Hopes for 2009

January 1, 2009 – 9:28 pm

2008 was jarring. Talk about discontinuities. I quit pro blogging. I decided to go into teaching. I found a part-time job teaching calculus and algebra. I moved my girls from Montessori into the neighborhood public school. The stock market crashed. My sister had a baby. Our dog died. We adopted a new one.

For 2009, I wish most of all to continue in the direction we’ve already established. I’ve found a house I love in a neighborhood I love with great neighborhood friends. A job I love at a school that challenges me and everyone in it. An insanely energetic dog who pushes me out of bed each morning and gets me out exercising. And, of course, I have my wonderful husband, kids, extended family, and friends. I am satisfied. But I don’t want to just tread water.

Here’s what I’m hoping for in 2009:

  • Find a way to blog again and connect online again on a regular basis. I had too much face-to-face stuff to do in 2008 to spend much time online. Plus I was burnt out. I want to blog on a personal level and I want to blog about education. I’ve started a new blog about teaching but haven’t really gotten it off the ground yet. I’ll write a little while there before announcing anything about it.
  • Manage teaching logistics better. I have just two classes and 13 students — there is no way I should feel overwhelmed. Yet I do. I have some ideas. I’m going to have my algebra students do their daily work in a journal so I can keep each one’s assignments in one place. I’m going to move my calculus kids’ work onto the computer where it can be graded automatically and give them automatic feedback (see WeBWorK and WebAssign). The algebra kids get too distracted by the computer so I think mostly paper is better for now. The calculus kids are driven to get their work done so I can get them going on their computers. Plus they have tablets so they can write out equations easily.
  • Keep eating low carb. In 2008 I started eating low carb. I now don’t even have to do Shangri-La to keep my weight at the level I want. When I eat mainly proteins and fats I don’t have blood sugar highs and lows, don’t think much about food, and find my clothes more often too big than too small. Would like that to continue in 2009.
  • Follow up on professional opportunities. I love having a part-time job because it means I can pursue other opportunities, but so far I have focused solely on teaching and keeping my household functioning. I have a lot of ideas about how I could do more at the intersection of education and technology and hope that in 2009 I find the time and energy to pursue those ideas.
  • Spend more time with extended family. I’d like to see my sister and her new baby regularly (I hope I will be helpful and not a burden) and spend time with my parents and their respective partners. I am hoping to do a weekly dinner with my dad and his girlfriend because we all like experimenting with new recipes and getting together for fun.
  • Clean up my Facebook account. Through Facebook I’ve connected with a lot of people that are important to me — but even so I’m not keeping up with them because my Facebook account is somewhat bogged down with people I don’t really know and don’t have much interest in keeping up with. Same goes for Twitter. I think I will start an entirely new Twitter account.
  • Learn more. I love teaching for lots of reasons but one main one is because it is such a great way to learn. Every day I want to expand my knowledge of ideas and connections and people. I feel so fortunate to be able to spend my time learning and sharing learning. I guess that’s what attracted me to blogging professionally too — but there wasn’t enough learning in that for me, at least not where I was.
  • Paint, cook, garden more. Pump the creative well inside me. Renew my energy and inspiration daily.
By Anne Z | Posted in Personal | Comments (0)

I Love Lucy

January 1, 2009 – 8:34 pm

i-heart-lucy-smallLucy’s an eight-month-old pointer mix that we adopted from a prison training program for homeless dogs. We welcomed her into our house on December 11th. I didn’t know whether I had a parking place in my heart for another dog after Sally moved on. But it’s a bigger lot than I knew.

Lucy fits into the family great: she’s smart, driven, and a tad insane. She’s as good at couch-potatoing as going for a run with Rick or playing hide and seek with the girls or retrieving a ball for me.

Her puppyful exuberance makes me excited for 2009.

By Anne Z | Posted in Family | Comments (1)

The Everydayness of Teaching

October 23, 2008 – 7:15 am

Cooking and teaching are both everyday activities: you have to show up and make something happen everyday. Each weekday I plan a lesson (or two) and give it and see what happens. Most every day, Saturday and Sunday included, I plan a dinner and make it and see what happens. Both require daily thought and action. Both bring me into daily contact with people I care about, my family and my students. Both provide a new daily chance for improvement.

