We retreated to the mountains to avoid Hanna. Well, really, we had planned to go to the mountains this weekend anyway.. but when Hanna decided to make a path for our state, we watched to see how much of a nuisance she was going to be. When it was clear she was simply bringing rain to our area, we decided to go through with our plans.

So while we got 5-7 inches of rain, depending on whose rain gauge you believe (ours in the front is filled at 5, which it was, and our electronic one sometimes cannot keep up with the rain, and it says 4… others corroborate the 5 plus inches theory) we were safely here:

Safe behind this cute door, snug in a log cabin...

We arrived Friday, leaving as the rain began to come to our home, and driving out of it  for most of the trip. It was cloudy and drizzly off and on that night, but the rest of the weekend was delightful. So while the pond at home filled to the brim, and overflowed the dam into the spillway… we were here on the New River.

Old log cabin, comfortably modernized inside.

Bottom of the river.. so clear. I kayaked with an otter, and watched the fish swim by...

Clear and blue and beautiful on Sunday morning.

We returned home much refreshed by mountain air, canoeing and kayaking, long walks finding early chestnuts and acorns.. and now we scramble to get ready for the busy week ahead. But the escape was so lovely and worth it.

Hope your weekend was just as refreshing!

Having trouble with picture placement, but finally think I fixed the last post.

Anyway, wanted to share something easy to do, and yummy for all those tomatoes from the summer harvest. When making a BLT or tomato and onion sandwich, basil mayonnaise is easy and quick and adds a lovely touch of flavor. I often use the basil as a lettuce leaf, but for something more subtle, whiz some basil leaves into your favorite mayonnaise along with some salt and pepper.

Before whizzing in the food processor.

After... tiny flecks of green flavor...

And some tiny photos of a BLT in the making… tiny because they are blurry.. not sure what is up with my camera or my eyes!

Anyway, back to teaching and mommying… posting sometimes really slows down at this point, but I won’t disappear!

****We think most of our family are faring well during the hurricane. At least news reports throughout the day have been encouraging.****

Our labor day was spent quietly on my part. I have come down with a cold, and so spent much of the day in bed grading papers.

Work space

The man about the place and the boys spent the weekend setting up a gift from a friend. His kids had outgrown this, so it moved here.

I did manage to finish a chicken pot pie…. mmmm…. It uses a browned butter crust which added several steps to the crust making, so we will see if it was worth the extra effort.

Hurricane Gustav is much on our minds this weekend. My parents live on the Gulf Coast, and being that my mom is paralyzed, leaving and moving somewhere else is not an easy task. They rode out Katrina, and Rita…. and they will ride out this one. If Gustav follows the path of Katrina, then they will be fine. If it veers a bit more to the west, they could be less fine. We wait and see.

A friend from college, battling cancer for the past 9 years, seriously ill this summer, had a last ditch effort operation that took her from her home in central Texas to a hospital in New Orleans. She has been in the ICU there for close to 30 days now. No word yet if they moved her, or not, if her husband is with her, or with their 5 children in central Texas. It must be the worst time for them right now, waiting for the storm to come ashore and do its thing.

And other friends, dear and loved…. leaving NO for Baton Rouge….with young children in tow. Living on Lake Ponchartrain in a home they had to rebuild from the ground up last time…perhaps in the mobile home they lived in while they rebuilt. Friends we stay with when we drive through, eating wonderful New Orleans food cooked by a good ole New Orleans man…We are thinking of these families, and holding them in our prayers, as they scatter to safer and higher ground. Hoping that the forces of nature are kinder this time. But knowing that a monster is lurking in that Gulf.

And as the anniversary of Hurricane Fran comes around next week, the worst hurricane I have been through.. destroying all our old neighborhood, we watch another storm brewing… it may be same song second verse for us as well…

Praying for all in harm’s way…

When the man about the place and I had been married a year, he decided he would like to go back to grad school. We did some planning and plotting, and eventually decided to move to the state we live in now. There would be family (grandparents and aunts and cousins) nearby, there was plenty of industry for a job when he was finished, and it seemed like a good place to move to and set down roots.

We were moving ourselves in August, right before our second anniversary. We had bought and fixed up our first house. We managed to sell it easily, and we spent all of July getting ready to move. I was off for the summer, being a teacher, and so I had plenty of time to sort and pack and get ready to leave. I knew the townhouse we were planning to move into was short on space and therefore a practical thing to dispose of would be my collection of fabric scraps.

