o aza: it's Haitian Creole

Several people are following me on Twitter.  And I laugh.  Because I hardly tweet.  And because I'm really awful at it.

Epiphany:  Daniel hates tomatoes in his chili.  I know, it's not normal.  And next to impossible.  But today, I realized that I could use crushed tomatoes...and sneak them in the pot.  Shhhh, don't tell him.  And don't worry, he doesn't read the blog, so he'll never find out.

I miss college.  Don't get me wrong, I love my current life.  But I miss the carefree feeling that accompanies college.  The late nights, the random road trips, the eating at all hours of the night.  I miss it all.  Even the homework.  Yes, I'm a nerd like that.

During a whim of boredom/downtime last weekend, I looked up all my favorite shows and recorded their premiere dates on my calendar.  September 13 cannot come soon enough.

I enjoy watching "Down Home with the Neelys," but they are always happy.  Always.  I'm pretty sure that's not normal.  Would I rather watch a cooking show with angry people?  Well, that would be entertaining...

Eggs, of the scrambled variety, are on the menu for tonight.

I have nothing else of value to tell you.  My mind is fried.  The children are good, but my energy is entirely depleted by 3 o'clock every day.

Oh goodness. 

No witty conclusion today.  Squishy brain...

Summer is Fun

Summer is over.  And I mourn the loss of all my free time.  But I also enjoy the intense problem-solving environment in which I find myself.

To end the summer with a bang, we headed to Omaha (future vaca destination of Gaga, of course) to see these lovelies...

What a special time with the brother and the sissy.

We also went hiking by the river.  It sounds more adventurous than it actually was...BUT what a perfect way to spend the last Saturday of "freedom".

 Down by the riv.

 Where should we go?  Oh, I know...let's take the only trail there is!

 White shoes = generally a bad idea.  Luckily, they remained white. 

 Mid-"hike".

So school is rolling and bustling and crazy.  The kids are generally awesome.  To wake up my tired 7th hour, I made them chant with me:
Mrs. Carlson:  "Heming...what?!"
Students:  "Hemingway!!"

Sadly, I think I was more entertained than the 15-year-olds. 

Two Decades

First day of my 20th year of school.  I'm all about big milestones, people. 

Close-up on the best part of the ensemble.  Who wouldn't want to carry their lunch in this lovely?

Follow-up:  recipes from yesterday's post are forthcoming.  Naturally, I'm excited to share.

Also, naturally, I'm excited to continue my pursuit of selling English class to 15 year-olds.  I will win them over.  Scratch that.  I will not do anything.  Hopefully the reading material will speak for itself.  Week 3...here we go!

Domestic Day

Bestie Cheri and I spent last Saturday baking.  We began promptly when she arrived at 10 am.

List made.

Groceries purchased.

Lunch had.

Then the baking began.  All 8 hours of it.

This was our supply station. 

 Bakers before.  Caution:  no after was taken.  Too tired.

 Chers brought her Bosch.  I'm in love with my KitchenAid, but this mixer puts mine to shame.  It's serious business.

 In the process of making 4 dozen breakfast cookies.  Super yum.  Note the first batch of dough rising in the background.  Also note my freakishly small kitchen.

 Pre-bierock making and buttered bread pans. 

 Mid-bread making. 

 Mid-bread making.  Yes, mid.

 Mid-cookie baking.  Only 4 sticks of butter were used in the making of the cookies.  Only.  Note Daniel in the background holding down the fort.  He enjoyed tasting the fruit of our labors and was handed all the rejects.  Not a bad deal for him.

 Whole wheat pizza dough awaiting it's resting place in the freezer.

 Mid-bierock making.  These are the best bierocks I have ever had.  Recipe anyone?  Holler. 

 The fruits of our labor.  

 10 loaves of bread.  4 dozen breakfast cookies.  4 dozenish oatmeal, peanut butter, and chocolate chip cookies.

 20 bierocks.  10 dinner rolls made from the excess bierock dough. 

 12 pizza doughs.  4 loaves of challah bread.  It's okay if you don't know what that is. I didn't either.  Apparently it's especially excellent as French toast. 

And we're set for a few months. Only one "mistake" all day, and we don't even know what we did wrong...but the challah was a little strange.  Perhaps it was because I thought my KitchenAid could handle 8 cups of flour.  Note to self:  it cannot.  Or perhaps it was because the challah was the last thing we made and we were absolutely spent.

