Random Tid Bits

1. A little update on Isaak: He's done homework all this week with no meltdowns. YAY! I think he's going to be ok.
   
   We do need to work on speeding up with everything. How does one do this? Going to a Therapist will take away from his classes, and homework time. He could use someone to talk to, but doesn't need to be taken away from his responsibilities when he's slow with his work already. He's just a slow moving kid with eating, testing, homework, and getting dressed. He's fast with his brain skills, and sports. He catches his own mistakes in Math. He doesn't always follow directions. Last night he did two pages of math that took all night. Towards the end he said, "I think I was just supposed to do even problems." I'd love to say he learned his lesson, but he did this last year too. I wanted to hug him for his efforts, and shake him for not knowing this.


2. I did read this article 5 Reasons to Let Your Sensitive Boy Remain Sensitive. It totally is Isaak.


Isaak's Drawing:



3. I'm so worried about a student we have! I think I'm the only one worried about her. In first year she was a firecracker. Full of energy, fun, outgoing, but never held still.
   
   She's now in third year. She's stand-offish with everyone, hasn't posted on social media at all when she usually does, doesn't show up to her classes, and there's talk that she's hanging out with really sketchy people doing drugs and drinking. I've told all the higher ups. I haven't heard anything back from them. I did do my last ditch effort to contact her. I messaged her on FB, and she did message me back. I know she's at least alive. Maybe not well, but alive. I told her that we have resources to help her, and that if she needs someone to listen I have a good ear. That's really all I can do.
    
4. We have a busy weekend planned. I won tickets to go to Rocky Horror Picture Show Live from a FB entry with my ENT's office of all places. Travis and I are doing that on Sunday.
   
   

   

   Source

5. Travis' boss gave him two tickets to see Kansas. I had to ask, "The band, or somewhere in Kansas?" I thought the band was nonexistent now. Travis assured me the band. They only have two tickets, so I asked if it's ok that he take Mica. Mica's never been to a concert - ever.
   
   Then I'll take Isaak and a friend somewhere.
   
   

   

   Source

Freezing Moo Shame

Disclaimer: This is not a paid review.

We have a new ice cream place in Omaha. It's called Freezing Moo. Maybe you have one too.

We decided to go there early August, for Travis' birthday.

They had a deal where if you liked them on FB, showed them, you could get one free ice cream. I was up with Isaak. Travis drove separate, and was back further with Mica. I got my one free ice cream, and paid for the other. I didn't leave a tip. It was an automatic one, on a pad I signed for. I'm sorry, but I like to try my drink or food before tipping, and I hate this new trend where places tell you how much you have to tip. Really I wish they'd just pay people more, so the tip is included in the service. How do I know if what I got is good, or not? I knew we wouldn't have a seat, or a table for them to clean up. Isaak piped up, "MOM you didn't leave a tip!" I got called out by my eleven year old! In my oh so quiet pissed off tone I was like, "Isaak shut up please!" There's my story of shame! I knew Travis was behind me, and would leave one. He did. 

My bill rang up to be $10 something. For 1 ice cream! Travis' was $5 something. I think I didn't get the deal. Boom there's their tip.

We went through the line, and got our ice cream, stood outside and ate it.

Was it good: Yes, but I felt like I had a super rush of sugar, went home, and had an Asthma Attack. An inhaler stopped it. A great sign that I should lay off on the sugar.

What is a shameful story that you've had lately?

WW: Meet Sunny {Linky}

Isaak has been begging to get a pet. The trouble is...we are always busy, I'm allergic to anything furry or feathery. I was told to never get a dog or cat. There really isn't such a thing as a hyper allergenic dog or cat. There are some breeds that are better with allergies than others. Sadly I have allergies and asthma, so dogs and cats are out.

I have a student that was trying to get rid of her Leopard Gecko. She has a few other animals that require attention, she goes to school and work.

I took in Mr. Leopard Gecko. That same night I told Travis to call in for pizza. Isaak's sent me a meme to bring home pizza, but the night he did that we had something in the slow cooker.

When I got home I said, "Isaak I have a surprise for you." I pulled out the pizza.

