Tending the Eclectic Kinder-Garden

Apologies for being away Friday and Saturday~

Gown ironing, hair curling, make-up applying, and high-heel teetering was taking place Friday afternoon after school since Dear Husband and I had the MP Ball to attend:

We enjoyed a wonderful meal, sat at a table with funny and friendly soldiers and spouses and even did a little dancing before the clock struck twelve, though we didn’t make it out of the ballroom quickly enough before my aching feet demanded to be freed from shoes that *felt* like glass slippers.  Ouch.

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Though my carriage was a Dodge Ram driven by DH, here are some inspiring pumpkins from BlogLand:

~ Oscar the (Pumpkin) Grouch?  See it at Craft and Clutter!

~ Smitten Kitchen makes Pumpkin Swirl Brownies…

~ CakeSpy posts a letter to the editor from the Mellowcreme Pumpkin (TOO funny!)

~ A Storybook Life shares painted pumpkins…

~ Bella Pink Cafe visited a pumpkin patch…

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Carriage found here…

Tags: family, links, military life

Sorry I broke your leg when you were… two and a half?

At least you got me back by giving me the chicken pox for my thirteenth birthday!

Happy 30th!

Tags: family

We’ve stalled a bit indoors as I won’t be able to set up the toddler’s playroom or my craft area until my kindergarten materials, books, and decor are delivered to my new classroom later this week.  Dear Husband checked the trees in our yard today instead, looking for branches that needed to be trimmed while the kids and I checked on the seeds that we planted for “filler-type” greenery and flowers for the remaining summer months.

The nasturtiums and pumpkins have sprouted, though I’m not sure if we’ll actually get any pumpkins grown in time for Halloween with such a late planting.  The kids were inspired by the pumpkin photos at Chance Family Happenings:

Dear Husband trimmed back some branches that were obscuring traffic/street signs:

…and he discovered a few branches that the electric company will have to come out to cut and remove (see where the power line is?):

Later this afternoon I’ll re-pot some of my indoor plants into larger containers, anticipating what new greenery I can find to put into the newly emptied pots!

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Thanks for being green, Kermit:

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~SmittenKitchen shares a recipe for Sauteed Radishes (yes, radishes!), Sugar Snap Peas and Dill

~Paper-and-String is working on Christmas in July (check out her trees, reindeer, and puddings)

~Doug has “heavier” reading on his summer book list than I do, but I’m intrigued after reading his thoughts on Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine.  NCLB is an issue that has ties that stretch much further than our classrooms, school district offices, states, even country.

~Dear Daughter enjoyed her birthday, but wanted a plain ol’ vanilla cake (with purple streaks swirled in) with strawberry icing.  Guess I’ll have to wait for another celebration to try The Pioneer-Woman-Cooks’ Yogurt and Orange Marmalade Cake.

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Happy Monday!

Tags: family, friends, links, photos, recipes

Happy Birthday to my Beautiful Girl:

…my creative and girlie Dear Daughter…

…today you’ll eat birthday cake for breakfast, go shopping for new clothes and learn how to *gulp*, apply makeup, because you’re fourteen now, not five.

This time around, I’m hoping you’ll go for a more subdued look.  At five years of age, you never scribbled when you colored…except when Rissa and Amy let you play in makeup:

Wow.

You’re almost a freshman now, but you’ll always be my “Muffin,” and Daddy’s “Sweet Pea,” and I’m sure you’re probably *thrilled* that I’ve posted these photos of you online for the world to see.

You’re very welcome, Miss-Ten-Pounder-at-Birth.

We love you and hope you enjoy your special day!

Tags: family

Though I’m a chocoholic, here’s what I’ve been craving and enjoying this summer:

Yep, apples, celery, raisins, and walnuts.

My family doesn’t care for this salad (more for me!), so I only make enough for one:

1 apple

2 or 3 stalks of celery

1/4 cup of raisins

1/4 cup of chopped walnuts

1 tsp. of mayo, just enough to coat the apples so they don’t brown too quickly

Chop up the apple and celery stalks, toss in the raisins and walnuts, and coat with the mayo.  It’s even better if the apple and celery have chilled in the fridge overnight- cool, crispy, fruity and green at the same time.  I suggest you make this the same day you plan on eating it as the apples still brown rather quickly, and if the salad is left overnight in the fridge, the walnuts and raisins get soggy.

