Just about to head off to Detroit for a fun-filled weekend with the Girls (elsaf and judiang). We’ll be celebrating Judi’s birthday and watching the stage production of The Lion King and eating good food. Alas, The Second Coming DVD set didn’t arrive in time, so we won’t be previewing the New Doctor Who. But I can show those to them Memorial Day weekend instead. (I am bringing season 1 of Black Books with hopes to get 2 more converts!)
Since Elsa’s place is wired to the gills, I’ll probably be able to keep in touch from there. Of course, that’s if we (three very geeky women) have any time for geeking… 😉
See ya soon, Girls! (Today’s icon in honor of Judi’s Birthday Week.)
You know you’re addicted to LiveJournal when you suddenly think of an LJ icon you can design… while your students are coming into chemistry class. *sigh* Anyhoo, I managed to remember the design idea and just made the icon. I figure I can use this all year ’round, not just on April Fool’s Day.
I hope y’all didn’t get tricked too many times today. I was lucky to miss out on most of the pranks going on at school. There was practically an April Fool’s war going on in the HS office. I was most amused. Oh, and the teacher’s union gave everyone mini-Easter baskets full of good candy (damn them!) in honor of the upcoming holiday (which takes place during our spring break.)
Speaking of Spring Break – only one more day until Spring Break! And tomorrow should be easy enough. Chemistry has a test, physics has a worksheet. Then dad and I go to El Sombrero for the monthly county tech meeting. And then I get to drive to Detroit to meet up with elsaf and eventually with judiang. Should be a fabby weekend. (And something tells me that I’ll be able to stay in touch online while there…)
And I’ll once again say “Happy Birthday” to shebit and judiang – hope you’ve had a blast today!
Tomorrow, April Fool’s Day, sees the birth anniversary of two non-foolish friends of mine. So Happy Birthday to shebit! Sorry I didn’t make a scrolling thingy for you! And Happy Birthday to big sis, aka judiang! Hope you both have a great day (and I’ll see you this weekend, Judi! Woohoo!)
Yesterday I posted about a successful experiment in the making of Banana Bread. warinbabylon asked for the recipe that I used, so I decided to post it today. The original recipe is one that I got from this website. It’s the first one on the page.
Cream butter and Splenda together. Add Egg Beaters slowly, beating till smooth. Blend in mashed bananas. (Or add mash the bananas as you add them and then read the bit about the eggs… Ooops!)
In second bowl, stir flour with baking soda, baking powder, salt and nuts (after going next door to get the baking soda and baking powder). Add to banana mixture stirring only to moisten. Transfer to greased loaf pan. Bake in 350°F. oven for about 1 hour. Let stand 10 minutes. Remove from pan and place on plate to cool (well, I have no cake rack). Cut pieces for self and mother. Wrap to store.
So if you compare both recipes, you’ll see very little variation. elsaf had warned me that the Splenda wouldn’t caramelize and the bread wouldn’t look the same color, but it’s weird – it actually turned out a nice color. Kind of orangy-brown on top. She had suggestions using honey and reducing the amount of fat by using less butter. I just had fun using butter, myself. I don’t often treat myself to butter, so I figured I’d splurge. Next time, however, I’ll try cutting down the fat a bit, just to see what it’s like. Assuming I don’t get all of my bananas eaten in time.
(A tip for those of you who love bananas – if you have an overly ripe banana but don’t have the time to make banana bread or banana smoothies or anything like that, remove the banana from the skin and freeze it. Mom says she does it all the time and they’re just fine for smoothies/bread/etc after that.)
Dinner and a movie just not working out? Why not try banana bread and a movie? Heh… Tonight, I finally used up my two old bananas and made banana bread out of them. And mom came over to watch Under the Tuscan Sun with me.
The banana bread was something of an experiment. I have never made such a thing before, so that was a first. I used Splenda instead of sugar. I used Egg Beaters instead of eggs. But I still used the half cup of butter that it called for. Despite doing some of the steps bass-ackward (and realizing once I’d started that I had no baking soda or baking powder – thankfully I have lovely neighbors who loaned me some) the banana bread turned out just fine – and yummy! Mom liked it enough to take some home with her. Hmmm, with a bit more planning and a few more ingredients in my house, I might be able to handle this baking lark.
