Unique Minds

One of my classes is currently assigned a research paper. The reason I'm having them write this paper is not for actual "research" purposes. I'm having them do a small-scale paper to perfect the process of making a works cited, using in-text citations, formatting their paper, and organizing their sources. Thus, I'm not too choosy about the topic.

I told them they could write on any topic that was school appropriate that they could find sources for. Here are their research topics:

How to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse (Rated G Version)
Penguins
The Medical Advantages of Snuggling
The Benefits of Working Out 
Fresh Water Aquariums
Pokemon
The Civil War
Popeye's Chicken
Marvel Comics History
The Makings of Superman
The American Flag
Behind the Lord of the Rings

Other Topics Discussed:
   The History of Batman
   The Comfort of Yoga Pants (I set my foot down here) ;)
   Mules
  
So scholarly! The real kicker: these students are Seniors. (Love you Class of 2013)

Attention Hungry

Doug (my dog) was attention hungry this evening. After running around in circles and jumping up and down when I came home, he settled down to following me wherever I went.

After dinner, I drew up some plans for a couple of projects we're doing around our house, and I was showing them to Michael. I looked down, and there was Doug, chewing on the papers in my hand! He decided to destroy them because they stole my attention. Crazy dog. :)

Warm and Cozy Part I

Our last big project in the house (other than decorating, of course) is a fireplace facade. When the house was originally built, we think it had a wood stove in the hole in the wall you can see behind the antique mantel below. The owners could add wood to keep the house warm without going out in the cold, but the main stove was in the garage.

A new set of owners installed central heating and air and converted this hole into a television/VCR holder. We are no longer using the old tube TV the house came with, so we had two options: 1. Close up the hole, 2. Convert the hole into something different. We chose option two.

I toyed with the idea of having an actual fireplace, but my firefighter husband was skeptical, so the plan is an electric fireplace facade. Below is a picture of the antique mantel my hubby surprised me with on our second anniversary. 

I love this mantel. It's so unique.

Here's a picture of the mantel with the fireplace insert.

And here is the rock veneer we will soon have installed to create our "fireplace." 

We got "seconds" so it wasn't as expensive as it could have been. 

I can't wait to see the finished product!

Yard Work on Skid Loader Scale!

Yesterday, my wonderful, helpful husband took care of some yard work around our home. When we bought this house, everything, including the yard, had been neglected for around 10 years. We have gradually tamed our "field," and we're now coming to the place where we're changing it's face a little bit. 
Many of the former flower beds and yard features had long ago become weed pits full of rocks and yard ornaments that we couldn't mow over. They were too far gone to tame, so we decided to start fresh. (Speaking of which, I hacked my lilac bushes down to about 1/3 of their size. I'll let you know how that goes.) 

That's where my hubby came in. He used his father's wonderful contraption (known as a skid loader) to slick off the former weed factories and make them respectable parts of the yard once again. Here are some "after" pictures. Many of these spots were completely overgrown and chaotic. Now they're all nice and smooth. You can look at the post "Our Fixer-upper Before" to see a few of these spots before. 

 This was a patch of ornamental grass: healthy, but awkwardly placed. 

 There was a really awkward flower bed (I think) in front of this bench. 

It was lined with bricks, which I always tripped over.

 Right by that purplish tree there were a couple of flowering bushes. 

They didn't add much.

 That whole area in the nook of the concrete was all grown up. 

 I was torn between saving and removing this area. It was a bed of irises, but they had a disease that turned them brown, and we couldn't get the weeds under control. 

Looks a lot different!

New Dog Run for Doug!

We've installed a cable for Doug to run outside and still stay safe. It's a little over 100 foot long (The guy measuring the cable wasn't very precise, but at least it was in our favor). It reaches just perfectly from one of the trees in our yard to the front door and gives Doug lots of room to run. 

That first big tree is where we have the cable secured. Michael made a circle of cable around it with cable ties then attached the cable to a ring, so we hope we won't hurt our tree, and it won't get wrapped up.

I had an idea that pleased me very much. We secured a hook right next to the door to hang the hook from. That way it stays out of the mud, and we don't have to go hunting for it. 

Doug was a little wary of the cable at first, but, once he got used to it, he was very content. He really doesn't have much to complain about; he's pretty spoiled. 

Oh Doug. :)

Our wonderful pooch, Doug, provides us with an unending source of entertainment. I plan to record his escapades here for future reference. Here are a few funny things about our dog. 

• His name is easily substituted with dog. 
• He's an incredibly picky eater...unless it's people food. 
• He made it quite plain that he doesn't eat in the morning. He only eats at dinnertime. 
• He's afraid of cats. 
• He might think he's a cat. 
• He has a spot on the couch. It's in the middle. (Yes, he has weaseled his way into our house as well as into our hearts).
• He loves Hogan's Heroes. 
• He puts his paw on your knee and gives you puppy dog eyes to get you to pet him.
• He likes to sit on people's feet.
• He can and does open doors (We think with his teeth...we've never caught him!) 
• He likes to eat toilet paper and ear plugs.

Boy does that dog have personality! When we first got him, he was an outdoor dog, but then he showed up in the living room one night (we thought we had forgotten and left the door open, but we later learned we hadn't). He was so good in the house, but I still didn't relent until one day he went missing. I was so worried about him that when he came home hurt I let him sleep inside. And there he stayed.

He has done a number of funny things during the time we have had him. When we first got him and he was still staying outside, he would vie for our attention all the time.

