Tandoori Turkey Kebabs

Another keeper recipe from Women's Health Magazine. This time with photos of the deliciousness.

Ingredients include:

1 cup nonfat plain yogurt
2 Tablespoons curry seasoning
1 pound turkey tenderloin cut into 2" pieces
3/4 cup couscous, cooked
1/3 cup dried chopped fruit mix
2 tsp chopped garlic
1/4 tsp ground ginger (or fresh if you have it)

Soak 8 wooden skewers in water while you prep everything. Combine yogurt, curry powder, garlic and ginger with turkey pieces and let marinate for 10 minutes. Assemble turkey onto kebabs and place on grill.

Cook for 12-15 minutes until turkey is cooked through. I also added some veggies as a side dish.

Combine the dried fruit mix into the couscous and pile the goodness onto a plate.

Eat & enjoy.

Middle Eastern Stuffed Peppers

The following recipe is from Women's Health magazine. I made this a week or so ago and all three of us loved it.

4 red bell peppers
1/2 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 8 ounce can tomato sauce
1/4 cup sliced green olives
1/2 tsp. chopped garlic
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. cumin
1 can chickpeas

The original recipe called for brown rice, but I had chickpeas on hand and thought it would blend nicely with the middle eastern flavors. Preheat oven to 4oo degrees. Cut the tops off the peppers and remove the seeds. Place in a baking dish. In a skillet cook beef, garlic, cinnamon and cumin until beef is almost finished. Add raisins and tomato sauce and cook until mixture is hot. Add in olives and chickpeas and remove from heat. Add to bell peppers and cover dish tightly with foil. Cook about 15 minutes until the peppers are tender.

Breckin's Salsa- modified

I'm pretty sure I've posted this before, but since I can't locate it I'm going to share it again.

1 large can tomatoes
2 serrano peppers seeded
2 jalapeno peppers seeded
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 bunch of cilantro
salt to taste

Process all of the ingredients in a food processor. This is fresh, healthy and a great addition to any summertime spread. It takes less than five minutes to make. Sometimes I sprinkle in a little ground red pepper for added heat. This is also fantastic on breakfast tacos.

Infant Boy Gaining on Toddler Girl

We had checkups yesterday for Rémy's 18 month visit and Ben's 4 month visit. Ben is currently almost 16 pounds, Rémy weighs in at 20 lb 1 oz. And Ben just moved up to the same size diaper as Rémy. I'm thinking by the end of the year he'll weigh more than she does!! By the way, Ben is very average with his percentages right around 50-60th percentile. Rémy just made it back on the charts at the 2nd percentile (she had been off the chart completely for the last 9 months).

Answered Prayers

Not many of you know about the Plagge 10 year plan. That's because it's 10 years away. A couple of years ago we started saying we'd like to move out to the country, get some land, have some cows on it to mow the lawn, have a garden big enough to sustain us, etc. We talk about our ten year plan at least weekly and dream about the day we can actually move out to the country.

Fast forward to this week.

Walker had an interview on Monday in Wolfe City, TX. Yes, it's still TX. I know it sounds like Oklahoma or New Mexico or South America for that matter....but it's TX. He was hired on the spot. They were also interested in me even though they did not have an open position yet. I went in the very next day and interviewed and was hired on the spot.

The Principal asked if we felt comfortable working together.

Me thinking, um, hello, we're married.

After being introduced to the Superintendent and more formally being offered the job he informed me that I won't have to worry about Walker, he's putting him on the second floor! ;)

A whole lot has happened this week. We don't know what's going on or where we'll end up. We do know a few things:

1. God knows the plans He has for us and that gives us great comfort.
2. Our 10 year plan involved moving east, although now it's more like a 2 year plan.
3. We'll be working at the same school and teaching some of the same students, increasing our impact.
4. From our house it's an hour and a half drive one way.
5. We're planning to put the house on the market in the next month or so and see what happens.

We're very excited about these opportunities and can't wait to get started working with our students.

Things Learned

I attended seven full days of a teaching seminar a week ago. Here are some of the interesting things I learned....

Questioning is at the core of learning.
70-80% of questions are at the recall level
Most teachers call on overachievers
Teachers give students on average one second to respond
Frequently, teachers give answers
5% of questions are asked by students
Teachers ask an average of 50 questions in any given lesson

"It's not fair to the students if we teach in the same way we learned."