I do want to know why, as a responsible chemistry teacher, that I can’t seem to follow my own lab rules when cooking? I mean, I tell kids to read through a lab first before performing it, then read as you go. So why couldn’t I do that while making the banana bread? I put the eggs in at the wrong time, I didn’t have all the ingredients when I needed ’em, I didn’t have the right sized bowls, etc. etc. It’s amazing the stuff even turned out! 🙂
The movie was also fun. And as an additional entertainment, we had Leo wandering around the living room and playing with a piece of foil that mom had discarded after having a Hershey’s Kiss. (Did you know they now make dark chocolate Kisses? These weren’t those type, but I might have to buy some when this batch finally disappears.)
Just got a phone call from mom a few minutes ago to tell me there was a double rainbow in the sky. So, being the science geek that I am, I took my digital camera with me and stood out on the back stoop taking photos.
Here is the other side of the double rainbow.
This shot has one of my neighbor’s houses in shot to give a sense of scale.
Some interesting facts about rainbows (from your friendly neighborhood physics teacher):
There’s a lot more to be said for rainbows, but I’ll let you find out about them yourselves.
rach74 did this Grammar quiz and, since I had a lovely boring day that I’d prefer not to bore you dear people with, I decided to follow suit.
You are a GRAMMAR GOD!
If your mission in life is not already to
preserve the English tongue, it should be.
Congratulations and thank you!
How grammatically sound are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Thanks to Mrs W, my 8th grade grammar teacher, I can call upon my grammarly goodness when I need to. (Though usually I don’t…)
Now to get back to grading lab reports…
Today was a good day (current sinus headache notwithstanding). It started out nice enough by my waking up oily in the morning and being confused about which day of the week it was. After a few minutes of puzzling things out, I realized it was Saturday and thus, I got to SLEEP IN! Woohoo!
After my lovely lie in, (wherein every hour Leo would come by and rattle the phone to let me know he thought I should be up) I took my time getting ready for the day. While I was checking my e-mail and other online fixtures, I was delighted to discover I had over 275,000 gold in Kings of Chaos which, with a few judicial expenditures, I was able to use to upgrade my siege weaponry to Ladders. Yeah, that means nothing to most of you, but it was still cool. (Feel free to click the link and give me more men!)
Then I headed off to Curves. Half an hour later, it was time to go SHOPPING! Always a joy, in my book. I started at WalMart (stop gritting your teeth, Amy!) and found a set of metal jaffa block style thingies for only $11 – cool! Picked up the stuff I needed and some other things that I didn’t really need but wanted anyhoo. Needed to go to Staples (an office store) to complete Judi’s birthday gift. They had a set of 100 blank CD-Rs for $15, so I got that too.
I intend to make some banana bread this weekend before the bananas I have turn black, so I needed a bread pan. So off to Kohl’s to buy a Calphalon bread pan. While there, I discovered they had a 3-piece set of bread pan, 8″ square baking pan, and jelly roll sheet for only $25 – got that and a $13 Calphalon cookie sheet – woohoo!
The final shopping stop was Meijers for a few groceries. After parking out in the boonies as I did for the other three shops, I ended up nice and close to the door here. Not only that, but our lovely warm drizzly day was turning into a lovely warm spring day. Not only was I able to leave the jacket in the car, but I also had to have the a/c on! YAY!
Got home and made a late lunch (left over tofu fried rice) and watched 28 Days Later. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I liked the movie and even more surprised to see Naomi Harris in it – I’d last seen her in the new Tomorrow People series (playing my favorite new Tomorrow Person). During the movie, mom called out to me from my window, so Leo and I went outside for a bit to talk to the parentals and to let Leo enjoy the sunshine. (Um, OK, so he was on a harness – I know I once laughed at a little old lady who had her cat on the leash, but Leo’s not an outside cat… And I’m an overprotective mom, I admit.)
So I had a lovely day and it’s only just these last few hours that my head has gotten 10lbs heavier due to the sinuses. But I don’t really mind it tonight. 🙂
It’s Friday! It’s Payday! And even though paying my bills today wiped out most of my paycheck, I had some cash to spend on myself. So here’s what I did with one of the $20s that I got out of the ATM.
