Potluck dishes...

Tomorrow is a potluck day at school and since I will actually be on campus substituting for the librarian then I am able to take stuff! Our team is hosting it and our theme is "Pasta."

Since so many people are bringing pasta dishes I figured we needed something more vegetably as a side...but I don't want to make anything that would require staying hot. So I found this recipe on http://www.allrecipes.com/ which Mom and I share an account on.

The title on allrecipes is called Jonny's Easy Garbonzalicious Tangy Artichoke and Bean Salad...which is kinda long...I like to just call it...

Cold Three-Bean Salad
Ingredients:
2 (15 oz.) cans garbanzo beans a.k.a. chickpeas, drained & rinsed
1 (15 oz.) can dark red kidney beans, drained & rinsed*
1 (15 oz.) can light red kidney beans, drained & rinsed*
1 (14 oz.) can artichoke hearts, quartered, drained
1 (6 oz.) can jumbo black olives, halved*
6 radishes, chopped*
2 carrots, coarsely grated*

*changes I made:
in place of the kidney beans, I buy 2 cans of the three bean mix that has dark and light kidney beans plus black beans, I think it's the Organics brand at Kroger so they are all already mixed and I don't really care for carrots or radishes so I chopped up half of a sweet red bell pepper and half of a yellow bell pepper and liked it much better, the olives I consider totally optional, I like them but occasionally I don't have them to add or I just forget...ha!

Dressing:
2/3 c. extra light tasting olive oil
1/3 c. red wine vinegar
1 t. garlic powder
1 t. Italian seasoning
1/2 t. onion powder
1/4 t. ground black pepper
1/4 c. sunflower seeds (optional)
(the dressing really is good...I think I may make it sometime as a marinade or just for use on salad...yummy)

Directions:
1. Combine beans, artichoke hearts, olives, and other vegetables you decide to use in large bowl.
2. Whisk together the olive oil and vinegar in small glass bowl (or I have a dressing mixer with a small plunger that I use, you could probably put all in a shaker type too). Add garlic powder, Italian seasoning, onion powder, and black pepper; whisk to combine. Pour dressing over the bean mixture and toss carefully to evenly distribute. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. Stirring often to redistribute dressing.
3. Sprinkle with sunflower seeds to serve.

And we also had to take a dessert. I wanted something EASY to make that required again no cooking!!! So I did some research for a recipe that it had been a while since I had had and found the Weight Watcher Pudding Jello Fruit Fluff or what I like to call:

Fluff Pie
Ingredients:
16 oz. (two tubs) FAT-FREE cool whip, thawed
1 pkg. FAT-FREE SUGAR-FREE instant vanilla pudding mix
1 pkg. SUGAR-FREE raspberry gelatin

now this is where I like to stop in the recipe and is all really I like to use...mix well in a large bowl and pour into a graham cracker crust (buy the reduced fat one and HELLO yummie dessert where you could really probably eat the WHOLE pie and not feel guilty). Let set on counter for about 10-15 minutes to give gelatin time to kinda dissolve and then put in freezer. This is really good during the summer b/c it is so yummie frozen.

The actual recipe calls for the addition of fruit in the following quantities but I'm not big on the fruit in the pie with the raspberry flavor maybe just with plain cool-whip...
1 (20 oz.) can no-sugar-added pineapple
1 (16 oz.) can no-sugar-added fruit cocktail
1 (16 oz.) can no-sugar-added mandarin oranges

1. drain all fruit
2. mix jello and pudding into thawed cool whip
3. gently fold in drained fruit
4. chill

I see endless taste combinations with this recipe...how about cheesecake flavored pudding paired with strawberry gelatin? or vanilla & vanilla and serve in a chocolate graham pie crust! or vanilla and orange...like a sherbert kind of flavor? Maybe then I would add the mandarin oranges! The combinations are endless! YUM!

Try and Enjoy!
:-)

The House of Worsham would like to introduce...

PETE the Magic Cat!!! Do not be Fooled by his cuteness of appearance for he is a formidable Magician of the First Order of Merlin.

*applause*

Now...for his first trick...it is called The Disappearing Seaweed. This isn't just any trick now folks...the key is to apparate the seaweed out of the wicker basket on top of the 4 ft. high bar and have it reappear magically next to the dog bowl. The key to the trick is the dog bowl. It places full blame on the dog and grants our hero a clear conscience. (Of course the fact that the dog could in no way reach her 80 lb hiney to the top of a 4 ft. bar and delicately extract one item from a wicker basket so precariously placed is of no consequence.)

The seaweed should appear thus after trick is accomplished:

*note -- have tall, pretty, blond female assistant clean up random bits of seaweed and plastic bag on the ground before photographing for the world.

