Holli, Kelli, and I spent the day just hanging out at the house. Watched the rest of the Wallace and Grommit movie then watched Elizabethtown. Went out and fetched Sesame Chicken, eggrolls, and crab rangoon for dinner. I also did more blogging on the basketball teams—too many basketball teams.
It’s going to be very sad tomorrow when Holli and Kelli have to leave :(
Celebrated St. Pat’s Day by chunking up a big ol’ slab of corned beef and plopping it in the crock pot for the day.
Took Holli and Kelli for a partial tour of the office, since we needed to go pick up some Girl Scout cookies for them to take back to Virginia. I provided an intriguing tour of campus, marked mainly by my lack of knowledge on what any of the buildings were. I did manage to show them the farms. You gotta see the cows if you’re gonna come to town. Then we concluded this fun with a trip to the grocery store. We’re such wild women.
I made cabbage and mashed potatoes with green onions to go with the corned beef (and chicken breasts for Kelli). The potatoes were the big hit. Who knew I was so good at potatoes? All I did was saute the onions on a stick of butter, but somehow the onions spread a sweet carmelized taste through the entire pan. Very yummy. Kelli proclaimed them the best mashed potatoes she’d ever had (and that’s no easy accomplishment).
Then it was movie time. We watched the Spongebob Squarepants Movie, because I enjoy torturing them. Also A Lot Like Love, a movie that Kelli wanted to see. I TiVoed and and made her a DVD to take home. Then we started watching Wallace and Grommit, but Holli got tired so we saved that for tomorrow. Kelli and I were compelled to watch favorite South Parks: Underpants Gnomes and Sexual Harrassment Panda.
BBC NEWS | UK | Education | Poet seeks English lesson renewal—the UK poet laureate Andrew Motion calls for more reading of a wider range of texts in UK schools: “We need to ask how we can reflect the diversity of the society we live in with reference to the authors we use.”
Even though I’m at home with Kelli and Holli while they’re here, I had to participate in a conference call for ReadWriteThink, on an evaluation of the various partner sites for attention to issues of multicultural, mulitlingual representation. Most of the phone call consisted of the presenter reading over the chunky report that we had been presented with. Unfortunately, she spoke very softly, so I couldn’t hear her on the speaker phone. I ended up having to tie the phone to my head with a bandana, since it wouldn’t take a headphone and I surely couldn’t hold it to my ear that long. Only 3 hours with a phone tied to my head. What I don’t give for NCTE. (and sorry. there are no pictures)
Other that than, I just spent time with Holli and Kelli, watched and blogged about basketball for GIC, cooked, and fiddled about. Kelli and I had a marvelous day.
My sister Holli and my niece arrived this evening for a short visit. My sister has to go to a funeral tomorrow, and my niece will stay with me. They’ll leave on Sunday morning. I’ve spent much of my time today trying to get things a bit cleaner for their arrival this evening. Baked Chicken Lasagna for them, and have plans for many lovely meals during their stay. It’s nice to have them around, especially since they can carry the heavy things that I can’t. Time to get that box of old dishes down in the basement where it belongs.
Bill calls for study of media impact on youth—what starts out as a possibily useful study on children and their interaction with multimedia ends on a fairly predictable note: “Mooney said she doesn’t need federal legislation to remind her that television is bad for children. ‘I’m not waiting for better television or a new study,’ Mooney said. ‘Just turn off the TV.'”