1. http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif 

    At some point I saw an article talking about how a better way to respond to terrible events brought to us daily by the media was to focus on the good news, on our positive things. 
    I believe it said, "on the helpers."
    Oh yes, it was Mr. Rogers, thank you Norma for that link.

     "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping." To this day, especially in times of "disaster," I remember my mother's words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world."

    To some extent I've been mulling on that at the end of this year, the helpers, perhaps as we are told we are falling off a cliff or that the world is ending, or the serious issues of gun violence haunts you, it might be a good time to just get very real about who you love and to think of them and to hold onto that. I feel a responsibility to write a list of those positives in my year, and yet my year was pretty much a time where I was focused on my failing personal health, very internal, on some very serious worries, my mother and father aging, and things that hummed in my small spaces. When your children all leave home it's so odd really. 
    I like that quote about working in my own garden.
    St. Francis of Assisi was hoeing his garden when someone asked what he would do if he were suddenly to learn that he would die before sunset that very day. "I would finish hoeing my garden," he replied.
    Saint Francis of Assisi (c. 1181 - 1226)
    Still I am thinking about how to talk positively about the year.

    So I will share about some of the year through that lens.

    My Son

    He graduated high school and I got to attend his graduation. That meant a lot. My mom fell in the parking lot, that was serious and she was bleeding, thank goodness for bandaids. It was way too sunny for her. But she saw all the children graduate. And enjoyed our lunch after.  He did something very interesting. He had me teach him how to drive. I taught him to drive and he got his license. I didn't know I could but it was a calm and very good thing to experience.

    My mother

    I've lived with my mother for almost every year of my life. I'm very glad that this year we were together even though I haven't handled this year with her too well. I know she understands that. Her mind is going through serious things, so during the year I've been home with her when she can't remember if she ate, or what word she was trying to find, or if she put her key here or there. She left a pot on the stove months ago, and I came home early just by intuition finding her in terrible smoke that was hard on her-it damaged her lungs, for weeks and scared me. I got home just at that moment before bad went to nightmare, my son was watching her and fell asleep upstairs and I think it might have killed him. I thank God for my timing. Mom had a stroke a couple years ago, and she's fought this aging with anger and bitterness at times, but she also holds her own counsel. And at times I cannot believe how she doesn't just say how hard it is. I know something much worse is going on now. As I look back on the year I know we had good food for her, safety, our family, routines. It isn't easy to admit to my failings in having patience or in making it perfect for her. But I feel like we have lived a life where I could put my mother at least sometimes ahead of my own selfishness. She loved her Christmas presents- although she tried to give them back to me. If I reverse my guilt and pain (over her being so frail, aging, my fear over losing her) and think about it in a different light, we have shared my children, we have understood one another, it's pretty comfortable, familiar for her-a home. We valued being together.
    In all of everything I still can fundamentally ask her opinion on something serious and hear her advise. She ate two huge plates of spagetti tonight.
    We kind of smiled at that.

    She's very brave.


    My Daughter

    All her life Sophia worked ten times harder in a sister's shadow. 
    She graduated early, did an internship, demonstrated again that she casts quite a beautiful image herself. I'm so proud of her accomplishments. I was caught in a mess at work, and like when my son was born and this workplace produced an acting out Principal threatening my job-who later lost his-I lost something valuable with my child. The focus. The positive here is that my child is struggling so hard to give me the opportunity to fix this. To connect. To just hold up how thrilled I am. She's gotten her degree! She's home for a bit, but I think what I see is her deep desire for a relationship with a mother -oneI think she feels in some ways let her down. 
    When you see someone love you this way it's hard not to think about that.
    The deep care she extended even over this holiday-I don't miss that love.

     Fewer regrets and Losses
    I thought about how the internet allowed me to connect to many friends from my early life, different folks that shaped me. It's amazing, even one of my earliest friends with a daughter with my name! 
    These things helped me to think about my years here in this life.


    This year I started losing my eyesight. I don't know- something was really wrong in March through May it was so difficult. I'm told it's iritis and a viscous seperation but it seems like the blinking and the flashing lights and the whiteness might mean something else is in play. I'll try to go to LA over it for 2nd opinions. Anyway it scared me for sure. It seemed related to stress.
    It was really in large part due to a friendship that was always so incredibly stressing.
    I made some basic decisions.
    I'm not exactly proud of them but I feel I put my needs out there and tried to make some fundamental decisions and changes to help the stress. I thought long and hard about people that drain your happiness. I thought about patterns of behavior that made me feel worse.
    I changed things, admittedly awkwardly, but I did do that.

    These are good things.

    Simple things.

    I dealt with a great deal of pain, loss this year, kept focused on my students, kept spiritually questing and held at the front of my mind just being myself, one day at a time.
    That was good too.

    I certainly saw others giving, trying, working, helping, learning, messing up, doing what humans do but I tried to limit my scope to what I am doing.
     It doesn't make for fascinating reading.

    I got a book about Poetry for Christmas called "Writing the Life Poetic"
    It has been interesting reading, it suggests lots of exercises around poetry. I'm trying some, thinking of how to use it, thinking about the enormous joy in writing.

