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I never ever remember buying a gift for a teacher.  I’m not sure we did that when I was in school.  Maybe my parents were clueless, but I don’t ever recall any student buying the teacher a gift.  It could be I didn’t notice, but either way it’s not in my memory bank.

The first year I taught school, I was stunned at all the presents children gave me.  I carried them to my car and drove to my mom’s house to show them off.  I just had no idea that people did that.  She was just as stunned as I.  Every Christmas, Valentine’s, and Last Day of School, I would cart my goodies to my mom and we would oooohhhhh and aaaaaahhhhh over them. 

The years have passed, and the last ten years of teaching have flown by.  The presents have come and gone.  Some have gone to good use, some have gone to a charity, some have gone regifted, and some have gone to the trash.

Perhaps a teacher is on your Christmas list this year.  Perhaps you’re a procrastinator and haven’t bought a gift yet.  Perhaps you are racking your brain for what to get her.  No need to rack any longer, I have gone to the field and done some cold, hard research.  I interviewed teachers far and near, well, uh, really just near, to discover the best and the worst teacher gifts.  No need to thank me.

Coffee mugs
These are probably the most often given gift to teachers. My coffee cup cabinet is crammed full. This came across on the best and worst list. You’ve got to know your teacher; some hate them, some love them. The reason given for worst gift was they either didn’t drink coffee or they already had so many. Rather than a mug, you could always go with a gift certificate from a local coffee house, listed among the best. It’s probably a good idea to make sure they drink coffee first.

Classroom gifts or gift cards
These were mentioned as some of the best gifts. Any supplies for the classroom or gift cards to a teacher supply store are well appreciated. Teachers spend so much money out of their own pockets stocking their classrooms, this is always helpful.

Food If you are an excellent, out of this world, make a person start moaning kind of cook, food is always good.  If your child constantly has head lice or urine smell on his coat, not so good.
One teacher told of melt in your mouth Christmasey goodness cookies that she received.  Another teacher received a homemade cookie mix in a jar, but the jar still had dried spaghetti sauce in it. 

Candles and Lotions
The cabinet next to my crammed-full-of-coffee-mugs-cabinet is my crammed-full-of-candles-cabinet.  Candles and lotions were on the best and worst list also.  The worst being they don’t like the scent or have an allergy.  Again I’ll say, you need to know the teacher.

Gift cards/certificates/cold, hard cash
It may seem impersonal, but teachers appreciate them.  Who in their right mind wouldn’t?  It can be to a restaraunt, a bookstore, one teacher even got $100 Visa Check card once.  Secretly wishing that child was in my room this year.  One Christmas, a room mother collected money from the children.  She then created a corsage using rolled up five dollar bills.  The teacher bought herself a pair of shoes with the gift money, and the children loved it every time she wore those shoes.  Perfect.  Just perfect.

The best gift winner….overall…..repeated again and again…….would be,
DRUMROLL PLEASE……….

The kind from the heart that doesn’t cost anything. 
Yep, those teachers.  They do love kids, and it is very evident when something is sincerely given. 

Free, heart-felt gifts:

• A half empty bottle of perfume from mom’s dresser.  So sweet.
• A handmade angel named for his teacher.  Ahhhhh…….
• Half eaten box of chocolates wrapped in Saran wrap.  How precious.
• A child’s worn teddy bear. Doesn’t that just make your heart hurt??
• Personalized gifts with the children’s names on them.
• A card from the parents telling how they appreciate them.
• A letter written to the teacher and copied to the principal and superintendent describing the difference they are making.
• Moms who volunteer to watch the classroom so the teacher can go Christmas shopping!!  Wow!  Check with your child’s school first to see if that is allowed, but what a treat to know your class is left in good hands and you don’t have to take a day of leave for it.

