nā manaʻo ulu wale

A common problem after Easter…what do you do with all the extra eggs?

Though I love hard-boiled eggs, I thought I’d look for a recipe on the web to use up those leftover Easter eggs in creative dishes instead of just eating them plain. Hmmm…most of the ones I’m finding are recipes on how to boil hard-boiled eggs…well. Actually, I would’ve looked for that recipe too at one time, so I can’t say anything about that. But where are the other recipes? That are not egg salad?

Hmmm, there’s one interesting one was called a “scotch egg.” It’s a hard-boiled egg that is surrounded by sausage, covered in bread crumbs, and deep-fried. Sounds so yummy, though very cholesterol-ly (what is the correct word?!?!?). However, the only sausage I have in my icebox is portuguese sausage…not exactly moldable (though yes, just as much cholesterol…okay, now my doctor knows why mine is so high… eeps). I better keep looking…

Ooo, I do have to say the Bruschetta Chicken Ciabatta sandwich at Jack-in-the-Box is *quite* delicious. It’s not so much the chicken or the ciabatta…but the bruschetta part, yum yum. It really does taste like the bruschetta I’ve had before. Sorry, the commercial just came on and I got distracted. Anyway, back to searching…

Then there’s the tapa. Hmm sounds like hors d’ouervres. But maybe I can keep that in mind, sausage, egg, cheese, and olives…hmm…maybe with pasta?

It’s times like these that I wish I were a cook or at least married to one.

Oh here’s a site dedicated to the leftover eggs…mmmm Cobb salad sounds good…but no lettuce here, I’m afraid, unless I use the wilted spinach leaves I have leftover from that big Costco bag…same for the the Tuna Nicoise, though I think I have to try that some day, sounds yum. The breakfast burrito though…hmmm…again, no crumbable sausage, but I do have portuguese sausage I can chop up…that’s a possibility!!! I also have refried beans, but I think this could be alright without it!!! And something my son would enjoy as well…

Oh! I found another leftover easter egg site. I guess I should’ve searched for that first, instead of just a “hard-boiled egg recipe.” Hmm none of them look appetizing…at least not for a dinner…

I just realized I use a lot of ellipsises. Ack!

There’s one that I have heard of before, but I never tried it–and I just realized it sounds kinda like the Scotch Egg! But it’s meatloaf instead. yum. But it’ll take too long to cook it now–maybe tomorrow after having some tuna egg salad pitas for lunch

I guess it doesn’t count when you replace your ellipsises with dashes.

Oooo I must say this Crab Stuffed Deviled Eggs sound good. Though I never really cared for deviled eggs…or was that deviled ham? I should try it, though I don’t have most of the ingredients.

Oh! An alfredo…I did think about having it with pasta…but again, lots of the ingredients, I don’t have right now…

This sounds…interesting. Curry eggs. I love curry…but I don’t know about curry and eggs?

Heh, there’s a whole category over at allrecipes.com on Easter Leftovers. Lots of ham recipes! I do have a lot of ham leftover. The Easter Leftovers Frittata looks good, but I don’t have enough unboiled eggs. Another recipe though I should keep a copy of and try some time.

I need to find a way to organize recipes. I always find recipes online and then can never find them again when I want to make it. I tried to cut and paste them into computer files, and then I just carry the laptop into the kitchen to cook…but even when I find things in the newspaper or magazine…I need a way to get them all in one place. I should invest in one of those recipe box thingie with lots of index cards. heh, invest. They’re probably not more than $5. I keep forgetting to look for one, though, until I’m baking or cooking and trying to remember where I last saw a recipe…

Anyway, I think I’ll go with the anytime breakfast burrito thing, since I have now just spent a whole hour searching for recipes and it’s 7pm already! I better get started on frying the portuguese sausage, then it should be easy just putting it together with the eggs, olives, and cheese, wrap it up in the tortilla, and dip it in salsa…yummm. But it’s nice to know I have a whole bunch of recipes to go look through now and make over the next few days! Better than getting sick of eating the plain hard-boiled egg like past years! Who knew all these things you can make with extra eggs?

