Princess rotary dial phone: image courtesy of http://www.pinterest.com When I teach the French expressions for "I need" and "I want" (j'ai besoin et j'ai envie), to make it more concrete we make lists. As concrete as possible works best for 7th graders. I do indeed ask them if their parents have explained the difference between …
Category: baking
Waiting for Diego
This time three months ago I was sitting around waiting for Hurricane Florence to pay me a visit. Yesterday I waited for Winter Storm Diego to quietly sweep in. I am a bit of a skeptic when it comes to snow predictions around here. Several friends call it Snowmaggedon. Sister-in-Law sent this photo via Facebook- …
Pumpkin spice and everything nice
Fall is my favorite season. I go around at this time of year searching for signs that it is indeed on its way. This leaf proves that it is coming to my world. Other signs... College football takes up all day Saturday. We follow Duke, Tennessee, Nebraska, and Appalachian State University around here. Duke is …
When I can’t sleep…
When I can't go back to sleep, I get up and bake. Wide awake at 3:30 am this morning. Ugh. I will pay for that about 7:30 pm when I can't keep my eyes open. It doesn't happen often, but it can be because I've had a bad dream or I just wake up thinking …
Hurricane Florence
It's weird to sit around and wait for a hurricane to arrive. I think (hope?) that we are not going to see too much in Durham. But I can't stop watching the WRAL-TV news showing my neighbors to the east. New Bern, an old city in eastern North Carolina on the Neuse River I am …
Austin
I started this blog post a couple of weeks ago... before life got real again. Before school meetings and then classes started. Lord have mercy. How on earth did I manage it all when I had two little boys depending upon me to feed them? Anyway... back to finishing what I started. I have …
The Queen
I just stumbled across this poem, thanks to the dad of one of my 6th graders. It came from the blog Just An Inquisitive Soul. Maybe Inquisitive is the author? When I googled The Queen poems a slew of different poems popped up. No time (or patience) to wade through them right now. I am …
Procrasti-baking and the Power of Love
Yes, it's a thing. I saw it on Facebook and, frankly, I was relieved. The article, from the New York Times on-line, entitled Why Work When You Can Procrastibake? starts this way: All procrastibakers do not bake alike. Procrastibaking — the practice of baking something completely unnecessary, with the intention of avoiding “real” work — is …
Getting along
So, I have not always been a Kenny Chesney fan. (Sorry, Kenny.) Just for the past few years. Welcome to the Fishbowl, released in 2012, was the first album by him that I bought. And I still listen to it all the way through. The BFF saw him in concert a few years back and …
A new day
(from Positive Thoughts Facebook page) Maybe I am just a simple person. Maybe I was born under a lucky star. Certainly not with a silver spoon in my mouth or already on second or third base. I've worked hard all of my life. I have had good role models and mentors. Maybe sometimes I've just …
the sabbatical chef 