snowsquall to melt

I went in to work today. It was snowing hard when I walked in and when I left everything was melting. James got back from his hockey tournament today. The pool he was in was very deep they played well against some very challenging teams but did not win any. James fell ill with a stomach bug on the first day so didn't get to play much. He is fine now. I hoped to get all the project marks released today but I only made it about 1/3 of the way through. Still a lot to do before term starts. All the grades need to be completed; J-section schedules need to be made; we also need to finish the Winter course websites.

room a day

My plan when I went on vacation was to work on cleaning a room a day. But that turned out to be more of a challenge than I thought, so I switched my goal to a room every other day. But the difficulty with that was that when you finish one, it immediately starts to get dirty again! So I started with the bathroom and managed to get the front room/dining room and kitchen in decent shape before my parents arrived but didn't quite finish. So the tension is to go back and finish the rooms that I started or to continue on to new rooms. Update (because this didn't publish last night when I wrote the above) was that I did the bathroom again!

so this is Christmas

Christmas!

Thanks to my parents for traveling up to Kingston and treating us to a Christmas dinner!

The annual height challenge (James wins)

 The turkey defrosting

 Opening presents

 The new height challenge

 Cutting the bird:

Thank you for all the presents!

Sweden and Russia exhibition

There was a world junior exhibition game today at the Krock between Sweden and Russia. For James hockey team I worked the draw table so I got to see a bit of the game. Sweden was skating circles around Russia. I sold the winning ticket at the draw table!

James' hand is healing up but he had to go back to the hospital today as the KGH doctor called and was uncertain of something on the x-ray, but it turned out to be nothing.

My parents are hoping to come up tomorrow so we are looking forward to that!

improvement

James is doing better - he went back to school at lunch.

I went to work to get through heaps of email and run an exam.

James still went to practice today but was not allowed to do any arm things- just leg things.
He is scratched off the team for the game tomorrow.

Today's dinner was chilli with poblano pepper:

 Poblano pepper grilled and charred:

 Pepper with stem, seeds and skin removed

 Final product

Injury update

James injured some tendons in his wrist but didn't break anything so he is resting it.

unseen

James had a hockey game at 9pm tonight and somehow hurt his wrist. So now at 11:30pm he is heading to emerg to get an x-ray. They have had a few weeks without games but there is a big tournament coming up so we'll see if he is well enough to go. It looks perfectly fine, but hurts him a lot!

Sunday, I was walking up the road and this guy is sitting by the sidewalk drinking a very large can of beer. He asks me if I want to see something neat? I am thinking this could go in 1000 different directions and none of them good. He takes my hesitation for a yes. "Look over at St. Mary's(cathedral); it looks like a mountain range" and he was right- the way that the snow had fallen off the roof made it look like the outline of an alpine mountain sketched on the roof. I am glad that he shared that with me.

Today Pork souvlaki skewers. Pretty easy to make and tasty as well

 Sauce made with red wine vinegar; dijon mustard; olive oil and fresh oregano was used to coat the pork before skewering it as well as used as a dressing for the salad.

deep freeze

Saturday was the last first year eng exam so I was in the office helping with some difficulties that came up and running the copycheck.

Saturday night we had freezing rain but it was not as bad as it is sometimes so travel to Rustle on Sunday was not affected. Last Sunday of the year for us. It was not a big gathering but it was good to work through some things.

When I got home, I worked on some de-icing in preparation for the deep freeze and then took a nap while James was at hockey. I washed a lot of dishes, then when James got home I found he had NOT completed his English essay (he said he had). He had an outline but still a lot of work to do so we worked for a few hours on that.

My goal for the weekend had been to clean a room a day, but I did not accomplish that.

I have no plan for a meal tonight.

The temperature dropped overnight but now is snowing.

Catching up on some past meals:

African beef tagine was a very spicy beef stew with naan bread.

 Chicken burgers had chitpole peppers that made them VERY hot!

 The potato fries were easy to make and much better for you than real freis!

 There was enough salad left over to cover my lunch the next day.

 Sweet and sour turkey

 sauce (this was not very tangy- could have been amped up a bit)

 Sushi rice

 Turkey with red pepper and baby bok choy

Saturday:

 Sunday- I tried to show the frozen trees and the sun peeking from the clouds

Final exam

Tomorrow is my students final exam. I had today off but I will go in tomorrow.

I was out of the office today and got a lot of work done for my essay course and some cleaning.

James came back from his KCVI hockey tournament. They lost all the games. James is one of the two AAA players and he is only grade 9. All the other kids on the team are much older (except for Jonny- he is the only other grade 9) He got back hungry and sleep deprived.

Last night was cold- I could tell because the heating system came on. I turn up the heat before bed and then turn it down when I go to bed. Normally the heating system doesn't come on in the night but last night it did. The heating system always wakes me up. Hopefully tonight is warmer.

There is supposed to be a storm tomorrow so I'm not sure what that means for James hockey tomorrow. They are supposed to go to Whitby.

