Week in Review

Sitting on my couch, with my latest episode of hiccups to keep me company, I finally have a moment to catch up with everyone.

I just got back from camping with Diana, Autumn, Steve, Owen, David, Beth, Lee, Kevin, Chow, Rose, and a few others...
We were "That" group... Meaning that between the fire dancing, the numerous attack dogs, drinks spilling onto the ground, loud music, and campers wielding baseball bats, most people were quick to pack up and move a safe distance away...
The trip was great... We laughed, sang, danced...
Autumn brought some delicious dishes of food, and I supplied the cake and beverages.
In the end, Steve lit one of the dogs on fire and tried to extinguish it with his foot, leaving everyone to wonder why Steve was suddenly kicking the poor dog...
All minor burns aside, all went well and no calls were made.

Recently I have been dealing with a few interesting and noteworthy thefts and returns, as well as the ongoing obsession that is lurking in my kitchen...

Thefts: Recently at our school, during a performance by our smallest children, a teacher laptop went missing... All clues pointed to a parent... since the room had been left open for the little ones to change into their costumes... and the machine in question was not the type that was seen throughout the building...
Calls were made, rewards were announced, and in the end, the children turned in one of their own.

I am continually impressed with the integrity of our little ones...
I know that rule number one is never blow anyone else's scam.
But it is a little refreshing to see that every now and again, someone does something simple that inspires the feeling that we did something right.

This example was made even more clear when one of my favorite students wandered into my room early in the morning... Standing with a group of large boys, he asks for my assistance with a new ipod that keeps going into diagnostic mode...
The kids are used to bringing me their toys, and I have been known to disassemble anything from a giga-pet to replacing the screen on video ipods...

So when one of my favorite kiddos wanted a little help getting his new toy up and running I said it was no trouble...

After running a few tests and resetting it a couple times, it seemed to be ready to go. But seeing as this student was well known for his taste in music, I wanted to take a peak and see what he had on it...

I was surprised upon plugging it in to see the full name of a kid that I had never heard of. I knew the student who had given it to him and found out that this little ipod by whatever chance had actually come from another school and that the child in question had been looking for it.

So I pulled my favorite little guy out of his class to give him the bad news... he stood there looking disappointed that his friend had tricked him and told me to return it.

I was really impressed with his honesty. He could have told me a list of stories to get it back, but just said that it needed to be returned.
It really made me happy to see one honest person, especially one so young, undoing just a small fraction of the wrongs that take place every day.

On the note of a child knowing the difference between right and wrong, I will tell you about a group of adults who lack the same level of morals.

About two weeks ago, a group of thieves broke into a local elementary school and absconded with over a hundred thousand dollars worth of equipment, directly from the hands of children who used them daily for everything from learning to count to learning to read.

The team came in over the weekend, and after kicking in one of the doors to the building, went room to room, taking everything that wasn't tied down, down to the kids' snacks and their Nintendo.

They hit around 5 buildings this month, and over the Summer most buildings will be unoccupied and waiting.


Summer has finally landed, with the average temperature being about 80 degrees... Bringing the chance of snow down to a solid 25%.
With my first burn of the year out of the way, I am just as ready to head out the door as my students.

In other news, Autumn has returned to the ranch for a brief stay while away from her cruise line duties... She has about two more weeks out of her month off, and will soon be rejoining her team mates and their mission to wind slowly up the Columbia river with a new cracker jack crew of seniors...

Diana's Birthday at Mary's Peak

Go Fly a Kite

She Never Fails to Disappoint

So I have been planning on taking on a new challenge...
A few actually...
One of which was to utilize a new baking contraption with much potential to shock, amaze, and impress...
This simple looking thing promised to create a culinary and optical anomaly. It is a three tin cake pan set with a mold that will create a checker pattern cake... Strange I know, but the prospect of creating something new and unknown was tantalizing, and finding that my knack for chocolate cupcakes had proven itself I was ready for the next step.
The missing link in this little mission was attempting a new type of cake... the infamous white cake...
So simple it seemed taunting, and yet after scanning the ingredients, I knew I was in for trouble...
8 egg whites, and three sticks of butter... a daunting investment of time and ingredients...

So after seeing how simple the chocolate counterpart had been, I assumed the same for the lighter side of the combo...
But I was wrong...
I throw all the pieces into the mixer and secretly congratulate myself for not screwing up, only to scan down the instruction list and find that I did it all backwards and that there was so much more left to do... Notably throwing it all away and storming out of the kitchen...
Aparently I was supposed to make a flipping merang after whisking the butter and sugar combo... then after creating stiff peaks of sugar and egg whites, I was suposed to delecately fold in the flour and milk in alternating steps...
Lame....
So I give up...
Screw it, I am just making a standard chocolate cake and planning on walking away at around midnight...


Martha, there is a special place in hell for you...
Screw you...
I should have known, it always ends like this...
Usually with 8 hours of careful baking and 3rd degree burns...

I need a new hobby,
like smoking crack.
It would probably be cheaper... and more rewarding...
I will just stock up on light bulbs...
What's not to like?

So there will be a perfect chocolate cake on the market in the morning...
Don't be scared, that one is gonna be perfect, unlike that wedding cake which was just impossible...

Now I have to go rotate my latest failure...
Grrrrr.

Cupcakes, Baby Ducks, and Grandma

Last night I did another round of cupcakes..
I made them for David's school since it was teacher appreciation week and I knew that our school could care less...
I ended up bringing about 13 of them to my school too... but they seem jaded with the showering of baked goods...
At his school they were very appreciative and grateful...
So maybe I will just make them for his school from now on.

Grandma left the house early this morning in an ambulance...
Fire trucks and Emergency Response vehicles are nothing new to our little complex, as we share a parking lot with the senior complex next door... I glanced out the window when I heard the trucks beeping loudly as they manuvered out of the lot. I knew what it was before I ever asked... But the neighbors confirmed that Grandma, who is on her way to 90 these days, hasn't been in the best of health, and her daily Dutch Freeze hasn't been helping her situation... So we will hope for the best and see her when she gets back.

Baby ducks on the way...
Some silly little creature has decided to build a nest right under a classroom window in our courtyard...
It seems like a nice enough place to start a family aside from the minimal traffic of the 7th and 8th grade students passing to their next classes... I only hope that the people that are in charge of the mowing will notice the new resident and do well to leave it alone. I am excited with the prospect of having little baby ducklings wandering around, but am secretly anxious that one of our kids will find a way to hurt one...

We will see what we will see...

Sedate them with Sugar

I decided that dieting was not for me...
As fate would have it, my gift is making people happy while increasing their waist size.... one inch at a time...

Packing on the Pounds has never been so Fun

I'm up to 36!
There comes a day when your little one gets too big to hold and lift on your own...
I finally reached that point.
No more will I get to bounce my little yarn ball on my knee as I add the latest coils of color to it's body. I found I can no longer reach my little arms around it's circumference.
We knew this day would come.
Now I have my little creation balanced carefully on an exercise chair, waiting to be attended to. I have to stand on one side of it, carefully balancing it's weight against mine, and spin my yarn as far around as I can without knocking it off it's perch.