Results of the "Preferred Grocery Store" Survey

The students may have finally won. Despite the fact that I bit the bullet and got the seasonal/H1N1 combo flu shot this fall, despite the fact that I have even been drinking and eating food with Vitamin C, despite the fact that I have been trying to get a reasonable amount of sleep each night, and despite that against all odds I have accomplished the amazing feat of lasting until the end of February, I may finally be coming down with something. I just need to hold out for a little less than 24 hours, though, because then it is a three day weekend (Thank you America-land for choosing one day a year to celebrate those presidents!)!

Ideally I would like to be healthy for the three day weekend as well, but you do what you have to do. The only symptoms I have right now are fatigue, incredible achiness, a little bit of the chills, and an aversion to any sort of delicious food. But there is no headache, sneezing, coughing, or vomiting yet! I can make it guys! I can do this!

The results of the last survey are as follows:

Cub Foods	(0%)
Rainbow	( 0%)
Target	(20%)
Trader Joe's	(20%)
HyVee	(0%)
Elsewhere not listed above	(60%

I must admit that I am again disappointed at the turn out, although my good friend (who happens to be Canadian and houses the other half of my brain) pointed out that my survey was biased towards Americans (or "United Statians" as I like to call us since it makes us sound a bit like space aliens....I have always been a little jealous of "Torontonians".) For this reason, I apologize to all my international readers, ESPECIALLY the Canadians!

But it looks like "None of the Above" won, indicating that some of my Canada-land followers participated anyway. For what it is worth, I do most of my grocery shopping at Target, although it is a dangerous, dangerous place where non-grocery items are irresistibly close to the food. For this reason, I sometimes go to HyVee just to curb any impulse buying or to save time so I don't wander around the store. Also, Trader Joe's is always a nice treat. Their candy and juices are delicious!

Now to be fair to my Canadian friends, please everyone participate in the new survey!

Tremendous Tennis Tom-Foolery

Tonight was the first night in a while that I got to sit and relax while eating dinner in my own home. It was difficult to pry my cheesy risotto and meatball stuffed self off of my couch to go to tennis, but I somehow managed.

Tonight at tennis, two extra women joined us. These two very tall Brazilians are surgeons at the Mayo. At first wary of them (since they came in late in the game and they seemed with-it and I worried they would judge my uncoordinated efforts), I soon relaxed.

One of them insisted that she only played once or twice when she was 13, so they put her in our group where she dominated. It was ridiculous. She could return almost anything with grace and form, and she had an incredible accuracy rate. I was almost ashamed to take my turn at the net. It came out later that she forgot that she might have taken some sort of tennis lessons one summer more recently. That explains it.

The other surgeon was hilarious. She was giving it her all, but that darn tennis ball just would not land on the blue side of our court on the other side of the net. She ended up doing a lot of squealing, swearing, and flailing about, and as someone who usually (I imagine, anyway) looks like a flailer while attempting any sort of sport, I appreciated that.

I myself was a bit squirrely having been away from my students the majority of the last week. Sitting in meetings and conferences is very draining.  Plus, I just miss my kiddos!

Tennis Instructor Mark kept telling us to settle down and not be so rambunctious because we were going to get in trouble. He said it with a smile on his face or while laughing at us, though, so none of us took him seriously. I do feel a little bad for the advanced group on the other side since we were laughing, teasing each other, and running around. Then there was the occasional squeal or screech from our side of the court, sometimes followed by a stray ball flying over the divider and landing on their side.

I'm glad we work with Tennis Instructor Mark, though, because I doubt the other guy would put up with our ineptitude and tom-foolery. In my opinion, however, we look like we're having way more fun than the other side of the court, even if they are playing the game of tennis "correctly".

Things I Love*

I love...