Plans are already underway for our winter "Domestic Day."  And cinnamon rolls are the first sweet on the list.  Just so you know.

I love my Cheri and I love me some baking, so it was the most perfect day.  And I only gained a few pounds throughout the day while tasting everything we made.  Not too bad.

Curious about any recipes?  Holler!

And thanks, Cheri, for making the trip, for bringing your Bosch baby, and for supplying all the things that made everything (even the cookies!) healthy.  You da, you da best. 

Today

Today I made a list of all the things I refuse to stress about this year.  And then I crossed them all out with a fat marker.  Pretty dang therapeutic.  Try it.  You'll like it.

Today we picked up a podium my father-in-law built for me.  Now I feel like a real teacher. It is quite beautiful.

Today I read a bazillion Berenstain Bear books in preparation for a project the freshies will do.  Hilariously, as I was reading, I could hear my mom's voice reading them to me since she read to us all the time.  I still remember her inflections.  And I chuckled.  And she had real good voices.  I suppose I get it from somewhere...

Today I cleaned up the remnants from yesterday's Domestic Day with bestie Cheri.  More on that later.  We baked some yummy yummies.  Sheesh.  Our apartment still smells like Subway.  Like Subway on a good day.  Not like Subway as in "My skin still smells like Subway even though I ate there a week ago."  Yuck.

Today I will find the cord to connect cam cam to compy.  I must.

Today I will explain a thought I've been having...my blog is light-hearted 80% of the time.  This world is cruel and unusual.  Awful things happen every day.  I understand this.  My heart is burdened for those in need.  I care deeply about many un-light-hearted issues.  But because this world is cruel and unusual, this blog is my light-hearted outlet.  I know what is going on in the world (not everything of course, but as much as I can), but I choose to make this is place where I can release some steam after a long day and where you can read something light and enjoyable.  I just want you to know that.

And that is all...for today.

First Day of School

My cam-cam isn't cooperating, so no "first day of school" pic...yet. Speaking of "cam-cam," do you watch Parks & Recreation?  You should.  Especially because of this:

I digress.

Today was a pretty great day.  I made sure to embarrass myself a handful of times. I mumbled.  I forgot a dozen names.  I tripped.  I sweated (swat?).  I said things that teenage boys thought were funny - never a good sign.  I went without a snack (shocker).

My throat hurts because I talked all day.  I'm used to going 7+ hours without saying a word.  Poor kids.  I totally word-vomited all over them (too far? Sorry.).

I learned some new names that I really like.  I pronounced 95% of the names correctly.  I made 95% of the kiddos laugh...at least once...perhaps at my own expense.  Essentially, I made some dang good jokes.

Like I said, it was a good day.

But this, by far, made it the best:

I'm pretending it's from all sophomores from last year.  Please don't point out that it may or may not be grammatically correct.  It was a perfect back to school treat, and I'll take it.

So that was today.  I'm exhausted, but totally looking forward to the rest of the year.

Bring on the stories!

I MUST Show You This.

I mentioned last week that I now have two more reasons to shop at baby Gap.

Reason 1:  Braden John

 Reason 2:  Madden Paul

What's not to love about these precious bundles!?  I am absolutely elated. 

Bring on the cuddle time.

PS:  These sweet little guys are our newest nephews (numbers 5 and 6, yikes!!).  They belong to Brett and Tammy.  Super thankful to be living 3 minutes away.

Sweat, Perspiration, and the Like

I had to completely change clothes yesterday after my haircut...and not only because I was, like usual, covered with hair.  I was also totally drenched in my own sweat.  There's just something about sitting under a handful of bright lights, wearing an unbreathe-able cape, and having to talk about my hair using as-technical-as-I-can-be terms that makes salty water seep from my pores.

I knew it was going to happen as soon as I sat down.  As I was explaining what I wanted, I noticed a gleam in the mirror.  Unfortuanately, the gleam was not a result of Windex Plus.  The gleam was coming from the pores in my face that appeared to be leaking.  I immediately sprang into action.

"I didn't wash my hair this morning.  Can you wash it?" I asked.  I was convinced that getting my head wet would cool me off.  So while my head was being scrubbed, I half-heartedly engaged in conversation all the while thinking cool thoughts to prevent any future perspiration.

