lunch – Peaceful Reader

May Celebrations

The weather is chilly here, I am still wearing a warmer coat to walk the dogs, and haven’t planted anything yet because it gets too cold at night. Every once in a while the sun is strong in the afternoon and feels nice and warm. I’m ready for the intense heat of summertime. I’m also ready for my school students to run wildly out the door, to be free for the summer, to put this year behind. I don’t know what next year will look like but these kids need a summer break.

Yesterday I drove back home after visiting my brother and sister-in-law in the Minneapolis area. It was cold there also. Friday night we had an excellent dinner with this chickpea soup prepared by both my brother and his wife and old family friends helped as well. I feel like I’ve known them my whole life and there is something so reassuring about having people in your life that knew you as a young person. Marv was one of my dad’s best friends and Marcia still remains one of my mother’s besties. It was wonderful to watch the two of them talk at the table together, heads leaning in. My mother broke her hip in a recent fall and uses a walker right now and Marcia has her own. Marv recently recovered from a very serious heart surgery as well. We are all getting older. Yep. The night was magical though and it was lovely to visit with both Marv and Marcia, sharing and listening to their life stories. My nephew Beckett interviewed Marv about his Cold War experiences guarding the Berlin Wall. I loved hearing Marcia’s stories about childbirth in the 1970s where she had to argue to have her husband in the delivery room. We’ve come a long way baby.

The next day we had a lazy morning (I slept until 9:30!) and then went to Excelsior, browsed and had lunch at Coalition. We celebrated Mother’s Day all weekend and my brother’s 49th birthday. We had four different delicious desserts over the course of two days. And then I made fresh cinnamon rolls for Sunday brunch before we left town. I should think about giving up sugar for a few weeks. My brother is an amazing chef and really enjoys planning a menu and sharing food with friends and neighbors.

And then we had to come home, back to reality, back to lesson planning and waking up early. I did come home to a lovely daughter, and another calling me to leave a happy message from Brooklyn, and a son who took time to call and chat about everything. I felt loved all weekend long and even more so pulling into my own driveway, reaching my home destination because my family was happy to see me and my dogs were so excited to see me. I could tell because of the full body tail shake!

I finished The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich, an excellent read, Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi, the author of Homecoming, another excellent read. Now I am reading The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, author of The Mothers, both wonderful stories. I’m trying to squeeze in lots of adult fiction before summer hits because I’m taking two classes and I have lots of award contenders to read before August. Librarian Life. Enjoy…

Weekend Cooking; Garden produce

We have a beautiful garden this summer. My husband and I compost lots of kitchen scraps and we dump them into a large ball composter that looks a lot like this one. This year when we rolled it from one end of the garden to the other (it IS heavy and it takes both of us to push it around, thus moving the scraps around) we had a really nice fertile (mucky) batch of compost. My husband dug down about a foot and we layered in a batch of compost, which looks like wet dirt, and then cover that layer back up with dirt. It’s a little like burying a treasure!

We have about 5 tomato plants, three robust basil plants, one acorn squash plant, one cucumber plant, and one zucchini plant and they are all producing for us this year. I love it when I can go out and gather a small handful of tomatoes and fresh basil and then turn it into a simple and delicious lunch.

From this:

to this:

Fresh roma tomatoes, snipped basil still warm, a little mozzarella cubed, sea salt and pepper, oil drizzled plus a scoop of homemade pesto there in the corner to add even more flavor.

I found this zucchini in the garden the other day and plan to shred it and make bread with it. Anyone have a great zucchini bread recipe to share? I have one I plan to use but I always like to find new ones.

Groovy Girl was so amazed by the mammoth size of the zucchini she had to have a comparison photo. Won’t that be delicious in some bread!

This post is linked to Beth Fish Reads Weekend Cooking. Click her link for many other food-related posts.

Exhausting Mother's Day events

What a day we’ve had. It began with my beautiful Groovy Girl sobbing because I woke up before her and she wanted to wake me up with breakfast in bed. She did not read my blog post from yesterday (or ever) but I did get that menu exactly sans orange juice as there was none in the refrigerator. She only made me breakfast once I convinced her that I would fall back to sleep, which I did {wink} until she left and then I read under the covers until I heard her creeping back up with the tray.

