Launching a Makerspace: Lessons Learned From a Transformed School Library

Quick Garlic Shrimp and Couscous

MINT CHOCOLATE NICE CREAM

I'm currently in Washington, camping with mom on a month-long road trip. Wrote this post about a month ago and now I share it with you, my darlings. X

Thoroughly satisfying and really quick to make (what else would you expect from me at this point?) I'm usually an all-chocolate-all-the-time kinda kid, the thought of mint + chocolate doesn't do much for me... UNTIL I make something with mint + chocolate. It's such a winning combo and for better or worse, always brings me back to sweet memories of After Eights. 

For this recipe we are simply blending up bananas with mint leaves and adding some melted chocolate on top. The colour in this nice cream - that's banana-based vegan ice cream for those of you who don't know - comes from spirulina, a super nutrient-rich green powder. Yes, it's an algae, which sounds like the most un-sexy thing ever, but you won't even taste it because we're adding such a tiny amount. If you like, you can leave out the spirulina entirely and just use mint leaves for flavour. The colour won't be as green but hey, as long as it tastes good, right? Another change you could make is to blend the chocolate chunks into the nice cream instead of melting and drizzling them. Then it'll be more like a mint chocolate chip scenario. Never a bad thing.

Sending love and strength to you, however much you need. My mood is really good today which makes me very hopeful for the future (although PMS is upon me so that lower back pain is reaaall). As most of you probably know by now, I have been struggling with heartbreak and mental illness this year. It's a constant path of unpredictable ups and downs, but I think that in the bigger picture I am gaining small improvements every day. The past week it was very challenging to get out of bed, but I am proud of how I am doing: meditating twice a day, going to the gym and spending plenty of time outdoors, dancing, writing, reading, meeting new friends and nurturing relationships with old, practicing mindfulness and letting go of thoughts and emotions that aren't serving me. I am taking care of ME, feeling out my boundaries and journeying inwards to be the best version of myself. It feels scary and empowering all at once.

//

MINT CHOCOLATE NICE CREAM

Nice cream:
3 frozen bananas
1/4 teaspoon spirulina powder
1.4 teaspoon vanilla powder
1/4 cup mint leaves
1/4 cup almond milk

Chocolate drizzle:
1/4 cup dark chocolate chunks, melted

To make the nice cream: blend all the ingredients together until it's green and like soft serve. Drizzle with the melted chocolate and enjoy!

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How Robots in English Class Can Spark Empathy and Improve Writing

Treatment of addictions doesn’t work but lifestyle changes do

Treatment of addictions isn’t working… there I said it!

Over the past 4 months I’ve shared a lot of my own personal experiences as it relates to my history with traditional 12-step treatment models and alcoholism. The more research I gather, and the more conversations I have with people in the ‘business of treatment’, the more obvious it becomes to me that there’s a larger problem at work and what’s being offered up as the standard of treatment isn’t working.

Before I share some ideas worth talking about, let me back up a few steps and share some information I’ve learned. In sharing some of this information, my hopes are that you begin to question the current things as they are as it relates to the businesses of treatment and recovery. Please keep an open mind, recognizing I’m not trying to be antagonistic, or dogmatic, I’m only looking to stimulate a conversation away from treatment and recovery, towards one of lifestyle changes, empowering transformations, and personal choice.

Note to reader: If you, or someone you care about, is dealing with a substance abuse issue, I highly recommend reaching out and connecting with someone from Saint Jude Retreats. In addition to the residential facilities, they also offer a Home Program and a Long Distance Learning program as well — exclusive for my tribe, use discount code “addictionfreelife” to receive 15% off

So, what’s the problem with the business of addiction treatment and recovery?

Treatments of addictions is BIG business. In the United States alone, the addiction treatment industry has grown to a staggering tune of $34 billion dollars a year, meanwhile overdose death rates have tripled in the past two and a half decades.

While the growth is staggering, it pales in the scope of the human cost associated with excessive alcohol consumption and drug overdoses, which jointly accounts for nearly 127,000 deaths per year.

There are more drug treatment facilities than ever before – over 14,500 of them in the United States – and countless alcohol treatment facilities, with more being opened year after year. This is a tell-tale sign that more and more people are seeking treatment, more and more money is being spent on said treatments, and yet, more and more people are overdosing and dying from substance abuses. At what point do we stop, give our cultural head a shake and scream from the rooftops, “WTF is going on here!?”

It would seem that the treatment solutions being offered up are not working.

The Disease Model of Addiction and Where the Wheels Fell of the Treatment Bus

According to the disease model, ‘addiction is very much a brain disease’. It is reported that brain abnormalities cause people with the disease to become addicted to substances or activities once exposure to these stimuli occur. This model considers addiction IRREVERSIBLE once acquired.

The ONLY way one diseased with addiction can recover ‘consists of developing and maintaining complete abstinence from all addictive substances and activities. Abstinence arrests the disease.’

Many of the treatment facilities and organizations that accept this model own the fact that complete abstinence is difficult to achieve and as such the model stresses the importance of peer group support and attendance at regular meetings.

