Colour scheme

Tried to work on my course websites today but ITS hasn't sorted out my access properly so it wasn't as efficient a day as I hoped.

I walked to Loblaws today. On park st. I saw two robins on the sidewalk popping along. On my walk back, I saw one of them flat on the road- run over by a car. Dangerous life for urban birds.

There is a grackle baby who hangs out in the backyard or in the neighbours backyard. He no longer sits in the bushes, but right in the middle of the lawn, which I find quite funny.

While James was at hockey tonight, I had a nap. The early mornings catching up with me.

Lemon chicken papparelle tonight.

 Chopped pepitas

 Pesto with the pepitas, basil and oregano

 The pasta with rapini

 Put together with the pesto and cherry tomatoes

 And chicken

It was very good- I would have liked more cherry tomatoes as they were a nice touch!

When life gets more challenging

When I get to a point where I think it isn't too bad, the chicken isn't on too much fire, you turn for a second and someone took a flamethrower to the chicken.

Today I woke at 5am and hoped to get in early to tackle timetabling. But I didn't manage that, got in only at regular time.

Managed some email before the students came up to do a work session in 315 and clean up the studio (45 minutes- many hands make light work). They did a great job.

I tackled the timetable and there were some serious things to deal with, but dealing we are.

Then I got an additional challenge that will take the rest of the summer.

Working on making course websites tomorrow.

Watched the bach'ette tonight. Glad she sent DeMario home! That was making life more challenging for her.

Fred posted that the waters are still rising around RMC.  We'll have to see when they peak.

Barriers

The water must be rising as the part of the waterfront walk behind the Delta has been blocked off.

Yesterday made tandoori chickpeas. They weren't bad but they weren't great. I wouldn't make them again.

 Quinoa with cumin

 Sweet potatoes and chickpeas tandoori

 With yogurt raita, mint and pepitas

Today James went to help at a Community Garden but it was too muddy for them to do much (he went with his hockey team). They moved some manure. Good for the soul.

I worked on catching up on my cleaning- lots of dishes and laundry. Spent some time in the garden today. As it was sunny during the day, I could mow the lawn after dinner as it had dried out by then.

Arrabbiata

Today was more of a chicken on fire day than I thought. In addition to a packed meeting schedule I added emergency meetings (3). After the meetings ended at 4pm then I started my email, which took me to about 6pm.

Chef's plate has now expanded into Quebec, so all the items that I receive are now all bilingual (except the recipe cards are English, because you can select the language for them)

Today was Beef Meatballs Arrabbiata, They say that 'arrabbiata' means 'angry' in Italian and it was spicy! I hope the Italians make it for people they like! It was good (though spicy). I always love their pasta.

James felt the need to stay up and watch the playoff game (his life would not be complete) but unfortunately the Senators lost.

I showed James this video of a teenager whose dad came to pick him up from school. I am not sure if he was amused:
https://www.facebook.com/justin.beadles.12/videos/10155322983076667/?permPage=1 

Chicken on fire

Today was a relatively quiet day, but tomorrow I have 564 meetings.

This morning I went to a meeting that I thought was about the conference in a few weeks but it was actually a registrar meeting. It was about the conference but not a lot of people were going. I thought it was just a meeting for the people going to the conference. I ran into Dario on the way there and he was - oh they are talking about your award? And I was all like, no they did the award a while ago, But Dario had the inside track and they did indeed highlight the award.

I talked with Nicole after about the workload and she used the analogy of the chicken and the egg "except the chicken is on fire". Yes, the chicken will be on fire tomorrow.

I saw a baby grackle in the backyard and he was hilarious with his odd tufts of feathers.

And I saw these guys by the water:

Cacophony

Despite it being May and things should be more quiet, that does not seem to be. Thurs Al and I worked on getting everything in the maxsold auction for Rustle ready to go and it will post on Monday. It was a crazy flurry of push. The pick up is June 2 and we still have a lot to do to be organized for that.

