Mango - the Southern Zucchini

It's summer in Florida.

Unlike summer in the places we all grew up in,

that does NOT mean lots of fresh fruits

and veggies.

If you want to eat fresh in Florida,

you need to visit in the late fall or early spring.

But for some reason the girls are

laying eggs like MAD and it IS

Mango season.

The mango is the rest of the country's zucchini.

Folks are selling, trading, donating, abandoning

tons of mangos right now.

My mango tree is still a baby.

But there is a guy that works with Rod.

His tree is going nuts.

And they are SOOOOO juicy and good!

He and Rod have been trading commodities.

Rod brings him a dozen eggs.

He brings Rod a bunch of mangos.

My house smells like a smoothie factory.

We've been having strawberry mango smoothies

for breakfast every morning.

Delicious!

Well... HELLO!

Look what I found on the highway last night!

Well, not WHAT.

Who.

A little old truck pulling a big trailer.

Oh wait!

That's OUR little old truck

pulling OUR trailer!

Luckily it was also being driven

by my darling husband.

Hi darling!

(He was picking up fence posts 

at Tractor Supply in anticipation of

Kyle's visit next week...)

I Love My Truck

Look what happened last night!

That's right!

320,000 miles!!!

(I think it had about 68,000 when we bought it...)

(I do a lot of driving)

To commemorate the event

my rear left signal blinker burned out.

I'm one of those odd ducks who ALWAYS

signals when I change lanes or make a turn.

So it kind of drove me nuts.

But since I was working from 7:30 am to 8:00 pm

both days (HUGE class) I didn't have an opportunity

to find an auto parts store to get it fixed.

But it's on the VERY IMPORTANT LIST

for this evening!

**************************************

In other news.

As I was driving to work this morning, 

I noticed the marquee in front of the

local Presbyterian church.

They often have fun things on there.

Today it says:

Too hot to change sign.

Details inside.

CUTE.

*****************************************

In other news.

It's hot here.

******************************************

In other news.

Kyle bought a lamp!

It matches his apartment perfectly.

*******************************************

In other news.

I'd better get to work.

Have a great Monday!

Another Busy Week

I've got another busy week.

Yesterday we had the Sisters over for dinner

a delicious pan of Lazy Lasagna

(made with ground turkey and fresh spinach)

and then off to the church for

Evening Relief Society

or Homemaking

or Enrichment

or Girls Night Out

or whatever we are calling it these days.

LOL

Anyow.

They were talking about hurricane

preparedness and 72 hour kits.

It's an annual thing here in 

hurricane world.

Although looks like everybody else

is having much worse weather than we are.

I was the only person there older than 26.

(well, there were actually 2 of us...)

But we were the only ones who actually

had any experience with hurricanes.

They had some good information.

There's lots of it out there.

But there are things NOBODY ever tells you.

So we shared some personal bests.

And then they served ice cream.

I went home.

And we went to WalMart to buy tiny paintbrushes.

Tonight I need to run by the hospital for the

FDOT meeting to talk about the traffic light

we are hoping they are going to put in.

And then I have to go to the town 

Parks and Recreation meeting.

I'm the liaison between that board 

and our committee.

Then tomorrow night my committee is

meeting to replace all our "You are Here"

maps out on our trail system.

Whew.

Somewhere in there I really need to run

to Sam's and get some groceries

so my darling husband doesn't starve this 

weekend while I'm teaching.

(Notice the stilted language?  I'm watching
British TV.  LOL!!!!!
At least I'm not typing with a British accent!)

TGIF

TGIF!

Except it's Monday.

But this time TGIF doesn't stand for

Thank Goodness Its Friday.

This time TGIF is

Thank Goodness It's FINISHED!

Whew!

What a weekend!

I'm glad THAT one is over...

LOL

Saturday went well.

This particular class has a bunch of

really challenging students.

And the power went out in the afternoon

for a bit.

But we survived.

I even ate at Bonefish Grill

and had the MOST AMAZING

corn chowder with lump crab soup.

