The Good. The Random. The Fun. v. 10

The Good: 
It's March. It's still below freezing in the mornings with the wind chills. It's getting old, fast.

But. The sunsets. Oh the sunsets. They're the icing on the cold cake. Look at this - unedited stunner.

The Random:
Random, but amazing. In December, we had did a "friendly letter" unit in Writer's Workshop. One of my kiddos is a figure skater and he wrote to Scott Hamilton. Well, Scott Hamilton responded - personally! He sent an autographed picture and hand written note - amazing!!

The Fun:
I had seen an idea on pinterest ages ago about using "Twister" in the classroom - this one idea had it being used as a multiplication game. I knew my class would love it - and oh did we! It was a fun excersise for their minds and bodies and we all had a good chuckle over using the game as a review before our unit test (which they rocked!).

   

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Song-ography: Signs

Signs, signs, everywhere a sign...

Can't you read the sign?

I had a few ideas for this one. Then life happened. And then I wasn't feeling the ideas any longer.

So I thought. What about signs. And thought about looking for signs.

Well. I found one. Big time.

As I walked along the fence at my building, visualizing possible shots I looked down and saw this. And stopped. There was my sign.

Allow me to back up. After my Zayda died, we began to find rubber bands and paperclips in places you'd not expect to find them. He was dedicated to his office supplies, always had them on hand, etc so we took this to be a sign that he was close to us.

This week was a long one for the various members of my family. We each were on the lookout for a sign, a sign that Zayda was close by. Here was my sign. My inspiration for this song and a reminder that sometimes, when you least expect it there will be a sign guiding you to that certain something.

Salmon Tomato Stew

When I was in high school, my mom worked as the education director at our synagogue. This meant there were some Friday nights she was at services with the religious school kids and I was charged with preparing our Shabbat dinner. 

This was also around the time when I took an interest in cooking and remember this being the first dish I created from my own imagination. I just thought "hey, that could work!" and work it did.

I mean, really, can you go wrong with onions softened and mixed with rich tomatoes and then simmered with fresh salmon? I know, right? It did take me some time to find the right herbs to mix in, but now, it's a solid dish.

I don't make this simple, yet rich, dish enough. Making it last week for Shabbat dinner brought back some good memories of those first cooking experiments in the kitchen. It also made high school seem eons ago....

Enjoy!

Stuff my 3rd graders say v.1

I have a group of comedians this year. They say the funniest things on a near hourly basis. I often text the best zingers to my mom and Avi and some other friends, and they're right, these are liquid gold and need to be preserved somewhere. (some of these are older, but I had to preserve the oldies but goodies)

So for your enjoyment:

me: "I will pick it up on my way home"
kid: "go home?"
me: "yes, I go home…"
kid: "I thought teachers live under their desks. That's why teachers have apples on their desks, so they can eat a balanced diet"

girl:"piercing your ears isn't hard! you take two staplers and SHOVE it through your ears"

boy: WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT!!!

kid 1: "it's the 100th day of school! Only 265 left!" 
me: "not so much..."
kid 2: "that would be school everyday of the year!"
kid 1: "oh no no no no no no!!!"

During the afternoon read a loud. 
me: "'she was solemn'...who knows what that means?"
kid: "it's a name. Wasn't he a king?"
me: "that was King Solomon..."
kid: "was Solomon solemn?"

(Not a quote, but I must never forget this) 
Today's math class: 8 kids working very hard on multiple monsters....all while humming "mananana" from the Muppets...

me: make a prediction about tomorrow's special activity
kid: tickling Tamar!
me: what!?!?

me: "who knows where the winter Olympics are this year?"
kid 1: "Sushi, Russia?"
Me "umm...well...not exactly"
kid 2: "now I'm hungry..."

kid 1: "a rat can have wings." 
me: "when's the last time you saw a flying rat?"
kid 1: "I saw a flying squirrel at the zoo...?" 
kid 2: "you never know, I hear the NY subway has weird things!"