(1) Hollywood Video – rented 4 videos for $4 (and tax). This week’s movies will be Bringin’ Down the House, Under the Tuscan Sun, Stickmen, and, starring the new Doctor Who, 28 Days Later.
(2) Krogers – bought a package of No Pudge Fudge Brownies ($3 and a bit) to make elsaf and judiang for next weekend. (Alas, they sell out so fast, there was only the one package. Hoping to get some packages to give the girls for their own brownies.)
(3) BW3’s – supper and conversation with co-workers at our favorite haunt. For a chicken tender wrap (with Captain Morgan Sauce), 2 legs w/ Thai sauce, and water: $9.
(4) Newton School Gym – $4 to get into the HS play. Tonight’s production was Cheaper By The Dozen. It was fun to watch and the kids did a great job. The majority of the cast were students of mine, and the others either were or will be. I laughed often and loud. I’m never worried about laughing in public. Indeed, it’s crucial to have a good laugher at a high school comedy production – gets the rest of the audience laughing too when they realize it’s OK to do so. At least, that’s what dad told me when I was in the school play. And you know? He was right. Half of the cast thanked me afterwards for my laughter – they said they could tell it was me. Indeed, some of them asked if they could pay for me to come again to tomorrow night’s performance. (Considering we relied upon my dad to get folks laughing when I was in the play, it’s good to see I inherited his Loud Laugh gene.)
Actually, I should have paid $5 for the play, but I’d heard the kids bandy the $4 price during school. Silly me didn’t think that this was the student price until just before getting to the door of the gym… I’d only brought the last $4 from the $20 bill… Still, the boys taking the money figured I was good for it. As a staff member, I can get into any school run event for free, but I usually pay anyhoo. I’ll give Jared and Stephanie (the directors) the extra buck on Monday.
So how did I get to the school? The usual answer is “walked” but as I was leaving my place, 3 senior girls invited me to go with them. (One of my seniors lives across the street and the other two were picking her up as I was going.) I think this is only the third time I’ve ridden with students – not including my cousin Deanna or her friends. The first time was a wild ride from one store parking lot to another by one of the craziest kids I had at Eaton. The second time was in another Eaton student’s purple VW bug (cool car!)
I had brought my umbrella (the one with the London Underground map on it) with me and was able to walk home in the light drizzle.
A nice evening, all in all! And only for $20!
On Sunday, I decided to head to my local (read, next town over) Hollywood Video and check out the new releases. They had a $1 rental special once a few years ago that worked so well, they’ve never ended it. So all rentals are $1 a DVD for 5 days. I usually pick 4. This time I did that, *and* bought 3 others.
The rentals:
The purchases:
They were having a 3 for $30 sale on the purchases, which meant I ended up paying an extra penny on Coupling but saved $3 and $5 on the other two DVDs. Works for me! I may have made a mistake with LXG since it’s the only purchase I’ve yet to see. Dad tells me it was boring, but I’m sure I’ll get my $10 out of it.
As for the rentals, I’ve now watched 3 of the 4. Taking a break between Lost and Wedding to write this up. I found Together to be a heartwarming film, definitely one I would recommend. Chicago was simply fabulous and I’ll probably have to buy the DVD for it. They captured the energy of the stage play brilliantly. (Attention davisonweekly folks, I saw the stage version of Chicago with Peter Davison as Mr Cellophane. He did a nice soft shoe routine during the performance.)
I just couldn’t get to sleep last night – I guess I was still wired from the evening’s antics, so I started Lost in Translation after midnight or so (confused the heck out of Leo as he tried to figure out what I was doing on the sofa when I should be in the bed) and watched nearly an hour of it. I just finished the movie during supper. It was a fascinating look at Tokyo and I decided that Tokyo was the star of the movie and those other two were just pawns to show off Tokyo’s talents. The rest of the movie was just OK. Glad the Academy went with LotR, myself. Considerably more entertaining, I thought.
I’m sure I’ll enjoy American Wedding as the first two movies kept me entertained. If I discover otherwise, I’ll be sure to tell you.
In other news for today, I’ve officially lost 10 lbs on my Portion Control Project! More details can be found in my post to monday_gdp which I’ll write up after I finish this one.