Thoughts...?

To begin, I teach at a Catholic high school.  The students have to wear uniforms everyday except for Fridays and other special days.  Overall, the school is great, but very conservative.  A mom called me an atheist and an Obama supporter in one accusation!!

Tonight, at our usual Tuesday night dinner, I started talking about an incident at school involving dress code, a detention, and making a student change his shirt.  Immediately everyone jumps on me for being a mean teacher!  Now maybe they were siding with my grandmother, who thinks and tells everyone that I am the meanest teacher in the world, to earn brownie points.  But here is the situation and then I would like to hear your thoughts--am I a mean teacher or did the family jump on the black sheep once again?!?

This student likes to push the limits.  He is nice, but a does not like to follow any rules.  Previous examples, when he was on Academic Probation he had to meet with all of his teachers once a week to catch up.  He never showed up once, and every teacher arranged his/her schedule to accommodate for him.  He asked me if he could have my cell phone number and we can meet at a Starbucks one Saturday to study.  And his school polo was never tucked in (dress code violation) and had multiple warnings and detentions for that as well.

 Today was one of the days when the kids were allowed to wear jeans and a green top if they donated money to a charity.  This student comes to school in jeans and a Pabst Blue Ribbon St. Patty's Day shirt. (For those who do not know, PBR is a cheap, nasty beer.) For violating school policy,  I wrote him a detention slip and asked the Dean of Students to make him cover up his shirt somehow.  Now, was I a mean teacher by punishing a student who wore a beer t-shirt to a Catholic high school?!?!

Thoughts...?

Fourth time is the charm!

Yea!  For a few weeks I have been on a kick of trying to make a really good soft pretzel, but have failed on all but one attempts.  The first time, I put wax paper in the oven and almost burnt the house down... oops.   The next two times were not good, too bland.   But today, I found a new recipe, thank you Alton Brown!  

I know the picture does not show how good these are, but trust me, they are goooooood!  And, they are almost gone...

Now, I need to work on making dips for them!

FunFetti Cupcakes Take 1 results

Results: They looked good, but they can taste better. My roommate Betsy I think hit the nail on the head when she said that they tasted more like sugar cookies than cupcakes. I found a new recipe that I think will solve the problem...I will keep you posted!! (Haha, see how funny I am)

Annie Cooks

Part of my Middle Child Syndrome is that I have all of these creative ideas in my head but when I try to execute them they fail miserably.  Especially when it comes to arts and crafts, and all I want to do id be like Martha Stewart.  But my sister is awesome!  Check out her blog, she will make you things!! (janiebaby.blogspot.com) However, when it comes to baking, I do pretty well.  

My friends from college and I have a slight obsession with FunFetti cake mix.  So this weekend I tried to make my own FunFetti cupcakes from scratch.  Here is what they look like...not too bad.  I am taking them to work tomorrow for a taste test.  I just hope that I am giving the box mix a run for its money, or at least some where close. 

I love my Snuggie!

Yes I have a Snuggie! Yes I love it! Yes, you should be jealous that I can knit and read AND keep my arms warm!

Teddy Dog Show

Here is a story that I think best defines my life as a middle child…everyone refers to it as Teddy Dog Show.

I will just cut to the chase—I sound corny when I try to build something up. So one day in the summer, not sure how old I was, but my sister, Janie, and cousin, Jannie, were all playing together. We decided that it would be fun to put on a dog show, more like a horse show, with Teddy.

We turned our backyard into the ring, and we made all the jumps from the pool furniture, floating noodles, trash cans, really anything that we could find. When we started to discuss who would be what, Janie quickly stated that she would be Teddy’s trainer, the one who gets the glory when he would do well. Janie then assigns Jannie to be the commentator because she was taking riding lessons and would know what she was talking about. As for me, I became a jump. My job was to just stretch my arm and leg out to the trashcans and wait for Janie and Teddy to jump over me. It was made very clear to me that only I could do this because I was the tallest—I believed them. I took the job very seriously, thinking that I was playing an important role. But, in the end, I got no glory, no recognition like Teddy, Janie, and Jannie.


It was not until a few years later when I watched the video that I realized how nerdy I really was. And it is so typical of me, Janie, and Jannie even to this day: Janie always had the most powerful position, Jannie was always the brains behind it, and I was always just there doing the jobs that no else wanted to. Another example is when we made a contraption that would pull people and put it on Teddy. We duct-taped rollerblades to a Radio Flyer, made reins and a harness, and put them on Teddy. Janie got to ride, I ran next to Teddy to make sure that he kept going. Typical.

Even before I started this blog, I have had many people request to hear stories about me growing up.  I remember one time in college, my friends and I spend an hour retelling Annie as a kid stories and we all left in tears because we laughed so hard!  I guess it was my mullet that they found so desirable...

Yep, thats a mullet!  In the fourth grade I went with my grandmother to her hairdresser and walked out with a mullet.  And the "bangs" are layered!!  The picture does not show it, but my teeth looked like Chicklets and I needed braces REAL bad.  

For two years my sister and I took dance lessons at DeAnn's Dance Studio.  In our first dance I was still in my cute phase and young enough that everything I did was cute.  During the dance, we had to jump in the air and do a full 360 turn.  I had too much spin and not enough jump.  I land and I have only rotated three-fourths of the way.  I still had spin in me however so I keep going.  Watching the video, you can see me jump to the right about two feet, my body following my head.   I have never seen John laugh so hard than when he first watched that video.  Also in the first one, the day of the recital my sister spilled nail polish on her tights and refused to wear them.  So guess who does...me!  

The pictures above came from my second dance recital.  As you can see, I entered into my twenty year awkward phase.  In this recital, we had to wear a silver sequin headband and no headband looks good with a mullet!  Headbands so look cute, however, with blond bangs that are curled to the side like my sister had!  During this dance I was always a half beat behind because I am looking back at my sister, watching her.  I did that a lot as kid, looked at my sister.  Dont know why.  Just me being weird.  

Maybe it is because of these performances that I have not made it in the entertainment business.  Or the fact that I cannot carry a tune.  My sister used to say that when I would sing it gave her gas.  But I like to think that I turned out alright.  I am still weird at times, but I have made some progress.  

Until next time, look back at this picture when you need a good laugh!!