What I've been up to lately.....

Last week I was able to help out in Peyton's class. When I first arrived they were taking a bathroom break, so her teacher sent me on in to the classroom. Being the nosy mother that I am, I went over to Peyton's desk and found she had been working on this:


I know it's hard to see/read, but I believe this is what she wrote.....

"One day, when I was a baby, my Mom and Dad decided we should move. We marked the calendar and we got packing. Then it was nighttime. The next day we moved. We packed the car......"

Just one more hilarious difference between how children see things and how adults know they are.

Once Mrs. H came back into the room, she handed me my assignments....

In case you didn't catch that, I had to copy back-to-back and have it stapled. That's right, 5 sets of 25. I don't know about you, but I always feel a momentary panic when being handed something like this. "What if I don't finish on time....or what if I do it wrong??" Not sure what I'm worried about exactly....what's going to happen? Recess taken away? Extra reading time that night? (please, I'm begging somebody to put me to bed at 8:00pm with a good book!)

So off to the copy room I went.....and no matter how many times I visit, I get a little scared at the sight of this.....

It's just massive, isn't it?!?! And to add to the intimidation, this year you have to borrow the teacher's key card so they can keep track of how much paper is being used. So wouldn't you know, the first set of 25 came out......BLANK! I took the "copies" and reinserted them into the paper loader. I have no idea if that counts or not. I guess all is well because after that task I was able to work individually with a few students until day's end. Mrs. H seemed truly grateful for my help and even asked me back:)

We made it to Friday so decided to celebrate.....



I realize this picture will stick out like a sore thumb by the time you get to the end of this post, but here is my favorite new salad...

It is made with romaine, spinach, a Granny Smith apple, organic red grapes and sunflower seeds....then topped with that delicious Trader Joe's ($1.99 a bottle!!) dressing. It's a meal in and of itself.

Today, I tried again with the ganache......(this was for a friend's birthday and since her kids were here after school I had them sprinkle and decorate cupcakes for her.)

And once again it failed me. It's like the ex-boyfriend you know you shouldn't take back (figuratively speaking) or the skinny jeans you know didn't flatter you 20 years ago so you shouldn't do it now just because they're back. BUT FOR SOME REASON UNBEKNOWNST TO YOU, YOU JUST CAN'T GIVE IT UP.

So of course it breaks your heart once more.

Refusing to give up, I whipped up a quick batch of buttercream (powdered sugar, 1 stick butter, vanilla, almond extract and, since I had a container of it purchased for the ill-fated ganache, heavy whipping cream.)

Then I took my proverbial lemons and made lemonade. (Or rather, butter, heavy cream and chocolate - so hard to go wrong there!)


(Didn't the kids do a great job??!!)


It was one of the yummiest mistakes ever. I highly recommend failed ganache.