    If this year were an image, this one might be a Turner.
    Just an impression.
     
    This is all I have to give.

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  2. http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif 
    I'm reflective.
    My blog has changed remarkably.
    It used to be a joy for me, something compelling, and allowed me to look back over my teaching since 2005. The art projects especially. But then I was hauled in and had to defend a remark I put on Facebook that was put in other's mailboxes in my workplace. And then my blog was inspected by others. Now I am reflecting upon that.
    At some point I'll write about it, but not right now. 

    What I am going to talk about is something I learned from Thomas Wolfe.
     “He had learned some of the things that every man must find out for himself, and he had found out about them as one has to find out--through error and through trial, through fantasy and illusion, through falsehood and his own damn foolishness, through being mistaken and wrong and an idiot and egotistical and aspiring and hopeful and believing and confused. Each thing he learned was so simple and obvious, once he grasped it, that he wondered why he had not always known it. And what had he learned? A philosopher would not think it much, perhaps, and yet in a simple human way it was a good deal. Just by living, my making the thousand little daily choices that his whole complex of heredity, environment, and conscious thought, and deep emotion had driven him to make, and by taking the consequences, he had learned that he could not eat his cake and have it, too. He had learned that in spite of his strange body, so much off scale that it had often made him think himself a creature set apart, he was still the son and brother of all men living. He had learned that he could not devour the earth, that he must know and accept his limitations. He realized that much of his torment of the years past had been self-inflicted, and an inevitable part of growing up. And, most important of all for one who had taken so long to grow up, he thought he had learned not to be the slave of his emotions.”
    Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

    How you see a person, situation, event and how you write about it can be very dangerous, difficult, off, it can ring true and be right and be rejected. Even when your intent is to examine it to improve what you do people will not believe that if all they do is sit in judgement ON YOU or see themselves, their flaws as projections on your mirror-not their own work to do. So understand your past, formulate the basis for change, but read You Can't Go Home Again
    And yet now I am compelled to write.

    Several years ago in my blog, and I've closed 3/4ths of it to prevent further trolling, for now, I wrote that I wanted to improve my writing. What I wanted to do was be a more thoughtful and processing person. All too often teachers teach that do not write daily. That do not produce actual content, that are not engaged in a reflective process. It is not infrequently I see teachers engaged in declarations about editing or grammar if someone types out a short email. Yet they have never produced a piece of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, research except in college, and that was done free of the risk of criticism they so readily bring now to another. (college as I recall being free of much in the way of critical commenting)  When I jumped on blogging my thought was to look back through the rolodex of my teaching and into my days and to write. 
    I've written daily now for 6 or 7 years. It probably isn't an exaggeration to say I need ten more years to see enough growth, but I have engaged in writing- seeing my ideas and my flaws.
    Certainly.
    It can be remarkably painful to read a piece from the past but it can also be refreshing, delightful to meet a person there I only know as a shadow.

    One thing I started writing fifteen years ago was a story of working in South Central Los Angeles in a violent area. Looking back at the beginnings of my work I think the biggest underlying thing I was mulling over was the violence, the disparity, the death, and the loss of potentials I saw along racial lines and poverty lines. I couldn't and I can't to this day defend this, explain this, contextualize this. All I could do was bear witness to what I saw.

    I've written that.

    And I will reflect upon all the years in schools I've known as I go forward I'm certain.

    2012 is coming to a close. Typically I look back on the year as I start to look forward to a new one. This seems impossible because this was a year of particular pain, loss, betrayal, and times when I knew tough things. I'm not sure what I'm "allowed" to say and what I'm not. Not really. However it also was a year another daughter graduated school; I started another year teaching, and did a few things that I took pride in accomplishing.  

    Today I saw an exchange on-line in a thread from a possibly very controversial article about gun control. Terms in it, and the raw premises, offended a very kind woman who would like us to move to other ways of talking. Unfortunately I saw West reflecting in that language the outrage over what has happened well contained in the data on violent deaths broken down by statistics for those in poverty especially in inner cities. She was talking of a new day, moving on, learning, changing, about color blindness, about the need to see the loss of any child to violent crime as the tragedy it is. 
    I am afraid to say that I am exactly what she called me out correctly for, bitter.
    Not too long ago I went in a drug store. Before Sandy Hook. Somehow in the conversation I was asked if I was a teacher. When you buy things in 20's like glue sticks this happens. In the course of telling her I was buying for my class this woman shared how her son was lost to a drive by killing.  It flowed naturally but I'm not sure why, I think she was recalling buying for him and being a parent volunteer helping his school when he was little. It seems to me that she had moved to our area from LA but I may be adding that in, I can't find it in my notes. It was very hard to stand with her in the short time an exchange in the drugstore lasts to talk about the loss, grief and sheer nightmare she lives. She felt he was not gang involved- but that was how it was "handled." Her son died at 17. He was Hispanic.
    It seemed to me standing there that this was sort of the back drop of my years, stories that were shared about the loss of human lives that are so much more important than the betrayal of a friend or the dickerings of a place not caring about the essence of your work.
    "Your permission slips to show artwork need improving."

