Buzz Buzz!

So I'll be going off the grid this week cause I'm so damn busy! Between work, everyday stuff, and my brother's wedding this weekend I'm going nonstop! Something every night this week. But I'll be back next Monday with lots to write about. See you then!

Nostalgia and Tacos Al Pastor

But the 2 are not related. I'll start with the nostalgia.

As you all know stuff has been cray-zay at work right now. Spring time always is when you are a teacher. The kids are ready to be done, YOU are ready to be done, state assessments are going on, lots of weird extra stuff is thrown in, and there is a general sense of busyness. And for me, just like last spring, my employment status is at risk again. Which is making for extra stress. That is why I was so glad today to hear a song that took me back to happier times last school year. Times with friends, dance parties, and general silliness. At cycling today one of THE BEST DANCE PARTY SONGS EVER came on.

Pope, Bonilla, Rubi, Tracy and I had sooo much fun last year shaking it to this song after school. Hell sometimes during school. It made me remember to look on the bright side and know that even though times are busy and I'm worried about how things will turn out; it's all gonna be okay.

Okay, now the Al Pastor. So I told you a few days ago that Brian and I were going to try our hand at tacos al pastor this week. We had them tonight and received mixed reviews. First of all for our recipe we used chicken instead of pork because we had it on hand, but it didn't make much of a difference. Brian made the sauce a couple of days ago and let the chicken marinate in the fridge. The sauce had a rehydrated ancho chili, a couple of cans of chilies in adobo sauce, onions, garlic, pineapple juice, and maybe a few other things which were blended up. Brian cut up the chicken and cooked it in a skillet. He used some water and vinegar to thin out the marinade to use for sauce. I made some spanish rice for a side. We served the tacos in corn tortillas topped with chopped onions and cilantro. They were.....spicy as hell. Good but spicy. Brian likes a lot of spice and I prefer things more mild. I'd say they appealed more to his taste than mine. The sauce was especially hot. Like the devil's piss hot. I liked it, but I think I'll stick to my Tres Mexicanos al pastor unless we can make it less spicy. Ooo! OR Rubi told me the other day about a mexican meat market in Topeka that has some really good al pastor. Maybe I'll try that.

This weekend is Easter so we are going to my folks tomorrow to dye eggs with everyone. I'm excited to see how Cameroni likes it. He was too little last Easter to care about eggs. He's so darn cute! Last night we had Chris and Jess's shower and he was being so adorable. When I left he waved bye-bye and gave me a hug and a kiss. He's so sweet. Sunday we'll be going back out to do Easter meal and stuff. I'm excited for the egg hunt and baskets! It should be a great weekend!

This is becoming a pattern...

All my blog posts end up being about food! Today I was supposed to take a picture of what I was wearing and blog about fashion. Well guess what? I forgot again. Soooo...I'm blogging about food. Again.

Last week Brian was really busy on Sunday doing work/school stuff so I planned our meals for the week and went grocery shopping. This week I was really busy doing things so I asked him to take a turn. Sunday and Monday we had the amazing ribs and tonight we had a REALLY delicious salad. Pretty simple but oh so yummy. It was sort of a combo of a recipe and stuff we had.

Super Tasty Spinach Bacon Salad

1 bag of spinach salad
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1 small red onion, chopped
1/2 a green pepper, chopped
1 small package of baby bella mushrooms
4 strips of cooked bacon
1/2 c. of shredded Mexican cheese
1/3 c. pecan pieces
2 Tbsp. Bacon Vinaigrette Dressing (see below for recipe)

Bacon Vinaigrette Dressing

3 Tbsp. bacon fat
3 Tbsp. red wine vinegar
1/2 Tbsp. Dijon mustard

Whisk together.

It was very good! I love all the different textures and flavors that work together to complement each other. To drink we had some Cabernet Franc from the Somerset Vineyard we visited this weekend.