Be a performer, perform 7 shows a day(if that's how many classes you have)

I especially liked this last one and never thought of teaching in this way. The speaker has taught in Austin schools for 33 years, and has no plans for retirement. He suggested that even if you are not naturally enthusiastic and energetic just act like you are putting on a show, and go back to being yourself when you get home. If you are fired up about being at school and about learning, the kids will naturally pick up on that attitude. He also made this same suggestion about pessimists. If you are a pessimist by nature, you've got to at the very least pretend to be an optimist and cheerful otherwise your colleagues and students will pick up on your negativity and dread being around you. He also said that by pretending to be an optimist maybe you will 'accidentally' become an optimist!

We also spent quite a bit of time studying and implementing Harry Wong's classroom management techniques and Madeline Hunter lesson planning(25 hours altogether).

Thanks SOOOOO much to all of you who took vacation time off of work to help watch the kids for the week. I learned a great deal and am very glad I was able to attend.

Bad Mother In Red Chair

Oh Man. I totally just realized that I posted the wrong child's red chair picture. Ben's isn't for a couple of more days. Whoops. Walker and I were just talking yesterday about how the dates get to run together after a while and it becomes more difficult to remember. So I rushed together and grabbed Rémy after nap time to play 'dress up' for the red chair! ;) At least it wasn't the other way around, that way Ben can't play the 'I'm the second child and you always forget about me' card later in life.

Here's our little 18 months old! Her hair gets more curly and crazy every day! She keeps me on my toes as far as learning goes. From the minute she wakes to the minute she crashes at night it's, 'What's this, what's that?" She wants to know, she wants to find, she wants to keep going until she figures out all the answers to her questions. Her new favorite past time is reading to herself. She pulls out every books she owns (which is too many since I work for HPB and feel like I should get her every book she'll need until she's in third grade) and sits in her chair and babbles, occasionally saying a familiar word. She has really blossomed with the sign language, I think she knows approximately 30 or more signs. Many of these she can also say the word, but for the words she can't yet pronounce, this really comes in handy to know what she means. She has started imitating someone's laugh. Not sure who it is. She throws her head back and scrunchces her nose and lets out a 'fake' laugh. She has also become the 'bobo' detector and the 'burp' detector. In fact, if you are a new mom in need of either of these services, she will let you know if your baby has a stinky diaper or needs a wipe to clean up spit up, all for a very nominal fee.

In Red Chair

I'm four months old! I can laugh out loud and smile until my cheeks hurt. With a great effort and much of an ab workout I can turn over. I love my sister and follow her around with my eyes all day long. I've never met a stranger and I love anybody that will smile at or talk to me.

I tried rice cereal for the first time this morning. I wouldn't say much about it, I could take it or leave it. My big sister can now feed me a bottle, and I love sitting in her lap while she feeds me.

Mom can't fit her hand around my thighs anymore. What can I say, I'm a growing boy.

Oliver & Marie finally get married

I have a few things I could say about Oliver and Marie. I'll sum it up in a few paragraphs instead. I met Oliver and Marie in junior high. Marie and I were on the tennis team together. I was second, she was third, so she was always challenging me for second position...and beat me on several occasions!

Oliver was one of the school photographers for yearbook so he would photograph the teams. I then went on to high school with Oliver, having a few classes together. He and Marie started dating late in high school. They continued dating after Marie graduated in 2001, but her family moved 150 miles away. For the last EIGHT years Oliver has made the trek to visit Marie and her family every other weekend. As the best man pointed out, this is 300 miles round trip, 62,400 miles over the last 8 years. He has gone around the world 2.5 times for Marie!



When I moved to UNT Oliver was the only person I knew. He introduced me to Walker, so that Walker could show me around. And it's all mushy love stuff from there. We owe it all to this guy. We were soooooo honored to see this special couple be married.

We really treasured the time catching up with old friends.

Rémy Learning ABC's

This is her first experience with these magnetic letters. I set them up last night so that when she woke up and came in the kitchen for breakfast she would find them.

I thought she knew six letters prior to this, but it turns out she knows ten: a, b, c, e, i, m, o, p, u, y

We have a set of flash cards we have used twice, other than that we sing the alphabet song every once in a while, so I am curious how she is picking these letters up so fast.

Flipping over

This guy decided it was time to turn over today! He was so happy with himself for doing so!

Best and Worst

Do you have a favorite teacher? What's her name and what grade did you have him/her? Why do you remember him/her being your favorite?

I don't have ONE favorite. I have a few.