    Sadly that day, in October, in a Walgreen's on a corner I felt like all I could do was reach out and hold this mother's hand. I'm a mother too. And I know life is precious and I could see how precious her child was to her. She posed the question in her way, "Does anyone care about my son now?"

    I hope that we are reaching times we can think about the statistics on crime, poverty, race, and violent crime. And her son. I am hoping that we can think of solutions and look at how many people are no longer here. 
    In the book I originally set out to write I was posing turning the idea of a savior on its ear-in that it might well be in losing one of these children we lose the possibility for great leadership, great minds, great healers, great teachers. They who follow us save us, in memory, in hearts. I felt years ago if we failed to educate we might be doing the same, losing all possibility.
    I titled it Teaching Jesus after several students named Jesus I've taught.

    One day I will have the skills to finish and refine that book.
    And the time, freedom, and apparently the legal support and do so.
    But today I'm thinking about the children I taught, where I taught, and the potentials that their lives brought. A woman in a drugstore in a lonely job trying to survive without her reason to go on beside her because of a person that used a gun and killed him comes into my view.

    “[T]he essence of belief is doubt, the essence of reality is questioning. The essence of Time is Flow, not Fix. The essence of faith is the knowledge that all flows and that everything must change. The growing man is Man Alive, and his "philosophy" must grow, must flow, with him. . . . the man too fixed today, unfixed tomorrow - and his body of beliefs is nothing but a series of fixations.”
    Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again


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  3. http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif


    art teaches math

    Let's look at snowflakes.
    Perfect for the night before....
    "cutting snowflakes is good for teaching the interior and exterior angles of polygons, estimating areas of shapes, rotational symmetry, radial symmetry", sylvia puglisi



    My daughter uses art to teach math.

    She specifically is using snowflakes at the moment.
    Hers are exquisite. 
    She is a snowflake designing person.
    I see patterns for them online as well.
    I enjoy each year reading Snowflake Bentley to my children. 
    When I go back to school my students will enjoy learning about crystals and cutting winter snowflakes as a part of our polygon work.
    I'm going to try several kinds of snowflakes including these.

     Nice examples:









    Snowflake movies here.
    And hope I'm not in hot water for linking this interesting article.
    This one got a definite laugh all around the room.


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  4.  http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif

    I believe in free speech,
    & great speeches,
    & great speeches.
    & great speeches.

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  5. http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif
     

    I am for peace.

    I suggest hiring an art teacher for every school.

    This is my proclamation.

    Perhaps the NEA should say the same.



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  6. http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif 

     Some lessons are tough.
    Every Christmas I face the knowledge that things didn't go well with my family.
    If I missed that last night my father called to remind me of what being hated is.
    No one walked in my shoes exactly, and many wear worse I know, but I can certainly take this to inform my own actions.
    No concern over my safety teaching believe me.
    No -"I've been worried hearing of this shooting, are you safe? Well?"
    He's not involved in feeling anything like that.
    No inquiry into how my days are passing.
    No love for our past days.
    Just a ball of raging blame.
    It's doubly saddening because of the fact he has so much back pain, and also because his actions a long time ago set up circumstances that did a lot of harm to those in his then family.
    These are the tough lessons personally.

    I discovered once again that when faced with something utterly unfair, and believe me I'm as flawed as any human,  and that is aimed at me, I cannot break down and speak well to it.
    So I know that.
    I discovered once again that I really go on for my kids.
    One called immediately after this by some miracle because somehow she knew.
    And that was as important as all the rest of this in terms of a lesson.

    My father never felt that the things I did had any value.
    My talents were ones he felt useless, and he wasn't interested in what I had to say.
    He was so involved with rage too that his lens was incredibly distorted.
    And a truth is not something he really has he gathers pieces.
    Broken pieces.
    Unfortunately this bleeds into all of the family.
    I'm sure my lenses are crappy too.

    But I know he's got a lot of things wrong.
    I do care about him and I tried to take care of my mother for 53 years.
    I know that I failed by going into art and then teaching in his eyes -and not a "science field" as he directed. I'm now 53. I've not got the health to deal with it. It makes me sick. But the degree of hate he has isn't explained by this.
    I don't think I'll ever understand that hatred.
    I know that he has inflicted a lot of pain because he never even remotely got a hold of his temper. I know he gave some help with money (and he held his $ to hurt as much as he gave to help), I grew up, but that he justified things no one can.
    By telling a story that was not true.
    I know I avoided him and fled out here and then couldn't really afford to see him.
    And now I don't know how to handle it. 
    I just don't know what to say.
    I lose the guy that grew flowers or that was smart and taught classes or that had good in him in these fogs of his raging.

    Other than that it just devolves into what I remember and how it felt.

