The Grand Finale (Moving On)

Good news! I have finished my last quarter of classes here in Ellensburg and, for the first time in my life EVER, with straight A's!!

All I have left to do now is student teach in the Fall and then I will be finally finished, at least with my time here at Central. I know I have so much more to learn, and school will never really be over for me. Down the road I would like to get endorsed to teach special ed, English as a second language, middle-level math, and maybe history. But I suppose for now I'd better just focus on one thing at a time.

In other news, I have been helping my friend Erin with one of her major requirements by modeling one of her garments! She is a Fashion Merchandising major, and one of her graduation requirements was to create a fashion line for the annual school fashion show. She put in a lot of looooong hours in the sewing lab, and the other models and I put in a lot of hours in modeling practice and it was all so worth it! The show was so much fun, and a great way to end our last year together at CWU!

 Here's some pictures of us models after the 3 o'clock show wearing the things Erin made. There was another show at 7, and more pictures will be coming - they just have to be approved by Erin's department chair before being posted on Facebook.

Now I'm working on packing up my stuff to be ready to move out later this summer (when I have some place to move it to...). Jay and I are slowly making progress on finding a place in Tacoma. My student teaching placement is finalized at Wilson High School.

I'm not in too much of a rush to leave Ellensburg, though. This place has really grown on me, and leaving the wide-open spaces to return to the land of people living on top of each other just doesn't sound all that great. I'm always shocked by the amount of traffic when I go back to the Seattle-side of the mountains, and shocked by how in a rush everyone seems.

I've moved on from a lot of people and places in my life, but this moving on feels different. I remember how excited I was when my mom and dad and stepmom dropped me off at college. I was so ready to move on then, and while all my friends around me were struggling with homesickness I was having the time of my life.

I feel like I should be more excited now. I should be excited for everything coming up, but mostly I'm just feeling bummed that this time in my life is ending. It's been an amazing 5 years, and I'm so glad I was able to spend it with my best friends. We've all come a long way since high school (literally for Kara and Erin: Kara's "studying" abroad in Morocco right now, and Erin studied abroad in Milan for fall quarter!), and I can't wait to see what the two of them do next.

I'm sure as time goes on and the future solidifies I'll be more excited about taking the next steps into real life.

I may or may not continue this blog during student teaching. I would like to post updates about how my student teaching is going, but only if anyone is actually interested. If I continue this blog, I'll be changing the title of it and possibly making it private so my students can't find it. If you want me to continue updating through student teaching, comment here or e-mail me and let me know! 

Finally, Some Snow!

Well, it is February, and we finally have some snow! And by some I mean about a foot. When Kara and Erin and I went out for a walk in it last night around 8 p.m., there were about 8 inches, and when I woke up this morning our footprints up to our front door were completely filled in. So we have about a foot of snow now.

This poor blog has been neglected because I have been so busy this quarter. I'm taking some fantastic classes, though, that are making me feel like I actually know what I'm doing as far as the teaching thing goes. My classes are Teaching Writing, Teacher's Portfolio, Practicum, and Teaching Young Adult Literature. In the first three of those classes we have to give teaching demos in front of the class (I've had to do three so far), and in Teaching Young Adult Lit we have at least one big project/presentation due each week.

Practicum is really interesting. We're working with an English teacher at the high school here in town, and we get to observe his classroom and help students after school in a writing workshop. No students have shown up for the writing workshop yet, but it's still really interesting to talk with the teacher about the ins and outs of teaching. I feel like I'm learning more this quarter than I have in the last two quarters combined.

During practicum, we also have the opportunity to help students get their HSPE (new version of the WASL) scores up to passing. Students have to pass the HSPE in their junior year of high school with a score of at least 3 to graduate, so this is the last chance for them to pass. We're working with a group of students to help them get their reading and writing skills up from a 1 or 2 to at least a three. The last couple of quarters I feel like I've been muddling my way through pointless classes (but necessary for graduation...) in the education department here, but now that I'm finally working with students in real time everything just feels like it's falling into place.

In other news, last weekend was pretty perfect. Started it off on Friday night with a great dinner with Paul, Mom, and Nick at the Cheesecake Factory in Seattle before speed-walking to the 5th Ave to see Spamalot. It was really funny! Lots of the old Monty Python jokes mixed in with some new ones. Pretty good, I'd say. Then on Saturday, Jay and I went skiing at Crystal Mountain. The snow cover was lousy in some places, but the gorgeous weather more than made up for it!