In my first career, I found working in software development could be too much living in the future: living and planning and coding for the next release that might be six months or a year away. It lacked immediacy.

In the book The Time Paradox psychologists Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd discuss different time perspectives people take on. You may live mainly in the past, reliving happy memories and revisiting old traditions or alternatively dwelling on the bad things that happened. You may locate yourself in the future, deferring gratification and working towards later fulfillment. You may center yourself in the moment, either as a hedonist or with Buddhist-style present moment awareness.

For me teaching combines the best of past, present, and future. From the past, I recall my own experiences of education: What inspired me? What engaged me? What can I bring forward from what I’ve learned to help my students learn? In the present, I show up every day, trying to bring my best self and my best energy to the students and to the material we’re studying. For the future, I write curriculum maps and lesson plans, think forward to the end-of-trimester and end-of-year tests my students will take, and gather data over time that I’ll be able to feed back into the everyday experience.

Sometimes the presentness of teaching feels like tyranny. What? I have to teach another class? I have to be ready for students again? But more often it feels — like cooking — like a celebration: a celebration of the moment and the present and what I can do with it.

By Anne Z | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Rick’s Favorite Salad

July 18, 2008 – 8:36 am

We partied with the neighbors last night and I was responsible for bringing salad. I modified “Julie’s Favorite Salad” from Help! My Family’s Hungry by Judie Byrd and the results were great. Rick liked it so much he ate at least three servings. Too bad I didn’t take a photo of it.

This makes a LOT of salad — I had to mix it in my huge stainless steel bowl. But it was all gone by the end of the night.

Rick’s Favorite Salad

Serves a bunch of neighbors

  • 3 romaine hearts
  • 16 oz. sliced button mushrooms
  • 8 oz. swiss cheese, grated
  • 6 oz. sliced almonds, toasted in 350 degree F. oven for 10 minutes
  • One recipe blender vinaigrette (below)

Wash romaine hearts and tear or cut up into bite-sized pieces, then spin dry. Toss lettuce, mushrooms, swiss cheese, and almonds in large bowl. Drizzle on vinaigrette and toss again. Serve immediately.

Blender Vinaigrette

I love this easy vinaigrette. The shallot gives it such nice flavor — and I don’t have to mince it since the blender does all the work. Adapted from The Best 30-minute Recipe.

  • 3 T red wine vinegar
  • 1 medium shallot, peeled and cut into large chunks
  • 1 T dijon mustard
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pepper
  • 3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil

Blend vinegar, shallot, mustard, salt, and pepper for about 30 seconds or until smooth. With blender running, slowly add oil in a thin stream. Blend until dressing is thick and emulsified.

By Anne Z | Posted in Salads, Side Dishes | Comments (0)

She’s Gone, Gone, Gone, Gone, Gone

July 8, 2008 – 1:30 pm

The lyrics from John Mayer’s “Dreaming with a Broken Heart” make me think of Sally:

When you’re dreaming with a broken heart
The waking up is the hardest part
You roll outta bed and down on your knees
And for the moment you can hardly breathe
Wondering was she really here?
Is she standing in my room?
No she’s not, ’cause she’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone….

When you’re dreaming with a broken heart
The giving up is the hardest part
She takes you in with her crying eyes
Then all at once you have to say goodbye
Wondering could you stay my love?
Will you wake up by my side?
No she can’t, ’cause she’s gone, gone, gone, gone, gone….

Each morning I get up and I’m reminded that Sally’s gone, because she’s not waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. If I wake in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, I look around for a dark shape on the floor that might be Sally, but she’s not there either. Sometimes I see a movement in our backyard, and I think it’s her — but it’s not. She’s gone.

It was traumatic making the decision to have her euthanized but equally traumatic to watch her waste away, knowing how awful she must have felt. Though she was eating, she continued to lose weight, because the lymphoma had so screwed up her digestive system she couldn’t gain any nutrition from her food. She had begun vomiting and having diarrhea again — the symptoms that first led to her lymphoma diagnosis. We knew there was nowhere to go but gone and the question was, how long were we going to put her through it?

