Almost There!

Well folks, today is my birthday! The big 29! This will be the last year of my twenties! I'm very excited both to still be in my twenties and to be nearing my thirties, which I think will be good to me. However, I've been thinking about making a 30 before 30 list for some time now, and it seems like if I don't do it now I won't have time to do anything on the list! So, here is a list of 30 things I hope to do before I turn 30 in exactly 365 days. 

1. Get at least one set of papers graded by the next class period. 

2. Turn midterm grades in with everything graded and early for at least one class. 

3. Finish the Phi Theta Kappa Honors in Action Project. 

4. Read 20 books that I want to read. 

5. Read 5 non-fiction books. 

6. Organize the files on my home computer, work computer, jump drive, and Dropbox so I don't have to look in all the places to find what I need. 

7. Go to Disney World!

8. Redecorate my living room, bedroom, and/or bathroom. 

9. Get a full time job with benefits or get into a PhD program. 

10. Take guitar or piano lessons. 

11. Get my piano professionally tuned. 

12. Have my whole house clean (closets, attic, and all) all at one time, even if only for a moment. 

13. Teach my puppy a trick. 

14. Get new glasses. 

15. Read a book to Jill. 

16. Go to the Catching Fire midnight premiere in full costume. 

17. Finish a cross-stitch project. 

18. Finish making a sweater. 

19. Make a Disney movie night/Disney trip scrapbook. 

20. Volunteer for a good cause. 

21. Make a perfect lasagna from scratch. 

22. Make a piece of artwork I'm proud of to hang in my house. 

23. Regulate my blood pressure. 

24. Complete a Coursera course. 

25. Go to a cooking class

26. Pay off a credit card or some other form of debt. 

27. Take my car in for regular oil changes. 

28. Have a garage sale. 

29. Write letters to loved ones. 

30. Develop my relationship with God. 

Well, I don't know if all of these are feasible, but I'll keep you updated!

Godspeed.

On This Lovely Bella Notte

Our guests for the evening chose Lady and the Tramp for their Disney dinner.  Since I didn't have much advance notice, this wasn't as elaborate as some, but we still had fun.

Obviously, we had to have spaghetti and meatballs for dinner, and there is no better recipe for spaghetti and meatballs out there than the Pioneer Woman's recipe.  Seriously.  This recipe is amazing.  It's one of two bookmarked pages on my phone (the other is my school's LMS) because I make it frequently enough that I need it handy.  Soon I will have made it enough that I will have it memorized.  We also had cheesy garlic bread, I just mix some garlic in with really soft (but not melted) butter, spread it thickly on sandwich bread, sprinkle on fresh parsley if I have any, and then smother it in cheese.  Mozerella, colby jack, mexican blend, just whatever we have on hand.  It always comes out wonderfully.  Then, because it's just the perfect side for an Italian meal and dad had lots of homegrown tomatoes (yum!), we had a salad with our Tangy Tomato dressing.

This seems like as good a time as any to share the Tangy Tomato recipe.  Now, we call it Tangy Tomato because it's based on the Tangy Tomato dressing at Outback Steakhouse, but I personally like this dressing significantly more than the dressing at Outback.  It's got a nice kick to it that, as my dad says, just really gets your mouth ready for the rest of the meal.

Tangy Tomato Salad Dressing

Ingredients:

2/3 cup ketchup

1/3 cup water

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup white vinegar

1/8 teaspoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1 pinch thyme

dash salt

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1. Mix all ingredients excluding olive oil in a medium saucepan.  Slowly whisk in olive oil while bringing to a boil.
2. Upon reaching a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered 5 minutes, whisking the whole time to keep the oil from separating.
3. Cover until cool and refrigerate.

I was always a ranch dressing girl, but this is definitely my new favorite.  I wish I could carry it around with me for use at restaurants!

For dessert we had homemade ice cream with an amazing hot fudge sauce.  I don't actually know the homemade ice cream recipe because my mom has it in her head, and I left it to her.  As far as the hot fudge, this is my brother-in-law's secret recipe, and I was only very recently allowed in on the secret, so I better not share it!

This dessert didn't really have anything to do with the movie, it just sounded delicious.  Frankly, I haven't really watched Lady and the Tramp quite as many times as I've watched most Disney movies, so I was kind of short on ideas.  This was true for an activity and craft as well.  Our guests (two of my Aunt, the Cake Lady's, granddaughters) were also a little bit older than the Bean, so I wasn't sure they would be as in to an activity as the Bean usually is.  So, we didn't have an activity for the night, but we did have a craft planned.

