"It's good, but it's not as good as Aunt Jean's." This statement cut through me in an instant. My husband had uttered this after tasting some meal I made sometime after we started living together. I angrily fought back tears. I had made a favorite dish of his. A recipe that was raved over by others. And he had the nerve to actually say those words. out loud.
Aunt Jean, in his eyes, is the best cook ever. We all have that person in our lives. Usually it's your mother or grandmother. For him, it's her. Aunt Jean cooked all the Sunday dinners and football tailgates of his life. She IS a great cook. I look forward to the dinners we eat with her. I just don't like hearing how my cooking doesn't live up to hers. (Does anyone?)
My husband doesn't have the best filter when it comes to me. He says things that, well, I think he should have edited or kept to himself. He was being honest-but he should have stopped at "It's good." Over the years he has learned to edit himself most of the time-actually ALL of the time when it comes to my cooking-since I made him cook dinner for a week after that...and any other time he made reference to my cooking being less than exemplary-which, for both our sakes, have been very few. :)
Tonight, I made my favorite chicken soup recipe. I have made it several times before and he has eaten it without much comment. Tonight was different. He looked at me and said, "I really think you need to make this and take it with us the next time we go to Aunt Jean's so she can have some. I think she would like it."
That's the best food compliment he could ever give me!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Saturday, September 17, 2011
It's surprising what you find when you take a different route home
A surprise on a road full of housing plans:
I love the barn in the background:
I love the barn in the background:
Monday, September 12, 2011
The year of the flood
The new school year started out great-the preschool classrooms I provide speech therapy are challenging-but manageable. I knew all the students-had plans in my head for the 10 non-communicators. I went in on a day off to my speech room and scrubbed my floor, organized my desk and got things ready. That first day, as he kids arrived and were obviously happy to be back.
All was good.
For 10 minutes.
That's when a pipe burst. There was a woosh-and a jet engine sound...which was water spewing out of the wall in the bathroom at an incredible rate. Within one minute, water was pouring down the hall into the rooms-including mine.
The next few minutes are a blur. I was running at full speed around the room, unplugging/picking up electrical cords, anything not plastic was (literally) tossed onto any shelf, ledge, table, desk....I was dragging my (now full) tables onto the tile, trying to get the very large area rug up. I have a very large speech room by most standards-full of stuff collected by my predesessor over the 30 years prior to her retirement (plus the 7 boxes of my stuff I brought with me-2 of which I don't have room to unpack). It's wonderful to have all that stuff--except when water is gushing in and suddenly in all four corners.
In the end, only one classroom was spared--the teacher had enough time (she's at the end of the hall) and ingenuity to shut her door and pile up diapers as a dam (it also helped she is apparently the "highest room" in the hallway after years of the foundation settling). Everything else-2 inches of water covered it before they found the water shut off (we lease the basement of a church-who (unfortunately on this day) has a new custodian-and of all places-the water shut off is in the ceiling hidden somewhere-somewhere no one could find.)
That wasn't the worst of it. My room dried (after lots of shop vac use, moving every shelf and cabinet to the center of the room and running fans for 2 days. I had gotten the carpet up in time.
It was the classroom causing the problem. The carpet-older then the hills and when it was wet and drying-it smelled. A horrid gagging odor. It didn't dry out.
We held class in that odor. Barricading my door and the spared classroom against the worst of it. We used my room as a classroom some days, combined kids on others. It was awful. A humid mess.
That's when we were told we were moving. We would have to pack up one day, move and unpack the next-and somehow see the kids. I am not even joking. The reluctance to cancel class was amazing.
Until my supervisor came a week later. She got one whiff of the smell (that, btw, we had been telling her about for one full week) and cancelled class for 3 days. She had us go sit in another school-doing paperwork/busy work/whatever. She gave our employer 3 days to figure out what to do. Move us-or tear up the carpet. They thankfully chose plan B (we don't want to move.)
The kids came back today-to rooms that smell better-but to rooms still disorganized from the chaos. I am still searching for things I use often-that were thrown out of reach of the water or the little hands that touched every square inch of my room during the time their class was held in my room :)
The last 2 weeks have made my Noah's Ark curtains hanging in my speech room:
-ironic.
ps-I have pictures, including the "diaper dam", I took with my phone-but I have an ancient phone and when I send them to my email they are the body of the email-not an attachment.
All was good.
For 10 minutes.
That's when a pipe burst. There was a woosh-and a jet engine sound...which was water spewing out of the wall in the bathroom at an incredible rate. Within one minute, water was pouring down the hall into the rooms-including mine.
