Christmas Vacation Cooking...Taco Soup

I love Christmas vacation.  I love cold weather, and we haven't had any properly cold weather until today, my second day of vacation.

Yesterday, on my first day of vacation, I helped my mom babysit my little niece.  She needed to sew my niece's Christmas dress, and watching an 8-month-old baby is not conducive to sewing.  So I went over and watched my niece while she sewed.  For lunch, I ate leftover taco soup that my sister made, and it was quite yummy.  I asked her how she made it and she told me her "recipe"...originally she used a recipe but now she does it by memory, and innovation each time she cooks it.

Last night, we got our first real snowfall of the season AND it was appropriately cold and windy.  (It's about time, because earlier this week we had temperatures in the 50s!)  I had an appointment and did a little shopping and so I was out and about in this blustery, cold weather.  It put me into the mood for soup.  On my way home I thought about the contents of my pantry and realized that I had all of the ingredients to make a version of the taco soup as she explained it to me.  

I took my first Christmas vacation nap and then decided to cook the soup when I woke up.  I didn't take pictures as I went, but I did take a picture of the final product in a bowl.

So here's the recipe; realize that I made this up as I went along, from my sister's explanation of what she did.  Also realize that I cook for myself, so this will yield about 4-5 servings.

Taco Soup

Ingredients:

1/2 lb ground turkey (you could probably use ground beef)

Taco seasoning to taste (I used this homemade version that I found on Pinterest.)

1 can of Campbell's Fiesta Cheese soup

1 tsp of beef boullion dissolved into 1 cup of water (I imagine you could use 1 cup of beef broth)

1 can of diced tomatoes, seasoned for Chili (I used Aldi's brand)

1/2 can of black beans

about 1 cup of frozen corn

about 1/2 cup of frozen bell pepper and onion mix (Kroger has a nice sliced red and green pepper with onion)

1. Brown the ground turkey with the taco seasoning.
2. Combine the bouillon and water and bring to a boil, adding the cheese soup and mix it so the cheese soup is combined with the bouillon.
3. Add the rest of the ingredients, including the cooked turkey, and simmer until the vegetables are cooked.

Serve with your favorite taco accompaniments: cheese, sour cream, tortilla chips, guacamole!

Are we really safe?

The last few days have been quite stressful for me as a teacher.  Not only have I been preparing myself and my students for the end of the semester (final projects, final exams, etc.), but I have also had to deal with what happened on Friday in Newtown, Connecticut.  The entire nation is again in shock at the horror of this latest mass shooting.

As is typical, we are asking all kinds of questions, demanding answers, and wondering how another tragedy like this can be prevented.  People from both sides of the gun control debate are offering solutions.  Religious leaders blame the lack of faith, the rise of godlessness, and the removal of God from the schools.  Politicians and others blame parents, the lack of access to mental health care, and more.

Everyone is demanding an easy answer, and many answers have been proposed from all over the spectrum of those responding.

The thing is, there IS an easy answer, but it isn't the one we want.

How can we prevent tragedies like this from happening again?  We can't.  That's the easy answer, but as I said, it isn't the one we want.

Because I was raised in the Christian tradition, I believe that our world and our flesh is NOT inherently good, but inherently evil.  The New American Standard translation of Psalm 51:5 reads, "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me."  Sin (iniquity) is part of our world, part of our nature.

Anyone who has been around young children for any amount of time should know that we have to teach them how to be unselfish, kind, and polite.  Children are naturally selfish.  They throw tantrums when they don't get what they want.  They grab.  They hit.  They cry.  These behaviors are not learned; they come naturally.  Sharing, caring for others, and all of the other acceptable behaviors must be taught.

We can pass all the laws we want, we can regulate guns, we can allow teachers to carry concealed weapons, we can do any number of things to make us feel secure, but it won't change human nature.  Someone will still find a way to bring about mass tragedy.  Many have noted that it is easier to obtain the ingredients for a bomb than it is to get a gun.  Locally, a house was blown up, killing 2 people and displacing hundreds of people.

We can point the finger of blame at any number of specific causes, but ultimately the blame rests on human nature.  If we don't perpetrate such horrible crimes, we glorify or minimize them.  Sensationalizing and glorifying such acts encourages those who seek the attention.  Minimizing violence creates a sense of apathy to our fellow men.

Perhaps the problem of minimizing such actions results from the fact that unless we are directly, personally affected by any kind of tragedy, it is easy to move on with our own lives.  My daily life isn't directly affected by the shootings, my daily life wasn't affected by Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy, I don't have a family member who is deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.  Without a direct connection to such tragedies, we can get over it much sooner than those directly affected by it.

