We had a covered dish dinner at church yesterday. One of the ladies brought a tomato-mozarella salad that was delicious.  I asked what the ingredients were, and then I came up with this recipe.  Here’s my version:

Tomato-Mozzarella Salad

 

2 tomatoes (Fresh from the garden is best!)

1 fresh mozzarella ball

2 leaves fresh basil, chopped

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Salt to taste

 

Prepare immediately before serving. 

Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella so that you end up with the same number of slices of each.  Layer the tomatoes and mozzarella slices (fanned out) on a serving dish – alternating the tomato slices and the mozzarella slices.  Sprinkle the chopped basil on top.  Drizzle with the olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  Serves 2-4.

Jordin Sparks will be the next AMERICAN IDOL.  And the song “I “Who Have Nothing)” will be one of the reasons why.  She is phenomenal singing it.  Here are the lyrics:

I . . . I (Who Have Nothing)

I . . . I (who have nothing)

I . . . I (who have no one)

Adore you and want you so

I’m just a no one with nothing to give you but oh

I love you

You . . .  you buy her diamonds

Bright sparkling diamonds

But believe me, dear, when I say

that she can give you the world but she’ll never love you the way

I love you

She can take you any place she wants

to fancy clubs and restaurants

where I can only watch you with my nose pressed up against the window pane

I love you.   I love you.   I love you.

Simon can talk about how “old” he thinks the song is as much as he wants, but when Jordin sings that song , it is absolutely phenomenal!

Yesterday I was in an all-day meeting with other reading specialists.  The meeting was interrupted THREE times by cell phones ringing.  Each time, the person whose phone was ringing, acted surprised (What? A phone call for me?!), dug the phone out of her purse, got up and walked out of the meeting, saying “hello” into the phone before getting out of the room.  One phone was particularly loud and played a wild clanging song.  None of the phone calls were emergencies.  They most likely weren’t even important.  They were  just everyday conversations with husbands, children, boyfriends, whoever. 

I don’t understand how professional people can do that.  It is the epitome of rudeness and disrespect.   Almost always, I silence my phone before entering a meeting or going into my school.  I keep it in my pocket on “vibrate” and if I get a call, I will answer it only if I’m by myself.  Any other time, I understand that if I don’t answer it, the person will leave a message, and I can retrieve the message the next time I have the opportunity.  If I’m expecting an important call, I will excuse myself before answering it.  What happened to those basic good manners?

It really irritates me the way people so nonchalantly interrupt meetings in order to take phone calls.  It’s arrogance, really.  As though that person’s personal conversations are more important than respect for whoever is speaking at the meeting.  I know how much time presenters put into their programs.  It must gall them to have people exhibit such disrespect.

Similarly, I’ve been around people who take phone calls when I’m with them - and talk for long conversations - chatty conversations - forcing me to stand or sit there quietly waiting for them to finish their phone call.  As though I WANT to be stuck there listening to one end of an aimless conversation.  The worst is to be stuck in the car with someone who simply MUST carry on private phone conversations for all the car occupants to hear.  It happens much too often.

So what are the rules of cell phone etiquette?

(1) Cell phones should be turned off or turned to “vibrate” whenever you’re in a meeting, a social or business gathering, or at work.

(2)  If you receive a call while in a meeting, you should let it go to voicemail and retrieve your message later. 

(3) If you are expecting an important call, and you feel you absolutely MUST take the call during a meeting, excuse yourself politely and wait until you are out of earshot of the meeting before answering your phone. 

(4) If you absolute MUST take a call when you are with friends, family or co-workers, then excuse yourself and make the call as short and to the point as possible. 

 (5) If you forget and leave your phone on during a meeting, and your phone rings, simply turn it off as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.  Return the call after the meeting.  Do NOT let it continue to ring and then further interrupt things by answering it where everyone can hear you.

I think I’ve covered the main points.  No - go and behave yourselves!

Thirteen Reasons I Want A New Computer

Okay - of course I don’t NEED a new computer.  I want a new computer.  The computer I have is enough to take care of my NEEDS.  However, I really really WANT a new computer.  It would make my life simpler on several levels.  Here are my reasons:

(1) My current computer is seven years old which, by computer standards, is pretty darn old.

(2) It is very VERY slow.  We have DSL, but it still is very slow - especially at peak hours.

(3) Something that takes me only a few seconds to handle on my work computer takes me at least four or five times longer on my computer.  And I REALLY need to not handle personal stuff on my work computer.  I DO make sure that I don’t spend longer than my lunch period handling personal stuff at work, though. 

(4)  It is frustrating to spend so much time on something that shouldn’t take that long.