“People are active agents in – not passive victims of – their addictions.” Stanton Peele

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What I found extremely interesting was the fact that many of the websites and literature surrounding the disease model of addiction and recovery, often compare alcohol or drug addiction to cancer.

One example from a very prominent site reads:

‘Cancer survivors share with the group their personal experiences of the disease and of recovery. Similarly, addicts and alcoholics support each other in groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous. They share their personal experiences of addiction and recovery and provide hope and inspiration to each other. When people support each other in this manner, they become more hopeful. Therefore, they are more motivated to take the necessary steps toward recovery.’

And here’s the crazy thing, if addiction is a disease like cancer, stroke and heart disease, and large amounts of money is continually invested in the study of these diseases, at what point do we demand results?

Not sure where I’m going with this? Bare with me a second.

Here’s some figures to chew on:

Between 2008 to 2012, $735,985,000,000 of taxpayer’s money was allocated by the National Institute of Health to study diseases. These diseases included heart disease ($12 billion), Cancer ($55 billion), stroke ($2.2 billion) as well, $9.7 billion was spent to study the ‘disease’ of drug addiction.

Wondering what all these dollars in research studies has to report back from an ROI standpoint?

Here’s the stats…

The $1.76 billion per year investment in Heart Disease Research has returned:

• 38% reduction in deaths from heart disease (2003 – 2013)
• 30 to 40% reduction in hospitalizations resulting from heart failure, heart attack and stroke (1999 – 2011)
• 83% reduction in hospitalization rates for people suffering from unstable angina, a leading symptom of coronary heart disease. (1999 – 2011)

The $7.94 billion invested yearly into Cancer Research has returned:

• 20% reduction in cancer rates over the past 20 years
• This reduction translates to 1.3 million lives saved
• Survival rates for nearly all types of cancer are climbing

The $325 million invested annually into Stroke Research has returned:

• a 35.8% reduction in annual deaths from stroke (2000 – 2010)
• a 50% decrease in incidence of stroke in a Johns Hopkins study from 1987 to 2011.

Now what about the $1.38 billion per year (2008 – 2012) that is being allocated to Drug Addiction Research has returned a:

• 10.33% increase in deaths from prescription drug abuse
• 35% increase in deaths by illicit drug abuse
• 8.1% increase in deaths by opioid pain relievers
• 30.2% increase in deaths from benzodiazepine
• 95% increase in deaths caused by heroin

The numbers are staggering! Clearly money invested into the research and treatment of diseases yields a positive return, so why isn’t the money being thrown at addiction research providing the same results?

Maybe, just maybe, addiction isn’t a disease.

If you are a visual learner like me, you’ll appreciate the well laid out, researched infographic produced by Saint Jude Retreats. (see below)

What’s the ‘Business of Recovery’?

With all this money being spent within the treatment industry – remember to a tune of $35 billion according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration – we have to wonder, why we don’t have more scientific based evidence supporting the efficacy of programs like Alcoholics Anonymous or similarly designed 12 step programs.

‘The Business of Recovery’ is a documentary that sheds a light on many of the problems within the treatment industries. An article worth exploring, ‘Inside the $35 billion addiction treatment industry’ by Dan Munro appeared on Forbes.com makes great mention of a few of the startling statistics and findings shared by the film.

Ruben Baler, a health scientist at the National Institute on Drug Abuse, addresses the key concerns head on when he states:

12 Step programs are very popular, but if you’re looking for figures and randomized trials and scientifically rigorous studies of how they work and for how many people they work ‒ you will not find those studies. You will find anecdotal evidence ‒ for people who it did work [for] ‒ but unfortunately we don’t have the scientific basis to say how many of all those people who tried a 12 Step program ‒ how many of those failed.

The film is definitely an eye opener and puts our status quo beliefs about treatment in question. Not sure? Finding this a bit incredulous? Fair enough. Do you own due diligence and see what you come up with.

I feel you’ll come to a similar conclusion and find that ‘treatment doesn’t work!’

Defining is THE problem: Labeling of Addictions and the Pokémon Go Connection

Throughout this process of researching addictions, I find that much of the misinformation appears to stem from the definition itself. The labeling of substance abuse and/or addiction as a disease is quite absurd when you look at any other behavior in place of the substance or habit being defined as ‘the abuse’.

As an example, let’s look at the well accepted definition of addiction (or substance dependence) and compare it to the global phenomenon that’s taking millions by storm — that is Pokémon Go.

First, let’s look at how the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (American Psychiatric Association) defines addiction or substance abuse as a disease:

1. The substance is often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than was intended.
2. There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful effort to cut down or control use of the substance.
3. A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to obtain the substance, use the substance, or recover from its effects.
4. Craving, or a strong desire or urge to use the substance.
5. Recurrent use of the substance resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home.
6. Continued use of the substance despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the effects of its use.
7. Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of use of the substance.
8. Recurrent use of the substance in situations where it is physically hazardous.
9. Use of the substance is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by the substance.
10. Tolerance, as defined by either of the following:
    1. A need for markedly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication or desired effect.
    2. A markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of the substance.
11. Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:
    1. The characteristic withdrawal syndrome for that substance (as specified in the DSM-5 for each substance).
    2. The substance (or a closely related substance) is taken to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms.

