Spring Break!

For the first time ever, I have three school days off from school. It also worked out well that the day I usually have to work falls on my birthday.

No big plans for the day. Our cleaning lady is coming this morning, so we're going to go out for breakfast and to pick up a few grocery items. I'm also thinking that I'll take Carly to see "Horton Hears a Who" this afternoon. I've heard nothing but good things about it.

Since we'll be heading to Mom & Dad's tomorrow, it also means that I'll be doing laundry and getting things packed for the weekend.

DFL Convention Day

Today I attended the Itasca County DFL convention. It was held at the high school in Nashwauk, so it was very convenient. Laura Owens (Kayla's mom) and I went together. It was one of those things that went on about an hour or two longer than it needed to. It started 30 minutes late. They had a 45 minute meeting and then they broke for an hour long lunch break. Come on! Get the show on the road!

After the break we had to choose the 12 delegates who will represent our county at the district and state convention. This was the interesting part. They did a true walking sub-caucus format and had to get about 300 delegates into the different sub-caucuses. This was when it became fun to people watch - you see the different cultures within your political party. You saw your labor union people, education people, environmental people (who could be divided into crunchy & extra-crunchy), peace lovers, George Bush haters, and even a legalize marijuana sub-caucus. I often view myself as quite liberal, but I see now that I'm actually one of the more moderate representatives of the Democratic party.

They did a quick show of hands to show which sub-caucuses would not be viable and it gave people who started a sub-caucus the option to remove theirs before people started moving around the room. The young man who submitted the legalize pot sub-caucus was the first to scratch his, but I applaud him for having the guts to stand up in front of a room full of people and list his controversial cause.

I went with the Franken/Education caucus. We teamed up with the Franken/Environment and formed the largest sub-caucus there. We had almost 90 people and we were able to send 5 delegates from our group. The Franken/Labor would send 3. The two Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer sub-caucuses will send 4. The extra crunchy environmentalists and peace lovers were supporting Jack N-P. There is a strong progressive movement in the Grand Rapids area, so he did well with them. I think he fared better in Itasca County than he will in other parts of the state. At this point Laura and I left. We just wanted to help Al Franken get as many delegates as possible. Once we had that done, we didn't care who they sent because we don't know these people anyway.

As you can see from the picture above, Al Franken made an appearance. A larger convention was being held in Hibbing today and he went to both of them. He talked for just a few minutes and stayed a little while to talk to anyone who wanted to ask questions or just shake hands. He was very well received. When I heard he'd be there I decided to take my camera and actually have the guts to ask to have my picture taken with him. My neighbor Heidi (she used to babysit for us) also wanted her picture taken with him, so she and I went together. I'm glad we did.

It was a good day. I got my picture taken with Al Franken and I had an occasion to wear my "Liberal - It's a Good Thing" shirt - I got a few compliments on it too!

Easter Ritual

This morning shortly after the girls got up they dyed Easter eggs. This was going to be an afternoon project, but Carly could not wait. The girls look a little rough in the photos. I don't think any hair brushing or primping had taken place at the time they were doing it. It felt like we were doing this a few weeks too early. It just doesn't seem like spring.

Remember when we were kids how long it would take to get the colors dark? The little color kits are far better than they used to be. It doesn't take long at all to get really dark bright colors. Ellen lost interest after the first dozen. Carly would have colored several dozen if I had the eggs for it. I think we'll do this again next weekend and maybe get a kit to bring to Grandma & Grandpa's house.

I made up some egg salad for lunch. I'm not a big fan, but Paul likes it and we have to use up some eggs. He just got home from his first fishing outing and is cleaning fish as I type. He plans to go out again in about an hour. I think he should take Ellen with since they are biting. I doubt that will happen.

I'll have to add the pictures later. Blogger won't let me put them up after a few attempts.

Another Week Goes By

Not too much happens at our house during the week, so I'm pretty much becoming a weekend blogger. It's hard to believe that we are already well into March. It's nice knowing that we're getting close to that fourth quarter of school.

It was the week of the state hockey tournament. Once Roseau and Cloquet were beat out we didn't have too much remaining interest in the tournament. Dassel-Cokato made it to the state tournament, I believe for the first time. Normally that would not be of too much interest to us, but the head coach is a former student of mine - Chris Olsen. He was a fifth grader my first year of teaching. He played hockey for Greenway and went to college at Bemidji. He teaches 6th grade in Litchfield. It was fun to see him interviewed. He looks a lot the same - just older. I always really liked him, so it's nice to see that he is doing well.

I've been working on Nick Hornby's latest book. I picked it up at Target last week. I think it is called "Slam." Or maybe it is "Slide?" It's pretty good. He's one of my favorite authors.