I sewed my first dress when I was 13 and wore it to my first day of school. I had made all of my clothes in college, and my wedding dress. I also quilted. So, I had a collection of scraps. I needed to do something with them.

My younger sister and I spent some time together that summer, since I was getting ready to move so far away. She wanted to learn to sew, so I decided to help her learn to sew and get rid of my scraps in one fell swoop. I decided to teach her to make a string quilt.

Strips and strings, cut in any width, and in any color combination, get sewn to some sort of background. We used old magazine…layering one piece of fabric over another, stitching the length, pressing it back and then putting on another strip or string. These rectangles could then be cut down into other shapes, or left whole, and stitched together in a scrappy quilt.

I don’t know if she ever finished the quilt. She made dozens of blocks at my house on my machine, and then got her own. When the man about the place and I drove away to our new state in our rented Uhaul, she had her blocks, and a large bag of scraps to keep going with.

I have since acquired new scraps… new clothes for me or the kids, new fabrics given to me at holidays from family, and even scrap sharing from others that know I like to sew. It is time to start reducing the stash.

A few weeks ago I managed to finally make a tea cozy for my tea pot…with strips and strings. Mostly strips.

New tea cozy

On weekend mornings when I have papers to grade, I like to have tea with me, plenty of it, but I needed a cozy for my favorite pot. So I took some bits of leftovers, stitched them together willy nilly, added batting and a backing and made it up  as I went along. I was still getting used to my blue sewing machine, but it quilted it just lovely.

Closeup...

So, I think there will be strip/string piecing in my future.. it is such a fast and easy way to use up the leftovers, no matter how big or small.

For some other string pieced examples: click here.

A wonderful tutorial of string piecing: click here. She mentions phone books as a source for foundation. I found leftover magazines also worked well. The stitching perforates the shiny paper well enough that the paper removes easily when done.

And one more string pieced link: click here.

I have an entire pile of strings and strips waiting for me…

No holiday from Labor here. 3 classes of work to correct and a household to get in order. But at least I can go at a slower pace than the rest of the year.

Pears coming from our pear trees... Ginger Pear sauce in our future.

The pears are thick on the trees this year…so I am making pear sauce with them…using this Epicurious recipe.

There are tomatoes all over the house it seems, making themselves into sauce, BLTs and and this weekend, into casseroles I can freeze. The last shot is the kitchen cooking table with various ingredients collected to make chicken pot pie, a beef pot pie, and Irish stew and a salmon chowder. Cooking now makes busy weeknights easier. It does make for a big weekly shop though.

]]> http://willowcaroline.wordpress.com/2008/08/30/labor-day-weekend/feed/ willowcaroline Pears coming from our pear trees... Ginger Pear sauce in our future. http://willowcaroline.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/two-days-down-and-stomach-coming-out-of-its-knots/ http://willowcaroline.wordpress.com/2008/08/26/two-days-down-and-stomach-coming-out-of-its-knots/#comments Wed, 27 Aug 2008 02:21:22 +0000 willowcaroline http://willowcaroline.wordpress.com/?p=930

The first days of school are daunting. No matter how prepared we try to be as a faculty, there are always going to be little difficulties….schedule changes, not enough books, too many meetings, etc. The duty roster changes half a dozen times, the lunches keep moving around…it is stressful for everyone, but we know that it will happen.

The scariest part of the new school year though is meeting the students. No matter how many years/semesters I have taught, my stomach churns this first week as I try to learn who my students are and make a connection with them. I worry about being able to control the class, being able to teach them anything. Will they respect my authority and classroom? Will I be able to nurture and grow them?

And some of my students come with baggage. Depending on the course, I might be teaching a student who has already tried the course and failed, sometimes multiple times. Will I be able to undo the damage of failure and offer hope and encouragement to someone like this? Will I be able to renew their spirit?

So far, my classes are over full. I have run out of seats and more students may be coming. This adds to the stress of classroom management concerns. It is so much easier to know who is working and who is not when the class is small. It is also harder for students to slip through the cracks.