    Somewhere along in my life I read a Buddhist monk talking about abuse. He said essentially that if terribly harmed one could act on it by working with others. He used the example directly-if abused as a child maybe the most constructive thing to do would be to work with children as a teacher. I came to that intuitively, not through a highly thought out plan. I just felt a strong importance in helping young people into good lives. And I knew what it was like to get hit, to be told I was an idiot, to crawl on the ground or to throw myself in front of a little brother to stop a belt with my body.
    I knew things we were never supposed to say aloud.
    That was essentially one of the reasons for his call-how dare I talk to someone in our hometown he doesn't like and fail to call him.
    I don't even know.
    I just couldn't call, that is all, nothing else.
    He's getting older, I have to face the loss of both parents, it is not an easy time for me.
    And a friend would understand.
    I've always been the one required to call him.
    For six months I just couldn't.
    He wasn't the only one, there were a few others I could no longer deal with- one took away my happiness, others I could not think of what to say, or I lost a way through it.
    I wasn't feeling anger or resentment, or that things would ever be different or anything.
    Longing for that is gone.
    I knew I could not help his pain.
    That was on my mind and I understood it better through my own journey through cancers, pain, back injury, syringomyelia and just ill health.
    I know I was never someone he wanted.
    I've accepted that too.
    I didn't think on and on about the past anymore.
    I knew that I felt avoidance and that all the patterns of our family dynamics seemed injurious to all of us.
    I just didn't do anything.


    He, like a few others, have given me the feedback that I'm wrong to write, wrong to speak, wrong in what I do, wrong.
    That silence from me is the only thing that can be tolerated.
    And that even my thoughts are wrong.

    Or as he put it what kind of stupid idiot is ever on the internet.




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  7.  http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif

    I cook. Sometimes the comfort foods of childhood.
    White Chocolate Cake
    From Ferne Vincent

    Okay the cake

    1/2 cup boiling water over 1/4 lb. white chocolate (you can get that bulk say in a Trader Joes)
    2 cups white sugar
    2 1/2 cups flour (sift 4 times)
    add baking powder (1tsp.) and sift again

    4 egg yolks
     4 egg whites beaten stiff
    1 can Angel Flake coconut which since you can't get that anymore means like a cup

    1 cup butter
    1/4 tsp. soda
    1/4 tsp salt
    the 1 tsp baking powder mentioned above)
    1 cup buttermilk
    1 cup chopped pecans
    1 tsp vanilla

    Cream butter and sugar . Add egg yolks one at a time to this . Beat well . Add white chocolate mixture and stir . Add flour alternately with buttermilk and vanilla. Don't overbeat. Mix in coconut and nuts. Then fold in egg whites.
    Bake at 350 for 25 minutes  in 3 layer pans that were greased and floured.

    Icing
    I call this candy

    2 cups sugar
    1 small can milk(5 1/3 oz.)
    2 sticks butter(really)
    2 tsp vanilla

    Cook to soft ball stage..Recall you can do this by dropping it to test it in ice water.
    Beat with mixer to thicker spreading consistency.

    Enjoy. Yum.

    Candy

    Aunt Belle's Brown Candy

    3 cups sugar
    1-cup light cream
    2 tbsp. Butter
    ¼ tsp. Baking soda
    ½ tsp. Vanilla
    2/3 lb. Broken pecan meats

    Melt 1-cup sugar in heavy skillet. Pour slowly into saucepan containing 2 cups sugar and cream, which has been brought to a boil. Cook to firmball stage(246 degrees on candy thermometer), stirring frequently. Remove from heat, add soda, stir vigorously, add butter and let stand for 10 minutes. Add vanilla and beat until mixture is thick and loses shimmer. Blend in nut meats; spread in greased 8x12 inch pan.

    This was originally in Better Homes and Gardens in 1941


    Peanut Butter Fudge

    2 cups granulated sugar
    1 cup milk
    ½ stick butter
    pinch of salt
    1 cup peanut butter
    1 tsp vanilla

    Mix sugar, milk, butter and salt in a saucepan. Boil, stirring frequently, until it forms a soft ball in cold water. Remove from stove and add peanut butter and vanilla. Beat until creamy and pour into buttered 9x9 pan. Let cool before cutting.

    Sarah Infamous Toffee


    On to the toffee….
    1 cup chocolate chips (it says milk but you can use regular semi sweet)
    1 cup butter
    1 cup sugar
    1 cup chopped almonds or walnuts

    Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar . Stir and stir until it turns like gravy and thickens to light tan.
    Add 1 cup chopped almonds. Stir and stir constantly until it turns light caramel color and use ice "H2O" test. (drizzle into water(iced) should be crispy not chewy)

    Pour on ungreased cookie sheet, spread ¼ inch thick (Carla is thinner) If you need to blot off excess butter with paper towel. Or pour it off from pan. This happens sometimes when you make it sometimes not especially if the heat was just a tad too high at the beginning and the stirring not continuous but it doesn't really hurt the results.. Pour on 1 cup of the choc. Chips they will melt in a minute or so, spread them over the hot toffee with a knife, sprinkle on chopped nuts, cool break up. It takes about 4 hours for the choc to refirm up, less if its cold outside and you put it out which I do in the winter on a back table. But I have to speed it up popped it in the fridge for an hour if I needed it faster.

