Queen of Rambles

I’ve become obsessed, I tell you. After a rather not-so-warm reaction to Anne of Windy Poplars, I breezed through Anne’s House of Dreams this afternoon and loved even more than I did as a child, even though I was bawling like a baby in a couple of spots. Of course, it helped that I understood all the subtle romance going on. It’s so funny that the main character can be pregnant, and the reader not even know it till the birth is announced. I guess that’s just how they did things back then–pregnancy was not a proper topic of conversation. Just three more to go and I’ll be done with Anne. Will I move on to Emily and Marigold and Pat and Jane? Or will I read one of the 30 books in our unread pile?

I’ve done the unthinkable and scared up a doctor’s appointment for myself tomorrow. I had the whole process worked out as a big, painful deal that would take hours and hours. In reality it took three minutes to get the names of doctors from the insurance company and thirty seconds to arrange the appointment. Now I just hope I’m really sick, or it will have been a waste of time and money. I really hate going to the doctor only to be told there’s nothing wrong with me. It’s so embarrassing! Not that that’s ever happened. I’d actually have to go to the doctor once in a while for that to happen.

Since I entered the blog-o-sphere three years ago I’ve often wondered where the teacher blogs were. I just assumed that most teachers don’t have time to blog and haven’t done any active searching. I wonder no more! I’ve discovered the fun, extremely well written A Series of Inconsequential Events and can’t get enough! There are links to a few other teacher blogs that lead to even more teacher blogs, but I feel rather like an imposter since I quit the profession and am now working as a sub. Subs get so little respect and in general subs deserve very little respect. Most of them are lazy, lazy, lazy and just plain mean. Or else they are shy little women who don’t know how to raise their voice past a whisper and don’t know how to read lesson plans. Truly, there are very few good ones out there. The best sub I ever had in for me was a BLIND man. He had been a chemistry teacher for years, then had an accident in the classroom and lost his sight. The kids didn’t even believe he was blind because he knew everything they were doing. His wife would come in with him and read the instructions, then go away. He always left very detailed notes–probably as detailed as mine–and they were always perfectly straight and orderly. I don’t know how he did it. So you see, I am not prejudiced against all subs. Just most of them.

That’s the only reason I don’t know how much longer I can stand my “career.” It just eats away at my soul to be so lowly on the food chain, yet I know I am ten times happier than most people and have no reason at all to switch jobs, excepting stubborn pride. I really need to get back into writing my children’s books and redeem myself! My goal for January was to submit two pieces of writing and have the rough draft of my first Nano complete. I only succeeded in submitting one piece of writing. I suppose it’s not too bad that I got that far. I really need to get a big bulletin board so I can write out my scenes on a note cards and get them in some kind of order. I need to add several scenes and it’s hard to see it when I can’t move cards around. I’m a very tactile person.

I promised that if I found any good healthy recipes I would post them. I’ll put tonight’s dinner recipe behind the cut. I really did not want to make it because of the mayo, but it turned out to be quite yummy.

Chicken and Artichokes Dijon (From Quick and Healthy Low-fat, Carb Conscious Cooking)

1 cup uncooked quick cooking brown rice
1 cup fat free chicken broth
1 pound skinless, boneless chicken breasts, cut into strips
1 cup chopped red bell pepper
1 can (14 ounces) quartered artichoke hearts, drained

Dijon Sauce:
1/4 cup light mayo
3 tablespoons nonfat plain yogurt
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
2 teaspoons sugar or the equivalent in artificial sweetener
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix ingredients for Dijon sauce and put in the fridge

Spread rice in the bottom of a 2 quart covered casserole dish that’s been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Pour broth over rice.

Arrange chicken and vegetables over rice.

Cover and bake for 45 minutes. Top with sauce. Return to oven, uncovered, for five minutes.

It was really yummy! Of course, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t change some things. I used light miracle whip and will not use sugar the next time I make it because the sugar made it too sweet. I didn’t have any parsley so I just threw in some thyme. I also used salt and pepper on the chicken. I was completely out of brown rice (how my pantry came to be in such a sorry state I shall never know!) so had to use risotto rice instead, so tripled the liquid for it.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 31st, 2005 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.