I do have a recipe recommendation. Yesterday I made the apple dumplings from pioneerwomancooks.com They couldn't have been much easier. I'm thinking I'll make them when we go to Cyrus for Easter.

What else is new? About a week ago I got my starter kit for Bare Minerals make-up. A couple of my coworkers and Kayla's mom are big fans of it, so I thought I'd give it a try. I really like it. It will last a very long time. Carly is also a fan. She's intrigued by what's in my make-up bag. Rather than have her make a mess of my stuff, I put a little bit of make-up on her. She loves the brushes.

I have a few pictures to post, so I'll get that post started.

Paul's Bluegill

While I was home attending to the sick child, Paul went fishing - twice. He came home with this bluegill that he thinks could be a state record (but I doubt it).

Paul is not wearing pants in this photo.

Bob Dylan Fudge Bars

The PBS station out of Duluth runs a cooking special every few months during their pledge drives. They put together a cookbook based on a theme and local people submit recipes. They then choose about ten recipes to be featured on the special which aired today. The theme this time was "C is for Comfort." One of the instructors at Hibbing Community College is a co-chair of Dylan Days in Hibbing. He writes an editorial for the Hibbing Sunday paper every week and I always make a point to read it. He also has a blog that I check out every few days. He submitted a recipe and was featured on today's show. I'm his stalker.

The weekly food section of the Duluth News Tribune featured some of the recipes this past week. As I was reading through it, I recognized Aaron Brown's name and read through the recipe and realized I had everything to make it, so I did. The recipe is from Bob Dylan's mother - Betty Zimmerman, who died in 2000. I'd have to imagine that she made them for her son. Wouldn't you?

Bob Dylan Fudge Bars

1/3 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt
6 Tbsp cocoa
1 cup cake flour (or 1 cup regular flour minus 2 Tbsp)
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup milk
1/4 chopped nuts, optional
chocolate frosting

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and salt until fluffy. Add cocoa to the well-creamed mixture. Hand-mix the flour, baking powder, and milk to the mixture. Mix in nuts if you wish. Pour mixture into a greased and floured 9x9 inch or 8x10 inch pan. Place in a 350 degree oven. Bake about 25 minutes until the sides shrink from the sides (I did the clean toothpick test). Remove from oven and cool. Frost with chocolate frosting. It makes 16 bars.

I didn't have a can of frosting, but made cocoa frosting from my Betty Crocker cookbook - it was great. Simple to do and so much better than the canned stuff. The bars were excellent. I ate two of them with a glass of milk right after I frosted them . I'm trying to buy less mixes and actually cook and bake from scratch, so I was very game to try this simple recipe. I will definitely make them again.

Odds are you have the ingredients on hand to make them too. Give it a try!

Another One Down

After school yesterday the sub for Ellen's teacher told me that my daughter had not been feeling well. Ellen had not gone to the nurse and & usually don't see her during the day, so I was surprised to hear it. I took her temp when we got home and it was 102.3. She was just miserable. We gave he one adult Tylenol and we got it down to about 100. She woke up this morning and it was 101.8. This has been going around and if it follows the pattern of our school kids who have been sick, she might be feeling quite sick for a few days. Since she had just finished taking an antibiotic on Wednesday, it leads me to believe that this is viral just like the other kids at school.

We were supposed to go to Duluth for a 2 pm hockey game. Paul called someone who works in his school and they were very happy to buy our tickets - this is a sold out game against UND. It's always a tough ticket to get. If we hadn't sold our tickets Paul was going to go to the game with Kayla's dad and they'd sell the remaining two tickets at the door. Paul is going to go fishing instead. I've been working at getting some jobs done around the house.

This past week at work was very long. We had conferences on Tuesday. We don't get our make-up day until March 20th. I'm glad to have the extra day at Easter break - especially since it falls on my birthday, but it would have been nice to have Friday after conferences off like we usually do. I'm at the point of the year where I am really looking forward to summer vacation. It's just not that far off.

On Wednesday we saw that Sun Country was running a great airfare to Fort Myers this summer - $239 round trip. We discussed it that evening and decided that if was still listed on Thursday that we would book it. As of Thursday morning the fare was still listed. As of noon, Sun Country had dropped their daily summer flights to Fort Myers. They go three times a week - never on a Saturday. Since you rent homes Sat-Sat on Captiva, you kind of need that Sat flight. So it was a bummer to start out the day thinking we were going back to our favorite place and ending it with thinking we probably won't be going this summer at all. Airfares at NW are considerably higher and with the expectation of rising fuel costs, I just can't see it going down. We'll keep an eye on it, but our expectations are low.

It's probably about time for Ellen's second Tylenol today. It's just sad how miserable she is.