Now let’s take this defined criteria and insert Pokeman Go as the behavior or action in question:

1. Pokemon Go is often played in large amounts of time or over a longer period than was intended.
2. There is a persistent desire or unsuccessful effort to cut down or control playing of Pokémon Go.
3. A great deal of time is spent in activities necessary to download Pokémon Go, play Pokémon Go, or recover from its effects.
4. Craving, or a strong desire or urge to play Pokémon Go.
5. Recurrent playing of Pokémon Go resulting in a failure to fulfill major role obligations at work, school, or home.
6. Continued playing of Pokémon Go despite having persistent or recurrent social or interpersonal problems caused or exacerbated by the playing the game.
7. Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of playing Pokemon Go.
8. Recurrent playing of Pokémon Go in situations where it is physically hazardous, such as driving a car, or while operating machinery.
9. Playing of Pokémon Go is continued despite knowledge of having a persistent or recurrent physical or psychological problem that is likely to have been caused or exacerbated by Pokeman Go, such as dreaming of Pokémon characters.
10. Tolerance, as defined by either of the following:
    1. A need for markedly increased amounts of playing Pokeman Go to achieve balls and hunt characters for desired effect or achievement.
    2. A markedly diminished effect with continued playing of Pokémon Go, hence the game begins to get less fun after playing it for 2 weeks straight.
11. Withdrawal, as manifested by either of the following:
    1. The characteristic withdrawal syndrome for that substance (as specified in the DSM- 5 for each substance)…..Whatever the hell that means…just another lame catch all.
    2. Pokeman Go (or a closely related game) is played to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms from lack of playing Pokeman Go.

This is just one example of how you can literally put any behavior to fit the definition and label anything as a disease. And there lies a big problem with labeling any chosen behaviors as diseases and taking the control away from the person.

A Non-Treatment Approach to Dealing with Substance Abuse and Addiction

Common knowledge among the North American culture is that if we suffer from an addiction, we have to ‘join’ the treatment industry and subject ourselves to a great deal of misinformation which is largely unproven.

While there exists several non traditional treatment options, the only truly non-treatment based option, is that of the Saint Jude Retreats, which help people overcome an unwanted habit, or unwanted behavior. Or, even better, they go about helping those dealing with substance issues by helping them see how they can improve their life and in turn leave the unwanted baggage behind them.

In writing this article, I had the opportunity to interview Ryan Schwantes, president of Baldwin Research Institute (the parent company of Saint Jude Retreats). Over fifteen years ago Ryan committed his life to helping others realize there’s alternative methods to achieving new habits, establishing lifestyle habits that are geared to building lives on happiness first. He believes no one should allow themselves to give up on their dreams and everyone has the power within themselves to build the life they want and absolutely no one has the right to tell them they can’t or won’t be successful and happy!

Below is Ryan’s recounting of a conversation he shared long ago which forever affected the trajectory of his life’s path.

Gerald Brown (Jer), one of the [Saint Jude Retreats] Co-Founders, once told me “Ryan, nothing is wrong with you, and you’re going to be fine”.

As simple as that sounds, it was so powerful because up to that point I had learned I was diseased and I was pretty much doomed for the rest of my life. All my dreams and goals were out the window because I was forever going to be dealing with my disease of addiction.  

I have always been a person with extreme pride, self-determination, strong-willed and motivated individual with strong principles and well grounded moral values.  I always had an overabundance of energy and I was able to overcome adversity in my life by mentally and physically working through pretty much anything that came my way. I guess I considered myself a pretty tough nut to crack but I have to say I was holding on by a shred at that point to not succumb to the nonsense.  

I was not a person that was easily intimidated, but I was literally scared shitless that I wasn’t going to be able to beat this disease. When Jer told me that I was going to be fine and I had nothing wrong with me, I immediately thought… I knew it… I knew I wasn’t nuts and now here was this wise Yoda type guy confirming what I was thinking in my head for the past several years. It was literally like I was injected with all the old drive, determination, and energy I once had, and the fire within me began to explode again!  

Ever since then I haven’t looked back and have strived to achieve every goal I set out to carry out and I vowed to never let anyone or anything tell me I can’t do something or tell me to believe or think a certain way because I was “supposed” to. Never again!

And I have vowed to do everything I can to help others see that despite what they have been told, and what they are expected to believe, they aren’t doomed and they aren’t sick and diseased. I want them to know there’s nothing wrong with them and they’re going to be fine.  

I shared a similar experience as Ryan.

My wife Christie was my Jer. I shared that moment when I made a personal choice to change a habit that was not in alignment with who I wanted to be. Sometimes the simplest choice is the right choice, and all it takes is one person to believe in you, like Christie and Jer believed in us.