While the kids researched MLK. 
kid: "whoa the man who killed him died in 1998."
me: "I remember when he died."
kid: "You were alive then!?!?"
me: "yup I was 10"
kid: "wow. You must be old"

kid: "what's an encyclopedia?"

Me: "it is the book form of google..."

kid: you said a bad word!
me: what did I say?
kid: explicitly, on itunes, that means I can't listen to it.

A child suggested my last name should be "Thing-a-ma-bob" - it's shorter than my current last name, I may let it stick...

kid: "pencils smell weird"
me: "don't sniff the..."
kid: "ouch"
me: "did you just?"
kid: "yeah..."

Giving one group their spelling pre-test and one word is "trouble," then, I hear from a kid I never expected it from: 
"I knew you were trouble when you walked in" - in tune and quietly under his breathe!

me: what's one thing you know about the Pilgrims?
kid: they had it rough
me: how so?
kid: they didn't have ipads on the long trip

kid: "Tamar, why are you dressed fancy?"
me: "why must you critique my fashion choices?"
kid: "because I can?"
touche...

more to come!

The Good. The Random. The Fun. v. 9

The Good:
I spent last Sunday on the slopes! The conditions were ideal, in my mind, and the weather was coldish/mild so it made for a perfect few hours out on the slopes. It still amazes me that I live about an hour and a half from this kind of skiing, when growing up I had to drive 2-3 hours to get to "mountains" - yay Wachusett!

The Random:
Ski slopes have a general sense of humor. The rule of "ski fast lose pass" isn't a joke, it's easy to wipe out when being reckless, but I got an even bigger kick out of the sign after I saw the legit speed limit sign on another slope. It may be a joke or a remnant of the slopes also being trails in the off-season. Either way, I was laughing pretty hard.

The Fun:
Seriously. Snowboarding = my happy place. My mind is blank and I just board. I was on a post-boarding-euphoric-high all Sunday night and it was the perfect way to launch back into school last week!

And it's amazing that I can have this much fun with these amazing views. Granted, I am going downhill so fast (not that fast) that I need to remember to stop and savor the views from time to time - otherwise, it's all a downhill blur of fun!

Oh yeah...how is it March...and still snowing...yes...it's snowing right now...

   

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Song-osity: In the mirror

Tell me it is what you see...

 Heroes don't look look like they used to, they look like you do...

When  I was in college, I attended a Jewish Education Conference one summer and participated in the program geared towards future young educators. One of our presenters said something that has stuck with me to this day: "teachers are super heroes."

I actually believe, that if you love what you do. If you are invested and devoted and dedicated in something, you are a super hero. There are super heroes everywhere...you just need to know where to look.

Maybe it's in the mirror.

February Randoms v. 2

olympics watching...yes more...green + white

sherlock...pb+banana quesadilla...even more

sunlit skylight...avocado toast...matza already

foggy bridge...colored reflection...heels and snow
color selfie...aw shucks...happy place
back to work...stretching and snacking...puzzle time

The IKEA Effect

Last week, I gave the d'var torah (short talk about the week's Torah reading) at Friday night services. I always have a minor level of anxiety when tasked with giving a d'var, but had an idea in the back of my mind that I wanted to pursue for this week. And pursue I did. 

The reading for last weekend dealt with the building of the mishkan, the temporary "temple" the Israelites used in the desert. It was a ready to build and take apart type structure and their first holy site for worshiping God. 

Where am I going with this?

Well. Ever since I was younger and learning about this reading, I thought about IKEA furniture. The idea of it being easy to put together and easy to take apart and move. I naturally had to connect my words of Torah to my love of IKEA - and if I dare say...it worked. 

The coolest thing I learned in my writing of the d'var? There is a documented effect called the "IKEA Effect"- it is the documented sense of accomplishment that comes from standing back and seeing what we've assembled on our own. 

Now, besides the pride I have over the d'var I wrote for last week, I totally believe this effect is real. 99.8% of my apartment is IKEA furniture (even kitchen gadgets and cookware...). I put it all together. I have so much pride in my little home. 

