#3

Three books in January...I might break a record in 2012!  Before I get into my book review I have to share that it is the last day in JANUARY ~ in CLEVELAND, OHIO ~ and it was 60 degrees.  With no rain.  Packing for run club this morning, amazed at what I didn't put in...a sweatshirt...a jacket...a hat...gloves...   Ran in capris and a short sleeved shirt ~ it was BEAUTIFUL ~ and we ran 5 miles.  More on that tomorrow.

Book #3 for 2012 was a winner before I even started it.  One of my students brought it in and said, "My grandma wanted you to read this book.  She really liked it and thinks you will too."
Isn't that so cool!  I really LOVED that this Grandma thought of her granddaughter's reading teacher and wanted to share a book!  {she is the lady who runs our book fairs...so she knows what kind of book nut I am}

Look Again by Lisa Scottoline sucked me right it.  It's got drama, family, and a little love interest too.  The conflict starts right away.  A mother gets one of those missing children cards in the mail and the picture catches her eye.  It looks just like her 3 year-old adopted son.  What should she do?  What would I do?  I thought I had the conclusion worked out...but no, there are many twist and turns ~ I really didn't know how it would turn out until the very end.  A couldn't put down page turner that says a lot about the importance of following the truth in life, no matter what it may bring.
fl: Ellen Gleeson was unlocking her front door when something in the mail caught her attention.  ll: And for that, Ellen didn't need a translation.

not talking about it

Last week I came home from school and did all the usual stuff, put my bags away, put my lunch on the counter, hung up my coat, said "Hi" to Patrick, and went into the living room.  The chaise lounge (the one the dogs ate last spring break) was moved, not so much, but just a little forward and a little toward the windows.  I asked Patrick why he'd moved it and he said he hadn't.  Then he said, "I asked Jacob the same thing and he said he didn't move it either."
If I didn't move it, and Mike didn't move it (I asked him later), and Patrick didn't move it, and Jacob didn't move it...
But we're not talking about it.

ready for April

I have BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN tickets.

I have BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN tickets.

April 17, 2012

Quicken Loans Arena

Cleveland, Ohio

I have BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN tickets.

I'm a little excited.


This will be the my 8th Bruce Springsteen concert...I love the Boss, but I'm not one of those crazy-follow-him-anywhere fans.  I just love Bruce.
In order to buy concert tickets today you need two things...a credit card & the internet.  At 10:00 I clicked BUY TICKETS.  and I bought tickets.  Yep, no more than 5 minutes of my life.
The simplicity of this process makes me remember how much of a challenge it was to buy concert tickets before the internet.
There were two options:
1.  Go to local Ticketmaster outlet ~ where you needed to get their early for those 'once in a lifetime' shows, and WAIT.  Back in college a group of us camped out to get good seats for Genesis.  I think we got to the Sears at Belden Village Mall around midnight.  We waited in line (believe it or not, we were NOT the first ones in line) until Ticketmaster opened at 10:00 the next morning.  I'm sure we had fun...and we thought it was totally worth it because we got floor seats. Turns out floor seats are so hot...you really can't see over the people in front of you...and they yell at you if you stand on the chairs.
2.  Try your luck ordering tickets from Ticketmaster over the phone. Dial, busy, dial, busy, dial, busy.  (There was a time when phones didn't have a redial button.) I remember calling over and over and being so in the habit of hanging up being afraid I might just hang up when I got an actual ring. 
Oh, the drama of buying tickets before the internet made all of our lives so much simpler.
I feel like the old woman I am recalling all of this.  I did just pay $100 to see a 62 year old man sing.  I'm not going to think about that any more.

#2

Book #2 is The History of Love by Nicole Krauss.  My friend, Anita, handed me this one and said (I believe these were her exact words), "Read this.  I had trouble getting into it at first and I want to talk to you when you finish it."  Wow...rousing endorsement...I ran off to the corner to read it...  But being the good friend that I am, and rather curious too, I did start it.  And I got right into it.  Well written, rather melancholy, but strong characters ~ who sucked me right into their story.  It was rather disconcerting to be reading a book titled The History of Love that was all about another book titled The History of Love...I couldn't tell if they were meant to be one in the same, or just a pretty obvious title for Krauss's book.    There were some moments when I had to go back and refresh in my head who was who...the by-product of reading at night and nodding off mid-sentence...But there were also moments of, "I didn't see that coming."  At the end, it really drove home the question, how much of our lives do we 'invent' for ourselves and how much is real?  {SPOILER ALERT}  Alma was only his one-true-love in his head and he spent his entire life in love with her...Bruno died well before he came to live in the apartment above Leo.  Those realizations made the goofiness of Leo's need to be noticed out in the world seem so much more poignant.  NO ONE would miss him when he was gone.  NO ONE.  That just makes my soul sad.  The end made my soul sad.  I can't say I didn't like the book...but it certainly isn't one I would recommend either.  It would make a interesting book club book, just for all the topics of discussion.  *Alma's mother's sadness and its effect on Alma and Bird  *BIRD...the messiah, the lamed vovnik,  & his relationship with Mr. Goldstein?!  *what is REALITY?  But it might have the best opening line ever...