And the skies were so clear that we were finally able to see Mt. Rainier from the top! I've skied at Crystal a few times now, but every time I've been, the weather has been snowy or cloudy, so never got to see the mountain in its full gloriousness.

Then on Sunday, we prepared to watch the Super Bowl. I had visions in my head of all the delicious treats I'd make, but Jay's kitchen sink was broken and his roommate (owner of the house) was not in any hurry to fix it. So we went to Costco and got some salmon with basil butter, caesar salad, and some prosciutto and asparagus that I used to make... well, prosciutto-wrapped asparagus. Pretty good, but next time I'd use less prosciutto. Too salty.

Before the Costco trip though, we stopped by our favorite coffee spot to get some breakfast and caffeine. Even the maple bars were rooting for the Seahawks!

  
And then the Seahawks actually won! A SUPER BOWL! I was so excited, although I thought the actual game was a little boring to watch since the Seahawks were so far ahead the whole time.

And the last little piece of exciting news is that Jay and I plan to move in together after the school year is over. Since Jay can't really leave the job he just started at the beginning of the school year yet, we're looking at places in the Tacoma area. I'll be filling out my student teaching application soon, and putting my choices down for the schools around that area. Also beginning the process of job hunting around that area. Busy busy busy!

Thanksgiving Recap

Hello all! Sorry for the delay on the Thanksgiving post. Since Thanksgiving fell so late this year, I was swept away in final projects, papers, and presentations as soon as I got back to Ellensburg.

Instead of going down to California this year, we all went to Leavenworth to have Thanksgiving at my mom's house. Luckily my mom's dining room is the biggest room in the house, because there were 12 or 13 (Debbie, Carson, and crew; Paul, Laura, and crew; Gramoose, Nick, Mom, and I... Lots of dogs!) of us crammed into that house. Also, luckily, my mom was able to get cabins for all of us at her work, because that made the whole thing a lot easier. The weather was clear and cold the whole time, which was a bit of a change from the usual California weather! 

I drove over from Ellensburg on Tuesday afternoon. We went shopping for all the dinner supplies and won a free frozen turkey on top of the fresh one we had just bought. We went home and celebrated with some hot buttered rums :)

The next morning, I took Sunny on a gorgeous walk around Blackbird island which is down below town right by the river.

 Everyone arrived in waves on Wednesday. We had beer and brats with Debbie, Carson, Nick, Gramoose, and the girls, and then when Paul arrived we got everyone settled into their cabins to prepare for the work that lay ahead on Thursday.

On Thursday morning Paul prepped the turkey and got it started in the barbecue, and then mom and I made pies.

The turkey turned out beautifully! Paul has the barbecue method down! We had to take turns in the kitchen and wash each dish we used in between turns because there is also no dishwasher in the house!

After Thanksgiving dinner, a group of us went on a walk down to town to get our wiggles out and see some Christmas lights.


Jay wasn't able to make it for Thanksgiving dinner, but he was able to come over the day after and see everyone for a little bit before they all left on Saturday morning. Friday night we went out to dinner at a nice pizza place, and then since Debbie and crew's flight was pretty early on Saturday, Debbie, Carson and crew left around 7a.m. with Nick and Gramoose.





Jay and I went on a short little hike. It's called Icicle Creek Gorge, and it's a short little loop. The dogs loved it, although it started drizzling a short ways into it and I was freeeeeeezing!

Before Jay and I left for home on Sunday, we piled into my mom's truck and drove out to Cashmere to find a Christmas tree. We ended up finding a really cute little tree farm that we're planning on going to again next year. There were a lot of trees with blue pine needles, so we decided to go for one of those since we had never seen them before. One of the people working there told us the blue trees are Colorado blue pines.

Overall, the holiday felt like it flew by way too fast! I think that's all the pictures I have... We were all so busy trying to cook on Thursday that I wasn't really able to get too many family pics. Overall, the food was good, the family was good, the location was good! Definitely looking forward to heading back to Leavenworth during this winter break so I can go cross-country skiing and play a little in the snow! I will update again with more pictures around the start of the new year!

A New Version of an Old Favorite

Growing up, there were about three things Nick would eat: candy, cereal, and beef stroganoff (the Hamburger Helper kind). It was always one of my favorites, too. Who doesn't love mushy, salty, greyish brown slop (well when you put it that way... bleck)? But really, there are some chilly winter days when you just want to eat something warm and salty and hearty, and beef stroganoff lends itself well to warming you up :)

I've been looking around for a good beef stroganoff recipe, and have found some good-looking ones, but I always get a little turned off by the copious amounts of cream of mushroom soup that most of the recipes call for. I think the soup often overpowers the flavor of the meat and makes the stroganoff too salty. So when I found this recipe, I knew I had to try it. And you cook it in a crockpot! How perfect is that??