Every time I open my dresser to get some socks I think of how I was exhausted from moving, but I stuck with it and put that darn thing together (and that 3 years later it still stands, solidly!).

I may be exhausted when I climb into bed each night, but I love knowing that my determination and patience are what allow me to sleep soundly each night.

I love to read. I love IKEA. I love knowing that I put each Billy or Expedit in my apartment together.

It's only a coffee table, but I put it together (in record time, too).

To paraphrase what I wrote in my d'var:  "The creation of something from basic materials that before weren’t considered to be special seems to increase one's confidence."

I stand back and see an apartment that I built. I know it's mine, and I love that feeling. IKEA may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I bet if you reflect, you'll find a time when you experienced the "IKEA Effect." A time when you did something for yourself and the had that amazing sense of pride and accomplishment afterwards. It's pretty remarkable, isn't it?

February reading round-up

This is one of my favorite series. I went to buy the latest one and realized I somehow missed this one being published (it was while I was in the throws of grad school...). I love this series - the premise is that there is the Real World and the Book world, a world within books - with actors acting in books and there being a back story to those actors. I won't go into all the gory details about the series, but if you have a love of books and are well read this series is a blast because you catch the jokes Fforde plays with literary figures and themes. This book focuses on peace talks between genres in the Book World, and the main character Thursday Next is stuck in the middle - the Real World Thursday is missing and the Book World Thursday is left to find her, deal with her own slew of issues, and keep the book world from falling apart, again. I just love this series and this book was another stellar showing in the series!

After reading a Jasper Fforde book, I always need to go to non-fiction to let my imagination come back to "normal" - so I knew the newest Michael Pollan book was the one to read. I am a huge fan of his books - they make you think about what you eat, how it grew, what it does to your body, and I always learn a ton. In this book he looks at the four classical ways in which we change food to make it edible: fire, water, air, and earth. I actually found this his least "preachy" book - and I learned so much. Pollan explains the history and science and reasoning behind why we cook and what it actually does to our food. Granted, the first two sections dealt largely with how meat is cooked (and why) - but it was interesting. The third and fourth sections were the most fascinating to me. In the air section, he closely looked at how bread is made. Granted he talked about gluten so much it's a miracle I didn't get sick (ha!), but it was interesting to really understand how good bread it made. In his educating, Pollan showed how in today's hurried times we've largely lost that communal idea of cooking and talks about some of the fallout from that. I highly recommend!

Okay, only two books this month, but Cooked is a hefty read and it's a "short" month...? Either way, total books in 2014: Five and a half! On I read...

The Good. The Random. The Fun. v.1.8

The Good:
I was so pleasantly surprised when I went to get some pictures off my camera to find these. I forgot I took them earlier in the week when I witnessed a stunning blue sky at sunset.

I love the winter for the dark nights, but I may be a smidge excited to have a bit more daylight in the evenings....I mean...if it's going to produce these skies, than why not enjoy it, right?

The Random:
Hi my name is Tamar and I am a list maker. I have so many ideas and things going through this little noggin that lists keep me somewhat (keeping it real) sane. I realized on Friday, as my vacation week drew to a close, that I hadn't made a list...in a week...and the world went on. Naturally, by the day's end...I had a list of things to do over the weekend...old habits and back to life and reality.

The Fun:
I had all these plans for my vacation week...then my immune system revolted so I spent much of the week on the couch.

Right, that doesn't sound so fun, but it let me watch lots of olympics coverage live. And the real fun part? I have a new love (maybe, yeah, it is, a strong word) for Johnny Weir and Tara Lapinski. I will admit that as a former skater, I was never a Johnny or Tara person (we used to call her Tara LaTwinkie...). But...they are all kinds of fabulous now. They actually called the skating so well and make the funniest duo ever!

*shallow, but don't judge, I was semi-comatose all week and they were my comedic relief/actually good commentators! 

   

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