Mom actually already had this and was going to use it as a headband, but we thought we could do necklaces like Lady's collar in the movie.  Mom had a really cool braiding technique, but we couldn't really get anyone interested in the craft, so we just watched the movie instead.

Disney Family had more super cute printables for Lady and the Tramp, and they did not disappoint.

I used the printables I found on this site for Toy Story as well, and I still can't believe how cute they turned out!  I'm sure it uses a lot of ink, but I happen to have a few extra color ink cartridges because I use colored ink so rarely, so I haven't been bothered by that.  They also take some pretty precise cutting, but this is the kind of thing I really enjoy doing.  I don't know if you could tell.

Although I'm not as familiar with the movie, I am a huge fan of the music from Lady in the Tramp. "Bella Notte." "He's a Tramp," and "The Siamese Cat Song" are true Disney greats. Peggy Lee was something else!

We're having so much fun with these Disney movie nights and we've actually already had three more!  I hope you're enjoying reading about them as much as I'm enjoying planning, throwing, and writing about them!

Godspeed!

Second Star to the Right and Straight on Til Morning

I did have a little more prep time for this one, but not as much as I would have liked (hence the lack of a shopping list.)  The Bean was really excited about this particular movie night because she loves Peter Pan, so that made it more exciting for me.  It was also exciting because we had some special guests over for the night.  My aunt (the one that made the awesome Tangled cake) had two of her granddaughters in town, so they were able to join us for our Disney dinner.  They also picked our next Disney movie and we did two nights in a row!

I knew I would have to do something related to pirates for Peter Pan, but I didn't really want the food to be pirate party themed because I'm saving that for Pirates of the Caribbean, so instead I went with English food because the Darling family is English.  I also went with English food because I'm a Harry Potter nut and I have an awesome Harry Potter cookbook with many great English dishes in it.

A good friend and I did a Harry Potter themed dinner one night for no particular reason and we made the shepherd's pie in the Harry Potter cookbook.  It was delicious.  I never knew I liked shepherd's pie.  Then, one day I was watching "The Best Thing I Ever Made" on Food Network and Anne Burrell made a shepherd's pie.  I immediately knew that I would have to try it someday.  So, this particular shepherd's pie recipe is hers, not the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook's recipe.  I did, however, make the hot rolls from the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook, and, as always, they turned out heavenly.  They take all day, but they really are worth it.  (That's shepherd's pie on both ends in the picture because it ended up making more than I could fit in one dish.)

For dessert I used another recipe found in the Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook:  treacle fudge.  This is another recipe that my HP friend and I made, and we immediately fell in love.  The first time we made it, we used dark molasses instead of treacle (because treacle is next to impossible to find in the US), and we loved it.  Then, we went to an international market in St. Louis one weekend and found some treacle, so we tried it again with treacle, and it was even more magical.  I now understand why Harry loved treacle dishes so much.  Since that time, I have been forced to order the treacle, but it's worth it to me!  I forgot to take a picture of the treacle before diving in, so the only picture I have is of a few pieces on a paper towel while I was eating.  Oops!

Our activity for Peter Pan seemed to be the Bean's favorite activity so far.  I started by giving her the following note:

I attempted to write the next note in invisible ink, and the magic potion was intended to reveal the message, but it didn't really work out that well.  I hid the note in one of the highest places in our house.  Next time I use invisible ink, I will play around with a few recipes before deciding on one.  I had a feeling it wasn't going to work though, so I just wrote out the next clue just in case, and it said:

My silly old shadow is what you'll find next,

and dark places are what he likes the best.

There are a lot of dark places here, that is true,

but on the door to this place, you will see you.

When you go inside, turn on the light.

Thirty seconds should be just right.

This clue was hidden in the Bean's closet because she has a large mirror on her closet door.  This next clue could have been really cool, but the Bean was too excited about finding the next clue to really dwell on the cool factor.  So, for this clue, I got a can of glow-in-the-dark spray paint and tried to spray paint the message on a poster.  That didn't really work because I'm not that good with a spray paint can, but if you had a stencil, I think it could work.  Then, when you turn on the light for thirty seconds and then turn it back off, you should be able to see the next message.  What I did instead was spray paint the entire board, and then you can stand in front of it, have someone turn the light on, stand very still, and when you turn the light off, you can see your shadow on the paper.  I wrote the next clue on the back of the poster board.  The next clue said:

Tink hid the next clue,

but you'll find it I trust,

because that silly fairy

left pixie dust!