I modified the recipe a little. Here's how I did it:

1.5 lbs beef stew meat
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp paprika
olive oil (use your best judgment on the amount here)
1 small onion, diced
8 oz. mushrooms, sliced (my roommate doesn't love mushrooms so I probably used about half of this)
1/4 tsp rosemary
1 garlic clove, minced
1.5 cups beef broth (the original recipe called for only 1 cup, but I added a bit more)
1 cup sour cream (I just used a large spoonful, probably about 1/2 a cup. Any more than that would've made it taste too sour-creamy)
Egg noodles or brown/white rice to serve it with

• Mix flour, salt, and paprika in a large ziploc bag. Place chunks of beef in the bag and seal. Shake the bag until all chunks of beef are evenly coated
• Fry beef in olive oil in a frying pan until all sides are lightly browned
• Layer onion, mushrooms, rosemary, garlic clove, and fried beef in the crockpot (onion on bottom, beef on top).
• Pour broth over the contents of the crockpot. 
• Cook on high 4-5 hours, or on low for 8 hours.
• Add sour cream in the last ten minutes or so
• Serve over noodles or rice

I cooked mine on high. At four hours I took the lid off to add the sour cream and check on the meat. The beef chunks were falling apart, so no need to worry about cutting them if they seem too big before cooking. I started the brown rice in my rice cooker at four hours also, and let the stroganoff keep cooking while the rice was finishing up, so I guess it cooked for about four and a half hours.

This stroganoff tastes really natural and delicious, although I added a little salt and pepper into my own bowl. Next time I make this I think I'll add an extra teaspoon of salt into the crockpot, and maybe some pepper. The beef chunks tasted a lot like the pot roast my roommate makes, which makes me want to try throwing some carrots and a splash of red wine in next time to make a pot roast slop! I don't know how I'll ever modify this for Jay (who doesn't like onions at all). Slop without onions is not worth eating in my opinion.

I wish I had some pictures for you, but greyish brown slop doesn't photograph very well and I'd hate to turn anyone off from making this recipe. Also, it was so yummy we ate it all before I could even take a picture!

October/September in Review

Boy what a crazy month!

I think the biggest piece of news I have for you all is that I have a kitten. Some of my mom's co-workers had this kitty, but didn't want her anymore so my mom asked me if I wanted her, and I figured I'd try it out and see how it goes... So far it's going well! Our apartment isn't totally destroyed (yet). Her name is Koli and she has no tail although we're not sure what happened to it or if she just wasn't born with one.

As far as actual school goes, I'm taking a few education classes this quarter along with a philosophy class. The education classes are Multicultural Education, Assessments, and Teaching Methods. Multicultural education is really the only class that I'm getting anything out of right now. Assessments and Teaching Methods are really dry (although super useful need-to-know teacher stuff), and I have a hard time focusing on the material. My philosophy class is really interesting though; the title of it is Women in Philosophy, but it's sort of morphed into a philosophy of gender class.

A few weekends ago Jay and I drove out into the country roads north of Ellensburg. We ended up on a gravel road, typically used by hunters, and ended up out on Lion Rock. There was some snow up there, and the view was amazing. This picture doesn't really do it justice, but it was a nice little half-day trip to a place we'd never been.

A couple weekends ago, Kara and I went to Oktoberfest in Leavenworth. I didn't think I'd enjoy it much because of the crowds, but we ended up having a really good time! I actually met Nick's pre-calculus teacher from Skyline completely by random and we ended up talking for awhile about teaching at Skyline. Overall, it was good beer, good food, and we met a few really cool people! It's also really nice to go to Leavenworth and not have to worry about hotels :)

Another piece of good news: Jay no longer works at the Plateau Club! He started working at a golf course in Gig Harbor about a week and a half ago, and so far so good! The job is a nice step up for him, and he seems to be enjoying it so far.

I think that's pretty much it on this front. Haven't heard a lot from Nick or how he's doing at Western, but I think he'll be joining us in Leavenworth for Thanksgiving so I'll have to grill him then!

Back to School!

