FOOD!!! – Page 8 – Benford's Musings

Hey Bulldog

So, UIL didn’t go well. I’ve been pretty upset all week about it but I can’t help what happened so what else can I do? I think the thing I’ve been most upset about is how much the judges comments stung. Their words were pretty harsh and I couldn’t help but take them personally…I even looked online for new jobs for about an hour one day. I have never been made to feel like such a incompetent teacher. I think I’m going to reread the comment sheets and if they really are as harsh as I remember, I’m going to report it to Texas Music Adjudicator’s Association. I don’t care what kind of esteemed college music education professor these folks are, no one should walk away feeling like I did. I’m pretty sure I’m not just throwing myself a pitty party, either. All I know is that as a teacher, I never want to make anyone feel inadequate.

The garden is good. I think I can pull a sweet banana pepper and a jalapeÃ±o pretty soon. I think the red bell peppers will be red soon as well. I need to get something to help keep the weight of peppers from making the plants lean. The cherry tomatoes will be ready in a few weeks as well. Yay for eating yummy foods.

This weekend, I worked for Choice Music Events as an Assistant Site Coordinator at Alamo Heights HS. It was one of the easiest things I’ve done. The kids at Alamo Heights are SO nice and they work so hard. They remind me of the kids in our program. I wish we had a nice facility that we could host performances like that. Everyone I worked with was wonderful. I never knew Dick Clardy was so damn fun! He hooked us up before the awards ceremony and we got to ride the Boomerang at Six Flags Fiesta Texas on Saturday afternoon. Talk about a good way to get pumped up before giving away HUGE trophies!! The money for doing all this was pretty sweet as well.

Monica came over and we hung out tonight. I’m really fortunate for my friends. They are such caring, wonderful people. Skip, I’ll call you soon…and if you don’t hear from me soon, call me back again.

Okay, I’m gonna crash out. My back hurts like hell right now. My dad says it (and my overall feeling of sadness) is from all the burdens I’ve been carrying lately. I guess I have been holding myself to some pretty high standards. Not always a bad thing…until they lead to the way I’ve felt this week. But I’ll survive…with all the support I get on a daily basis. 🙂 I just wish the weather was better….

Love you, mean it!
~C

All I’ve Got To Do

I haven’t blogged much aside from the garden lately. There actually have been a few more things going on besides my lovely little garden, believe it or not. The time frame of it all escapes me a little bit so I’m just going to talk about stuff, not actually put it in any sort of time line today.

My friend Kelly came into town and we met for dinner at PF Changs. It was very yummy (as always) and he and I had some good conversation (as always). He was going to stay with Ana so we were all going to meet that weekend at Austin’s Crawfish Fest downtown. Since this fest became conversation with other friends as well, Monica & I decided to go together and meet the rest of the folks who were talking about going as well. The entertainment was a lot of fun but unfortunately, we only “met up” with Sarah and her boyfriend Raz as they were getting there and we were leaving. Interestingly enough, we bumped into some band director friends of mine from RRISD so we hung out with them. We could have gotten quite a few good pics but because we seemed to be eating or drinking something (all very yummy) at any given moment, we only got in a self picture of our crawfish faces.

My dad skated a half marathon in the 2008 Round Rock Road Rash. He’s skated it before but this was the first time my sister and I were able to go watch and it was GREAT fun! The announcer was stupid cheesy but we cheered on everybody that was out there to have a good time (the pros didn’t look like they were paying attention…yes, inline skating professionals). He skated in the 60+ age group but I’ll tell you, there is quite a bit of difference between a 61 year old and a 78 year old. I’m thinking they should probably create more age categories everytime they have that large of an age spread. Anywho, Inline Planet published an article about the race and my dad got a nice mention in it.

The oldest skater on the course was Peter Benford, 78, of Austin, TX. He skated the half marathon in 1:09:46. The youngest skater was Braeden Kenney, 5, of Aurora, TX, who skated about one lap on the 4.7 mile course.

The half marathon was about 3 laps around the neighborhood of the Dell Diamond. Here’s my dad on the approach of the end of lap #2.

I mowed the front yard so I wouldn’t get a silly notice from the silly homeowners association. I left the backyard alone because the cats love the little jungle that’s going on back there. I’m going to have to mow it pretty soon but it’s not completely out of control yet. Here’s Pfema, king of his backyard jungle:

Speaking of the backyard, the garden is doing well. I’ve got some new tomatoes and LOTS of peppers coming in. The cilantro shot up like a kid with a growth spurt this past week. We’re in week 5 now and if you want to see pictures, you’re more than welcome to go on over to my Flickr album on the garden to check them out. I love the picture of the brand new baby jalapeno coming in (okay, I can’t resist and must post that pic for ya).

