turns out our CSA co-sharers had to be away for another week, so we got all the stuff again. our fridge is already completely full and now all this new stuff, including kohrabi that's the size of a melon! with all the veggies here, you almost miss the 2 quarts and one half gallon of milk, the dozen eggs, and the chicken. well.... i told our co-sharers that we'd take it all this week if they take it all the week they get back... so at least we have a couple weeks to get through all this wonderful looking produce.

hosted our last dinner at our present apartment. foods came out good. great company was had. this pita turned out HUGE. it's hard to tell just how huge it is, but there it is on one of our HUGE plates looking MASSIVE. really. but yes. it deflated as it should, and was still a HUGE pita.

last (or close to last) order in from gepetto's before we move. we couldn't decide on a pizza type, so we got two tiny ones instead.

New favorite not that great for me snack: bread (this piece happened to be one that was a reject when I tried to cut the loaf into slices), plain quark, and raspberry jalapeno jam. Yum.

This is what I look like when I'm happy my day of work is over.

this is what happens when i take a shower on the weekend and don't have anything do do immediately afterwards...

We went climbing with my roommate from freshman year of college and her boyfriend. It's funny that neither of us climbed at all in college, but now, here we are together at Rumney. The following captions do not actually reflect the story these four consecutive pictures (and one random one added in at the end) tell, but it's the story that we made up when we looked at them:

G: What?!? I'm supposed to have my hands on the rope while I'm belaying?

Ben: Dude, that's not cool.

Ben: I'm definitely not climbing with you anymore.

E: Toy ya (Polish spelled badly), mama. (insert long string of Polish words with very few vowels) rock climbing with Janine and Ben (insert long string of Polish words with very few vowels) Goran (insert long string of angry sounding Polish words with very few vowels)....

G: Whoops!

Again, I assure you that everyone belayed responsibly and no fights were had, but the pictures and fictional story were just too good!

For family gathering night, I displayed the puzzle the students created - the 13 Principles of Study Skills (from Study Smarter, not Harder) Ignore the pieces that's missing. Unfortunately, one of my students had to unexpectedly go home today, and she accidently took her piece with her. Hopefully they'll both come back soon! In any case, I was really proud of all of the students and happy to get a chance to meet families!

I'm teaching about time management tomorrow, so I made myself a schedule today. It's 10 am and so far, I have lesson planned and here is the beginning of kitchen cleaning. (I've already gotten as much done as I often do in a whole day.)

Creative Problem Solving Day. Teachers create challenges for groups of students to do and half a day is spent completing the series of challenges. The one I was involved in was a scavenger hunt that pulled in learning from a math class, study skills, and an art/writing class, which culminated in the students having to represent our theme this year using all of their items (With every step, I am upward bound.). Many of the finished products were great. This specific one is pictured here because it's the only picture I have without students' faces in it. Fun, and completely exhausting day.

When we threw out a bunch of clothes this month, this sweater (which I love) almost went, because it had a big black mark on it. Then Ben recommended that I try to wash it one more time to see if it went away. AND IT DID! Yay!

I didn't think I had given you all a chance to see this pony that arrived for my birthday. When Ben wrote the e-vite, he wrote something about the fact that people could bring food, drinks, or gifts, and I didn't really want people bringing me gifts because that wasn't what it was about to me, so he wrote ponies instead, since a pony could be a really worthwhile gift. So I got a couple ponies (not ones I can ride, but still, ponies) and this is the pink one that lives in our living room right now. Apparently it's a webkin(z). Does anyone know how that works?

