Beautiful Blogger

Desi over at Olivia Carolyn http://littlebabybateman.blogspot.com/ (seriously copy and paste it, don't be a lazy ass) has given me The Beautiful Blogger Award. Isn't that awesome? She has a great blog going and her daughter is just adorable, so you should go check her out.

Here's what I need to do:

1. Thank the person who nominated me for the award.

2. Copy the award & place it on my blog.

3. Link the person who nominated me for this award.

4. Share 7 interesting things about myself.

So it looks like I'm up to number 4. Ok let's think.

1. I have a really big crush on Captain Feather Sword from the wiggles. If we take Isabella to the concert next year, I think I might actually do my hair and make up. Google him, he's pretty cute.

2. I have 5 tattoos. I love tattoos. If I could walk around covered in them I would.

3. I am a freak about To Do lists. I make lists all day. If I do something that isn't on the To Do list, I write it on the list just so I can cross it off.

4. I skeeve ketchup. Like I won't touch it in the grocery store or take it out of the fridge for Andy. Come to think of it, I don't like any condiments. Not mustard or jelly or mayo or sauer kraut. None of it. Makes me wanna gag. Isabella is in trouble if she likes ketchup.

5. I cry whenever I throw up. Like sob like a baby. It's pathetic.

6. I hate to talk on the phone. I'd rather text, e-mail, or just meet up and talk in person over coffee.

7. When I was little both of my feet turned it. I had to wear special shoes that were connected by a metal rod to straighten them out. I wore it until I was 9 months old. I still don't walk straight. I have a bad over pronation that causes me to wear out the inner sole of my shoes. Oh well, anything for new shoes.

My Little Martian

Imagine if you will, a foreign being living for 9 months in a darkened water world where they are constantly being jiggled and soothed by their hosts walking and the sounds that they hear are the whooshing of blood and the gurgle of digestion. This is how babies start their lives until they are brought from total darkness into a bright hospital room with doctors and nurses and a million well wishers oohing and ahhhing over them. They arrive into our lives virtual aliens. And sometimes they do things that make us think that they surely are from another planet.

Isabella is an alien sometimes. She likes to sleep in the corner of her crib. And I don't mean near the corner, I mean her head is literally shoved against the bumper. I've tried putting her at the bottom of the crib, but she always worm crawls her way up to the corner, where she sleeps with her head smooshed and her booty in the air.

She doesn't cry when she has a poopy diaper. There's been times when she's been in her jumper and I was unloading the dishwasher or making lunch or whatever and I'll pick her up and she'll be stinky. But she won't cry. It can't be comfortable to jump around with poop in your butt.

She's starting to crawl, but sometimes when she wants something badly she goes on her belly, and all 4 limbs start flailing, like she's trying to swim or fly where she wants to go. Just see for yourself.

Nutso right?

Also, she has this new thing where when I'm walking around the house with her she leans her head all the way back so she can stare at the ceiling. Which means I have to cradle her head with my hand while she is in an almost complete back bend.

She also likes to play with the wall by her changing table. There's nothing on it. It's just a plain purple wall. But it really seems to amuse her. She hits it, laughs at it, and talks to it. Maybe walls are cool on her planet.

Hopefully I'm not the only one raising an alien. Tell me about your little Martian.

Super Secret Sauce

Ok, so it's not super secret, but it is absolutely delicious and I went without this sauce for almost 3 years. First I was vegan and then vegetarian and now I'm back to just being regular. I enjoyed being veggie and vegan when I was doing that and when I stopped enjoying it I went back. But the first meat dish I ate was this sauce. My grandmother used to make it all the time on Sundays when she lived in Queens. She's the kind who would want everyone to enjoy themselves so I don't think she'd mind me blasting it out on the internet.

Let me just warn you that this is not a quick sauce, it takes about 4 hours, and it is not healthy even slightly. I have a recipe for a quick cooking sauce that's still very authentic so you can e-mail me and I'd be happy to send it to you.

Additionally, the quantities of the ingredients are rough estimates. It was never a "written" down recipe, but I tried to get as close as I could. However, a little more of this and a little less of that isn't going to make a big difference. I want you to make it your own. Let me know how you like it.

Ingredients For the Sauce

London broil

Garlic (3-5 cloves finely chopped or grated)

2 cans crushed tomatoes (28 ounces each, preferably imported from Italy)

2 cans pureed tomatoes (28 ounces each, preferably imported from Italy)

2 cans tomato paste (the little ones)

20 leaves of fresh basil or about a tbsp of dried

Oregano (about a tsp)

Italian seasoning (about 2 tsp)

London Broil

Italian Sausages (sweet or hot, estimate 1-2 links per person)

salt and pepper to taste

Ingredients for the Meatballs

Chop meat (the family pack)

Garlic cloves (5-7 cloves very finely minced)

Fresh parsley (about a fistful finely chopped)

1 cup of bread crumbs (wet them)

2 eggs

salt and pepper

1/2 cup Locatelli or Peccorino Romano cheese

1. Preheat the oven to 350. In a large bowl mix together all the ingredients for the meatballs. Roll into large balls (hehehe) and place in a large tray and bake for 20-30 minutes until brown on top. They will continue to cook in the sauce.

2. In a very large sauce pot brown London Broil in some Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO) and then remove.

3. Brown the sausage on all sides and then remove.

4. Drizzle the bottom of the sauce pot with about a 1/4 cup of EVOO and brown the garlic until it is light golden brown...be careful not to burn it.

5. Add the crushed tomatoes, tomato puree, and past to the pot .
fill one of the crushed tomato cans with water and add to the pot. Stir and season with salt and pepper. Add all the herbs except the fresh basil. Put the London Broil into the sauce. Stir every 15 minutes.

