Buttermilk biscuits

After seeing Dorie Greenspan's biscuits, I improvised some of my own, using powdered buttermilk and got those pretty layers. Excellent.

Later, I'll be joining 14 teenagers at a French restaurant in Rockwall. Good kids, of course, but I'm hoping it's not long and awkward. I like working with high school kids...but I'm not the tea party type. But there's French dessert involved, so it can't be all bad. :-)

Homemade Pasta and a Clown Cookie

So, Thursday and Friday, in between giving Benchmark Test, I made some new PowerPoints on clothes, style vocab, vacation activities and travel. Interesting to me. It's from later chapters in the book that we never get to, but stuff I always wonder why we don't learn. So, anyway, that's what I'll be teaching to French 1 next week, of course giving them chances to color clothes and design their own outfit, talk about their summer plans. We'll see how that goes with classes of 30+ squirrely freshmen. I'm always intended to do mostly grammar stuff with French 2, but I have smaller classes, and they're pretty easy to manage.

8 more days. :-)

Also, after my bible study, I made homemade pasta:
I've made pasta before as a re-creation of my Nana's noodles, but always in a small scale. The Pioneer Woman simplified the recipe (Nana included a drying step) and I used whole wheat flour. The second batch I rolled thinner, so the texture was better, more tender and less chewy. The above batch was just tossed with butter, salt and better...and was to be leftovers, but Casey grabbed it on the way out...so I think it's not long for this world.

And, I bought a clown cookie. I think he's quite cute.

BOO!

10 more days...

10 more school days. It's like running a marathon and being at mile 25. One more mile!

But you're so tired and nearly delirious from forcing yourself to go on that laying down in the gutter gets more appealing with every step. Gutter...come to me.

I actually photocopied masses of french coloring sheets during my conference, in case I truly do lay down in the gutter, figuratively. I don't have any more material I need to cover, and goodness knows anything I teach now I'll have to reteach next year. The worry is that they'll sense it's no longer "real" work and then misbehave. It's a double-edged sword...teach, though it may destroy your will to live, or don't teach and watch the carefully managed class dissolve into madness. Madness.

I'll take a poll. What do you think?

Curriculum or Coloring sheets?

Cookies and Women's Ministry

On my new favorite food blog (it's all about chocolate...what's not to love), I saw a recipe for Almond Florentines, a cookie I used to always get from this German bakery, and they looked and were really easy. Almonds, egg whites, powdered sugar = crispy, toasted, nutty deliciousness.
And a little dip in chocolate never hurt anyone.

So, I inadvertently joined the women's ministry team this morning. It started with an email about meeting for breakfast and talking about women's ministry, as my friend sending out the email had been newly named the women's ministry leader at our church. Well...always being up for cinnamon rolls and conversation, I said yes. Had I read later emails more closely, I would have seen: "I know some of you are still praying about joining the ministry team." So when she pulled out the long list of people I'm assigned to pray for this week...*gulp*. But, now that I think about it...it will be a good thing. I've done some leadership/ministry stuff in the past. And it was hard. So I've avoided any kind of leadership for quite a while. But, it's through adversity that we grow, right? And obviously, there's need, so I'll do my best.

As part of the women's ministry we're putting together little gifts for the 20 mothers in our church. Thankfully, that involves making cookies. There, I'm in my element. I made snickerdoodles.
It's recipe I used to make all the time in high school, and now I remember why. Delicious. Great texture. Cakey inside, slightly crisp on the outside, even the next day. I froze most of the batter for next weekend...but I had to make a few to make sure they were good. :-)

from Our Daily Bread

“Man is immortal,” Augustine said, “until his work is done.”

This quotation immediately made me think of my Grandmother. She lived a long life and knew that in it, she had work to do. At 80, she led a Russian man to Christ in the street in Estonia. In the last year of her life, she was teaching a younger woman about the Old Testament Prophets. She was immortal, until her work was done.

I'm including more from the Our Daily Bread devotional...I thought it was really good.

The time of our death is not determined by anyone or anything here on earth. When we have done all that God has in mind for us to do, then and only then will He take us home—and not one second before. As Paul put it, “David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell asleep” (Acts 13:36).

As long as we have the light of day, we must work—not to conquer, acquire, accumulate, and retire, but to make visible the invisible Christ by touching people with His love. We can then be confident that our “labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58). —David Roper