Cookie Bar Monday

I'm just relaxing here while my chocolate chip Oreo cookie bars are in the oven.  Do they sound like heaven?  They most certainly do!  It's yet another recipe I grabbed from Pinterest, and you can find it here - Chocolate Chip Oreo Cookie Bars.  So yummy.  It's a cooler day today, so the heat of the kitchen wasn't too bad.  Right now my house smells like a combination of Oreos and chocolate chips.  So divine!

I love baking.  It allows me to totally get lost in my thoughts and completely relax, which is what I wanted to do this afternoon.  The madness of school returns next week.  As much as I love teaching, I love these lazy days of books, writing (yes, I've tried), and baking.  It's been a good summer, but it's time to go back.

I've been reading, "The Nest," recently, and am more than half-way through the book.  I'll admit I'm a bit tired with it.  Reading about other people's financial woes is, well, disheartening.  This family depended so much upon this inheritance, and now it's stripped away.  Sad.  But it so often happens with families.  The in-fighting.  The stealing.  The lying.  Everyone has a story or has heard one similar, and hence why "The Nest" is probably so popular.  But I'll finish reading it anyway.  I'm one of those people who always finishes a book, even if it completely bothers me.  I just have to.  I must!

I started a short story, which is a big step for me where I've had writer's block for so long.  I wrote a page.  A page!  It felt good to get words back on the canvas.  I'm hoping to have a Writer's Club at school this year, as the kids really motivated me in the past to be working on something.  Two years ago I did the club, and had such a talented group of writers.  I was so proud of their efforts.  I'd like to bring in a guest speaker, too, to help them hear about how the writing process works from an actual author or someone related to the field.  I'm excited!

The bars are about to come out of the oven.  Yum, yum, yum.  Go try the recipe, and let me know how it comes out!

Just Words On A Page

I'm writing just to write.  I've been less than inspired to write on my novel (ah, Three By Three how you torture me) this summer.  I've been relaxing.  A lot of changes have taken place at school, and I'm apprehensive about the future.  August 24th I need to report for an event, and I can feel the nerves gathering already.  Yes, everything will be fine, but it's still the unknown.

I feel a lot of times teaching is like acting.  I have to get up on that stage, put on my game face, and go.  But what if I don't have a game face?  I sometimes wonder.  It's so damn hard on days where you're sick, or tired, or just not completely pumped up to be the most awesomeness that you usually are.  I also think kids are kids and should be treated as such.  They're not mini-Einsteins, (especially with middle school), awaiting an acceptance to Princeton or Harvard or Yale.  Let them enjoy the last of their childhood!  Why are we pushing them so much?  Push push push.  All for the kid to have a major breakdown and depression at the age of thirteen.  It's just crazy.  I'm the goofy teacher, the one who just bought a poster about renting monkeys.  Yes, they'll have to decipher it from Spanish to English, but once they do, they'll be good to rent a monkey anywhere in the world.  Hey - it's a valuable skill.  Is it not?

The photo above is from my happy place, Lake Champlain.  It was so nice to go there this year once again for two weeks.  I enjoyed everyone's company, and the two college visits.  Never mind the fact that Kidlet B is lamenting that UVM doesn't allow water bottles on campus ("But no water bottles!  No throw away water bottles?!  What gives?!"), all in all it was a fun and productive vacation.  I'm loving the heat, despite not having central air.  Visits to Maine have been awesome (Thank you, F&G!).

But I want to write more.  I just cannot seem to focus on one topic or theme without getting distracted, like a toddler in front of a candy bar.  I have an idea for a new novel, but not sure if it's too like one that's one the market now.  I keep thinking, "Marketability!" before I write.  Perhaps I should just write, and not worry about whether or not it's sell-worthy.

So, I still have the day job, as much as I would like to be writing full time, and volunteering at the library as a page.  Ah, that would be heaven!  Can you arrange for me to win the lottery soon so that can happen?  That would be nice.  Just shelving books, seeing all the clear-cut letters on the spines.  I love viewing all the unique titles; it gets my mind roaming.  I miss working in the library.  Perhaps I can go back someday soon when my boys are older and driving themselves.

Enjoy the rest of summer!  Please keep in touch!  And get ready for the onslaught of fall!

Drive, They Said

So, I'm searching for a new car for the kidlets.  This has taken me into the Craigslist domain.  And oh, what an adventure it is!  People don't return emails, phone calls, or messages.  Gosh, it's just like online dating but without the final prize at the end.  Today, though, I think we found a car.