Hello all! I am currently doing field experience in a high school, and it is going well so far. I've only been at it for three days, but I've already learned a lot about the technical aspects of teaching such as how to take attendance and create seating charts using the online program the school uses, how to keep track of papers when you have five different classes, and how to enter grades into the gradebook. I've even had a chance to grade some papers too! I'll be doing this for the next two weeks, and then it will be back to Central. Classes start on the 25th. All my classes are in the education department, except for one philosophy class.

Over the summer I worked with the City of Redmond at a day camp. It was a lot of fun and really hands on because the two other counselors and I had to plan all the games and all the activities for every day of camp, except for field trip days that were planned months in advance by the camp director.

Other than work, Jay and I managed to have some adventures on weekends. One weekend we decided to do a little spontaneous car-camping trip. We packed up some sleeping bags, food, water, extra clothes, and drove out to the peninsula to see some beaches. We left on a Saturday morning and made it to the beach by about 2 in the afternoon. The weather was stormy all the way there, but as we got closer to the coast the sun started peaking out. By the time we got to Ruby Beach (North of Beach 2), the weather was perfect!

 We spent a couple hours exploring the beach, climbing on rocks, and inspecting barnacles and anemones in tide pools. Jay had never seen these things (they don't have tide pools in Ohio, I guess. Weird.), so it was really fun to show him how the barnacles stick their little legs out to grab food in the shallow pools, and how the anemones fold in on themselves to prevent from drying out during low tide. We found some limpets and starfish attached to the rocks too!

At about four in the afternoon, Jay decided he wanted to see Mt St Helens. So we left the beach and drove all the way to Mt St Helens. We got to the Johnston Ridge lookout point at about 8 at night, which was perfect timing to watch the sun go down while we got attacked by killer mosquitoes. We drove back down the mountain after that, looking for a forest service road or logging road to pull off on to spend a night in the car. After much searching (and almost running over a slow-moving porcupine), we finally found an old logging road.

 I did not sleep well, mainly because I was paranoid that a park ranger was going to find us and then we'd be in trouble. The whole Mt St Helens area is closed for restoration so I'm pretty sure we weren't supposed to be where we were on that logging road. So we woke up at five the next morning and planned our route home. We decided to drive through the Mt Rainier park on the way home.

We made it to the park around eight in the morning, which is the perfect time for a hike on the Naches Loop trail! I think it was around three miles. It wasn't too hot out yet, or too crowded, but we passed a ton of people on our way back to the car.

 After that, we headed home and made it to the couch just in time for naptime and 1 o'clock!

Jay and I flew out to Chicago the last weekend of August. One of his best friends got married on August 31st. Jay and I explored the city a little before taking the train out to the suburbs where the wedding was. Jay was in the wedding, so he got all dressed up and looked pretty snazzy!

 Other than that, I spent a lot of the summer working and relaxing. I watched my brother graduate from Skyline in June! No pictures of him, but I do have a picture of the cupcakes I made him (before they were melted in the car).

Busiest Spring Ever

I'm sure it seems like I say this a lot, but this spring is going to be the busiest ever. I have a lot of work for my education classes, plus an advanced poetry writing class, and all the SOURCE stuff. Luckily I'm taking a one-credit yoga class twice a week to keep the stress levels down!

I'm working on my abstract for SOURCE right now and thought I'd procrastinate a little by stopping by here to recap Spring break (which wasn't much of a break at all). I did my observation hours in high school English classrooms at Issaquah High School, and managed to meet up with Grandpa and Grandma for lunch/dinner after school one day! Other than that, I got a taste of how high school will consume my life when I'm a teacher. A lot of my friends balk when I tell them about the antics of students and how long it takes to grade things and how I'll have to get up super early all the time, but my education professors say that teaching is a calling and I truly feel that teaching is exactly that for me.

In other news, on the Thursday of my spring break I had to rescue Jay from feet of snow. His car doesn't do too well in the snow so he was stuck at the bottom of his hill.

And the next day it was sunny and snowy! Isn't it supposed to be spring now?

 We've been watching some March Madness, especially since Jay's OSU Buckeyes have made it so far. Natron likes to be right in the middle of things, so this is how we watch basketball (or anything):

And lastly, here's a picture I took coming into North Bend. I've been re-watching Twin Peaks episodes with Jay. It's such a weird show, but I love it!

I don't have very many pictures to share, but hopefully that will change with the coming of nicer weather! I'm going to try and get some hikes in around Ellensburg this Spring on weekends when I can find some spare time!