Oh my goodness.

And then a nice big

Florida Cobb Salad with fresh mango,

avocado, pumpkin and sunflower seeds 

and super tender grilled chicken

over baby spring greens.

Mmmmmmmmm

But then Sunday arrived.

The light never DID turn green

to get out of my hotel.

Ended up turning right and

making a U-turn in my giant truck.

That's always fun.

And then part way through the afternoon

we had another power failure.

(Welcome to Florida in the summer...)

When the power came back on,

everything powered right up,

EXCEPT my projector and sound system.

(and my entire class is Power Point / video driven)

Luckily I had just finished teaching the main

curriculum for the course and we were

down to the part where we were going to 

review and watch random related videos for 2 hours.

So instead I had them do some workbook stuff

while I tried to figure something out.

Fortunately, I keep an extra projector 

in my truck since I never know where I'm 

going to be teaching next nor what kind of

facilities they have.

Unfortunately, the computer didn't accept

my projector.

So I tried connecting it to another computer

on the other side of the room.

No dice.

Then the guy who owns the office called and

said he was pretty sure it was just the breaker.

But the breaker box was NOT where he said

it was.  (There WAS an EMPTY breaker box

on the opposite wall...)

I even had a MAN student look.

(grin)

Nope.  No breaker box in any of the 

unlocked rooms in the entire facility.

Next?

Fortunately (again) one of my students had

her laptop with her.  (Normally I bring mine,

but this weekend I knew I wasn't going to

want to workout in my hotel after these LONG

days, and I didn't want to leave it in my truck

or my hotel, and didn't want to lug it in and

out of the classroom - so I left it home.)

We finally got it all hooked up,

downloaded the power point presentation

and a power point viewer.

But then Google Slides took over.

Whatever.

Unfortunately, I think I left my bag with my

long extension cord / power strip at the

Coral Springs site when I subbed there

back in April.  (I just finally narrowed it down

to there.  Don't know if it's actually there.

Or just LOST)

Anyhow.

The cord on my projector is about 18 inches long.

Yeah.

Awesome.

So I set it up on a chair,

pointed it to the front of the room (ish)

and we all tilted our heads to the right.

Hahahahahahaha

(As I always tell the instructors I mentor -

You gotta be willing to PUNT!)

Also, unfortunately, Google Slide didn't actually work.

It would show the slides, but not the animations.

Which means, when you are doing a multiple choice

review, they pick the answer they want, and I should

be able to click and the right answer is highlighted in red.

Yeah.  No.

Oh well.  They just had to believe me!  LOL

Things went better after that.

And then came the final exam.

Crash and burn.

We have a brand new curriculum starting

this month and I guess we haven't got the

bugs all worked out yet.

Cuz I only passed 6 people out of 18.

Which is unheard of!

4 of the students who failed were

SCHOOL TEACHERS!

(And the other was a CPA!)

And high score was only 87!

Normally I have several high 90's.

So I was pretty bummed.

I'm going to need to really re-evaluate

how I teach this new stuff.

Less "extra" and more time for review.

Anyhow.

Again.

Fortunately I had a reservation to spend

the night in Ft. Lauderdale.

*Since I didn't get out of class until 10 pm.

Got up at 4:45 and hit the road to be 

at my office by 7:30.  Had to stop by the

house to pick up some eggs for a co-worker

and to kiss my Much Missed Husband!

This morning I sent a big long email to my

boss (guess I could have just linked to my blog...)

hahahaha

And then I got a text from a student who did

pass my test last night.

She just PASSED her State Exam this morning!

So I was all excited again.

I went online to my class roster so I could email

the students with a "shout out"

and look at my class size for this weekend.

SURPRISE!

I'm not teaching my normal West Palm Beach.

I'm teaching in Coral Springs!

(which is cool since I'll be able to get the 

stuff I think I left there...)

A "quick" phone call to my boss to find

out what's the deal and yup, it's true.

But that means I need to cancel hotel reservations

and make new ones.