I don't feel unsafe in my daily life.  I don't worry about whether a crazed gunman will enter my school building.  I don't imagine a drunk driver will plow into my vehicle as I drive throughout the city.  I don't expect a devastating tornado to reduce my home to smithereens.  I'm not guaranteed safety any more than anyone else is.  Honestly, I don't think about my safety very often.  Perhaps I should.  Will worrying about how safe I am make me safer?  Not likely.  I can just pray for God's protection and trust that his will is done in my life.

All I Really Needed to Know in Life I Learned On....Pinterest

This summer I got sucked into the internet phenomenon that is Pinterest.  This online "pin board" is a way to find and organize web sites that contain information you want or need.  You can "follow" other people's pins and then re-pin those pins onto your own boards.

It's really absorbing, as is most of the Internet.  One can go through Pinterest pins for hours without noticing the time go by.  I have found great recipes, DIY projects, tutorials for fixing things, teaching ideas, and much more in my hours of Pinteresting.  I have pinned significantly more web sites and projects than I probably will have the time to ever try, but I have tried several of the things I've pinned with mostly success.

I even started a Pinterest club at my school for our Activity Period Club time.  I have over 30 girls who bring in supplies to make treats or other projects they found on Pinterest.  We've had all kinds of fun making glitter t-shirts, doing nail art techniques, and of course making yummy treats.

In my months of Pinteresting, I have learned several things.

1. Regular blue Dawn dishwashing soap, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and vinegar are miracle products.  There isn't anything on the face of this earth that you can't clean or improve with one of these (or a mixture of them).   Thank goodness all of these are so inexpensive.  I stock up on baking soda, especially.  Jillee (One Good Thing by Jillee) is the queen of home cleaning tips with these products.  Here she talks about Hydrogen Peroxide Magic.
2.  People love the flavors of pumpkin pie and s'mores.  Even in the middle of July, Pinners were pinning recipes that involved these flavors.  I brought in this S'mores Dip to my Pinterest club and the only illustration I can think of to describe the reaction of those girls was that they looked like piranhas around a piece of meat.
3. Nail art is cool.  Impossible to do on your own (I tried a couple of them), but cool.
4. If you can't find a tutorial to DIY something, you can't DIY.
5. Reusing and recycling are definitely possible, especially if you have a lot of old t-shirts.  There are so many things you can do to "upcycle" or recycle t-shirts beyond cutting them up into rags.  Quilts, headbands, tote bags, you name it.  Face it, all of us have so many t-shirts that we will never be able to wear them out.  Jillee has some links to stuff you can do with old t-shirts to make them useful.  This has led to a problem...saving things like old jars, paper towel tubes, plastic containers and more, "just in case" you could find something to do with them.
6. You can find a slow cooker version of almost any recipe, even bread.  Slow cookers are the miracle appliance in the kitchen, evidently.

I'm sure there are more lessons I could explain, but these are the best.  If you haven't been sucked into the internet black hole that is Pinterest, find someone to invite you.  

Economics from a non-Economic Person

I don't know much about economics, finances, or anything of the like.  I am exceedingly trusting of my credit union that my balance in my accounts is what they say it is.  I generally pay all my bills on time, although I forget sometimes.  It all eventually works out.  I could be more organized on this subject but so far I haven't had any major disasters.

All of the above is a disclaimer that the thoughts I am sharing come only from personal musings on the matter, not any kind of specialized knowledge.  I am only sharing what I've been pondering.  I am not as informed on this matter as I could be; I haven't read extensively on the subject.

What I do know is that this issue probably is much more complicated than the average American citizen will admit to.  Certainly the news outlets are trying to simplify things so that we can choose a side of some kind.

Recently major restaurants, such as Papa John's, have made the news.  Papa John's founder has blamed Obama's health care policies for either forcing him to raise prices on pizza, or lay off workers because he can't afford to supply health care for his workers.  Other major restaurant chains have also come under fire for deliberately scheduling "full time" workers below 32 hours per week, thus avoiding the requirement to pay for health insurance.   And of course Walmart is the evil empire as well for how it treats its employees.

I have Facebook friends who are posting memes, infographics, and the like urging us to boycott these kinds of businesses.   According to them, these businesses are horrible for refusing health care to their workers.  From store management on up, the rights of the common worker are being ignored.  It makes sense.

It seems to be popular these days to portray big corporations as evil.  But then I started to think.  Next to the federal government, Walmart is one of the largest employers in the US.  Think about how many people a single Super Walmart store employs.  I would imagine that for every employee we see on the floor of one of these stores, there are at least 10 employees we don't see (those who load and unload the trucks, those who drive and maintain the trucks, and so on.)  While Walmart may not offer benefits to all of its workers, it employs millions of Americans.   If a Walmart closes in a community, the economic impact would be enormous.

