Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad (or Pie-Induced Social Interactions)

Well, summer is officially over here in Idaho.

The cooler weather has set in and the first frost has fallen .

September is beautiful, isn't it?

Just kidding.

Everyone knows we don't get our first real snow storms till October.

But I wasn't teasing about the cooler weather. This is how it really looked outside today. A little grey with some attempts at rain and, of course, the ever-present Idaho wind. But cooler weather meant that I could finally enjoy some of my favorite activities: wearing sweaters, reading books while wrapped up in warm blankets, and baking.I love hard-core cooking, but I don't get to do a lot of baking in the summer because of my lack of air conditioning. My stove may look harmless, but turning it on when it is even mildly warm outside transforms my apartment from this...

...to this. Not fun. And since I do not reside in a nudest complex or belong to a clothing-optional religion, I avoid turning on my oven in the summer at all costs.So I decided to take advantage of the cooler weather today and bake. Since reading about "buttermilk pie" on my sister-in-law's eldest sister's blog http://karlennandben.blogspot.com/ this week, I have been wanting to give it a try. So I found a recipe and whipped up some delicious custard filling.
This is where I have to make a confession.

Don't tell my mom (a.k.a Princess Perfect Pie Crust), but I used a store-bought pie shell. It's not that I can't make pie crust. I can. I make it all the time. But instead of using it as a pie shell, I roll it flat and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar to bake as pie crust cookies. When I need a pie shell, I worship at the alter of Marie Calendar because...and this is really hard for me to admit...I am pie-shell challenged.

Seriously. If there was a school for pie shells, I would ride the short bus.

If there was a pie shell ISAT, I would score somewhere between "below basic" and "lobotomized".

My pie shells are so ugly, the first time I brought one to a ward Halloween party, the scouts put it in the spook ally because it was the scariest thing in the building.

But since my store-bought shell wouldn't hold all of the butter-milky goodness I was forced to make a small shell to avoid a taste-waste of tragic proportions. Bet'cha can't guess which shell is mine...

Poor little pie crust. Too bad there isn't an "extreme pie shell makeover" show. At very least, this pathetic pastry warrants an appearance on Dr. Phil. Especially after being set so close to one of Marie Calendar's geometrically perfect crusts. Talk about inferiority complexes. This is like me sitting next to Angelina Jolie on a park bench...or it would be if the good looking pie had a bunch of tattoos and had adopted a bunch of foreign tartlets.

But both pies turned out pretty darn good, even without self esteem counseling. (Kar - your post has changed my life. I LOVE this pie. Really. Now if you could just blog some easy to follow instructions on how to get a date, your blog would officially be the best thing that has ever happened to me).

I had some extra ugly pie crust dough left, so I made some cookies. Cookies that I ate while wearing a warm sweater.

Sweaters, check. Baking, check. The final step in my perfect cool-weather day was to curl up on my couch to read my new book (the one my kidlets and I have had a running release-date countdown going for since school started). Then the phone rang. Then there was a knock at my door. Then the phone rang again. Then another knock.

So my book was abandoned as I spent the afternoon with Elizabeth and Adelle and then the evening with my new friend and fellow teacher Jill. Normally I don't have that much social interaction in a day...or in a week....or ever...but since word has gotten out that I have stopped handing out 7th grade spelling tests and red pens to everyone who comes through my door, people assume it is safe to visit me. Of course, some of today's social interactions were the result of word getting out that I was handing out slices of buttermilk pie at the door. That means, if I want to have a shot at getting my book read before a mass of kidlets breaks down my classroom door Monday morning to discuss it, I am either going to have to stay up all night reading or eat the rest of the pie, thereby removing the social interaction catalyst.
Hummm...I really do need my sleep, so I guess the pie will just have to go (So Kar, if your next blog post could be about how to get a date with a boy who doesn't mind going out with an anti-social chick with a butter-milk-pie-inflated-backside, I would really appreciate it).

Miss H and the Long Weekend

I got a new short hair cut Thursday, so I decided to celebrate by having a long weekend.

