Beginning of August Faves

How is it August already?  Part of me is glad, because this means that two weeks from today will be my last day of teaching summer school and then a 2  week vacation,  plus the holiday (Labor Day, 3 day weekend) break. Then, back to teaching on September 6th.  It will still be summer although late summer which is actually my favorite time of year!

For now, let's give thanks for the many blessings God brings into our lives.  One way to do that is by listing FIVE of our FAVES from the past week and linking up at Susanne's site.  She is our very gracious host.

• VEGAN CLASS!  Last week, Claire (my youngest, who has been totally vegan for over a year now), and I took a free class at a library in a town to the north of us.  The class was only a little over an hour but it was excellent!  We learned all kinds of things and I learned how to get extra protein and certain vitamins.  I've been mostly dairy free and beef/pork free now for almost 3 years although every once in awhile I will still have crumpled bacon in an omelette.  This is the summer I am getting away from even that.  I do still eat eggs and soft serve ice cream.  But for cereal, I use unsweetened almond milk and for baking (which is rare these days), I replace eggs with ground flax-seed.  We learned about some tricks for shopping vegan and Claire learned that yes, vegans sometimes have to really watch their sugar intake.  We also learned that Canada has done away with the dairy section in their food guide!!  I think that's pretty awesome.  We learned that people in the USA have the worse diets of most other countries and the highest incidences of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease along with obesity.  Some of these facts I already knew. It was very informative and I'm pretty excited to be leaning more and more towards veganism.  For now, I guess you'd call me an ovo-vegetarian.

• BREAKFAST OUT!  Saturday was Dave's birthday so we celebrated by going out to breakfast, which is what he really wanted, to a place called The Breakfast Spot not far from our home.  It was delicious and we got there just as they were opening for the day so we were in and out quickly.  The place really fills up on the weekends.  After that, we did some errands and then he relaxed most of the day while I did some shopping with my youngest for more dorm stuff.  I grilled his steak for dinner while Claire and i had a yummy vegan dinner. (photo below).  Dave wanted to eat while watching a video but I wanted to eat outside on the deck.  He loved the gifts we surprised him with (A board game and the latest book by our beloved Red Sox player).

my vegan (minus the cheese) dinner

• FIRE AND A BOOK! So, the evening of Dave's birthday, he really just wanted to catch up on some ted talks or something so I decided to make a fire in the fire pit (he helped) and we sat together for a bit on the swing which was nice.  After he went in, I had time to just sit and relax with my book. One daughter was out working and the other daughter was out with friends so it was just so nice to have the backyard to my self.  The entire neighborhood was fairly quiet that night too.  It was a bit chilly with temps in the low 60s so just perfect for a fire.  I'm thankful for all of these kinds of moments that summer brings.

• ROAD TRIP! On Sunday, Claire and I went to Vermont to this town.  Oh my goodness, the place was busy!  Many tourists and locals out enjoying the beautiful sunshine and perfect temperatures.  It only takes about 40 minutes to get to Vermont from our house and another 40 to get to the town where we were going...it is actually closer to NH than NY.  The town is kind of an artsy, "hipster" town and they have an amazing vegan cafe.  The cafe has very slow service (they have signs posted that they need another chef and wait staff) but the food is just out of this world!!  We were there for brunch so I chose Wild Blueberry Hotcakes (like muffins), and a sunseed scramble with fresh pressed lemonade with Vermont maple syrup. Claire chose the pesto melt sandwich on whole grain bread and a  seaweed salad plus the Funky Monkey smoothie. We also did a bit of shopping...she wanted to buy some Russian book from a used bookstore.  I actually didn't purchase anything because the dress I had my eye on was too expensive. I did end up surprising her with a very early Xmas gift:  The owner and head chef of the vegan cafe just had a book published with all kinds of recipes for her famous juices, tonics, and smoothies.  Oh my goodness...everything in that book looks amazing.  We will be trying some of the recipes before she heads to college and I told her we can try some when she is home during the Christmas break.  It was a fun day!

• STAFF SUPPORT:  I have had to be the master teacher for the last two weeks at work because our classroom master teacher has been out......she is actually in the process of leaving after 16 years, to go to a different school.  So of course they asked me to be the teacher but I said no.  I want to stick with being just an assistant as I do NOT want the extra paperwork, meetings, home visits and IEP writing plus the annual reviews and testing.  Been there done that in my 20s and 30s.  SO.....because L had to leave for 2 weeks, I did agree to be the sub teacher.  And of course the agency is now looking to hire a new master teacher so we have had a couple of candidates visit our room. The staff on the classroom team plus my direct boss, have been very supportive.  I also have had to keep doing my job of dealing with the emotionally disturbed 5 year old I work with one on one and he has had many major meltdowns this week.  There are some major issues he is dealing with.  So the staff have really rallied around and been running the room while I work with him on some play therapy.  I'm very thankful to have supportive staff...it is truly a blessing!!

That wraps up my week.  We have a busy weekend here...a family picnic out to my sister's farm, and the next day I am hiking. So I will be watching church online again and counting the days until my vacation!

Whatever you have planned, take time to give thanks!!

Enjoy the weekend,