Category: The Daily Grind

Important to keep stocked

Thank you Food Network for such good tips for the NYE Party season:

Entertaining friends is simple if your bar is stocked with basic cocktail-making supplies. Here’s a quick list of the items you need to be ready to make drinks on a moment’s notice.

Glassware
Highball glasses are a good all-purpose glass to keep on hand. Also have some pint glasses (for beer), martini glasses, all-purpose wine glasses, and margarita glasses. Get at least a half-dozen of each type.

Jigger
This is an hourglass-shaped measuring tool made of stainless steel that generally holds 1.5 ounces of fluid in one end and 1 ounce in the other. You’ll need this to measure the liquor you put into cocktails.

Garnishes
Make those drinks pretty. Keep on hand salt, sugar, a jar of those bright red maraschino cherries and olives. In the fresh garnish department, have wedges of lemons and limes and mint leaves ready.

Bartender’s handbook – or a laptop with your favorite cocktail site bookmarked
Unless you’re a pro mixologist, you’re going to need to look up the ingredients and instructions for some drinks your guests request.

Cocktail Shaker
A two-pieced device used to mix cocktail ingredients by shaking.

Electric Blender
Because you can’t make all drinks in a shaker. Blenders are key for frozen drinks like margaritas and pina coladas.

Wine opener / bottle opener
Get a bottle opener for the metal-capped beverages and a wine opener or corkscrew for the corked ones.

Muddler
A tool that looks like a little baseball bat. Use to crush mint, fruit and spices. Essential for making mojitos and juleps.

Mixers
In addition to liquor, this is your primary palette. Here’s a list of suggested items to keep on hand: Orange juice, lime juice, pineapple juice, tomato juice, cranberry juice, cola, ginger ale, soda water, tonic water, grenadine, sugar syrups and fruit syrups.

Strainer
A metal tool that looks a bit like a spring with a handle. Use this to strain the ice out of your cocktail shaker as you pour the drink into a serving glass.

I think I keep all the hardware in stock. And thanks to a happy hour for a fundraising event, I even have a muddler. May the party begin. 🙂

It’s really been that long?

I’m guessing it’s time to update the blog. But I’m still not quite sure why since I get no comments – I have no idea if you’re reading or not. Regardless, I’ll do an update sometime soon. For now, sleep – I’m physically, emotionally and mentally exhausted. Leave me some love, though. I could use it. 🙂
~C

Pre-school wrap up

Oh my goodness, what a helluva week we had. When I started this week, the Stony Point Band had had two very productive weeks of Summer Band already. In week 1, we focused on marching and playing fundamentals as well as learning the wonderful music of our opener and in week 2, we applied the marching fundamentals to learning the opener of our wonderful drill. This week (3), we put music to our drill and performed it on Friday night at Dragon Stadium (I guess since we only play 2 games there, I’m not gonna call it Tiger/Dragon Stadium anymore. We’re in The Tiger Palace, baby!). My reaction to our performance? Awesome. For only having had a week of learning and a little cleaning, pretty darn good, I must say. I did video tape it but I haven’t had a chance to even get the camera out the bag…much less get it on the computer or online. I’ll get it done today, hopefully.

This week, we also had staff development as well. The speaker we had on Monday, Mychal Winn or something, was, well, alright – if you like being yelled at for motivation. What I learned from him? If you tell the students you teach that they’re going to college, they WILL!!! So all this week, I’ve been telling them that they’re “GOING TO COLLEGE!!!”. Let’s see how well that works. The rest of the week of staff development stuff hasn’t been too bad. Our principals seem to be quite efficient with their presentations (maybe someone practiced what they were gonna say) and we actually got done with many of the presentations several HOURS early! Woo hoo!!! And I got a few things done in my office this week, too. Quite exciting stuff.

Saturday was our annual Car Wash Extravaganza. My team and I were at the Firestone on Old Settlers and we washed a surprising 113 cars. There was never a moment we weren’t washing a car in the 4 hours we were there. When we were done, we even turned away 2 cars because we had to close at noon. Well, there were about 5 cars in line at noon so we went ahead and washed them – they were in line already! Thanks to some of my friends and Facebook fans (fans – LOL) who came out to get their cars washed. With the 8 sites we had going between the band and orchestra, I’m sure we washed over 600 cars. I mean, we made it rain for a few minutes, even! Unfortunately, we made it put more lightening in the sky than rain from it so we had to cancel our End of Summer Pool Party Saturday night. I stayed home and relaxed from an exhausting week so not all was lost.

Today is chore day. I’ve got a load of laundry in the wash, several more ready to go and the dishwasher is as filled as I can get it right now. I’m going to do some vaccuuming and hopefully, get the kitchen floor cleaned up a bit. Has anyone tried one of those Shark Steam Mops? I really think that might help get the grime out of my floor that I can’t seem to get up with anything else. But I’m not really willing to drop the cash on one (even with one of the many Bed Bath & Beyond coupons I have) unless I know it’s really gonna do the job.

School starts on Tuesday so my schedule should actually get a little easier starting this week. I’m convinced that UIL enforces the 8 hour rule more for the adults than the kids. I can only do so much! Okay, back to cleaning this joint!

Love you, mean it!
~C

Please comment on this…

…I really need to know what you think this means.

Today is Monday. On Saturday, at our TMEA Region Meeting, an old friend of 20 or so years told me he had a dream that I died by hanging due to a mistake in band I made. Today, one of my band parents told me she had a strange dream last night in which I died, too. Last night, I had a dream that I had have my right hand amputated and the first portion of the procedure was to score a cut to work from around my wrist.

When I shared this with some folks (or the people who heard the band parent tell her story), I was told not to worry because in Mexican folklore, it could mean a reverse of what it may seem like. I sure hope so. Just in case, say a little prayer and knock on some wood for/with me.

Any clue of what this could mean? Leave a comment, PLEASE!!!