Tonight I made a recipe from Simply in Season called “Garlic Potato Salad” (p. 49). I’m renaming it “Spicy Spring Potato Salad” because in addition to garlic scapes, which are in the recipe, I added arugula. I think I earned some serious foodie cred with this meal, as I grew both the scapes and the arugula in my garden.
Incidentally, the potato salad was delicious, and I highly recommend the addition of arugula as it added even more fresh flavor.
This spring I have been grateful for the hard work of others – particularly for my mother-in-law Tina and also for myself, in the past.
Case in point:
See this?
That’s a bed of really ugly, weedy grass that used to exist between our driveway and our neighbors’. One day I just got sick and tired of constantly battling with it to keep it from eating our our asphalt. Plus it was ugly. So I just started hacking at it. And after long hours of work (with help from Tina and Nik), we finally got all the grass out. (It was a much bigger project than I’d counted on!) Then, I removed several wheelbarrow loads of dirt in an attempt to make it relatively level and Tina and I transplanted in a bunch of perennials that came my way, for free mostly, from other gardeners.
And this year, I’m reaping the benefits of last year’s hard work. Plus Tina came this year, weeded the bed for me, and put down new mulch. So it wouldn’t look this good except for her hard work this year too!
I’m not sure the names of all the plants I have but I do know that I have coneflower (echinacea), bee balm, butterfly weed, black-eyed Susan, and irises. There is also cleome coming but it’s still quite small yet, along with couple other prolific self-seeders that are still very small yet. (Those are the masses of green you see along the edges.)
Does anyone know what the clump of pink flowers is at the bottom of the driveway? I bought just one small plant a couple years ago, don’t even remember transplanting it there last year, and now – yikes! I think I’m going to have to dig some out in order to keep them from taking over the world!
The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically… intelligence plus character – that is the goal of education.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every year for the past four years, I’ve done a letter writing unit with my high beginner class. It’s one of my favorite units. They’ve asked Dad for stuff and even written thank you notes to me (not required of course!). This year, for our review class, I had them write a friendly letter to Rachel (my sister.) So here are some of the things they wanted to ask or tell her. (This single letter is a compilation of many letters). Rachel – I’m sure they’ll be thrilled if you write them back!
*************
Dear Rachel,
I really want to meet your baby! How old are you? I would like to see your baby because I know Mrs. ___ and she said that you had a baby. Your sister is nice but sometimes she give us a lot of homework. Can you tell her to not givs us homework? Please? What is your favorite place to go? What is your favorite color? Who is the oldest, Mrs. ___ or you? Do you miss Mrs. ___ and did you wish you were at Baltimore, MD? I hope I could go to visit you or you come to Maryland. Mrs. ___ is my ESOL Writting teacher, she is a good teacher. I’ll be waiting for you to come to Mrs. ___ class. Happy Mother’s Day! I want to tell you that I love your sister class and I love soccer. I love swimming too. When you coming to our school? I want too meet you and seed your baby!!! I think you are a nice and kind person.
Your friend,
A (from Venezuela), J (El Salvador), E (El Salvador), I (Guinea), S (Colombia), A (Mexico), T (Nigeria), A (Thailand), H (Pakistan),
P.S. I which I get a letter back from you.
***********
I would like to point out that the boy who said that he loves my class is also the boy who tries me to no end and when he is absent, class is blessedly peaceful. He does show his love in strange ways!
When I got home from work this afternoon, dinner was already going. And while I was decompressing a little bit from work, checking e-mail, etc., he had dinner simmering and then starting doing the dishes! Then, he called me to dinner and all I had to do was set the table. (He would have done that too – I just figured I should contribute a little bit to the life of the household.) I am blessed.
I told him that I love having a non-tennis-coach husband and that he’s never allowed to coach tennis again (or at least not until March 2011).
P.S. Nik made Greek meat sauce with pasta for dinner. I don’t love spaghetti sauce with meat but the Greek version, which Nik made with lamb today, is delicious. There’s cinnamon and a smidge of sugar in it along with the more traditional seasonings (oregano, garlic, onion) and it’s good. It’s Greek after all, what can you expect? We didn’t make this recipe exactly but it’s close!
Just read this post today about the goal of parenting as Christians, which, in the thoughts of this person is NOT that we end up with kids who love God and serve him. Read here to see the whole post (it’s short). Thoughts anyone?
This year, I have a weird schedule where my 3rd period class goes to lunch and then comes back with 5 minutes left in class. I usually wrap up what we’re doing before lunch because it’s worthless to try to teach anything for five minutes. Often, we end up playing spider (which is the PC, non-violent version of Hangman that I learned last year, and much prefer). Usually, I let the students run the game themselves. But on Monday, I took over and this is what we ended up with:
After they finally guessed the sentence (it took forever), only one kid (out of 5) understood the significance of it. And she was so excited, the rest of them were saying, “WHAT? WHAT? WHAT DOES IT MEAN???!!!!” So I told them “a baby”, pointed to my stomach, and then I got lots of big grins and hugs and congratulations!
Hello our new blog!
Go meet us over at Salmon and Souvlaki, where Nik and I (well, mostly me but Nik occasionally) will be blogging from here on out.
Goodbye Xanga!
You’ve been good to me for 4 1/2 years but it’s time to go. (Those ads are driving me crazy.) You helped me chronicle my life becoming a teacher, becoming a wife, and now, even a bit about becoming a mother.
So to all my Xanga friends who are still around, come on over to WordPress. I hope you’ll be glad you did!
Being an ESOL teacher, I’ve developed a thick skin when it comes to comments from my students. One of the hardest things about learning a language is learning appropriateness (i.e. what is polite to say and what isn’t). This has coming shining through in the past couple days as I have been telling my students that I’m pregnant.
It all started last Friday when one of my 3rd graders, A, gave me a hug in the morning. All of a sudden, I realized that she had put her head on one side of my stomach and was gently patting the other side.
me: A, what are you doing, honey?
A: Nothing. You just have a big stomach. [walks off]
I decided then that it was time to tell my students that I was pregnant!
Here’s a random sampling of the comments I got today from my elementary students:
“Oh, that explains the big stomach!”
“I is so happy for you! How much?” [meaning how many babies? This coming from a student whose mom is going to have twins!]
“I hope your husband is glad.” [I reassured her that he is, indeed, very glad.]
(complaining about the fact that I won’t be his teacher next year) “Why don’t have just have a babysitter?” [answers own question] “Oh, I know why – you have to feed your baby.” [and then makes a motion in front of his own chest indicating that he is clearly familiar with the art of breastfeeding!]
from a kindergartener – First, after pushing on my stomach “It’s a baby.” [Later] – “I know about a baby. First you get fat. Then the baby comes out. And you scream a lot.” [Home birth? Too much reality TV?]
And what I treasure the most: the glowing, excited happy eyes.
Praise God for babies.
Salmon and Souvlaki 