One day, he discovered that if he barked really loudly in the garage, I would come check on him (because he's a husky and they seldom bark, so I thought something was wrong). So he barked in the garage several times, and I checked on him. The next thing I know, he's barking at the back door. I opened it and patted his head, then went back to work. I hear him at the front door, then at the back again, then I finally realize that I'm falling for his scheme. Silly dog. :) 

Another funny story. We had a couple of guys working on our house when we weren't there. One of them had never met Doug before and didn't know about him. He didn't get the message about how to get into the house, so when he saw the garage door cracked for Doug to go to the bathroom, he thought he was supposed to crawl underneath. He got halfway under the door and came face to face with Doug. He spent the next 20 minutes hiding in his truck, waiting for Shane to get there because he thought we had a wolf in our garage. 

Since Josh and Doug got off on the wrong foot, I guess Doug didn't like him much, because, later, when Josh was getting ready to crawl under the house, Doug pushed Josh head first into the crawl space with both paws. We're pretty sure it was on purpose.

You never know what that dog is going to do next. 

A Walk in the Park

Today my husband and I traveled to the city to pick up some decorative rock that will be used to create a fireplace facade in our living room. We took our dog, Doug, with us, because he loves to ride in vehicles. 

We had some other stops to make, and Doug had been in the backseat of the truck for quite a while, so we decided to find the nearest park and let him stretch his limbs. It's amazing the worthwhile experiences being a dog owner can lead you into. 

The park was beautiful! It was a nice, chilly day, and the lake the park path wound around was picturesquely frozen over. There was a gaggle of Canadian geese on the water, and occasionally a few of them would take flight. It was serene and just perfect.

While we were at the park, we met an older couple who knew all about the history of the area. The conversation began as I admired some beautiful old chestnut trees along the path. The older man standing nearby commented that they were hundreds of years old. They explained to us that the park used to be part of the estate of a historic home that my husband and I had just been admiring a few roads from there. 

During the course of our conversation, we discovered that both Doug and the dog they were walking were rescued, and that we got them only a month apart. It was nice have a singularly humane conversation with strangers. At times I despair that humanity is slowly losing all human connection.

Oh the Joys of Teaching

Funny Teacher Moment:

First of all, let me say that my students are essentially wonderful young people whom I can trust. Secondly, it is good to note that they some of the orneriest individuals I have ever met.

I little bit of back story on my classroom. I teach at a private Christian school. It's a wonderful environment to work and learn in. The atmosphere is also more relaxed than in public school...and funny things happen.

Funny moments from the past:

• Students randomly trip over things and go flying through the air, and I forget to check on them because I'm laughing so hard. 
• A student hides in my classroom between classes then randomly appears and scares the living daylights out of me and the rest of the class. He happens to be black, and that just adds to his efficient camouflage and makes the shock more effective. 
• My 9th grade class once developed a last name that incorporated the last names of every person in the school from 7th through 12th grade. Between each name was inserted the connective "en" and it was finished off with the suffix "heimer." They included the teachers.
• A fundraiser poster for a spaghetti feed last year featured a giant dinosaur holding a large, glittering bowl of spaghetti. It also took a month for me to rid my classroom of glitter.
  The junior class of last year developed an entire play prophesying what the seniors of last year's lives will be like in twenty years (and the principal's, of course). They acted it out, impersonating their seniors, identified by large, tidied signs hung around their necks. 
• I could go on forever, but I think you get the picture. 

Anyway, random teaching moment that made me laugh. I discovered that a student had drawn on all of the other student's play books (for the Junior/Senior play). What they drew was all a joke, but I didn't consider their humor amusing, so I had the student erase all of the markings and replace them with Scripture.

In order to facilitate the process, I looked up a Scripture verse on my iPhone and handed it to the student to copy. I received my phone back a couple of minutes later, unscathed, but with the following home and lock screen:

Guess I should have expected something of the sort. :)

Cajun Cookin' Tonight!

We just had some jambalaya, and we both thought it was pretty stinkin' good. We're not big on super-spicy food, but a bit of Southern flair adds some nice spice to anyone's life. I kind of came up with an amalgamation of various recipes my mind has absorbed for jambalaya, and it was yummy. 

The thing that made this recipe more comfortable for both my schedule and my budget was starting with a spiced jambalaya rice and adding to it. Two advantages: less thinking time and fewer ingredients I don't keep on hand/can't use up. So here's "my" recipe. Sorry about the vague spice measurements.  I'll apologize this time, but be prepared in the future. :)

1 tablespoon olive oil 1 medium onion, diced 1 medium red bell pepper, diced 1 medium yellow bell pepper, diced 1 can diced tomatoes, undrained 1 can corn, no salt added, drained 1 can black beans, drained  1 cup water 1 (8 ounce) package Zatarain's Reduced Sodium Jambalaya Mix 1 pound large shrimp, peeled and deveined with tails removed 1 (12 ounce) package smoked sausage, cut into 1/4-inch slices Garlic Salt to taste (I added about 1/2 a teaspoon)  A bit of extra Cayenne, if you like Onion Power (Maybe 1/4 teaspoon?)  1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley

Directions 

1.	Heat oil in large deep skillet or 5-quart Dutch oven on medium heat. Add onion and bell peppers; cook and stir 7 minutes or until vegetables begin to soften.
2.	Stir in tomatoes, corn, black beans, water and Jambalaya Mix. Bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cover and simmer 15 minutes.
3.	Stir in shrimp and sausage. Add extra spices, to taste. Cover and cook 10 minutes longer or just until shrimp turn pink and rice and vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Let stand 5 minutes. Sprinkle with parsley, if desired.

Here's the final product. It was even kind of pretty.