    All things Jello


    Red Velvet Salad

    1 # 2 can crushed pineapple(drained)
    1 package lemon or lime Jello large (I only use lime)
    1 ½ cups boiling water
    ½ cup pineapple juice
    1 large package cream cheese(8oz)
    1 envelope Dream Whip
    ½ cup milk
    1 large package strawberry Jello
    1 ½ cups boiling water
    1 large box frozen undrained strawberries

    Dissole lemon/or lime Jello in 1 ½ cups boiling water . Add the ½ cup pineapple juice. Beat the cream cheese and sti into Jello. Add the pineapple and chill. Beat Dream Whip with the ½ cup cold milk. Stir into Jello. Chill until firm.
    Dissolve strawberry Jello in 1 ½ cups boiling water. Add frozen strawberries. Stir until thawed. Spoon overtop of pineapple mixture.

    From Jane Adams and 1st Baptist Church Morgantown, WVA around 1962


    Sub Lime Loaf
    (hokey title but it is really good)

    I can't give the accreditation…

    1 cup Flaked coconut
    ¼ cup butter
    1 ½ cup vanilla wafer crumbs
    ½ cup sugar
    1 cup evaporated milk (chilled/whipped)
    1 pkg. Lime jello
     1 cup boiling water
    2 tbsp. Lemon juice
    1 cup pecans
    1 jar(sm) maraschino cherries drained
    1 can crushed pineapple

    Saute coconut in butter until golden brown. Add crumbs and mix well. Put half of this mixture in the bottom of a 9x9x2 inch dish. Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Add sugar and lemon juice. Chill until mixture begins to congeal. Add the whipped evaporated milk, nuts and cherries. Also crushed pineapple. Mix well. Pour into crumb mixture and top with remaining crumbs.
    Chill thoroughly.
    Serves 12 to 16

    Raspberry Blueberry Salad
    1 family size package of Jello-raspberry
    2 cups hot water(boiling)
    1 ½ cups blueberry juice from drained blueberries plus remainder water (here I just buy a can of blueberries in the fruit section of canned fruit but I do recall her using frozen)
    When you make up this as Jello and it starts to congeal add blueberries. Then take ½ a cup of sour cream and swirl through the salad . That part is always a mess. Not too much swirling or it looks like cream pie.


    Pies



    Mother's Lemon Meringue Pie Filling


    5 tablespoons corn starch
    2 cups water
    1 cup sugar
    ¼ teaspoon salt
    3 egg yolks(slightly beaten)
    2 tbsp butter
    5 tbsp lemon juice
    2 tsp. Grated lemon rind

    Mix in the top of a double boiler, ½ cup cold water and 5 tbsp corn starch. Blend in sugar and salt. Add remaining water when blended. Stir constantly until mixture boils. Cover. Cook over boiling water 10 minutes more. Gradually pou hot mixture over 3 beaten egg yolks. Stir constantly. Return to double-boiler and cook 2 minutes longer. Remove from heat. Add butter, lemon juice, and rind. Mix well. Cool and pour into baked pie shell.

    Meringue
    Beat three egg whites stiff. Gradually beat in 6 tablespoons sugar. Pile on top of pie. Bake in a slow oven (350) for 15 minutes.

    Oh this goes in a baked pie shell which always sets me back so as I said I go get one from that nice store made section but mom whips it out of thin air. Recipe for crust below. Cook first.


    Lemon Chess Pie
    If you like lemon this pie is wonderful, from Virginia traditions and a lady named Mrs. Harvey Seal.

    Line a 9 inch pie pan with pastry:
    Mom makes hers with 3 cups flour, tsp salt, she sifts it and then measures the 3 cups , sifts again with salt, then puts in a cup of Crisco cut in with a pastry cutter, then she takes a tablespoon at a time of ice water using about 6 or 7 tbsp. At most! Then she balls it up in two balls (two pie crusts) then she rolls this out after making in balls between waxed paper as she feels inadequate rolling without that. (what a joke her pies are fantastic but these are her words. Roll our as thin as possible. Peal off waxed paper on one side, fit in pan, peel off the other side. Then she pinches the top edge as a pie crust. You end up with 2 crusts tho these recipes are for one-so make two!

    Put in a large bowl:
    2 cups sugar
    1 tbsp. Cornmeal
    1 tbsp. Flour

    Toss lightly with a fork.

    Add:
    4 eggs unbeaten
    ¼ cup butter melted
    ¼ cup milk
    4 tbsp. Grated lemon rind
    ¼ cup lemon juice

    Beat with a mixer until smooth and thoroughly blended. Pour into a pie shell and bake at 350 until top is golden brown and filling is set.

    Mom's Pecan Pie

    A Virginia cook needs to have a good pecan pie recipe to call themselves a cook. Like pralines are to New Orleans or divinity to the south. Anyway this one was from her home.

    1 cup white sugar
    1 cup white Karo
    3 eggs
    ½ tsp. Salt
    1 tsp. Vanilla
    ¼ cup butter
    1 cup pecans

    Use spoon not mixer.
    Pour in unbaked pie shell
    Bake at 350 for say well mom can't recall and I know until set.(35 min?) Her memory is better than mine but today she won't just give me a guess saying she can't recall. Grr. This is worth doing……if you like pecan pie. I almost go under when I eat it-very sweet.