I can already see that I have some challenging students ahead of me… challenging because they have struggled and will continue to struggle… challenging because they carry a chip on their shoulder that I have to gently remove before I can get through to them.. challenging because they do not know how to ignore their impulses..challenging because they cannot get themselves organized.

But I also see some shining lights… in some of those same students. I see an eagerness for someone to reach in and pull them through, to show them the way, to make their path easy. And I so want to be that person for them, but that is a tough, tough job.

The bright students will learn enough to pass the required tests no matter what..a monkey could teach them and they would be fine. (Although certainly, the challenge with these students is to stretch and challenge them) But the struggling student… the one for whom my subject is not one of their intelligences…if they can learn something, then I know I can teach.

It is scary to face them the first few days, and try to be welcoming and open to who they are, to recognize the baggage they carry, to encourage them to understand that being a poor math student is not who they are… that they have other things that are their strengths and where they can shine, other gifts to share with the world, and it is okay to not be a math whiz…and I carry that fear knotted in my stomach for a bit. Until I start seeing that I am making progress… then the knots will ease.

And until then, I keep thinking, and even praying, that these students who have been sent to me by the forces of the universe, whatever one happens to call them, find in me all that they need at this point in their lives. Our lives have been connected for a reason, and I always hope I do not let my end of the connection down.

The 2008-2009 school year, has well and truly begun. May it continue to smooth out.

Today I will be busy getting ready for the work week… laundry and cooking and cleaning and lunches… Tomorrow the eldest and I set off for a new year of school. The younger children will start on Tuesday. And today, the new school year started at church, so we were up early for that.

But today, before the summer ends, I need to get to the garden:

Fall planting...

Spinach, lettuces, chives, rocket, etc…all going into the ground for the fall garden. The tomatoes are also coming off thick still… so I need to make another batch of sauce today.

Tomorrow is also my 18th wedding anniversary... it has been a lovely 18 years, full of highs (travels, our children) and lows(layoffs, babies lost, crohn’s disease) and busy times and calm times. You just don’t realize the truth behind pledging to be together in sickness and health, richer and poorer, in good times and bad, until you have lived them. Last night we ate together at my favorite Japanese restaurant and then enjoyed the company of some friends and grown up chat, and then a favorite movie. After the hectic summer, it was lovely to reconnect, and I am looking forward to another 18 years.

Now, to hopefully get my mouse fixed so writing posts is not so tough. Off to plant.

My middle son was born 3 years and 5 days after my first son. So we have birthday week at our place. The middle son turned 12 on August 19th… Of my three boys, he and I are the most alike… we are both very bookish and academic, lovers of nature and science, and happiest when curled up with a good book. We both have curly hair and the same sense of humor. We are also both reserved and it takes a bit to get to know us. But once we make friends, we are very loyal.

He also has several talents I do not have. He is naturally athletic, and enjoys baseball and soccer and cross country running. He can climb tall trees. He is level headed and rock solid.

Each boy gets to choose the dinner on their birthday and he always chooses this salad: pecan crusted chicken sliced on lettuces, with honey mustard dressing and goat cheese. SOO yummy!

He asked to have his presents hidden, scavenger hunt style, rather than sitting on the present table in the morning. So I wrote riddle clues, and he enjoyed hunting things down, including his birthday cards.

And for the final finish, he wanted a strawberry swirl cheesecake. We chose one with a brownie base crust, and then pureed strawberries in half the batter. Here it is about to go into the oven, and you can find his name swirled in the batter, along with hearts. It baked just like that, so it was pretty when it came out. We did top it with strawberries when it was served.

With work week ahead, I spent some time this weekend playing with my quilt blocks.

(Well, work week at school is done. Desks are set up, books are ready to be passed out, meetings have met, and we are as prepared as we can be. 210 students were expected in this new class of 2012… and at last count we were nearer 290. So the classes will overflow, and students will have to be shuffled… we will all be anxious until the first week is done. But we get through this every year, and we are as ready as we can be.)

I first posted about these blocks here; but time passes and I am just now getting back to play with them. I have enjoyed continuing to sew them up, and am trying to lay them out in a pleasing pattern. So here are some patterns… I think most likely I will use the one at the bottom.

Nine patch blocks...colors in diagonal stripes

Not diagonal

Closeup

Decisions...

Probably my favorite... requires plain squares between the blocks

Another view with squares alternating.

If you have an opinion, feel free to share it with me!