To his surprise I next pulled out a tank with a Leopard Gecko in it. I call him a Therapy Gecko. Isaak kept getting worked up that he didn't ever have a pet. Now he has one.

Isaak said he was going to name him a color he is. The Gecko is speckled all over. His name is "Sunny".

Sunny is not as cuddly as a cat or dog, but we love him.

Even I have held Sunny.

Sunny is nocturnal, so he's the most active at night. He loves hanging out on his new petrified rock - lepidodendron stigmaria. 

I think he loves what we've done to his tank. He did have blue sand. I read that sand isn't great for little lizards. They lick it, and it gets into their digestive track.

Mens Hiking Snow Boots

I saw my first hint of fall yesterday. It still acts like summer, but the temperature is supposed to go from the 90s to the 60s all in one week.

Nebraska has some trees that turn red, some that turn yellow, but a lot turn brown and just fall down. It goes from a long summer to a short fall to a long winter. Winter will be here really soon. Sometimes it snows on Halloween here. 

We are ready for the snow Mother Nature! I just got Mica some Hiking Snow Boots. They'll be great for hiking, but also all those walks to the bus stop. 

His New Hiking Boots:

I'll rarely pass up reviewing boots or shoes. The boys grow so fast!

About the Boots:

They are easy to put on. The laces are easy to loosen and tighten.

They keep your feet toasty warm. They are lined inside.

They keep water out. I may buy a weather spray to be extra cautious.

My husband is always picky about the soles of shoes and boots. Some just don't have big enough treads. Getting these to review I did think about that. Lucky for Mica they are great!

Colors the Boots Come in:

Leather Black
Leather Blue
Leather Brown
Black Casual
Brown Casual
Grey Casual
D-Black
D-Camel
D-Dark Brown

I picked the D-Camel for Mica. I so wish I could pick a Leather Black for Isaak! That would really fit his personality, and a coat he has.

Sizes the Boots Come in:

6.5 to 12.5

Cost for the Boots:

$25.99 to $39.99

The cost depends on the type of shoe that's picked out.

Where to Get the Boots:

You can get them on Amazon Prime. I like this because they shipped fast, and they have a policy if they don't fit there are free returns. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07W8XFVZG

Do you like hiking in the snow?

Disclaimer: All photos, words and opinions in this post are my own. I got a product for free, or discounted to help me with this review.

Random Tid Bits

1. I said, "Mica we get to hang out with just you tomorrow." We were going to House Of Conundrum | Puzzling Omaha Escape Rooms‎. Isaak had soccer practice + homework, so he stayed behind. Mica said, "About that. Maybe you and Dad can just be quiet the whole time." I laughed and said, "Really? I know I'm goofy, but what does Dad do?" Mica, "He points out girls that are cute." I said, "Ok when he does that I'll just let out a big FART to distract the situation. Ok?" He walked away with his head down. 


2. Later on at the House Of Conundrum | Puzzling Omaha Escape Rooms a fellow Mom sat next to me. I noticed she wasn't by her middle schooler. I said something and Mica shot me a look to shut up. I said to the Mom, "I can't say anything without getting looks from my middle schooler." She said back, "I can't even look at my middle schooler." Win for me I suppose. 


3. I like to do many things at once. I know some say, When you try to multitask you never are great at each thing. What are your thoughts on this? I feel like I put all I can in what it is I'm doing, for each thing. 


4. I've played James Victore's audio book called Feck Perfuction in both my first year and third year classes. It's a really good book about following your own dreams, goals, keep the weirdness that you had as a kid present in your work, building a better version of yourself, sacrifice and more. It's design driven, so goes well with all we do at a design school. James Victore has such great advice, I've listened to the book three times. Once on my own, and two other times in the classes I have. I went to play it, and a student said, "Can you turn that down? I can't concentrate. It's too distracting." I wanted to say back, "Listen and you'll learn! Can you be quiet, so I can hear it. Your talking is a bit distracting." I bit my tongue, turned it down, and when the air conditioner piped up I may have turned it up a notch up. 