Worst
You know the old saying, “It’s the thought that counts.”  All the teachers I interviewed had a hard time thinking of a worst gift to mention and many are currently suffering from guilt pangs, lost sleep, or are in counseling for critizing a precious gift from a child.  The second it passed their lips, they were wishing they hadn’t said it.  I could be gracious and keep quiet, but frankly, it’s too late now.  Face it, some gifts are just unnecessary or clutter or unnecessary clutter.  Trinkets, stuffed animals, apple thingies, premade gift baskets from Wal-Mart, and aprons for detergent bottles all made the worst list, with a lot of guilt afterwards, I must add.

Merry Christmas.

This has been a public service announcement by Angel.

Six out of seven days of the week, I either
A) forget to lay out some meat to thaw for supper or
B) it doesn’t thaw. 

I use these for a great excuse not to cook and order Chinese.

Yesterday, I laid out some catfish fillets to cook.  We occasionally eat fish.  Sometimes I just want something different, ya know?  Well it just so happened, as it does 6 other nights of the week, that is was not ready to be cooked at suppertime. 

I had already had my afterschool-4:00-stressed out-shoveanythinginmymouth-binge and wasn’t real hungry when Jason came in from breaking ice, feeding cows, opening and closing gates, putting out hay in -3* windchill and 30 mph winds.  Somehow he missed his 4:00 binge and was starving.  Being the Martha Stewart like wife that I am, I did the only thing I could do aside from feeding him a bologna sandwich.  I opened a can of salmon and fried up some patties. 

In case you don’t know me very well, I need to confess something right here and right now. 

Ready?

I can’t cook.

It’s not my favorite thing to do, and I’m not really that good at it.

But I can follow a recipe, and the recipe for salmon patties is on the can of Honey Boy Salmon usually. But not this time.  There was some other bizarre salmon concotion on there.  So being the Martha Stewart like wife that I am, I winged it.  I knew I needed eggs and bread crumbs, and onions and I just whupped ’em up.  They were edible and halfway tasty.

Fast forward to tonight. 
I need to cook the catfish that is now good and thawed.  I have made it a couple of times, but I don’t know from where I got the recipe.  Because of my great salmon patty success from the night before, I’m at about a 7.4 on the richter scale of confidence.  I can do this.  I start pulling out some seasonings.  I remember using cajun spice before, a little garlic, a little lemon powder, and maybe some season salt. 

I drizzled some olive oil, covered the fillets with seasoning, and stuck them in the oven to bake.  As I was returning the spices to the shelf, the season salt got turned around, and I discovered that instead of Lawrey’s Season Salt, it was Julio’s Seasoning, excellent for fajitas, chicken, steak, and a sundry of other things, not including fish. 

We had Mexican fish tonight. 
Fortunately, the Cajun overpowered the Mexican and this is sounding like a bad joke, so I’ll stop there.

Second dumb thing I did:

I fed a stray cat on the porch.
I did.
I know better.
But it’s cold.
And it was right there on the porch.
Looking pathetic.
And cold.
And hungry.

Wouldn’t Martha Stewart have done the same thing?

This is what I know about life: 

There are two sides to a pancake.
There are at least two sides to a story.
There are two sides to a coin. 

With all of that life experience under my belt, I could assume with confidence, that like a coin, there are two sides to every baby cow.   Heads and tails. 

I would assume wrong. 

Instead of heads or tails, it’s tail or rope, and the rope is the tail, and the tail is first the tail, but then the head.  Understand? 

If yes, skip to section II.

Section I
I’ll try to make this as simple as possible.

Step 1) At a cattle branding, a person, preferably a cowboy, ropes a calf by a leg, preferably two, and drags it towards the branding fire.

Step 2) One person, a flanker, grabs the ROPE that is tied to the calf’s leg (or two).

Step 3) Another person, a second flanker, grabs the calf’s TAIL.

With great physics involved that I an unable to explain, they get the calf on its side.

Step 4) It is at this crucial point, that the person who grabs the TAIL, lets go of theTAIL, and holds down the calf’s HEAD.
 

Step 5) The person who had the ROPE puts the calf’s legs in some sort of fancy jujitsu hold and unties the ROPE. 

Step 6) As the flankers hold down the calf, a very equipped crew comes in and “works” the calf with a variety of torture tactics.  No, no, just kidding.  Please don’t call PETA.