So this is UIL week and my band performs tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3:00 in Georgetown. I’m really nervous because my kids have been working REALLY hard. This group is further along fundamentally and maturely than the past 3 years and I’d love for their scores to reflect their hard work in preparing this spring. Unfortunately, they are all almost freshmen or sophomores with still a need for a bit of hand holding so it’s all a matter of “which group” shows up tomorrow as to how we do. Regardless, Brian, Matt & I are really proud of them. I hate that I don’t always get to realize the fruits of my labor. Because I teach the third band, the ones that work the hardest always end up in higher bands after all the work I put in and I end up starting over with a whole new set of kids the next year. Yes, I know, I can see how they’ve matured musically in that higher group and if they participate in the Jazz Ensemble, I get to continue to work with them but my spring ensemble rarely sees those kids over again and it can be frustrating at times. Oh well, we’ll have a good time tomorrow making music and that’s what will count. I’ve really enjoyed my groups this year and I almost hate to see this year come to a close. Oh, while I’m mentioning end of year activities, put our Spring Concert on Monday, May 12 at 7pm at the RRISD PAC on your calendar. There will be some really fun music and an amazing guest artist that the Jazz Ensemble will be able work with there.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=thebigbenfors-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1401323251&nou=1&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrWith all that being said, I’m going to go continue to read my new book “The Last Lecture”. I think it was my colleague Paul that sent me the link to the Oprah episode about him but since I saw it, I’ve been hooked on knowing more about how he made his dreams a reality. He’s just such a real person that I think regardless of his cancer, I’d be fascinated with the adventures he’s had through his life and would want to know more. I got the book from Amazon.com the day it became available and read the first 65 pages in about an hour, and I’m not necessarily the fastest reader, either. I just couldn’t put it down. He’s an wonderful storyteller.

Have a wonderful rest of the week and if you’re in the Georgetown HS area on Tuesday, April 15 at 3:00 pm, come on by the PAC and listen. A real audience always helps the performance. 😉

Love you, mean it.
~C

The Octopus’s Garden…Week 4

You guessed it – it’s time for more garden pictures. I’m just absolutely amazed at how quickly things are growing. My new little challenge is going to be keeping the cats out of the dirt in the garden. It’s a cool little jungle for these guys but I’m afraid they’re going to dig things up and none of us want that!

The flower on the Japanese eggplant is beautiful. I almost want to pick it and put it in a mini-vase!

This bell pepper may seem larger than actual size.

I called this a bighorn pepper before but I stand corrected, it’s a COWhorn pepper. Still, if you live in Texas…. Here are two ‘horns.

I have about 4 or 5 cayenne peppers and LOTS of flowers. Again, if you cook with cayenne, let me know!! With 6 plants going, I’ll have LOTS.

I think my jalapeÃ±o pepper is shy. This was the best picture I could get of it.

The fennel has split out into about 4 plants now.

This is a cherry bell pepper. It’ll turn red later, too. Probably pretty soon….

I think these will split out and I’ll have a forest of green onions. I’m very excited about this!!

And when you look through the forest of green onions, you see the garlic. I’ll have quite a few of these eventually, too. Just not quite a forest, I don’t think.

When you have cats, you must be sure to have plenty of catnip on hand. This catnip plant must know how much the kitties love catnip because it’s growing new plants very quickly!

The Octopus’s Garden…Week 3

More pictures of the garden!!! We’re in week 3 and the plants have really taken off this past week.

The whole garden box is filling in nicely!

This is what it looked like when I first planted it:

I think arugula is on the menu for tonight’s dinner.

New cilantro leaves are coming in.

I’ll have a Japanese eggplant to cook up before I know it. The eggplants are getting really tall!

And here are all the peppers. First, a jalapeno.

Next, a bighorn pepper. I’m not sure what it’ll taste like but living in Texas, you’ve gotta plant anything called “bighorn”!

I have a feeling I’ll have more cayenne peppers than I know what to do with. If you use cayenne peppers when you cook, let me know. You can easily have fresh ones! I have SIX of these plants….

This one will grow up to be nice and red. May I present to you, the red bell pepper!!

The tomatoes are getting pretty big, too. These will grow to be full sized. The cherry tomatoes are just starting to show flowering.

The garlic is really taking off, too. Here, in its big pot with the green onions.

The peppermint is doing okay, too. I need to remember to keep that pot really damp all the time.

So, that’s it. I think I’ll have some more than just arugula to harvest about the time that UIL is over. That’ll be a nice dinner. 🙂

Octopus’s Garden

We are about to reach the two week mark of my garden. Yesterday was the first day of Spring so I decided to take a good look to see how it’s progressing. Earlier this week, I snagged a piece of arugula and man, was it full of spicy flavor!! So, here is my garden at two weeks:

The peppers are flowering.