It was youth Sunday at church so both my children read and or sang and after church we headed to a rabbit show. Yes, we have one little dwarf bunny but that is a post for another day. We went just looking for ideas to build a bunny hutch for outside.

Driving home we decided to ride our bikes to a local restaurant for lunch which was so relaxing and enjoyable as we can watch the bike path traffic in a very green area. It was cool but sunny as we pedaled to and fro. We had a delicious lunch and I enjoyed a spicy Bloody Mary with my fish tacos. Perfecto.

I seriously planned on taking a little nap once we made it back up our driveway but my front garden needed weeding and my husband needed help with the mower which wouldn’t start. So I slipped on my garden shoes and it was like they had wings. For the next three hours we got a lot of yard work done. We weeded the front garden which has been a project for the last two years after we pulled up three huge {ugly} evergreen bushes. Everything I’ve planted in this front part is a perennial and are mostly flowering bushes or herbs. Last year I transplanted a rhubarb plant from the back yard to the front and it looks great.

We then rolled our compost ball over to the far side of our rectangle garden plot and my husband dug down in three feet wide trenches so we could deposit compost under good top soil. It was back-bending work as he piled the dirt back and I scooped and deposited the compost. We got the entire garden turned and our compost ball is fairly empty. Starting over fresh.

We took a small break from turning dirt to linseed oil the small free library my step-father made and gave me for Christmas. It’s been living on the floor of our living room since then and now is the time to get it outside. My husband and son have a hole already dug for it and a post ready to go in the ground. Stay tuned for more of the project later.

We’ve had a small pool awaiting us for another backyard project and we just weren’t tired out enough yet so we {all three of us} dug the hole for the plastic pool. We still need a pump to make it lively but the first step of the project is complete. Amazing how a little sunshine and fresh air will motivate us!

Enjoy the photos to prove all we accomplished.

If I was Queen of the Lunchroom…

My district gives us the gift of Good Friday. I’ve enjoyed this day with all of my heart. I got up a little later than usual and made breakfast in my jammies, The look on my son’s face as he was preparing to leave and noticed I was still in plaid, flannel pants was priceless. After much kissing of daughter she set off on her bike with my husband lagging behind. Usually I walk with them but her riding the bike makes it much less fun. I had a mission in mind anyway. I crawled back between my aubergine sheets and read, The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker, and drifted between reading and sleep. I love drowsy.

My husband brought me a bowl of cereal and cuddled with me for a few minutes before he left for work/church and I was able to read 5 more chapters (laughing out loud several times under the covers) before crawling out from the warm covers. I dressed in Saturday clothes (Gap pants with side cargo pockets, Gap oatmeal long sleeve tee and a long cardigan) and took the straightener to my fat hair. Off to the mall to gather some Easter basket treats. I love picking pretty Spring items for my kids. I don’t even bother with the basket now that the kids are bigger. I use baskets from around the house. The Easter bunny has even been know to use clay pots for his treats. I finished at the mall and headed home to grab a snack.

On the rare days I’ve had off and she doesn’t Groovy Girl and I love to have lunch together in her cafeteria. She’s brings her lunch 98% of the time. She’s a picky eater and not much on the lunch menu appeals to her. I’m not happy that she is such a picky eater but I’m glad she chooses our lunch over what the school has to offer. Today sitting at the small round table with a gaggle of giggly girls I (again) am mortified as to what is served to our children. Well, not my child, but most of the kids in the cafeteria were eating school lunch.

Today’s fare was either a huge slice of greasy pizza or 2 huge cheese bread sticks and a cup of vanilla ice cream. The bread stick in the photo actually has more cheese than the ones I saw today and they truly didn’t look done. On several of the platters there was a large scoop of formerly frozen strawberries, which is at least a fruit or had been, but not one plate had any veggies. The bread stick kids had a small container, fast food style, of marinara sauce for dunking-was that supposed to be a veggie?