To no avail.

I returned to the chair perspiring as if I had just finished a 5K.  I could tell she was slightly disturbed that even though she had dried off my forehead, it seemed to be wet again.

Attempting to be unashamed of my glistening issue, I requested a magazine with which to fan myself. Much to my delight, my hairdresser was also thankful for the light breeze.

I thought, and hoped, I was out of the woods.  My body temperature was lowering and I was feeling conversational once more.

Much to my dismay, however, she wasn't about to let me leave the salon with wet hair.  (Sadly, it's still debatable whether my hair remained wet so long due to the shampooing or due to the salty excretion.) Never in my life have I dreaded receiving a professional "blow-out" more than I did at that moment.  I fanned myself feverishly.  She blow-dried (blew-dried??) like there was no tomorrow.

By this point, my cape had been removed and I sat in that little spinny chair...vulnerable to the world.  As soon as my hair was dry, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I knew I was close.  I winced as she cut my bangs...knowing her hands were brushing my awkwardly clammy forehead.  I winced even more as she dusted me off knowing that no amount of dusting would remove the bits of hair that were glued to my neck due to the perspiration.

I thanked her for her accommodations, paid my dues, and quickly existed the premises.  As I drove home with the air conditioner blasting in my general direction, I knew I had learned my lesson:  wear as little clothing as possible to all future haircuts.  No exceptions.

As I've mentioned before, I embarrass myself approximately every 3 hours...

I have made a commitment to...

...use my crock-pot every Monday of the school year.  I about gave up mid-menu-planning because I was uncomfortable with the restriction.  BUT I will persevere.

So far I have 5 ideas.  Only 5.  Help, puhleeze. 

In other news, I'm often asked, "With 10 weeks off, what do you do all day!?"  What a great question.  I ask myself that every single day.

That's why it's time to go back to school.

This activity filled 2 days.  You see, I had a gazillion Real Simple magazines that I couldn't bear the thought of tossing them to the recycling bin or to the wolves (the students will eventually cut them up in an attempt to write a "found" poem).

So this is what I did...

You might laugh.  Go ahead.  Hubs laughed for 48 hours straight.

Call me anal.  Call me uber-organized.  Call me ridiculous.

Just don't say you're not jealous.

So I took this stack of mags...

 Bought a few binders from the dreaded back corner of Target...

 Decided on a few categories for my "everything" binder...like "Exercise"

 "Cleaning"

 "Organizing"

 "Decorating"

 "How to..."

 And put them in my binder. 

 Then I made a "Recipes" binder...

 ...but most of my pictures are dumb. 

 Once I had filled both binders, they (the binders) found a home on my cook book shelf.

And all were happy on the Carlson front.  All.

Happy Day

Today is a happy day because...

I *accidentally* slept until 8:40 this morning.  Whoops.

My wonderful MIL made me lunch.

My air conditioning works.

I played with my favorite 2 year-old.

I will see my favorite 6 year-old, 4 year-old, and 1 year-old later today.

And because I now have 2 more reasons to browse baby Gap.

You see, several weeks ago I gots realz crafty.  

 And I made this here birthday banner. 

And today is the big celebration.

More later.  Can't wait. Srsly.

How Embarrassing

I embarrass myself approximately every 3 hours.  Literally.

Like the time I slipped by the trash cans in the cafeteria during the formative senior year of high school.  Whoa-m-g.

Or the time I introduced myself to a man named Darrin by saying, "Hi, I'm Darrin."  Yes, it happened.

Or worse.  The time that I introduced myself to my cousin-in-law Amy by saying, "Hi, I'm Am...Heidi."  That happened not 4 years ago, but 4 days ago.  I have grand theories as to why I introduce myself by saying the other person's name, but I will refrain from hopping on my "ways to remember names since I'm terrible at names" soapbox.

Or the time I forgot an entire piano piece during a recital and skipped to the last measure.  Gasp.  That was a good one.

I digress.

I just spent an entire weekend with my wonderful in-laws...and this is the only picture I took.  (Slash I didn't even take it.)  How embarrassing. 

But my hubs is handsome.  And I now have a dress for parent-teacher conferences.

All is right in the world.