Monday, February 23, 2009

I'm leavin' on a jet plane

So, as many of you know, I am leaving for Boston tomorrow for a conference. And by conference I mean presenting for an hour and then seeing all I can see in Boston.

You may also know that my husband is helpless in the food arena. And by helpless I mean that every fast food joint within a mile of our home will see an surge in business.

Being the wonderful, doting wife I am I bought and made several meals for my husband, which will still be located in the fridge when I return. To continue on my pathway to awesome wife-dom, I made my favorite meal for dinner tonight. Because that what every wife does; makes HER favorite meal before leaving her husband for a week. On the menu, lemon pepper chicken, stuffing and mashed potatoes.


What about dessert? Well, I had hoped to make some chocolate chip cookies but, we apparently are out of brown sugar. Solution; DQ took care of that for me.

If my husband shows up on your doorstep with sad puppy dog eyes, please feed him- and know there were pre-made meals at home waiting for him ;)

Friday, February 20, 2009

New desserts...



I have three night classes that meet over the dinner hour. To solve this problem, my peers and I rotate who brings "snacks" to class. This week was my week in two of the three classes. We typically stick to snacky foods, and I like to bring in new desserts for others to try (and more importantly, get them out of my kitchen!).

First, I took the delicious brownie/chocolate chip cookie bars I have mentioned in previous posts and made them into cupcakes. They are a lot easier to eat this way when you eat in a classroom with no utensils. They cooked for what seemed to be forever, and since I forgot to spray the cups, the paper stuck some. I will definitely make them this way again, but next time I will steal Christine's idea and use break and bake cookies, they would be the perfect size and remove human error.

Clearly you can see my husband sampled them :)

The second recipe i stole from kraftfood.com. I used the left over ganache frosting for these, and they were delicious.

Finally, I made these while rocking out to a Moses Prey rehearsal. Haven't heard of them? You should check them out!

Apparently there was a run on Neufchatel cheese at three stores I stopped at. Cream cheese was an obvious substitute, and they turned out just fine. No picture though... they didn't last too long. This baking thing is pretty sweet!

Valentines Day

Mike and I are not big on gifts. Go ahead, make your assumptions now.
"You're just saying that, every girl likes gifts", "Who are you kidding, you're lying", or better yet, " are you sure you didn't want anything for ____". I have heard them all.

Its true. I enjoy giving gifts, but have no need to receive them. Occasional surprises are fine, but flowers die, I eat chocolate regularly anyway, and I like to pick out my own clothes/jewelry/etc.

This being said, Valentines day consisted of Mike and I babysitting my nephew Junior. Pretty fun day to me! We spent the afternoon sledding. followed by a rejuvinating nap, and the evening playing with every toy (and non-toy) in the house.

Cute kid story: Junior called Mike " My mommy Mike" all weekend. My heart melts every time he says it!

It was the perfect valentines day!

Snow Day...

After finishing my thesis, I was rewarded abundantly. How you ask? SNOW DAY!


Typically when the phone rings anytime before 8am on any given day, I am not a happy person. Being awake without a pot of coffee in me before 8 am sends me into a fit of curse words I am too lady-like to share with everyone; but you get the idea.

This is my snow day....

measuring the snow fall with a cup o' joe...



eating waffles...

(yes, out of boredom I took a picture of the box!)

and hanging with the hubby...

Don't be too jealous. Although you should be!

Why I haven't Posted...

Its been a while since I have blogged. Why you ask? One word... THESIS. This mother of all projects has been a large part of my life for the past three years and I am happy to say that it has been revised countless times, defended, and submitted to a journal and awaiting their ruthless slaughter of all my heard work and dedication.

Countless hours or hard work, reading, revising, writing, and crying have been poured into this. The weight that has been lifted completing this project...priceless. (Literally, there is no way in hell I am buying the cheesy blue bound book they stick in the library with gold writing... scrapbooking it on the otherhand... thats a thought).

My sweetheart of a husband should have invested stock in kleenex over the past three years. Wait, maybe not in this market, but lets just say I went through a lot. He did invest in these beautiful flowers and a sweet card to say congrats...



When people ask, "what was your thesis about?" I begrudgingly sigh and try to come up with an easy way to summarize everything I have done in as few words as possible. I fail miserably every time. Its not easy to shove 60 pages and three years of work into five words or less that are meaningful to others. The title : Online Aggression and Victimization: Impact on School Involvement and School Satisfaction. What it means- kids have found new ways to be mean, and its terrible for both the kid getting picked on and the jerk doing it. Kids can't get away from being picked on, teased, or berated by their peers- cell phones lay at our nightstands at night, go into the pocket of our favorite sweatshirt or jeans the next day, they even follow us into the bathrooms. Pretty sad. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that dealing with this day in and day out is not good.

Starting grad school, I never thought I would actually enjoy research. I loathed the thought in fact. Life is pointing his finger at me and laughing now... I enjoy research. So much in fact, I am embarking on a statewide study of teachers in Nebraska to see how they feel about "cyberbullying" and what they think should be done to fix it. Lots of work, countless tears already, but it should be pretty sweet.

Next task... landing a job and making money.

I think I can, I think I can.


Thursday, February 5, 2009

Education bailout??

Begin rant.

Perhaps I am extraordinarily pessimistic today, but when are we going to bailout the educational system? When are we going to invest the same amount of time and resources into our future as we do into our economy? Last time I checked, education was critical to the wealth and advancement of our nation, yet by and large, its always placed on the back burner.

We are so concerned right now with what big CEO's are going to do now that their salaries are capped when the field of education only dreams of making six digits. Our priorities are really messed up, and it ticks me off. The day we really take a good hard look at the world of education, and start rewarding our educators the same way we do our CEO's will be the day that the US makes the best "bailout" decision ever.

End rant.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

Junior's 2nd Birthday

After a chaotic week, it was FINALLY time for Junior's birthday party. Of course there was lots of goodies!

First, the cupcake bites. These were a hit again, and now I am wanting to come up with ways to change it up... perhaps with an oreo ball center?

Second, Cindy made these for Junior. Ingore the one without a scarf :)

He got lots of fun gifts...



Junior loved his new monster truck from Grandpa, and all the other gifts paled in comparison.
We certainly know how to throw a party!!!
After all that fun, I was exhausted :)