Janae Says...

At the end of class today, after reading a few more chapters of our current book, I asked the students how the setting has affected the main character. A lot of them really seemed to struggle with this idea. I feel like it’s pretty stinking clear. It’s also very clear that I have my work cut out for me. But that’s a topic for another day. What makes the answer to this question clearer is thinking about how the various settings of my life have influenced me. I have always considered myself a California girl. I was born and raised in the sunshine. Heat was a part of life. I love fresh California fruit, and just about nothing beats a good (and cheap) avocado. I crave the ocean and feel anxiety when I think about how far away it is. I love the massive amount of diversity in my home state. Being in a place where every person was so different from the next helped me to learn a lot about the importance of variety, especially in learning love and compassion. I loved walking outsid...

I have a bone to pick with the health world—healthy bloggers and Instagrammers and other people with a large following due to their healthy missions. I’m afraid that the people who have made a habit of eating healthily have also lost their ability to taste food accurately. Don’t get me wrong, I love healthy eating. Vegetables are my favorite, and I usually don’t even need any kind of dipping sauce or seasonings to enjoy them. The problem, I think, is mostly in relation to dessert. If you know me, you know I love cake, cookies, brownies, ice cream, shakes, and sweets in general. You also probably know my favorite cookies are oatmeal coconut chocolate chip cookies. They’re made with (shh, don’t judge me) butter flavored shortening, brown and white sugar, flour, and all those things that make junk food junky. I love them. They’re delicious and flaky and fatty and so good. It seems only natural that it would be difficult to find healthy alternatives that taste “just ...

I always thought that when we started to "go gray," it was a process. I pictured my mom's roots before she would go and dye them. It was pretty evenly spread across her scalp. I thought that's how it would happen for me. But no. I would tell you to look closely, but you honestly don't have to. It's not even subtle, folks. There it is. My massive amount of white hair in all of its glory. Sometimes I sit in church and pull them out one at a time. I've been scolded by my mother for that since it destroys the follicle.  Even without pulling out the hair, I don't see this situation getting any better. In fact, it's only gotten worse in the past several years. I imagine stress accelerates it. It must not help to stress about having white hair, huh?  I think I must also be genetically gifted. Who else gets a lovely layer of completely white strands under their dark brown hair? The contrast is so discreet, huh? The one thing that...

She got a D-. Now, if I had gotten a D- in school, I would have been mortified. But for this girl, I think it could have been the Congressional Medal of Honor, as Taylor Mali so eloquently phrased it. My student (we’ll call her Melissa, since I don’t have anyone with that name this year), has struggled since day one of the term. I’m not exaggerating. If I modeled an example and asked the students to copy it down, she couldn’t. If I explained repeatedly what I expected, she couldn’t do it. I handed work back to her to redo, and it never came back. I asked her what I could do to help her, and she didn’t know. Almost every assignment I gave in class would come back to me incomplete. To add onto that, it would come back with scribbles and pencil shading all along the margins. It was like a tick. Sometimes she would do it on the desk and not even know it. She has a low Lexile (reading comprehension) score--around fourth grade level. Melissa had shown frustration and a l...

For today’s Workout Wednesday post, I thought I’d write about rest days. I generally think this is something you have to figure out for yourself. I’ll tell you what I’ve found and what my general rules are for rest days. This is what works for me and may not work for you. Typically, I reserve rest days for especially busy days. For example, on Tuesdays, I will often to go “donate” plasma (for monies, of course). After that I head home and either cook or wait for Patrick so we can go out. We eat, and we head to institute at 7. We’re there till 8:30. Tuesdays are just busy. So sometimes I skip Tuesdays for working out. I may do the same on Thursdays if I donate a second day. I may also skip a workout when I get invited to do other plans that won’t enable me to exercise and shower and get ready before the activity starts—Friday nights, for example. I might take rest days on the days I know I just need a break from everything. Some evenings I just want to eat and sit on ...

I've spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen this weekend. I sometimes forget how much I enjoy making things and trying new recipes. First, I wanted to make some pumpkin granola with what was left of a can I opened. I found this recipe and kind of botched it. I'm pretty sad because it smelled so dang good, then burned pretty quickly. I think what got me was the 23-33 minutes. That's a big span of time there. So I went for the middle and did like 27 or 28 minutes. I did stir in between. But that was too long, and then I noticed at step 5 of the recipe, she said 25 minutes. So that would've been good to read beforehand. Anyway, it's not totally burned. The pecans are kind of burned probably because I broke them up. Forgive me, but I didn't want enormous pecan chunks. So they burned. I also used almonds instead of pepitas because... pepitas? I still plan on eating this stuff. Probably with some milk, and I'll try it on the yogurt I bought. Recent...