fl: when they write my obituary.  Tomorrow. Or the next day.  It will say, LEO GURSKY IS SURVIVED BY AN APARTMENT FULL OF SHIT.  ll: Alma, I said.  She tapped me twice.

rainbows

6:40 am: Flash of lightening.  pause, pause, pause, pause.  Low rumble, low rumble, louder rumble, louder rumble, louder rumble, loud rumble, shake the house rumble, shake the house rumble, shake the house rumble...if I hadn't seen the flash of lightening I would have thought we were in the middle of an earthquake.  I said, "Was our house just hit by a train?"  And Patrick replies, "That's what they call a roll of thunder."

And so Patrick's smart remark day began.

7:45 am: Patrick before a judge:

J ~ "What kind of grades do you get?"

P ~ "I have a 4.2 grade point average."

J ~ "How do you get more than a 4.?"

P ~ "By being smart."

pause

J ~ "By being smart and a smart ass."

and thus his driver's license was suspended for 30 days.  (Probably more for the reason of taking out two mailboxes and traveling 50 mph on an icy road, but it makes a good story.)

3:25 pm: Jacob and I head for the MMS doors.  I can see the big dark clouds in the sky, but the sun is actually shining through; it's bright outside the windows.  Then I see through the open door that it is raining, big, fat, straight down raindrops.  "Where's the rainbow?" Jacob asks.  We look and look and look and there it is, in Jacob's words, "over the baseball field and into the dumpster."  As we drive down Chapel we see the full rainbow running from the MMS dumpster to Dairy Queen.  Beautiful! "It's a good day," says the 8th grader.

4:00 pm:  It has stopped raining, but the sky has gotten darker.  It's 50 degrees on the 23rd of January...I am NOT going to run on the treadmill at the Y when it's 50 degrees out.  I suit up and head out the door (with no backup to come pick me up in case of deluge ~ since it's not on the way to school for Patrick and Mike's not home).  I run a pretty fast 3 miles...just watching that sky get darker and darker...watching that huge big dark cloud get closer and closer.  It started sprinkling around the railroad tracks (.5 to go) ~ raining a little harder as I rounded Middle Ridge (.1 to go).  I hit the driveway, don't stop for the mail, and head in the back door.  By the time I took off my shoes and got out my Poweraide Zero, the sky opened up and it just POURED.  "Wow, Mom," Jacob says, "You really are blessed.  Too bad you can't have the same blessing when picking the line in the grocery store."

I really am blessed. (except in line choice)

storms, rainbows, blessings.  God is good.

snowshoe ADVENTURE

Yesterday Mike, Chad and I go to spend a nice hour in the woods to earn our little signature for snowshoeing on our B Fit 4 Life corporate challenge cards.  ~ after all it's almost the end of January and we had nothing on the card done.  And...it finally snowed.

We are all dressed for the adventure, get our free snowshoe rental (a $5 value) and were told...follow the snowshoe path...make sure you go through the woods and stay off the cross country ski path.  This makes sense to us.  We leave the lodge and start through the heavily traveled path made by the snowshoers who had gone before.  Mike complains about being out in the cold.  Chad's snowshoes are leaning in ~ causing some ankle malfunctions...and I have great difficulty going over sticks.  {Those sticks just kind of reached out and tried to make me fall down...but I don't fall down, so they were unsuccessful sneaky sticks.}

We are getting pretty good at going up and down hills so when I see a trail marked "most difficult", we decide to head down that path.  It's the road less taken, but we were ready for the black diamond snowshoeing.  

All was going well...except we stopped seeing the little snowshoe trail markers...and then we see a sign, about a restricted area... and we pass by these beautiful ledges ~ with signs warning us to leave nature alone as the ledges are a delicate natural area.  We are getting tired and we are ready to be done.  We see a building in the distance and think we've completed the circle, but we were wrong.  Instead of being back at start we see an unfamiliar shelter and a sign for route 306...This is when I decide to pull out the map.

