It's a new year!

     In the spirit of New Year resolutions I decided that I was going to be more focused and purposeful this year.  It has been going great so far, but we'll see what happens when grad school officially starts up again tomorrow!  On the first day back at work I had a bright, shiny, new student teacher to greet me.  This is a first for both of us, and we spent the week getting to know the ropes... Needless to say I think he was very ready for the weekend to come ;-). While having a shadow is going to be quite the adjustment, it has already proven to be beneficial for me.  I want him to have the best experience possible, so I am forcing myself to focus and be more purposeful with my planning which feels good.  I finally created a digital copy of my lesson plans (although not as pretty as I would like) for he and I to edit, which is something that I've been meaning to do for quite some time.  Now we'll see how I do with giving up control over the planning and teaching!

     Another area where I'm trying to be more focused and purposeful is with my appearance.  I wouldn't necessarily say that it is terrible, but I am definitely feeling like I am in a rut.  With my youngest turning 3 next month (um how did that happen by the way?), I've hit the "I don't have a baby anymore, so I don't need to look like I have a baby" stage where I feel like I can wear jewelry without it getting yanked off or a pretty top without getting (as much) food/ saliva/ boogers rubbed onto it.  I decided to take the plunge and sign up for Stitch Fix- since that's what all the cool kids seem to be doing.  I get my first fix on the 26th, so we'll see how it goes!  I fully intend to blog about my experience ;-)

     As teachers, mothers and wives we have a tendancy to continuously give and not take much for ourselves.  I'm hoping that this year I can find the balance between the two.  I feel as though I am a much better person in general when I put a little focus and effort back into myself.  Let's hope I'm able to stay the course!

Well.....

Well, here we are again... another January, another attempt at this blog!  I created this blog back in 2012 shortly after my youngest child was born.  I had great aspirations of blogging about our family journey as we balanced a new child, my love for Pinterest, and my passion for teaching.  Then life happened.  Two small kids, a job, a house and a husband kept me very occupied and left me little time for blogging.  As if that wasn't enough, my husband and I thought it would be a good time for me to finally obtain my Masters degree (insert screams of horror here).  Fast forward to Christmas break 2014- for the first time in a VERY long time I had some free time.  The kids are old enough now where they don't need me every.single.second, so I got to spend some time doing things that I actually enjoy and missed doing (I crocheted a few awesome scarves!).  Long story short, I am one semester away from graduating with my Masters in Education degree and can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  I got started thinking about the things that I want to accomplish post grad school, and ended up creating a sellers profile on Teachers Pay Teachers and signing in to this blog!  My goal is to be able to focus more on the great things going on in my classroom and create some new resources to use.  Things may be quiet the next few months as I wrap things up with graduate school, hopefully I will stop by a few times and if not I will be back this summer!

Adventures in Baking

Now that my crazy, hectic school year is over, it's time to unwind and start checking things off my very long to-do list.  Summer is a time when I put all the pins that I've been hoarding into effect!  The first thing on my list (ok, not the first but it got bumped up a few pegs as per hubby's request) was to bake an apple pie.  I had several apples from a recent excursion to Sams Club that needed to be used up, and it just so happened to be Father's Day.  And let's face it, there's nothing more Norman Rockwell than baking an apple pie for the man you love, while two small children scamper about your feet on a summers eve.  Right.

After searching the web for the perfect apple pie recipe, I decided to save myself some angst on this first go around and purchased a ready made pie crust.  I then found this recipe for apple pie filling from Paula Deen Paula's Apple Pie Filling Recipe : Paula Deen : Recipes : Food Network

I Paula's desserts always look amazing, so I figured it would be a safe bet.

Ingredients
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling
Freshly ground nutmeg, to taste
7 medium apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1 lemon, zested and juiced

Directions

3 tablespoons butter, diced
Egg wash, for brushing
Sugar, for sprinkling
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Mix together the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. In another bowl, sprinkle apples with the juice of 1 lemon and toss. Stir in the sugar mixture to evenly coat the apples.

Set aside. Roll out chilled dough into 2 circles and use 1 round to line a 9-inch pie pan. Chill the other round.

Mound the apple and sugar mixture into the pie pan lined with dough. Dot with the cubed butter.

Using a pastry cutter, cut an even number of strips from the remaining rolled out dough. Transfer every other strip to the pie top and weave in the lattice by folding every other strip back onto itself and laying another strip perpendicularly. Fold the strips back across and repeat until completed.

Brush the top of the pie with egg wash and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Trim the overhanging dough and crimp edges.

Bake pie for 45 minutes. Let rest 20 minutes before slicing.

Peel and core the apples

Toss with lemon

Mix sugar, cinnamon, flour, and nutmeg

Coat apples

Mound into pie dish

Top with remaining crust

Bake and enjoy!

*note- due to my sons egg allergy I did not brush the crust with egg.  Also, I recommend baking on a cookie sheet incase any bubbles over (which it did!).