    This pie came from a teacher in Cheat Lake School in WVA my first job as an art teacher…


    Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

    1 16 oz. Carton sour cream
    3 tbsp. Flour
    3 tbsp. Light brown sugar
    1 egg beaten
    1 unbaked 9 inch graham cracker crumb crust
    2 cups fresh blueberries
    ½ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

    Combine first four ingredients and beat well. Spoon half of mixture into crust. Combine blueberries and ½ cup brown sugar . Spread evenly over sour cream mixture. Top with remaining sour cream. Bake at 400 for 25 minutes. Chill several hours before serving.


    Cookies
    Most of these are mine.

    Freda's Sugar Cookies


    2 cups granulated sugar
    1 cup butter

    Cream them well.
    Add:
    1 egg (well beaten)

    Sift together and I sift, measure then sift:
     (as we learned to do at our mom's knee and I guess in Home ec. Too)
    4 cups flour
    1 tsp. Soda

    Add that in alternating it with 1/3 cup milk
    Then add 1 tsp. Vanilla.

    Chill in refrigerator several hours or overnight. Roll thin(very) just a little dough at a time using flour and I use a wooden board, cut in shapes with a cookie cutter. Sprinkle with colored sugar. Bake at 325 for about 6 min but I find I take out when edges are just turning but not all over cookie brown. You get a feel for them after a few times .
    Only use real butter….hey she was a dairy lady all the way and lived a 98 year life free of almost every illness except a stroke at 98. But that was partly due to home grown veggies and pure living.

    Dream Bars
    Mom loves these, so does everyone when I make them. But to me they are strictly ones I "want to like",  so I can resist….that's good

    ½ cup softened butter
    1 ½ cups old fashioned brown sugar(your guess is as good as mine I just use what I have)
    1 cup sifted all purpose flour

    2 eggs
    ¼ tsp. salt
    1 tsp. vanilla extract
    ½ tsp. baking powder
    1 can moist pack coconut
    2 tbsp all purpose flour
    1 cup chopped pecans

    Cream together butter, ½ cup old fashioned brown sugar and one cup flour until crumbly. Pat out into greased pan, 9x9x2 . Bake in moderate oven 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
    Beat eggs add vanilla extract and remaining 1 cup old fashioned brown sugar with 2 tablespoons of flour, salt and baking powder. Mix well. Add coconut and nut meats. Pour over baked mixture when somewhat cooled.
    Return to oven and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes, cut into 1 ½ inch pieces and remove from pan. Yields approx. 3 dozen dream bars.



    I attended Woodburn Elementary School, 4 –6th in Morgantown WVA. This recipe was given to me by their cooks

    Fudgy Oatmeal Cookies

    4 cups sugar
    1 cup milk
    1 cup butter
    3 tablespoons cocoa
    2 tsp. vanilla
    1 cup peanut butter
    6 cups quick oats
    pinch salt

    Combine first 5 ingredients and boil hard 1 minute. Blend in vanilla and peanut butter. Add oats and mix well. Drop by teaspoonfuls on waxed paper on cookie sheets. Makes 4 dozen-guaranteed to be gone as soon as finished. If too soft you under boiled and if too hard over boiled. So you get the hang of it after a few times….


    Carla Caballo's Cream Sugar Cookies

    Cream together:
     1 cup shortening
    ½ cup brown sugar
    ½ cup white sugar
    1 beaten egg

    Mix :
    2 cups flour
    1 teaspoon cream of tartar
    ½ teaspoon baking soda
    1 teaspoon vanilla

    Add to creamed mixture. Roll to the size of a small walnut and roll in sugar.
    I use colored sugar crystals. Put on ungreased cookie sheets.
    Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 min. on ungreased sheet.


    Lemon Squares

    1st layer:

    1 cup sifted flour
    ¼ cup powdered sugar
    1/8 tsp.salt
    ½ cup butter

    2nd layer:
    1cup granulated sugar
    2 tbsp. Sifted flour
    ½ tsp. baking powder
    1/8th tsp. salt
    2 eggs- slightly beaten
    2 tbsp. Lemon juice
    1tsp. grated lemon rind

    3rd layer :
    ½ cup powdered sugar
    1 tbsp. Lemon juice
    1 tbsp. Melted butter

    Combine first 3 ingredients. Cut in cut butter. Press into greased 8x8x2 inch pan. Bake at 325 degrees  for 15 minutes. Mix 1 cup granulated sugar, flour, baking powder, salt , eggs, lemon juice and lemon rind. Pour over baked layer. Bake about 25 minutes longer. Cool. Blend remaining ingredients until smooth. Spread over baked layer. Cut in squares.