When I was in third grade, my aunty taught me how to crochet. She was doing those little Christmas stocking pins and I watched her and nagged her with so many questions that she taught me how to do them. That was my first project! Of course, mine was very uneven and huge compared to her tightly-stitched ones, but I was nevertheless “hooked”. I started crocheting all sorts of projects since then–blankets, clothes for my Barbies, covers, doilies…

Then a few years ago, the big boom of crocheted leis started. It was sort of frustrating, because I had known how to crochet all those years…and here were beginners for the first time picking up a crochet hook and able to make a lei. And I couldn’t! I had no idea how to do them. When I was finally given one by a friend because I was transferring, I was so honored and started nagging her, much as I did my aunty years ago, about how she did it. She just coyly said it was the first lei she ever attempted, and that it came out pretty good (I thought it was awesome), and that was it. She wouldn’t tell me the yarn, the stitches…anything!

So I started searching online…and found nothing. I guess it was still pretty “new”. I started searching for books, and found some ribbon lei books, which I bought…but to my dismay, they didn’t have the fuzzy leis that I was seeing. They were filled with pretty crocheted leis like pikake and pakalana, which I got to make for my cousin’s graduation that year…but I wanted to learn the fuzzy ones! The ones that looked like hinahina haku leis…

Through more searching online, I finally found a Canadian website that had a “Hawaiian necklace” pattern, and upon reading it, I found out that that special fuzzy look was from “eyelash” yarn. I never heard of it! But through searching on that term, rather than “crochet lei”, I found out so much more.

I do know now how to crochet a lei–I tried it out on my own after reading the above Canadian version, then was confirmed that the way I was doing it was correct, after watching Hawaii Hobbies & Craft on ‘Olelo where they were doing one of these lei! Well after making one for my grandma’s 80th birthday, and one for another cousin who was graduating, I thought I knew it all. (Of course, now there are tons of those crochet lei books out, available at Ben Franklin’s, where they even have kits! I do have a hard time matching yarns, so that kit is very helpful.)

I kept seeing these eyelash yarns all over, and I kept wondering why they were so popular on the mainland, because they didn’t make these lei. Then I saw that they use the yarn in scarfs and boas. I soon wanted to know how to do these! But again, these were knit. I had no idea how to knit, but I thought I might try.

I taught myself how to knit through a book and online videos. I’m starting to get the hang of it! My first knit project that I finished (as opposed to the swatches I did just to learn how to knit & purl) were bunny socks for my son! It was difficult because I had to use double-pointed needles which is not what you’re learning with, when you first start, however, I got the hang of it quickly. I was quite pleased how my first project turned out that I started to search for more.

I was able to get a few books on knitted animal toys, since that’s what my son loves, but wow, the yarn is expensive! It’s not using the regular 99cents yarn you can get from Walmart. To get that real lifelike looking animal toys, they have all these special yarns, “fun fur”, “fizzy”, “boa”…sooo neat! But so expensive, some going for $10 a ball. Since some projects call for several balls…you end up spending more for yarn than you would if you bought a ready-made doll! Still…seeing all these new yarns are so cool, and I wonder how they are made? How do they not unravel? There are even “Waikiki” yarns. I wonder how they were named? I don’t see anything that would connect them?

Anyway, through searching for patterns, I came across craftster.org and see all these people who have knit blogs! They post what they have created along with the pattern. So many things! I can’t wait to try them all now! There are even some projects of, ahem…I’ll warn you now before you click on them, that it’s a bit risque, don’t click on them if you’re easily offended… certain body parts. Who said knitters/crocheters were lonely, prudish old women?

The other day at the doctor’s office, I was waiting at the receptionist’s desk while she was printing up my bloodwork form thingie, and I saw the magazines that were scattered around, so I started moving them around to see if there was anything interesting–and one just jumped out at me as she was handing me the lab papers. It was the February 21 issue of Time and the cover said What Teachers Hate About Parents. Now, after all I went through last year, naturally, it caught my eye. But seeing as now the receptionist was handing me my “next appointment” card and my validated parking ticket, I thought it would look crazy just standing there and reading the whole thing, so I took my things and left.

