I’ve never thought of myself as much of a grape person, but when my friend Hanna told me about this recipe, I knew I had to try it. Because I will pretty much do anything Hanna tells me to do. She has never steered me wrong.
Plus, it seems grape sorbet and I were fated to happen. You see, one Thursday, I was at Costco, and this sample lady kept calling out, “THE SWEETEST GREEN GRAPES YOU WILL EVER TRY IN YOUR LIFE! HAVE SOME GREEN GRAPES! THEY’RE THE SWEETEST GREEN GRAPES YOU WILL EVER TRY…” So of course I had to have some.
Maybe it was the clever packaging–they were called Cotton Candy Grapes–but seriously, when the juice squirted into my mouth, I felt like I was transported to a carnival. It may have just lasted for a second, but I swear the cotton candy taste was there. It made me very suspicious of the grapes, actually… but since they said ORGANIC and I happen to trust Costco very much, I picked up a basket.
Good decision, JoEllen. Because that left me with plenty left over to eat, even after tripling the green grape sorbet recipe.
The sorbet was bright and refreshing and would make an excellent palette cleanser. It was also very easy to make. I thought my grapes might be sweet enough without the extra sugar, but something about freezing foods makes them taste less sweet, so I’m glad I kept the sugar in the end.
“The couple that plays together stays together.”
This quote conjures images of smiling, happy, sunglassed couples hiking green mountains together, biking together, and having adventures together out in nature. I picture my elderly neighbors down the street, who often work out in the front yard gardening together. It’s so cute. I think about my engineer friends with their gamer wives that team up together and regularly play Starcraft or WoW together. (Nerd points for anyone who knows what WoW is!). This quote probably even applies to the couch potatoes who have a routine of vegging together after work, watching Netflix or Hulu or whatever you call TV these days.
Ben and I do few of those things. He enjoys programming. I cannot. I enjoy baking. He… eats baked stuff. He enjoys biking. I love team sports. I enjoy going out, but he’s one of the biggest (extroverted) homebodies I know.
According to conventional wisdom, it appears that we are doomed.
These lemon bars are by far the most requested item I make. My friends love the buttery-tart combination and recently, I was asked to make a whole bunch of them for a wedding! Since I had to mass-produce these guys, I decided to go with… bottled lemon juice, something I hadn’t done for nearly a decade. However, in so doing, I discovered that bottled lemon juice is the key to making these lemon bars consistently tart and perfect in consistency!
This is a simple and useful tip I picked up from my mentor teacher while I was student teaching.
She was starting them on a new math unit that required the use of math manipulatives. Noisy stuff. Each student was given a pile of shapes– green triangles, orange square, red trapezoids, blue rhombuses– you know the type. And then she said, “Go ahead and play with them for a few minutes, and then we’ll get started.”
She came back to where I saw on the back table and said, “Whenever you give them manipulatives or anything they can touch and feel, give them a few minutes to play and explore with it. It’ll get it out of their system so when you actually start your lesson, they’re more ready to focus on what you’re teaching rather than to just keep trying to play with them!” We sat back there and watched them have at it.
Last weekend, my friends and I threw a super fun ocean themed baby shower for my friend Kim (and Dan)! Even though I helped to coordinate the event, I actually had to miss it because I came down with the flu :*(. SO SAD. But I am still so proud of how things turned out, and wanted to share some of my favorite ideas from the party!
Throwing a virtual baby shower? Read this post for ideas on how to make it more personal and fun!
We threw a fantastic ocean-themed baby shower for my friend Kim recently– here’s a sneak peek!
I actually had to miss the party since I caught the flu, but I am pleased with how everything turned out, and most of all with how happy it made Kim! I’ll share more details on the shower soon, but I wanted to share a fun and flexible baby shower activity idea with you: Baby’s First Alphabet Book!
I first saw this at my friend Wendy’s baby shower, and quickly made a template to use for another shower I hosted. Isn’t it cute? I like this idea because you can easily adapt it to any shower theme.
The whole class is chatting or busy in activity, but you need your quickly grab your students’ attention. What do you do? Every teacher has got some sort of attention getting signal up their sleeve. I remember one of my teachers had a wooden frog that croaked when she stroked a dowel across it’s bumpy back. Another used xylophones. Another would hit a gong, and we’d sit there and quiet down as the vibrations faded away. The sounds certainly caught my attention, but I’ve never quite taken to these quieting tools, probably because I am a very efficient person. Are you going to lug the frog with you on a field trip? Can you take the gong with you outside? Do you really want to wait 18 seconds to get your class quiet every time you need to say something? For me, the answer is no.
Here are the three attention-getting signals I used the most, and I’ll explain why I found them to work best for me.
I’ve made this soup twice in the last couple weeks since I came across it, and I can’t wait to make it again! Alton Brown tell me cauliflower is quite healthy for you, so even though I enjoy it roasted, it’s exciting to find a new way to savor it. The flavors in this soup are AMAZING: complex, a little smokey, unexpected and so delicious. Perfect for a cool day like we’re experiencing today! Husband loves it. Toddler loves it. Friends love it. It’s simple and heart warmingly delicious! Try it out!
I think I’m about to contradict a lot of what I just said in my last post about Backwards Planning, because as much as I endeavor to plan out every last detail in our lives, I ultimately believe that I cannot control All The Things. And I don’t want to encourage you to try to, either. It will not only be a failed undertaking, but I don’t even think it’s wise or good. I don’t always live that way, but this is something I strive to believe in my heart and live out in my life. I know there are parents who don’t overthink their parenting half as much as I do, and their kids turn out just fine. The first example that comes to mind is my own parents.
While my husband and I researched the district and schools and city demographics before purchasing our home, I’m pretty sure my parents stumbled across what became my childhood home by accident and ended up purchasing it by God’s grace alone. Something about getting lost and running out of gas. It was really on accident. They never had ambitions for us to be athletic, musical, or at the top of our classes. It was never a goal for them to have their children attend two of the most highly-sought universities in the world, and if you asked them twenty years ago, they probably would not have imagined people would be seeking them out to instruct parenting courses in the years to come.
I came downstairs to find my mom watching my daughter and our friend’s child playing at the sensory bin. It’s literally a bin full of dried beans, where kids can stick their hands in and grab and feel and push and scoop and play.
(Pinterest it– it’s a thing.)
Now, think about it for a moment. Toddlers + a bin full of beans = beans everywhere, right?? That’s what I used to think, too.
I walked into the living room and smiled at the girls, “Having fun?”
They continued in their play, and then my mom made a remark about how nicely my daughter played with the beans. She was impressed with how my daughter would keep the beans over the bin and even cleaned up if they fell out. I explained that this was simply a result of training her.
There is no way you can stick a toddler with a bin of anything and expect things to stay neat and tidy unless you intentionally trained them to do so. I smiled with satisfaction. All those years of teaching in the classroom were really paying off. I hadn’t even realized it at the time, but months ago, I had used backwards planning to train my early one-year-old to have at it with a bin full of thousands of beans without making a mess.
What is Backwards Planning?
It’s just what it sounds like, and it’s something we all do at some time or another. It’s basically coming up with your final goal first, and then plotting out the steps backwards, one step at a time, to make that goal a reality. I first came across the official term for it in my teaching program. We practiced coming up with entire projects and units, first envisioning the end product, and then working backwards to make a unit to achieve the final goal. Ultimately, I think it helps you be intentional with everything you do. You waste less time doing thoughtless activities that don’t serve a purpose, and you add meaning and purpose to activities that would have otherwise been thoughtless and useless.
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