A Tale of Two Cheeses

The frenzy of cooking for thanksgiving is over. I don't know if I can have one more glass of wine-mulled or otherwise, another bowl of popcorn that went with every family movie we watched, or cook anything for a few days. Like Karen mentioned on facebook, jammies and sweat pants are looking good right now and I have one more day before I need to get into a pair of dress pants. Sigh.

Even worse is hubby is in a cooking frenzy of trying new recipes. Don't get me wrong this a great thing, any help in the kitchen is wonderful. The difficult part comes with hubby's recipe choices vs. mine. While I pour over cooking light and Jillian recipes he pulls out the one Food Network magazine I have and chooses a bobby flay mac and cheese-I can safely say you will not find this mac and cheese in a calorie counting cookbook. This recipe also comes with four different cheeses that-for those of from Rapid might jknow-are hard to find here. He sends me to the grocery store list in hand-first I can't find fontina.

Second he needs Irish cheddar-well-ok I find some English Cheddar-he doesn't look impressed when I bring it home and tell him, well they are right across the channel from each other. Thank goodness I did find some Irish Cheese-not sure if it is cheddar but hey at least we are on the same island now.

He is disturbed that I didn't bring home American Cheddar, now I must draw the line. American cheddar is orange, we don't need it to say american, we all know cheddar is cheddar in america and it is orange. He is not convinced.

He moves on to his homemade vegetable stock that he is going to use for guess what?? RAMEN NOODLE SOUP. Yes you read correctly, perfectly good homemade veggie stock to be mixed with packaged ramen noodles. Need I say more...I am going to need bigger pants or more wine!

The letter

I received a letter the other day from a "frequent flyer friend" (those kids I tend to see a little too often in the office if you know what I mean). I had written her a note, about 4 sentences, telling her what a great year she was having etc. I had been wanting to do it for awhile and finally had made the time. I recieved this (down below) the next day-hand delivered with a big hug. The teacher told me it would have been a day earlier but she had asked the teacher to proofread it so it could be perfect:

Dear Mrs. Daniel
Thank you for writing me a letter I really appreciate you doing that. That was nice of you and you are right I am working hard, being respectful, working better in my classroom. Everywhere I go but on 11-18-10 I was in in gym playing soccer. Manney evidently kicked me because he was trying to get the soccer ball. I have a question for you. How are you these days? I hope you are having lots of fun and I hope you are happy for me because I haven't been in your office this year excpet for the Ashly thing. I hope you are having good days. By Mrs. Daniel again have a nice day.
Sincerly
MC

You know what MC-Today was an AWESOME DAY and I am happier for you more than you will ever know!

it is a sad day

Dear Mrs. Daniel
Thank you for contacting Sahalie with your order concern.
Item 46335, black boots, size 6.5 are no longer available and we were not able to fulfill your order, and your card was not charged.
We apologize for any inconvenience

Facing your fears

At work I often talk about change with teachers, trying something new, learning in new ways and to quote Eleanor Roosevelt-"Do something each day that scares you". They quote it back to me often. Now, I don't think being scared every day is a good thing but I do try to model to my kids that facing fears can be done. When Carey wrote about surfing and sharks I laughed and made reference to Shark Week. Most of you like me grew up with JAWS and since then my fear of deep water or any water in general is always there. My small fry has never had that fear-he snorkeled like crazy 3 years ago and was excited to do it all again. UNTIL he A) Remembered shark week and B) Hubby saw a big fish with some kind of fin sticking up our first morning and jockingly said shark. Well this was all it took. The first time we went to snorkel, small fry made it about 2 feet into deep water and turned back and refused to go out. This posed a problem as we had just reserved an ALL day snorkeling trip out in deeper waters. He adamantly said "I am not going, no way". We cajoled, convinced him the turtles would be there and reassured etc, he wasn't budging. I finally told him that deep water scared the heck out of me and that he was the one who 3 years ago got me out of the boat. That we would never do something we thought wasn't safe. The whole way in the shuttle he was saying, "Well I'll think about it". We get to the lagoon, he sees the first beautiful blue fish from above and says "I'll do it, I'm scared but I am going to go for it-mom will you hold my hand" You betcha buddy-Will you hold mine?

A little risk is a good thing, you can't enjoy the ride if you don't get the heck on!

photo essay part 2

They wouldn't all fit

To answer Karen's Question: Been there and Back baby!

Here is a large photo essay. If you are looking for a get away this is the PLACE! It rocked!
I tried to get a picture of the lounge door, of a familar friends name. It is a little blurry because everytime I went to take a pic, small fry stepped on the sensor and it slid open! Photos say it better than words, but I do have a few stories to share:)

Checking it off

Well the necessary "stuff" for the trip is in the basket waiting to be dumped in the suitcase
The few lbs I would have liked to lose before we left didn't happen-well who cares anyway
Small fry-the calculated number man has to have the agenda and timeline repeated every day, his mind races a million miles with all the questions:
What time are we leaving, when does the plane leave Rapid? How early do we need to get up? I am getting up at 3 (I quickly say I am NOT).
Can I bring my beyblades? No never mind they won't make it through the metal detector
What time are we coming back?
I need to see if I have make-up work
We are swimming in caves mom-you can't be scared you just have to
Will we see turtles-we are snorkeling right?
Did you look up the weather-no hurricanes right?
Where are my goggles..
and so on and so on
ARE WE THERE YET