Tip of the Hat to John Edwards

We were fans in this house and are sorry to see his campaign come to an end even though we knew he didn't have a chance to get the nomination. He made an appearance at the Hibbing Memorial Building shortly before the 2004 election. Ellen was in second grade at the time, but we felt she was old enough to drag to a rally. I even made her a shirt for the occasion. It was a very exciting thing to be part of and I'll always be glad that we were able to hear him speak in person.

And yes, we had another day off. Every school in the area is closed.

Another Recipe

It turned out really well that we had the day off. Carly had a bit of a cough yesterday and this morning it was worse. She looked really pale and washed out. We knew if we didn't take her in today that we'd likely be taking her in tomorrow. Paul brought her over to the clinic where she was able to get in with our regular doctor right away. She'll be taking Zithromax the next few days. There is a pharmacy in the clinic, so it was nice that he was able to just do one stop with her. Hopefully she'll perk up quickly. Paul did say that the roads were very icy on the bridges and no one is out today.

Right before they left I made up a pan of bars. I got this recipe from the parent of a student. Back in the days when we allowed parents to bring in homemade items, she brought these in for her son's birthday. I made these on Saturday when Royce & Lynn came up. What is nice about this recipe is that I almost always have the ingredients on hand. Ellen even likes them which says something since she is my Simon/like food critic. My camera battery is charging right now. I'll add a picture later.

Peanut Butter Bars

Mix together:
1/2 cup butter/margarine (I use butter flavored Crisco)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla

Add:
1 cup flour
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

Spread into a greased 9x13 pan. Sprinkle 1/2 bag of chocolate chips over the top. Bake at 350 for 20 to 25 minutes or until lightly brown. Cool for ten minutes.

While the bars cool mix together:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
2 Tbsp milk

Drizzle the icing over the bars.

Snow Day!

I was feeling like the odds were good that we'd stay home today. It was 40 degrees here yesterday and there was just a wet, sticky feel to the air all day. It started to rain later in the early evening and within a couple hours the roads were very icy. When Paul was at the fire hall he heard over the scanner that the state highway department was advising no travel. You take icy roads and throw in severe windchills, and you have the makings of a snow day.

I turned on the tv before I hit the shower and they were just showing that the Duluth area schools were closing. I got the call around 6:25 that we would be closed. We turned on the tv and saw that almost all of the Iron Range schools were closed. It's possible that we'll be home tomorrow too. We are supposed to have windchills as low as 50 to 60 below.

Carly has a cold, so it works out well for her to stay home. Ellen got up when she heard the phone ring and then went back to bed. I plan to watch a movie, get some little jobs around the house done, and just relax. I have been pretty tired of school, so this is a nice little break.

This morning as we were getting ready

for school, Ellen got a round brush caught in her hair. It sent waves of horror through my entire body. That brush was within an inch of her scalp and fully entwined. I told her we had two choices - cut it out or pull out as much hair as possible from the brush. One choice would be painless but would have lasting visable effects. The other would hurt, but would probably not be noticeable. So I worked at getting as much hair out of the brush as possible. It didn't take too long, but it was uncomfortable for Ellen and the brush had lots of hair in it when we were done. Her hair looks the same and that was the desired outcome. Ellen will never use a round brush again. I gave her a Tylenol afterward. She said it actually helped a lot.

I'm hoping for a late start or snow day Tuesday or Wednesday. It could happen.

More Gracie pictures

While Royce & Paul were out collecting driftwood, the rest of us hung out at our house. Lynn & I started watching the movie "Away from Her" which we did not finish. I'm going to do that this afternoon. We played with the playstation. We made up some cream cheese/shrimp wontons that I baked instead of fried. I also made up the classic cream cheese/cocktail sauce/shrimp dip - I love that stuff. Paul fried up some crappies for dinner. We had a salad and baked potatoes to go with it. I ate entirely too much (and did a really hard and long exercise dvd that I got from Netflix this morning).