5. Admin: Write students up if you know there's going to be a problem. Then maybe we can help them, and save them. 

Co-worker and Boss: We usually don't do that until midterm. Otherwise you're waisting your time.

Me: I guess I'll email the Director to figure out what she thinks. I'm always in the middle. I don't like being looked at badly, for doing my job - communicating with students.

WW: Summer Challenge #recipe

Our kids had a summer challenge. It was to plan and cook a meal. The boys picked rather expensive dishes. Isaak made Szechuan Shrimp, and Mica picked to make Gyros.

I've had this written for a long time, but never posted it. I'm not sure why. I assure you, he made this during the heat of the summer.

There's a few things Mica learned in the process I hope:

1. Read all he ingredients before getting the ingredients. He read it, but we had to go back to the store twice to get extra things. One of the things was that he had a cucumber, but the recipe needed a few for the Tzatziki Sauce. He also didn't account for how much lemon juice he'd need.

2. Plan for more than just the main dish. It was a difficult day because he kept saying that he only wanted to make Gyros. That's all he had in his plan, and he was sticking to it. I told him that he needed a side of veggies at least! He wasn't having it, so we had to talk.

That's part of the learning process. A big reason why we made the summer challenge was to learn. 

Division of Labor

For the Most Part Mica was in Charge. I did help him with things. I made him read the instructions, and had him tell me what to do. 

Veggies:

We started with the washing, and chopping the veggies, for a side dish. Mica wasn't at all excited about this process. He kept reminding me that he only planned to make Gyros. He's a fantastic kid, but we bump heads at times. I pretty much washed, chopped, and made him spray the pan, and use a butter along with lemon pepper seasoning. 

Mica was excited to make Baklava, that is until he started it:

One of the stores we went to were out of the pastry typically used for Baklava. We got a thicker pastry. I said, "It will taste similar. It just won't be in as many layers." I did roll the dough out more.

1. Thaw phyllo dough according to package instructions (this is best done overnight in the fridge, then place it on the counter for 1 hour before starting your recipe to bring it to room temp). We used Puff Pastry Sheets because it's what the store had.

2. Trim phyllo dough, or roll out more to fit your 9x13 baking pan.

3. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9x13 non-stick baking pan.

Start with your honey sauce (which will need time to cool as your baklava bakes):

1. In a medium saucepan, combine 1 cup sugar, 1/2 cup honey, 2 Tbsp lemon juice, and 3/4 cup water. Bring to a boil over med/high heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved, then reduce heat to med/low and boil an additional 4 minutes without stirring. Remove from heat and let syrup cool while preparing baklava.

How to Assemble Baklava:

Preheat Oven to 325˚F.

1. Pulse walnuts about 10 times in a food processor until coarsely ground/ finely chopped. In a medium bowl, stir together: 4 cups finely chopped walnuts and 1 tsp cinnamon.

2. Place 10 phyllo sheets into baking pan one at a time, brushing each sheet with butter once it’s in the pan before adding the next (i.e. place phyllo sheet into pan, brush the top with butter, place next phyllo sheet in pan, butter the top, etc. etc.).

Keep remaining phyllo covered with a damp towel at all times. Spread about 1/5 of nut mixture (about 3/4 cup) over phyllo dough.

3. Add 5 buttered sheets of phyllo, then another layer of nuts. In our case, since there wasn't a lot of dough, we repeated this x2, but with traditional phyllo you Repeat x 4. It's much like a lasagna, you just keep layering things.

4. Bake at 325˚F for one hour.

5. Remove from oven and immediately spoon the cooled syrup evenly over the hot baklava (you’ll hear it sizzle). This will ensure that it stays crisp rather than soggy. Let baklava cool completely, uncovered and at room temperature. Start to pour the honey mixture over it evenly. 