I recognize the treatments of addiction and industry of recovery is anything but perfect. Many of our accepted norms are based on antiquated teachings and beliefs. Many want to quote ‘evidence based science’ as the gold standard of proof. But there comes a point when we have to question what evidence is based on beliefs and what evidence is based on fact.

The fact is that if you or anyone you know want to change a self-defeating habit that isn’t serving you, such as a compulsion to drink or use other substances, there exists options outside of the disease treatment system. And the solution lies in non-treatment!

You can change anything you choose to change, and sometimes it just takes a conversation to target your specific challenges, needs, concerns, hopes, goals and dreams. Help you remember what it is you want most from your life.

For what it is worth, if you are reading this article and something in you is driving you to seek a change, I want you to know I believe in you. There’s nothing wrong with you and you’re going to be fine.

Note to reader: If you, or someone you care about, is dealing with a substance abuse issue, I highly recommend reaching out and connecting with someone from Saint Jude Retreats. In addition to the residential facilities, they also offer a Home Program and a Long Distance Learning program as well — exclusive for my tribe, use discount code “addictionfreelife” to receive 15% off

If you’ve missed the first 3 posts in this series, click the below to get the full back story.

If you, or anyone you know, resonate with any of the information shared in this post, do not hesitate to reach out for more information. Call my friends at Saint Jude’s at 877-958-3310 or reach out to them directly via www.SoberForever.net — don’t bother waiting, don’t seek out the advice of others, simply make the decision to choose you and your health first, you deserve happiness.

FREE RESOURCES for Substance Users and Family Members

FREE E-BOOK FOR THE FAMILY

This e-book provides family members of substance users with a completely unique and common sense approach to helping their loved one while simultaneously gaining back the focus and freedom for their own lives.

FREE E-BOOK FOR THE SUBSTANCE USER

It is Saint Jude Retreat’s mission since 1989 to provide a research based program to help you move beyond your current self-limiting habits and achieve a sustained balance in your life driven by your own freely chosen goals and dreams.

This post is sponsored by Saint Jude Retreats. The opinions and views are wholly my own…

And to be absolutely clear, this is my disclaimer: “Just so you know, I have been compensated to share my ideas on this topic. Sometimes it is in the form of products, or services or even money… But here’s the thing; I won’t  share anything with you that I don’t fully support. It doesn’t matter what it is, or how much they are willing to give me, if I don’t believe in it, It won’t be on my site. Seriously. You’ll just have to trust me on this.” ~ Coach Moose

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Language Unleashed: The Powerful Poetry of Multilingual Students

Knowing what’s going on in the life of a quiet student can be a difficult challenge for educators, and getting to know that child can be further complicated by language barriers. If the student came from another country as a refugee, there is the added layer of trauma. These factors may create a challenging academic environment, but for one educator, poetry was a transformative outlet for immigrant kids who are struggling with issues of language, identity and trauma.

In an article for The Guardian, Kate Clanchy chronicles her experience teaching poetry to students who have recently immigrated to England from all over the world. Some of her students’ families fled poverty, others war zones, and many still struggled with English. But through poetry her students were able to express themselves in English on deeply personal themes like the scents of home and the struggles of arriving in a new place. Clanchy writes:

Miss B had sent me off with a small group to work on Carol Ann Duffy’s poem Originally (“the city, / the street, the house, the vacant rooms / where we didn’t live any more”), and we were remaking and breaking the line-breaks on a computer screen, finding out how they worked. In the cheerful noise, Priya was silent, and it was not till the end of the lesson that I leaned over and saw what she was working on:

There is that strange smell again, the tang of
the cars on the road screeching, not like
the laborious rickshaw in Bangladesh

Look ahead, jump, skip and hop. Hide the fact
you are alienated. Chew on the candy floss.
It melts in your mouth. Such foreign stuff!

She typed it in front of me, exactly like that, audacious line breaks, eccentric vocabulary, disturbing punctuation – the lot. The echo of Duffy was precise, but the original force of the poem even stronger. Priya was in the lower set because her critical skills were, at best, ragged, yet when it came to poetry it was as if she were listening, with extra ears, as much to the sounds of the words as their sense. I thought it might be to do with the loss of a language: Priya moved from Bangladesh when she was six. If that was the case, there might be more students like her in our school. In fact, we might have a wealth of them. Poets.

Clanchy’s article is a meditation on the strengths that can come with being a dual-language speaker and the power a creative outlet like poetry can have on students who have experienced trauma and are trying to find stability.

The Very Quiet Foreign Girls poetry group | Kate Clanchy

It all came from Priya’s poem, and Priya’s poem came from – well, I had no idea. It was an unlikely thing to turn up in a pile of marking. Yet there it was, tucked between two ordinary effusions, typed in a silly, curly, childish font, a sonorous description, framed with exquisite irony, of everything she couldn’t remember about her “mother country”.