The next few minutes are a blur. I was running at full speed around the room, unplugging/picking up electrical cords, anything not plastic was (literally) tossed onto any shelf, ledge, table, desk....I was dragging my (now full) tables onto the tile, trying to get the very large area rug up. I have a very large speech room by most standards-full of stuff collected by my predesessor over the 30 years prior to her retirement (plus the 7 boxes of my stuff I brought with me-2 of which I don't have room to unpack). It's wonderful to have all that stuff--except when water is gushing in and suddenly in all four corners.
In the end, only one classroom was spared--the teacher had enough time (she's at the end of the hall) and ingenuity to shut her door and pile up diapers as a dam (it also helped she is apparently the "highest room" in the hallway after years of the foundation settling). Everything else-2 inches of water covered it before they found the water shut off (we lease the basement of a church-who (unfortunately on this day) has a new custodian-and of all places-the water shut off is in the ceiling hidden somewhere-somewhere no one could find.)
That wasn't the worst of it. My room dried (after lots of shop vac use, moving every shelf and cabinet to the center of the room and running fans for 2 days. I had gotten the carpet up in time.
It was the classroom causing the problem. The carpet-older then the hills and when it was wet and drying-it smelled. A horrid gagging odor. It didn't dry out.
We held class in that odor. Barricading my door and the spared classroom against the worst of it. We used my room as a classroom some days, combined kids on others. It was awful. A humid mess.
That's when we were told we were moving. We would have to pack up one day, move and unpack the next-and somehow see the kids. I am not even joking. The reluctance to cancel class was amazing.
Until my supervisor came a week later. She got one whiff of the smell (that, btw, we had been telling her about for one full week) and cancelled class for 3 days. She had us go sit in another school-doing paperwork/busy work/whatever. She gave our employer 3 days to figure out what to do. Move us-or tear up the carpet. They thankfully chose plan B (we don't want to move.)
The kids came back today-to rooms that smell better-but to rooms still disorganized from the chaos. I am still searching for things I use often-that were thrown out of reach of the water or the little hands that touched every square inch of my room during the time their class was held in my room :)
The last 2 weeks have made my Noah's Ark curtains hanging in my speech room:
-ironic.
ps-I have pictures, including the "diaper dam", I took with my phone-but I have an ancient phone and when I send them to my email they are the body of the email-not an attachment.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
1 step forward...2 steps backward...
It has been about a month or so since my husband and I decided to go ahead with building our family through adoption. I still don't have medical clearance (for a pregnancy) to even think about IVF for me-and I am over 40 so I am not even sure it's a good idea. (almost there with the clearance-they can't find anything-Yay!-but there is this "noise" that shouldn't be there so MRI's and Ultrasounds are being done 1 by 1 to rule out everything to classify me as just an odd duck)
So the husband and I went to an orientation on newborn adoption. It was hard to hear the price tag-even though we knew what it was before we went (over 20K minimum). Also, if for some reason you aren't accepted (fail the application, home study, references-anything) you don't get a refund-not that we would fail-but zOMG that's a scary prospect. There is also the matter of putting yourself out there for a birth mom to "pick" from all the others. THAT alone is daunting. Then there is the time factor. 2-4+ years. or sooner-again-it's the "pick me!" factor.
I called some foster care/adoption agencies.
One really discouraged me from coming in-they prefer to serve people who want older kids. I "could" be served by them...but really, they don't want me.
One agency hasn't contacted me back at all
One I have called 3-4 times a week for 3+ weeks. The woman tried to call me once, maybe twice. I call almost daily (and leave messages every other day)-she is either in a training or "out (in the field) for the rest of the week"
I know foster care/adoption can be a hassle-but seriously, I am almost striking out even getting to an orientation.
Finally, yesterday I found and contacted another agency. They got back to me right away. Unfortunately a couple hours too late for us to make it to the orientation being held last night. BUT there is one next week. Good thing I have an understanding boss because I will have to go from Washington to Shadyside (?) by 5pm. At least it's something, though.
I keep going into the "kids room" and sit. It's nice in there. (it's as done as it can be for now) We need a crib that changes to a toddler bed, though.
So the husband and I went to an orientation on newborn adoption. It was hard to hear the price tag-even though we knew what it was before we went (over 20K minimum). Also, if for some reason you aren't accepted (fail the application, home study, references-anything) you don't get a refund-not that we would fail-but zOMG that's a scary prospect. There is also the matter of putting yourself out there for a birth mom to "pick" from all the others. THAT alone is daunting. Then there is the time factor. 2-4+ years. or sooner-again-it's the "pick me!" factor.