• Popcorn with extra butter and salt
• I am talking about popcorn you make in the air popper, then pour real melted butter over. Right now, I really enjoy putting the salt on the popcorn, because my salt shaker is a little yellow bear, and that makes me smile. Popcorn is so ridiculously delicious. Sometimes I have a large mixing bowl full of popcorn for dinner. While I prefer the air-popped popcorn smothered in butter, I occasionally enjoy the microwave variety, and it is practically impossible to see a movie sans-popcorn!
• Tea
• Earl Grey, Lady Grey, Mint, Orange Pekoe, Green, White, Darjeeling, Chamomile, they are all wonderful. This year, I have really been experimenting will loose teas, and I believe there are about five varieties of loose tea on my shelf right now. Tea is good in the morning, afternoon, or nighttime. Tea is just amazing. If  you don't drink tea, you should start immediately! I think I drink about 3-6 cups of tea per day.
• Playing with Squeaky
• My cat is awesome. She is 16 years old and still loves to play and run around. She also has the most attitude I have ever seen in a cat, and she things she is a person. Squeaky will try to hold a conversation with anyone who comes into our home, and I think she can understand what we're saying, because if someone makes fun of her, she glares at them for a while. Tonight I got her a new tunnel to play in and a new feathery toy on a stick. She enjoys them both.
• My Friends
• I am pretty sure I have some of the best, most amazing, talented, hilarious,unique, intelligent, kind, generous, down-right fantastic friends in all of the world. I love them all.
• Ice Cream for Breakfast
• I prefer to eat it with a spoon right out of the container while checking my email and sitting on the couch. There is nothing like a little chocolate chip cookie dough or mint chocolate chip ice cream to start your day off right.
• My Family
• My family, while absolutely crazy, is a great bunch of people. Good job, guys!
• Singing Aloud Really Loudly in the Car
• Especially now that I am listening to my ipod in the car, this has become a once again frequent activity. Songs that are super-fun to sing along with include, but are certainly not limited to: "I Can't Get No Satisfaction", "The Little Things You Do", "Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side",  "Jessie's Girl", "Resistensen", and "Someday" (Leo Laleo).
• Dancing Like a Maniac
• I'm a maniac! MANIAC on the floor! And I'm dancing like I've never danced before! This can be done in the car, in the kitchen while cooking, in the living room, while cleaning, before bed, or in the classroom. Usually I try to refrain in more public places - such as the grocery store - where such activities are generally frowned upon and may cause security to come have a chat with you.
• Mittens
• If you don't agree that mittens are amazing, then I don't know that I can trust your opinion on anything. They are so fun! And they come in so many colors and designs and fabrics! Plus they keep your hands, fingers, and wrists toasty warm through the 132,004 days of Minnesota Winter!
• When the Leaves Change Colors in the Fall
• Autumn foliage can be breathtakingly beautiful, especially if admired while on the water. Plus I just enjoy the smell, feeling, and temperature of fall.
• Playing the Piano
• This is one of my favorite de-stressing activities at the end of the day.
• My Job
• While incredibly stressful, and I am overworked, under-payed,  unappreciated, and quite often thrown under the bus or verbally abused by children, I love my job. I love working with my students, even if they are hooligans! They are my hooligans! We sing songs, read books, dance, discuss, practice our pronunciation, and talk about our cultures. They make me life and teach me so much! I can't imagine doing anything else with my life!
• When Squeaky Curls up and Snuggles Me
• She always prefers to curl up and sleep near my knees. I appreciate this, and I like knowing she is there. In her older age, she stay longer with me, and doesn't get so upset when I move around in the night.
• Crossword Puzzles
• I like to think that this will help me prevent or delay Alzheimer's or make me smarter or something.  While not particularly good at the New York Times Crossword Puzzles, I have a book of them in every room in the house, almost, and one in my car. It is a good way to spend the time with a cup of tea and a cat.
• Going to See Any Kind of Live Performance
• It can be a play, opera, orchestra concert, musical, a magic show, Rick Springfield concert, a couple of banjos - it doesn't matter. I will probably enjoy it.
• Playing Board Games - Especially ones that have to do with words or words play
• Maybe I am super lame, but I love playing board games! My favorites are of course games like Bananagrams, Boggle, or anything that allows me to manipulate words and letters, however I enjoy strategy games such as Othello as well or games that encourage social interaction, such as Curses, Imaginiff, Pictophone, or Fact or Crap.
• Going to the Cabin
• The cabin is a wonderful place. Ideally I would like to have a home in the woods on the water someday. 
• Reading Signs Out Loud
• This is just really fun. When I am in the car alone, I love reading signs aloud. "WANA - mingoooooo!" "Super Soup This Way!" "Demolition Landfill" "We Do Cows!" "Karaoke every Tuesday at 7pm". The sign doesn't always have to be particularly interesting or shocking, but I really enjoy reading them out loud. Sometimes I even do it when I am in the car or walking with someone else. Occasionally I will even stop mid-sentence or interrupt a friend to read a sign out loud. This odd - but I hope charmingly quirky - habit might be contagious, because I have caught some of my friends doing it more recently as well.