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Dear Daughter is expressing interest in learning about “meal preparation.”  In tiny, baby increments. She’s good at mac and cheese, makes a terrific toasted ham/cheese/potato chip sandwich, and has learned how to make chicken flavored ramen noodles.  I know, I know, basic stuff.  Today she had some excess broth left over from the noodles as Toddler only wants “oodles” when it comes to ramen, no “juice.”  For a reason that still escapes me, she put the left over broth into a glass, intending to let it cool off completely before pouring it into a sippy cup for the toddler, to see if he likes the taste of it.  I asked her how she’d explain the “juice” to him.

She said she’ll tell him it’s chicken juice.  From freshly squeezed chickens.

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*Michelle at Scribbit shares her Aunt Nancy’s recipe for Asian Chicken Salad (hey, more ramen!)

*If fruit smoothies are more your style, The Pioneer Woman Cooks a Blueberry Yogurt Smoothie (the color alone will amaze you!)…

*Amy at AngryChicken is making me wonder just where, oh where in my yard I can plant rhubarb, so I can make Rhubarb Hand Pie.

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Finding so many great blogs since my spring blogroll update means I’ll have to try to find time to update my links before school starts.  I’ll keep you posted!

Tags: family, humor, recipes

* We opened, emptied and broke down 20+ more boxes downstairs yesterday. Now there are piles of books, equipment, baskets and more books all over the place, effectively replacing the stacks of boxes. Messy, messy, messy, but still a sign of progress.

* Dear Husband will have an office this year. It might not be the largest place to hang his work hat, but he’ll be able to take some of his military decor with him to spruce things up a bit. Once I’m able to get into my classroom, all of my classroom materials, decor, and books will be out of our house as well. It will be interesting to see how the whole home decor thing works out afterward. No Army influences, no kindergarten themes- just who we are outside of the workplace with our family.

* I’ve found my seat cushions and Somerset Magazines.  They were in boxes marked “Baskets” and “Outdoor Storage.”  The seat cushions were used in our dining room year ’round, and the magazines were in my creative cubby space.  Neither were used near baskets or outdoor storage.  The box marked “Baskets” plural had only one basket in it.    I know.  I’m a nitpick.

* Amanda at GoodyBlog got my toddler’s attention this morning when she posted this:

Happy Tuesday!

Tags: blogs, family, video

As organized as I try to be at work and at home, once our family has to relocate, the packers, however nice and polite they may be, seem to think it’s GAME ON.

Boys, I made you all lunch, three days in a row.  Granted, the first day was pizza, but hey, day two was homemade sub sandwiches. We certainly kept the fridge stocked with Gatorade, water and soda so you wouldn’t dehydrate or run out of energy.  We even pushed Otter Pops on you when the temp got unbearable!

So would you mind telling me where my dining room chair pillows are?  How about half of my Somerset magazines (that were all in one spot when you started)? The receiver for our cordless phone?  Because the way things are going, I’m thinking I’m not going to find these things until I open my SCHOOL-SUPPLIES-THAT-HAVEN’T-SEEN-THE-LIGHT-OF-DAY-IN-OVER-A-YEAR that *you* opened and “re-boxed” because of some packer/moving company policy.

Soon-to-be-teaching-colleagues, I’ll apologize right now for any outbursts of exasperation you might hear coming from my new classroom two weeks from now.  It’s not you, and no, I’m not some psycho hose beast.  I’ve just finally found my crochet hooks~ in exactly the furthest location from where they originated in our home.

Darn packers.

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My finger and toenails are happy this morning.  After enduring two weeks without a mani-pedi, I gave in, removed what little polish was left on them last night, buffed, filed, and polished with a non-summer color.  MUCH better now.  Yes Bev, you read that right: my nails were in disrepair for two weeks!  Nope, I didn’t go looking for an emergency bottle of polish for the chips and nicks either.  Scary, huh?

