Chiffon Banana Cake

Mom's banana bread recipe
Oven 350 for 35 min or so

2 eggs, separated
1 1/3 c sugar (I didn't use this much)
2 cups for 1/4 c flour (I used 2 cups)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt (I used about half)
1 tsp soda
1/3 c oil
1 cup mashed bananas
2/3 cup buttermilk (I used vinegar in almond milk; added water if need)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup nuts

Beat egg whites til frothy. Beat in 1/3 of sugar until stiff. Sift remaining sugar, flour and other dry ingredients into another bowl. Add oil, bananas, half of milk and flavoring. Beat 1 min. Add remaining milk and egg yolks and beat another min. Fold in egg whites, and nuts gently. Bake. Cool. Frost with caramel frosting.

Aunt Dot and Mom, around 1973.

Cinnamon Griddle Scones

From Goldy's Kitchen Cookbook

1 c flour
2 T buttermilk powder
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp soda
1/2 tsp cream of tarter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 c water
2 T solid shortening for frying

1. Preheat griddle over med-high heat
2. Stir together flour, buttermilk, sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, and salt Add water and stir until well-conbined. Turn out on a well-floured surface, knead a few turns, and pan into a 6.5 inch round. Cut into 8 wedges.
3. Melt shortening on the griddle or skillet. When it is hot, reduce heat to medium and place scones on it. Cook until the first side is golden brown about 2 minutes. Turn and cook another 2 minutes. Should not be doughy, but look like a biscuit. Serve immediately.

Update on my Real Life

I can't believe (sadly, yes I can) that I haven't continued to journal for the whole wide world to see. You probably don't know that I've been retired (semi) now for nearly TWO YEARS. And that I have two more sweet granddaughters to share!

Life is good, so glad to be able to Praise the Lord anew every day for the gift of another day. I continue to teach adjunct classes for UC and have started teaching piano lessons again, after a hiatus of nearly 20 years. I am an avid fan of FaceBook and DropBox. Still loving to garden, crochet and read on a KINDLE - I will forever be a technology geek, I'm afraid!

New Granddaughter

So happy to hear today that Beau & Kelly are having a girl - sometime early September. Our third granddaughter! What richness God has given our family!

Ten Wonderful Years

Can't let yesterday go by without a public affirmation of the goodness of God. On Sept. 11, 2001, when the horrible events were occurring in New York, I was undergoing surgery for cancer. After that, 5+ weeks of radiation, and wonderful care from many doctors and nurses, I am still here to praise the Lord for giving me ten more years. In these ten years, I have moved with my husband twice, taught hundreds more college students, earned a doctoral degree, traveled extensively, heard my sons sing in public, and best of all, welcomed three precious grandchildren into our growing family. God is responsible for all these blessings, and I thank Him so much.

I ache for the families, because of mindless terrorism, who haven't had these ten years of wonder. I know that God is there for them, and I pray that they let him in to help them.

New Things

I LOVE new things! Thanks to one of my students in EDOL 548, I found a NEW template for my blog - love the ladybugs because they remind me of my granddaughter. I have 18 NEW quarts of beans and 8 NEW pints of beans, 3 NEW quarts of tomato juice and 10 NEW jelly jars of strawberry jam from the weekend. I cleaned off one bed of beans and planted spinach. Have to go to the 'big' garden soon and pick more beans before it gets too awfully hot.

2nd canning

Today I picked my first zucchini from the flower box on the porch. AND canned 6 pts of green beans. No groundhog this year!

My Garden Jounral

Duh!! This is the PERFECT venue to post my gardening journal and I am starting today.

Saturday - cleaned out fence bed (found a few more potatoes) and planted Tenderette bush beans. Moved a couple of volunteer tomato seedlings to the side.

Picked a few beans for a mess to go with the new potatoes and found two cucumbers. I won't plant them in the beans next time - they can't see over the top of the beans.

Planted my new stevia plant in the lower bed with the onions and okra.

Went to the big garden (Jane and Fred's) and hoed the corn and weeded my three rows of corn and beans and okra, and 5 hills of cantaloupe. That garden is looking GOOD. Her brother Allan tills it - what a sweetie.

We went to London and I found Kim's Amish market. They were selling end-of-season plants and I got 12 tomato plants for $1.50. I planted them this evening in the mound of compost (mulch) left over from cutting down the oak tree last year. I set up willow stakes in a tent, and put the rest of the Casey County straw over to mulch.