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TWO-MINUTE CAMP OATS

Mom and I are almost done with our month-long road trip across the states. It has been EVERYTHING I needed and wanted to be... and so much more. I have the adventure bug now and I know that when I get home, I will certainly enjoy my bed, but I am so ready to just go on more trips. I don't wanna sit still.  I want to experience life to the fullest while I can and be stuffed full of special moments by the time I fee like settling down (if that time ever comes).

The past 3+ weeks have gone by so fast and yet at the same time it seems like I haven't been home in months. I've seen, felt and done so much in this relatively short time that I am seriously a new person. I love being away from my regular routine; waking up in a different place every morning, meeting new people every day, finding alternative ways to work on my fitness, observing the similarities and differences between regions and getting creative with my food. I'll be honest: I've been eating a lot of Larabars and bananas. But I do have my moments where I make an effort, and this bowl of oats is an example. Although now that I am thinking about, who am I kidding. Ya just throw a bunch of stuff into a bowl and pour vegan milk on it. But whatever, I'm calling it a recipe and posting it. I hope you don't think it looks gross. I promise it's super yummy.

X

TWO-MINUTE CAMP OATS

1/3 cup rolled oats
1 tablespoon chia seeds
2 tablespoons pumpkin seeds
2 tablespoons dried cranberries or raisins
3/4 cup cashew milk or other non-dairy milk
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon powder
2-3 tablespoons coconut sugar or other sweetener

Throw all the dry ingredients in a bowl then pour in the milk, stirring it all up with a spoon. Let it sit for a minute then enjoy! Add more milk or oats if you like. Note: use as much of each ingredient as you like, it's different for me every time and still always good.

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5 Ways You Can Prevent Cramping When Running

3 Ways You Unknowingly Invite Burglars into Your Home

Though you may not realize, many of the steps you take as part of your daily routine may actually make you more susceptible to burglaries. Here are 3 ways you unknowingly invite burglars into your home.

Image Source: Flickr

Noticeable Consumption
We get it, you are proud of your acquisitions and your possessions. There is no shame in that as you have worked hard to obtain all these items after all. However, remember a constant stream of boxes littered on obvious places in your house such as TV boxes scattered by the trash bin outside, online shopping shipments delivered to your homes, etc. is one way to get you noticed. Remember, robbers usually scout neighborhoods and mark potential homes as targets before committing a robbery and if you are constantly leaving traces of your purchases outside your home, you may be as well as pointing a big red arrow towards your house. Source: 63RealEstate

Leaving the Doors and Windows Unlocked
Over a third of burglars enter the house through the front door. After knocking to confirm no one is home, they’ll test the door to see if it’s unlocked. An alarming number of times they’ll discover they’ve hit the jackpot and walk right in. Keep your doors locked, even if you’re just running the kids to school or walking the dog. As a law enforcement officer, I took several reports of burglaries that occurred while the homeowner was right in the backyard playing with the kids. So don’t assume your presence will scare him away.
Don’t be fooled; the second floor of your home isn’t burglar-proof. In fact, he’ll use the ladder you left out last weekend to access your home’s second floor windows with ease. Keep all windows closed and locked, and be sure they are outfitted with window alarm sensors. Should a burglar attempt to enter, you’ll know right away. Don’t overlook securing small windows, like those commonly found in basements and bathrooms. An adult might not be able to fit through it, but sadly, some burglars will force their children though, who then unlock the front door for the burglar to enter. Source: SafeWise

Lack of a Security System
When keeping your home safe, it’s important to leverage all your assets. This could be neighbors, proper gardening, and the police. But with cops on call several miles away, it’s unlikely that a law-abiding passerby will report a break-in. A security system can help automate this whole process for you, using censors to detect intrusion and reporting the incident to the security company, who can contact the proper authorities. You’ll need allies in your fight against burglars, and a security system is your Bat Signal. Source: ProtectYourHome

Reconsider your daily routine to determine whether you are unknowingly leaving your home open to burglaries. If you want to know more about ways to secure your home, contact us now!

The post 3 Ways You Unknowingly Invite Burglars into Your Home appeared first on Mr Locksmith Abbotsford.

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A Growth Mindset Could Buffer Kids From Negative Academic Effects of Poverty

Summertime Sweets

Hey guys! I sure have missed you. I’m sorry for not posting as much lately, but I kind of got swept away by summer and some few things going on in real life. I am excited to say that soon, well it’s probably going to be several weeks from now, but soon I’ll have a new site for you. It’s been forever … years even … since I had this little sweet spot redesigned and I can’t wait for you guys to see it. Plus, it will finally be mobile friendly. Hands high in the air …Yay!

So with summer on the brain and my oven off this past weekend, I thought I would feature some of my fave summery sweets. If you’ve been a long-time follower you’ll remember some of these oldies but goodies and if you’re new to the site, then I hope you have fun looking through all the yum.

