This Means War!

Last night, Jason taught me how to play the card game "War". It's really fun, but he whupped me every round, mostly because I have so much trouble remembering the order that face cards go in--you know, like Joker, Queen, King, Ace. I am nowhere near fast enough to beat Jason, but I had a good time.

Catching Up With the Larsons

Okay--Lesley has been complaining that this blog is getting stale, even to the point of protesting on my other blog. Fine. I get the message. Here is what we have been up to lately.

Jason is taking Project Management classes two nights a week. Our friend Dan Lynch (Whitney Peterson's husband, for those of you who are from Martinez) is taking them too. The two classes they are taking total 6 units, in addition to both these guys working full time. We also went bowling with the Lynches last weeks for Family Home Evening. They are so fun.

In weird news, Jason has been using a Neti Pot daily for about a month now. "What is a Neti Pot", you ask? It is a miniature teapot that you pour into one nostril and out the other to clean out dust and pollen. If you think I'm kidding, look it up on youtube.

As for me, I am sick. I picked up a cold, probably from the six-year-old who sat behind us at church last week. She sneezed on the back on my neck upwards of three times. Somehow Jason hasn't gotten it yet, even though if there's a sneezing kid within 2 miles, the sneeze will hone in on his FACE. (This routinely happens to him while we are teaching Sunday School to our class of five-year-olds. It is so hard to be sympathetic when I'm trying not to laugh.)

We also are looking forward to getting together with friends this week and next. We are going out to dinner with our home teachers and their wives this week, and next week we are planning to get together with Jason's good friend Jo and her husband Nate.

So that's the last few weeks packed into one entry.

Today Is A Good Day...

Tonight the Relief Society is having a Soup and Bread Social. I decided to contribute Potato Chowder, a crockpot recipe I haven't tried before. I started it this morning before I left for school and thus I have the wonderful feeling of knowing what's for dinner, and that it will be ready at a reasonable hour. I have really fallen hard for crockpots this winter. I've been using them once a week this month. You can cook almost anything in a crockpot, I've discovered.
Also, today is the day that Campus Police Services give away all the stuff that people lost last semester, and never claimed. I scored two pairs of nice sunglasses and a jacket. Saves me from having to buy them!

New Recipes!

I guess you can see which blog is my favorite--half of my posts here are about my cooking blog! This is one of those posts.
I put some more crockpot recipes on allisonsrecipes.blogspot.com this week. I also borrowed a crockpot cookbook from my old friend Adrianne Bitondo, and will be posting 10 or more recipes from it as soon as I'm able.
Jason and I spent MLK day looking at houses in Martinez. Now don't get all riled up, we are not quite ready to buy anything, but since housing prices have gone down, we wanted to see what our money would be worth. We saw a lot of dumps. :) But for the first time in years, you can buy a dump for less than $500,000! What a deal!

In answer to Lesley's comment on the previous post

How to organize a syllabus in a lovely way:

--Be concise.

--Set office hours and place them at the top of the syllabus, not embedded deep within it. As to contact information, both a phone number and e-mail are necessary. While discussing the syllabus, let students know which is the best tool of contact, and how quickly they can expect a response.

--Post your exact policy for attendance, late work, and make-ups.

--Include the percentage breakdown of final grades into attendance, homework, exams, papers, final, etc.

--Include a time line with firm dates for all assignments, readings, and exams. This helps students plan their time, and asses how much effort to allot to the class.

--Do not cover all possible scenarios in the syllabus. Use bullet points for each subject likely to come up, and discuss it in class, so students can take notes on the topics most important to them, and use the bullet points for easy reference.

I really do feel strongly about this. I am much more successful in classes that are well organized, beginning with the syllabus. I changed history teachers yesterday because (in large part) of the syllabus' vague and rambling style. When the instructor refused to explain the questions I had--well, that was the death knell. Why waste my time with an instructor who irritates me on the first day?