These companies do not ship in workers from outside the community to work in their facilities.  They hire local employees, use local services, and donate to local charities.  My school benefits once a month from "spirit nights" put on by restaurants, some of them national chains, that provide a percentage of an evening's sales to our school.  They sponsor little league teams, high school athletic teams, and much more.  The people who work there are a part of the community.

These chains employ local workers.  Employee hours are based on sales revenue.  Boycotting a business like this doesn't, in the long run, really affect the CEOs or other bigwigs.  It affects the individual restaurant and its employees.  If a local restaurant closes, local citizens lose their jobs.

This is where my thoughts are hard to express.

If I manage a business like this, let's say I have 25 employees.  However, if I want to offer a 40 hour work week to those employees, plus pay for benefits, I may have to cut 5 jobs in order to stay in budget, OR I can offer a 30 hour work week to all 25 of those employees.  What's the tradeoff?   Which is the better choice?   I'm just saying that a decision like this may or may not be related to profits or evil corporate greed.

Businesses, large and small, sometimes overlook the human element in pursuit of profits.   Even though I sometimes accuse my students of saying "But what if...?" too much, sometimes in situations like this, you have to ask, "But what if?"

I support local small businesses.  I do prefer "mom and pop" restaurants over chain restaurants. I'm also not ashamed to patronize national chains, either, because I know that they contribute to our community and provide jobs.

Three days of One-to-One

Wednesday, August 8 marked our first day of school.  The first day of our first year as a one-to-one school.  All of our students have their own laptops; those who are buying or leasing from the school have Macbook Airs, while other students have chosen to purchase their own Mac laptop of whatever variety.  (Our school's tech policy is located here.  It's pretty long--40+pages)

So I was expecting glitches to happen.  They did.  During first period on Wednesday we were supposed to walk our students through signing up for our Moodle classrooms.  Moodle is a course management system.  It has tons of features.  We as teachers did some minor training on Moodle this spring and we are expected to use Moodle in some way for our classes.  Since I teach English, I plan to use this a lot.  There are so many features that, once I get used to them, will make my life easier, especially in the sense of being paperless.

But enough explanation of Moodle.  As I said, we had to walk our students through signing up for Moodle.  In my first hour class a couple of kids couldn't get in, so I sent them to our tech director ASAP, as he requested.  Before I go any further I shall state that I have four sections of a class called "Introduction to Composition and Literature", which consists of freshmen and sophomores.  Teaching freshmen is an especially challenging task.  One reason is that not only are you teaching the material, but you also have to train them how to be high school students.  They make mistakes and do goofy things mostly because they are just clueless about the high school environment.  So teaching freshmen takes a lot more energy than teaching the older high school students.  Needless to say, walking these kids through signing up for Moodle took a little longer than with older kids.

Throughout the rest of the day there were still 2-3 kids in each class who hadn't gotten set up in Moodle for a variety of reasons.  On Thursday and Friday there were still some students who weren't set up BUT I think everything is under control now.

Another glitch centered around the enrollment in the Moodle classes themselves.  I and my colleague are teaching these Intro to Comp classes.  Somehow I could only see the freshmen participants and he could only see the sophomore participants.  The problem has been solved...our tech guy started 2 new classes from scratch.  On Friday I walked students through a process of moving something from the original class to the new one.  I asked the students to let me know if they did not have the new link, so I could let the tech guy know...he thought he had everyone in the right place but thought there might be a mistake or two.  Fifteen minutes AFTER I asked this in one class, a student raised her hand and informed me that she didn't have the new link.  Arrrgh!

Another "funny" happened with my Expository Writing class, which consists of juniors and seniors.  I had given them an assignment in which they researched their names and wrote a short paragraph about the meaning of their names and how it fit their personality or not.  They were to submit this assignment in Moodle.  One of my students raised his hand and told me that after he clicked on the link to submit the assignment, the connection timed out, all his work was lost, and he didn't feel like redoing it.  My answer was simple but probably harsher than it could have been.  I told him that if he wanted credit he should redo it, and that the assignment was available until 4 pm.

Things actually have been smoother than I expected.  Our network seemed to be handling the extra traffic and the students have been doing well with navigating the Moodle environment.  Granted, it's just been 3 days in, but I'm really excited to see what we can accomplish with this new tool.

Complaints of Olympic Proportion

As I wrote previously, I love the Olympics.  My television has pretty much been on a channel with Olympics coverage if it's been turned on.  I've watched a couple of episodes of Jeopardy, but mostly I've had the Olympics on the telly.  I'm a little sad that school starts on Wednesday because I won't be able to stay up until midnight watching the coverage.