Let’s get started……

Some Like it Hot…
…and judging by how quickly this dessert disappeared, some like it cold, too. I’m talking about good, old-fashioned banana pudding, of course. Me? I like it cold… okay, and hot, too! My grandmother used to make a homemade one that was served warm and oh, how I wish I had the recipe for it. But, since I don’t and it’s summer… Continue Reading

Lei Time
Just thought I’d say hi with a few Aloha Cupcakes. Hi there. Hello. Howdy. How ya doing? These are Pineapple Mango Cupcakes. All tropical like. With graham cracker crumbs for sand and fondant flowers for the leis. They’d be super cute for a luau party. They’re really pretty easy to make once you have all … Continue reading

Butterfinger Crunch Ice Cream
I enjoy ice cream way too much. I think I could eat it every day. And I almost did last week when I was on vacation. Ice cream is my traveling must-have treat above all other sweets. And now that I’m back home, I already feel like I’m having withdrawal. Luckily, this no-churn ice cream … Continue reading

I scream, you scream, we all scream for…
Ice Cream!!!!!!!!! Sorta. Kinda. Okay, not so much. These are all cake and candy impersonating cute little ice cream cones. The cool part is they don’t drip. Their frozen parts are frozen. And unlike the … Continue reading

Have a ball
I hope you guys are enjoying the summer so far. Whether you’re heading to the beach, the pool, the sofa or somewhere else, I hope your summer is fun, fun, fun! And these beach ball cake pops are a great way to get in the right mindset. I made them for Target’s blog A Bullseye … Continue reading

Easy Oreo Ice Cream Sandwiches
Okay, I almost feel silly posting this. It’s sooo so easy, but it makes me way happy when I bite into one that I can’t resist. It’s the simple things sometimes you know. I was at Bruster’s the other day getting some ice cream and this poster was staring me back in the face. Umm … Continue reading

Fast Food Fun
Cupcake Buns + Brownie Burgers + Cookie Fries = One Happy Meal! Or many… I can hardly stand how cute these little guys are … Continue Reading

Mom Approved!
These may not look like all that much at first glance, but let me tell you they are fantastic! They’re little lemon brownies or lemonies. My mom found them on Pinterest and said she wanted me to make some for her right away. So I came up with this version to give her on Mother’s … Continue reading

Burgers and Bees
Bzzzzzzzz. Bees first. I did these a while back. They were some of my first attempts at turning cake pops into little creatures. Since doing them, I’ve seen other variations shared by readers that are pretty darn cute, too. Some with smaller wings using jumbo white heart sprinkles that I think are just darling. I’ll … Continue reading

Brownie Mocha Milkshakes
So, I’m kind of in love with this milkshake. Brownies, ice cream, chocolate syrup and a little Kahlua coffee. My Saturday night is to blame for these. With a sudden late night craving for chocolate, I went to the pantry … fingers crossed … that I had a brownie mix (aka my guilty pleasure quick … Continue reading

Sweet Shapes Candy Cupcake Toppers
I have another easy little project to share with you today using candy wafers and one of the candy molds in my Bakerella for Make’n Mold line. If you liked the candy jewel pops from a few weeks ago, then I think you’ll enjoy this project too. It’s a fun way to make the cutest …Continue reading

Snow Cones
These snow cones won’t melt. Nope. They’re not icy… but they are frosted. They’re snow cone cupcakes and they were a lot of fun to make. I decorated them in red, white, and blue so you can see how cute they can be for Memorial Day or the Fourth. When I made them, I wanted … Continue reading

Brownie Sundae Bon Bons
It’s been soooo hot the last few days. Like historically hot with record-breaking temperatures in Georgia. Throw in our humidity and it’s a recipe for staying inside and enjoying the cool breeze of the air conditioner. I’ve lived without one when I was younger, but in the south, the a/c is definitely appreciated. So instead … Continue reading

Sweet Tarts
I decided I need to add a little more fruit to my diet. My pie diet, anyway. Berries. Black and blue. And raspberries, too. I think I love you. These are really easy to make. Pie crust, plus berries… Just fold and bake. This one didn’t even make it to the plate. Enjoy them topped … Continue reading

Okay… now I’m seriously craving something sweet. Hope you enjoy these summertime treats. Hugs!

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A Podcast About Teachers : ‘Stories Teachers Share’

Teachers see first-hand how we grow and learn; each experience is as unique as the individual. And teachers have a trove of stories we don’t ever get to hear for a multitude of reasons, like lack of time or interest in knowing what teachers experience first-hand. It’s tough to hear the personal stories when so much attention is focused on test scores and standards.

At MindShift and KQED, we want to make space for real dialogue about teaching. So we created a podcast, “Stories Teachers Share.” Each episode will feature a teacher recalling a moment that defined his or her teaching experience. You’ll also hear from the people in their lives who were affected by that individual’s teaching.

There’s Sadie, a special education teacher who leaned on her mom (who also works with students who have disabilities) to get through her first year. You can also meet Alex and Al, who concocted an epic April Fool’s Day prank on their high school students, which resulted in handcuffs. English teacher Alexa made an incredible discovery in front of her class while reading a student’s creative writing assignment on a Chrome Book. The Puberty Lady and Dr. Rob teach parents, especially, about how to talk with their adolescent kids about puberty. Basketball coach Jim guided one player with dreams of NCAA sports through a smaller college experience. We also helped a former student who had been searching for his middle school teacher for decades to share his appreciation .