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With the repairs and modifications we’re having to do to the rental, we’re stuck, shuffling boxes and piles around and around and around as we get each new area designated, arranged, and decorated.  The upstairs is  nearly done, but the only reason why is because the downstairs still looks like a bomb hit it.  My desk is upstairs, along with most of my crafty stash that was stored beneath it in Texas… but it will be clutter free when what I hope will be my crafting area is set up and ready downstairs.

Now if I could only find my three remaining ribbon boxes.

Maybe I should have made the packers extra cookies.  Lesson learned.

Tags: colleagues, family, military life, organization

I hope you enjoyed greeting the surprises in our rental yesterday!  To continue on with our housing adventure…

On Day Three of being back in Oz, Mother Nature gave us a rainstorm, followed by a hailstorm.  I didn’t mind either as we were inside and the show was a change from the usual tumbleweed/dirt storms experienced in Texas.  And look at all of that *green!*

Do you remember me mentioning the duct taped gutters yesterday?  Apparently the duct tape was merely a cosmetic issue, the real problem easily obscured by the fact that I couldn’t see INTO the gutters themselves from the ground.  From out of our bedroom windows, we could hear what sounded like a flood, coming off of our roof, more intense than the rain and hail itself that was falling.  When we looked out the windows, we saw two rivers of water being shot up and out away from the house four or five feet before hitting the ground.  With special lighting and Liberace playing piano, we would have had our own Vegas Water Show!

Sigh.  Maybe not.  I don’t have the epaulets for that kind of production.

Anywhoo…the gutters were clogged, plugged, full of who-knows-how-many-years’-worth of debris.

And the in-my-opinion hazardous exposed fiberglass insulation garage?  Flooded.

Another call was made to the property manager, and after this pearl, “Oh, it’s normal for the garages around here to flood,” he actually produced a ray of hope: he called a Gutter Service/Repairman to come out and clean the gutters.

While Dear Husband made plans to seal the walls of the garage himself (and wowzer, can I just tell you how SMELLY, horribly NOXIOUS the fumes from sealant are?), Walt arrived.  Walt got on top of the roof, and cleaned out what he called our “compost pile” that had accumulated in the gutters.  Walt removed the duct tape that was holding the gutters’ joints together and made sure the assembly wasn’t dumping water along the garage walls.  Walt ran some scary tubey-chompy-snakey looking thing through the drain pipe to clear out any clogs that were hiding.

And once Walt was done, he made balloon sculptures/animals for us.  No lie.

Here’s a pink kitty, but if he had had an orange balloon, Walt said it would make a cute tiger:

My husband’s favorite, a motorcycle:

A sweet faced bumblebee (MUCH nicer than the wasps!):

And if you can imagine this one made out of a green balloon with a red tongue, it’s a FROG!

I’m thinking Walt the Gutter Service Repairman just might need to come in for Show and Share sometime this year!

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Want to learn more about balloons and balloon art?  Check out the “Pop” Culture at Balloon HQ!

Here are ideas for balloon games and decor for childrens’ birthday parties…

…and check out balloon fashion at Secondose!

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Congratulations to Daisie and Andy!  They got married in Hawaii yesterday!

(bears found here)

Tags: family, friends, links, photos

Hello House!

Hello beer bottle in the backyard:

Hello, duct taped gutters:

Hello, er…walkway(?):

Hello lawn decor:

Hello wasps!

Hello, “freshly painted walls:” (**cough, hack**)

Hello, garage door opener track that has been jerry-rigged so it’s cutting/gouging into the drywall each time the door is opened or closed:

And hello to you, exposed-fiberglass-insulation-in-the-garage-ceiling-that-covers-the-entire-area:

Hello water heater, propped up and tilted on cinder blocks:

Hello light boxes falling away from the ceiling, hanging on by only a few screws:

… a few things I’ve learned this past week…

*Renting over the internet might not be such a great thing, especially when the property manager posts photos online from THREE TENANTS PAST.  Oh my, those photos were downright flattering.  Flattering enough to make us want to rent.  Surprise, surprise, surprise (go Gomer!) once we arrived.

*While it’s wonderful having household goods delivered the day after arriving at one’s new home, it’s not so great when a painting crew is hired the evening before to peel the paint from the walls (oh yes, they PEELED IT OFF IN SHEETS), patch, mud, sand, and prime, with painting occuring as the moving truck pulls up in the driveway.