Yesterday, I worked on laundry - 3 loads hung out to dry and ironing. Still have lots more to do. Today I spent most of the day at Rustle. Good community. Picked up some chicken scallopini at the new Grocery Basket store. It was so easy to cook. Matched it with vegetable samosas and cucumber. The samosas were spicier than I expected. I haven't planned the dinner for tomorrow but luckily nothing seems to be closed tomorrow!

One morning, I woke at the crack of dawn and the birds were singing all over- it was a cacophony of bird song. I managed to get back to sleep, but then when I woke up again all was quiet. I missed the cacophony.

When I take lunch at work I have been taking the Earl st walk to the water and taken the waterfront trail to run my errands.

 the sandbags don't seem to have worked

 you can see the waterline is higher because of where the moss (or whatever) on the rocks is

 ducks and geese are happy!

 the waterfront is in pretty good shape but there are many areas that are in worse shape.
This was a meal earlier in the week- spiced steak fajita salad

 the salad was romaine with sour cream and lime- easy to make salad!

 with veggies

 and steak

 homemade tortilla chips

 with cheese

It was very good!

jerk chicken

Yesterday I did the second mow of the season and still had a lot of work to do. At least the mower behaved.

Today I did the first laundry on the line of the month (I think I managed one back before the rains came)

My lawn is mainly dandelions at this point. I have given up on the front lawn as it is mostly all dendelions but the back I am working on trying to get them from the root. In the front all I can do is mow.

Today's dinner was Jamaican jerk chicken. Very tasty!

First mow

After being drenched in rain, Thursday was relatively dry. Because of the rain the grass had grown pretty rapidly so I pulled out the mower for a first mow of the season. It just about took out the mower. I got through most of it though.

James is in a tournament all weekend. The teams are random though and he has a lot of kids who are a year younger on his team, so his team is not doing very well.

Last night Al and Paul and I worked to finish cataloging for the maxsold auction.

I was pretty tired when I got in and James had lost his phone and was pretty worried but he had the phone on "silent" so it was hard to find! So I got to bed pretty late, and woke up at 5am, but managed to get back to sleep.

Hopefully May will be quiet enough at work so we can do the auction and I need to file a T3010 for Rustle plus a lot to clean at home!

Little cat

Thanks to the Michael Condra award, I was invited to a teaching and learning leaders day at the little Cat conservation area. It is a beautiful area. I saw an amazing blue bird. Not quite sure what it was as I had never seen one before. It looked a bit bigger than a jay and had brilliant blue colouring on top, white underneath. I could have watched him all day. I learned lots of eye opening teaching and learning ideas.

We talked about teaching students to be "citizens" and that failure and recovery is important to learn.

Brian, Peter W. and I had a conversation after we had just done a student perspective exercise and at the end Peter said "Is this an old person conversation?". And, yes, it was.

Also, from the award, there was an article in the Gazette: http://www.queensu.ca/gazette/stories/just-ask-aphra

It was a good day, now need to get something out from the freezer for dinner tomorrow and sleep!

Spring rains

This week was very full. It took until Friday to get all the marks into the system as there are a number of checks that I need to go through before posting.

On Wednesday Karen convinced me to go to a comedy club to see Steve perform stand up for the first time as they have an amateur night. There were 6 amateurs and then a "professional" to end it. Steve and the professional were very good- the others were a bit crude. But it was fun- I got to meet Karen's other friend Leslie.

The grass had started growing and I would be mowing this weekend but instead the rains are falling and there are puddles on the lawn.

James' birthday is tomorrow but he had grown old for them as I asked him about it and he said something like as you get older they don't mean so much. What are you 93?

He wants Dominos pizza. I will bake brownies as he doesn't like cake.

This past week I did not have time to order meals but I hadn't downloaded one of the meals from the week before: Black Bean Stir fry:

Grades in

I was very happy to have all of my grades. Tomorrow I start compiling but it is good to be able to have all the data!

Kassie had a night fright at 4:30am. I can't figure the bird out.