6. 30 minutes later add the sausage and meatballs to the sauce. Bring heat down to med/low Stir every 10-20 minutes for 3 and a half hours keeping the pot slightly covered. Add the basil the last 30 minutes.

Feel free to taste the sauce with fresh Italian bread

Before serving, remove sausage, meatballs, and London Broil. Slice up the meat if it hasn't already broken up into the sauce.

Feed it to your thankful family and enjoy. Make sure you don't have to clean up since your stove will look like it has the measles.

So Here's The Follow Up

I was really nervous to go into work today after yesterday's shenanigans. I kept waiting for my principal to call me into the office. I had a few kids in my class write down what happened. I spoke to my union rep. I was ready.

She never came to get me. So I saw her in the hallway and I just asked her outright what was going on. She basically said that the kid's mother is nuts and has always been nuts and that she pulls something like this every year. So from now on if the kid so much as gets a paper cut send him to the nurse.

Crisis averted. Some parents are crazy. I'm so glad it worked out. I was picturing worst case scenarios.

I Am Absolutely Livid

I'm hopping mad. Like steam coming out of your ears. Hot flashes in your body. Shaking with anger. Let me regale the story for you and you can give me your honest opinion because I would give mine to you.

On Friday afternoon one of my students asks me if he can shut the lights off in the classroom because of the glare on the Smart Board. He's short and the lights are high so I told him no. He is insistent that he can reach them. So I tell him that if he can reach them he can shut them off (knowing that he couldn't). I told him that when he realized that he couldn't reach them to let me know and I would do it for him.

Well the little genius decides he's going to jump up and try to shut off the lights and he scratches his arm. He goes to show me the scrape but he's wearing a long sleeved shirt and I'm not about to have the kid removing clothing in my classroom so I ask him if he wants to go to the nurse. He says no. I tell him to go wash it in the bathroom and give him a few band aids.

No big thing. I didn't even think to fill out an accident report since there was no blood and his shirt wasn't ripped and he wasn't crying or complaining. Well, today his mother called up flipping out that I didn't send him to the nurse because now there's something in his cut and their insurance won't cover it.

WHAT? He had a long sleeved shirt on that wasn't ripped so what the hell was "in the cut"? I didn't even see the damned scrape. He didn't want to go to the nurse so what the hell am I supposed to do? Fill out hours of paperwork on every bump, scrape, and paper cut? We even had a meeting last year where our principal told us to ease up on the accident reports.

I'm so angry that this is even being entertained. Now I have to have a meeting with my principal, which I fully intend to bring my union rep to. I shouldn't even have to justify myself on this matter. The parents are full of shit. What does the insurance need to cover? Band aids and neosporin?

I am so mad to work in a city that looks to crucify its own. I bend over backwards for my students spending hundreds of my own dollars every year on parties, presents, materials, presentations, for what? To get my ass nailed to the wall because some kid did something he wasn't supposed to do and got a boo boo? It's ridiculous. So pray that this just goes away and that my unblemished record doesn't get smutted up for no good reason.

Selfish

I'm selfish. I'm not proud of it. I'm not ashamed of it. It just is. Andy's selfish too. When Isabella came it was a lot more difficult, nay, nearly impossible to be selfish, since becoming a parent involves so much self-sacrifice, and rightly so. However, I do try to sneak in a little selfishness when I can.

Once a week I do something that's just for me. Not for Andy, not for my friends, not even for Isabella because, let's face it, she gets every other second I have.

Sometimes it's big selfish, like a night out with the girls. We get dressed up, go out dancing, drink too much, eat greasy diner food at 4 am. Crash at Christina's apartment and wake up with raccoon eyes and a hangover. This may not sound like fun to you, but trust me it's totally awesome.

Sometimes it's medium selfish, like a date night out with Andy. Maybe we'll get dressed nice and go out to a fancy dinner. Maybe we'll catch a movie. Maybe Isabella will sleep over at Grandma's and we'll kill a bottle of wine and watch bad TV. It's nice because it gives us time to reconnect and remind ourselves that it's important to give our relationship some TLC.

Sometimes it's itty bitty selfish, like a mani pedi or grabbing a coffee after work with a friend or taking a bubble bath with a good book and a glass of wine while Andy does bedtime.

Irregardless (as an aside, this is totally not a real word, but they say it in Mean Girls and I just love it), of what kind of selfish it is, I think it's important to spend a little time on yourself when you can. When everyone else gets a piece of you and there's none leftover, claim a little of yourself back.

Techno Amish

It's no secret to those that know me that I am, less then adept in matters of technology, but what I lack in techy skills I make up for with my good looks (ok, my charm? wit?). I'm not being self-depricating either, my blackberry surely has more uses then a camera and bbm. My GPS kept trying to take me to New Mexico. I have Smart Board Technicians in my classroom so often we're on a first name basis. It's pretty bad.

So now, dear readers, I have some questions that I, for the life of me, cannot figure out. Maybe you can hook me up with some answers since I know you're probably not as in the dark as I am with matters of technology.

1. All the "stuff" on the sidebar of my blog, the buttons, awards, followers etc. I don't like the order they are in and whenever I try to drop and drag them to a new spot it always goes to the top (right under my header). I just want them in a different order. But how?

2. How can I follow someone who blogs on wordpress? Do I need an account? Do I just type in my e-mail? Wordpress scares me.

3. What is Twitter all about? I joined it and I put a button on here, but I don't know what it's all about. Some people have pretty looking pages. How do I get a pretty looking page? Also, why does it say that I'm following Spencer Pratt? I never signed up for him. He's douchetastic.

Ok I'm thanking you in advance for your answers and if you don't answer me, I'm cursing you under my breath in advance.