Time to Start Again

We are off to a new start! A new school year, new responsibilities and new students!
Lesson plans, new lunches, and some really exciting possibilities for the future!

Happy Birthday MOM! I love you!

One of the Photos

This is one of the photos from central Oregon, the bridge that spans the Crooked River. There is a new bridge that goes over the gorge now, but the old one has stories. People used to say one of our high school teachers (who was really a wacko) used to get her steering wheel all straight and close her eyes and drive across it. Jez oh Pete.

Sunday, the day to get things done!

Oh this was a good day! I weather was perfect, my lawn was mowed by this great 4th grader I know (his mom was in on it too, I promise). So it was nice to be out in my yard. But I got things done inside too!

First, some cleaning, bills paid, laundry caught up, plants watered and worked on my paper that's due in a couple of weeks. Tracey's moving some stuff to her house, so I tried to get more of that fixed up too.

Then I did some major menu planning for the week:

Monday-Corn Chowder (found more frozen corn from our summer) recipe from Nigela
Tuesday- Whole wheat pasta with veggi and peanut sauce (veggi: broccoli, zucchini, carrots, snow peas, red onion and garlic)
Wednesday-Baked sweet potatoes and veggi sausage
Thursday- Ratatouille and rice
NO Friday or weekend! I am off to Portland to see Michelle! Cirque du Soleil!

Of course I am a complete zombie when I get up in the morning, so I put all that into containers so I can take good food for lunch. Also put some Nancy's yogurt in a little container with blueberries, strawberries, honey and granola for breakfast. I am looking forward to tomorrow!

Then we have a big fund raiser coming up for drama. So at lunch the kids are selling candy bars and other unhealthy things to get some moolah. Tonight I made some sweet bread dough and cut it into little chunks, dipped it in butter, then cinnamon, white sugar and brown sugar, put a few of the pieces (like 4 or 5) into greased muffin tins let it raise, bake at 350 degrees f for about 12 min. Turn upside down onto foil (or something non stick). OOOh yum. They may not make it to the fundraiser.

By the way- I have two tomato plants and one basil. They are not pleased, but starting to snap out of it and be a little more happy in their new home. Seeds to plant this week.

If you need some seeds, let me know! Especially if you are close by. I have a bunch I will share!

last week and this week

Food for the week:

Small white bean soup (crockpot!)
Fried rice with vegg
Spinach salad w/cranberries and pecans
French Bread

Project for the week: get the theatre paper written.
post the photos

April? Already?

I bought two tomato plants and a basil. I won't put them outside, I promise! It makes me very happy to see a little summer on the counter!

The other great news is that I received the lovely ebond from my tax return in the mail today! My big goal is to save enough to get a CD (certificate of deposit) and put it in for 24 months. We will see!

OOk, the project for the week: I painted at Tracey and Ryan's new house, I attended three senior projects, filled out a grant report... but as for my own art, I have failed miserably! There are some really great photos I took of the Crooked River Bridge, but that was last week! Hiring Travis this week to do some yard work was great ($30 well spent)

The next few weeks will be some major fundraising for our drama trip to Ashland. We will sell candy and other yummy things! The trick will be that I will make cookies and sticky buns! Get to work!

There is also the menu I will put together- to be posted tomorrow!

Good bye Trace! I hope you love your new house! It is beautiful.

Guys and Dolls and James and the Giant Peach!

Oh my gosh. I didn't say what I had been doing, really.
James and the Giant Peach was first. It was fantastic. We put the show on four times. Twice for the school in the afternoon and then twice in the evening, selling peachy colored ice cream at intermission. Loved it a lot. The kids were really great.

Then the musical, Guys and Dolls. It went pretty well when actors showed up, learned music and, well, showed up. heh. We put on two shows and it went well. Lots of issues with getting costumes and all... but ok. see previous post for that photo.

I really have been doing stuff, just not the cooking, fixing, planning that I had hoped.
So, here goes!

A Really Long-Week-Long Project

Ok, I am back. I wish I would have posted some of the work we had done during the last 6 weeks. We have painted peridaktoi, gathered props, endured costuming and all that goes with it (just shoot me, see photo)

The three sided set pieces are called peridaktoi, put together with hinges and are switched around for different looks. Fantastic.

So, I am back on track.
I am getting a few dollars back on my taxes... I am getting a savings bond for some of it! I also recently figured out that for my auto savings I am going to turn that into a money market fund. ooo. I also started taking more out for my retirement fund (still have a lot of work to do on that!) but at least it's going. Pretty exciting stuff!

Food? Well, let me tell you about the bread. ok, Tomorrow I will tell you about the bread and the waffle recipe I found. I think it's brilliant.

Weekly Project

After such a busy week, I look back and hope I got all the stuff done I was supposed to do!
Idaho Theatre for Youth, The Haiti Project, Tap Kids (www.tapkids.com) Jungle Book, Guys and Dolls and James and the Giant Peach rehearsals, dance kids to the capitol building and work calls for all.

Worked on budget stuff AND taxes. Project for the weekend: more finances and house plans! :)

Next week: Make the centipede coat!

Hope for Haiti

Dear Haiti,
I wish it could be more...........

Last night was great fun for us. It was a little disappointing that more people didn't show up, but it was a Tuesday night, after all.
There were some really great things that happened. For one, the mariachi band, headed by the talented Martin Lopez was amazing. They are all young players and singers. Wow. Then we had Jose Alfaro and his roping dance, Ronald Sam drumming and playing his flute in brilliant Piute style, Tiernan Irish step dancers, piano players, singers, orchestra, talented students and the Red Cross.

