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The Scary Salad and Other Tales of Easter Dinner

Well, we had Easter dinner at our house.  We decided to invite a few friends over and have a nice dinner and good conversation.  I bought the spiral cut honey baked ham, the veggies, eggs to hard boil, and collected a couple recipes like the Potatoes Recipe (which was pretty good but really creamy and mild) and a salad recipe my good friend Amy said was FANTASTIC.  Of course, in typical "carey" fashion, I could NOT for the life of me find the recipe on Saturday night.  The only recipe that seemed even remotely like the one she recommended was this Melon Salad one.  The only problem was that is wasn't a MELON SALAD, so I improvised using my all time favorite dressing Bluefin Bay's Raspberry Vinaigrette from Bluefin Bay on Lake Superior, a fantastic resort in one of my favorite areas of the world, the North Shore of Lake Superior.

Here is the recipe (I am not good about precise amounts)

• A bunch of mixed greens
• Raspberry Vinaigrette
• Raspberry Vinegar
• 2 packages of prosciutto (1 for a smaller salad or for those more"restrained in the usage of expensive salty meat" than I am.
• an apple or so
• 2 to three oranges
• a bunch of scallions
• a few grape tomatoes or other "pretty color veggies"
• candied walnuts or Honey Toasted Delites Salad Pizazz if you are lazy like me.

Put greens in bowl, cut up scallions, proscuttio into small strips, apples, oranges and throw in other veggies if wanted (I put in a handful of grape tomatoes for color).  Mix salad dressing with vinegar to make it less thick.  I mixed about 3/4 cup with about 3 tb of vinegar (I like a lot of dressing).  Mix dressing in with salad mixture.  Sprinkle with mixed nuts.

This was the raving success of the day!  It was fantastic and everyone (all nine people) loved it!  Oh, and by the way, that dressing is awesome on EVERYTHING...especially chicken!

Easter=Furniture shopping (right?)

So, it is Easter weekend, and we are getting our house put together (finally) since we are having people over for dinner.  We realize that our furniture is too big...yes, too big.  It is the same furniture we have had for eight years, and suddenly it has grown to immense proportions!  how does this happen?  Well, we added a new bookcase from IKEA (I had REALLY outgrown my old one), and upon adding this new addition to the living room, we now have a living room that looks like a full parking lot.

So, yeah, well, we ahhh went and bought new furniture.  I must have caught Bob on a really good day.  It will be arriving on Tuesday,and I am having a bit of buyer's remorse.

OK, let me weigh the pros and cons:

Cons of old furniture:  Too big, too "not me anymore", collects WAAAAAY TOO MUCH dog hair.

Pros of old furniture:  REALLY comfortable and the DOGS love it!

Cons of new furniture: not as comfortable, dogs will not like it as much (don't ask how I know...i just KNOW these things)

Pros of new furniture:  Attractive and classic, leather and easy to clean off dog hair,  smaller (2 chairs and 1 sofa)

OK, I feel a bit better...therapy by blogging.

Oh yeah, and by the way, Easter dinner was successful.  Our friends that attended left very full and happy, and we were too!

The Darkest Days

Two school shootings in two years.  Last year there was a school shooting at Rocori, a school district 15 miles away from where I teach.  This year it is at Red Lake, a district "up north" that already has it's own struggles with poverty and culture clashes before they were immersed into this tragedy.

..and the same damn questions from 1999's Columbine are still hovering in the electric air of fear and blame, and there are still no answers.  More security....check.  More training about bullying...check.  Better awareness of students in crisis....check.   Scary "code red" plans in place....check.   ...and on and on, and yet, two school shooting in 2 years on my back porch.  So, the media tries to find answers for our plethora of questions...it makes a good story.  I am feeling a bit cynical about the media as they try to weasel their way into a very private community that is trying to cope and grieve.  I am feeling a bit offended as the media points fingers at the schools.  ...and in the meantime, while they hypothesize about Nazi websites, trench coats and antisocial behaviors, I get to go to MY classroom and try to teach as I stand sentinel over my domain, and I get to walk through MY lunchroom and watch for sudden movements and shifty glances, and I get to go on with my life and try not to dwell on the "what if's" too much.

Gluttonous Feeding Frenzy

I love food.  I love the fresh taste of precisely cooked vegetables, the fragrant smell of curry, the butter smoothness as I cut into a perfectly cooked steak, the crackle sound of a spoon breaking through the thin layer of the hard sugar topping of creme brulee.  I love the process of cracking open a crab claw and dipping the delicate meat in decadent drawn butter. 

Most of my close friends enjoy food as much as I do.  Amy and Melissa are two of my fellow food connoisseurs, and since I spent the weekend with them, we focused the weekend around good food.

Friday night:  Bob and I went to Mojito in Minneapolis with Pat and Mel.  Mojito serves their food Rodizio style.  Basically, for $30,  a person can partake in a mind numbing carnivorous gluttonous experience.  Unlimited amounts of salmon, bacon wrapped fillet, pork roast and pineapple, bacon wrapped turkey medallions, prime rib, scallops,  chicken wings, turkey legs, top sirloin etc... are brought to the table and shaved off from large sword-like skewers.  Not only does one participate in a meat lovers Utopian experience, but a person also is provided with salad, mashed root vegetables and fried plantains.  Of course, all this was topped off with a couple of Mojitos, that sugary lemon/lime/mint drink that goes down so well.