Not only was the food not healthy but this is how the kids ate it: the ice cream cup was opened and eaten first. A few that had the strawberry mix added that to ice cream cup and stirred. Hurrah-they accidentally got one serving of a fruit that was also probably sugar-laced! One girl at our table poured some of her chocolate milk into her ice cream. All the 4th grade girls at our table had the bread sticks; not the pizza, and they ate some of the heavily-breaded sticks after downing the ice cream.

If I was queen of the lunchroom I’d make a mandate that you’d have to bring up your almost empty tray to get an ice cream cup. If I was queen of the lunchroom though they’d have a delicious tray of food, filled with veggies and bright colors. While I can’t blame the kids for eating the ice cream first-who am I too judge dessert first-but I find it appalling as to what the “experts” call nutritious for an afternoon of learning.

Not to brag but here’s what Groovy Girl’s frog lunch bag contained; a turkey sandwich on whole grain bread, a small container of grapes, a small container of baby carrots, a clementine, and an organic juice box. I could tell she was a little green with envy as she watched her friends scarf down vanilla ice cream, or chocolate /strawberry-infused ice cream but she quickly turned her attention back to her own lunch. We shared the clementine and the small handful of blue chips with flax that I love. One bonus was that she (and the other “brown baggers”) get to sit first while the other students wait in line for their lunch-her sandwich was mostly gone before the lunch trays were sliding across our table. She only had to nibble at her other healthy food choices as she conversed with her friends.

I don’t have a cool phone or I would have snapped an amazing photo of this lunch adventure instead I borrowed my photo from this blogger, Eat Hoboken, who wrote about school lunches back in 2010. Click the link to check it out. Too bad she’s not still chronicling her journey.

I don’t know if Groovy Girl’s school and my school have the same lunches but I constantly look at what the kids at my school are eating (esp. book club days) and am sad that no vegetarian option is available. Public schools need to find funding for better food choices for our children. Hyping them up on sugar and carbs is no way to learn. Have you ever read about what professional sports teams eat and now even college-level players? They are working hard to make sure their players are eating well for best performances. Why can’t we get that for our youngest generation?

On reading; I finished and loved The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. What took me so long to pick this book up, I’ll never know but it was wonderful to read.

Blessing on this Good Friday.

Student-led Book Clubs

I read a lovely post over at The Brain Lair, discussing book clubs she’s tried in the past, what she is working on now as well as ideas for the future. She’s a middle school librarian with great ideas. I wish she lived and worked in my district so we could partner up our students. At least I would know my book club students could graduate to her book clubs, which would keep them reading through those tough middle years.

I’ve hosted library book clubs for the last four years and started one my last year in Arkansas for a total of five years book clubbing with kids. It’s not an easy task but one that can be exceptionally rewarding. For me, it’s all about lifting students up to a higher level of reading. Everything about school becomes easier once you’ve mastered good reading.

I offer up that enjoying good literature brings you long-term happiness as a person. Really…[don’t we all agree out here in the book blogging world]…I envision the kids that participate will go on to middle and high school book clubs, library trips, college degrees coupled with a long term love of literature for almost every book club student. Not to say all the other students will be unhappy, miserable adults but I’m just saying, book clubs help. Okay, maybe it’s a lofty goal but I aim high.

I have two groups of fifth grade students, one group [5 girls] are reading The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I love this book because it isn’t the Disney idea of princess. Students have preconcieved notions just from the title but they quickly learn there is so much more to this academy. It is a rough and tumble existence with miner’s daughter’s and my student’s can relate to and enjoy this aspect.

The second group [7 boys and girls] are reading Peter and the Starcatcher’s by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. This is a great prequel to J.M. Barrie’s classic Peter Pan. We are watching small portions of Peter Pan while we eat just to catch some students up [many of them hadn’t seen anything other than the cartoon.]

Students are required to come to each meeting with their book and their required chapters read. Each week we have a new discussion leader, who tries hard to come with open-ended questions-it’s a struggle but they get better at it. They learn to work together, give each other the opportunity to talk and are empathetic to each other’s opinions. Do you have student book clubs at your school? What has been successful for you?

If you’ve read The Princess Academy, try the quiz from Hale’s website: beginners and advanced.
Shannon Hale’s amazing website
Peter and the Starcatcher’s website
Ridley Pearson’s website.
Dave Barry’s website
I found these discussion questions for Peter.