Art work by the students at Abraxas

Notice the EM on the end of the above worm/butterfly. This is a commonality in the lives of the students. EM stands for electronic monitor-which means the student can't leave the vicinity of their house. Most of the students have EM's.

This is half of the mural the students have been working on for most of the summer. It is a good day when they can get out of class to work on the mural. There are lighters that were confiscated from the students decorating the petals of the flowers. The lighters are considered contraband and yet students bring them to school anyway with a variety of excuses when they are found. The lighter fluid has been removed and the empty lighters have been glued to the mural.

This is the other half of the mural. My favorite portion is the sun. I like the way they shaded it. Eventually the whole thing will be attached to the back wall of the building.

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Adventures in Baking among other things

The cookbook pictures of the desserts that I wanted to make.

The actual desserts made by me. Yes, I know. The picture above looks like a sunny-side up egg. I didn't have the cool lime green plates to put it on. And the dessert with almonds on it looked pretty similar to the cookbook version. I put that one on a dinner plate which is probably why the glaze pooled in the middle. It says that you can store the almond/cherry dessert for up to 2 days but I'd be afraid that the glaze would soak into the cake and it would end up having the consistency of a pancake. Plus, it is VERY sweet. The cookbook describes it as "being sweet with out being cloying". I don't know about that. Its too sweet for me.

The lemon dessert is lemony without being too tart. But-I also didn't have any fresh lemons. The recipe calls for lemon zest so that would make a difference it how lemony it is.

The reason for the experimenting is that next week we are having stake conference. Our stake presidency is being reorganized so we will have some visiting authorities here. As the Stake RSPresidency we need to provide a light dinner for the stake presidency and their wives and the visiting authorities. Hence, the experimenting with the desserts. I didn't want to wait until next Saturday and not have things turn out. So my choice is the lemon custard dessert that looks like a fried egg. We just need to figure out how to make it not look so much like a fried egg on those white church plates. A doily? A colored napkin? We'll figure it out.

Here's the progress on the stocking. Still don't know how to rotate the image. There is a teddy bear tea party on the left and the beginnings of the bed on the right. There is a plaid blanket on the bed which is making me cross-eyed as I try to follow the pattern.

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A Room with a View

This is the view from Tom's hospital room. He didn't get to enjoy it much but I did. He had a total hip replacement on August 4th and spent four days in this room. Ok, so I haven't figured out how to post pictures in the order that I want them to be viewed, neither do I know how to rotate pictures so you won't have to twist your head to the side in order to view the picture.

August was quite a month with Amanda getting four of her wisdom teeth out on August 3rd, Tom with his hip replacement on the 4th. Thank goodness for my mother who was available to come "babysit" Tom the week following his surgery when I had to go back to work. She was able to stay for over two weeks to help out. Before the surgery I had been worried about leaving Tom home alone so soon after the surgery that it was a real blessing to have Mom come to stay.

Other things that happened in August-the pipe behind the wall under the sink was leaking so much so that it dripped into the laundry room. The plumber, whose daughter was recovering from a kidney transplant, came over a few times (and thankfully didn't charge for the house call) to see what needed to be done. When he saw that the back of the cabinet needed to be sawed out he didn't want to do that so Derek and I tackled the job-well, really Derek did 99% of the work getting the back of the cabinet taken out. After that the fix was easy. In the mean time everything was out of the cupboard under the sink and on the kitchen table so the kitchen was a mess. I used some kind of craft cement to plug the slit in the pipe so at least if some water ran down the drain it wouldn't drip in the back of the cabinet. The pipe was fixed the day before Adrienne, Mark and Cala arrived for a week long visit. Whew!!! Mom put things back in order in the kitchen.

Having Adrienne and her family here was so great. We got to spend time with them in the evenings as they had a full schedule of things planned-like going to Hershey Park (an amusement park), the beach, bike riding, etc. I would add some pictures of Cala at her birthday party but they'd go in this ahead of the hospital room and view. So that's for another time.

Now Tom is looking at returning to work at the end of this next week, Adrienne and family have returned to Albany, NY, Amanda's mouth has long been healed and life is settling down.

The school year has started and that will provide many stories for posts to come.

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Here is the latest picture. As you can see the stocking is coming along. I think I found the mistake and things will work out.

I am working on a Christmas stocking for my granddaughter, Cala. As you can see it is a work in progress. I started it in January and got was working on the carriage when I noticed that I was going to run out of linen before I ran out of picture. As I sew on the stocking most of the fabric is pinned up so it is out of the way. But I decided to "open it up" so to speak and take a look at the whole thing. That was when I discovered that I had started sewing with the picture going across the fabric when it should have been going the long way. Sigh! So I took all the sewing out-three months of sewing-and started over. Here is the latest picture of the stocking. BUT-I've made mistakes in counting and things are off. Not to the point that I need to start over but it is going to take some time to find the mistake and figure out how to fix it. I attribute the mistake to the fact that, for entertainment, I watch/listen to "Bewitched" on Youtube and I must have been distracted a little bit which resulted in the mistake. That has discouraged me and I haven't working on it for a week, which isn't going to get the stocking finished by Christmas. So-I just need to take some time when no one will be around to distract me and fix things. And-no more "Bewitched" while I sew. I guess I'll have to listen to the Mormon radio channel while I sew so there are no images to distract me.
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We had some rain yesterday and so today is beautiful-cooler, low humidity. Because of that the a/c is off and I decided to make a cheesecake. I got the recipe from the missionary moms list awhile ago and wanted to try it. The cheesecake needs to be baked at 500 degrees (and no, that's not a typo) for 12 minutes. Then the oven temperature is lowered to 200 degrees and bake the cheesecake for another hour. Turn the oven off and let it sit in the unopened oven for 2 hours. The name of the recipe is New York Style Cheesecake. It is very fluffy, not the consistency that I would expect in a cheesecake. I can't say as I'd make it again. But it is fun to try new recipes.
Our summer has been so nice with lower humidity so we haven't had to use the a/c too much. I've been enjoying the fresh air.
That's all the news that isn't, for now