You'll go to the place where cars can be stored,

as well as screwdrivers and hammers and boards.

This clue was hidden in the garage because there was a lot of glitter involved and I thought it would be better to have all of that glitter outside.  When she walked outside, the piece of paper was 100% covered in glitter, but upon picking up the piece of paper she saw the following:

So the glitter only stayed on Tink!  (I know, I know, Tink is supposed to be green, not pink, but pink was the only color I had for glitter!)  The final hiding place was my favorite because while the Bean went out to look for this clue, my dad dressed up as Captain Hook and he guarded the treasure!

Don't you love our makeshift Captain Hook?  In case you can't tell, he does have a hook in his hand.

For our treasure, we just filled a basket with candy, but on top of the regular candy, I put some chocolate coins.  Walgreens is the only place that still sells them in my neck of the woods.

After our treasure hunt, we settled down to watch Peter Pan with Captain Hook and ate our treacle fudge and our treasure.  After planning the treasure hunt, I was a little too tired to come up with a craft, so we didn't do one.  While we were watching the movie, I heard the Bean tell her mom that she wanted to write Peter Pan a letter and tell him that she wanted to do another treasure hunt, but she wanted the next one to be longer.  So, I guess The Pirates of the Caribbean will also feature a treasure hunt, though I don't know if Captain Jack Sparrow is as clever as Peter Pan, so he may not have rhyming clues!

Godspeed!

Tastes Like Chicken

I know!  I know!  It's been forever!  It's actually been so long that I don't remember when we actually did this particular Disney dinner party!  We have done three Disney dinner parties since this one though!  (Oh, and I also know that the title is a line from Lion King, but they say it when they're eating bugs, and we had a bug party, so it seemed appropriate!)

This particular Disney night was pretty last minute.  I went to my parents' that weekend not expecting to do anything Disney related because my mom was out of town and I was actually there to take one of my sisters to the doctor, but we decided to try one anyway because we have so many movies and so little time!  Therefore, I didn't mail anything to the Bean beforehand.  I'm also not sure that I'll be doing that every time.  I'm running low on stamps right now.

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a bunch of cute bug food for this Disney night.  However, it was surprisingly difficult to find a main dish that was bug related.  I guess because bugs are so small?  I finally found one here, and we made worm burgers!  (It's really just cut up hot dogs in a sauce--the recipe is on the original site.)

Along with our worm burgers, we had a few other bug foods.  There were butterflies, snails, and ladybugs.

 

The butterflies were done by Small Fry and the Bean and were stuck together with toothpicks.  The other things surrounding the butterflies were supposed to be chocolate covered bugs (they were really pomegranate seeds covered in chocolate--yum), but we decided they looked more like bug poop.  The snails were bread held in a roll with softened cream cheese and then toothpicked to a mini-pickle.  The ladybugs were nut crackers (partially because they're gluten free, and partially because they're delicious) with cream cheese, a pre-made olive tapenade, grape tomatoes, black olives, green onions, and basil.  I tried using black food coloring to put dots on the ladybugs, but all of those bloggers out there who have done that are better than I am, because it wasn't doing anything.  We decided they were cute enough like they were!  (They were also delicious even if the Bean wouldn't eat them.) 

There were also ants on a log and spiders that the Bean helped with (she loved sticking the raisins on the peanut butter) and she decided she loved the ants on a log even though it has celery in it!  Those are uncooked chow mein noodles for spider legs, and they added a delightful crunch.  Even though I don't like peanut butter (I know, how un-American of me), I thought the spiders were quite delicious!

We ended up with quite a spread!

For our drink we had bug juice, and there were worms in the ice!For dessert we had gummy worm Jell-O (and learned from experience, let the Jell-O cool a little before adding the worms, or they will melt) and no bake cookies with worms sticking out of them to look like worms in the dirt.  (We couldn't do a traditional crumbled Oreo worms in dirt thing because Oreos are not gluten free, but those would be good too.)

 The older of my younger sisters (I call her Big Lil' both because she's the biggest of my little sisters and because she's 6" taller than me, and she calls me Lil' Big--or sometimes I may call her the Bean's mom, cause, well, she is) made us antennae to wear during the movie watching.  We just used headbands, pipe cleaners, and pom-poms to make them, and they turned out very cute.  (Semi-funny story:  I couldn't remember what pom-poms were called, so I googled, "What do you call those fuzzy balls used in crafts?"  Google is so smart.  I was sure it was going to come up with at least one thing I didn't want to see, but it was good to me!)