I helped Mica put together the Tzatziki Sauce:

1. 2 cups grated cucumber (from about 1 medium 10-ounce cucumber, no need to peel or seed the cucumber first, grate on the large holes of your box grater)

2. 1 ½ cups plain Greek yogurt

3. 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

4. 2 tablespoons chopped fresh mint and/or dill

5. 1 tablespoon lemon juice

6. 1 medium clove garlic, pressed or minced

7. ½ teaspoon fine sea salt

I didn't take a whole lot of pictures for the Tzatziki Sauce. We love this sauce for a lot of things at home! Here are the cucumbers I chopped up for it:

At that point I took at nap! Mica claimed he didn't want any supervision with the Gyros. We did buy the meat already prepared, so it was easier for him. 

 

It could have have been filled a little more with lamb meat, but he carefully planned it out, to have just enough for lunches the next day. Really we should have bought more. Ha!

I thought he did an excellent job making this by himself.

We had the potatoes and carrots, for a side. Then had the Baklava for dessert.

If you were to make a special dinner, what would you prepare?

Disclaimer: This was not a paid post, nor a review of a product. All words, and opinions are my own. 

Random Tid Bits

1. My older sister stopped by to give Mica a bag of clothes from my oldest nephew. Get this Mica's taller than him. The bag went to Isaak. He took in most of the pants. The shirts that my sister raved about were from J. Crew. I thought maybe Isaak wouldn't like them because they had pink on them. Not the case. He didn't like them because they are button down. "Mom that's just too much work!" He has a lot of clothes already, so I didn't push the issue. 





2. Travis is taking a class where he has art critiques on his work. It's pretty hard because his work takes so long to produce. He's been trying quicker things. He's making things out of found materials more and more. I guess the class is good in the fact that it's pushing him to use different materials other than bronze or steel.
   
   He has to read gobs of pages, for the class. Much of it is very abstract, and hard to retain. Then they discuss it. That gets hard with having kids. 


3. We had flash flood warnings on Thursday. If this is going to be another year like last year, I don't know how the farmers are going to last. :(


4. We've had some turn around with Admissions Reps. This isn't a bad thing. I actually like the person in charge way more than the other guy that was in charge before. Someone was hired under her. I don't know him at all. We were sitting in a staff meeting. I had my mug that says, I survived another meeting that should have been an email. No one has said anything about it the last 2 or 3 meetings. A few people saw it, and laughed. New Guy pointing at it, "So what do you mean by that?" I replied with, "It just means I'm silly. I even make fun of myself." He didn't respond. I don't think he approved. 





5. I decided I'd spend an evening entering giveaways. I hadn't purged in doing that for awhile. Many are multi blog giveaways. Ones where you have to like 15 blogs Instagram posts, some comments, then they send you to 15 FB pages, on to 15 Twitter pages, and it just kept going...Do you like these types of giveaways? I just about had carpal tunnel after entering a few. When you look at the entries it's 1,000's of people. My chance of winning is like 0 to none. 

Open House

I just went to his Open House last night. His teachers have nothing to say bad about him. He's able to joke around with them. Except for his Math teacher. She's all about just teaching ONLY. Isaak saw her name in Scrabble letters on her desk. He pointed to it and said, "That would be invalid. It's not a word." She said, "Stop. Ok I have to see another parent now." I was thinking, Geez lady lighten up! He calls his homeroom teacher, "Mama Stone" because she has a Family Tree up of all her homeroom students. She calls them things like, "Son Isaak". It's a joke, but fun. He's happy to play along.

His favorite teacher is his Piano teacher. I so wish he could continue Piano lessons! Maybe he will. His teacher is from Ecuador. Not that it matters where he's from. He has a slight accent. When Isaak first got him, he's like, "I can't always understand him!" He must understand him now. Isaak lit up when he went into the room, and the teacher had an energy about him. Isaak said that he tells stories. He bought a horse for his wife. When he was training it, he jerked on the horse, and shouldn't of done that. He treats his students much like training a horse. Gentle and firm.

He writes his own music, and has the kids play along. When Isaak was playing his teacher came up to me and said, "I really think Isaak is a joy. He loves music, and I can tell." I wanted to hug him.

Isaak seemed ok at school, when he was showing me around.

He actually seemed to enjoy showing me around his school.

Ice for Anxiety

Isaak still has anxiety issues. I have yet to find a Therapist. The one the Pediatrician gave us has daytime hours. There's no way I'm taking Isaak out of school to see someone. That's like adding stress to stress.