Sidebar: It was amazing! It was only about an hour south of here and it was so cute and the people were so nice! Their shop, wine tasting bar, and bottling set up are all in the same building when you pull up. They have a really nice covered porch with tables and chairs to enjoy your wine outside. When you go in they have all sorts of wines, cigars, food, and little knick-knacks for sale. We tried a bunch of different wines (they were all great) and picked out a couple of bottles to buy. We got the Cabernet Franc which is a dry red and their new spring bottle called Citron. It's a blend of white wine, brandy, and organic lemons. Perfect for sipping over ice on the back porch this summer. We also picked up a tub of edamame hummus which is super delicious. I never knew people made hummus with edamame! It's made by a guy and his wife in Shawnee and they sell it in local grocery stores including our hy-vee! A lot of the things they do there at the vineyard are locally made. It's really neat.

Later this week we will be having tacos al pastor which I'm really excited about. It's probably my favorite mexican dish and I'm hoping we can make a tasty version at home. I'll let you know how it goes!

Shmorgishborg

I just had to Google how to spell shmorgishborg for my blog title. I never knew that's how you spell it, but isn't it a fun looking word?!? I'm calling my blog shmorgishborg tonight because I got a lot of randoms to blog about.

First of all dinner tonight consisted of leftovers of a truly delicious meal we had last night so I don't have a recipe to share. Braised pork spare ribs (AB's recipe), corn on the cob, baked beans (a recipe Brian had), and leftover sezchwan green beans from Encore. Here's a pic from last night. It was just as yummy reheated.

That's Brian takin' a big ol' bite in the background. Oh I forgot last night I had a baked potato instead of green beans.

After today we have 5 Mondays of school left. That's 5 weeks and 2 days and it is going to be BUSY! I have one more set of state assessments, Chris and Jessica's wedding, and a bunch of other school related and life odds and ends to take care of.  One of which is tapering off and finishing Lexapro. The past couple of days I've felt a bit nervous about it. I feel ready, but what if I'm not? What if I have weird side effects? Or worse, panic attacks again? That was so horrible and I don't ever want to feel like that again. I asked a friend of mine today about what it was like for her when she went off Lexapro. She said going cold turkey had some weird side effects, but weaning off was fine. I know it will be okay and I will be okay. I think my nervousness can also be attributed to the stress of this time of year. State assessments are rough and my class did shitty so it's extra rough. Plus my job security is in question again this year since I am still not tenured. Makes for a lot of worry.

But. I have a lot of really fun things to look forward to in the next few months and I'm trying to concentrate on that rather than stressing about what COULD go wrong. It all goes back to being a possiblitarian, and I think that's a good thing to be. :o)

Oh Happy Day!

It's Friday! Thank God! I'm so excited I might even sing this lame song.

Yeah. That excited. This has not been the greatest week so I'm very happy it is finally the weekend. AND I'm off to a great start! I got a call today that my new glasses were in at the eye doctor. Check it.

Pretty cute if I do say so myself! They are Coach and they are PURPLE! Two of my favorite things. I think the color really accents my eyes. And it was time. I had the my last pair for 8 years!

Brian and I just got home from a great dinner at Encore Cafe. It was delicious. I had pad thai with chicken and Brian had szechuan green beans. Yum! Before that we went by Borders to check out what was left. They have 3  more days until they close for good. :o( I got 2 books for $5.50!  Now we're going to get cozy at home and watch Burlesque! I watched it already on Wednesday but it was so good I wouldn't mind watching it again. Tomorrow should be a great day with lots of fun plans. I love weekends!

Workin' for the Weekend

So today wasn't quite as bad as yesterday. Still spent most of the day pouting about my state assessment scores. Oh and found out yet another one of my students did not pass. So that's 10 now. I've made the conscious decision to stop worrying about it. I can't change it now. I did what I could. I will learn from it and become a better teacher. There were a lot of other factors that came into play other than my teaching and I need to quit beating myself up. Besides tomorrow is Friday and I have a great weekend to look forward to.