Ben was the mastermind behind creating these puzzle pieces for a project my students are doing. I think we both did a pretty excellent job, though!

so many new and exciting meals to post this week. i finally cooked some of the leaves we've had sitting in the kitchen (outside of the cauliflower, leaves on the turnip etc.) some were a little tough, so i cut out the spine, sauteed them all in a tiny bit of olive oil, and then pureed them so that i could hide them in this yummy orzo dish. the orzo dish contained the yummy green mush in addition to onions, garlic scapes, chicken stock, sage, thyme, cream, and parmesan cheese. (the onions, orzo, and parmesan were the only ingredients not from our farm) soooo yummy.

end of the day (well, 7 pm) pass out.

what a day. i had to do written evaluations of all of my (almost 40) students today, and then print them out very precisely on the back of sheets of paper they had done self evaluations on, and then give them grades, and then rate them on these crazy scales for effort and performance. that is all to say, i worked HARD for about 7 hours straight. then cleaned house, then cooked dinner 'cause our friend N was coming over. the result was much too much cauliflower and pea curry. yummy, though. if you want some, most of it is frozen. come over for dinner and eat it with us!

first try at crockpot chicken. i'm pretty sure i'll never cook a chicken a different way again. onions underneath, herbs under the skin, turned it on when i left for work, and wished i could post the smell as i walked down the hallway to our apartment at the end of the day. there's nothing like coming home to amazing dinner that has already been cooked.

made amazing and HUGE stuffed zucchini for dinner. rice, zucchini, onions, turkey kielbasa, chicken stock, garlic scapes, a little tomato sauce, eggs, sage, thyme, parsley and cheese. half of it has been eaten by the time this picture was taken... we were too full to eat the other half for dinner.

The fire extinguisher was wearing a hat. Maybe to keep the sun out of its face 'cause it was a hot day today?

We were so incredibly excited about the second apartment we saw today that after a conversation on the car ride home about having to get rid of some of our clothes 'cause the closets are smaller, we immediately went through our closets and donated these three big garbage bags full of clothes.

After apartment hunting and getting work done, we explored a part of Portsmouth we had never been to before. Amazingly beautiful day.

Made beef stock for the first time. When I was picking up the beef at the farm share, they asked if I wanted a soup bone, and I have a hard time saying no when people ask me if I'd like something for free. Now the freezer is full of beef stock in addition to the chicken stock I made a couple weeks ago... Guess I gotta use that stuff...

Who wears short shorts?

It seems that these two old running guys wear short shorts. I guess I should just be grateful that it's warm and dry enough for anyone to wear short shorts.

Had a dinner guest. Made home made falafel for the first time (to go with our home made pita, hummus, and greek salad dressing). It wasn't the most successful falafel in the world. It tasted a whole lot like my latkes, I think (maybe too much onion?), but it was yummy. Next time, make sure not to add any liquid, no matter what. Anyway, these are the greasy bits that were left over to be cleaned at the end of the night.

I did work all day in the cubicle next to Ben's, wearing my rain jacket most of the time.

Greens with nuts and seeds and sweet chilli sauce. yummmmmm!

At the end of the Fourth of July day, after a failed attempt at a trip to Ogunquit (we turned around about 1/2 mile from our destination because the traffic was unbearable), we decided to go down to Mattapoisett and see Ben's family! We slept on the porch, 'cause it's cool out there, and we woke up looking like this:

Out of nowhere, we got inspired to do some major kitchen cleaning, stove top with special stove top stuff, decalcified the espresso maker... all kinds of crazy high-tech cleaning.

Then we took a drive to the beach for crab catching and picture taking.

The sky told us it was time to head home.

this is cheating. (this picture was not taken on this day.)

have you met orange-y? he's our pet clementine. we adopted him last thanksgiving (a year and a half ago?) he seems to be petrified, both physically and emotionally.

I spent almost all of today cutting what I printed yesterday into small decks of transferable skill cards. Got blisters on my hands from so much cutting.

Thank you, printer, for fulfilling my massive printing needs. I wouldn't have been able to get ready for Monday's class without you.

Also, thank you amazing dinner for helping us use up kohrabi, tons of snap and snow peas, old celery, pepper, lots of garlic scapes, and ground beef before our next CSA pick up. Also, thank you for existing, Mae Ploy sweet chilli sauce.