Merger On

Today, the Justice Department approved the merging of Northwest and Delta airlines. Faster than a speeding bullet, the companies closed the deal and as of midnight, Eric will officially be a Delta pilot.

Pollster.com

One of the social studies teachers at school likes to check up on the latest election news on Pollster.com. It's a pretty neat site. This is a copy of the map they post and update quite often. (Unfortunately, I couldn't get their html code for a real-time map to work on this post.) You can also click on each state to find out about their current polling outcomes for the presidential election or you can switch over to state races.

Boo!

Count Spudula watches Eric study.

More Fall Colors, Plus a New Recipe

Went for another walk this afternoon during half-time of THE Ohio State University and Michigan State game. It was a snoozer of a game and Ohio State won pretty handily.

Also tried out another new recipe from beckyhiggins.com. She has quite a few, easy-to-make recipes on her blog. This is a good recipe for using up old bananas, and it contains chocolate!

(P.S. I make photocopies or print off copies of recipes and then slide them into a page protector. I then store them in a three-ring binder, which I find pretty handy for organizing. The page protectors also keep the recipes from getting dirty during the frenzy of cooking.
I also use page protectors at school- I keep my original copies and answer keys in binders as well. By using the page protectors, I don't have to punch holes in any of my papers.)


Black-Bottom Banana Bars
1/2 c. butter, softened
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 c. mashed ripe bananas (about 3 medium)
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. baking cocoa

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla; beat until thoroughly combined. Blend in the bananas. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl; add to creamed mixture and mix well. Divide batter in half. Add cocoa to half; spread into a greased 9" x 13" baking pan. Spoon remaining batter on top and swirl with a knife. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until the bars test done. Cool.
(Note: I decided it would be easier to put the chocolate part on top, so my picture shows the layers reversed.)

Fall Colors

Eric and I went out for a walk this afternoon. We found a whole flock of ducks on the pond. It sounded like they were telling jokes- every so often we would hear "Wah, wah, wah, wah!!!"

Q: What time do ducks wake up?
A: At the quack of dawn.
"Wah, wah, wah, wah!!!"

Brrrr - Our Chilly Weekend

The weather finally turned chilly after a fairly warm end of the summer. Eric arrived home Friday evening. He is changing airplanes which requires about a month of training in Minneapolis. I have a fall mini-break in a couple of weeks, so I'm planning to head up to Minneapolis to spend time with David, Kelsey, and Stooey! In addition, my parents will be there during that time as well. I'm really looking forward to heading up there.
Yesterday, Eric did a lot of studying of his new airplane while I dozed on and off watching college football. I did manage to finally wake up and watch #17 Oklahoma State beat #3 Missouri. One of my former students is the quarterback at Oklahoma State so it was a fun game to watch. He did a great job.
This afternoon I drove Eric to the airport and then stopped at a rec center to swim on the way back home. I haven't gone swimming in a while, but enjoyed the exercise. I'm currently avoiding grading quizzes, but I should get to work.

Friday-night tired, but happy Eric is home:

Eric enjoying one of his favorites- cheesecake (recipe at the end of this post):

Eric heading back to Minneapolis:

The new sculpture at DIA is a huge blue mustang. It has bright red light bulb eyes and actually killed the artist when it fell on top of him while it was being created. I have dubbed it, "El Diablo":


Petite Cheesecakes:

Found this recipe in an add in Martha Stewart magazine:

Petite Cheesecakes
Ingredients:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 Tbsp. sugar
4 Tbsp. butter, melted
3 pkgs. (8-oz. each) cream cheese, softened
(I used the less-fat cream cheese)
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
2 tsp. vanilla
1 (21-oz.) can Comstock® or Wilderness® More Fruit Cherry, Blueberry, Peach or Strawberry Fruit Filling

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Line large cupcake pan with paper liners or use 4-inch cheesecake pans.
(I used a regular-sized cupcake pan with 12 spots. I probably had enough cheesecake mixture to make 6-12 more, but I had used up all of the graham cracker crumb mixture. Next time, I'll try to divide up the crumb mixture into more spots.)
3. In a mixing bowl, combine the crumbs, sugar and butter. Divide crumb mixture equally among the pans and press the crumbs to form an even layer. Bake for 3 to 5 minutes. Cool completely. Reduce the heat to 325°F.
4. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat cream cheese on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the sugar and continue to beat until smooth. Scrape the inside surface of the bowl. Reduce the speed to low and add the eggs, lemon juice and vanilla and mix just to incorporate.
5. Fill liners 2/3 full with cheese mixture. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool completely.
6. Top each with fruit filling. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Makes 4-6 servings
Prep time: 20 minutes
Bake time: 20-25 minutes

http://www.piefilling.com/

Teaching Odds and Ends

Just finished the second evening of parent-teacher conferences. Yesterday we went from 4-8 p.m.- I was pretty busy for the first couple of hours, which made the time go by much faster. This evening we held conferences from 3-6 p.m. I'm not really a huge fan of conferences- I'm not sure you would find many teachers who are. In this age of computers, parents can log in and check attendance and grades, or send emails anytime they want. Luckily, the two evenings went well. I really enjoy when I have the chance to catch up with parents whose kids I've taught before. I don't enjoy spending seven hours in a gym; especially when no sports are involved.
In other exciting news, I have two "Calculator Caddies" to hold my classroom set of graphing calculators. It will be much easier to keep track of them now. I had to re-number the second caddy, which I did with good old puff paint. I think the last time I used puff paint was when I decorated matching Christmas shirts for me and Julie, when Julie was about 8 months old. I'll have to see if my mom or Marita can find a picture of that. I'm pretty sure I was sporting braces AND a perm! Ah, junior high.

(The book title in the top cartoon says "All I really needed to know I learned in Advanced Statistical Analysis.)