*When speaking with the property manager pre-rental, don’t just ask “is the garage finished?”  Ask things like “Is there exposed fiberglass insulation (rotted in places) hanging from the ceiling?” “Is the garage TALLER THAN MY HUSBAND?” or “DEFINE ‘finished.’”

*Make sure to keep receipts (okay, so I already knew this one, but it’s worth bringing up for other renters out there) for any and all improvements you have to do to the property, and by gum, make sure you negotiate an agreement that you can write them off of your rent each month.

*My definition of “house in MOVE-IN condition” is obviously different from other peoples’.  My definition is better.

*And finally, it’s awesome having a great big tattooed Harley Tech/Soldier husband, because when the retired military property manager tells you “Well, you’ve lived in military housing before, this shouldn’t be bad for you at all,” SGM Grumpy can growl and assert his impression of what is and isn’t acceptable for his family…and oh my, what an impressive scene that is!

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Never fear, dear Readers!  While we’ve had to deal with the not-so-fun elements of moving this past week, we’ve also met some pretty terrific people too: the painters on the paint crew, our gutter service guy (more on him tomorrow), the DISH installer (he stayed for dinner), and we’re looking forward to meeting the air conditioner repairperson sometime today.  Oh yes, we’re really looking forward to that visit!

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It’s a few weeks before school starts, so check back in periodically as I’ll be posting some helpful tips and ideas about setting up your classroom, making lunch time easier for kindergartners who bring “home” lunch, and any other news from the world of public education!

Tags: family, military life, photos

Hello again! I’ve managed to get the computer unpacked, the desk and chair situated, and thanks to Time Warner Cable, have internet access once again. Just don’t look around the rest of the house. Really. You’ll get to see photos of the mess sometime this weekend, I promise, but for today, check out some scenery from the trip:

Here we are, moments before we hopped into the trucks (Dear Husband drove mine, with the kids, hauling the big trailer, while I drove his white Chevy, pulling the Harley, with the cat in her carrier on the seat next to me):

Driving out of Texas, in the morning before triple digit heat set in for the day (ooh, look at all of that lovely…BROWN…):

The first of two blown tires on the trailer (yes, I’ve gained a few more gray hairs thanks to driving behind my family, watching helplessly as tires smoke, shred, then pop):

A tire repair shop that for some strange reason, we had trouble finding at first:

A storm rolling in (the weather service put out a hazardous weather warning over the radio as we were driving, telling all to “take cover”):

Driving past some wind power on Day Two:

An ominous looking sky later in the day:

Stopping for lunch (no, not at Walmart, we just parked in their lot) before the big push “home:”

Me checking on Anni the cat:

She loved the air conditioning:

Look!  A patch of green:

…and another!

Honey, I don’t think we’re in Texas (or Oklahoma) anymore!

Where our adventure picks up:

**Spoiler alert: This is the photo I took BEFORE we were able to get inside.  Other than the patchy grass, we weren’t at all concerned…until…

…to be continued…

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Here are some quick links for you (I read through 1300+ blog posts on NetNewsWire yesterday!):

~PhotoJoJo has a Photo Chain idea that I’d like to try!  Anyone up for it?

~Cream Puffs in Venice just might lure me away from my usual stress relief food (peanut M-n-M’s) with this strawberry tart…

~I’m back to teaching in a few weeks, so with the hopes that parents who are still in the dark about NCLB and recent “school reforms” can better understand what is *really* going on, here’s Schools Matter, advocating for students and their teachers.

Sweeties, when we were in school, were we just taught the ITBS (or whatever version YOU took one time each spring) year ’round?  NO.  After watching Dear Daughter’s eighth grade curriculum material consistently being replaced by “test preparation” for the ENTIRE YEAR in Texas, I was appalled.  Remind me to show you the DOG TAGS (military style) necklace her school gave out as “rah rah’s” for the TAKS.  This military spouse, parent, and teacher hasn’t been amused for some time.

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I’m off to unpack some more boxes, but hope that all of you are enjoying a happy and sunny (yet not-too-hot) summer!

Tags: family, links, Show and Share, TAKS