If you have an experience you’d like to share, email us at MindShiftStories@kqed.org. You can even record yourself on your smartphone and send the file to us. We’ll try to include these stories on an upcoming episode. You can also call us and leave a message at: 415-553-2200.

The more we learn about the people impacted by teachers, the more we learn about what makes a great teacher. We invite you to take a listen on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts and find out more about the stories teachers share with friends, students, parents, loved ones and us.

–Ki & Katrina

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3 Tips to Maintain the Quality of Your Carpet

Carpet is very common in many homes, offices and other commercial establishments.  Carpets should have regular maintenance – otherwise, the quality of the carpet is reduced. Fortunately, with these guide tips you can learn about how to keep your carpet in good shape.

Below are 3 tips to maintain the quality of your carpet:

Vacuum Often
To protect your carpet, vacuum entrance areas and high-traffic areas twice a week and the rest of the carpeting at least weekly. Oily soils attract oily soils, and frequent vacuuming will reduce soil buildup.

Vacuum slowly enough to get out as much dirt as possible. Make one quick pass over low-traffic areas and two slow passes over high-traffic areas. Two slow passes removes ground-in dirt more effectively than several fast passes. Source: FamilyHandyman

 

Use Doormats

Learn what you need to do to take care of your carpet. When it comes to carpet cleaning, chances are there is a lot to learn. The average home owner or renter has little understanding of how to keep a carpet looking clean and fresh – nor the dangers and dirt lurking in the fibers of your carpet. Learn how to deal with carpet cleaning and care problems with these great tips.

Use doormats. The humble doormat does wonders to reduce the amount of sand and dirt tracked into the home. Invest a few dollars in doormats to expand the life of your carpet and keep it clean longer. Source:  wikiHow

 

Professional Cleaning

In addition to frequent vacuuming, it’s important to clean your carpet on a regular basis. Cleaning systems target the soils that result from cooking vapors, air pollution, and tracked-in dirt. The particles of oily soil deposited on carpet fibers can cause gradual dulling of the beautiful color of your carpet. The color isn’t lost, but is hidden under the film. Research indicates that hot water extraction provides the best capability for cleaning. The process consists of applying a cleaning agent into the carpet pile and using water in the extractor to recover the used solution and soil. Source: TollTalks

The post 3 Tips to Maintain the Quality of Your Carpet appeared first on Curlys Carpet Repair.

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For Digital Natives, Appreciating Shakespeare’s Words with Performances

While we may not exactly know all the ways Shakespeare was taught to classrooms 200 or even 100 years ago, we do know that many of today’s high schoolers, increasingly engaged in the more visual communications of the digital world and the language of texting, find Shakespeare difficult to read and even more difficult to comprehend.

And while today’s teens have become more tethered to visual and digital means of communication, the teaching of Shakespeare in US classrooms hasn’t changed much, according to secondary English Language Arts curriculum specialist Kristen Nance, who facilitates resource use for one of the largest school districts in Texas.

“A lot of very traditional instruction goes along with teaching Shakespeare,” she said, such as reading the plays, showing movie clips to help with visualizing, or reading parts in class to read out loud. “Getting it new and fresh sometimes is a struggle.”

Nance also said keeping kids engaged in the text can also be demanding; between understanding the archaic language and deciphering the vocabulary, and teachers trying to fill in the gaps as best they can, some kids find it a challenge to keep up.

Then last year, Nance’s superior brought in Alexander Parker, who had developed a digital product for teaching Shakespeare that appeared to bring the best of two worlds together. Parker’s invention, a series of web-based ebooks called WordPlay Shakespeare, offered something Nance had never seen before: Shakespearean text alongside a performance of the play. Instead of just studying the text or watching the performance, the ebook provided a way for students to do both at the same time side-by-side, which enhanced both the reading and the watching. The performances were simple and stripped down, so as not to distract from the text, and the text had some helpful features built in to help students, like a built in dictionary, scene-by-scene synopsis, on-page annotations, and even a modern translation.

Parker, who had once been an English teacher, got his Masters from Harvard in the Technology in Education Program, and after graduation worked building large-scale websites for the school. But it was post-graduate work, helping faculty in the humanities department figure out how to use technology in their research, where the idea for WordPlay first occurred to him.

“I spent a lot of time talking to people who were working on the history of the book,” Parker said. “I adore books, I’m surrounded by them, and I still by and large do read paper books. My general interest being in technology and its role in education, books are something that are the symbol of education, and the carrier of knowledge. And it’s obvious to me that’s changing or expanding.”

He hired all the actors and a director to stage the three plays on video—MacBeth, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream—and then worked on making sure that both performance and text weren’t competing, but complimenting one another. “We didn’t want this to be a primarily visual or filmic performance. It is trying to blend text and performance in a way that each informs the other without overwhelming the other,” Parker said.