    But this was from the WVA 4-H, 1968 Cookbook
    Peanut Butter Cookies

    2 cups flour
    ½ tsp. soda
    1 cup shortening
    ½ tsp salt
    1 cup peanut butter
    1 cup granulated sugar
    1 cup brown sugar
    2 eggs
    1 tablespoon milk

    set oven to 325 degrees. Sift flour, sift again with soda. Combine fat, salt and peanut butter. Mix well. Push sugar, shortening mixture to one side of bowl. Add eggs, beat well with fork, add milk. Mix together. Add flour mixture into sugar mixture.

    Make a ball of mixture about the size of a walnut. With a fork first dipped in water flatten to make a waffle effect.
    Bake 15 to 18 minutes at 325 or until cookies are nicely browned.
    (dough can be chilled in refrig.)



    Peanut Butter Crinkles

    1 cup Mazola margarine
    (and why it is better if you use that I don't know tho I have used butter too)
    1 cup Skippy peanut butter
    1cup sugar
    1 cup packed brown sugar
    2 eggs
    1 tsp vanilla
    1 ½ cups unsifted flour
    1 tsp. baking powder
    1 tsp. baking soda
    1 tsp. salt

    extra gran. Sugar
    Chocolate Kisses unwrapped-I think a small bag

    In bowl beat with a mixer at medium speed first six ingredients until fluffy. At low speed beat in next 4 ingredients. Shape into 1 " balls, roll in granulated sugars. Place 2 " apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 12 to 15 minutes or until Brown. Immediately press in candy.

    Mom's  HOMEMADE Flat Bread  (a favorite with the kids)

    1 package active yeast
    1/2  teaspoon sugar
    1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
    1 tsp coarse salt(we always have a box of Kosher salt)
    1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (out in my spice mess but also in salad section of grocery these days)
    3/4 cup water (might need a bit more)
    1 teaspoon oil

    In the bowl of a food processor if possible combine the yeast , sugar, flour, salt and thyme. Pulse to combine the ingredients. Add the water in a steady stream until the dough begins to form a ball, turn it on to a board and knead with the heel of your hand until the dough is smooth and elastic.

    Coat a bowl with oil. Place dough in bowl , and cover with a damp cloth. Put in a warm spot to rise until double in size about 1 hour.

    When the dough has doubled in size, punch the dough down, scrape it onto the counter and knead it lightly into a smooth ball. Cut into 20 pieces and with a rolling pin out to form very flat 5 to 6 inch circles.

    Preheat a stove top grill pan over medium high. Do not oil. Place bread on hot grill and cook without touching it until you see bubbles on the surface about 1 to 2 minutes . Turn and continue to cook 1 to 2 minutes more or until bread has puffed up. Serve immediately.


    THIS is my Mom's Banana Bread
     We can't give the source as we don't recall. It might be Marie in Wisconsin  However I think it is the best bread she makes.

    3/4 cup butter (it does say margarine is OK)
    1 1/2 cup sugar
    1 1/2 cup mashed ripe bananas (3 medium looking real old )
    2 eggs well beaten
    1 tsp. vanilla 2 cup sifted flour
    1 tsp. baking soda
    3/4 tsp. salt
    1/2 cup buttermilk
    3/4 c. chopped walnuts

    Cream butter and sugar thoroughly . Blend in bananas , eggs, and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda and salt together. Add to banana mixture alternately with buttermilk , mixing thoroughly after each addition.  Add nuts, mix. Pour batter into a greased and floured 9 by 5 by 3 inch pan (loaf pan). Bake at 325 degrees for 1 and 1/4 hours or until done.


    FLAN
    Now this one calls for everything and the kitchen sink and I especially love it. So if you like flan or are going all out on a Fiesta theme or just want a special dessert to impress the world...I think this one is great.

    3 cups granulated sugar
    8 whole eggs
    8 egg yolks(freeze whites for another desert or make meringues later)
    4 (13 oz.) cans evaporated milk
    1 tablespoon vanilla
    grated peel zest of one orange
    grated peel zest of one lemon

    To make this dessert  you will need an 11 inch ring mold  of 12 cup  capacity and a larger pan  containing an inch or more of hot water (water bath) in which to place the custard mold during the cooking. The finished dessert requires a serving plate with a rim which will catch the over flow of caramel when the custard is turned out of the mold.

    First you must caramelize  part of the sugar. use a heavy bottomed saucepan or skillet for this. Heat 1 1/2 cups of the sugar over medium -high heat stirring constantly, until the sugar melts completely and turns golden brown. Be careful not to touch the caramel with your hands-it's hot as blazes. Pour the caramel into the mold, then rotate the mold to coat the sides. Set aside to cool while making the custard. The caramel will harden inside the mold , but will become liquid again during the cooking.

    To make the custard , beat the eggs and extra egg yolks together in a large mixing bowl. Add the milk, the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar , vanilla and grated peels and stir  for at least a minute to dissolve the sugar. Pour the mixture into the caramel-coated mold, cover, and set  it in a larger pan containing an inch or more of hot water. Bake the custard in its water bath at 350 degrees for 1 hour a 15 minutes or longer , until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. You may refrigerate it until ready to turn it out, or let cool for 10 to 15 minutes , then invert it carefully now, onto a serving plate with a rim. Serve warm or chilled.