A New Semester

It looks like I'll be taking History, Career Development, Speech, and Intermediate Algebra.

I'm really excited about my math class. The teacher, Karen Edwards, was recommended to me by my friend/former teacher Claudia. I tried to get into Karen's class last semester. However, she has a policy of giving former students priority on the waitlist, so I didn't make it into the class. So this year, I got on the waitlist, and somehow worked my way up to the #1 slot. When I came up to ask her whether she would have room for me, she remembered me from last semester and let me in. Karen is so cool. She concentrates on rotating the way she teaches, so people with different learning modalities all have a chance to learn in the way they understand best. She has us meditate in class, and calls people to attention by this Xena-Warrior-Princess yodel.

I'm also excited about my Speech class. It's at 8:00 A.M. (Yes, you're at the right blog, this is still Allison writing...)But the traffic is light at that hour, mornings are beautiful, and I have a peppy teacher, who organized the syllabus in a lovely way.

CERT

Jason and I just signed up last night for CERT training. CERT stands for Community Emergency Response Team. It's a government-sponsored training program, sort of an extension of first responder services (EMTs, police, firefighters), that teaches emergency responce skills to people to use in their own neighborhoods. It does not require specific contracts of service--it only teaches skill for individuals to use. Also, the program teaches you to care for your own family first, in the event of a disaster. Once they are taken care of, you can take care of neighbors, and then your community. We will learn skills like fire safety, light search and rescue, and triage.
I'm pretty excited about this. This class only meets once a week, for about a month. At the end, we have a "dry run" of an emergency. Since Jason and I have our 72 hour kits, and our month's supply, I figured this would be a great way to work on disaster preparedness. Maybe the next thing we should do is take a CPR class. I've never taken one, and Jason said he could use a refresher.
Has anyone else out there considered taking CERT training?

I love having company over!

In the past 2 weeks we have had more overnight guests than in the six months previous. It was really fun. I enjoyed shopping for shampoo and soap for the guest bathroom, puttering around arranging magazines, and grocery shopping for yummy dishes to make for our guests. (A side note: I recently filled out a questionnaire that asked my hobbies. I replied that grocery shopping is a hobby of mine. Strange but true!)
Lesley and Scott agreed to come stay with us so we could have the pleasure of hosting them overnight. They stayed with us after Italy night, which in itself was a blast. We watched a movie Jason made of clips from our video camera, including snazzy chapter markers announcing which town we were in when the footage was shot.
We ate year-old fruitcake (it gets better with time) that Jason had imported from Sienna, via his luggage. In fact, I think we almost ate ourselves sick, with Italy-related foods, including pasta with pesto, and homemade pizza. No one could stomach the pannetone (an Italian bread studded with candied fruit), because we ate too much of it a year ago in Venice. We had to consume it when it would no longer fit it in our luggage, and in trying not to be wasteful, made ourselves verifiably ill.
After dinner, I gave Ian a tangerine to play with when he got fussy, and he cracked me up by squeezing it between his hands and making fierce muscle-man grunts. I am not kidding, the boy can actually pulverize a tangerine.
Mom and Dad Brown came to stay with us last week. They wanted to see our Christmas tree, and take some pictures of us. Jason introduced them to "The Office" while they were here. It was so fun to see them, and I love finding new ways to be a good hostess.
All of you who live out of town, if you're ever in our neigborhood, let us know!

She's back!

Sorry folks, I realize it has been too long since I last posted here. After enjoying time with my family over the holidays, I have been spending a good bit of my blogging time at my new annex blog: http://allisonsrecipes.blogspot.com
I love having this site! And as I begin using it to decide what to cook (I search for recipes by how much time I have to cook), and what to shop for, it just makes me think of more recipes to add. Right now I am working on crockpot recipes. Finding vegetarian crockpot recipes is surprisingly difficult, but I posted one today for crockpot mac and cheese that I think I will try tonight. It looks really easy, and only requires 3 hours of benign neglect.