Saturday lunch:  Amy and I went rug shopping, and we stopped at one of my all time favorite restaurants, RedStone, we shared the buffalo shrimp appetizer and had salad and chicken mushroom flatbread....yummmmmm.

Saturday evening:  Amy and I got take out from a little strip mall Vietnamese restaurant that she had never tried before but was five minutes from her house.  It was cheap and excellent!  We had sesame chicken, eggs rolls and garlic beef.

Sunday meal:  We went to Rainbow Chinese Restaurant with the Martins and we shared egg rolls, cream cheese puffs (with peanut butter), a curry shrimp, beef lo mein and garlic chicken.  This restaurant is always rated one of the best in town, and it was fantastic.  The garlic chicken was unlike anything else I have ever had.  Another big YUMMM!

So, yeah, that was my gluttonous weekend.  I am not proud, but I wouldn't change a thing about the weekend!

Photo:  Barb's creation.  My mother-in-law's cake she made for Christmas 2004.

Slackin, stressin' and freakin' out

Where does the time go?  I haven't been keeping up on my blog.  I am not done with my 2nd trimester grades (and they are due tomorrow), and I haven't scrapped in a couple weeks.  I am not sure what in the hell is going on, but I have no clue where my time goes.  I did "almost" get my office/studio cleaned up and I have spent more time than I should thinking about the Hall of Fame contest I entered, but beyond that, everything else is a bit fuzzy.

On another note:

I do want to give a shout to to my Undie girls.  We have been together for a year now and I feel like I have known you much longer than that. Your friendship has enriched my life...so in honor of our anniversary I have a couple of haiku's to share:

**Kate is our founder

forever am I grateful

She is more than "swell"**

**Embellished undies

thrown together in the wash

with basic tight/white**

**Sharing of layouts

Laughing, snarking, and tooting

A helluva year!**

                     Love Ya!

I thought Ostrich was a country...

Oh, I suppose that is Austria...

I have a couple of ninth grade girls that have stunningly similar attributes of those of Jessica Simpson...and let's just say they are not that well endowed.  Sometimes, when they say something like that little gem or when they say, "I didn't KNOW I was supposed to do the essay question ",  even though I said at least three times before the quiz..."You MUST do the essay question ",I sometimes just want to run out of the room screaming and begging for mercy.  I used to have a friend, and yes, she took honors classes in college, who was fond of these random comments.  One day she looked at us earnestly while we were watching a football game in the Metrodome and asked us, "why don't they have grass stains on their uniforms?"

Ya gotta love the Jessica's of the world and their ostriches, tuna/chicken and turf.

If thou be wise...

I am not really sure how I became a Knowledge Bowl coach.  I guess no one else wanted to do it, and I wasn't tenured, but as my third year comes to a close, I am really glad I was roped into doing this.  First of all, the kids are so dang funny.  Yes, they are a bit quirky (so am I), but we do have fun.  I will never live down what I did at the stop light two years ago (don't ask) or the fact that the Subway guy was flirting with me.   Next, I became a better Trival Pursuit player... I can't say that I am really all that good, but I certainly am better than I used to be.  Finally,  how cool is it to be in possession of buzzer strips? I mean, that has to rank high on the coolness scale.  If I get a chance, I will add a few questions tomorrow. In the meantime, if you click on the link above and listen to the audio, there are a couple of sample questions.

An American Tune...just an earworm to share

I have this song in my head American Tune (listen here) ...yes, my Canadian friends, this is for you too...LOL.  It is by Paul Simon.

I just really like this song.  Here are the lyrics:

Many's the time I've been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I've often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I'm alright, I'm alright
I'm just weary to my bones
Still, you don't expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far a-way from home, so far away from home

And I don't know a soul who's not been battered
I don't have a friend who feels at ease
I don't know a dream that's not been shattered
or driven to its knees
but it's alright, it's alright
for we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
road we're traveling on
I wonder what's gone wrong
I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call the Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the a-ge's most uncertain hours
and sing an American tune
Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
You can't be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest

Dang Mod Podge

I just stepped on this jar of ModPodge ...why was it on the floor you ask?  I am sure it has nothing to do with my scrap room/studio/sty/office/den/cave being a complete and utter DISASTER!  No not at all!  You can't see my "room", so I will tell you all that all is well.  I am so very organized and my room is pristine...I would invite each and every one of you to join me in a soiree (hard helmets and steel toed shoes must be worn at all times...no lifeguard on duty...enter at your own risk ).  So, anyway, I had Mod Podge goo all over my carpet, foot, scrap table, bathroom sink, makeup kit and hair dryer.  All is well now, but I will never have the same relationship with The Podge as I had before...we can never go back to our time of innocence.  :::SIGH::::

Other than that, I am just waiting to hear that my friend Jen has had her baby and getting ready for my Composition 11 student's research paper hand in tomorrow...  I am betting that at least three will not be done...anyone up for a bet?  We have only been working on them for a month...I kid you not.  :::ANOTHER SIGH::::::::