This week was a pretty typical week at school. My kids were surprisingly relaxed after the break - I didn't really have any behavior issues, which is not normally the case after so much time off from school. Usually I have to "re-train" them! I also gave all of my classes tests on Friday, which is my favorite type of day. My kids are quiet, busy, and easy to manage. I just have to walk around making sure no one is cheating. We did get an unexpected extra holiday when school was cancelled on Thursday for "ice" and "freezing road conditions." I put those in quotes, becuase when I woke up and took the dogs out, nothing at my house was frozen! In fact, I had wet grass and puddles in my backyard. However, I'm sure there was some type of treacherous conditions out in my school district, because our superintendent always makes sure there is a very good reason before closing our schools. Plus, it seemed like every other school district was closed as well. So, I was able to sleep in, run errands, and finally take down my Christmas decorations. If you don't know why my decorations were still up, read my last post! I am so glad to have that chore done, but now my house looks so sad - I miss Christmas! This also meant I had one less item on my list for this weekend, giving me time to work on other fun stuff, such as keeping my resolution to keep my blog updated.



In other news, Neal and I made an awesome soup this week - Spicy Bean Soup from Giada de Laurentis (Everyday Italian on the Food Network). It was delicious and very spicy. Before I give you the recipe, a few tips:

• Be careful with the coriander. If you use too much, it will bring out too much spice from the other spices.
• Don't add extra crushed red pepper if you don't really like spicy foods. Neal always adds extra crushed red pepper to everything, and this time he was sweating from the spice.
• Make sure to give the soup plenty of time for everything to soften up and blend.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 onions, chopped
• 2 celery stalks, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 6 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup chili powder
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper, optional
• 2 (14 1/2-ounce) cans diced tomatoes with juices
• 1 (11 1/2-ounce) can tomato juice
• 1 (6-ounce) can tomato paste
• 1 (3-inch) piece Parmesan cheese rind, optional
• 2 teaspoons salt, plus more to taste
• 8 cups vegetable or chicken broth
• 2 (15 1/2-ounce) cans garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed
• 2 (15-ounce) cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup dried green lentils
• 3 cups broccoli florets (frozen or fresh)
• 2 zucchini, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds
• 2 yellow crookneck squash, cut crosswise into 1/2-inch thick rounds
• 1/2 cup freshly shredded Parmesan
• 1/4 cup thinly sliced fresh basil leaves

Directions:

Heat the oil in a heavy large stockpot over medium-high heat. Add the onions, celery, carrot, bell pepper, and garlic, and saute until the onions are translucent, about 15 minutes. Add the chili powder, coriander, cumin, oregano, and crushed red pepper, and cook for 2 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes with their juices, tomato juice, tomato paste, cheese rind, and 2 teaspoons of salt. Add the broth, garbanzo beans, cannellini beans, and lentils. Stir in the broccoli, zucchini, and yellow squash. Bring to a simmer over high heat. Decrease the heat to medium. Simmer, uncovered, until the lentils are tender and the mixture thickens slightly, stirring often, about 20 minutes. Season the stew to taste with more salt, if desired.

Ladle the stew into bowls. Sprinkle with the shredded cheese and basil, and serve.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we did! This is also a great meal to make as a couple - Neal and I split up the prep duties, so it was much easier.
Have a great week - here's a picture of our dogs in their winter coats! Too cute!

I'm Allergic to San Antonio!

So, I'm not really allergic to San Antonio, but on our New Year's trip down south, I had major allergy issues. Something must have affected me with all of these different cold fronts and parts of Texas that I visited over the holidays, because I had watery, red, itchy eyes and I COULD NOT breathe through my nose. I also went through so many kleenex that my nose was rubbed raw - definitely, not fun. I am still getting over the sniffles, but I am no longer relying on Mucinex or Claritin for relief. We met our good friends Brantley and Adrienne in S.A. to celebrate their 5 year wedding anniversary, ring in the new year with fireworks, etc., and eat good food. We had a blast! Adrienne and I were also able to get in some good shopping time, as well. It was so fun to look at little girl baby clothes with her, since she just found out that they are having a girl!

We also spent a day at Sea World, and I felt like a kid again. My favorite show was the sea lions, Clyde and Seymour - I thought it was hilarious when they "barked!" Plus, there is a little sea otter that makes random appearances throughout the show - what a cutie! I also touched a dolphin. Even though they are have a very tough skin, it is definitely as smooth as I expected - I have always wanted to touch a dolphin, and I remember visiting Sea World as a kid and not being able to do this each time, so I guess this was a kind of a dream come true for me.

