A political post - I really don't like 'em either!

I have not spoken on my blog about much of the political issues going on around our wonderful state of Wisconsin.
Governor Walker is addressing the public as I type to share his Budget Address for the next two years {short term}, NOT about his Budget Repair Bill {longterm} that has made national news. Although, he has brought it (Budget Repair bill) up many times already in the first 10 minutes of his Address.

Many states are in budget problems; many states have made drastic cuts to education; it is very frustrating for both sides of this sad issue regardless of where you/we live! I have never been a teacher to complain about my income because I understood the added "income" that came in the form of benefits. But bottom line: I became a teacher because ...... I was meant to BE a teacher!

Let me be the first to say from the absolute bottom of my heart----I have NEVER liked the "politics" about politics. Yeah---kinda ironic, but I'm sure many of you know what I mean. Things are said, but actions don't always follow. Actions are performed, but don't always agree with what had been said.

Some of Walker's quotes....
** "We have a diverse set of beliefs"

** "Each (person) has a vision to better Wisconsin"

** "We all want Wisconsin to be the very best."

** "People of Wisconsin will always come first."

** "Despite budget cuts, the longterm funds will allow more money and resources to be made available in the classrooms.....". ???? Hmmm.....I'm optimistic, but I'm also a skeptical mathematician who also happens to be a teacher.

** "This budget delivers true tax breaks to home owners..."

** "3rd Grade basic Literacy assessment will be established"



I really don't like politics. I don't like controversy. I see little things on both sides of this political fence. I have not made much of a voice on either side, although, naturally, I am supporting most of what is sent my way via my District's head negotiator.

BLAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Why can't life just be simpler?

Are you smarter than a 4th grader?

Cassie and a friend have partnered up to work on a science project. I'm not 100% clear on what the requirements are for it, but her task was to write 5 math questions for part of the "Wheel of Fortune" type game. She spent some time searching online for some questions, but ended up writing all but #1 herself. She tells me she and her partner already wrote 5 science questions for the wheel; she didn't have them here at home for me to post (sorry ANGELA!!!)

Anyway----wanna play with the math questions??? ;0)


#1) Do mathematicians know who invented multiplication?

#2) A heptagon is a shape with how many sides?

#3) How many factor pairs are there for the number 24?

#4) If 8 x 7 = 56, what would the p mean in p x 7 = 56?

#5) If 6 people have 1 1/2 apples, how much apple would each person get in order to share equally?

Answers to be posted Wednesday night just so you can feel good about yourselves :0)

Raven Stars; Red Blossoms; RRCB; BIL visit; Stash Report

Since Raven Stars isn't a mystery, AND for the fact that I want to show you all that I HAVE been doing something quilty this weekend.........my quilt center has been pieced despite having two more steps yet to be printed for y'all. This is merely the quilt center; I am still planning a simple border.

A shot of my design wall, still housing Red Blossoms; the border pinwheels were my leader-ender project for the day.


At the end of the day, with about 30 minutes left on the clock before I knew I needed to pack up, I pieced together 10 of the string blocks for RRCB.

Amazingly, for much of the day though, I was upstairs watching "Uncle Ryan" and Cassie and all the others play the Wii. Simutaneously, I worked on a puzzle that has been out on our side table since Christmas; I'm not much of a puzzler, but.......I finished it. Sorry Cass!!!!

Although a good amount of sewing happened this weekend, my stash report still won't change (much) since all the fabric used had already been recorded. However, I will at least get updated numbers to include the fabric used last weekend for the mini-nine-patches.

Stash Report: Feb. 14 - 27
Used/week: .61 yds
Purch/week: 0.0 yds

Used/year: 34.93 yds
Purch/year: 6.0 yds

Net Used: 28.93 yds

:0( Comments not going to email

HEY! My email is quiet!!! Maybe my Email Hoarding is catching up with me???? ;0) Here I thought my readers ditched me and left me high-n-dry!!!

But NOPE! I have comments. I can see them on my blog. BUT for some reason they aren't showing up (or being sent) to my email.

Hmmmm.......anyone else experiencing this????


