Everything is on its Head

Pardon me, but my world has been feeling a little upside down lately.

Yesterday, a fight broke out between four students during our state mandated "activity period" which is 20 minutes between 2nd and 3rd block where we have to walk the kids around in circles in the hallways because the state of Tennessee thought requiring schools to provide 100 minutes per week of physical exercise would be a good way to tackle childhood obesity. Of course, Karns is one of the only schools that actually obeys this rule, but it's been a sense of pride for our principal that we do whatever they ask us to do. We've been having some issues with the students walking downstairs- there's just such a large number of them and they will slow down and create little traffic jams. The upstairs walking period (the one I supervise) has never really had many problems, but we have only about 1/3rd of the students that the downstairs hallways have.

Anyway, a fight broke out and one of the English teachers was attempting to either break up the fight or to just try and get the kids' attention so that they would stop. The details are hazy depending on who you ask, but apparently Mrs. Runger either was pushed or punched by the students in the fight or she was pushed by the students near the fight. Regardless, she fell, and her head literally bounced off the floor about six inches. She's in ICU right now with a brain bleed, so please keep her in your thoughts and prayers. She's alert, but the doctor's are still nervous and keeping her under close supervision. Hopefully, she'll make a full recovery.

Needless to say, KHS was very much on edge today. We (the faculty) have suspended walking period for the remainder of the semester or until a safety assessment can be done, and any kid who so much as breathed wrong today was suspended.  The lack of character I see in some of the students I have dealt with makes me sick to think about! Sometimes they give the impression that they don't care about ANYTHING! People always seem to say that being a teacher is not a hard job because we get snow days and summer breaks- but being paid so little to feel most days like you are the only discipline and guidance your students see is so hard emotionally. Everyone points a finger at the schools like it is our responsibility to produce well-rounded and productive members of society, but often times we have no help from home. I have students who are dealing with things in the afternoons that I would not wish on my worst enemy, and it breaks my heart. What we really need is a movement for better parenting, so that schools can do their jobs- teach!- instead of spending so much time trying to train students in social graces and morality- which should be learned at home.

Now I'm not a parent, so I know I really don't know what it's like, but I do know that as a teacher I work with so many amazing parents who are doing a great job. I really want to commend them on their students and the effort they put in to their child's education. Some teachers complain about having to have conferences or phone calls, but I love feeling like I've got some support. If you're one of those parents- Thank you! We had meetings with all the students today, and the majority of them are so concerned about Mrs. Runger. They even want to start a fund to raise money and send her flowers and get well cards! Now if that is not the sign of an amazing teacher, I don't know what it is! And it's so nice to know that most students at KHS are mature and loving, despite the media trying to make them all sound like hoodlums. <3

Anyway, I'm not really sure how much of this stuff I should be writing about on the internet any, although there's nothing on here you couldn't find out on the news. Actually there's not anything more to the story at all. They reported the facts, and that's it. I really just wanted to share my opinion and get it off my chest. I've been so stressed out- I actually fell asleep at 7pm last night. Totally ridiculous. I think that Dr. Davis and KHS are doing a FANTASTIC job handling the incident however. Incidents do happen, and hopefully Mrs. Runger will make a full recovery and everything will go back to normal in a few days... maybe we'll even have a snow day tomorrow? A girl can dream right?!?

So, enough craziness and on to my foods. Yesterday's lunch: tofu and veggie leftovers- Yum!

Dinner: pancakes with apple cinnamon topping- Nom. Nom. Nom.

Breakfasts have been sneaking away from the camera as they've been the same everyday for a while- Kerf oats with PB and chocolate chips: I just can't seem to shake them!

And dinner tonight was an egg sandwich with cheese and spinach, a side of mushrooms, and a green monster that Robert had half of- and he. liked. it. YES! :D

Okay, although I really want to make like Quin-Tater and hide for the rest of the evening, it's off to JBC for homecoming speakers.

Green Monster + Tofu!

I made my first green monster last night! And I went for a 5k training run today! And I made Asian peanut sauce and fed my husband tofu and he loved it!!!! Ok, enough exclamations and run-on sentences, but it has been a pretty exciting 24 hours. Right after I blogged last night, I couldn't decide what to eat with my cheetah's for dinner. I have no idea why I went for the green monster, but it may have been because it was so warm. I found a basic recipe on greenmonstermovement.com and added frozen strawberries because I didn't have any ice cubes. It was so good! Not as green though. I've got a banana chilling in the freezer because there are definitely GM's in my future.