(which I have already done.  Whew!)

So.

If you are looking for me.

Check the puddle under my desk.

That just might be me.

Primary Pennies

When I was about 12 years old

I had to give a talk.

About the Primary Children's Hospital

and the pennies the primary children

collect to help families pay for 

their treatment.

It was a special topic,

because my Aunt Karen spent many

many many days, weeks, months

at the Primary Children's Hospital

following a car accident when she

was a little girl.

Anyhow.

I was preparing to give her story

and as part of my preparation, I

recorded it on our cassette recorder.

I remember doing it.

(We had these two little black cube

microphones that sat on a stand.)

(It felt VERY official)

Anyhow.

Mom found the tape.

And Rozann did her magic and turned it

into an MP3 and Dad sent it to me.

I sound VERY young.

And Canadian.

LOL

Karen's Story

And then look what showed up at my

house yesterday?

Isn't that gorgeous?

For right now it's sitting on my piano.

Until I can find the perfect place for it.

(I have cave art buffaloes hanging above

my piano, and you can't really get close enough

to see it to see the music if I hang it there.)

The perfect spot will come to me.

But for now I'm enjoying it where it is.

(I can see it perfectly from my 

favorite spot on the couch.)

THANK YOU MOM AND DAD!

I love it!

(And you!)

Gearing Up

It's been a quiet-ish week.

Still super hot.

Too hot to do much.

But Rod is doing much anyway.

LOL

Last night he went through

the giant pile of left over metal

roof that Kyle brought from the

shop years ago when it closed.

Rod is going to replace the sun cloth

above the horse's water trough

with the metal roofing.

And maybe build the dogs a metal roof

in their dog yard as well.

I've started working out again.

So I'm a little stiff.

But taking turmeric daily helps.

A TON!

Tonight I will be heading south to

the Ft. Lauderdale area

for the first of 8 weekends in a row.

I've been eating clean for the month

of July and haven't messed up yet.

So I'm really going to try hard

to stay on task over the weekend.

It's hard to do when you are 

living in a hotel and with limited

fast food options in the area

(and only 30 minutes for lunch)

but I'm determined to do my best.

The sky was on fire last night.

And it seems the world is too.

Thoughts and prayers are with Dallas.

Happy Independence Day!

I'm spending a VERY relaxing,

LAZY

long weekend.

We had a long list of things

to do, but it is WICKED HOT

out there - triple digits

which for those of you living in

AZ - you scoff.

But add 100% humidity and it

is unbearable.

Rod works "outside" (in the hangar, but

with the giant doors open, so it's outside

just not in the direct sun....)

So he is enjoying getting to be in the 

house.  We are even running the A/C.

(Something we don't often do.)

(Guess we are getting old)

Anyhow.

This morning he is in town

donating plasma.

We had a nice breakfast of

scrambled eggs with 

sauted jalapeno cheddar sausage

and a mint chocolate smoothie.

While he was gone,

I cooked up a yummy

"Lazy Lasagna"

My stove top light makes everything

look orange.  LOL

Next I baked a

Trimtastic Chocolate Cake.

I will whip some fresh whipping

cream and add a little 

100% Ghiradelli cocoa

for a frosting.

Later.

Maybe.

I also chopped up a couple of

big zucchini (since I was cutting

one up for the cake anyway)

and then put a bunch of

radishes in the food processor

to slice up.

They are delicious fried in butter

with a fried egg and some bacon.

YUM!

Oh.

And fried up some lean ground beef

(grass fed - the neighbors gave it

to Kyle in exchange for him doing...

something... next door.  LOL)

Added taco seasonings so we

can throw together a quick

taco salad.

It was a productive morning!

Rod just called.

He is on the way home.

I just sliced up a nice ripe

nectarine and mixed it with some

of my favorite 000 Oikos 

vanilla greek yogurt.

Ate mine already, but his is

waiting for him when he gets home.

(I'll probably make him a turkey 

sandwich to go with it...)

Enjoy your day!

(Empty nesting is FUN!)