I am a big fan of the WOW hits series. It is a great opportunity to get 1 cd collection that has all the big hits of the year. Well now there is a great website, WOW Hits 1. It has an album player that plays full songs and it has the WOW pipeline that is a feed reader off all the artists’ blogs. I have already read a post from TobyMac and listened to 5 songs!
Kindergarten is the easy grade to try out public school, right? The kids are to young to really corrupt each other and kindergarten teachers are sweet people who love little kids (why else would they choose to chase them), right? Not so much.
So here is our first situation. First imagine an adorable 5 year old boy (and I do me cute!) who has some discipline problems so mom takes him to outside doctors (as recommended by the principal) and they start the process to get him officially diagnosed with Aspberger’s. Some 5 year old boys can have discipline problems to begin with but pile on Aspberger’s and I am sure it can be rough. But how rough would it have to be for a teacher to pull this kid up in front of the class, have every student say what they don’t like about him and then vote as to whether they want to keep him in the class. That is exactly what what Wendy Barton did in Florida.
If that isn’t bad enough here is the second situation. So your five year old comes home and complains that his teacher doesn’t like him and that he kids don’t either. While your child is saying all this you are getting progress reports that are well mixed in the good marks and the bad. The teacher says sometimes your child is disruptive and can’t keep his hands to himself. But when you ask the teacher if you should set up a “behavior plan” with the teacher she says she doesn’t have time. So it must not be that big of a deal. Well, many times you would say that the kid is being to sensitive to limited correction and isn’t really reading the situation properly. Well, what if that kid started acting out at home? The parents of Gabriel Ross decided to send a tape recorder in his pocket to see what is really going on. The results were shocking.
What they heard over four hours of tape shocked them. Woodward can be heard telling Gabriel that he had “tortured and tormented” her and other teachers all year.
“I’ve been more than nice to you all year long and you’ve been ignorant, selfish, self-absorbed, the whole thing! I’m done!” Woodward says to Gabriel on the tape. She continues: “Something needs to be done because you are pathetic! If me saying these words to you hurt, I hope it does because you’re hurting everyone else around you.”
Gabriel can be heard crying on the tape.
Now I am hearing some people say this is evidence of a bad school system and that is why you should homeschool. I am looking at it a little differently. Apparently all the training these teachers got didn’t prepare them to actually deal with kids. I think this should be empowering to any parent who has ever doubted that they can teach their own kids. Do you think the home environment will be healthier than this? Now, I am not saying that all teachers are like this because they aren’t. But, all the training can’t be the end all and be all to teaching your child so have a little faith in yourself, your intelligence and your love. You can do it!
Technorati Tags: Alex Barton, Gabriel Ross
So here we all meet again. Let’s strap in as Top Chef goes to Puerto Rico! Now why I am not a feminist let me just point out that for the first time 3 of the final 4 are women. You go girls!
Going into this Lisa is definitely the under dog so let us see how long she lasts.
Quickfire Challenge:
This will determine who makes it to the final challenge. Our guest judge is Wilo Benet. The challenge was to make 2 different fritouras containing plantains. They had 40 minutes. Stephanie said that she had done some practicing with plantains (smart!) but they still weren’t her favorite ingredients. Wilo didn’t like that Antonia didn’t have enough integration. Wilo wasn’t really happy with Richard’s components. Wilo loved Stephanie’s and thought that Lisa did a good job but hers could have been better. Stephanie won!
They were then invited to a party in Old San Juan with traditional music and local food. Now hopefully they will all pay attention because in other seasons they need this information again.
There will be a garden party with 100 VIP’s and chefs. They each will get a whole pig and they need to make at least 2 dishes using different parts of the animal. Then they bring out some of the eliminated chefs:Dale, Andrew, Spike and Nikki. Stephanie’s prize is that she gets to assign the sous chefs. At this point she could totally rook Lisa but she decides to pair people who work together well. But since Lisa doesn’t get along with 3 of them she could only do so well, she got Andrew. Apparently Stephanie has known Dale for about 10 years. They will have 30 minutes to look at the kitchen and plan the menu. Then the sous chefs will be going to the local produce market while the finalists will be butchering their pigs. Then they have 2 hours to prep with another 5 the day of the party.