I also packed up my lunch last night and actually remembered to photograph it! It looked so pretty and delish, and it was probably one of my favorite lunches I've ever packed. I had SnackFace's cottage cheese and pumpkin that really truly does taste like pumpkin cheesecake for my planning snack after first period. I had a salad with mushrooms, strawberries, and balsamic vinaigrette with a PB and J on 'Zeke bread and an orange for lunch. For my afternoon snack, I had leftover cheetahs and an apple. I actually managed to come home, go for a run, and cook dinner without spazzing out that I was hungry! It's nice to feel full on good for you foods.

This morning before school was an Oats in a Jar day with the dregs of my Smucker's natural. A sprinkling of chocolate chips and some earl grey on the side = perfection. :D

Tonight for supper I baked some extra firm tofu, whipped up a peanut sauce I found on the weight watchers website, and sauteed some veggies while Robert boiled some whole wheat linguine and heated leftover egg drop soup. It was an Asian Feast! And so delicious! I'm happy I have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I really wasn't sure if Robert would like it, but he tore it up! LOL! Guess he doesn't miss the chicken he originally requested after all. ;)

Well gotta run! Physics calls my name. :P

GIANT COOKIES!!!

The weather has been GORGEOUS!!! And really, I have bitter sweet feelings towards it. On the one hand, sitting her with the fan running and the patio door open with the breeze and the birds and the lovely (or not so lovely) roar of traffic on I-40 drifting through my window- it's nice. It really is. It especially is nice when I get to go and walk 9 holes with my husband and his best friend for the first time since this summer. Lugging my bag around and all my killer (but mainly crap-tastic) drives made my back and my shoulder sore, sore, sore. However, I am a little sad when I realize that we are probably done with the snow days for the year. I know people back home are glad for that since they racked up into the double digits thanks to the blizzard and will now be going to school until practically July, but I only had two snow days out of five allotted ones and I can't help feeling a little cheated. :(


Ok, no more whining. One thing the weather has been good for is my food life! Strawberries are back and so delicious! I'm super motivated to get outside and do some exercise, and I've even jumped back on the weight watchers path. For a while there I was trying to just eat and listen to my body's signals, but I realized that I'm not very good at that yet. I want to count something for a while until I get the hang of my portion sizes and points are much easier to count than calories for me. 


So here's a little looksie at what I've been chowing on lately... 


Lots of KERF oats. Robert is addicted! I think I actually want an egg sandwich in the morning, but I know he'll be upset and want his oatmeal. Ha ha! Not that I mind; it's much better than when he was eating pop tarts every morning! 

Veggies, veggies, veggies! Trying to up my plant intake and I'm doing a great job at this no meat for lent thing. Honestly, I don't even miss it! We had a Soup for the Soul soup tasting last night at church and most of them I couldn't sample because they had meat in them. There were a few that I did eat though- my egg drop soup, some delicious broccoli cheese soup, a veggie soup I did not care for at all! (but it actually ended up winning a prize?!?), and some french onion soup that was way too salty for my taste. Everyone was raving about Pastor Mark's Secret Recipe Chicken Noodle, but I didn't try any. Normally this would have upset me- not being able to try a food- but last night I really didn't mind. I'm sure it was delicious, but I guess I may never know! :)

And delicious home-made baked goods! Since Bert and I can't eat out for lent, I've been cooking a lot at home. We actually changed our rules to allow us to go out to eat with friends for lunch after church on Sunday, since that's really one of the only social opportunities we get. The only thing is, they have to invite us, we can't pick the restaurant, and it has to be a group larger than just me, robert, and luc. Today we ended up at McAllister's deli where I got a veggie pita and a caesar side salad, but I was not impressed. The portions were way too small on the veggies, and I was still hungry when we got done. I ended up coming home and making some Carrots n' Cake Skinny Chocolate Chip Cookies, but I added almonds to mine instead of the Peanut Butter Chips she put in hers. The batter was super thin and I didn't want to dirty up another pan, so I just made 8 bigger cookies instead of the 16 I was supposed to make and I definitely didn't spread them out enough... They all ran together and made 8 giant puzzle piece shaped cookies! Ha ha ha! They are soooo good though! Bert and I ate 3 a piece and I'm saving my last one for tomorrow. I'll have to make some more this week, as I've got half a container of peach baby food... It called for pureed peaches! And don't ask why I had baby food around, lol! No, it had nothing to do with a baby. Oh dear. Maybe I'll stir it into my oats tomorrow. ;)

Yes, that last pic is ONE cookie. :)

Gotta run, I've got chu-chu-chu-cheetah's waiting on me! :D

The Snow Blues.