While I am so happy that I experienced a New Year's Eve with over 250,000 people, I think once was enough. It was cool to see the countdown on the needle in San Antonio followed by an excellent fireworks display in Hemisfair park, but I did not enjoy trying to get back through the crowd to our hotel after it was over. We tried to stay together as a group, but we were separated when a fight broke out between some girls and Brantley had to take a punch to shield Adrienne from getting hurt. Let me just say that as a junior high teacher, I can attest to the fact that girls in fights are vicious, and this fight was no exception. I couldn't tell if it was two separate groups fighting or if it was two guys on one side and two girls on the other side but who happened to be fighting over the same thing, but whatever the situation, we were caught in between and for a few minutes, I was worried we would be stuck there. It finally moved on, and we were able to get out, and I was so grateful to make it back to our nice, warm room at the Hyatt. Can I take a moment to say that combined with the cold weather, the large group of people, and the difficulty of keeping up with everyone in a group, that this was not the place for young kids, however, I saw and tripped over multiple strollers and kid carriers. I have to ask the parents who think this is a good idea, "Really? That seemed like a good parenting decision? Really?" Hopefully, I will not become one of these crazies whenever we have kids.

Neal and I just thought that our trip was ending on Saturday and that we would have a day to relax before school started back up, but my car had other plans! We left San Marcos (yes, we hit up the outlet mall) at about 6:00 pm and began the trip back to Fort Worth, and just south of Austin (in Buda, which I am told is the outdoors capital of Texas), the car would no longer accelerate. Neal steered us over to the shoulder of I-35 where we sat for about an hour and a half calling our insurance's roadside assistance looking for towing companies and any place that might still be open to fix our car. When we realized that nothing would be open on a Saturday night, we found out about a Firestone that would be open on Sunday morning and called a tow service to take us to a nearby hotel for the night. I would like to thank Brantley and Adrienne for putting up with our multiple calls to have them look up hotels, towing services, and auto repair shops in the area on their Iphones. It is currently Neal's wish to have an Iphone, but I am actually trying to fight it, because I do not want to get one and become totally dependent. However, I will concede that Iphones did help us on Saturday night!

We ended up meeting Casey, our tow truck operator who shared with us that last year on New Year's Eve, he was hit in the jaw by someone with a sledgehammer who didn't want his truck to get repossessed. Casey only has four real teeth on his bottom jaw, has metal plates in his face, went through extensive plastic surgery, and had to go on disability for most of the year. Fortunately, the guy was caught and is now in jail for the crime. My face hurts just thinking about what he went through! So, Casey towed us to a brand new Comfort Suites where we actually had a very relaxing wonderful night. We hung out at the hot tub, had cookies and milk, finally had a king size bed (our hotel in San Antonio only had rooms with two double beds available by the time we booked our room), and walked to McDonald's for a gourmet dinner of chicken nuggets and french fries. In the morning, we called another tow (after a delicious filling breakfast) and spent the day at Firestone while they took apart my car and put it back together again. The problem was apparently the timing belt which is supposed to be replaced after 60,000-70,000 miles and I have about twice that many miles on my car. This belt is supposed to have notches all the way around that fit into other parts of my car, but my belt had places where those were completely worn off. We are so lucky that it didn't cause any other serious damage and that they were able to replace it and get us back on the road that afternoon.

As I was sitting in the waiting area with Neal, I began to think about how grateful I am that we could afford to get our car taken care of, that we were even able to go on this trip in the first place, and that we both stayed remarkably calm during the entire situation (even though, we were both panicking on the inside). I thought of this, because Neal and I both like to watch Sunday afternoon football, and as we were watching the Texans beat the Patriots (Yay for their first winning season!) and Dallas shut out the Eagles on a little tiny television that had a glare from the flourescent lighting in the waiting room, the manager at the Firestone said to us, "Sorry, you have to watch this on such a bad television." I wanted to say, "Are you crazy? I may take for granted that we have a nice TV at home, but I am so blessed to get to watch TV at all." There were quite a few people that came in to get their cars worked on who couldn't pay for stuff that only cost $50-$70 or who had to spread out the repairs their car needed, because it would be too much at once. Even though we aren't making as much as we did at one point, Neal and I are still very well off compared to much of the world. We are truly blessed, and I am thankful to have been reminded of just how much I have to be grateful for. And, now my car is working again - even more to be thankful for!

We did make it home last night, and I am now back to work preparing my kids for their semester exams next week. Sorry I don't have pictures this time around, but I let Adrienne take them all, since it is silly to have two cameras taking the exact same pictures all weekend - plus I am kind of scared to see myself in the photos from this weekend since I wore glasses most of the time and everyone kept asking me why I was crying (I wasn't really crying, but my allergies really were that bad.). I promise to have more pics in the next post! Happy New Year!