Here's the Map to Chapin Forest Reservation:

Yep, we started at the parking lot on the left, followed the red trail (through the woods) and then did NOT take the left turn to complete the snowshoe circle.  We continued on the purple path, past the Chapin Ledges, and all the way to the Ledges shelter...a LONG way from home...
Three highly educated people, unable (or unwilling) to consult a map.
Of course we can' t figure out a solution...so we have to ask.  The skier says we have to go back from which we came.  Just to be safe we followed the cross country ski trail back.  It was a long way back.  At one point Chad asked a skier coming toward us if we were close to Pine Lodge, she looked at us funny and said, "uhhh, no."  And she was right.
Lessons to be learned...oh, I probably won't learn them anyway.  It was a fun adventure (since the blizzard didn't come and we didn't have to set up shelter for the night and forage the woods for food, or even get out the cell phone and call for help.)



Lost in the woods on snowshoes...an adventure for sure.

Granola Bars

My family LOVEs granola bars.  I would buy 2-3 boxes a week and we would eat them like candy.  However I had the feeling that I was feeding my family candy...since the main ingredient of most granola bars is the dreaded ~ death-of-America ~ leading-cause-of-obesity, HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP.  (oh no, not high fructose corn syrup).  I stopped buying them...and we ate real candy instead.

Ok, that's only kind of how the story went.

But I was reading the paper one morning (back when we actually got the paper in the morning) and found this recipe for granola bars.  It's from the blog (which I should find and link) ThreeManyCooks, but I tweaked it a little bit to add more nuts...There's no high fructose corn syrup here...just sweetened condensed milk.  I'm sure that's SO much better for you...it's MILK after all. 

~ and my mom says, "anything with oatmeal in it is a health food." 

 ~ and if you eat wheat germ you get bonus points from the health fairies.  

~ Good Lord, these might just be the healthiest thing I will ever make. 

These are really yummy and can be wrapped in wax paper and taken on the road...yummy snack in the middle of a bike ride :)

2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 cup nuts  (I use sliced almonds, sunflower seeds, and chopped walnuts. You can mix and match...and even put in more than a cup)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (I use 1/4 cup peanut butter chips and 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips.  Again, you can mix and match)
1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  For easy removal, line a 9x9 pan with heavy-duty foil and grease foil with vegetable cooking spray.
Mix all ingredients in a medium bowl.  Dump into pan and pat down until firmly packed.  Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.  Cool to room temperature and pull out of pan using the foil. (The foil makes this SOOOO easy)  Cut into pieces...you could make them look like granola bars by making rectangles...but I like squares.  Store in an airtight container.  The recipe says they will last up to a week...but they are all eaten in a few days at my house...so I don't really know how long they will keep.

Death Of Print

Today is the day.  Today is the day that our fight with the News-Herald comes to an end.  And the printed word is the loser.  Over the past 3 years or so, we have struggled with late delivery.  Many emails and phone calls...the News-Herald saying it is the carriers fault and the carrier calling with tales of woe and blaming the News-Herald.  What they fail to understand is that I see the paper and the carrier as one big entity; one that has failed to deliver the morning paper in the morning.  I truly enjoy reading through the paper (crappy as it has become) while drinking my morning cup of coffee.  I enjoy it so much, that for the the past month and a half, we have read morning paper from the day before because the new one hasn't arrived before 7:00 am.
Today was the last straw. The following is the letter I'm sending to the News-Herald:

I think we have reached the end of our proverbial rope.  We have had home delivery of the News-Herald since the early 90’s.  For the first 15 years we had our paper before 6:00 am and were able to enjoy a cup of coffee and the morning news before work.  Unfortunately, over the past 3 to 4 years, this has changed.  I have repeatedly contacted the circulation department asking if it is unreasonable to expect delivery before 6:00 am.  I have been told to be patient.  Here is what patience has gotten me.  Over the past month and a half we have enjoyed reading the morning news FROM THE DAY BEFORE because our paper is not delivered until after 7:00 am (many times after 7:30).  But today was the last straw.  Today, our Sunday paper was delivered at 9:15.  And it was WRAPPED, inside the orange bag, in SATURDAY’s paper.  I do believe it is unacceptable to receive the Saturday morning paper…on Sunday.

I realize you do not need this whole story, and I realize that whoever is reading it really doesn’t care.  But I am saddened.  As a teacher I can’t believe I am going to get my morning news, not from the printed page, but from a digital source.  It feels like I’m killing the printed word.  I am extremely sorry that the News-Herald couldn’t, or wouldn’t, keep excellent customer service.  If you were able to actually have the morning paper delivered in the morning, I would be the last person on earth to cancel the daily paper.

PLEASE do not send me an email blaming the carrier.  I DO NOT CARE whose fault this is.  I am tired of you saying it’s the carrier’s fault and the carrier saying it is your fault.  In my eyes I am paying YOU for the paper and delivery, therefore it is YOUR fault.  You are responsible for the carrier and I’m tired of your blame-game.