*A small sampling of the list in no particular order

Now quick! Take the grocery store survey!

Results of the "Hot Chocolate Topping" Survey

In an interesting twist, this time I let people choose more than one answer. I tried to choose things that I myself enjoy while drinking a mug of hot chocolate, so if you have a favorite that didn't make the poll, let me know.

Mini Marshmallows	(16%)
Regular sized Marshmallows	(16%)
(Real) Whip Cream	(50%)
Reddi Whip	(33%)
Cinnamon	(33%)

I thought it was interesting that real whip cream won overall. And I believe (but you can go back and check and tell me if I am wrong) that this is the first poll where nothing has 0%, so that is exciting. To be honest, I am shocked - SHOCKED - that cinnamon came out ahead of either kind of marshmallows. Who doesn't like marshmallows? Of course, you are reading something written by the person that munches on marshmallows while cooking dinner or boiling water for tea, so perhaps I shouldn't be considered representative of the average population.

In other news, some pretty awesome things happened this evening. While volunteering with my (because they belong to me) old people , I got the quote of the day. We were all doing charades and trying to guess what the leader was doing. Then we played a modified version of "Jive" where one person had to do an action, and all the others had to do it, too. One sister got very confused when another was pretending to milk a cow. She looked at me and in her slow, drawn out voice asked me, "Now what is she doing?"I responded, "She's pretending to milk a cow! Now you pretend to milk the cow!" She looked at the other sister, looked and me and made a big O with her mouth. "OooOOh!" she exclaimed, "That's not how you milk a cow! The cow would be angry!"

Once home after volunteering, I started to go about my decompressing routine (take off my glasses, turn on the computer, pre-heat the oven, etc.). I received a phone call from an unknown number in the area. Usually I only get calls from telemarketers or people I know. And I will tell you I don't know many people around here. "Hello this is Ivy." I answered.* The person promptly hung up.

The phone rang again as I was about to flour the cutting board to roll out the dough. It was one of my students (We'll call him "Oliver")! After a pause from "Hello this is Ivy", I heard in a small voice, "Is this Ivy McDougalhopper?"

"Yes, it is. Who is this?"

"Can Oliver come to the basketball game?"

"Of course. Is this "Devon" (name changed)?"

"No, this is Oliver."

"Didn't your brother tell you you were invited?"

"Yes. But I mean the other Oliver. Can the other Oliver, my friend, come?"

"Yes, of course!"

"Ok. Good. Devon wants to talk to you."

And it only got more interesting from there as Devon proceeded to ask me what I was doing and what kind of food people eat at basketball games and did I know he likes Mountain Dew? I gave my phone number to a couple of families so they could contact me whenever they needed, and some families have it because I call them from my home phone since they won't answer when the caller ID says our school. But I guess I hadn't anticipated it falling into the hands of the students and having them call me on a Tuesday night!


And finally, for the last bit of awesomeness tonight, I made cheesey calzone-esque things for dinner. The one I ate tonight was delicious, and I am already looking forward to lunch tomorrow! YAY!


*Did you see this week's episode of "How I Met Your Mother"? People make fun of me for the way I answer the phone, but Marshall does it, too! Someone must know that we Minnesotans have some sort of polite phone answering patterns.

Weekend Headlines

So much to tell you! There is no way I can do it justice! Instead of writing paragraphs and paragraphs about my awesome weekend (full of further successes), I am going to mix it up and give you headlines, as if my apartment were its own city and had its own small town newspaper.

Dinner at Mac’s Diner Success:

Onion Rings Consumed in Skyway System

Rick Springfield Concert Awesome!

Not at all lame!

Scandal! Rick Springfield Drunk?

21 minute rendition of “Don’t Talk to Strangers” raises eyebrows

Mac’s Makes Marvelous Pancakes

Premier of the New Living Room Rug!

Cat seems to enjoy it

Exorbitant Spending:

Trader Joe’s and iTunes drain income

Invitation to Super Bowl Party surprises and delights!

Super Bowl Party Fun:

Beer Boiled Brats served!

Packers Victorious Super Bowl XLV

Residents have mixed feelings

Now take the Hot Chocolate survey! Quick! Before time runs out!

