Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Feast from the East

When Jason and I eat sushi, we usually share 3-4 rolls.  Recently, we've really gotten into ordering edamame when we're at a sushi place, too.  Jason calls them a salt-delivery food.  I bite my tongue not to mention the fact that they're 1) a green food (which he claims he universally hates) or 2) super good for you (which is enough to make him turn away from an otherwise delicious food).

I knew my sister Jill ate edamame at home, so I asked her about it and purchased steam-in-the-bag edamame from the freezer section of my grocery store.  Put in the microwave, cook for 5 minutes, open bag and sprinkle with salt (we did sea salt).  Yum!



Now what to go with it?  I know we could have had edamame with anything, but I wanted to keep with the Asian theme and make crab rangoons again.  They're inexpensive and mighty tasty!

How to Make Crab Rangoons:

Step 1: Mix 1 package of cream cheese (or neufchatel, which is what I use), 1 small package of imitation crab meat, and 4-6 sliced green onions (only the white and light green parts) to a bowl.  Mix.  Season with salt and pepper.  (I wish I had added a few more onions and maybe a splash of soy sauce to make a bolder flavor)



Step 2: Add the mixture to wontons.  Finding the wontons may be tricky.  We've yet to find them in our grocery store.  Lucky for us, there's an Asian market just a few miles away.  A quick drive and $2 well worth it.



Watch your portions of cream cheese mixture.  You don't want these buddies to blow up in the fryer.  I used a heaping 1/2 teaspoon for each wonton.  Get a small bowl of water and wet one finger.  Wet each of the edges and pinch together.  This is how I choose to do mine... little different than most restaurants.



Now they're ready to go in the fryer.  We have a deep fryer that we use.  I'm sure a deep skillet would work just as well.  Cook for 1 minute at 365F, then flip (Jason uses chopsticks, which seem to work better than any other tool) and cook another minute.  Drain on paper towels.


Yum yum yum yum yum!!!  One package of cream cheese really makes a lot (like up to 40!), so you may want to cut the recipe in half.  It does take some effort (start to finish took us about an hour), but it's something fun we do a couple times a year.  Feast from the East night... we may have to make this a tradition!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Thanks, Mom and Dad (and Jason)!

My mom and dad went a bit crazy with the birthday money this year, but I decided not to complain!  Here's my birthday purchases.


Purchase #1: New Leesville Shirt:


We get to wear LRHS t-shirts and jeans on Fridays, and I wanted one that wasn't kelly green so I could wear my bright green sneakers without being too matchy matchy.  Not the best picture in the world (probably shouldn't have taken it at 5:45am after working 14 hours the day before), but it does showcase the shirt.



Purchase #2: New Black "Teacher" Shoes:


Mama and Daddy bought my current pair of black teacher shoes about two years ago, but the wear and tear of 10-hour days has become too much for them, so I needed a replacement pair.  Sounds simple, right?  It's really hard to find shoes that are comfortable enough to wear walking around all day that don't make me look like an 80-year-old woman.

Mission accomplished?



Jason and I went to the mall Saturday and struck out in Macy's, Rack Room, and Clark's before finding these in Nine West.  I'll think they'll do the job.



Purchase #3: "Splurge" Shoes that make me Smile


I love my husband.  I don't know if it's because he wants to make me happy, knows I rarely spend money on myself, or wants ammunition when he wants to buy yet another camera lens, but I eyeballed these shoes, whimpered a bit, and walked over to the practical plain-black shoes instead.  I kept looking back at this pair, though, until he made me try them on.




Once I got them on my feet, I protested about their lack of practicality.  They have too much of a heel for teaching... they're a lot to spend on a "just for fun" pair of shoes... where would I wear them?  My mouth was protesting, but my feet were dancing around in the store, modeling in front of every mirror I could find.  Finally, my wonderful husband insisted.  Now I'll just have to get him to take me out somewhere where I can wear them!




Happy birthday to me!!!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Scavenger Hunts and Magic Milk

I'm now 2.25 days into 2nd semester and teaching Physical Science.  I have to say, I love it!  I loved (some of) my freshmen, but having upperclassmen is night and day.  Anyway, I just thought I'd share a bit about what we're doing in Physical Science this week.  No, this isn't going to be a weekly post.  I just thought I'd do it since it's the first week of school for the students.

Monday: Teacher Workday

Tuesday: 
After boring the students to death with rules, syllabus stuff, and lab safety procedures, we did a human scavenger hunt where they had a list of criteria ("wearing a white shirt," "ate cereal for breakfast," "has met a celebrity," etc.) and they had to go around the room finding people that met the criteria.  It was good, because it got them up, moving around, and was "non-science"... or so they thought.  At the end of class, I got them all back in their seats and we talked about data collection, time efficiency, thinking outside of the box (asking me to fill in criteria), unexpected discoveries, etc.  I actually created the discussion on the fly because I noticed my first period class was going to have about 10 minutes left after finishing.  Gotta love thinking on your feet!

