Grammar Rules

I grew up in a family that would stop at nothing to correct poor grammar.

She and I are going to the store. You're my favorite. I ate a lot of candy last night.

One of my biggest pet peeves (because I was always corrected for this) is the difference between nauseated and nauseous. Most people-- I'm sure, you do it too-- say, "I'm nauseous." Then you promptly head to the toilet and relieve yourself. HOWEVER-- what you should have said was, "I'm nauseated."

nauseated
feeling nausea, feeling about to vomit

nauseous
adjective
causing nausea, sickening, or nauseating

Yes, I know this is a gross topic to discuss, but it's something everyone should know. 'Cause talking good is real nice!

Construction Paper Animals

So here are some of the other animals I have made for Alyson....Bertha, the butterfly
Bubbles, the fishCarmella, the camelGlenda, the good gorillaIan, the iguanaPablo, the pigWhich one's your favorite

A Labor of Love, years in the Making!

One of my favorite memories of family gatherings are my Nana's sticky buns! So when we were asked to bring in an item for the breakfast pot-luck at work, I emailed Nana for her "recipe." So here is Nana's sticky bun recipe**.WHAT YOU NEED:
Sugar
Brown Sugar
Pecans, chopped (Nana used halved, I liked the chopped)
Butter
Cinnamon
Yeast Dough (Nana used Herman, I used Publix's pizza dough)
After the dough has risen--roll it out into a rectangle to about a half inch thickness. Mine's more like a circle
Brush melted butter on the dough and sprinkle with a mixture of sugar and cinnamon. I know I used too much butter-- it was running all over the place-- and I was second guessing how much sugar and cinnamon to use (notice the extra cinnamon I sprinkled after brushed the butter mixture on the dough)
Mix melted butter with brown sugar and cinnamon and spread the mixture over the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking pan. Place half pecan nuts randomly over this mixture face down. Looks like toffee...mmmmm, toffee
Roll the dough you have prepared tightly, starting at the long end and then slice at 1 inch intervals. I'm sure I could have rolled this tighter if I didn't have so much butter on the inside-- everything was slipping and sliding as I was trying to roll.

Place these over nuts, just barely touching and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rise until almost doubled in a warm place, free of drafts. Remove plastic and bake at 350 degrees until brown. Since I was on a time crunch, I allowed them to rise for 25 minutes. I was also PARANOID that they were not done enough so I baked them for 32 minutes)

Invert pan on to a serving platter and allow the sauce to dribble over the rolls. Enjoy!!!

**These were Nana's EXACT words (no measurements)-- love you Nana.

Everyone seemed to love the sticky buns-- they were gone in a matter of minutes!!

Tag, You're It

Christy tagged me!! Here's the deal... I have to find a picture of a room that displays my personal style. So here it is...

Now, before you get the wrong impression, let me explain why I chose a laundry room. I hate doing laundry (really I hate putting it away... I don't mind actually doing it). What I do love and crave, however, is organization. Everything has a place. Since Matt and I live in a small apartment, it is IMPERATIVE that organization reigns (my mom has even commented on my organizational skills before-- high praise).

As for my personal decorating style-- I enjoy things that are comfortable (not too stuffy), traditional (not too modern), colorful (hello, I'm an art teacher), and functional (but I do love decorative accents and I am trying to teach Matt that they are okay to have). While this isn't my ideal laundry room-- mine would have tile floor, plenty of counter space, and red washer and dryer. What I love most about this room is the shelving system and the containers on those shelves. Canvas storage bins= comfort, shelving system= function, wall color=well, color, and the actual laundry room= traditional.

My favorite room in my apartment is my kitchen-- talk about organization-- it's tinsy tiny and because everything has a place, I can still actually use the kitchen. Don't get me wrong, I dream of a bigger kitchen (on a weekly basis), but I'm okay for now. I don't have a picture right now since it's in ruins after making Nana's sticky buns for a work pot-luck breakfast this morning (pictures of those coming soon).

<> My Tags: Aunt Susan, Tracy Good luck-- have fun!!

GEORGE!!!

It all started when I was helping a friend of mine at work bubble Scan-trons for benchmark testing. Alyson was teaching her kids while I was at her desk bubbling and she was using pictures to show her students how to solve word problems. When she drew a "chicken" on the board, the kids started laughing and looking back at me (seeing if I was watching how bad she was drawing said chicken). I saw it. That's when I decided I would make her a fowl to use in her word problems-- thus keeping the distracting images away from students and their attention on learning!!Enter, Conroy!