I would give up so much for a snow day right now... I know we had one on Monday, but I was so banking on having one today. Woke up at 6am to an icy backyard and sidewalk, but no school closing. Robert said he continued to check even after I left because he couldn't believe we actually had to go today. I know- I shouldn't be whining about a dusting of snow when up north they go even if there's a foot outside, but I think one of my students put it a good way today. She said "He (the superintendent from Boston who is new this year and evidently unversed in the South Snow Day) just doesn't understand us Southerners. We rarely get snow. We have to savor it when we do!" I'd definitely agree with her.

The weather reports are killing me too. It said no snow all day and yet it has never stopped flurrying with varying degrees of severity. Now it says 40% chance of snow showers from 1am to 6am tonight, but there's literally NOTHING on the radar. I'm so sick of these stupid predictions! They're never right! I think I'm going to just to boycott the weatherman and mentally prepare myself that we might be out of snow days for the year. Two is better than none I suppose, and maybe I can convince myself that means spring is coming soon.

Robert and I had our last dining out experience tonight since we are giving up eating out for Lent. I'm also giving up meat for 40 days, so I guess tonight was my last chicken breast too. I had a chicken caesar salad with real caesar dressing and a huge hunk of bread with olive oil. It was so good! We also had a coupon for a free dessert so I ate half of our chocolate lasagna with incredible marscapone cheese filling. So yum! About the no-meat thing though, I'm kind of hoping that once Easter gets here I won't want to go back to being a carnivore. It'd be a lot cheaper, especially since I really don't like the idea of eating meat from farm factories, and free-range can get pricey. It's not like I feel sorry for animals that end up as dinner or anything... Don't get me wrong, I love animals, but I'm a biologist- I know we're on top of the food chain. I would never fault a lion for taking down a zebra, so eating meat is a "circle of life" thing. I do find issue with flaunting our "special superiority." As in, crowding chickens into windowless barns and pumping them so full of feed and chemicals that they break their legs when they stand. I also have issues with raising cattle knee-deep in their own poop on a high corn diet because it's cheaper, ignoring the fact that they are supposed to eat grass and the corn increases the instance of e.coli since America needs it's fix of Big Macs. Don't know what I'm talking about? Watch Food Inc. It will change your life.

I think after Lent I'll be a flexitarian. My husband loves to hunt and fish and we put his trophies to good (and delicious) use. And I really don't feel bad eating wild game or fish because you really don't get much free-range than that. Plus, they had a chance to get away- circle of life again in my opinion.

I'd like to find a local farm that raises cattle and chickens the way they should be- with a bit of dignity. That's one of my projects this summer, to find ethical meat, so if you know of anywhere near Knoxville or online that's not ridiculously expensive- I'd love the tip. :)

I guess that's all I've got for tonight. I started weight watchers pretty hard core today, so hopefully this time I can finally shake those last 10 pounds. Wish me luck!

Hubby spoils me!

Well Hello There! Long time no see, eh? I've been busy... and a slacker, but what else is new? I've also been debating a lot about what I want this blog to be used for. I liked the whole food/exercise direction, but I've been way too forgetful about taking pics of my food. I'm thinking I may just let it focus on my day to day life and my food-snobbiness will naturally show through from there. If I do eat something awesome, I'll be sure to snap a pic and post a recipe.

Hope you all had a marvelous V-Day! I know I did! Dear hubby went all out and spoiled me for our first Valentines as Mr. and Mrs.! It was so lovely. :) It all started on Thursday with a purple iPod nano he bought for our (non-existant) 5k training. Too bad the nano doesn't really work, so he has to send it back. Poor hubby. Stupid Amazon dealer. :(

Love Oats for my Honey!

On Friday I got a dozen roses in a box with a vase and some chocolates sent to school during my Core 2 biology class. So cute! The flowers are beautiful and the chocolates were super yummy.

Then Friday night we had a lock-in at the church, so I helped him wrangle children until the wee hours of the night. Actually, I didn't make it past 12:30am, but considering I had been up since 6am I thought I did well. Saturday was spent sleeping and fixing things that didn't actually need to be fixed. Our new iMac was making a funny clicking noise, but the simple action of unplugging it to cart it to the Apple Store fixed it apparently. Haven't heard the clicking since. Then we took my Carolla to the Toyota dealer to have my accelerator pedal fixed so I don't drive off an I-40 bypass or anything... Turns out my 'Rolla is from Japan and the Japanese pedals are fine. No probs whatsoever. Super American engineering fail in my opinion. Oh well- no politics on the blog, so that's all I'll say about that.