We?  I say we because I have my brother dragged into this endeavor with me.  Why?  Because I'm nervous about buying a car on my own.  He knows what to look for, and how to push a car to its limits.  That's why I'm bringing him with me.  Do I feel like the village idiot when buying a car?  Most certainly yes, especially with a used car.  My brother knows the questions to ask, the things under the hood to prod at, and where to crawl under the body of the car.

I don't want to jinx it, but I found an almighty Volvo.  Yes, you know me and Volvos.  It's solid, except for the breaks.  (I can hear you now.  "Mausigal!  The breaks?!  That's like an elemental part of the car!")  It's ok.  I'll get them fixed.  New tires.  A/C is running ok.  Windows working.  Just enough dents and scratches to make it look like an awesome teen car.  I love it!  I want it!  Perhaps that's part of the problem.  I'm driving a 2015 Volvo, and in my heart I want to drive a clunker.  I want the car with 150,000 miles, proving to everyone "That it's a Volvo and it can go the extra mile!"

Even if I had the money, I wouldn't want them in something new.  I'd still want Kidlet A and Kidlet B in a clunker.  There's something so quintessential about the high school experience, owning a clunker car.  There's nothing better than a Volvo wagon for that!  I still remember JF's Volvo wagon in college - the "Dead Sled," covered with Greatful Dead stickers on the back.  I hope my son's car becomes as emblematic as hers, complete with stickers, paint, graffiti - you name it!  It's theirs!  Let it become an icon!

I am truly blessed that I can give my kids a car.  I've been saving for awhile now, putting aside money each month towards this.  I didn't have a car  in high school.  My parents drove me, or I borrowed the family car on weekends.  Hopefully they'll appreciate it.

Bring on the new wheels!  Go Swedes!

Heart-Shaped Swiss

I believe in small miracles.  Yes, the picture of Jesus in the laminate.  Things like that get me all excited.  So, you can imagine my happiness this morning when I found a little heart in the middle of Kidlet B's Swiss cheese for his sandwich.  Can you see it above?  That little heart?  It's just perfect!  So small, so loving, so unassuming.  I just wanted to scream with joy!  I couldn't have cut a heart that beautiful!  And it was all Kidlet B's!

I bet he dove into the sandwich and never looked back.  Never even noticed the heart.  Because he is a hungry sixteen year old boy.  And I am a nostalgic forty-something who likes to see symbolism in such things as license plates.

'Cause you never know?  Right?  I once was on my way to a date and saw a license plate that said, "BLIEVE."  I needed that at just that time.  Why?  Because I was so down on dating and the whole process.  Things got better.  And seeing "BELIEVE" turned my attitude around.  I believe in signs.

Do you?  Do you believe there are little signs that change our day, change our outlook?  Perhaps it's just our outlook that sees them.  If I wasn't looking at license plates, I never would have seen the "BLIEVE" one.  My mind was open to the possibilities of a signal, and it arrived.  Whoa.  Now I sound like "The Secret."

Kidlet B still isn't home from school, so I haven't asked him yet if he saw all the love in his sandwich.  At least he will know his mom cared.

Silent

I've become afraid of blogging.  Yes, I have all sorts of ideas in my head, but the notion of somehow offending someone, somewhere has started to overwhelm me.  I think it began a few years ago when I suggested to my sisters-n-law about a post about the "Market Basket Deli Rant."  In my mind the post was rather funny - people who go up and order five pounds of items, getting a sample for each one, contemplating the thickness of each slice.  ARGH!  All this at seven a.m.  My sisters-in-law slammed my snobbery, prodding me to contemplate who did I think I was with my mere order of a 2/3 pound of turkey and 2/3 pound of honey baked ham, no samples, no special instructions.  Other people had begged me to do the "Market Basket Deli Rant," but the piece fell to the wayside.  I was too afraid of the backlash.  I didn't want to express my opinions.

I think this is what it's come to with my writing.  I'm downright scared of pissing someone off that I just don't write.  Some pieces seem too personal.  Some pieces I start seem too generic.  I could always blog about the cats, I suppose.  But then someone, somewhere will claim I'm nothing but a cat lady, sitting in my house with the felines all day.  I guess I care too much about my audience when writing.  Perhaps that's really sad.  I used to thoroughly enjoy posting here, but now I'm downright scared.

I'm losing my voice.