The last comment that was sent to my email was early on the 24th of Feb. NADDA since then.

Pork Roast---tryin' something new.

Usually, I do the simple "set-it-and-forget-it" procedure when cooking pork or beef roasts. A couple of years ago, I was watching my mom prepare her beef roast (and NO, my mother is NOT a cook; just ask my husband!!!----I grew up with Mac-n-Cheese and Hamburgers) :0) But anyway....ya can't really screw up a roast in a slow cooker (unless you simply cook it too long!). She tore open a package of Lipton Onion soup mix, dumped it in her slow cooker, poured water in and let her roast take a bath for a couple of hours in the mixture. Tsha! Easy! And I've done it that way a few times since; enjoying the ease of the "recipe" (is it really a recipe when all you've done is dump in a dry mix????), and the flavor is perfectly fine for my taste. Plus, the seasoned "juice" is great to make gravy from.

Well.... :0(

Of the whole list of items I had DH pick up yesterday, I FORGOT to put Lipton Onion Soup mix :0(

Now, there IS a condensed Campbell's soup can of French Onion soup in the pantry, but I was strictly told "NO! I have plans for that!" {{for crying out loud...as IF the store doesn't stock more, right!?!?!?}}

BUT, not wanting to have a foolish tiff going with company here, I rummaged through the seasoning cupboard to see what goodies I could find to give this roast for tonight's meal some good flavor.

For Christmas 2007, my sister and BIL gifted my husband with a large box of Penzey Spices. Some of my favorites: Northwoods seasoning, Pork Chop seasoning, and Bicentennial Rub. After searing the meat in a HOT frying pan, I grabbed the Rub and gave the meat a good coat.








AND.....I grabbed this as well! I've never cooked with it; I think DH bought it for a recipe some time ago. But after opening it up and taking a whiff......YUMMMMMMY smoky smell!!! I knew I had to try it!

So, into the crock pot it went: 8 Tbls. I HOPE that's not too much with 8 cups of water!?!?! There wasn't much for directions on the bottle, and I didn't search online about it. {{I dunno! Have you ever cooked with it??? What can you tell me about this??}} This is a BIG pork roast!!!! I'm certain the flavor will be just fine, but always a little unsure about new "attempts"----specially when cooking for a BIL!!! ;0) **yikes**

Okay----we'll see. I've "set it".....so now.....time to forget it.

But I'm pooped! No interest to head back downstairs right now. However, I have a book waiting on the end table; I'm reading "Breaking Dawn" for the third time. I haven't read it for some time and I kinda forgot some of the details, so.....yeah....wanted to read it again.

Cold Quilting!

I'm working away on the quilting of Blue Ridge Beauty.....after one pass, I realized that my fuzzy socks alone weren't going to keep my feet warm, so I went upstairs to find my slippers. Then three or four passes later, I had just about enough! Gah! 54 degrees----no WONDER that I thought it seemed a bit colder than normal! We don't heat the downstairs, and recall that I purchased a little space heater for my quilting room, BUT the quilting frame/machine is in a different part of the downstairs.

We have enough of these black $1 thin gloves in our glove-stash. The girls don't wear them much (unless they've misplaced their thicker heavy-duty-play-in-snow-and-don't-get-cold gloves.) The sacrifice made really did make a difference.

reply to a post update
Cindy writes:

Ok...I don't want to sound smart, but couldn't you unplug the portable heater and move it to where you are? Of course if its plugged in behind lots of stuff, this wouldn't be feasible.

Cindy

Yes, I thought of this as an option, but the heater is rather small; for a small room. The space where my frame is is very large, very open and I'm moving back-n-forth along the frame; never really in one space. I didn't think it would be a great solution; simply too much space to heat :0( Thanks for the suggestion, though!!!!!!!!








Company update:
SIL headed out (alone) this morning to travel to her grandpa's house. Our house is a good "inbetween" location. Besides, by stopping here, the cousins can hang out as well as DH and his brother. They just took off for a couple hours of ice-fishing with a couple of kids in tow. Cassie and Candace chose to stay behind with me, though.