Anyway, I quite enjoyed making Conroy... so I made him some more friends-- all for Alyson to use in word problems. So here's how it's done.

What You Need:

Scissors
Pencil
Sharpie
Construction Paper
Glue Stick
Inspiration (I used this picture of a Giraffe)
*not pictured- X-Acto knife... optional, but useful
Start off by sketching your animal on the primary color construction paper

Cut out the Giraffe with scissors, staying close to the lines... careful, careful
Trace the feet onto gray construction paper for the toes. Make sure you trace on the side you sketched the giraffe-- you will flip everything over so that there are no pencil marks showing.
Cut the feet out-- just outside the lines, so that you don't see any yellow peeping out from underneath. Flip the giraffe over and glue the feet in place. Remember everything is reversed.
I added some black construction paper to bring out some details.
Trace the giraffe on brown paper and draw the spots where you want them. Then use X-Acto or scissors to cut them out and glue them onto the other side of the giraffe.
Cut out some darker brown shapes to accent the lighter ones. Also, add the eye.

I used the Sharpie to fill in the eye, divide the toes, and draw a smile.

His name is George.

Flank Steak Dinner

Matt is definitely a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so when we have people over for dinner, he leaps at the chance to have steak and potatoes. Saturday night was no exception-- so I whipped up some flank steak, yummmm

What You Need:
1/2C Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1C Worcestershire Sauce
1C Soy Sauce
1/4C packed Brown Sugar
1/4teaspoon Salt
2teaspoons Garlic, minced
1/4teaspoons Onion Powder
1/4teaspoons Ground Ginger
2teaspoons Fresh Ginger, shredded
Flank Steak
Combine everything in a mixing bowl and whisk until incorporated. Pour marinade into plastic bag and add flank steak.Put in fridge over night, flipping over the next morning. Get it out of the fridge and bring it to room temperature before you cook it.There are two ways you can cook flank steak... on the grill or in the oven. Saturday, I chose the oven, since, of course, we live in an apartment and it's against fire code to even HAVE a grill. Oh well... the oven will do fine. For medium rare meat you will BROIL the steak for 7 minutes on one side, flip, and broil for another 6 minutes. Slice it thin.I just steamed some broccoli and mashed some potatoes to go with the steak. I also added some bacon to the potatoes. Can't go wrong with bacon

**notice all the space between each thing on my plate... I hate my food touching-- even at the expense of a good photograph.

FOLK ART!!! Yarn Painting

The High Museum of Art in Atlanta has a fairly good Folk Art collection (not as good as the American Folk Art Museum in NY), but none the less, it's a good resource, so I took my students to the High to learn about Folk Art. Most of my students are scared of drawing, so I try to incorporate drawing into projects that I know they will be successful at (and limit the amount of projects that are solely drawing).

Folk Art is traditionally made by novice artists that make art for the sake of art-- not necessarily to make a profit, though folk art can be profitable. The common "folk" who create such work don't usually follow art movements, but rather, have more of a craft style about them. Also, most folk art is created to tell a story-- such as family quilts and they tend to use materials commonly found around them.

As such, the project I have for my students is a yarn painting. Students are instructed to come up with a simple design that tells a story about them. The design really needs to be rather simple since they will be "painting" it with yarn and very small details can be lost. So let's get started.What You Need:
Yarn, varying colors
Pencil
White Glue
Toothpick
Heavy Paper (I used tag board)
Ruler
1. Draw a 1 in. border around your paper (that way you can mat it when you are done)
2. Draw your design-- I chose a tree3. Lay a strip of glue where you intend to put the yarn, but don't cover the entire area with glue at one time, just one strip of glue will do.4. Lay the yarn on top of the strand of glue, use a toothpick to scwunch the yarn right up against the previous yarn. Once the yarn is in place, cut off the excess-- notice the edges of the painting.5. Try to change up the color of the yarn i.e. 4 different colors of blue for the sky, 2 different colors of green for the grass, 4 different browns to illustrate texture of the tree trunk and reds, oranges, and yellows for the fall leaves-- makes it more interesting.

That's it... enjoy.