Section II
Now being the astute observer that I am, I should have understood the art of flanking.  But I don’t seem to pay attention when things don’t concern me, or even  when they do, so I hadn’t been watching much of the details of it all.  My job was to keep up with the nut sacks.  It’s probably the most important job of the entire operation.  I’m not sure how cattle operations survive without it.  Yes, and I was the holder of this most coveted job. 

Fine little furry soft satchels are my friends.

These girls are making me look bad.

I’m not holding my breath for the Top Hand Award.

This is my favorite picture of my dad.

I help teach English as a Second Language one night a week at my church. I figure if God has blessed me with a gift of teaching, then I should use it.  So I try. 

The students in the class are adult learners, with a huge amount of courage. My heart goes out to them because I know what a great challenge this is, and that they are doing it to better their lives and the lives of their families.

For our Thanksgiving holiday celebration, we had a fiesta!  

Everyone brought a dish. 

A potluck if you will. 

As the students meandered in, bearing their platters, bowls, and such, they brought great joy and smiles with them.  In the Hispanic culture, food is a big deal.  They find it insulting if you do not accept food that they offer.  Keep in mind, this is not Tex-Mex, like I’m accustomed to, this is good home-cooked, authentic Mexican food.   I try to stay away from Menudo or anything that may be made from bovine intestines.

As the plates were uncovered, revealing an assortment of great smelling foods, I could pick out a few familiar items.  Among the recognizable were Chile Rellanos, rice, enchiladas, and fajitas.  I gravitated towards those. 

One of the students wanted me to try her dish.  A fajita-type thing-a-majigie.  With her hand gestures, thick accent, and broken English,  she explained to me to begin with a corn tortilla, put a lot of beef on it, add a little cabbage, and a little cilantro, and a little caliente sauce. 

I finished filling my plate and sat down to eat.  Everything was good, but the fajita dish was my favorite.  I nibbled on the other things, but hoovered the fajita. 

When the meal was finished, and we were cleaning up, another teacher was talking to the fajita cook. 

That’s when I discovered, (gulp), that it wasn’t beef after all, (big gulp), that the delicious, succulent, tender meat that I piled onto my tortilla, and ate with great enthusiasm, was after all, (gulp),

tongue.

Tongue.

TONGUE!!

Just in case you didn’t catch all that. 

I ate tongue!

This is my nephew Maxx.  (the one chewing on his bib)

This is my husband Jason. 

This is the first time I’ve ever seen Jason hold a baby.

This is probably the last time, I’ll ever see Jason hold a baby.

Okay.  So I had a mini-nervous breakdown yesterday. 

I lashed out.

I’m better now.

It’s just that things are a bit overwhelming to me right now.

My toenails need clipping.

My mustache needs waxing. 

Yes,  my mustache.  My loving brother told me a few years back that I better hurry up and find a husband before my mustache got any thicker.  That’s when I decided I’d better tend to it.  Thanks Steve-O, you helped me catch a man.  I don’t think I could’ve done it without you.

And if that is how neglected my body and hygiene is, you don’t even want to think about my fridge. 
Don’t go there.

I have a to-do longer than Santa’s naughty list, and to top it off, Ashlynn wants to make cookies. 

When life becomes so stressful, and I need a vacation from it, I’m reminded of Matthew 11:28.
Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  This translates to I will refresh you.  It continues  Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for you souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

I’m reminded of when Jesus walked on the water.  The disciples had gone out in the boat.  Jesus had told them to, but he didn’t go with them.  He knew a storm would come before he sent them out.  He sent them anyway.  He was on the other side and we’re told He saw them toiling, straining at the oars because the wind was against them.  Jesus sees our toil, our labor, and our work.  He’s there to help us through storms.

I’m reminded of a time when Jesus and the disciples needed to get away.  The crowds had been pressing into them.  He needed solitude, serenity, and peace.  He went away from the people for a time to spend with the Father.  Mark 6:31 says in red letters:  Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.