All-in-all we raised over $1,000 to give to the Red Cross!


We'll keep trying! There is more work to be done.

Jungle Book Costumes and Recipe for the Weekend

Project of the week- Get ready! Monday is the opening for Jungle Book. Today was another costume building day with more monkey hats, wolf hats, umbrella trees and some back pieces. It went really great and I think it will be ok!

Recipe for the weekend~
Yummy Lasagna

ok, really this is some good stuff to make on Sunday afternoon and eat all week long!

If you want to spend the time boiling some lasagna pasta-grand! But I am in love with the newest version of the no-boil lasagna pasta. So go with what you like, but time savers are very nice.

1 jar of nice marinara
in a pan with a little olive oil quick saute:
1 sm zucchini
1 sm yellow summer squash
1 sm onion


1 C butternut squash (already in your freezer?? or bake ahead of time)
1 sm container ricotta
1 C mozzarella
1/2 C Parmesan
6 reg lasagna pastas or enough for two layers no-boil

In a 11x9x2 baking dish
Pour a little bit of the marinara on the bottom of the dish so the pasta won't stick
Put down one layer of pasta
on top of the pasta, place the onion and squash
Cover veggies with the marinara the place pasta on top
On top of the pasta place spoonfuls of ricotta
Cover with another layer of pasta
Cover with the rest of the marinara and mozzarella and Parmesan

Bake @350 Foil Covered for 40 min then uncovered for 15 min until brown and bubbly!

Put any other combination of veggies in there too! We also like to add artichoke hearts, spinach or dried tomatoes.

Project for the week!

The project for the last week were the costumes- very cute- and still have more to do. We are also planning the Haiti Benefit show for next week.
Food plans for the week are:
Bean and pasta soup, butternut squash lasagna, rice and bean burritos, some lovely little ginger cookies and a nice apple crisp. All done up and in the fridge... ready for this week!

We also went to the Human Rights event at the state capitol. It was pretty cool. Thank you, Dr. King, for making things better for all of us.

Jungle Book Costume Work Call

Costumes are my big project for the week. So far we have monkey costumes planned with ears (fuzzy fabric cut and sewn by Alison, her mom and Keiko) attached to brown stocking hats. Tails to be attached to the black outfits.
We also have a box of cute little red ball caps the elephants will be wearing- with the grey ears to be attached, the 30 elephants will look really cute.
Flowers, rocks and prickly pears will be hats with more flowers, etc. will look good, although I think we need to carve one more rock out of foam and paint it before they will be complete.
We have some random cute "on head" masks we used for our Lion King review last year. So we will fill those gaps. And we need to get Baloo, Bageera and King Louie figured out. (of course I do have the grass skirt, coconut bra and fun hat straight out of my closet! )
This photo is from Lion King last year. One of the art students did a fantastic job painting some of the masks. I will post some photos from the work call tomorrow!

Staying true

Keeping the peace with your money, time and, of course, food.
Another recipe tomorrow and the time to get caught up with costumes and starting my taxes.
Wait till you see the costumes we have started!

Enchiladas, oh baby!

Here's the recipe for some of the best enchiladas in the world. I could eat them every day!

1 package of good corn tortillas
1 roasted butternut squash (I usually bake it on the weekend so it's ready to go, use the leftover in soup or lasagna!)
1 bunch of fresh spinach
1 container of fresh mushroom (you pick what kind you like, button are fine)
1 can of prepared verde enchilada sauce or make your own with tomatillos!
1 c. cheddar or jack cheese (grated)
1 sm. can sliced olives

Pour a little enchilada sauce in the bottom of a 13x9 in baking dish. Fill those tortillas with about 2 tablespoons of squash, a few leaves of spinach and a few mushrooms. Set the enchiladas in the baking dish, seam side down. Pour the sauce over all of them (about 8? depending on the package-) and cover with cheese and olives.
Cover with foil and bake for 45 min @ 350 then uncover and bake for about 10 min until golden and bubbly. fabulous!

Be sure to visit my brand new etsy store. Dancingtoad is open for business! You can find some really cute scraps of fabric for your little projects.

New Week!

Ok, I didn't get the little quilt done. That's not good, but it's ok because I worked a bunch on the other stuff! One thing is to set those goals to build a house. Yes, most people will think I am a little nutty, but that's ok. I needed to figure out a new budget to get that money!

Here's a really cool site for getting money together- which is good for everyone. I just found it, time will tell if I will use it because it may be for the extreme but I am giving it a try. It is called The Daily Worth.

and this is a great idea for building my house! I think those kits look good and it says a person can do the basic in 7 days! what?

Check it out! Tomorrow I will give you my favorite enchilada recipe! Holy cats! They are goooood!

Start!

The new year is here and I thought it would be a good idea to keep myself on track. So, I thought, what if I promise to do a project a week? That would be sewing, crafty stuff, cooking, organizing or some costuming or set design...

This week has been good! Here's the line up:
1. Goals set for a house I want to build along with a budget to follow
2. Organized almost all the scary little room with all the craft stuff
3. Designed and organized the work party for costume building
4. Picked up my knitting and finishing that project from about 2 years ago
5. (this is the tricky one, I am making a little quilt this afternoon, so I will post later)

I am writing this to help keep me on track. It helps to write it, so I will do it!