Please cancel my subscription and refund me any money that is due.

Sincerely,

Becky Barton

I know they don't care, but I felt better writing it.  I would think that they would do whatever they could to keep subscribers.  Maybe I'm wrong, and they sell enough at the stands and make enough in advertising...but I've watched the quality of that paper decline the past few years and I think they need to up their game before they go under.  But that's just me, and I'm not even a customer any more.

Finally!!

Winter is Here!  Winter is Here!

Finally!  Finally!

Winter is Here!

It's a day late for the best kind of Snow Day!

But FINALLY a morning of "Wow, there's a lot of snow."

And it's still coming down.

I have missed this.

today

Today
I'm getting sick
My throat hurts
I feel achy
I like to whine about it
Today
My husband came to
Watch middle school wrestling
With me
Today
My house is a mess
I didn't run
I opened a bag of
Candy Cane Kisses
Today
I covered my son's
Algebra class
He smiled and yelled out,
"Hi, Mommy."
Today
I am blessed

#1

A new year, a new book list.  #1 for 2012 is a young adult book fair find (we don't really need to go into how I feel about book fairs again!).  The Juvie Three by Gordon Korman.  I like Gordon Korman for many reasons.  The first and foremost ~ all his books end of happy.  There is never a question that it's not all going to work out in the end.   *side note: I was just having a conversation at lunch today with a colleague who hated stories where it all ends happily ever after.  His main beef is that it's not real life.  And that's my point exactly.  I don't want to spend my free time reliving the sad endings of real life.  I want my fantasy time to be just that ~ a fantasy.  If real life can't always be rainbows and puppies, why would I choose to spend time in another world that is just as morose and grim as day-to-day living?  (and deep down, I think real life will always turn out to be rainbows and puppies...but that's just me)

Gordon Korman won me over for life when he wrote No More Dead Dogs.  I picked that one up (at a book fair) just as I had killed off Old Yeller for the 78th time in 7th grade reading class.  It was about a middle school play where the lead actor decided that he was tired of the dog always dying at the end of the story and that the dog wasn't going to die on his watch.  So, much to the dismay of the director, he rewrote the play to let the dog live.  That's exactly how I feel about reading ~ the dog really doesn't have to die.
But, back to The Juvie Three.  This was a great story ~ with pretty real characters that prove most people just need a purpose in life and someone to believe in them.  Three kids are picked to get a second chance; moving from prison to a halfway house...and things go bad pretty quickly.  But the boys learn the real meaning of looking out for someone and what is important in life.  Yes, the happily-ever-after is a little hard to believe, but you want to believe it.
Good quote: page 115, "Sometimes being totally screwed can set you free."
fl: Gecko Fosse is behind the wheel of a powder blue Infiniti M45 sedan, enjoying the thrum of the idling engine and not thinking.  ll: But none of them can prevent a lightning strike.

stroke-out-red

 This pretty much sums up my workouts ~ and it's certainly the story I'm going with, because I'm NOT so pretty after my workouts.  I sweat.  I smell.  My hair sticks in all crazy directions.  And, best of all, my face turns BRIGHT red.  I mean, "oh, my gosh, that lady is going to stroke-out" red.
Case in point.
I finish my six mile run (on the stupid treadmill) at the YMCA.  I wipe my face with the paper towel, I get my drink of water from the water fountain, and I go into the locker room.  As I'm bent over taking off my shoe, a woman comes from the shower, towel-wrapped and still wet.  She says, "Oh, hi, Happy New Year."  I can tell by the tone of her voice that she thinks she knows me, but as I look up, it's obvious by her face that she has mistaken me for someone else.  I smile and say, "Happy New Year" back.  She keeps staring, like maybe she's trying to place me...but I don't know her, so I just keep on smiling and taking off my shoes.  She pauses and says, "Wow, you really worked out hard." 
She was worried I was going to stroke-out. 

Welcome 2012

I just finished Christmas.  It's all done.  Tree put in the attic.  Ornaments packed in their tissue paper layered boxes.  Santas and snowmen all packed away for another year.  I usually keep the snowmen out for winter...but this year I was just done.  The nooks and crannies all look empty now ~ ready for new junk to fill the spots!  Usually I'm a little sad to put it all away.  This year, not so much.  I will ponder my emotional block later.
On to the resolutions.  I feel pretty good that I kept 66.6% of my 2011 resolutions.  I sent out Christmas cards (thanks to my very first Groupon), and I kept track of my miles...I did clean one room in the house for a while...but that ended up with medical drama so I don't think it was meant to be.
I've been having trouble coming up with a resolution for this year.  Most of the ones I've come up with are destined to fail...so I'm keeping it simple.  I will floss my teeth every night.  This will change the world, I know.