We’re left with our good memories — 13 years of them.

We got her at the Santa Clara County Humane Society. I went one day on my lunch break and picked her out because she pressed up against the chain-link holding her in so I could pet her soft fluffy fur. She had been found on the streets, a stray with no tags.

She looked like a golden retriever but fancier, with a fluffy tail and puffy pantaloons and a pink nose. She was blissfully unaware of how beautiful she was but everyone else noticed. People would stop their cars to say “what a pretty dog! What breed is she?”

We initially thought she was part malamute or husky, so strong was she when she pulled us around the neighborhood on walks.

We didn’t find out until later that she was likely part Nova Scotia Duck-Tolling Retriever, dogs bred to raise a ruckus at the side of a lake in order to draw ducks’ attention (that’s called “tolling for ducks”). She was frolicsome until almost the very end, when she no longer had the energy to toll for anything.

Goodbye dear doggie.

Sally sleeping

By Anne Z | Posted in Family | Comments (8)

Pork Chops and Prednisone for Sally

May 17, 2008 – 3:34 pm

So what do you do for a geriatric dog with intestinal lymphoma? We decided on treatment with prednisone. It won’t put the cancer into remission, like chemotherapy might, but it has a very good chance of helping Sally feel good for at least a couple of months.

The veterinary oncologist confirmed my fears that intestinal lymphoma has a worse prognosis than the more common type that shows up in peripheral lymph nodes. She told us that the intestinal type is more aggressive, less responsive to treatment, and more likely to cause side effects like nausea during chemotherapy. The last thing Rick and I want to do is make Sally more miserable, so we chose prednisone as a palliative.

The vet said Sally should show improvement within 48 to 72 hours of starting the prednisone, but by this morning, after having had only one tablet yesterday evening, she was already hungry. I cooked her a pork chop — sauteed but no pan sauce! — and she ate it up greedily.

Now we know Sally’s time with us is short, but we have time to say goodbye.

By Anne Z | Posted in Family | Comments (0)

Our Dog Sally: 13 Going on 3 Going on Goodbye

May 14, 2008 – 6:10 pm

13-year-old Sally was diagnosed with intestinal lymphoma today. It’s usually a treatable kind of cancer — at least treatable insofar as you can use chemotherapy to put it into remission for months or even a year. We will find out more about her prognosis and our options at the visit with the veterinary oncologist on Friday.

Is it outrageous to treat a dog with chemotherapy? Here are a few things I’ve learned:

  • Most dogs don’t suffer horrible side effects from chemotherapy. We approach treating cancer differently in dogs compared to in humans — less with the goal of complete cure and more with the goal of achieving some additional months of good quality life.
  • Chemotherapy can be expensive of course. We will consider the probability of remission, the cost of various protocols, and the chance that Sally will feel more miserable than not if we treat rather than giving her only palliative care, among other things.
  • The decision to treat a dog or not and how seems in some ways more rational than how we make our human health care decisions. There’s rarely insurance involved so the owners bear the cost of treatment. Euthanasia is an option. Palliative care may be chosen even when more aggressive treatment might put the cancer into remission. Of course when a human life is at stake, we have a different set of values and priorities than when a dog’s life is. But it is an interesting comparison to think about, for how it might inform human health care decisions.

I always thought Sally would get to be a doddering old doggie before she died, that she’d reach the point where we’d say “it’s time for her to go.” But she’s not at that point yet, even though she’s 13. A neighbor recently commented, “she’s 13 going on 3″ because of Sally’s exuberant playfulness and puppy-like demeanor.

Now it seems we’re all too close to a goodbye.

*Painting of Sally by Susan Reed. A gift from my father.

By Anne Z | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Spring Garden Notes

May 14, 2008 – 4:05 pm

I want to remember next year what worked and what didn’t this year so that I can improve my spring garden in 2009.

It was a good idea to plant pansies in the shade of the front flower bed (shown at left) — they’ve loved the wintery spring we’ve had. But next year I should plant purple ones instead of blue ones, because they are the exact same shade as the vinca blooms and don’t add any real interest to the garden right now.

