3-2-1 Cake

The other day I found this recipe for a quick easy single serving cake mix on Pinterest.  Almost everything on Pinterest is awesome... but I'm always a little hesitant when trying new recipes.  I'm so excited I found this for the summer while Cody is gone!  I obviously would not be able to eat a whole cake or brownie mix if I were to make that before it went bad, but I've really been craving some cake-y dessert lately.  This is perfect as you make the mix and then just save it, and use a bit whenever you're in the mood for a single serving.  (Or in my case, two single servings as one was too tiny for me lol.  I eat a lot.)  It wasn't the best or most amazing cake ever... but for such a quick and easy fix, it was wonderful! My first serving I overcooked slightly but the second time when I reduced it a bit, it was super! I sprinkled mine with powdered sugar but I'm sure it would also be delicious with ice cream or whipped cream.

All you do is combine two cake mix boxes -one of which has to be Angel Food cake.  The other is your choice -I did a fudge-y chocolate cake mix.  Mix, seal, and store for when you want it.  To serve it, you just mix 3 T. cake mix with 2 T water and then stir and microwave it for 1 minute on high. (3-2-1.)  I think the original recipe called it a 1-2-3 Cake... I don't know why in my head it got stuck in reverse order. Oh well.   I plan on enjoying this all summer!


I found it on Pinterest, but here is the original link it went back to:

http://thehiddenpantry.blogspot.com/2011/11/aunt-bettys-1-2-3-cake.html

Beyond simple. Quick and easy.

Because of the angel food cake it was kind of spongy
-but still moist and chocolate-y and very enjoyable!

Finally Summer!

So, blogging while teaching has proven extremely difficult for me... so difficult that blogging has simply become nonexistent.  Hopefully I'll be back at least through the summer!  Maybe year two will be slightly easier and I can still blog occasionally. We'll see.

For now I have officially been on summer break for a little over a week!  Unfortunately, the summer countdown was both a happy and sad coming event.  Cody left for Washington D.C. for an internship at the Census Bureau on my first day of summer break -June 1st.  Of course I was thrilled to complete my first year teaching and in that sense was more than ready for a break, but I also did not want Cody to have to leave yet.  (Or I'd prefer at all.)  I am very proud of him though for getting the internship and working hard up there --and studying for a comprehensive exam for his master's degree in statistics in August.  Today we had a nice loooong video date afternoon.  It was much needed to just feel like we are still involved in each other's daily lives.  

I am trying to stay positive.  There are lots of good things even in this not ideal situation.  Cody will hopefully get a good reference and experience from his internship, and get an idea if that is a career path he'd be interested in or not after graduating.  For me, I have declared this a girl summer (and family summer).  I have loved already so much time to hang out with friends and getting to know friends better!  Somehow during the school year there just never seemed any free time to go grab coffee or dinner or hang out. So now I am doing all those things and focusing on fun and relaxing time with girl friends instead of missing Cody and moping around.  I'm also enjoying more time with my family and am really looking forward to a South Padre trip next week with them!

I might try to revamp the blog a bit here soon. I'm unsure if I'll make it private again or not.  If I do and you'd like to read, just text or email me and I'll send you an invite. I may continue to leave it open though... I'm still unsure.

To wrap up this post and in honor of a girl summer, I'm going to steal this picture to share that a friend posted on Facebook:

We enjoyed some time at our friend's neighborhood pool yesterday!  I love y'all!
Left to right:  Liz, Colby, Me, Linsay -and front: Jennifer

Creative Writing

This is a completely random post, but I am having these thoughts and feel like sharing.  Today I really enjoyed an activity my kids did in class... I think they enjoyed it too.  I wrote out three random story leads, and they had to start with the lead and finish the story. They didn't have a lot of time; it was pretty short and sweet, but it was really neat to hear their writing.  Normally we write personal narratives... "My Favorite Birthday" or "What I'm Thankful For" -things like that, which are good to just practice grammar, keeping sentences on topic, basic things like that. But personally, when I was in 2nd grade -what I remember and LOVED was the creative writing. We did it, a lot, and it was the best thing ever. I wrote two stories in 2nd grade that I was extremely proud of.  It was neat to encourage my students and give them that chance to just write creatively.  A lot of the boys' stories were just crazy silly and ridiculous... but a couple students had unique stories that I loved hearing.  And of course, they all loved sharing them -even though they would read so quietly, nobody else could hear it.