Nance’s team chose three high schools of varying student populations and socio-economic backgrounds to pilot WordPlay, to see how teachers and students used the ebooks. From focus groups, Nance learned that both teachers and students overall enjoyed the ebook. Teachers liked it because embedded in the plays were links to Wikipedia and visual links, so, for example, students could get an idea of what a described weapon looked like. They also had control to turn certain features on or off based on their preferences, like the modern translation.

One frustration among teachers that Nance found was not with the product itself, but the district’s infrastructure. Even using the campus’s lightning-fast new wifi, with 2,500 students in the building, students sometimes would get kicked off the wifi and lose their focus. In addition, their district’s schools aren’t 1:1, so teachers sometimes had to cobble together the devices for students to use.

Together, Nance and Parker created a blind study to see if WordPlay was effective for students: they split a focus group into two, and gave one group of students a page of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that they’d never seen before, and five questions to answer; the other group got the same page of text and questions, only they were reading it on WordPlay. Both groups were given the same simple instructions: read the text, then answer the questions.

“That’s where we went, ‘whoa, this is something special,’” Nance said. “The kids who were on the computer not only interacted with the text in multiple ways, they went in and out multiple times, which is something [in class] we often begged them to do. They went to the text, then the video, then back. And they collaborated with each other naturally, they would talk to each other about the text before they answered [the questions], and spent more time, at least double, sometimes triple, the time with the text that the kids with paper and pen did.”

With the success of the pilot, Nance cautiously hopes to slowly grow WordPlay into all her district schools. “It’s almost automatic differentiation,” she said.

Parker is hoping to gain funding to produce even more plays in the ebook format, maybe even expand his reach to other archaic classics like Beowulf. “I’m just over 50,” he said, “and my contemporaries always say, slightly wistful, ‘I wish I’d had this when I was reading Shakespeare for the first time.’”

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Gold Medal Party Dip

  

The Summer Games are hugely nostalgic for Alex and me. We love the spectacle of them, the tribulation-to-triumph stories, the crazy opening ceremonies, and the silly dramas. A particular limping gymnast moment of 1996 is seared in my memory like it was part of my own childhood. And what girl in the 90’s didn’t want to be a star gymnast?

Each time the games roll around is a new excuse to be carried away by the mania, and Alex and I are always game. As adults we’ve taken to hosting opening ceremonies parties. While I can’t seem to remember the exact years or cities, I do remember the food. It’s usually themed, many times representative of the host country’s cuisine. One particular recipe that stands out was a jiggling tray of 5 jello rings, jewel-toned perfectly red, green, yellow, black, and bright blue.

This year, we took on a challenge to develop a Summer Games-themed recipe that’s wholesome but still playful and celebratory. The result was this garlic chive yogurt dip with rings of veggies, which is not only fun to look at but darn tasty. The hardest ring to recreate was the blue one (because what vegetables are blue?). We went out on a limb with these purple potatoes, which when cooked have a blue-ish hue. Sliced thinly and seared on a grill pan, they were our favorite to dip into the garlicky yogurt dip. We’re now more pumped than ever, and this recipe will definitely be making an appearance at an upcoming Opening Ceremonies bash.

How about you — will you be gathering together around food together with friends and family to celebrate the upcoming Summer Games in Rio? Because it is about that more than medal counts: time with family and friends, following the very human stories and celebrating the important victories in our own lives, big or small.

We developed this Gold Medal Party Dip recipe for Mejier (who incidentally, just moved into our neighborhood!), which is focused on providing the supplies needed to bring family and friends together during the Rio Games. They also believe the Games are more about gathering together than just medals: check out their themed recipes and resources at http://ift.tt/2amzXBX.

Gold Medal Party Dip

 

Print

by: a Couple Cooks

Serves: 8 to 10 as an appetizer

What You Need

• ¼ cup chopped chives
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 cups Chobani plain Greek yogurt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 tablespoon olive oil, plus additional for the potatoes
• Yellow bell pepper
• Red bell pepper
• 12 ounces purple potatoes
• 8 ounces snap peas
• 1 can pitted black olives (6 ounces)

What To Do

1. Thinly slice the chives. Grate or mince the garlic clove (we grated ours into the bowl using a microplane). In a medium bowl, combine Greek yogurt with chives, garlic, black pepper, kosher salt, and olive oil. Refrigerate until serving.
2. Chop the bell peppers into bite-sized pieces.
3. Thinly slice the potatoes and then place them in a bowl and mix them with a drizzle of olive oil to lightly coat and a few pinches of kosher salt. Cook over medium heat in a skillet or grill pan for about 12 minutes until tender and lightly charred, turning halfway through.
4. To serve, place yogurt dip in five small bowls; arrange vegetables on a platter around each bowl to form Olympic rings, as shown above.

3.5.3208

Gold Medal Party Dip is sponsored by Meijer; all opinions are our own. Thank you for supporting the sponsors who keep A Couple Cooks in action!

A Couple Cooks - Recipes for Healthy & Whole Living

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