Friday Photos

A look back at the week, Monday through Friday, through photos:

This was an unusual week but a good one as Jacob and Abby came from college this week. Both kids finished up their finals early in the week. I picked Abby up on Monday morning and Jacob drove home Monday afternoon. 

Our school district had school through Friday before the break. But both Alyssa and I had shorter school weeks than normal. Alyssa had final exams but she could exempt a couple of them. Her school was on a revised schedule due to exams and she didn't have to go to school at all on Thursday. As for me, I choose to only sub two days of the week so it was a light week for me work wise. 

The two days that I worked were good ones. I floated one of the days so I went to numerous classrooms while teachers were in meetings. Sometimes floating days entail constant moving around and the only break is a half hour lunch break. But sometimes, if meetings run shorter than time is allotted for, the floating sub gets breaks. Such was the case for me when I floated. Meetings were short so I got to leave the classrooms early and I had a scheduled break which is unusual when floating. The other day that I subbed was good, too. Easier days make the harder ones more palatable, that's for sure!!

One of the school days, I brought in our Christmas cards to put in teachers' mailboxes. During one of my breaks, I headed to the teacher's lounge while organizing the cards before putting them in mailboxes.

In the science room where I subbed:

Speaking of schools, this headline caught my eye:

I'm not sure how much the mainstream media covered the original story or the development this week because it sheds light on the dangers of one political ideology's current favorite social issue. Here is what happened: In Loudin, Virginia, a "gender fluid" male high school student got to pick whatever restroom he wanted to use. One day he donned a skirt and used the girl's restroom. In the restroom he sexually assaulted a freshman girl. The school was informed of the assault and summarily swept it under the rug. School administrators lied repeatedly and claimed that they had no knowledge of the assault even though email evidence proves otherwise. The male student was sent to another school in the district where he violently assaulted a female student shortly after he began attending there. One of the victim's dads, understandably furious with what happened to his daughter, confronted the school board at a meeting where he was arrested for disorderly conduct for voicing his fury. So, I believe justice can begin to be served with the arrests of the superintendent of the school where the first assault happened and the spokesman for the school (both men lied about the assault occurring). Now granted the super was only charged with a misdemeanor and fired BUT given a $350K golden parachute (crime, apparently does in fact, sometimes pay). 

Not working as much as normal gave me plenty of time to shop both in stores and online. Our town has a chocolate factory, Freisinger's, and sells its chocolate and other wares in a cute shop that's attached to the factory. I went there one day to pick up some goodies.

One of the kids had items from American Eagle on a Christmas list so I went online to shop. Tried to use a coupon code for $20 off. The coupon code cracked me up. Like, SAVE20 wasn't available? Instead it's a random thirty character code...

The sizes that I needed were out, though, by the time I checked out so I had to make a trek to our nearest mall. It's not my favorite place to go by a long shot but it had an American Eagle store so I went there. Stopped by Auntie Anne's to get a pretzel which was the highlight of the trip. 

Meals were hit or miss with the addition of Jacob and Abby... On Monday and Tuesday I made dishes that not everyone is crazy about but one of the college kids really likes. Those dishes were time consuming and didn't turn out as well as I had envisioned them. Disappointing. So on Wednesday I punted: threw a large package of chicken breasts in the crock pot with seasoning and salsa and hoped that it would make enough for two dinners (it did!). It was nice to not cook much on Wednesday and Thursday because I already had meat cooked. 

Even eating by candlelight didn't make the meal a great one on Monday... oh well, I tried and no one starved.

I found the easiest queso recipe here. Many queso recipes call for making a roux but this one does not. The key is cornstarch apparently. The absence of butter does not make this queso low fat or anything (the cheese ensures that's not the case!) but it makes it super easy and only takes five ingredients. Highly recommend for an easy queso, especially for night two of shredded spicy chicken ;).

Next week entails a birthday for Jacob and getting ready for the big holiday.