Wednesday:
We did notes on the scientific method, and then did a scientific method lab.  They had to make predictions, hypotheses, experiment, and draw conclusions on my "Magic Milk" lab.  I love this demonstration/lab because it requires only household items (whole milk, food coloring, dish soap, Q-tips), and it has a "cool!" moment to it.  People with kids, I highly recommend!  Let me know if you're interested, and I can send you my lab.  Or Google it.  It's pretty easy to find.


Thursday:
We're doing measurement notes (everybody's favorite.... *yawn*) and a pretty standard measurement lab.  They're measuring length, volume, mass, and temperature.  Yes, it's boring, but this is a pretty important skill to learn, so I wanted to really focus on it.

PS, tonight's also Open House.  I may leave today's lab set up.  I have to say, it's pretty impressive to come into a classroom and see three-arm balances and lab glassware.

Friday:
They're reviewing graphing (again, *yawn*) and graphing an experiment.  Last semester, my students seriously struggled with the parts of an experiment (independent and dependent variables, constants, controls, etc.), so I made up this graphing lab to help this semester's students.  They're reading an experiment, identifying the parts, and graphing the data.  For homework though, they're looking through their cell phone contact lists and creating bar and pie graphs that show categories of people (family, school friends, etc.).  Because it sounded so fun, I actually did it, too.

In case you're interested:
Family: 39%; College Friends (undergrad and graduate): 17%; Other Friends: 17%; Colleagues (past and present): 17%; Official: 11%

Just try and fight the urge to evaluate your contact list... (Mom, you can run the numbers on that contact sheet on your fridge).

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Meatballs, For the Win!

I'm just gonna come out and say it.  I love meatballs.  At a party, you can usually find me over by the meatballs, toothpick in hand, piling them onto my plate.  As awesome as IKEA is, I'd drive to Charlotte's store just for the Swedish meatballs they serve.

That said, I really don't make meatballs very often.  I'm not really sure why.  Well, I decided to make some Sunday night, and I was pretty impressed!

I followed Rachel Ray's recipe that I found online (because I didn't know what all to put in them).  Here's her recipe with my comments in parentheses.

Meatballs:
1 1/4 pounds ground sirloin (I actually had this, but I'm sure other burger is fine)
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup Italian bread crumbs
1/4 cup grated Parmesan (or parm-like cheese)
2 cloves garlic, chopped (I actually buy jars of already-chopped garlic.  It keeps a lot longer).
Salt and pepper
(I wish I had added some extra oregano or Italian seasoning)

I beat the egg in the bowl, added the other wet stuff, then the meat and the crumbs.  Mix with your hands and roll out into 1 1/2 inch balls onto a greased sheet pan.  Bake at 425F about 10-12 minutes until no longer pink.

Easy as that!

Sunday Night:
Traditional angel hair and meatballs (oops, we didn't have spaghetti!).  We topped with lots of grated Parmesan.

Monday Night:
Meatball subs.  We cut open the sub rolls and pulled out some of the extra bread so the balls wouldn't roll around.  Topped with sauce from Sunday night and sliced provolone and broiled open-face for a couple of minutes to get everything toasty.


Tuesday Night: 
Not sure yet.  Suggestions?  I have leftover "naked" pasta, plenty of jars of sauce, and about three meatballs.  What should tonight's adventure be?

Monday, January 23, 2012

School Selection


Wake County students and parents get to choose (from a couple of selections) which school they want to attend next year.  This means that schools are now promoting themselves so people will choose their school.  LRHS is no different.  Here's our promotional video, which in my totally-biased opinion is fantastic.

As you're watching, there's a very brief scene of students looking through telescopes.  Those are my Earth Science kids!  Mr. Kelley (the Aerospace teacher who was kind enough to set up/explain the telescopes to us) let the marketing teacher (who made the promotional video) know what we were going to be doing, and he came and videoed us.

I hope you enjoy.  If you watch it.  Honestly, unless you're my mom (who seems to show interest in all things teaching) or Jenn (who went to LRHS), you probably won't care much.  But I thought I'd share either way.

Link to the video

Friday, January 20, 2012

Let's Show Some Pride

You know you're at a good school when even your GRAFFITI is encouraging!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Christmas #2 -- Addison

What, you're back again?  Yesterday's shot of adorable wasn't enough for you?  Are you an adorable-ness junkie now?




Well don't worry, because I have more Addi to share!


Little unsure about unwrapping


Playing with her new activity center from her aunts and uncle

Keeping Kara and me entertained


Sure, this looks like a cute Aunt Meg and Addison moment, but I was actually keeping her distracted while Kara silently took something away from her that she wasn't supposed to have

Showing off her new... flashlight?!?  Apparently, she loves playing with flashlights at my folks' house, so they got her two for Christmas


Ok, just one more shot of adorable, and then you really need to get back to work:




*squeal*

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Duh Nuh Nuh Nuh Nuhnuh Nuh

Who doesn't love a good chicken dance?  Whether you're at a sporting event or wedding, the chicken dance is a great opportunity to get young and old alike acting a fool.  What could possibly make the chicken dance more awesome?  How about when your 1-year-old niece does it on command?