See!  I told you those antennae were cute!  For our craft project, we made flying butterflies!  We took toilet paper rolls and cardstock and used them to make butterflies.  Once the butterflies were made, we took two long pieces of ribbon and tied two ends to little plastic bracelets (anything too big to go through the toilet paper tube would work, but we used the little dollar bracelets found in the party section at Wal-Mart), put the ribbon through the toilet paper, and then tied two more bracelets to the other ends.  Goodness.  That is a terrible description of this particular project!  Hopefully the pictures will make the project a little more clear, because then a person stands on one side holding two of the bracelets, and another stands on the other side, and when you separate the two ribbons, the butterfly goes flying down the ribbons, hence a flying butterfly!

 

 

For our activity, we used silly string to shoot bugs on a bug target! The Bean's BFF who lives a couple of houses up the street was able to join us for this particular party, so the Bean and her BFF had a bug shooting contest!  The BFF won the first round, but the Bean was victorious in the second round!

Overall, everyone had a blast and we're just getting more and more excited about going to Disney world!  It won't be long now!

I don't have a shopping list this week since it was so last minute, and as I said previously, those were more for my benefit than anything else!  So I suppose that's all!

Spoiler alert!  Our next movie is Peter Pan, and there may be some treasure hunting afoot!

Godspeed!

Patiently Waiting

I know there are those of you out there who are patiently waiting for my next Disney post, and I promise it is coming!  I've had three Disney dinners since my last post!  The problem is that I haven't really spent much time in front of the computer during this last week of summer vacation and the pictures just don't format well from the phone.  So, just to get you excited, we had A Bug's Life dinner, a Peter Pan dinner, and a Lady and the Tramp dinner.

I'll get back with you soon!

Godspeed!

There's 104 Days of Summer Vacation and School Comes Along Just to End It

It's official. I only have 20 days of summer vacation left, and while I can't say that I have spent my vacation exactly like Phineas and Ferb, I would like to think I have been productive.

I taught two summer classes, made two fall syllabi, threw a bachelorette party, rearranged my living room, was a Maid of Honor, spent a week at my Aunt's helping her prepare for a MASSIVE garage sale, held two awesome Disney parties and planned about 10 more, cleaned my junk room, linen closet, pantry, and office, hosted one of my lovely little sisters for a week, and watched all three seasons of The Walking Dead for the first time.

 I was pretty excited about finding that rubber band ball!

I guess I can't get away with saying I don't have anything to eat.

Small Fry (littlest sister) and Emma (puppy) became BFFs when she came to stay.

Not bad, right? Well, not until I start thinking about all of the things I hope to accomplish in the next 20 days.

As far as cleaning goes, I still need to clean out the man cave, the closets in the junk room, the laundry room, and the backyard.

I also have plans this weekend to go over to my Aunt's and help her redecorate her kitchen/continue working on the garage sale.  I don't know that I plan to actually do the garage sale before I go back to school, but I do hope to get it done before garage sale season is over!

There are hopefully a few more Disney parties in my summer, but I would love to be able to plan out the rest before they come so I don't spend valuable grading time on them. 

As far as work goes, I still have about four syllabi to make! And I just found out today that I will be teaching an Introduction to Philosophy class for the first time this fall. I'm very excited, but I'm also VERY nervous! It's been a long time since I've had a philosophy class, so I have a lot of reading to do between now and then. I signed up for a Coursera Introduction to Philosophy course, but it doesn't start until October.

I will also be doing a presentation at the Arkansas Association of Two Year Colleges (AATYC) conference in mid-October with a colleague. We're going to discuss our decision to teach three different documentation styles in our research class rather than just teaching MLA. The decision to present began with a discussion about the need to get published if I ever hope to get into a reputable PhD program, so that is the eventual goal with this topic. 

There's also the whole process of finding the right PhD program for me. Unfortunately, I don't really even know where to begin!

You would think that I don't have to grade papers when I'm not teaching, but you would be wrong! I have 10 papers I need to grade for an assessment meeting when I go back to work in a few weeks. I also have to finish up a self-assessment. 

Also, because I am the advisor for two student organizations on campus, I have work to do for both of those. The Student Government Association (SGA) is having a meeting a week from today. There are also a number of things I need to do for Phi Theta Kappa before returning to school including making a website for the advisor's association. 