Amazing new 'puter

Saturday night I cooked pork lo mein and we cracked open a bottle of TERRAPIN SUNRAY WHEAT!!! This is the beer that Bert and I had at the mellow mushroom in Savannah on our honeymoon and we've been dreaming of it ever since! We finally found it in the Kroger at Cedar Bluff, but unfortunately Robert doesn't think it tastes like he remembers. It's always different on tap than it is bottled, but I still loved it. It's so rich and buttery! Definitely my favorite wheat beer.

Sunday morning I made the previously pictured "V-Day Oats," and we headed to church. We both were in the worship band- I sang despite my massive sinus headache and Bobert played bass, then we went to BW's for lunch with the LCC gang. We were going to go skating with said gang afterward, but realized with the plans we had for V-day evening, Quincy would be home alone all day long and we didn't want to do that to her. We headed home and I slept for another 4 hours, then got up and got dressed for our surprise dinner date! Robert wasn't sure what to tell me to where, so I just put on what I wore to church that a.m. - a pink sweater, brown slacks, and some heels. Then Bert mentioned I may want to trade for comfy shoes, so I put on some socks and my loafers since I thought maybe we were walking a lot or something. We got in the car and headed towards downtown, and we were almost to the river when I figured out that we were going on a RIVERBOAT CRUISE! Eeeeee! So excited! But I didn't feel dressed for dinner/dancing and I didn't have my ID because he forgot to tell me to grab it, so we had to turn around and head back to the apartment. Whoops! I changed super fast and grabbed my wallet, then we made it back in plenty of time since we left so early the first time.

The cruise was super fun! I got a rose and they took our picture as we were boarding, then they had a live band that played throughout a delicious dinner - salad with raspberry vinaigrette, cranberries, cheese, and candied walnuts; a buffet with rolls, mashed potatoes, veggies, baked chicken and amazingly delicious PRIME RIB!; peanut butter, apple, or chocolate cheesecake for dessert; and a complimentary glass of bubbly at the end of the meal. The view was beautiful, and I would have loved to have stayed on deck for longer, but it was rainy and cold. After checking out the boat and walking around a bit, we headed back down and danced! It was so romantic, and exactly what I was wishing for. :)

Thanks Robert! XoXoX

Well, that was my valentine's day- and to make it even better, I woke at 6:30am to pouring snow! No inservice today! We're supposed to get more tonight, so maybe we'll get two days off this week, since I don't think this technically counts as a snow day because it was supposed to be a teacher workday. We'll just have to see. Off to work on some cleaning and a mountain of grading, then hopefully off to get the hubby some jeans. Lent starts on Wednesday and we're giving up going out to eat for 40 days (I'm also giving up meat), so Salsarita's may be in our near future...

Imma Bee, Imma Bee, Imma Busy Busy Bee

I promise I have not fallen off the face of the earth or anything- I'm just being a terrible newbie blogger this week! I haven't remembered to photograph my lunch or dinner in like two days. Whoops!

Crazy busy at school- Tests tomorrow in all the classes, and I'm not even close to copied and ready for them. I got asked to stand in on a meeting for a coworker that lasted until 6:10 this evening. Every day this week I've stayed at school until at least 4:30 or 5. At the meeting I ended up volunteering to help out with some stuff, so I've now got even more on my plate! It's fine, and like I said- I volunteered, so I'm kind of more laughing at myself at how busy I am now and I'm (thankfully) not so stressed about it.

On the agenda.

1. copy the tests, find an article and set up a lab for post-test in ME, make anatomy vocab for post-test in Bio
2. turn in my completed unit and lesson plan to Mrs. Rule during planning.
3. get a pedicure for Haiti that was originally planned for last week, but because of snow is now this week during my planning period.
4. make and email out a schedule for freshman academy four year plans
5. take the physics pre-test for the praxis and email my answers and essay to the review teachers
6. plan and copy for monday
7. review the package list for my Carolina materials and turn it in to the bookkeeper
8. turn in the money for haiti that my kids collected

geeze. I'm gonna be at school forever tomorrow!!!

Quincy Loves the Stoneyfield Leftovers!

