This week

Yesterday I gave the final exam for my summer session. Spending a good 5-6 hours per day, 4 days in a row every week, for 8 weeks, with my students meant that I got to know them really well and was able to get most of them through with a passing grade. It also meant that by this week, I was dead out of patience, even snapping a few times at roomie D and el señor B. I really like my summer students and I am really glad to not see any of them perhaps ever again.

Today I have to grade those final exams and edit the lab experiments for the fall semester. Then I've got 3 weeks to get ready for next semester, in which I will again be teaching chemistry, and also ALGEBRA!!!! and also be the director for an engineering transfer program. I'm pretty nervous but excited to try some new things and have a full-time salary again, at least for a while.

This week I finished a 3-Monday night mosaics class with my friend S. She made a really cool serving platter and I made a window hanging. It's fun to do crafty stuff even just a little. We were trying to have craft night once a week this past winter but once spring hit we got too busy with gardens and yards and the like.

Also enjoyed many evenings with el señor B, roomie D, popcorn and re-watching Deadwood. It sounds a little boring but I'm a homebody at heart and would rather be sitting at home with a couple choice friends rather than go do something "exciting". That said, have been going out on the occasional martini/beer date with lady-friends, and that has also been nice, and of course there is still Zumba.

To wrap it up, on this week's tRBC menu:

summer vegetable gratin
garden greens with bacon
sausage and olive-stuffed italian peppers
slow-cooked pork roast
el señor B's veggie slaw
homemade sour cream (a little sourer this time, but we still haven't got it quite down)
beef and broccoli stir-fry
mashed root veggies
smoked salmon with soba and yu choi
"primal" (no flour) "pumpkin" (can't find pumpkin right now, used a sweet potato) muffins

Yellow squash, zucchini, italian frying peppers, kale and collards all came from the garden. For the second week in a row I forgot that we have shallots from the garden and bought some.

The muffins turned out really good, although with 6 eggs to 1/2 c. coconut flour were more soufflé than pastry and stuck like mofos to my non-stick muffin pans, even though I had larded them liberally. I think I'll try a modified version with almond flour and the teensiest bit of wheat flour this weekend, and might get some silicone muffin pans.