A funny:
As I was trying out the new gloves, Chessa (niece) came down--already bundled up, ready for fishing-- and asked....
Chessa: "Aunt Amy, what'cha doin?" (She's 5, BTW).
Me: I'm quilting
Chessa: Why are you using the thread that way?
Me: To keep the quilt sticking together.
Chessa: {{a few moments of silence}}........why don't you just staple it together?


**giggle**.....

I DID give her a response after my giggle subsided.....and said..."Well, I don't think it would be snuggly with staples in in." To which she said....."Oh yeah! Okay Bye!" ....and off she went upstairs

Email hoarder!

There are ALL KINDS of hoarders out there!

This morning, I realized.....I was an EMAIL hoarder!

I attempted to clean up my emails, but found myself saying....
....."oh, that's a new reader. I can't delete her email because I want to find her profile and blog again." Of course, some of you probably say..."add her to your bloglist!" (nope, too long on my page already). Or "become a follower"...(could do that, but...well...don't really have an excuse reason other than I don't usually look at my 'blogs followed' list very often---I may still lose track of her)

....."oh, this is a great picture. I'll need to get that into my files someday." To which the response could be.....'DUH AMY! Just take 1 minute to save the file on your computer and delete the email already!" (yeah...sounds great, so why aren't I doing that?? Dunno---don't have an excuse reason.)

At this time, I have 324 emails in my INBOX, 1512 emails in my SENT box (realllllly have a hard time to delete those too---they're records of what I've sent), 1829 emails in my TRASH box (DUH AMY!!! DELETE those already, right?????), 89 in my JUNK box (I DO try to keep that one as orderly as possible), and then a bunch of "organized" mailboxes for my different online quilting groups that I receive digests from, etc....

"Hello, my name is Amy and I am an Email hoarder...."


Happy Saturday!

It's Friday

Although it was a "short week" at work, whooo-weeee! Around 1:30 today, I was feeling the toll from the week! I was crashing and could have probably used a good shot of caffeine, but wasn't able to get my fix! ;0)

It's not that this week was too much out of the ordinary (except for the parent-incident on Tuesday--which, BTW, I have done an adequate job of TRYING to let it roll off my back.
Candace's pre-school class has been learning about "P" this week, so they wore PJs on Thursday. Cassie had her "Destination Imagination" meeting on Thursday until 6:00. Caitlyn----nothing too special about her. {{**giggle**....just reread that after posting. Poor Caitlyn! Of COURSE she's SPECIAL! There just wasn't anything special about her schedule this week}}

Oh yes....and most of my morning today was spent on the phone with another parent---all GOOD this time. I have a VERY unique section of advanced Math 7 students----they are a DREAM to teach. Seriously----there was a day last week when I finished my planned lesson with 20 minutes to spare. I jokingly said..."Ahh...well, I suppose I can pull out a Pre-Calculus lesson." The response......"OH YES! Please! Can we?!?!?!?!?"

They soak it up and keep wanting more!!!! Anyway, working together with one parent, the gifted-talented coordinator and myself, we are trying to come up with some "unique" scheduling for some of these students who could test out of Algebra. It's a good amount of work on my end; writing assessment; writing independent student-contracts.....but I'm not ABOUT to take away the passion and desire these students have for Math!

Anyhoo.....

We're expecting company in the form of BIL (DH's brother), SIL, Niece and Nephew. The girls are OVERLY excited that "the cousins" are coming; their rooms didn't need too much tidying other than stripping the beds to wash the sheets. The rest of the house has been tidied; dinner has been eaten and now we're relaxing with "BOLT" the movie on the Disney Channel.

DH should be home momentarily from grocery shopping. (Yes, I do love my husband when he takes care of this icky task!!!) I DID do my job though of giving him a list of items needed for the weekend meals.

I do hope to get some time on my machine(s).
I REALLLY should get the quilting done on Blue Ridge Beauty. I don't know if Red Blossoms will see much work this weekend, because I really need to get going on Raven Stars. Additionally, RRCB has found a new light and I'd like to keep pushing on that project.

So.....plenty to do :0)