(5) The time I spend waiting for pages to load could be better spent doing something else.

(6) I don’t do many things I’d like to do online because it just takes too long to navigate the pages.  So when someone tells me about a great site - I often don’t even try to look at it unless I have the time to wait. . . and wait.

(7) A new laptop would enable me to not be tied to my desk - figuratively speaking.

(8)  I REALLY want to write a second edition of my cookbook, but the file is so large that I won’t even attempt it with my current computer.  Even opening the cookbook file takes forever.  When I wrote the cookbook four years ago, I didn’t have so much stuff on my computer, and it was able to handle it better.

(9)  I would like to help my mother with her own book, but again, my computer makes it too much of a hassle.  I don’t want to offer something I can’t complete.

(10)  I’d really enjoy doing more writing - both blogging and other writing.  However, I don’t do it because it becomes so frustrating.

(11)  I’d like to work on school stuff at home sometimes.

(12) There isn’t enough memory left for some programs that I’d like to use.  In order to make it not completely worthless, I had to either delete a lot of programs and files or copy them to CDs.  It made it better for awhile, but now things are slowly building up again.

(13)  I’m just tired of my old computer, and I want a new computer!   WAHHHHHH!

Visit other Thursday Thirteen participants and find out how to join the Thursday Thirteen weekly meme HERE.

Last night’s AMERICAN IDOL show was a good one.  We TiVo’ed it and then zipped through everything but the singing and evaluations.  Melinda and Jordin were fantastic. 

I just don’t get Blake, and I don’t get why he has such a manic following.   He sounds like thousands of other singers out there - absolutely nothing that sets his voice apart from anyone else’s.  Plus, as I’ve said repeatedly, he just looks weird when he sings - the whole fish-face thing - and what’s with always looking over to his right in between lines?   I would never purchase a CD of Blake’s.  

Melinda has the most unique voice of the three.  Her voice is distinct.  I could hear ten people sing and I could recognize which one was her.  And that’s an important quality for a singer.  She nails each song, and I would buy an album of hers.  I like the way she sounds great no matter what genre of music she sings.

My favorite, though, is Jordin.  Her voice is unique.  She’s young.  She’s incredibly talented, and she has a good personality for being in the public eye.  I feel almost guilty for not being 100% gung-ho for Melinda since she’s practically a neighbor of mine.  However, Jordin just has her beat when it comes to potential.  When Jordin sang “I Who Have Nothing” last night, it was almost magical.  For someone so young to be able to sing with such believable passion - it’s amazing.

So far I’ve had a pretty darn good score selecting which contestants will go home each week.  I’ve nailed it perfectly the past few weeks.

I think Jordin will be in the finals - and then I hope Melinda is there with her.  My only concern is that Blake fans seems a little overly enthusiastic.  One commenter said she voted for him for two hours straight - getting in at least 600 votes.  Is it even possible for one person to clock so many votes?  I thought there was a limit to the number of times a person could vote.  I have to admit that I haven’t cared enough about any of the contestants to vote even once this whole season.  If Blake makes it to the finals, though, I’ll make sure to vote next week.  I think he got some fans by doing the beat-boxing which was unusual - and then people are sticking with him - even with his obvious weaknesses.  Without a doubt, Blake is the least talented and least impressive of the three remaining contestants.  If people are voting on star-quality, then Blake has to go tonight.

As far as the final two:  If it’s between Melinda and Jordin, it will be a close vote, and I doubt I could predict which one would win.  I think Jordin has that indefinable star quality that Melinda doesn’t quite have.  So my bet would be on Jordin.

Survivor Fiji is over, and Earl won.  Yeah, yeah.  Earl wasn’t an outstanding player.  He didn’t win any challenges or do anything noteworthy - except vote against the man who he had a pact with.  The only reason he won is because he was the least unworthy of the three remaining contestants.  Dreamz was a liar and a cheat, Cassandra was such a non-competitor that she only made it to the final three by hooking up with others.  Then she voted against the ones who helped her get that far.  As I said, Earl was the least offensive of the final three.

The thing that bothers me, though, is Dreamz going back on his word to Yao-Man.  It’s one thing to lie in the heat of the game - when your neck is on the chopping block.  It’s another thing to shake hands on a deal, swear in front of all the other players and Jeff Probst - on camera - that you are giving your word on something in exchange for a new truck - and then to totally go back on that word.   Dreamz should have known that one act guaranteed that he would not get a single vote from the jury of former contestants.  There was no gain for him in lying.  His lie also guaranteed that the one man who had GIVEN him a truck in exchange for his promise would not win the million dollars.  Yao-Man is really the only person who deserved to win the prize. 