I think Gracie is going to be an animal lover like Ellen. She was quite taken with Daisy the hamster. She was making cooing and squeaking noises when she saw her. She'd reach out and touch her gently. It was really cute. Ellen took Daisy out again later to show Royce & Paul how Gracie liked her and she was just as interested. I think a few years from now, I might have to be that bad aunt who gives a hamster as a pet.

Gracie

These are the pictures everyone wants to see. We didn't think Gracie looked much different than she did at Christmas, but we thought she seemed a lot older. She sits up well. When she is on her tummy, she can really hold up her head. She interacts with people more. When they got here, Ellen's friends were still at our house and they just loved playing with her. Gracie enjoyed being right in the middle of it. Nancy, you'll recognize the outfit she's wearing in the first couple of pictures. It really looked cute on her. I'll get a few pictures up and then do another post.

Royce/Taxidermy

About 5 miles from Keewatin is a lake that is a great source for driftwood. Two years ago Royce came up and filled a trailer. He was getting really low, so came up this weekend to fill it up again. Royce and Paul went out to Blue Lake yesterday afternoon and spent a few hours collecting. Royce should be good to go again.

Royce was also going to drop off a fish mount to a guy in Hibbing this morning. This guy had a son who was in Paul's class last year. Royce did a goose mount for him last year. He also dropped off two bucks at our house this fall. You have to like a client like that. I think this is a pretty impressive looking mount and that you'd like to see it.

Ellen's Sleepover

Friday night Ellen's best friends, Kayla & Meg stayed overnight as a late celebration of Ellen's 11th birthday. Ellen only wanted to invite two friends rather than have a bunch of girls over. We thought that sounded great. You've all met Kayla before, but Meg is a newer friend. Meg moved to Nashwauk last spring from Milbank, SD. Ellen & Kayla liked her right away and they hang out together a lot in school. We had heard Ellen talk about her quite a bit and were glad to get to know her.

They played Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution and just hung out. We had pizza from Sammy's, homemade ice cream, and the girls decorated cupcakes. At about midnight, I told the girls they had to go to sleep. Carly was very put out out that I didn't let her hang out with the big girls in Ellen's room. At one point she said to them sarcastically, "Are you having a great time?"

Playstation Warriors

Guitar Hero continues to be a big hit in our house. Yesterday I called down to Best Buy in Duluth to see if they had single guitars for the game. They had a bunch. They held one up at customer service for me, so I didn't have to go looking for one. I think you kind of need two guitars if more than one person will be using the game. The songs are long and you spend a lot of time waiting around for your turn. Paul and I will use the extra guitar, but in reality it's Kayla's guitar. She had never played before and on Friday night, she thought it was pretty fun. She came over later this morning and was here most of the afternoon. She's hooked and does quite well on the beginner level. Ellen plays with the settings on medium and is very good.

I had never done Dance, Dance Revolution before. I think it's as much fun as Guitar Hero. I can see it taking the place of an exercise dvd now and then. I'm also thinking another mat wouldn't be a bad idea. Too much fun. These new games are so much better than they were a few years ago. I always said I'd never have one of these gaming devices in my house - and then I played Guitar Hero. I saw the light.

Glamour Sunday

We're not going to talk about last night's hockey game. Our team stunk.

Ellen got a set of hot rollers for her birthday. We put a few in Carly's hair yesterday and we decided today to do a full set. Her hair rolls up surprisingly easy. I was concerned that the curlers would slip out. She sat very still as I rolled them and I don't think it took more than ten minutes. While she waited for her hair to set, she ate a bowl of Spaghettios which would explain the mess around her mouth in the first picture. You guys know how straight her hair is, so it's just funny to see her with a Texas pageant hairdo. She changed into her Snow White dress after we took the pictures. She's so cute.