Preparing for vacation

My work has been busy as I try to prepare for vacation. Mon evening had a board meeting; Tues I volunteered at holiday hugs giving out chocolate to studying students; Wed was the survivor finale.

Today James is in Toronto with his high school hockey team. I have doubts if he will get much sleep.

I am mostly done work and supposed to be on vacation but still have a lot to do so I haven't wrapped my mind around how that will work.

zap

There was a staff appreciation lunch yesterday. By the time I got there most of the food was gone, but I went to see Deborah get her award.

I did find some marshmallows to dip into chocolate, which was good.

Pork schnitzel for dinner

 The potatoes cooked in the oven, then afterward put into a mixture of mustard, oliveoil, apple cider vinegar, parsley- it was excellent.
The pork scallopini was also good- dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and then cooked- 3 minutes each side.
The cabbage was cooked also with apple cider vinegar and apples and was an interesting side.

Spent most of the evening working on my essay course

Today I worked in the morning, spent most of the morning having meetings on the phone. Then had a a doctor's appointment at 1:15. This is how the 1pm half hour went:
1pm: arrive at doctor's office and realize I have some time to pop into the dollar store
1:01: arrive at dollar store
1:06: complete picking up items at dollar store and stand in a long line
1:14: complete purchase and exit dollar store
1:15: arrive back at doctors
1:22: get called into the exam room and told the doctor will be there in a few minutes
1:24: doctor arrives
asks about the spot on my face
i explain that it is different than a pimple that it would get crusty and clear
she feels the spot
"shall I get the liquid nitrogen?"
me: "yes please"
she puts the liquid nitrogen on my face, asks me if I want a flu shot, which I decline, and I walk out at
1:26, face zapped

lemon chicken

There was a lot of work for my essay course today. I was hoping to get more cleaning done, but oh well. I had a nap! James had his first high school game and the coach was really pleased with him.

Made lemon chicken and rosemary pappardelle. It was listed as a "medium" difficulty but it was pretty easy. The chicken was coated with lemon pepper and flour and then put in the frying pan to cook. The pappardelle was like pasta. After the chicken was cooked, the pan was coated with lemon juice and then the chicken was added back in and simmered with some of the water used to cook the pappardelle and cream. After it simmered for a few minutes, the spinach went in and then the cooked pappardelle  and lemon zest and parm cheese. It was good and relatively easy!

in touch

I won an award! http://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/teaching-and-learning-leaders

Yesterday was super busy as we had something due on the weekend and I needed to catch up on things but I had meetings all day, so I had to stay late to organize things.

I have today off though! I did some kijiji posting and hope to get some cleaning done. 

no logos

I got pretty exhausted on day 3 of exams, then on day 4 the markers in the other course that I work for got the marking back to me and so I spent some time loading assignments. So I've been busy and tired.

James has decided that logos on T-shirts are no longer "cool" and that all his shirts should be plain. However, all his shirts have logos right now, so he is kind of stuck!

Tomorrow I have a full day of meetings, but have Tuesday off.

exam day 2

Today went well in terms of work, which was good.

I woke at 5am and saw the news about the Brazilian soccer team plane crash. There are now in an instant 74 broken families. Very sad.

In another instant, a Queen's student was killed in a car accident a few weeks ago:

http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/teen-girl-killed-in-single-vehicle-crash-in-markham-female-driver-charged-1.3166514

So much brokenness.

exam day 1

I woke up at 5am and left at 7am. Everything ran well but tomorrow is the real test as we run with a full house.
I am also trying to prepare things for next term as people need schedules etc.
The plan is that Tabitha is going to be able to take on most of the load this week.
I left work early today because Wednesday will be a very long day.

I am working on trying to find a new phone as my network expires Jan 31. I have sent out some emails inquiring!

Week 11- the penultimate week

Next week is the last week of term so things are starting to wrap up. Next week is final exams and my graders for the essay course should be done so I'll need to load those back to the students.

I did some online black friday shopping for James- a new pair of boots and a winter jackets. There were some good sales if you knew what you were looking for. Hopefully he likes them when they arrive!

This was a good meal this week:

 Baby kale salad

 With cracked wheat

 Cooked, cooled turkey mixed with celery and dried cranberries, sour cream and curry power. I was unsure of how this would work but it was quite a good combo!

Zo

This morning Rachel brought Zo (1 year old) over at 6am. Zo and I get on well and it allowed Rachel to go out and see the horses with Kim.

After Rachel picked her up, I went out and got a haircut, then headed to Rustle to do some Kijiji posting. It turned out to be good timing as there were some building issues to attend to.

For dinner I made cornmeal chicken.

 Last vestige of fall in the backyard

 The chicken was dipped in cornmeal and fried

 Brussel sprouts actually quite good fried this way.

 I think this was supposed to thicken more than it did, but it still turned out ok.

 Put together.

Tried to do cross multiplication with James today but he was not so enthousiastic.