Happy May Day!

This caught my eye this morning while reading the paper--it made me chuckle, thinking about Maypole dancing in kindergarten. The box says, "The distance between Maypole dancing and pole dancing narrowed after a few Hefeweizen."

I don't know why the whole thing didn't come out--still learning!

I can't believe it's May 1st.

It's sunny, warm and very springy. I need to correct a pile of tests, but I'm in full avoidance mode at the moment.

It was a long week, and for some reason I decided to go ahead with teaching poetry by Federico Garcia Lorca. I love Lorca, and I love all the historical and cultural I can teach with it, but it meant that I had to be fully "on" all week. No down time....guess that meant I wanted to keep myself busy and distracted by other events in my life. We got through the poem (Romance de la luna, luna) yesterday. Huye luna, luna luna....

God knows what's coming next week...I left behind 2 weeks worth of work just in case I don't go in on Monday. I stopped taking the cytomel as of yesterday, so I'm waiting to see what happens. I told my AP class that I might not be in next week, and they were upset since the test is Tuesday. One kid told me I "had to be there" so I could send them off with positive wishes...last year I brought in breakfast since the test was at 8am, and they all showed up. I want to do the same this year, so I hope I'm literally up for it on Tuesday. They've worked really hard all year, and I know/hope they'll do well. They'd better ace it...

These are the signs from my students that they left for me when I came back after the thyroid surgery. One kid in particular decided months ago that my nickname should be "Special K", so he drew me an extra sign. In Spanish of course.

As for the LID, I am very proud of myself that I've stuck to the diet for the whole time. I only cheated once in PA and ate a piece of candy with milk chocolate. I have resisted putting cream in my coffee; I'm not a fan of drinking it black, but it's bearable. Today I made turkey meatballs--they were really delicious--, pasta sauce, and sauteed veggies. I think I have a pretty good stock of stuff in the freezer for Hypo Hell if I need it. I do need to get some more cilantro to make fresh salsa...I found unsalted tortilla chips at Trader Joe's this week, and the salsa I made last week was delicious....they would go really well together! I want to make another loaf of banana bread since I'm down to my last piece too.

Staying on the LID has reminded me just how much I've gotten away from cooking from scratch over the last year. It's so much easier to pull premade stuff out of the cabinet for convenience sake at times, but it's so unhealthy. It didn't take that long to make the meatballs, but usually it's easier to buy the frozen....I wish I had more time to more stuff from scratch, and I wish I had a really big freezer so I could make fresh stuff and freeze it, like with marinara sauce, chicken broth....I suppose I could find the time if I wanted. The freezer is another story. And, if I were cooking more from scratch, you can bet there would be dairy, cheese and butter in there somewhere!

I don't feel too bad, but I am forgetting things. I'm a little tired, but I'm always tired. At times I feel a little lightheaded and then it passes. I hope I get to be one of the people who don't feel too bad going through this.

Interesting local development--we are under a boil water order since a major aqueduct that fees the city collapsed. 36 other communities are in the same predicament...I don't think we have any bottled water in the house....not good. I wonder how long it will last?

Between the erupting Icelandic volcano, the massive ongoing oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the rotating earthquakes around the world and now a water crisis, I can't help but wonder if God is trying to tell us something?

Time to go eat my veggies and meatballs with some wine...