To end on a more positive note, I also have a lot of Doctor Who to watch!  I've been watching the reboot, but I really want to go back and start from the beginning.  The more I think about this, the more I realize this a crazy endeavor (there are SO MANY episodes), but I really enjoy tv as an escape from reality, and this is one of my new favorites (and I just might be that crazy)!  Another escape from reality that I thoroughly enjoy is reading (duh, I'm an English teacher)! Recently my friend Ed sent me a copy of a book he wrote, and I really want to finish it before school starts again.  No rest for the wicked!

Godspeed!

Happy Birthday Mom!

Shortly after the Bean drew Toy Story as our first movie night selection, we realized that my mom's birthday was that same week and we needed to do something in honor of her birthday!

So, I called my mom and asked her if she wanted a regular birthday dinner, or a Disney birthday dinner.  I guess this whole, getting my family excited, thing is working, because she chose to have a Disney birthday!  I told her that since it was her birthday, she didn't have to draw a movie from the hat, she could just pick which one she wanted.  So, she picked The Little Mermaid.  My mom has always liked The Little Mermaid and she loves to swim, so we were going to make it a pool party.  However, as we were discussing the food, my mom suddenly realized that having a Little Mermaid themed birthday probably meant she was going to have to eat seafood.  My mom is NOT a seafood lover.  So, I mentioned some of the ideas I had for a Tangled themed evening, and viola!  We had a Tangled party!

The only person we really invited was my aunt, so I sent the following invite (the original came from here) to her and the Bean.

We had three(ish) main dishes for dinner.  The first was Fettuccine Alfredo.  I chose this because I thought it would kind of look like Rapunzel's hair.  The second dish was hazelnut soup.  Ultimately, I am working around both dietary issues and a picky six year old here, so I went with two because Dad can't have pasta (gluten), and even though we probably could have made the Bean eat hazelnut soup, she absolutely loves noodles and I thought it was a cute/relatively inexpensive idea.  Finally, my mom's favorite food is steak, and she wanted a steak for her birthday, so dad fired up the grill and made her a steak (and made some barbeque chicken and grilled squash since the grill was already going.)

For our sides, we had a standard salad and I took a roll of crescent rolls and braided them to make a braid (get it, a braid) of bread.  The braided crescents were incredibly adorable!

While cooking we listened to a little bit of music from Tangled.  Can I just say that I love the music from this movie?  Good stuff.

For dessert we had apples in honor of Maximus.  I used the Krispy Apple Treats recipe found here.  

My aunt is also a fabulous cake decorator, so she made a Tangled cake for Mom. 

For our activity, I made a piñata out of a cereal box.  I used strips from an old phone book; dipped them in a paste of 1 cup flour, 1 cup water, and 1 tablespoon salt; did a couple of layers; painted it; and glued on a picture I found of Flynn Rider.  The plus side of using a cereal box is that you can fill it before you begin and don't have to worry about leaving a hole and covering it later.  The negative part of using a cereal box is that it is incredibly sturdy and difficult to bust.  I filled ours with Tootsie Rolls because that's Mom's favorite candy, and then we hit it with a frying pan!

For our craft, I was going to use an idea found at Disney's Family.com (I get the feeling I will be using this site a lot) for making a golden sun medallion, but it was getting late and we ended up not doing a craft.

While we were eating, we watched Tangled and had fun celebrating my mom.

Happy Birthday Mom!

(Rough) Shopping List

• 1 pound dried fettucine
• 14 Tablespoons butter
• 5 shallots, peeled and minced
• 3 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
• 1 1/2 cups whole hazelnuts
• 2 medium leeks (whites only), chopped
• 2 parsnips, peeled and chopped
• 1 T cornstarch
• 6 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups water
• salad ingredients
• 2 packages crescent rolls
• 6 cups Rice Krispies
• 1 package large marshmallows
• 1 small package Jell-O, cherry or strawberry flavor
• 25 small Tootsie Roll Candies (we needed more since that's what we used for the piñata)
• green fruit roll-ups or spearmint gum
• cereal box or balloon
• newspaper or old phone book
• candy to fill the piñata
• flour, water, and salt
• paint
• frying pan (if you're not comfortable using a cast iron--they are really heavy--there is a non-toxic spray that I read about to make your regular frying pan look like cast iron)
• scissors
• scrapbook paper (2 or more shades or prints of gold)
• yellow or gold faux gems and/or glitter glue
• glue sealer (such as Mod Podge)
• beading monofilament
• sewing needle
• gold seed beads

We have been having a lot of fun with this, and I hope that you all have had fun reading about it!  Maybe someday someone with a similar idea will stumble across this and find this all very helpful; though, frankly, the shopping lists are really for my own convenience.  :)

Godspeed!