Let's talk about sex! (Alternate title: Fitness FAIL)

Robert and I got up at 5:45 this morning with the great intentions of going for a run to train for our 5k. We got stopped in the middle of the second week of training and we have not started back. It's been around two weeks at this point. It took me forever to get poor Bobert out of bed... apparently he couldn't fall asleep last night and was up until 1am. He's such a trooper for getting up and getting dressed anyway. When we got everything together and started to head out we realized that it was pouring rain outside. It usually isn't terrible to run in the rain, but it was cold and still a bit slushy from the snow so we decided to try again tomorrow. Boo Hiss. :(

Robert crashed back into the bed for an hour and a half while I just tooled around the apartment for a bit before hopping in the shower and making oatmeal for breakfast. Classic KERF with banana and skim milk. Pineapple and maple yogurt on top. Super yum, but note to self: heat up the pineapple before you dump it on top next time! I also got to use my french press for the first time and I'm totally in love! The coffee tastes so much richer and much less acidic than it normally does. I drank it with some milk, and I didn't even need stevia. So good! Maybe I can officially replace my morning caffeinated soda with something much more natural.

At school I made myself feel like a total idiot when I thought that my first block was ending at 10:50 instead of the usual 9:59. I was so confused when I let them dawdle around on their sediment lab for over half an hour and I still had an hour and 45 minutes left of class? It's only 90 minutes! How does that even work? LOL! By the time I realized my mistake, we only had 30 minutes of class left for a 45 minute video... Oh well. They will be finishing it tomorrow so it seems.

Second block is normally my planning period, but I was proctoring a writing assessment at 10:50 (the reason I got confused about first), so I had to bust my butt to get some stuff done. I managed to plan/copy for my afternoon Bio classes and tomorrow's ME class. Then I gathered all my grading (I'm way behind on that... but then again, I'm ALWAYS behind on grading), and booked it down to guidance to grab the tests before it was time to start. I got a ton of grading done while the kids were writing, and I also snacked on a hard boiled egg and an orange.

After the test was lunch, so I went to Anne's room to eat with her and Amanda and gossip about our students. ;) I had a PB and J on 'Zeke bread with carrots sticks and hummus by the way, but no pictures. I forgot. :-/ I did try my Jicama sticks and decided that it does not taste well with hummus. I think I'll try to make some Jicama slaw and stick to my carrots and snap peas for my hummus dipping purposes.

Biology classes were interesting today as the topic was meiosis and the kids have 1 million and one questions about sex- 999,999 of which are quite awkward. I don't care though. I guess I feel like I'm as good a source as any to get their info (better than their friends and the internet anyway). So if a doctor isn't embarrassed to ask weird, but honest, questions like "Can you get pregnant from a hot tub?", why should I be? We had a lot of laughs, a lot of blushing girls, and some interesting topics. At least they were curious. I'd be concerned if they didn't ask; that'd make me think they knew from experience! My little freshman babies? Blergh! It makes me shudder to think about it!

After school I stayed in my classroom until 5:30 working, working, working. I'm still not quite caught up, but I'm 99% finished with my unit plan that's due tomorrow. I finally made it home and cooked Skillet Lasagna for dinner. It's one of mine and Robert's faves, so I thought I'd post it since I don't have pics of my snacks or lunch.

Ingredients: 1lb lean ground beef (I used wild venison, because you don't get much more free-range than "wild"), 1 diced onion, a half a carton of sliced mushrooms or whatever other veggies you'd like to throw in, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, 1.5 cups of water, 2.5 cups of broken whole wheat lasagna noodles or rotini/penne pasta, 1 cup reduced fat or fat free cottage cheese or ricotta, 1 egg or egg white, italian seasonings, salt and pepper, shredded mozzarella, and parmesan cheese.

First you brown your meat and drain off any fat. Then I sauteed my onions and mushrooms in about a tablespoon and a half of olive oil with a teaspoon of minced garlic. I added my meat back to the mixture and threw in my favorite seasonings- about a tsp. each of salt/pepper, oregano, parsley, and basil (heavy on the basil for me since it's my favorite).

Next you add all of your tomatoes and the water to the skillet with the meat. Stir in your pasta (uncooked) and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 10 minutes.

While the pasta is cooking, mix the cottage cheese with the egg and some italian seasonings (I just did basil). Stir the pasta mixture in the pot, and then recover and cook an additional 10 minutes. I used that time to make a HUGE green salad and prep my lunch for tomorrow.

After your pasta has cooked for 20 minutes total, drop the cheese mixture on top by large spoonfuls. Replace the lid and cook for 5 minutes. Top with as little or as much mozzarella and parmesan as you like, plate and serve. It is SO GOOD! And super simple to make. Plus, it's so easy to change to suit your palate. Let me know if you try it!

Well I'm off! Happy Groundhog's Day! Here's the finished product!