Mrs. Kuykendall, Galloway Elementary, Mesquite, 1st grade
Mrs. Mauk, Galloway Elementary, Mesquite, 5th grade
Mrs. Taylor, 9-11 Latin, North Mesquite HS
Mr. Melillo, 12th AP English, Forney HS
Mr. Stamper, College Math

I liked these teachers for different reasons. Mrs. Kuykendall loved me and loved to teach her class. She always had a smile and a hug to share with us. I don't remember anything content-wise, but I do remember feeling like she loved me. In 5th grade Mrs. Mauk used the curriculum 'Voyage of the Mimi' and we adopted a whale for the year and received monthly updates from whale spotters about where our whale was and what he was doing. We did lots of group work this year and had lots of fun learning. She was a strict teacher, but not harsh. Mrs. Taylor loved Latin and loved her students. She played tennis, drove a red convertible and would remind us that she only had five years until retirement. We dig into Greek and Roman mythology and history and translated many texts. I saved her life one day, securing my place as her favorite student. Mr. Melillo led a very lax class but still had the students' respect. He has read most any book on the planet and taught a college level class, which helped me test out and get college credit. Mr. Stamper taught Algebra, Trigonometry, Geometry and Calculus at the community college. He knew his math front and back and also knew how to explain the 'how' and 'why' of math....which is essential if you want your students to want to learn math. This is the first math class I enjoyed taking and ended up taking every class he taught.

I'll not name my worst teachers, as some of them I can't even remember their names. In general, they were uncaring or not concerned with me as a student, did not know how to maintain control of their classroom, and were not structured enough with their content to make any real progress.

Do you remember your best and worst teachers? What impression did they leave you with?

119 Best Things about Dallas

In this month's issue of D Magazine there's an article on the 119 Best things about Dallas. I always enjoy reading D Magazine. I especially enjoy their 'best' issues. I won't list all 119 things here, but here are a few of my favorites....

1. We have manners
50. You can wear cowboy boots with your suit
52. Because making $47,000 here is like making $143,269 in Manhattan
54. Because we get things done
100. We love a good fight
101. We love our dogs more than ourselves
115. We embrace homegrown restaurants
116. Only someone from Dallas could be left for dead in a blizzard on the side of Mt. Everest and survive.

Did you know?

I remember watching this a couple of years ago. I have been at a teaching seminar all week and they played this updated version. It's pretty captivating.

Did You Know?

Something Beautiful Podcast II

Listen to part II of Annie's interview on the Something Beautiful podcast.

Sister Brother Smiling Photo

What a Stud Muffin!

Such little hams!

Aunt Melinda sent Ben her signature blanket in the mail this week, so I was snapping a photo of him with his blanket so that I could email her the picture.

It was totally by accident that Rémy crawled up in the chair with him and then they BOTH started smiling. They're starting to become more familiar with one another. It'll be so fun once they can play together and get into mischief together!

Something Beautiful podcast

Hear part I of my sister Annie's life story on the Something Beautiful podcast!

Top Picks for Employment

In this economy I consider any job a good job. I love where I work and would be delighted if they would pay me three times what I make, let me have summers, holidays and weekends off. And although I am excited about teaching and about the future it is with much reluctance and hesitancy to change that I look for new jobs.

Here are my top five school districts in order of preference and the reasons why: (If you are looking for a teaching job in the DFW area, these are some great schools to consider. Most of this information was gathered through the districts websites or by word of mouth.) Although I am not closed-minded about private schools, I am mainly considering public schools because of the retirement system, better pay, better benefits and I feel that public schools did me a great justice in my own education. I also feel like I would have a broader reach and greater impact by teaching in public school.

1. Lovejoy ISD- offers the best technology program in Texas. Very small school district, the middle school and high schools have been operating less than two years. There are three elementary schools. To recruit the best staff they offer the best salary of any other district in our area, first year teacher starting salary $44,700. Another perk of working here is in-district child care/ preschool program for teachers' children. In addition to the salary, math teachers receive an additional $2,000 stipend. Lovejoy is just east of Allen and would be about a 30-40 minute drive. Although I have applied to their online system I plan to visit four of the schools and introduce myself personally next week.

2. Prosper ISD- in the low end as far as salary goes, first year starting salary of $40,000. The perks would be working in a small town with small schools, $1,500 stipend for math teachers, and $9,000 bonus for teachers whose class passes the TAKS test with 90% or better. The bonus would definitely make up for the low salary, and although professional accountability is very important to me I do not necessarily want to 'teach to a test' or be under pressure to perform. Prosper is about a 20 minute drive from our house. I have visited three schools in PISD and introduced myself as an interested applicant.