Yesterday, Oscar Pistorius of South Africa was the first double amputee to compete in the Olympics.  He competed in the Paralympics in Athens, but now he's in the spotlight in the London Olympics.  In the Equestrian event this morning, a 71 year-old competitor from Japan, Hiromi Hoketsu, is the oldest competitor in the Olympics.  If you watch anything related to the Olympics, you will see athletes proud to perform as representatives for their countries.

However, I'm a little distressed that in light of success, someone still seems to find something to criticize.  Gabby Douglas, who has 2 gold medals, has been criticized for her hair, and some feel uncomfortable with her statement of faith.  When she said, "And I give all the glory to God. It's kind of a win-win situation. The glory goes up to him and the blessings fall down on me," Christians admired her and non-Christians reviled her.  You can see her response to the hair controversy over on USA Today's Olympics page. (Image Source)

Additionally, on Fox News, the USA gymnastics team (and US fans) apparently aren't patriotic enough.  The hot pink and purple leotards worn by the USA women's team don't show enough USA spirit.  Not enough USA fans are chanting "U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A".

There will always be controversy surrounding the Olympics.  This Olympics isn't without it.  This year, 8 athletes were disqualified from the badminton competition because they deliberately threw matches in order to get an advantage in the next round.  Yet we're outraged that the US athletes aren't patriotic enough or that a young girl boldly states her faith.

I guess I'm enough of a Polyanna that I enjoy the Olympics for the competition and the overall pride in my country.  I'm amazed and inspired by the hard work and dedication it requires to become an Olympic-level athlete.  I said in another blog entry that I like being able to be see sports I've only heard of (this morning I watched some water polo).   I enjoy watching just to watch.  If the US wins, they win.  If they don't, they don't.  It disappoints me to watch our team lose, but I don't live or die by it.  If an athlete wants to express her gratitude to God, to her parents, or to her imaginary friend, let her do it.  If the uniforms aren't in-your-face patriotic, so what.  It doesn't change the fact that these athletes have worked hard to get to this level.  Have you worked as hard as they do to achieve what you've achieved?

Die Olympischen Spiele

I love the Olympics.  I just love them.

First of all, with today's technology, one can watch some sort of athletic competition all. the. time.  You pick what you want to watch, find it on the Internet, cable, or wherever, and watch world-class athletes putting out their best performances.  You can see how proud all of the athletes, coaches, and fans are.  You can appreciate the hours of practice and sacrifice that they have made to be a part of this great event.  As someone whose main participation in athletics is as a spectator, I admire the work and dedication it takes to be an elite athlete.  I personally don't think that, even if I had the skill, that I'd have the perservereance to be at that level.  Truly, I'm not sure I'd have that level of dedication to be elite in anything I have reasonable skill in.

Secondly, I just like the international nature of the Olympics.  In the US, if you are a sports fan, most of the competition you see is against other Americans.  I teach high school, and attend a lot of sporting events.  Rarely do our athletes compete against people from a different city, let alone a different state.  It's even my understanding that the Indiana High School Athletic Association has rules about how far a team can travel to compete.

The reason I like the international nature of the Olympics is that we get to see that for the most part, people are people and very little truly separates us.  I was watching the USA men's volleyball team compete against Germany today, live streamed on my iPad.  There was no commentary, just the game.  At time outs, the camera focused on both coaches.  At one point, the German coach told his team, "It's simple.  You just need to talk to each other!" (Well, he said it in German...)  I have been to my share of volleyball games, and I think that I have heard every single coach say that to his or her team at least once in a match.  It really made me chuckle.

I also especially enjoy being able to learn about sports that aren't in the mainstream.  While the marquee sports of the Summer Olympics are gymnastics, swimming, and track and field, I've had a chance to see some others that I might not even get a chance to see.  Sunday I watched a little bit of the USA Women's Field Hockey match.  It was really interesting.  Who knows, maybe some young athlete out there will be inspired to try some kind of competition they'd never heard of before.

On a slightly lighter note, I'm also generally intrigued buy the uniforms of all of the athletes.  Not only do I enjoy watching the competition, but I rate the attractiveness of the uniforms.  I guess I'm just a girl that way.

Finally, and it should be no surprise, I just love seeing the American patriotism that it brings about.  Especially in light of recent years when it seems like we are the Divided States of America rather than the United States of America.  No matter what your political or philosophical leanings are, I think most Americans would agree that they love to support our American athletes.  To hear the chants of "U-S-A, U-S-A" helps me to believe that there's hope for our nation.  Maybe.