On a different note... from a Facebook link, I just saw a trailer for a movie called The Vow -coming out next Valentine's Day. Oh my goodness. First of all, I head-over-heels love Rachel McAdams.  (If you know me, you know this is because of how crazy much I love The Notebook.) So I automatically can't wait to watch any movie she is in... Secondly, I love almost any romantic movie -especially romantic dramas that are super emotional and I cry during the previews (which I did for this one).  I even love really cheesy, predictable, a 4th grader could have written this or acted it out type of romantic movies. I love them all.  Anyways... this preview looked amazing. I canNOT wait for this to come out!  It might become my 2nd favorite movie... it looked like it had that potential.  After dabbing my eyes from watching the preview, (I actually watched 2 different trailers, both equally captivating) I yelled out to Cody in the other room, asking him why I can't have ideas and details like this in my head to write a story so pulling and emotional and moving.  I know the answer though.  I would need something like that to happen in my life... to then be able to write about it with that real, raw emotion.  The problem there... is that all of the amazing love stories -are so amazing because something awful has to happen- and the characters work through it or overcome it, and end up together after a terrible ordeal.  And well frankly, the whole terrible ordeal and having to overcome such an awful even to make for a great story, doesn't sound super in real life.  I wish I could dream a story like this and then magically get it down on paper.  One day maybe I'll be motivated enough and self-disciplined enough to actually write something.  Hopefully.  We'll see. One day...

October

October was a busy month for us... all good things though : )  First we signed a lease on a duplex that we found and liked.  Initially they wanted us to move in just one or two weeks after finding it -and we said that was too quick for us, so we pushed it back to the end of the month.  But we were very excited to find a place we liked -and that was WAY closer to work for me.
 
Next, we enjoyed a 3 day weekend together in Comfort at a Bed and Breakfast which was amazing!  Sometime during September I reached a point of being super stressed and overwhelmed feeling... and so we decided that I would take a personal day for a 'mental health day' (thanks for my friend for suggesting these mental health days!). Cody started looking and booked us a weekend stay at Meyer B&B in Comfort in the middle of October. It was wonderful!  All of the bumper stickers we saw in the town were true for us: "We found comfort in Comfort!"  Lol.  We enjoyed a cozy little cottage type room, hammocks, a jacuzzi, went antique browsing, and just had lots of relaxing time to do nothing together. It was exactly what I especially, but we, needed.

The very next weekend at the end of the month we moved!  Unfortunately our time for the movers to come wasn't until Sunday evening between 3 and 5... of course they didn't show up until about 6:15.  Which means we were literally still moving into our duplex until after 11 Sunday night... which in turn started me off exhausted for a week that ended up being tiring all the way through. But, we love our new place!  I love how much closer I am to work.  We both love that it is a duplex rather than apartment.  It has a not-too-big-but-big-enough yard for Callie, and a garage that we don't know if it will just be storage -or hopefully have enough room for one of our cars.  The whole duplex is tile floor -which is awesome for the amazing amount of hair that Callie constantly sheds -and for spills that she often creates. It has an actual laundry room which we have yet to have.  The kitchen is smaller than our last apartment, but definitely big enough.  We like it -a lot.  We've now been here a week... and most things are unpacked and up and running -with the exception of the kitchen. The kitchen is our goal today -which you can see is going great since I'm on here blogging lol. Oh well... it'll get done... eventually. Our neighbor is really nice, we've talked to her a couple of times. She has a dog also that is a boy about 1 year old that she rescued.  Her dog's name is Dax.  Callie and Dax have both been digging on their side of the fence trying to get to each other! It is super cute and funny to watch. We've let them play together once and they got along great. Both of our backyards are just dirt so they are not tearing anything up, and our neighbor said she didn't mind if they dug and played together.  We'll see how this goes... but for now it's super entertaining to watch, and it is giving Callie something to do outside.

Cody is still doing awesome in school. I am extremely proud of him. He has now officially had a test in all courses and has A's in all of them!  He is working hard and doing great.  As for me, I am counting down for Thanksgiving break! I'm enjoying school, but it is exhausting and I constantly feel either behind, or like I'm barely making it. There are always a million more or extra or different things I could be doing. Sometimes I stay even later than normal and do some of them... and sometimes I just let myself go home. I'm doing my best to do what I need to, but still have time at home to relax and keep my sanity.  I watched Cody get burnt out so quickly and worked literally every evening and weekend... and I decided I would not let myself do that.  I still stay at school late on a regular basis... but at least I'm not bringing anything home, and so far have only had minimum stuff on the weekends.  I'm hoping to keep it this way.

Here are some pics of everything lately. Two weeks until Thanksgiving -which means a much needed week off.  And I just love this time of year!  I love Fall colors, and holiday decorations, and the seasons changing, and this time when I start to pull out jackets and scarves.  Anyways... that's it for now!

AMAZING lunch at a neat tea room in Comfort!

The Sweet we stayed in all weekend.

We loved the hammocks out back!

