If you live in Tennessee, then you are experiencing exactly the same thing as me. If you don't, then you may not have had the pleasure of the wonderful 4-6 inches of snow, plus the thick layer of "wintry mix," (code for ICE) that we received yesterday and this morning. It's pretty amazing...or not amazing, depending on how you look at it. Most people I know think it's pretty amazing! Of course school got cancelled yesterday, and rightly so, so yesterday was a nice and restful day off for those of us educators. Actually, most people I know ended up getting home early from work, no matter where they work. I got a couple of errands run in the morning before the snow started, and the rest of the day was spent totally relaxing! I wasn't feeling well yesterday- came down with a silly head-cold, so I blew my nose a lot, made taco soup and guacamole, and we watched "Hoosiers."

Today, I feel much more "clear," and am thoroughly enjoying day #2 of being "snowed in." I am taking advantage of not being able to leave my house by doing all of the housework things that typically have to be CRAMMED in: things like cooking, clothes washing, cleaning, organizing, etc. I decided to go ahead and plan this week's meals and cook as much ahead of time as possible. So, here's what I planned for our week:

Sat. night: BBQ chicken pizza

Sun. lunch: Thai chicken and veggies w/peanut sauce/edamame

Mon: Ham & potato soup/Arugula salad

Tues: Baked cajun tilapia/rice and veggies/homemade bread

Wed: Baked chicken/ haricot verts/spicy black eyed peas

Thurs: Low-fat ckn alfredo/haricot verts/homemade bread

So, here's what I have made for the week

- 4 rounds of whole wheat pizza dough, 2 that have become pizzas: 1 to eat tonight and 1 to freeze (yes, you can make your own healthy frozen pizzas! The other 2 doughs will be frozen for later pizzas- we LOVE homemade pizza) :-)

- Tomorrow's lunch: peanut sauce, brown rice, chicken and veggies (will combine all tomorrow)

- Ham & potato soup

- Rice & veggies

- Haricot verts (cooked and flash frozen, ready to be reheated)

- Spicy black eyed peas w/red bell pepper and jalepeno-mmmm!

- Alfredo sauce and chicken (frozen and ready to be heated)

- Homemade loaf of 4 seed whole wheat bread (this is actually still baking-it's smelling great!)

It's basically my own version of what you do at the places like "Super Suppers." The idea is to prep everything so that during the week you can simply thaw, or heat up things you have already made. I LOVE it because I love to cook, and I make pretty much everything we eat from scratch, so having the time during the week is challenging, and this is much better option.

Next on the agenda: grading Direct objects and predicate nominatives quizzes!! Yay!

Have an awesome day, whatever you are doing!!!

So, it's been a pretty busy week around here, and at the same time, not busy at all. Why, you may ask? Well, I shall tell you. Jordan and I are smack dab in the middle of our in vitro cycle. I began my hormone stimulating injections a couple of weeks ago, and this week was full of ultrasounds, checkups and blood work. I went in on Thursday (yesterday) for my egg retrieval. I don't really want to post a whole lot on here, but just know that everything is going very well and God is so good. We aren't going to know for a few weeks the full outcome of everything, and I have one more big procedure to go next week, so please be in prayer for us for the health of my body and our little embryos.

God is so good and SO faithful!!

I just love Trader Joe's. I was so excited when we got one in Nashville a few years ago, and although it's not near as close as I would like it to be, I'm glad there's one around now. If you've never been to a TJ's, it's a combination of a World Market, Fresh Market, Regular grocery and Whole Foods. It's not as big as a Publix or Kroger, and it's not fully organic, but the Trader Joe's store brand is awesome, they have TONS of great options and most things are either totally natural or organic. We were down in Nashville today for a frisbee tournament, so I made a stop there and at Teavana. Here are some things I got today:

-Ground beef

-Ahi tuna steaks

-Salmon

-Mahi Mahi

-Brown Jasmine Rice

-Whole wheat Couscous

-Natural Peanut Butter (I always stock up when I'm there)

-Blueberries

-Hummus

-Flaxseed Tortilla Chips

-Frozen Green Beans

-Bean and Barley soup mix

-Tons of Edamame (another thing I stock)

-Sunflower seeds

-Turbinado: couple of kinds

-String Cheese

-Apples

-Green tea

-Bananas

-Arugula, salad ready

-Thai Red Curry sauce

...and I'm sure a few other things that I am forgetting.

Best of all, it's an AWESOME price! So, if you have one in your area...get over there- totally worth it!

Two posts in one day?! Are you kidding?

I wanted to post a quick note to let everyone know about something that I just found out about and am really excited for! One of my friends, Jessica, and my OB/GYN, Dr. Rupe, are in the process of publishing a pregnancy guide, written from a Christian perspective. Jessica has PCOS and had a very difficult time and long journey conceiving her first child, Hope, and is now beginning the journey to conceive her second. Dr. Rupe is the incredible OB that God totally directed me to several years ago, right before Jordan and I found out about some of our own infertility issues. She has been such a blessing, and I simply cannot WAIT for her to deliver our little miracles!

But anyway, they have started a blog and Jessica is journaling her journey toward pregnancy as well as this book. I am SUPER excited about this and definitely encourage you to check it out:

http://thepregnancycompanion.blogspot.com/

One of the funny things about being a teacher has been to learn how teachers think and act about certain things that you never realize as students. (Or maybe you do) Some of those are snow days. Around Page Middle School, everyone's been freaking out because the forecast has been calling for 1-3 inches today or tonight, and in Williamson County, that means no school for a minimum of 1 day! I grew up here, so I know how quickly they call it off. Even though we just started back Monday from Christmas Break, the students were SO excited. But that's just the students...I personally think I saw more begging and pleading from the teachers than I did the students. It was funny.

Yesterday at school, me and the math teacher on our team decided we were just going to act like we were definitely having school, so all day we were telling the students we couldn't wait to see them tomorrow, and "don't be made if you're here tomorrow;" basically stuff like that :-) One of the teachers who was holding out for snow big time, and not shy to say it, ran around outside the building during the last class of the day putting snow flakes on our windows that read "believe." Pretty funny stuff!

So last night around 6:30pm I got a call on my phone that school had been cancelled for today. Pretty funny stuff, considering not one flake had fallen, or has fallen to this point. Yesterday the radars had been showing that we would get snowfall in the middle of the school day, and I'm sure the superintendent felt he would rather take his chances in cancelling then deal with the circus of an early dismissal at all the schools. It's pretty hilarious now though because it looks like we're not going to get much of anything. :-) I personally will enjoy the day off, but am a little more concerned about getting the work done that we need to. So all in all, I am sure the kids will enjoy their day off, but I think they'd like it more if they had snow to play with. Oh well! I certainly enjoyed the sleeping in. I mean, I am sitting here typing this in my pajamas when I would have been teaching paraphrasing and summarizing right now. :-) Have a great day!