Bulldog Saturday

I went to weather.com this morning to check out the current temp and we are at -20. It is unlikely that we'll reach zero. Crazy as it sounds, we are going down to Duluth for the Bulldog/Gopher hockey game. Last night's game ended in overtime and a tie at 1-1. The Bulldogs didn't play very well, so I'm hopeful that tonight will be a better game. This is a huge rivalry and there was lots of pushing and shoving on the ice. I know it is unsportsmanlike, but I enjoy a good hockey fight.

Ellen used her birthday and allowance $ yesterday. We don't let her buy anything for herself with allowance money the months of December & the first 1/2 of January. Last year she kept wanting to buy herself things that we knew she was getting for gifts, so we imposed the rule. It worked well for her because she had enough money to buy a Playstation 2. Paul and I were supportive of this purchase. We bought Guitar Hero 3 and a Dance, Dance Revolution game to go with it. Ellen & Kayla played with it for quite a while last night. Right now Ellen is playing some Alice Cooper and doing well with it. We are going to call Best Buy in Duluth and see if they carry extra guitars because it's a lot more fun if two people can play at the same time. Walmart and Target might be options too. If not, we can place an order on-line. Ellen is having a couple girls stay over for her birthday on Friday and it would be nice to have it by then.

Yesterday we had a workday at school - no meetings, just work in your room. I got my grades posted, ran some copies, and did some cleaning up of areas that were starting to stress me out. On Monday, we go over to Coleraine with a few other schools to listen to some speakers. I hope they'll be good.

I'll stop in again to add some pictures and get another post up. Keep warm!

Banana Muffins

Lately I have been making banana muffins instead of banana bread when I have a couple of brown bananas. I made a dozen this afternoon. I don't know that they taste any better than banana bread, but they involve no slicing and I do like that. It also requires a much shorter baking time. Paul ate three of them immediately after they came out of the oven today. The recipe is from my Better Homes & Gardens cookbook.

Banana Muffins

Mix together:

2 mashed bananas

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup cooking oil

1 beaten egg

1/3 cup sugar

Add:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

Mix just until moistened. Spoon batter into greased muffin cups (they recommend that you not use paper liners). Each cup will be about 2/3 full. Bake in a 400 degree oven 18 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. The recipe also calls for 1/2 cup chopped walnuts, but Paul doesn't like them so I leave them out. Since he eats most of the muffins, I accomodate his fussiness.

Hockey Night

Yesterday we went down to Duluth for a hockey game against Mankato. The game ended in a 2-2 tie. It was a somewhat quiet game since UMD classes are not back in session yet. The two sections that are normally filled with loud college students were pretty much empty. The band was there, so that leads me to believe that they'll be back in school on Monday. Next weekend they play the Gophers. We haven't been to a Gopher game in quite some time. The last couple of years it has been during the deer opener and Paul will give up hockey tickets for that. Fortunately it has never been a problem to sell those tickets.

Before the game we did a quick stop at Gander Mountain. Paul had a gift card and the girls for certain will need new winter jackets next year. So we bought them jackets in the next size up for next year. They are a bit too big, but they can start wearing them now anyway. Last year I was hoping to find jackets more toward the end of the winter and get great deals on them, but I waited too long and they were really picked over. It was a decent sale and they had a couple to pick from in each of their sizes. Ellen's jacket is especially cute. I'll take pictures of them later and add them to this post.

We did a quick stop at the mall. Old Navy had a huge clearance sale going. It was really picked over. I couldn't find anything for Carly for next year. If I would have had more time to dig, I might have been able to. For Ellen I bought 2 pairs of pants, one pair of shorts, and 2 long sleeve white shirts to wear under tees - total cost of $22. Sweaters at Eddie Bauer were 50% off, so I bought a cable sweater with a zipper. It's a pretty classic style and I know I'll wear it a lot. I also bought a 75% off guinea pig calendar for my classroom - $3. We were running short of time, so we ate at the food court and went straight to the game.