Since my plans for world domination haven't progressed to the point where I can declare a national holiday to celebrate my personal style decisions, its a good thing Labor Day was already on the calendar. School has been in session for about a week and a half now, so when the bell rang on Friday, the hallways looked more than a little like this...

Long weekends usually mean trips to the big cities to visit family, but this weekend I decided to stay home and get some much needed rest. Not that it isn't restful to wake up at 7 a.m. with these little guys three inches from my face...
...but my return to the 5 a.m. exercise scene left me in need of some serious down time.

Since I wouldn't be visiting any of my family members and/or their laundry rooms, my weekend kicked off with a trip to my favorite laundromat. For more information about why I enjoy this particular laundromat, click here.
Normally I use my laundry time to grade papers or ogle rodeo cowboys but this weekend I had other things on my mind. Just previous to this laundry stop, I had a meeting with my stake president (a former rodeo cowboy himself). I thought the meeting was going to be about my lack of somberness while teaching Sunday school, but it turned out to be about making my busy life even busier, but in a good way. So I spent laundry time preparing for my new calling (a calling that I'm sure will provide plenty of blogging material, so stay tuned). One of my favorite weekend activities is grocery shopping. I know that usually isn't considered an "exciting" activity, but for me going to Walmart is like walking the red carpet at a Hollywood event. I always end up seeing at least a few of my students who all react in the same way...

1st- Shock. "Miss H? You're at Walmart?" They say it with the same inflection someone might use when they notice a lion has escaped from the zoo. (I remember how weird it was for me to see my teachers at the store when I was younger. It just seemed wrong to see them in any context that wasn't school)

2nd- Excitement. "Mom! Look! It's Miss H!" This is the part where my self esteem shoots up because I spend the next five minutes shaking hands with parents and listening to the my kidlet tell his or her younger siblings about how "cool" English is.

3rd- Pride in having thier teacher recognize them and interact with them. "See mom, I told you she likes to be called Mrs. Diesel!" I love listening to the comments they make as I'm walking away and they think I don't hear them. As long as I live in a small town with a Walmart I will never need Prozac.

My weekend schedule also always includes prep time for my Sunday school lesson. This week's lesson includes the chapters about Helaman's stripling warriors.
Because of the temple dedication, we didn't have meetings last Sunday. That means we have to cover two lessons this week to get back on track. To help the class cover all the information (and to help me stay on task) I made yet another Delightful Learning Experience that includes a section on how to be "Latter-day Warriors/Warrior Princesses". And since I made it through a whole interview with the stake president without once being chastised for my teaching style, I think our Sunday school class is going to have a pretty darn good time tomorrow.
One of my other much-looked-forward-to weekend activities is cooking. Real, honest to goodness, time consuming, sink full of dishes producing cooking is one of the few activities that allows me to turn off the blog narration that is usually bouncing around in my brain...and replaces it with a perky Rachel Ray-esque food network narration. Should I be concerned with the amount of dialogue that goes on in my head? Don't worry about answering that. I'll just ask my self about it later.
Tonight a made a pot of my favorite soup...a knock-off recipe of a spicy potato, sausage, and kale soup that I always order when I go to a certain restaurant that's name prominently features the word "Olive". I refuse to give the full name of the restaurant without being paid for my advertising services. A whole, like, ten people read this blog, so the folks at "*** Olive ******" should really take advantage of this advertising opportunity. Weekends are also nice because I (usually) have time to enjoy my food instead of scarfing it down on my way to a meeting or activity.
A less fun Miss H weekend activity is grading papers. With somewhere around 160 students this semester and only one preparation period every other day, I am going to be doing a lot of grading at home...and at FHE...and at institute...and in my car at stop lights.
So the smart thing to do this weekend would have been grade until I ran out of papers or my red pen ran out of ink. Too bad I'm not smart. I guess I could always do a little bit of grading after I read a few chapters...

Or not.

I guess its a good thing this is a three day weekend. Maybe I'll get something productive done Monday...but I wouldn't bet on it.