I do plan on sending Boys Town a long message about Isaak this weekend. They have people that will give feedback, for free. It's a non profit. Doesn't hurt to get more opinions.

If you missed it he started crying during homework time last year, which was a bad year for Isaak. This year he likes his teachers, but starting middle school is hard! It doesn't help that Mica hardly has homework, and Isaak always does. I remember myself being socially unable to talk to all these groups of people that already seemed to know each other. I was like a deer in headlights. Moving to each class, but unable to talk.

As soon as we got in the car, after his school's Open House happened, anxiety happened as well. He said some kids call him annoying. I never know where some of this comes from. Maybe he's annoying. He's charming, funny, and sometimes shy too. We all can be annoying. No matter what I said, it didn't seem to make a difference. He knew he had homework to do, and two tests the next day. It was already dark out, so he was feeling the pressure. I never understand why teachers give kids homework on days when there's an Open House at school. It is what it is.

Travis was telling him to calm down when we got home. No one calms down when they are told to. I've been guilty of telling him the same thing. Isaak called Travis, "A Jerk" many times. I tried to apply techniques I got from a video on anxiety.

I got out an icepack, and applied it to Isaak's face. Soon after he kept applying to his own face.

I didn't think the icepack trick would work. In my mind I thought it was rubbish. It worked amazingly well. 

I said, "Isaak I'm not going to do your homework, but I am going to sit her with you. I can read things to you, if that helps you process things better." I found out that he did the Science reading, and answered the questions. He only answered what he could remember, and didn't think to go back to the reading for other answers. He finished his homework with minimal tears. When he was done I said, "You might want to check with Dad on this one. He's better with Science than I am. Before you do that please apologize about calling him a jerk. He's not really a jerk." It took some coaxing, but he did apologize. 

I think that was a winner of a night. Even with a break down. 

WW: Grandpa {Linky}

Last Tuesday I didn't post a WW because I was miles away at a funeral. I thought about not posting this, but death is part of life. I wrote about my Grandpa passing away, but never wrote about his funeral. I say - he lived to 93 years young. I have nothing, but happy memories from my Grandparents on my Mom's side. My Grandma died many years ago from Alzheimer's. My Grandpa just like most people at 93 was really forgetful. The brain has to age just like the rest of your body.

Just this year I taught Grandpa how to take Selfies.

A few months back he went to the hospital, and lost 1/2 his blood. Even the doctors were surprised he made it through that.

This time he fell really bad. He was all bruised up, but didn't break anything. They did find a tear in his vertebrae by his neck, that was from an old fall. He was doing well, sitting up, and eating, had a massive seizure, and that was it. I'm so glad he went that way. They wouldn't have operated on his neck. Living with pain isn't the way to go.

I felt like I was doing ok at the funeral. Mica was a Paul Bearer for the first time.

My cousin asked if they should line up in age order, or height order? Mica at age 14 is 6 foot.

Isaak wasn't a Paul Bearer, but sure was cute. 

He's with his youngest cousin Edison in this photo.

I saw my Great Uncles and lost it. I know they are so close! One lost his wife, his daughter, and now his best friend and brother, my Grandpa. The other had just gotten out of the hospital two days prior to the funeral. On all there were seven of them.

To top it off, when we went to go to the graveyard one of my Great Uncles was using a cane my Grandpa had made for him. The cane broke, he fell, and had to be rushed off to the hospital. He's ok. Just a big egg on his head!

We had a military service. My Grandpa went into the Navy.

Kind of random, but my Grandpa always had a stash of hard candy in hidden in his car. He loved Root Beers, Butterscotch, and Coffee. I passed a few out to people I was around.

Each Paul Bearer left their boutonniere on the casket. I have no idea if that's a tradition, or not.

We left roses on our family member's graves. My Grandma was Dorothy.

So much of me thinks of life being like a circle. One person dies, another is born. Just like seasons, and our calendar revolve in a circle. 

Who is the closest person to you that's passed away? 

I'd have to say my Grandma Dorothy was to me.