 

I definitely fell asleep right there after a morning of browsing through dozens of antique stores.

 

Out to dinner on our last evening.

*Sorry all of these pictures kinda stink! We forgot our camera... so everything was just taken on our phones which means awful quality!

Back to Blogging!

Hello again!  I’ve missed blogging.   I didn’t exactly mean to disappear, but somehow I did.  Oh well though… I intend to be back!  I might not be posting super often, but am hoping to maintain our goings-on once again through the blog.

So, we have some catch-up to do!  
 

1)  Cody is officially in graduate school at UTSA working towards a master’s degree in Statistics.  (Does that sound awful to anyone else?? He has quite the math brain… whereas I quite avoid math when possible.) He has already had several quizzes and just had his first tests! He is doing amazing so far and I am extremely proud of him : )
 

2) I did post about finally being hired (again –yay!) but have not said anything about how my first official year teaching is going.  Quick recap: I got hired mid July to teach 2^nd grade.  I had a new teacher orientation for a week and then a regular work week before school started, and we’ve now finished the seventh week of school!   I am enjoying it and am making it through somehow so far.  I’ve definitely recently reached a point where I have started to consistently feel stressed and a little overwhelmed… but so far I’m still making it!  This month sounds like we’ll be starting a lot of new additional things… so we’ll see how it continues to go once more is added into what we’re already doing.

3) We’re moving! (Again!) Over the summer we moved in with Cody’s parents –Sue and Steve- before I was hired… since at that point we would have no income with Cody back in school.  However, now that I am officially hired and working, we’ve decided to move out to be back on our own again.  We recently found a duplex that we really like –and get this, it is only about 10 minutes from my school! Whoop! Compared to the 35 (no traffic) to 50 (with traffic) drive I’m doing now… 10 minutes sounds freaking awesome.  The only downside that we’re kind of nervous about is a possible sound issue.  We did know of this in advance and made the decision to still go with the place. 1- It’s under an airport, so there will be planes taking off. 2- Literally on a semi-busy street, so street noise. And 3- extremely close to train tracks, so train noises. SO… there are actually several possibly serious noise issues, but for whatever reason we decided to go with it. Hopefully we don’t regret it! But we are very excited and looking forward to setting up our own home again soon. We move out this month on the 29^th!

There are probably a million more little things I could ramble on about… but I’ll leave you with general recaps and catch up info for now. I hope to be back to blogging on a semi-regular basis again. But we’ll see how that goes with me officially teaching now.  

Our soon-to-be next home! Ours will be the side on the right where all the cars are.

Random Question...

The other night I tried a new recipe that I was very excited about... and well it did not turn out well!  I had been wanting to try to make a battered-chicken dish for a while, and finally tried it.  I pretty much followed a recipe... dipped/covered chicken pieces in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs.  Here's where I think I may have ruined it... I almost always cook on the stove with olive oil, and so I did as I always do.  Within just about two minutes there was smoke filling the kitchen and the chicken was completely blackened/burned on the outside.  --Was it the olive oil?  Next time should I not put anything in the pan to cook it with??  Anybody have a thought? -Because I really wanted that recipe to turn out and Cody was excited about it as well.  He was sweet and still ate it and said it was great -minus the blacked parts that he scrapped off lol.  Just curious though because I'd love to try it again if I can figure out what to do differently!  And just for the record even though I haven't done a cooking success/fail post in forever... this is going down as a cooking failure!

H I R E D !!!

Even though nobody reads this anymore since I had to make it private... I am still excited to share that I am f-i-n-a-l-l-y hired!!!  Last time I posted, I had 2 interviews back-to-back.  I was offered a job from the second interview that day for a 2nd grade position at a school in NEISD! I was (and still am) thrilled!  Second grade is a grade level that I would have chosen myself and I was hoping to end up in North East, so it was truly ideal.  God absolutely blessed us with this teaching position and the timing was amazing.  With Cody quitting teaching to go back to school... we were really praying hard for me to get offered a job, and not only did I get one -I got a position I am truly excited about.  We are beyond grateful for God's provision and plan.

So. Since all of that news... I have been officially setting up my first classroom this week!!! I had a new teacher orientation this past Tuesday, and the last two days have been working to start setting up and organizing my room -and I will be up there all day tomorrow as well. But I'm enjoying it and am so glad to be there! -Despite the heat! Ugh.  The school's AC is off until next week, so everyone that is up there is practically melting while we work.  And Cody has been wonderful : )  He has been up there with me helping to move stuff, setting up my computers/technology stuff, and being extremely helpful and excited for me.

Other than all of the above excitingness... Cody still has a few weeks before his grad school starts.  He is excited to start -but definitely enjoying his last weeks off.