Scores that late will no longer have any input on how we teach, but will still determine which children get to pass to the next grade and who will not.

Any time we’re testing, we’re not teaching. During these intense two and a half weeks, we’ll only have an actual math class four times. One of those will be spent in the pursuit of the “Practice Test.” Meanwhile, my students will make no progress in math, through no fault of their own.

All five classes in three grades (4, 5, 6) will miss science and social studies for the full two weeks, perhaps longer if there are multiple make-up tests to be done.

Due to our unique configuration of combination classes (which is due to budget crises and poor legislation that leads to inequitable school funding), the schedule is a nightmare. Every time I make a seating chart for testing I get changes in test groupings that force new seating arrangements.

Then there are the punch-out tools, the ruler, the tangrams, and whatever else is determined necessary. Heaven forbid that a kid use his own ruler and risk being accused of test fraud.

I checked and doublechecked my stopwatch to be sure the timing will be accurate.

The cancelled classes are the toughest to swallow. If we’re to improve our kiddos’ knowledge of math and science and social studies, we need to teach them. Cutting out those classes to have them fill in bubble answers on a set of tests that will be outdated by the time the scores arrive makes no sense. After all, if a farmer wants a pig to grow for market, he feeds it. If he weighs it every hour, the pig will have no time to eat and will not be ready for market.

So now I’ll attack the incredibly scintillating task of punching out the math tools for 40 kids. I’ll hope the pencils got sharpened in the paraprofessionals’ office. If not, I’ll end up bringing those home to do myself, too.

And to make it worse: the weather is warm enough that I can’t wear my testing sweatshirt!

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>Bake it yourself; I’ll Can it and Wrap it

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>”I’m going to Fleet Farm. I need canning jars.”
“Mom, you have a case of canning jars in the basement!”
“No, I used them up!”
“Can’t you wait?”
“No, they’ll be on sale now. And the real canners will buy them out if I don’t hurry.”

The truth comes out: My name is Daisy, and I don’t can.
I grow the vegetables.
I cook the vegetables.
I freeze the sauces and soups.
But I don’t can.

So why on Earth do I need canning jars?

For Gifts in a Jar, of course!!

I received a gift like this several years ago and I just loved the concept. I invested in two Jar books, one for cookies and one for bars, and I’ve given some of these every Christmas. It’s just the dry ingredients, layered nicely to look artistic, with the recipe attached. People always enjoy them. I enjoy picking out the recipes, making sure I have the right ingredients, and then putting the jars together. Wrapping is simple, too. I use a fair amount of (reusable) tissue to cushion the jar, then put it in a (reusable or reused) gift bag. It takes time, and time is precious. But time is also a gift, and this is one way I can show my coworkers I appreciate all they time they spend on the students we share.

So back to the beginning. Did I make it to Fleet Farm in time to get a case of quart-sized canning jars? Yes and no. I got the jars, but they were all out of wide-mouth. I had to buy the standard size. Wide-mouth is easier for packing in flour and sugar and chocolate chips and raisins. Next year I’ll get there earlier to beat the rush.

This post was not sponsored by Gifts in a Jar, but here’s the link if you’d like the books. I see they’ve expanded beyond the cookies and bars that I usually give. The blog blast is, however, based on a topic suggested by Klutz, publishers of activity and craft books, and the omnipresent Parent Bloggers Network.

I think I’ll browse the other blog blasts and sigh in envy at those bloggers with actual crafty talents.

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