I called some foster care/adoption agencies.
One really discouraged me from coming in-they prefer to serve people who want older kids. I "could" be served by them...but really, they don't want me.
One agency hasn't contacted me back at all
One I have called 3-4 times a week for 3+ weeks. The woman tried to call me once, maybe twice. I call almost daily (and leave messages every other day)-she is either in a training or "out (in the field) for the rest of the week"
I know foster care/adoption can be a hassle-but seriously, I am almost striking out even getting to an orientation.
Finally, yesterday I found and contacted another agency. They got back to me right away. Unfortunately a couple hours too late for us to make it to the orientation being held last night. BUT there is one next week. Good thing I have an understanding boss because I will have to go from Washington to Shadyside (?) by 5pm. At least it's something, though.
I keep going into the "kids room" and sit. It's nice in there. (it's as done as it can be for now) We need a crib that changes to a toddler bed, though.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Pin it
Have you ever seen an idea that just grabs you on the internet? You know the one. The one that will change your house/work/life. The one you have to remember for the future. So you bookmark it. And a couple/years months later can't find it, have no idea where it is in the 10's of thousands of urls staring at you from your bookmark dropdown. Yeah, that's me. I have an entire page of small print urls, continuous text, in a word document on my desktop-bookmarks from my old computer. I have no idea what's there-and when I remember one and need to find it-it takes forever.
Until Pinterest.
I specifically started on Pinterest to see if I could "pin" speech therapy ideas (I actually emailed requested an invite of Pinterest-because no one I knew was on it (yet)) At the time, I couldn't find any other SLP's on that site. No speech ideas. No language ideas-barely any teaching ideas nothing. I started adding my "finds", liking the idea of "visual, sorted bookmarks" wondering if it would catch on...and in the meantime collecting tons of cool ideas for the home and recipes to make....wow! such great stuff.
Today, I have so many ideas in my "speech therapy toolbox" that I have found on Pinterest. Therapy ideas, classroom ideas, crafts, sensory....all visually sorted. I find new things every day.
Here are just a few:
Tap the lights for words in a sentence or sounds in a word...
A pirate sensory box...great for language therapy
Sensory stepping stones!
Hand print crafts:
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
and ideas for my home (or dream home)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
if you haven't checked out Pinterest-do so.
I am ChicoryBlue (all one word) so look me up and follow me.
You can take a look at my boards-there are speech ideas, classroom things, and just general life categories. If you like what you see request an invite from me. you can request on the link above-or leave me a comment with your email address.
You won't regret it!
Oh-and if you are already there-help me find you!
I guess I have to add this: Pinterest doesn't even know I am writing about them. They didn't ask me to and I am not being compensated in any way. I'm just spreading my love of this site.
Until Pinterest.
I specifically started on Pinterest to see if I could "pin" speech therapy ideas (I actually emailed requested an invite of Pinterest-because no one I knew was on it (yet)) At the time, I couldn't find any other SLP's on that site. No speech ideas. No language ideas-barely any teaching ideas nothing. I started adding my "finds", liking the idea of "visual, sorted bookmarks" wondering if it would catch on...and in the meantime collecting tons of cool ideas for the home and recipes to make....wow! such great stuff.
Today, I have so many ideas in my "speech therapy toolbox" that I have found on Pinterest. Therapy ideas, classroom ideas, crafts, sensory....all visually sorted. I find new things every day.
Here are just a few:
Tap the lights for words in a sentence or sounds in a word...
Source: lilcountrykindergarten.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest
A pirate sensory box...great for language therapy
Source: countingcoconuts.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest
Sensory stepping stones!
Source: wendyjanelle.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest
Hand print crafts:
Source: weheartit.com via Lisa on Pinterest
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
and ideas for my home (or dream home)
Source: melissa-dontforget.blogspot.com via Lisa on Pinterest
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Source: flickr.com via Lisa on Pinterest
.
.
.
Source: realsimple.com via Lisa on Pinterest
if you haven't checked out Pinterest-do so.
I am ChicoryBlue (all one word) so look me up and follow me.
You can take a look at my boards-there are speech ideas, classroom things, and just general life categories. If you like what you see request an invite from me. you can request on the link above-or leave me a comment with your email address.
You won't regret it!
Oh-and if you are already there-help me find you!
I guess I have to add this: Pinterest doesn't even know I am writing about them. They didn't ask me to and I am not being compensated in any way. I'm just spreading my love of this site.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)