My begonias are spreading like wildfire, so I moved some of them - they were taking over the bleeding hearts.

Data Collection

I am so ready (like SO many of my teacher candidates) for this semester to be over. This has been a brutal one. I pray that God will guide me in the future semesters to make each learning experience the best possible without killing me!!

The voice of a child...

Things I want to remember - posts on Facebook from my family:

• L asks me how many STABLEs there will be in her new Kindergarten classroom. I tell her I don't believe they have any stables and she becomes quite upset, her eyes filling with tears. I tell I don't think any classrooms have stables. She then asks if the kids are supposed to "hold it" all day and I finally figure out that she is wondering about bathroom STALLS!
• The Woolite Carpet pod works great on crayon on the carpet. The Mr. Clean magic eraser works great on all hard surfaces with crayon. The Spot Shot (sold at Sam's) works great on clothing with crayon stains. I'm thankful for my cleaning products and my young Rembrandt!
• listening to L read early phonics books. "Bug has fun as he runs in the mud..."
• hyped up on pixie sticks and cheap chocolate. My daughter's pre-school Valentine party was a lot of fun and so simple. I wish I could freeze time. I love the 4 year old way of life!
• introduced my daughter to hibachi. My normally very cautious eater who doesn't like to try new foods, really responded to a knife-weilding, flame-throwing, egg-juggling chef who lite a tower of onions and his hand on fire. Next thing we knew she was eating rice with chopsticks and slurping broth soup with floating vegetable shreds in it!!!
• I went to put away the Little People nativity I discovered a new twist on the scene courtesy of Laura. There was a Little People ferris wheel behind the manger and the wise men and an angel were taking a ride.
• had my best yard sale yet! I discovered my 4 year old has an enterprenerial spirit. She sold every bottle of water at her little refreshment stand and told everyone how great all our yard sale things were and encouraged people to buy them.
• wonders how I will teach my child to use real Fluoride toothpaste (not the Toddler training toothpaste). We're on our 4th type and she claims it's all too "spicy." Then, drama ensues. Then, I get ANOTHER barely used tube of toothpaste in a crazy flavor
• listening to L sing to her stuffed animals
• And Beauisms from Kelly: 
• skunk sprayed our house... beau says, "mother skunker!"
• "if i had a nickel for every time someone said that, i'd have $1.32."
• beau: 'woah, want to try a sun dried grape?'
  me: 'you mean a raisin?'
• figuring out points values for foods, and how much i ate: "no, you didn't eat a third of it... you probably had about two-sixths."
• we saw some obama dress-up dolls, and b said "thats an obamination".
• baby jack had a poopy blow-out diaper. it took me a minute to realize it because he was under a blanket. when i finally noticed, dignan was licking him clean. later, jack farted and dignan's ears perked up. beau's response: "dignan, that noise does not mean 'soup's on'."
• "how do you make gravity less grave? mix some levity into it."
• "i don't think i'd have any problem liking raisins if they tasted like chocolate and had a chocolate-like texture"
• "They're not devoted enough to their paganism to be pagans. They're just heathens."
• ‎"we are NOT a blue toilet water family!"
• "Wow, you work at a place called Curves? Why don't they have a place for people like me who are just one giant curve all around? Then you'd call it Curve."

I LOVE SKYPE

Thank you God for SKYPE!  Papa and I got to see Jack, Beau and Kelly tonight for a couple of minutes and see what a big boy he is at almost 7 months old with two teeth!! We are waiting around tonight for the alleged big snow storm coming our way. Right now it's weenie snow.

Some WONDERFUL news

After the rough time losing wonderful people in our family, we have gained a new one! Kelly & Beau had little Jack Elliott on July 3, and I am getting to visit and love on him this week in Houston. He is a charmer and Beau & Kelly are wonderful parents!

More Sad News Today

Gary's Mom called this evening and reported that his cousin Charles Lee Wright passed away about 4 pm this afternoon. So much death this month – it's overwhelming.