No plans for today. I started watching the movie "Nurse Betty" on Friday. I'll finish watching that. I still haven't paged through the Sunday paper, so I'll head upstairs to do that now.

I'm going to have to play around with the settings on my camera. It seems like all of my pictures have been so dark lately.

Not much to report around here.

School has been busy. I did go out snowshoeing after school today with a coworker. It was really nice out and the trail is as pretty as ever. We are supposed to get a few inches of snow in the next couple of days. That will be nice. We've had some melting and the snow was a little bit crunchier than we'd like. Tomorrow Carly starts her ECFE class again. She's looking forward to it. Ellen has to cheer for a game on Friday night. Saturday we head to Duluth for a hockey game against Mankato.

Have a good rest of the week!

Dream House Give-Away on HGTV

Please go to hgtv.com every day until mid February and enter to win the dream house they are giving away. It is right on the beach in the Florida Keys on an island called Isla Morada (I think I have that right). A coworker of mine has in-laws that live in Naples, so they go down there every Christmas and usually spend a couple days vacationing someplace on their own. This past Christmas they had a condo on this island and she said it was a really nice place. The house is awesome and one of us needs to win it.

hgtv.com - enter and win!

Clean Your Computer Monitor

This is a great way to clean your monitor and it's friendly to the environment. Laurie, you might want to include this in your green tips.

http://www.roberthein.dk/screenclean.swf

Spartan Basketball

Ellen had to cheer on Friday night, so that meant Spartan basketball would be our evening's entertainment. Our team played Minneapolis Edison. This was a first. Our coach played college basketball with the assistant coach of the other team. We expected our team to get completely blown away but they usually stayed within 15 points. The other team was significantly taller and older. The crowd enjoyed the game for what it was. The other team scored over 100 points and our boys had over 70.

Carly was hoping that Ella and Emma would be there. They are her friends from her ECFE class. Their dad is the head coach of our team, so they are often at the home games. Ella is a year younger than Carly. Emma will be two in the spring. I have to think really hard before I say their names, because I can't keep them straight. Ella and Carly visited and cheered the entire item. They put on an excellent 1/2 time show while the band played.

We had a sitter lined up for tonight, but Paul had a stomach bug so we called Jill and cancelled. He spent most of the day sleeping. I just did laundry, an exercise dvd and started reading "The Glass Castle." So far I like the book. I thought about buying groceries, but I think we can make it until Monday when Ellen is at piano lessons. No plans for tomorrow.

Paul Clusiau turns 40!

Welcome to the club! Paul didn't want a cake, so I made him his favorite dessert instead - cream puffs. I had never made them before, but they turned out well for a first effort. The girls and I took him out for dinner at a restaurant that recently opened in Nashwauk. Carly got a little nervous when a man that we didn't know said that he was meeting a group of people for a birthday party. She turned to me and said, "Not our party!" I think Paul probably had a moment of fear when he thought maybe I did plan a surprise party for him. Not this year. He didn't want to pose for a picture either, but I made him.

Sillisculpts

While out "junking" with Laurie this summer I ended up starting an odd little collection - sillisculpts from the 60s and 70s. As a kid I remember seeing them all over the place. Whose house didn't have at least one? We were in the Goodwill in Hibbing and picked up one that said "World's Best Mother." I saw that it cost 49 cents and decided that I am the world's best mother and need a statue to prove it. We walked a few blocks down to the Salvation Army store and they had one that said "I love you this much." He cost a dollar. At that point I became a collector. This really isn't something that I would display in my home unless I had a nifty lava lounge, but it makes a fine collection for the classroom. My coworker was getting rid of a shelf at the beginning of the school year and I immediately claimed it for my collection.