So that’s what I did.  I went away to a quiet place and spent time with the Father.  He granted me rest and refreshing. 

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  It is my most favorite holiday.  But there’s a lot to do.

So I’m going to go bake some cookies, clean out my fridge, and clip my toenails.  Not necessarily in that order.

Blessings,

Angel

I’m a loner.

I’m a homebody.

I’m a recluse, if you’ll let me.

I’m an introvert.

Thanksgiving.

I’ve got a lot to be thankful for.

I’ve got five days off.

I want to be left alone for five minutes.

Can the phone stop ringing?

Please.

Can anyone relate to this?

Anyone??  Besides me and Henry David Thoreau?

Some people are recharged by others.

Not me.

I’m exhausted by them.

They wipe me out.

Plumb out.

I need to be alone to be recharged.

It’s who I am.

I can’t apologize for it.

I can’t deny it.

I can’t pretend.

That’s just me.

Thank you for listening.

Now, LEAVE ME ALONE!!

Last weekend I was at the World Finals Ranch Rodeo Competition in Amarillo, TX with my husband and some great friends.  As the teams were being announced and riding in with their state flags flying, I heard the announcer say something about Pawhuska Oklahoma.  My ears perked up.  I jabbed Jason in the ribs with my elbow.  “That’s where The Pioneer Woman is from!  I wonder if it’s her ranch?”  We looked in the program and sure enough it was the Drummond Ranch.  That’s her last name!  Heart beating increasingly faster and faster, I started scanning the audience, looking for a woman with hair the color of Lucille Ball  and a big camera.  I HAVE to meet her! 

This would work out perfect. I’ll meet her, get a picture, get my cookbook signed, all without having to drive to OKC and wait in a line for 2 1/2 hours.  Maybe I can even have a conversation with her.

Have you heard of The Pioneer Woman?  She is my new obsession.  A couple months back, the principal at my school recommended I check out her blog, because she said she kind of reminds her of me, but then after telling me all about her, she realized we’re actually nothing alike, except our husbands both ranch.  I checked out her page and instantly gravitated to her.
http://www.pioneerwoman.com/
The Pioneer Woman has a section for photography, cooking, homeschooling, and general confessions.  I was originally drawn to her ranching stories.  This month, her cookbook came out and is currently on the NYT Bestseller.  I already have my copy, thank you very much.  I bought it the exact same day.  She’ll be in OKC on December 15th.  Maybe I’ll be there.

Meanwhile, back at the Rodeo…….  So, I’m sitting there, fully alert, watching this team from Oklahoma.  I have some pretty honed stalking skills from an ex-boyfriend I used to follow (we’ll save that story for another time) so when the crowd cheers after team penning, I instantly spot the section with the loudest hollerers.  I almost went to the pickup to get the binoculars to really have a look-see. 

My loving husband, whose only desire is to satisfy my every whim, decided I am squinting way too much and he’ll just go up to the group of cheering fans and ask if Ree is there.  Ree!!  Like we’re on a first name basis or something.  As he approaches a couple of women, I hang back, looking at a display of saddles, pretending I don’t know him.  Well she wasn’t there.  The lady said they were cousins from the other side of the ranch, but recommended I befriend her on facebook.

Right now, I have Pioneer Woman’s Braised Short Ribs in the Oven.  They are smelling divine.  Because I plan ahead so well, we’ll be eating supper at 2:00 a.m., but I’m sure it will be delicious and we’ll be famished.  I’m trying out that polenta stuff too, which I have no idea what that is, but I’m sure PW won’t let me down.

I’m telling you, she is saving my marriage.  I cooked Grilled Ribeye with Blue Cheese Sauce the other day, and it was to die for.  Jason didn’t sleep on the couch that night.

I’ve emailed her twice.  She hasn’t responded.  I’ve tried to befriend her on facebook.  She hasn’t responded.  It’s obvious she doesn’t know I’m her #1 fan.  When she reads this, because I’m sure she will, she’ll have visions from Stephen King’s Misery, Kathy Bates, and hacked off limbs. 

Not to worry, I hate blood and guts.