For his next trick The Great Pete will be performing the most fearsome trick of all...

*drum roll*

Cat Pulling Yarn Out of Butt !!!!!!

*gasp*

Yarn is to be completely unrolled and strewn about room for full effect! The secret to this trick is to have a cat yarn stash located somewhere in the house that no humans know about. Make them think they have ALL yarn put completely out of your reach and then, voila! Magic!

Yarn should be appropriately untangled...like so...

*note upon doing trick arrange it around the room for a most dramatic and crowd pleasing effect. Tall, pretty, blond female assistant can relocate it for photographing so as to get it all in one shot.

...and that concludes our entertainment for this evening folks.

Stay tuned for next time.

--Pete the Great Magic Cat

YARN Give-a-way...

I want to win!!! Reenie at Material Whirled has begun having a monthly yarn give-a-way.... http://reeniewhirled.blogspot.com/2009/03/2009-yarn-giveaway-3-egg-hunt.html . This month the requirement was to post a comment on her blog that was a poem.

So I posted the following:

Daffodils bloom,
spring is here soon,

Easter is on it's way,
with family we'll stay,

I'd love to take with me,
some yarn that is pretty,

and knit my vacation away!

:0)

Life in general...

It's a lazy weekend Sunday and I'm listening to the rain come down and it's so relaxing. It's the perfect way to start Spring Break.

Mom got here today and we'll be running around this week to do some fun stuff!

I think I'll make a list:

1. I cleaned house and flung stuff around like a mad person b/c Mom was on her way. It's always much funner to get it all together at the last minute. I feel very Trading Spaces when I do that. I only just finished painting the extra bed white yesterday, went and bought a mattress in the rain (strapped it to the top of the FJ...it was plastic wrapped), and zipped over to target today and bought this...cuz I felt like I needed something pretty in here!! I LOVE it and may just come live in this room myself! haha!

2. We have weird things growing in the aquarium!! Look at Warren's blog at some point I'll put pictures there, but OMG there is a worm/centipede looking thing that we finally saw out all the way today for the first time...and yesterday we saw finally the whole of another little organism which we believe to be TWO sea star things (the link is what they look like in our tank, we think that is what maybe we have) that all just spontaneously grew out of the LIVE ROCK! O.O

3. Warren started a new section of his Internal Med. rotation this week in infectious disease. He doesn't really care for the subject and is just going to hang in there for the next three weeks. He had his first med school patient that he's really followed die this weekend so he's a little sad too, but the guy had a "constellation" of problems (to use W's new word, lol) so I'm not really that surprised at the outcome.

4. It will be interesting to see how work pans out now that 2 ppl retired and 2 were RIFed (b/c we had two ppl not yet certified in library science, they are still in college taking their classes to be LMS's) so that leaves two positions for me to choose from but I'm trying to get them to create a 3rd spot to catalog all the "new" book donations that are in, AND my name is attached to a grant that if they win I could be the "director" and oversee that...so somewhere I will work for GISD next year just not sure where exactly.

K, I think that's all for now folks! Laters!

RIF Notification

I have not been impacted for the Reduction In Force for the 2009-2010 school year.

OMG -- I DID NOT LOSE MY JOB!!!!!!!!!

Upcoming RIF info...

Weblink for the newspaper article: http://www.galvnews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=dd8960c8cbbc1a73

Board Meeting weblink (which should be updated soon with this weeks meeting added on):

http://www.gisd.org/1635102515318260/podcasts/browse.asp?A=399&BMDRN=2000&BCOB=0&C=55715

And...

A Memo from our Principal's:
____________________________________________________________________
REDUCTION IN FORCE UPDATE
March 5, 2009

From: Mr. Bouldin and Ms. Wiley

§ School Board approved Phase II – reduction of teaching positions
§ School Board approved the staffing of 20 to 1 teacher/student ratio for next school year which would add additional teaching unit(s) to present campus enrollment count
§ Principals will meet with Human Resource and Superintendent Cleveland next week to finalize campus teacher numbers and names for reduction
§ As of date: teacher notification will occur prior to Spring Break
§ March 25, teacher names will go to School Board for the process of non-renewal positions due to reduction in force Friday, March 6 is deadline to be eligible for voluntary exit/retirement incentive. Paperwork needs to be completed, notarized and turned in to the Human Resource Office

I <3 Dr. Seuss

Saturday we had Saturday School from 8-1 to make up a "Hurricane Day." We passed out donated books at EVERY school in the district that day, mostly those that Jesse brought down! :)

And for Dr. Seuss week, I thought ya'll might enjoy seeing a "few" of our donated Dr. Seuss books....







Oh, and rumor on the street is Friday is D-day for finding out RIF info...yikes!