I may start up a blog somewhere on the internet without my name, without links to Facebook (like I was doing), so I can write freely.  If people find me, so be it.  But in the land of the worldwide web, it will be hard to do.  Then I can write freely, and have an audience slam me at will - people who don't know me.  I miss writing.  But I don't know if this blog is the tool I want to use to express myself any longer.

I guess that's the danger in writing - one's always going to have an adversary somewhere.  Maybe I just need to learn to live with the critics.

Chocolate...and Life!

I found an amazing recipe for chocolate chip muffins that I ***must*** share.  Here it is:  Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins.  Oh, and how they do not disappoint!  These muffins will not get stuck on the sides of your muffin tin like other muffins, leaving you sad and disappointed.  Don't you hate that?   You pull out a muffin and chips and muffin pieces remain.  Bummer!  But not with these muffins! They slid out perfectly - leaving you with beautiful muffins for your loved ones.  And yes - they are tasty and easy to make!

I made muffins today after a grueling migraine.  Alas, there were no Pop Tarts in the house and the boys needed a breakfast item for tomorrow.  Drive to the store or bake muffins?  You already knew which one won.  Am I sinner for even offering my boys Pop Tarts?  Possibly, but they do love them, and it's a breakfast item.  I do bake them cookies and/or brownies for treats in their lunch every day.  Can we have it all?  And still continue to drive around to a myriad of activities, grade papers, and try to write a novel and have a personal life?  I don't know.  It's tough.

The littles just got their driving permits.  So the fun begins!  Pretty soon they'll be independent, and I'll wonder where the time went.  Time, time, time.  I feel it creeping up on me, that time where I'll be totally alone without Kidlet A and Kidlet B, no longer baking muffins for them.

And that makes me sad...

Second Sleep Surprises

It's 3:25 am as I write this.  I just woke up.  No alarm, no weird noises, nothing like that.  I am fully awake.  Some would call this insomnia, but Breadman recently told me about something called "Second Sleep."  Oh yes.  This bit about getting up at 3am and doing things like baking brownies or reading or jamming out to Pandora?  Our ancestors did this!  Well, maybe not to the extreme that I am taking it, but they did!  Really!  And they never called it insomnia!

Roger Ekirich, a professor at Virginia Tech, discovered that those in the past had two sleep sections at night.  This great online article, Your Ancestors Didn't Sleep Like You, details the second sleep, or segmented sleep, very well.  In between the two sleeps people would do things like read, pray, talk to one another, even go visiting!  And oh yes, let's not forget sex.  Prime time for loving.

So my time in-between second sleep?  I'm currently listening to Florence and the Machine's "Kiss With A Fist.  I'm on cup of coffee number two.  Second sleep pretty much rocks.

I woke up to three fifteen year olds who believe in a late first sleep, much to my chagrin.  Sleep over night, and I found pizza roll remains in the kitchen (what is in those?!), wrappers strewn among the living room, and an empty Arnold Palmer jug in the dining room.  They are now in bed, obviously, because having a mom around kills the fun.  Either that, or they've run out of movies or rap songs.

I used to think this time in-between sleeps was insomnia for me, but feel so much better thinking of it as two sleeps.  I enjoy having this little time in the night, where I can write and listen to some music.  But I know for me this is a luxury, as I'm on vacation this week and can sleep in after my time up until 8am.  During the week my second sleep periods are hard to manage, as I get up at 4am.  So, usually my second sleep doesn't happen; I fight it.  I try to go back to sleep.  I miss it.

It's hard not to eat breakfast now, though.  I'm craving toast with butter and jam.  But I can't have two breakfasts, or I'll end up looking like Jabba the Hut.  So I'll have cup of coffee number 3.

It's too bad that second sleep had to be faded out of our history.  But we live in such a rushed culture, and can't go to bed at 7pm anymore.  Ha!  Can you imagine, going to bed at 7pm every night in the winter? Um, yes I certainly can!  That would be heaven!  I'm such an early bird, that I would love to go to bed at that hour.  It would be so relaxing.  Then have the little time between first and second sleep, ah, sleep!  Maybe that's why Americans are so darn stressed out.  We don't have second sleep!  If we did, maybe we'd be better off.  I'm happier on days that I have my second sleep.  Yes, I know, because I sleep until eight or nine o'clock.  But still, there's something to be said for having that quiet time at night where you can contemplate, write, or do whatever (i.e. have sex).  The quiet of the evening does have a peacefulness that can't be duplicated during the day.

I could do the dishes.  I could clean up the mess from the teens.  But instead I will write for just a little bit more before retiring to bed.  Goodnight, all!