Types of Christ

A number of years ago I finally read completely through the Bible – it took me a year and ½! Then I started reading through it again by reading J.Vernon McGee's Through the Bible series. I love the way he explains the meaning of scripture in a down-to-earth, in-your-face way, with no apologies. After a year, I have finished the first volume (the first 5 books of the Bible) and now I'm in Joshua. The Isrealites have crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land, and the 12 stones that were picked up out of the river and placed on the West Bank are a Type of Christ – another one! There are so many of these in the Old Testament. These twelve rocks typify the our baptism into Christ. God picks the common, real-world, our-experience things to bring things clear to our understanding – just like we teachers try to get our students to do for their students! God, we should have been listening to you much earlier.

Blogging Revisted

I do want to continue to grow and stretch myself and do it with consistent reflection. So, Dr. Franklin, here I go again. At 56, I am constantly astonished that my perspective continues to change. My precious mom died this month, and the perspective change after something like that is enormous. I saw a perspective change in my son as well. Nothing like personal experience to bring something 'home' to you.

Pic is of my son Lee, Mom, and my brother Phil.

Hooray I'm Back!

Wow I really was surprised that last week I really wanted to blog a couple of times and couldn't because I was using the blog as a discussion board. And that works wonderfully well - so I'll be doing it again, or else I'll set up a separate blog for a discussion board. I love being able to see all comments on one page, which doesn't work very well at Learning House. So... this week we have finished up exit portfolio interviews, and I am ready for the end of school but have so much yet to do. I can't seem to get enough sleep, don't know why.

I love this spring weather - and on the way home saw the promise of God yet again from a really vibrant rainbow - just beautiful. I haven't really sharpened my saw tonight, but will later this week.

Beau is in New York tonight and I hope he just knocks the socks off the judges tomorrow when he sings for the Richard Tucker grant. I got to talk to my granddaughter on SKYPE last night and what a joy - she tries to touch me on the monitor, blows me kisses, and says, "NANA!!" Oh, the amazing and wonderful joys of grandmotherhood.

I'm on the road tomorrow for my last PrimeTime storytelling gig at Adair County Library.

I could while away the hours… if I only had a voice recorder!

It's amazing how much I think about what I would blog about if I were around my computer at the time. In my car, in the shower, trying to go to sleep at night… I actually do a lot of reflection that I don't write down. But it's the writing down that will really help me I think. So to continue to become a more self-actualized person (Maslow) I will continue. It's been over a week now, but it doesn't feel like a habit yet.
Musings this morning took me to realize that it takes several things to become a successful and consistent blogger:

• Access to a computer
• The Joy of Writing
• Interpersonal and Communication Learning Style
• Determination

Now, do people who do not have these qualities become successful bloggers, or more specifically, blog so that I know they are learning from the course readings? I think so – but those people have to have even more determination!!! I hope my students realize that I know that now. But that I am still looking for learning that is happening!
God Bless you all today!

My struggle with consistency…

I think one of the things I had the most trouble with when I taught K-12 was consistency. It's the story of my life. I forgot to blog last night. Ben Franklin would be ashamed of me. Today I started my day with J. Vernon McGee's first Volume of Through the Bible – I'm in Deuteronomy. It doesn't matter what I read most mornings, there is always something there that is relevant for what's going on in my life right then. I'm also reading through a book I bought for $1.00 called the Dog Trainer's Guide to parenting – so far not much has helped me out – there have been some common sense ideas but not much help – but there's probably a reason is was only $1.00!
One of the sections stated, it is easy to loosen up but hard to tighten up – ever heard that in school? How many of you were told by one or more teachers, Don't Smile Until Christmas?? My personal favorite, although I never planned it this way, is to over-plan a course, and then find out that students were learning a lot even without having to do all of the things I planned. So I can say, well, let's not do that. And I come out the hero! So the next semester, I try not to plan as much. Etc. What I am not understanding, though, is that as I continually loosen up (semester to semester), students still complain about too much work. So, Hmmmmm. More to reflect on at a later time.

Hmmmm, this or this?

With all the good feedback I am getting I REALLY want to be doing some instructional planning today. But looking at the piles of advising folders on my desk, and the portfolio CDs on top of those, I guess I will grade. Sigh. But, it's a GOOD day. Thank you Lord!

More work, it’s the last straw

I really enjoyed my student teachers' chat tonight, and I thought I might even get a unit graded afterwards. But darn it, I worked on EPSB documents all day and I am tired. I'm old. And I really am not up to thinking about any way I can improve right now!!
Ha, just wanted to write what I bet my students want to write sometimes! I know that they have to be way more tired than I am, even though they are NOT old.