The Art of Happy Holidays - Prairie Eydie Style Part I

 

 

Every holiday season I have to remind myself that I am not Martha Stewart or Ina Garten.  My house won't be featured on HGTV and Bing Crosby won't be dropping by to smoke a pipe and judge my use of tinsel.   I have spent many holiday seasons pretending to be someone I am not.  Lets take a walk down memory lane.  We can start with baked goods.

 

One December, many years ago, I decided I would be the person who showed up with an amazing platter of Christmas cookies.   I fantasized about my kids bragging to future college roommates about how amazing their mom's Christmas cookies were.  I imagined bake sales not starting until I arrived with my array of cookies. 

 

So, for two weeks I entered a Christmas cookie hell of room temperature, grass fed butter, dusty floured counters, and satanic spritz presses.  (Don't message me with your fairy tales of how spritz cookies are so easy to make.  I don't believe you.)  The kitchen timer was constantly dinging, alerting me to either take chilled dough out of the refrigerator or baked cookies out of the oven.  I developed a long lasting tic, hearing the kitchen timer everywhere I went.  I baked cut out sugar cookies, peppermint candy canes, thumbprint cookies, spritz, and marzipan fruit.  I even tried to make homemade caramels.  (The end result was a caramel syrup that was quite tasty poured over ice cream.  I was able to return the six rolls of waxed paper I had purchased.)

 

 

 

 

My finished cookies did not look beautiful or remotely tempting.  No college student would be waiting at their mailbox in hopes of a care package.  Bake sale coordinators would wait until I left to chuck my cookies into the compost.  My cookies looked like someone who hated to bake made them and they all pretty much tasted the same.  Sugary with more than a hint of overpowering peppermint. 

 

 

 

 

 

Family members did not want to eat my cookies.  I entered a downward spiral.  I couldn't take all my hard work going to waste, so I started devouring the cookies.  Eventually I had to lock the cookies in my trunk to stop myself from pouring milk over them and making a crumbled cookie cereal. 

 

This episode of cookie mania taught me to not spend hours doing something I hate that no one else cares about.  I am now known as the mom who makes the super, tasty spiced pretzels. (Thanks for the super easy recipe, Diane!  I owe you.)  I am fine with other moms wearing the "Cookie Goddess Tiara."

 

Be sure to join me for Part II of "The Art of Happy Holidays."  You will learn how streamline your decorating and ditch the Dickens village.

 

Prairie Eydie

 

 

 

Sick of Sinuses - Part II

Today marks week 10 of my chronic sinus infection.  I want to scoop my eyes out with a melon baller.  I want to explain, in detail, how the neti pot backs up behind my eyes.  I want to stay in bed and watch ALL the episodes of Gunsmoke.  (635 episodes; plus, a character named Miss Kitty.  My cat's name is Miss Kitty, so I already have a personal connection to the show.) 



I swear this ISN'T me and Diane.  I don't even own pink shoes.



I just came off a 5-Day-Predinisone-Blast (as in "a lot of prednisone" not "a whole lot of fun at one time").  For two and 1/2 glorious days I felt like myself. 

• I made the kids dinner, not relying on my current standby of rolling up whatever was in the fridge in four tortillas. 
• I went shopping with my friend and we behaved badly in Wal-Mart.  (as in "we bought way too many mismatched Pioneer Woman bowls" not "we got into a hair pulling gal fight in the shampoo section").
• I returned to reading actual books (The Orchid Thief, by Susan Orlean) and not just listlessly flipping through Cooking Light magazine, imagining someone would show up at my front door with one of the featured "Amazing Weeknight Recipes"  (There was a Tortilla Soup that looked good.)

 

IT WAS A FABULOUS 2 AND 1/2 DAYS!

 

 

 

Sadly, with the exit of prednisone and antibiotics, my cranky sinus infection reappeared.  I just about lost my mind and wasted no time in drafting a survival plan.  Here is what I have so far:

 

• Continue to invest in Himalayan Salt lamps even though there is no proof they are working. 
• Direct my family from bed using a megaphone.  The kids will probably draw literary conclusions between me and those old people who always stayed in bed in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
• Drag self to Costco to buy Turmeric capsules.  It might be a waste of 25 dollars but it also might be the best 25 dollars ever spent.  Bonus:  I can save money by eating Costco samples for dinner if I time my visit right.
• Give myself permission let "Clean House Standards" fall even lower.
• Come to terms with the fact that Fall yard clean-up will not be happening this year.

I suppose I could take up knitting or rug hooking.

 

I am off to Urgent Care to see what they have to say about my sinus situation.  Meanwhile, my friends, be well and keep those sinus cavities irrigated.

 

Eydie

 

 

 

Prairie Eydie Learns Something New, Part II

Warning.  The f-bomb detonates frequently in this book.  Definitely not for everyone.  In fact I can only thing of about three people I could recommend this book to.

 

 

I started reading Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, by Daniel Pink, last night.   Amazon had delivered the book several days ago and it had been laying on the living room floor waiting for me to get motivated to read it.  (Warning:  The book starts off with a lot of data, for those of you who suffer Staff Meeting PTSD.)  I  wasn't feeling motivated to read something life changing because a friend loaned me the super hilarious memoir Let's Pretend This Didn't Happen, by Jenny Lawson.  This book features nonstop hijinks, like when the author's dad adopted a rafter of turkeys and how the turkeys got caught in the windshield wipers while trying to peck the family's eyes out??!?  Good stuff.  Much more fun than finding out how all my carrot/stick motivation programs were a worthless waste of time. 

 

 

 

I have picked-up a bad habit from a friend of mine.  Now I open to random page in the middle of the book and start reading there.  As a Middle School reading specialist, this is against everything I teach my students, but it is kinda fun.  The first sentence I read in Drive blew me away.  (NOTE:  This is paraphrased because I didn't use the valuable strategy of marking important passages with post-it notes.  Truthfully I would be happy if my students used a post-it to mark where they let off reading.  So much time is wasted with the questions, "Now.  Let's see.  Where did I leave off?) 

 

 

 

85% of people do the right thing at work.  Rules and regulations are created for the remaining 15%.  Daniel Pink is telling me that 85% of people could handle flexible scheduling.   Possibly, all of my work could be done in four days instead of five - but I am working eight hour days, 5 days a week because some screwballs will take advantage of the system and cruise the corridors looking for donuts and caffeine. 

 

The second section I flipped to in Drive was about "task shifting".  Again, I didn't use my arsenal of post-its and am paraphrasing - If someone is bored with their current assignment, have them train someone else in the skills they have mastered. 

 

 

 

This is my 27th year of teaching and I would LOVE me some task shifting.  I could train someone to choose books for kids who hate to read and show how I boost vocabulary.  I could also suggest a gazillion books for kids who love to read.  In return, I would love be trained by someone else.  Here is a super short list of beneficial things I could learn from co-workers:

• How do I best teach our English Language Learners (ELL)?  Yesterday, I learned that most languages, other than English, don't use rhyming words.  Wow.  One of my 7th graders was having a rhyming breakthrough and I didn't even know what a big deal it was.
• What is Google Classroom and how can a luddite*, like myself, use it in my classroom.  (I actually put post-its notes on my phone to remember things.  It is the only thing that seems to work.)
• How do you keep things fresh after teaching for more than ten years?  What inspires you to return to the classroom everyday? (Other than new school supplies.)

 

Finally, I am super motivated to start reading Drive from the beginning.  Let me know what you think and if you want to shift some tasks.

 

Prairie Eydie

 

*Luddite