This Week's Successes

There have been many successes this week, and I feel the need to share them. Please be warned that you may read them and roll your eyes or wonder what I am so excited about, but really it is all about the little things in life.

Success #1:
I had my mid-year observation from the assistant principal. I was a little nervous because he wanted to come see my fourth grade groups, and those groups tend to be on the noisier, distracted (and distract-able) side, and we are in a small room generously lent to me by a colleague. Sometimes we leave messes or move things around a bit, but she has been very gracious about letting us learn in there when she is gone. The successful part of the story is that the lesson on cuttle fish went really well! The kids were noisy and excitable as usual, but they were ON TOPIC and respectful towards each other! Score Ms. McDougalhopper!

Success #2:
My second tennis lesson went well, although I did not feel nearly as awesome at tennis as the first week. We started actually doing some game play. Unlike in drills, when we are playing for points, the teacher is not hitting the ball directly at us at a nice speed. Suddenly we are running around, hitting it into the net, bouncing it off the ceiling, trying to get out of the way and still make contact, etc. But still, I had fun with other Ivy and Julie (previously referred to as "Pink Sweatshirt"). Then, after class, they invited me to meet them at Whistle Binkie's next week before tennis! ROCK ON! I am making friends who aren't teachers!

Success #3: 
I wore my cephalopod shirt to work. What, now? 

Success #4:
I went out on a Wednesday night with Ashley (my colleague I share a room with....the big room). We went to Baker Square for Pie Rush Wednesday. While we were a little disappointed with this particular Baker Square location for a variety of reasons, and the pie I ended up having was not as delicious as I had hoped, I got to chat with my friend and eat out with someone after 6pm on a weeknight.  And I had left overs for lunch today! SUCCESS!

Success #5:
I totally steamed beef tamales for dinner tonight. Purchased frozen from a Mexican grocery store up in the Twin Cities, I had one with rice (and a piece of na'an - I mix all my cultures together. Like Canada, I am the melting pot) for dinner tonight, and the other is or lunch tomorrow! It was kind of fun to peel off the corn husk.

Success #6:
Tonight at dance class, I danced with someone my own age! Also, the man that kind of groped me was not there, so there was no super-uncomfortable-ness. Also-also, the people in my dance class are warming up to me and we can chat and even joke around a little bit. This whole swing dance class is turning out to be really fun!

And the biggest success of the week is yet to come! Oh, Boy! Do I have an amazing evening planned with Ashley and Dani tomorrow! We have many things going on, but the main event is Rick Springfield. That's right! RICK SPRINGFIELD! The tickets are in my purse! SUCCESS!

Interested in the cuttlefish? They are pretty amazing animals! Watch this short "How Stuff Works" clip (towards the bottom of the page) on (cuttlefish, and tell me they are not completely awesome!

My students asked me if I could get one for a pet and bring it in so we could play with it. It picks up the subtleties in the rocks so well, I wonder if it would do stripes or plaid? Leave a comment about how awesome the cuttlefish is!

 
Don't forget to take the most recent poll! It is about what you like on your hot chocolate! You all like hot chocolate!

Results of "From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" Survey

This most recent poll was inspired by the children's novel "From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg. Most children read how the youngsters in this novel ran away and deem the adventure too much work. The effort these kids put into living in the Metropolitan Museum of Art is impressive. Even now, as an adult sitting on her couch eating artificially flavored Christmas tree marshmallows, I dream of running away and living undercover somewhere cool.

When I asked you where you would run away to, the results are as follows:

A la "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", if you ran away as a kid, where would you live?

The Aquarium	(14%)
The History Museum	(57%)
The Science Museum	(14%)
Orchestra Hall	(0%)
Chuck E. Cheese	(14%)

It looks like the History Museum is the winner. It would definitely be interesting to live there, and at night you could touch all those exhibits and artifacts you can't during the daytime. I just want to feel for just one second how that mummy feels!

I am a little disappointed in the person who chose Chuck E. Cheese. Really, friend? Have you been there ever? The place is scary!

Now, if you haven't read the book, I insist you run out and buy it and read it twice in a row.  I can't find the exact book cover from when I first read it as a kid, but here is a similar one on Amazon:

By the way, I would choose the aquarium. How cool would it be to fall asleep to the sound of waves every night and to watch the whales and penguins whenever you wanted?