Stephanie & Dale: Chicharrones (crispy pig skin) Fruit & Prosciutto Salad, Coconut Pork with Plantain Pancake, Pork Satay on Sugar Cane
Richard & Spike: BBQ Pork Shoulder, Pork Belly with Pickled Watermelon, Ham & Beans, Ribs with Malta Glaze
Antonia & Nikki: Pork Belly with Sweet Peppers, Pork Sausage with Pigeon Peas & Rice, Curried Pork
Lisa & Andrew: Yucca & Pork Rellena, Citrus Braised Pork Belly, Adobo Roasted Pork Tostone
Just into planning and Andrew thinks Lisa is going wrong by doing Puerto Rican food. So then they go to market. Andrew seems lost since he doesn’t speak Spanish. Dale gets Stephanie black plantains, he has experience with them. Lisa gets medieval on the pig and seems to be having trouble whereas Antonia just needs a knife. When the sous chefs return a bit of chaos breaks out just do to space. Lisa is her usual bleak self. As time on the first ends it looks as if Stephanie’s pork belly may have been left out.
The next day Dale is sniffing it and Stephanie says they aren’t using it. She has no idea how hot it was and she isn’t going to risk getting any one sick. Antonia’s rice isn’t turning out and she tosses out what may be the first batch. 30 minutes until service they come outside to start cooking.
Service starts and the judges hit Stephanie first and seem pleased. Richard wants to redeem himself from the Quick Fire. Richard has great stories to go with each dish. When they visited Lisa it didn’t seem that Padma finished her food. Antonia did pigeon peas but no rice to go with it. The only negative thing said by any of the guests was that the pigeon peas were a bit dry.
Judging Table:
Tom really liked Richard’s pork belly and Stephanie’s salad but he didn’t think that Antonia and Lisa were as good. So Richard and Stephanie were up first. Tom said that Richard did some good self editing to simplify his food. Wilo loved Stephanie’s satay. Richard won by unanimous vote and as a reward he got a 2009 Corolla. Then Lisa and Antonia go back. Lisa said she thought her dishes were strong. Tom wanted to know why she went Latin instead of sticking with Asian. Gail felt Lisa’s puree was way to sweet and that she focused on the garnishes instead of the pork. Wilo didn’t think her tostones had balance. Antonia felt her pigeon peas could have used more cooking. Antonia said she didn’t want to have it so refined so she served them all on the same plate. Gail said that puddled them all together. Gail said there were elements of every one of Lisa’s dish that she didn’t like. Gail thought Antonia’s mistake was being rustic and home cooked. Tom said that 1 table just didn’t have the crowds around it. Antonia was sent home. Lisa says to Richard and Stephanie that she knows that they are disappointed that Antonia was going home but a congrats would be nice.
I have to say that I am shocked. I never thought Lisa would make it to the final 3. So let us see who will win it all!
So here we meet again for a drama pack episode of Hell’s Kitchen. If the previews are any indication it should be very interesting.
So at the end of the last episode Ramsay switch Matt and Jen back to their teams of origin (Blue and Red respectively). As we begin this week, no one is happy.
We get an early morning call where all the chefs are loaded into cars and blindfold. They were taken to the roof of the soon to be Ramsay’s new restaurant, London West Hollywood. We now have all the chefs combined into 1 Black team. Then they went into the empty building and Ramsay was showing a little of how things are going to be. Then back to Hell’s Kitchen.
We are having our first individual challenge. They each got a protein ingredient and 45 minutes to make something with it. The only dish that had a problem was Bobby’s with tough duck. Christina and Jen were in the top two with Jen winning it. She got to go to Vegas to visit last year’s winner, Rock. She got to take 1 person with her and chose Corey. The punishment was taking delivery.
Christina is playing it smart by taking charge. She got to delegate but was also checking things off. That is good because that has bit people in the past. Matt was very angry and also angry at Christina for taking control. Matt seems as if he is going completely around the bend and Christina seems to be the target.
Jen and Petrozza on appetizers, Bobby on fish, Corey on veg and Christina and Matt on meat. This is going to be a show. I think Christina has any easy job just showing up Matt.