My Claudia lily-flowered tulips (shown at right) are gorgeous. I don’t think I’ll bother with any other tulips — just these tulips plus a bunch of different kind of daffodils (my favorites are Ice Follies and Cheerfulness. The Cheerfulness blooms later than other daffodils, which is a nice bonus). The Claudias would have looked even better if my crabapple trees bloomed. I think the many freezes and snows we had kept the trees from flowering. I sure hope they bloom next year because that was a real disappointment.

The big yellow daffodils I planted towards the front of my main border mostly didn’t bloom either. They were cheap; maybe they’ll bloom next year. I am going to cluster them off towards the right side of the house next year where they look nice with the maroon Woodstock hyacinths I planted there last fall.

My neighbors have their hot pink moss phlox planted right next to mounds of candytuft. Looks great. My own candytuft did well in places and not so well in others (at left you might be able to see two big plants and two not so big ones further back). Next year I should pick up a few extra candytuft plants if I see them for cheap at King Soopers, like I did a couple weeks ago. My own moss phlox has done great, but I worry there’s too much of it. Still, it looked really pretty with the white Cheerfulness daffodils.

I have pink and white hyancinths planted amongst that lavender in front of the candytuft. They look pretty but got buried in the lavender. I will only plant more this year if I shear back the lavender significantly after it blooms this summer.

All in all, a pretty successful spring garden. I know more this year than last year — like not to pull out a plant just because it looks completely dead, which woody perennials and shrubs I should cut back and how much, and which tulips and daffodils to spend my planting time on.

By Anne Z | Posted in Gardening | Comments (0)

Fancy Leftovers: Beef Burgundy becomes Beef Pot Pie

May 6, 2008 – 7:49 am

Lately I’ve been experimenting with doubling my main dishes with plans to use them as leftovers. But I don’t just throw what’s leftover into the fridge and serve it one or two nights later. I freeze the leftovers then fancy them up a couple weeks later so that they seem like an entirely new dish.

For example, I made beef burgundy stew in my slow cooker a few weeks ago. I’ll have to write down the recipe I used because I’ve come up with a good one based on The Dinner Doctor’s. I used two packages of stew meat — so maybe two pounds or so of beef — but added a lot of onions, carrots, and mushrooms so that there’d be enough for two meals. I froze the extra in a gallon Ziploc bag.

Last week, I thawed out the beef burgundy and made it into a beef pot pie. I started by sauteeing some sliced onions in butter until they were lightly browned. Because the stew gravy had been a bit too thin, I stirred in two tablespoons of flour and cooked it for a few minutes to remove the raw flour taste. Then I added the mostly-thawed stew and brought it to a gentle simmer. The gravy thickened up nicely.

As it was simmering, I took a refrigerated pie crust and baked it in the oven on a piece of parchment — not in a pie pan, but just as a big circle that I would slip onto the top of the stew when it was time.

When the pie crust was light golden brown and ready to come out of the oven, I seasoned the stew with a bit of soy sauce, then added chopped fresh parsley. I put the pie crust onto the beef stew in the skillet. Then I served it straight from the skillet.

By Anne Z | Posted in Main Dishes, Meat | Comments (1)

Deluxe Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Tomato-Orzo Soup

February 11, 2008 – 11:50 am

Yum, yum! Loaded grilled cheese — cheddar, apple, and bacon — with a rich homemade tomato soup. You don’t need a real recipe for this dinner; just a few good ingredients and a little cooking know-how.

Make the soup. Saute chopped up onion and carrots in a bit of olive oil until soft, about 5 minutes. Add a big can of crushed tomatoes (28 ounces) and 4 cups of chicken broth. Bring to a boil. Stir in a couple tablespoons butter, then use a hand blender to make it smooth. Add 8 oz. orzo or other small pasta and simmer until pasta is tender. (Modified from a recipe from Rachel Ray’s mag).

While the soup is simmering, make the sandwiches. Spread sourdough bread with mustard. Layer on Vermont cheddar cheese, thinly-sliced Granny Smith apples, and cooked bacon. Grill in butter on nonstick skillet until bread is crisped and brown and cheese is gooey and melted.

By Anne Z | Posted in Easy, Main Dishes | Comments (1)