3. Melissa ISD-pays about the same as Prosper but has an opening for a 5th grade math/ science teacher. Incidentally, my science scores were the highest on the exam that I took, followed by math, social studies and last language arts. The drive to Melissa would be about 40 minutes but this position would give me the opportunity to find out if I really only want to teach just math or if science is an option too. I have applied online to three positions and plan to visit in person next week.

4. Frisco ISD-Convenient, pays well at $44,500. The fastest student body percentage growth rates of any other district in Texas. Offers an in-district child care program/ preschool for teachers' children. Membership to the AMAZING Frisco Rec. Center that just opened last year, normally $800 per family. FISD also offers a tuition reimbursement program for pursuit of higher degrees. The only down side is that I've heard health insurance is high. I have personally visited 6 schools in FISD within a five mile radius of our house and plan to visit more.

5. Little Elm ISD-On the higher end of the pay scale, about the same as Frisco. Has in-district preschool structured program for teachers' children at a great rate. Has $1,500 stipend for math teachers. Little Elm would be at least a 20 minute drive from our house.

I have also applied to McKinney, Lewisville, Allen, Celina, Farmersville, Anna, a couple of Charter schools, Highland Park, & Princeton ISD's. Most school districts will be winding up the school year next week and starting to fill open positions for the '09-'10 school year.

Trip to the Zoo--Take II

We took another trip to the Zoo on Memorial Day. This time we had Walker and the GrandPlagge's. It really wasn't too bad for it being Memorial day and the weather was just right. All of us had a fun time, here are more pictures of the zoo.

Grammy & Rémy ride the Carousel

The Group crossing into the zoo

Testing the water at the Children's zoo

Observing the chickens and sheep in the barn

Dada showing Rémy the pigs

Rémy, Dada & Grammy look at the giraffes

One pooped little girl!

Two Math Teachers for Hire

Walker received word this morning that he scored a passing grade on his certification exam!! Now we're in a little friendly competition for jobs! We're qualified in different ways. He scored better on his exam 95% compared to my measly 93% and he is specifically qualified to teach math while I'm a generalist--certified to teach math, science, social studies or language arts, both of us grades 4th-8th. This will be interesting to see if we get calls from any of the same schools. Now the fun begins!

Role of a Lifetime

Walker and I went to see Fiddler on the Roof at the Fair Park Music Hall yesterday afternoon. Both of us love musicals--both in movie form and on stage. It's been a while since we've been able to see one on stage...I think the last one we saw was Phantom of the Opera a couple of years back. Anyway, Walker's all time favorite musical is Fiddler on the Roof. Ken & Debbe know this and knew the show was coming to town so as a Christmas gift to us bought us tickets to the show, along with a voucher for babysitting. We have been anticipating this show for six months! Incidentally, this is Topol's farewell tour. He has played the role of Tevye for over 40 years, you would also recognize him as the movie Tevye. He is 72 years old and started playing this role shortly after serving his three and a half years in the Israeli Defense Force. The play started as a short story based on a surrealistic painting. The show was fantastic. He gets around that stage like someone in his thirties. The show is no longer in Dallas so I can't recommend that you go and see it immediately, but I am so glad that we had this unique opportunity to see the person who made this role his own.

On another note, this show increased my love for being a Dallas girl. I love that we can go to a musical and have people in jeans, cowboy boots, baseball hats, shorts, cocktail dresses and suits feel so completely comfortable and at home with one another. I also love that the row behind us thought we were 'kids' and were so eager to talk.

In Red Chair 3 mos

I am three months old! I can grab for objects, coo and smile at you if you smile at me. I like to sit up straight and tall and look out on the world, so what if my head bobbles a little bit? I like my bumbo chair and my exersaucer and mama thinks I might be drawn to the German words on Baby Einstein. I am a very happy and smiling baby. I had my first taste of apple and my first wagon ride thanks to my big sister.

In Red Chair (a day late) 17 months

I almost forgot about Red Chair series yesterday, but while we were out playing in the yard remembered and just brought the chair to us this time.

Grandpa & Grandmother's house

Playing with an exercise ball

Rémy offering Grandpa a kitty figurine

The girls sharing a chair and toys with Grandmother

Amelie having fun with the cat toy!

Ben enjoying the ambiance of the new bedroom!

After going to the zoo the other day we stopped by for a visit with my Grandparents. They have spent quite a bit of time and energy redoing their bedroom. I wish I had taken more pictures of the room, it looks amazing...I could spend all day in there. We also got a tour of the trail through the front yard, which looks like a nice place to sit and have morning coffee or read the paper. The girls had fun investigating the new things while Ben napped the entire time.