In 30 minutes Jen and Petrozza have out half the appetizers. Over all, the communication is down the toilet. It was frustrating Corey and she looked as if she was going to cry. Both Bobby and Christina try to cook 2 different proteins in the same pans. Then meat was coming back for being raw. Corey burned her hand and Ramsay told her to go to the medic and she was refusing because she was trying to work her station. She ends up going and then got to come back. Matt and Christina seemed to be having problems tracking their orders. Entrees didn’t go out for a long time. And then they started moving and Matt was messing up on the meat. Matt was complaining about having a headache and about getting yelled at. Matt was spiraling and wouldn’t respond to people and kept saying he had a migraine. Then he said he had no feeling in his handshttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.video.gif
Add Video and Ramsay tossed him out of the kitchen so he could go lie down. Then Jen left rice on at Christina’s station and it burned. So Ramsay sent everyone out of the kitchen.
Ramsay sent them to the dorms for them to come to a consensus of which 2 should be up for elimination. Everyone (except Matt) agreed that Matt should go up. He was very sure in himself that he won’t go. For the other nomination it appeared to all be up to Petrozza, again. In the end Christina was the other nominee. Corey said that she should also be up but the team didn’t agree but Ramsay did agree. Corey said while she was bad at least she didn’t give up like Matt. Matt said he wasn’t the worst, Christina was. Ramsay asked Christina if she should leave due to her having the least experience and she said that she only had 3 years of professional experience but had been cooking much longer than that. In the end Matt got tossed out. Finally!
Technorati Tags: Hell’s Kitchen, Fox
So the Works for Me Wednesday is on beating the summer boredom. Well, we here at the NerdFamily got this as a Christmas gift a while ago and man is it great. It is like Legos in the way that you can build a million things but better. That is because you have to also grasp a bit of the cause and effect to get all the marbles to go in the ways that you want. This is a great thing for kids and parents of all ages. It is also neat because you can keep building on the set until you have a full menagerie of fun!
So Shannon over at Rocks in My Dryer gave us a theme for this week’s Works for Me Wednesday, “Mom, I’m Bored”. So I was really thinking about how to deal with this issue since I homeschool. But even though I school pretty much all year, a lot of our activities (both for kids and mom) stop so our life changes also. The saving grace for me is structure and a schedule.
Now, that doesn’t mean that everything is time but generally mapped out. There isn’t any sleeping until noon and staying up to midnight going on around here (don’t I wish;). We set up the basics: breakfast, errands, chores, crafts, computer, etc. I think knowing how life is going to happen and that in a set time you will change activities will prevent to much blahs. Also set up an activity day a week. Last summer my kids got together with friends every Friday (usually going swimming). It gave them something to look forward to and a motivator for good behavior.
Balance is the key. I think to many people figure that because it is summer nothing should be planned but that is just begging for a good nagging. If worst comes to worst, put them to work and do all your deep cleaning for the fall!
Eye catching title, eh? I saw this over at Crafty Pod and fell in love. I am going to pass this one on to our MOPS craft person and possible just make a bunch of these for my NerdPie! Go check it out and if you make one, send me a link to your finished project.
This is a great dinner bread. I mix up all the dough in the bread machine and then let it do the final rise in a loaf pan and then bake it in the oven. I use a Pampered Chef Load Pan. I put the ingredients in the order I list them but if you are going to do it by hand, use what ever normal grouping you use.
Ingredients:
1 1/1 cups Water
3 tbs Margarine or Butter
1 3/4 tbs Honey
3/4 cup Parmesan Cheese, grated
1 tsp Salt
2 tsp Garlic Powder
3 1/2 cups Bread Flour
2 tsp Yeast
Process:
Dump it into the bread machine and set for dough. Then put the dough in a greased loaf pan and cover. Let it rise in a warmish room (I turn on the oven to preheat) for an hour. Then bake at 400 degrees for 25 minutes, depending on your oven. You know it is done when it is golden brown and you can knock on the crust.
Recently Stemicks Heritage Foods came out with Little Einsteins milk that is rBST hormone-free and enriched with Omega-3 DHA and I wanted to share a link for a $1 off coupon. What makes this different is the Omega-3 DHA that is also found in baby formula. DHA is important in the development of the brain, especially from birth – 5 years of age when the brain increases approximately 3-1/2 times in mass. DHA is the primary fat in both the brain and retina, and ensures that cells in the brain retina, heart and other parts of the nervous system develop and function properly. Each eight ounce serving providing up to 32mg of DHA. Disney Little Einsteins milk is available as a 64-ounce package in low fat 1% and reduced fat 2%. So go, take the coupon and try it;).
(this is a sponsored post)
I am happy to announce that EricaG is the winner of my The Next Food Network Star Giveaway! She has 48 hours to get me her information.