By the way, I officially give you permission to show your officemates and people at the cubicle next door while you just "aww"ed or squealed in delight.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Let's Celebrate 28!

I alluded a bit to my birthday festivities in the last post, but I wanted to elaborate a bit.

I went to work and actually had a pretty great day.  Not only did I get an extended planning period due to exam schedule, but I also got a relaxing afternoon of planning.  I had to go to a forever-long meeting after school, which was a bummer.  The good thing was, when I finally got home at 5:00, I had a few surprises waiting for me!

Jason got me a bouquet of flowers (in crazy-bright colors, naturally!) and a birthday card envelope that said: "Megan.  It is your birthday." (which fans of "The Office" know is from an episode where Dwight was put in charge of planning an office birthday party)

Jason knows me so well... if it's bright and colorful, I'll love it!

Dwight's banner from "The Office" -- also notice the barely-blown-up balloon hanging from a streamer.


Inside the envelope... was a Christmas card from our collection at home... and the message "Drug store cards are lame.  I gave you this card once before, and that seemed to work out, so here we go again!"


My, um, birthday card

Let me explain.  No, that will take too long, let me sum up (ps, can you name the movie quote?):  During our awkward "we have feelings for each other, but we're 'just friends'" stage, Jason used to send me Christmas cards.  Well, you know he can't buy anything normal, so one year he gave me this card.  I guess it DID work out pretty well last time (seeing as he scored me for a wife), so I let the strange birthday card selection pass.

Upon my request, we went out for sushi dinner to celebrate...

Mmm, can't wait to share some sushi!

...and had mint chocolate chip ice cream for dessert!




Yep, I think 28 is going to be a good year.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

What a Difference a Year Makes!

Today's my birthday!  Woohoo!  I got to thinking today about how drastically different my past few birthdays have been.

25th Birthday (2009):
My birthday was on a Monday, so we invited some friends over the weekend before for cake, goodies and board games.


I look a bit scared of my cake, don't I?  Oh, and shout-out to Jason, who is an AWESOME cake baker and decorator!  I wish I had a close-up of my fantastic cake he made!

26th Birthday (2010):
Quite a bit had changed in those 365 days.  I had quit my job, decided to become a teacher, and applied to grad school.  Actually, my first day of grad school was ON my birthday!  I went to my freshman-level geology class, my botany class, had a break, and then went to my anatomy and physiology lab.  Oh my word, I've never panicked so much!  15 minutes into that lab, I knew I was dropping that class.  Yikes!  Not a fun way to spend my birthday!

Because we were shelling out tuition, I told Jason I didn't want to make a fuss about celebrating.  Jason, however, had other plans.  Because it was my 26th birthday, and because there's 26 letters in the alphabet, Jason went to the Dollar Tree and bought me gifts that start with every letter.

You can see all of the pictures here, but I thought I'd share a few.  He individually wrapped them because he knows how much I love the act of opening presents.  PS, want to talk about crazy present faces?  I've certainly got some going on...

Jason came downstairs with my birthday surprise -- a box full of presents!

H = Highlighters (I should remind you I was just starting school again, and I had asked Jason for "school supplies" for my birthday)


M = Milk Duds


N = Nail Polish

27th Birthday (2011):
This wasn't actually a birthday present, but Jason and I traveled to Hawaii on my birthday last year!  I was between semesters of school, so it was our only chance to go visit Sara and meet Sawyer in Hawaii.  The coolest part about traveling ALL DAY on my birthday is that Hawaii is 5 hours earlier than NC, so I had a 29-hour birthday!  How many people can say they've had that?

Sara made me a pineapple cake for my birthday (appropriate, no?)

At Waikiki Beach, in front of Diamond Head

In our Aloha attire, ready for the luau!

Having some aunt/nephew time


Sara and Sawyer


Yep, so those are my birthdays of the recent past.  What's up for me today?  Well, 1st period classes are having exams today.  I have first period planning, which means I have 3 HOURS of planning today!  A teacher's dream!  Jason and I are going out for sushi tonight (yum!) and maybe pick up some ice cream afterwards.

Happy Birthday to me!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Holidays 2011 -- Christmas #2 -- Self-Portraits

Self-portraits are so much more fun in ridiculous hats.





Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Holidays 2011 -- Christmas #2 -- Edenton

On Monday (the 26th) afternoon, Jason, Jill, Jodi, and I went to Edenton.  Jason and I had been there the month before for Gretchen's wedding and had wanted to explore.

Jason and I sported our awesome new hats!




Jill had fun, um, exploring history.



We all had fun talking to the seagulls.




Seriously, what a beautiful place!  Here's a few more pics.