Ramblings for a Sunday Morning

I love technology...

Our school has been on this big technology kick. I suspect it has something to do with the fact that we are being accredited this year. It looks pretty dang fancy when everyone has a mounted projector, power point presentations, document cameras, clickers and Smart boards. I have a projector (which I LOVE), but beyond that, not a whole lot. The other day, one of the administrators passed me in the hall and said, "Hey, I put your name on the list to get a document camera. I know you can use it!" Thanks, I think. Much as I respect him, that particular administrator has never seen me teach, and has no idea if I would actually use it or not. It's nice of them to give me a document camera, and I'm sure I can find a way to use it, but I would much rather have the chairs I've been asking for over the last 6 months than a document camera. More about chairs in a minute.

Some of the new stuff that is out there technology-wise is pretty cool, but some of it (at least how it is used) seems like it's kind of pointless. Last week, my research class that I'm taking at WSU met in the library so the librarian could show us how their system works. It was time well spent, and I learned a lot from it. The beginning of class though, was just kind of odd. We all sat down at little computers stations (straight from the 21st century, I'm sure) which were sunk in the desks with glass tops. If you kind of squinted and pressed your nose to the glass, it made it so the glare wasn't too bad and you could see the screen. The librarian had us use a "response system" to get our input on questions she was asking us--general things like, "Have you ever used a library catalog system before?" The question would pop up on the screen, and we would click "yes" or "no". I've seen a demonstration of a similar system where each member of the class has a little remote control that they use to beam in their answer. I can see how in some cases that could be used in a really gainful way. In this case, it just seemed kind of silly. Why didn't she just ask us, and have us raise our hands? Would a little human interaction kill anyone? At the end, we were able to type in specific questions we had. A few people typed them in, we waited for a few minutes for the program to pop up a screen with what they asked, then waited for the librarian to adjust the scroll-bar on the screen so we could actually read what they wrote. Why not just save some effort and say, "Who has a question?" If your goal is anonymity, pass out slips of paper for people to write their questions on.

About chairs: I've been wanting chairs. Since last year. The german teacher next door has all chairs, and no desks. He uses folding tables if the occasion arises that the students need to have a hard surface to work on. I've been jealous of his room all last year, and so at the end of the year, I requested chairs instead of desks. I used the "my classes are so big next year, that I need chairs to fit all 40 munchkins comfortably in my room" argument. One of the Big 4 said, "Sure, you can have chairs." I think he was saying whatever it took to make me stop freaking out about the huge number of students on my rolls. A different member of the Big 4 (the one who is actually in charge of building needs), said "What!? Forty chairs? We have no money for that." Alas. No chairs for me. Until I found out the district was having a warehouse sale. Along with a bunch of other stuff, they were getting rid of student chairs. As soon as I saw that, I hustled to the office. After a few rounds of: "You want to get chairs? I don't know, why don't you ask _____?", a few phone calls, and a mad dash to the warehouse on my part, I was able to score 40 olive green chairs for my room. I am so excited!

Juice of 3 lambs*

Actually, make that 10 quarts of tomato puree. You know how one step of a recipe can take an hour and a half? Well, this one INGREDIENT took an hour and a half.

I decided to try my hand at tomato sauce. Good thing I had all afternoon, because I pulled the last jar out of the canner at 10:00 pm. Granted I wasn't slaving at the stove all afternoon, but it still was a very long process. Part of that time was spent sorting out good tomatoes from nasty, black and hairy tomatoes, and scrubbing the tomato carnage from the fruit room floor.

A few months ago, the CSA I subscribe to sent out an email saying that they were making bushels of tomatoes and peaches available to their members. A few months ago, processing a bushel of tomatoes and a bushel of peaches sounded like a good idea, so I ordered one of each. I didn't know exactly when they would arrive, but I assumed that they would come on different weeks. I had also assumed that I would have time to do something with them when they got here.

Last Tuesday, I went to pick up my CSA share at Beehive Cheese. I had a big cooler in the car with ice packs, because my box of produce was going to be sitting in my car for 3 hours while I went to my night class at WSU. I walked in to pick up my food box and discovered not 1, but 3 boxes with my name on them. On closer inspection, I found I had a box of produce, a box of peaches and a box of tomatoes. After a moment of panic, the nice folks at Beehive Cheese told me they were planning on staying late that night to make cheese, and that it would be okay for me to keep the boxes in their fridge until my class got out. They didn't have to do that--they even gave me a cell phone number so I could call someone to open the door for me when I got there.

I've bought bushels of produce from other places, and typically, the peaches are rock hard for a few days until they ripen in the basement. These peaches and tomatoes were ready. On Tuesday. I wasn't. I parked them in the fruit room downstairs and crossed my fingers. Apparently, I didn't cross them hard enough. I had quite the mess I had to clean up yesterday. Dang! I was able to salvage a good part of it, but I always feel bad when food gets wasted like that.

So--it's Sunday morning and I have a nice little set of jars of tomato sauce sitting out. I would have taken a picture, except the battery in my camera died. I might try tomato sauce again. We'll see.

Ryan is trying his hand at constructing a bigger and better chicken coop. I went outside after I finished with the tomatoes to see his handiwork. It is going to be a very tall coop. Should be interesting to see what it looks like when it's done. =)

*My sister in-law coined the phrase "juice of three lambs" to refer to things called for in a recipe that no normal person would actually have in her kitchen. Lots of recipes from Martha Stewart fall into this category.

I stand corrected--that was my mother in-law who coined the phrase. Sorry, Linda! =)