I came home and tried to look at it online, but wouldn’t you know, you have to subscribe to Time in order to look at it. So I searched around and found a teacher’s forum,atozteacherstuff.com, which had the article, plus people’s reactions to it. Of course, parents on there were defensive, but nearly all the teachers in there echoed the sentiment of the article. I was actually surprised reading it, because rarely you get things from the teacher’s perspective…it’s always “this is what’s wrong with the education system” blah blah blah. You really never hear what the teacher is thinking, unless it’s from NEA, which of course is going to showcase the good aspects of being a teacher, because they want to recruit more teachers! But this one…you actually saw the “bad” side, a side where a lot of people don’t think about, I think. I’m hoping some will recognize themselves when reading the article, and make the change, when they understand what they come off as to the teacher. But you know some won’t. Parents have become more pushy and more demanding, wanting more attention for their child, forgetting there’s a class of 25 others…yet at the same time, if you dare scold their precious child, you’re wrong too. It’s a no-win situation.

It’s a hard profession to sympathize with, I guess, unless you know, and even then, I still got it from fellow teachers who were parents of kids in my class. It pains me to read other bloggers who say they are sick of their child’s teacher and now want to homeschool their child. I get hurt personally, when I know it’s not me being attacked, just because I’ve been there. And I know how it feels. And sometimes, it’s not as what it seems, but parents jump quickly to their child’s defense. Too quickly. Yes, there are teachers out there that make you question their training. However, people’s circumstances are different. Someone could be going through a hard time in their life due to a death in their family or a divorce. Some may need to get used to a new “culture.” Some, yes, just are not good with children. But people don’t take the time to find out what’s going on…they’re just in the principal’s office, ranting and raving, threatening to go to the newspapers and media, the BOE, whatever…just to get their way…sometimes without even letting the teacher her/himself know!

So yes, even though I read things about “argh my child’s teacher!” and it was not directed at me, I still felt hurt, remembering all the pain of last year. Though this year has been different, with much more appreciative, supportive parents, I still feel the sting of last year, and it has soured me. There are ads saying that 1/2 of the teachers will leave in the next 5 years, and let me tell you, just from talking with the teachers at my school, this is so true. But it’s not always because of the pay, as the ad says…yes, it’s a factor. But seriously? It’s because of the parents. They have the most unreasonable expectations sometimes.

Is it because of guilt that you are actually spending more time with their child then they are? Is it they need to feel superior–they are “professionals” while we’re just some lowly “babysitter” for their child? I’m always lectured by parents on how to “teach” children, and I look at them like…wait a minute, who has the training here? If you do know better than me, than be my guest, come teach in my place. See how much attention you can give to only your child when there are 25 others that need to be taken care of too. See how they react when you give your child special privledges and special work.

Other teachers are like, “Go ahead and find another school. Go homeschool your own child, then.” when threatened by parents. One less headache for me. I don’t think that way, though. I take it personally and try to better myself so that other parents don’t feel that way too. Then I find myself doing things just to please the parents, not for the sake of the children, as a whole–which is not the way it should be.

Yes, I will leave teaching in 5 years. Partly because even after 10 years, I’m already at the max I can make for my experience & education, $40,000…and that’s not even close to what I had to pay myself to receive that education to make it to the top level…but mostly is that I cannot take the stress of parents. If I could just work with the kids, I’d be much more happier. I was happy to see that fellow teachers on the atozteacherstuff forums felt the same way. You do not get paid enough to deal with all the stress from parents, and that uneasy feeling of driving to work, wondering who is going to yell at you next. I’d rather be at an office job where I can sit on my butt all day, searching the web and answering posts at HawaiiThreads even though I’m supposed to be working, and still making $85K while doing so! man. That beats being yelled at by an aggressive advocate parent who really has no clue.