A few weeks ago I was telling Brian that I don't miss him being in California but I do miss being able to go visit California. It was nice having a little mini vacation every so often when I would go out and visit. We got to do all sorts of neat stuff that I'd never done before and it was great getting away. So we decided in order to feel like we're getting away we're going to take turns planning one weekend a month for us to get out of town and do something fun. This weekend is Brian's turn. He'd been talking since last week about how excited he was for his plans and how awesome it would be. He had 2 ideas and would have to see what the weather would be like before he could decide. Yesterday he told me that it looked like neither of his plans were going to work. The first plan was to rent kayaks from KU's rec services and go out to Clinton, but the weather won't be good for that on Saturday. The other plan was to go to the Boulevard Brewery and go on a tour, but when he looked into that he found you have to make reservations 3 months in advance! So I suggested that we do my weekend instead. I had been doing a little research and had found what I wanted to do in May and there was no reason it wouldn't work for us this weekend. So on Saturday we're going out to Somerset Vineyard and Winery in Somerset, Kansas. It's about an hour south of here. We're going to do wine tasting and tour the vineyard. They are having some cool events there this weekend we'll check out too. It should be really fun.

Then Saturday night I have Jessica's bachelorette party in Topeka. Brian is coming too and is going to smoke meat with Dad while the girls go out. Good time for future father in law, son in law bonding. :o)

So. Too many things to look forward to this weekend for pouting. I'm over it.

Sarah and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!

There's no other way of putting it: today was really shitty. My morning wasn't so bad, but I should have enjoyed it while it lasted because it was all down hill from there. Shortly after I got to school this morning I was feeling those old familiar pains in my lower abdomen that we ladies love so much. Sure enough I went to the bathroom and just what is suspected, as my friend Jennifer says, it was time for my moon. Luckily, I had come to school prepared so no biggie. But that wasn't the end of it.  Today was our last day of state math assessments and when all my kids finished and I got our results back it was not good. 9 of my kids didn't pass. NINE! I knew I would have a few that probably wouldn't make it, but nine?!? I was so bummed out. As a teacher, when your kids don't do well on that stupid test you feel totally responsible. My friends kept telling me, and I kept reminding myself that we had a new math program this year, the 4th grade test is a lot harder than the 3rd,  it was my first time teaching 4th grade math, and as we all know state assessments are not a good indicator of what students actually know. Those words and thoughts helped temporarily, but I spent most of the rest of the day pouting about it. Once school was out and I had survived that day I thought that maybe things would start looking up. Not so much. I went tanning and to Zumba after school and that went fine, but dinner tonight was a near disaster. I was trying out a new recipe Orange-Ginger Beef Stir Fry. When I was getting the water to cook the rice I thought that maybe I had too much, but figured it was fine. Sure enough when it was time to dish everything out the rice was gummy. I was super disappointed. I wanted it to be a good dinner and now the rice was gross. Brian said, "Don't worry. It will be fine." So we got the food into to bowls and I went to get a drink. I decided I wanted lemonade. I got the pitcher out on the counter, a glass down from the cabinet, but as I turned to get ice from the freezer I knocked the pitcher with my elbow and the whole thing fell to the floor. Legs and feet soaked with lemonade, I turned to Brian, looked a the ceiling and bit my lip. "I will not cry. I will not cry." But what happened? I bawled like a baby. I literally cried over spilled lemonade. I was so freaking frustrated. It seemed like nothing was going right today. God bless Brian. He held me in the middle of a lemonade puddle and let me sob into his chest. He kissed my forehead and said, "Why don't you take the food to the back porch and I'll clean this up." I nodded and gathered the bowls and went outside.

We had a nice dinner together and the stir fry wasn't bad, even with gummy rice. We talked about our plans for the weekend and what we would cook next week. I started to feel better.

Now the floor has been cleaned twice but is still a little sticky. I don't care. I'm not doing it again. The dinner dishes are cleaned and put away. I'm laying on the couch and am going to try to cure what is left of my terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day with the 2 things known to woman that work the best: ice cream and a musical.