I have 22 of them so far - one sits on my desk. It is the same as the greatest mother one, but it has a little coin holder that I use for holding paper clips. Laurie found that one for a quarter! The ones I collect are labeled "Paula's" or "R. W. Berrie." My rule is to not pay more than a dollar - not a problem and probably won't be for quite a while. Laurie has picked up a couple for me as well as my aunt Kris. Thank you! I really do enjoy getting new ones. I show them to my 4th graders and I think I have them believing they are something special. My co-workers laugh when they see them, but they admire and usually talk about the ones that used to be in their house when they were growing up. It's a good thing.

Lollie's Pizza Casserole

I did decide tonight that dinner was blog worthy. One of my favorite blogs that I visit posts recipes, so I think if I keep this up that I'll post recipes too. I took a lot of liberties with Lollie's recipe, so instead of posting hers, I'm going to do it the way that I did, but I will give her credit for this one.

Lollie's Pizza Casserole

1 pound ground beef

1/2 onion, chopped

1 small can of mushrooms

pepperoni slices (I just added what I had)

1 large can of pizza sauce

2 cups grated cheese (cheddar or mozzarella, or a combination)

Top the Tater

1 can refrigerated crescent rolls

Brown the ground beef and chopped onion. Mix in the mushrooms, pizza sauce and pepperoni. Place into a baking dish. I used a 2 quart oval casserole dish (it's a pyrex one from the late 1950s that I bought on ebay). Sprinkle with cheese. Unroll the crescent rolls. Spread a layer of top the tator on each triangle, then roll up and place on the cheese. Cover with foil and bake at 350 for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake an additional 20 minutes. Lollie doubled the main ingredients and baked this in a 9x13 pan.

Our house smelled wonderful while this was baking. As predicted the girls were not impressed, but Paul was. I will confess that I did not use Top the Tater. I try not to keep that in my house because I find it rather addictive. Instead I doctored up some sour cream with chopped onion and garlic & onion powder. It was a good enough substitute. I think just plain old sour cream would have been good too.

I somehow found myself caught up in a Biggest Loser 2 marathon on Bravo today. I remember Mom talking about the final episode and how moving it was. They are currently on that episode. I've already found myself getting teary-eyed. It just kills me when they go home from the ranch and their families cry when they see how much they've changed. I don't think that Bob & Jillian would approve of the recipe that I just posted.

First Day of 2008

Laurie has been telling me that I should try blogging, so I thought starting one on the New Year would be appropriate. At this point, I don't really know what kind of stuff I'll put on here. I'm going to try it for a week and if I think it seems even somewhat interesting I'll share a link with others.

Today was spent trying to get a few things organized for getting back to school tomorrow. Paul, Ellen, and Carly are going to have a heck of a time getting up tomorrow. They have been routinely sleeping past 8:30 every morning. Paul has become a three cup coffee drinker over vacation, so maybe that'll help him out tomorrow. I think he'll have to leave for work with a travel mug.

I did two workout dvds tomorrow - it is the New Year, right? I'm a big fan of the Firm's Transfirmer workout system and own a good share of the dvds that go with it. About a year ago I watched an infomercial for this product. After just one viewing I was sold. I was excited and immediately went down to the computer to order one. Sweet Jesus, if I did not find out that I could just go to Target and buy one there! I got one the very next day. I did it faithfully all winter and then went back to running in the warmer months. I started up the Transfirmer around Thanksgiving time this past fall. So many people buy this stuff and then never use it. I've been pleased with my infomercial product.

I'm trying a new recipe tonight. Carly and I go to an ECFE class on Thursdays from 4 to 6. We have a meal with the other families. Lollie enjoys cooking for everyone and the food is always good. This pizza casserole was a hit and she shared the recipe. I'll let you know what my family thinks. I can pretty much predict. Ellen will refuse to try it and Carly will call it "yucky" even though she ate it when Lollie made it. Paul will have seconds.

I wasn't sure what to use for a picture at the top of the page, but thought I'd use one of our house. I'll have to get out and take a wintery picture of the house some time this week. Thanks go out to Ellen for her help in getting me set up.