Dreamz can declare all he wants that it was his strategy from the start to lie to Yao-Man.  It wasn’t.  He talked of showing his son that he was a man of his word.  When he went back on his promise, he cried as he sat at tribal council.  He was feeling the guilt of what he had done.  Then he had time to rationalize to himself about it - and the next time he was on camera he was cocky and sure of himself and telling everyone he had planned to not stick to his deal from the beginning.  So he’s a double liar.   He had a pattern of not keeping people’s trust throughout the game, though.  He spilled the secret of who had the immunity idol.  He is an untrustworthy person.

The thing that bothers me the most is wondering how he could live with himself after that.  Is that something that a person can justify to the point that it doesn’t bother him?  And he has at least one child.  I wonder what his behavior shows his child about character and integrity.  I just wonder about that.

I learned as a child a very long time ago that trust is a valuable asset.  It takes very little to lose someone’s trust, and it’s almost impossible to win it back.  Dreamz has displayed his lack of integrity and honor to millions via television.  If he were someone in my life, I would never trust him.

Integrity and honor are worth far more than any amount of prize money.  And he had no chance of winning the million.  So he lied for nothing.

I saw an ad for Bloggerwave in another blog.  I clicked the link to read about it. It sounds like it could work. You look at some possible advertisers, decide which one is someone you could endorse, and then you write a short post about that advertiser. You’re paid a fixed amount - regardless of whether or not someone clicks on one of the links in your post.

So this is the beginning. Over a year ago I took every ad off my blog because they weren’t making enough money for me to see it. Now I’ve decided that I want to make some money on this blog that I spend so much time working on. If you’re interested in Bloggerwave, click the links below and see what you think.

Bloggerwave

Sometimes I hear or read things in the news that make me wonder “What were they thinking?”  In the following case, they WEREN’T thinking.  Not at all.  It happened in Tennessee - in a school district next to mine.  It’s not only an outrage that teachers and an administrator would so badly abuse the trust that students and parents give them, but to do something so utterly stupid and mean-spirited is an embarrassment to good educators everywhere.

Teachers Stage Fake Gun Attack on Kids

AP

MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (May 14) - Staff members of an elementary school staged a fictitious gun attack on students during a class trip, telling them it was not a drill as the children cried and hid under tables.

The mock attack Thursday night was intended as a learning experience and lasted five minutes during the weeklong trip to a state park, said Scales Elementary School Assistant Principal Don Bartch, who led the trip.

“We got together and discussed what we would have done in a real situation,” he said.

But parents of the sixth-grade students were outraged.

“The children were in that room in the dark, begging for their lives, because they thought there was someone with a gun after them,” said Brandy Cole, whose son went on the trip.

Some parents said they were upset by the staff’s poor judgment in light of the April 16 shootings at Virginia Tech  that left 33 students and professors dead, including the gunman.

During the last night of the trip, staff members convinced the 69 students that there was a gunman on the loose. They were told to lie on the floor or hide underneath tables and stay quiet. A teacher, disguised in a hooded sweat shirt, even pulled on locked door.

After the lights went out, about 20 kids started to cry, 11-year-old Shay Naylor said.

“I was like, ‘Oh My God,’ ” she said. “At first I thought I was going to die. We flipped out.”

Principal Catherine Stephens declined to say whether the staff members involved would face disciplinary action, but said the situation “involved poor judgment.”

Usually I try to look at things from a teacher’s viewpoint - trying to understand WHY a teacher would do something.  However, I honestly can’t think of a single thing that would justify something so damaging to young people.  The world has enough REAL horror without manufacturing it.

Bloggerwave

The first round on last night’s AMERICAN IDOL was pretty good.  Jordin’s first song was great - and so was LaKisha’s.  Melinda was predictably wonderful, and I even rather liked Blake’s first song.  Then the second round came along.  Blake’s song was unintelligible, and the beat-boxing (is that the right word?) was getting tiresome.  Twice in one show is a bit much. 

LaKisha went back to yelling instead of singing.  Melinda was predictably good again.  And Jordin’s second song was good but not wasn’t nearly as good as the first.

So what’s my prediction for who will go home tonight?  It’s got to be LaKisha.  She’s got a great voice, but absolutely no “star quality.”  Jordin has got that area dominated, and that’s why I think she will win.   Blake might go because he DID overdo the beat-boxing thing last night, but I don’t think tonight’s his night to go.   That’ll come next week.  

I THINK (hope!) that Melinda and Jordin are safe this week.   Last week I was right on the money with my prediction.  We’ll see what happens this week.