    To garnish , rim the side of the flan with thin slices of orange ...I myself prefer to sugar these.



    HERSHEY PUDDING (glamour name)  again it's older than I am I think

    3 eggs (separate yolk and whites)
    Small box vanilla wafers crumbled
    (I do this in a plastic bag with a rolling pin or heavy mallet type thing)
    1 cup milk
    12 to 16 oz. Hershey bar
    1/2 cup sugar
    1 cup nuts (recommend pecans unless you hate nuts then leave out but I argue for the nuts)
       Chop the nuts up pretty fine but not into dust
    1 tsp. vanilla

    Add Hershey bars to milk and cook until melted and smooth. Over low heat -sometimes if I find both parts i use the double boiler.
    Add egg yolks (beaten) -so heat was low and sugar. Beat well together. Cook until smooth and thick (pudding) . Remove from heat and add beaten egg whites (you beat until pretty stiff but not too stiff before this step) -I fold it together in a bowl I transfer the pudding to as I can't do this well in a pan. Add vanilla. After this mixture cools a little say 20 minutes, make a layer of crumbled wafers , then nuts. Pour mixture over this or spoon it out, repeat crumbs and nuts then pudding. I do this in a rectangular glass pan 2 by 9 by whatever I think its 15...Let cool, serve with whipped cream.


    FREDA'S COLESLAW

    Freda Vandervort would make this for my birthday.

    Use a big grater, Grate cabbage not too fine 9tho I thought of it as fairly fine) . Add celery salt. Very little celery seed. Sometimes some celery leaves if you have good ones.

    Homemade dressing:
    egg beaten
    1/2 cup white vinegar and a bit of water
    Add two tablespoons of sugar.
    Add 1/4 tsp. salt
    Little piece of soft butter
    1/2 tsp dry mustard
    Add 1/2 teaspoon flour Add a little half and half. Cook until thick (I mean is this cool or what)

    Put 1 tablespoon sour cream , mayo (she used Miracle whip)and this dressing on the cabbage. Now mix and fridge.



    Riz Biscuits
    This is Mom's classic recipe

    2 1/2 cup flour
    1/2 tsp. soda
    3 tablespoon shortening
    1/2 teaspoon salt
    1 tablespoon sugar
    1/2 cake yeast dissolved in 1 cup buttermilk

    Sift flour and dry ingredients . Cut in shortening . Add milk and yeast. Mix as biscuits. Roll 1/4  inch (cut out). Dip in melted butter and place two circles together. Let rise 1 to 2 hour . Bake in 400 degree oven.
    You may dissolve yeast in 1/4 cup lukewarm water and then use 3/4 cup buttermilk.


    This is my favorite recipe for chicken....
    Chicken Maryland Style
    2 chickens cut up
    salt and pepper
    flour
    2 eggs
    bread crumbs
    1/4 cup butter or mild fat
    1 cup milk or cream

    Clean and disjoint young chickens leaving the breasts whole. Put the necks and giblets into cold water and simmer to obtain a cup of stock for the gravy. Sprinkle each piece of chicken with salt and pepper dip in flour , beaten egg and soft crumbs and place in a greased pan. Bake in a hot oven (450) From 30 to 40 minutes basting frequently with one fourth cup of fat melted in 1/4 cup of hot cup of hot water.
    When the chicken is done make a gravy from the fat left in the pan , stirring in 2 tablespoon of flour , 1 cup of milk or cream and the cup of stock made from the giblets. If you like add a few button mushrooms. Serve the chicken with the gravy poured all around it.

    Well for now HAPPY COOKING
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  8. http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif

    There are impossible tasks.
    Creating a classroom culture
     & school culture that meets
      the needs of all its students
    & unites the staff in collaboration
     is not one of them.


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  9.  http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif
     


    I say yes to cookies!
    Christmas cookies.
    Freda’s cookies.
    Nonnie’s cookies.
    Small cookies.
    Dry cookies.
    Sweet cookies.
    Dunkin cookies.
    It is my experience,
    That you can almost always,
    trust cookies.




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  10.  

     http://www.decodeunicode.org/en/data/glyph/196x196/25AA.gif

    What is said or written matters.
    What is not said or not written matters as well.
    Sometimes more.


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I'm a public school elementary teacher from W.V. beginning my career in poverty schools in the 1980's. (I have GIST cancer-small intestinal and syringomyelia which isn't what I want to define me but does help define how I view the meaning of my life.) I am a mom of 3 great children-now grown. I teach 3rd grade in an Underperforming school, teaching mostly immigrant 2nd Lang. children. I majored in art, as well as teaching. Art informs all I do. Teaching is a driving part of my life energy. But I am turning to art soon. I'm married to an artist I coaxed into teaching- now a Superintendent of one of the bigger Districts in the area. Similar population. We both have dedicated inordinate amounts of our life to the field of teaching in areas of poverty hoping to give students opportunities to make better lives. I'm trying to write as I can to the issues of PUBLIC education , trying to gain the sophistication to address the issues in written forms so they can be understood from my teaching contexts.I like to blog from daily experiences. My work is my own, not reflective of any school district.
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