Banana Treasure and a Time Machine

This is a picture of very special bananas. There are 4 of them and they must contain some kind of 'fountain of youth' potassium or something because they cost us $5.44. Sorry, but I have terrible PMS and I can't get over that price! Also, we found a mystical, magical time machine right here in our local house of thieves. The North Mart store not only has magical bananas, but they have a machine that bakes bread a day after it was purchased! You would think it would stay fresh longer, but no! That sucker will be green and fuzzy in 2 days!

Ah...that felt better!

Christmas Dinner

Setting the table for a quiet Christmas Dinner.

Yummy Sweet Potato Casserole (Mmm...so good!).

We had turkey at a friend's house on Saturday evening, so tonight it was ham um...kosher pig, sweet potato casserole, home-made buns (honey-wheat rolls), and vegetables.

An enjoyable meal together.

More Christmas Pictures

Christmas Angels
Placemats
Re-shapeable vase, toasty-warm socks, soap (that smells like Pez), and other assorted treats
Food to feed my Christmas arse
Johnny Cash Cd and Looney Tunes DVD

Christmas Morning

Presents under our mini-Christmas tree
December 25, 2006













Limited edition print (18/21). It is a print of a painting done from one of our favourite lookout spots.

















Tom is only allowed to display this in his own personal workshop or on a back deck! (for now it shall remain hidden)













I love my giant double-sided indoor/outdoor wall clock!














"Oh my...is that what I think it is?"













"It is, it is! Yippee"

There are also many other wonderful gifts from friends and family. Thank you!

More pictures to come...

Season's Greetings

Click on each Smilebox Greeting. Be sure to press play and look at the personal message under each photograph.

View Smilebox

View Smilebox

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas!
Happy Holidays!

Happy Chanukah!

Teaching Sucks! (ok - not all the time)

Update

Today is Friday, December 15th and my day has been pretty good so far (mind you, it is only 9:25am). My students have been 'nice' and have complimented me on my hair today. They are working hard to complete a test they had all week to study for. I don't expect great results this time around because when I tried to do a review with them, they wasted 16 minutes of my time by talking while I sat and waited - But, I did give them a very detailed study package on Monday.

Keep your fingers crossed for me...if all goes well I may just teach again next year.

Did you know that if you type "TEACHING SUCKS" into the Google search engine you get about 1, 160, 000 hits?

Very interesting!

After 2 years, I still can't get over the prices!

Tom and I went shopping yesterday! OUCH! We haven't been shopping in a few weeks as we have been trying to avoid the high priced due to the road closure. We out of our stockpile of milk we kept in the freezer and were forced to pay $8.99 for 2 litres a week ago. We decided to forgo the milk this week and use the can of Carnation milk we rationed for coffee emergencies.

Here are example of some of the prices:

The most inexpensive paper towels (package of 6): $7.81
2KG package of frozen Sole Fillets: $27.13
1 KG package of frozen, mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, corn): $4.47
3 LBs McIntosh Apples: $5.50
5 LBs Yellow Flesh Potatoes (for latkes): $5.79
Yellow Onion (1 for latkes): $0.90
750g block of Marble Cheddar Cheese: $16.64

There were some decent prices as well, but the ones that really got me were the squash and sweet potatoes I bought. Tom has been wanting me to make Spaghetti Squash for quite some time, but they are always so big. Today I found a small one so I decided to buy it. I also bought a Butternut Squash (my favourite).

Let's play a game! It's called "Guess the price of the squash and sweet potatoes". I will post 2 photographs I took this morning. I am holding the squash in the first picture. In the second picture I am holding all 3 sweet potatoes (the third potato is balancing on my middle finger).



Your job is to guess the price of the contents in each picture. Leave your guess in the comments section for your chance to win an official Inuvik souvenir.

Yesterday Tom went out to complete his Christmukah shopping. When he came home he brought me something he ordered months ago through the fire department. They were selling Poinsettias. Being Jewish, I have never had Poinsettias before in my home before because I though of them soley as a "Christmas Flower". I never realized that this plant will live year-round (although I'm sure I will manage to kill it). There is some interesting information on Poinsettias at the following site - http://www.urbanext.uiuc.edu/poinsettia/.
The legend of the Poinsettia can be found here - http://www.ecke.com/html/h_corp/corp_legend.html.

This was a beautiful gesture by my loving husband to bring some colour into our apartment (and our lives) at a very dark time of the year. It was also his way to bring me fresh flowers (which are rarely found in Inuvik).

To work or not to work: that is the question: (What's the answer?)

I am sitting in my classroom right now. I probably should be conferencing with a few students right now as they read independently at their desks - but I don't feel like it!

As I look around the room I see the back of a girl's head. She is chatting with the boy behind her. Another girl has been reading the back of her book (maybe 2 paragraphs) for 10 minutes. The boy sitting right in front of my desk myst think I am a moron...because he's colouring. I don't have the energy to deal with the talking, but I just told the 'colouring' boy to stop "or I will tear it to shreds".

I am also being driven crazy by the staff members who want to pick the names for Secret Santa. I am not sure what these people did for the holidays before the Jewish lady came to town! Some one please explain to me why I am the one (along with one other lady who had to have a fire lit under her ass this week to get things rolling) who planned the CHRISTMAS Dinner (made the invitations, booked the hall, decided on the menu, bought the prizes...) and gathered names for the "Secret Santa Gift Exchange" and "Kris Kringling". AND G-d forbid they change the name of our school's CHRISTMAS Concert to something more inclusive - how about Kwanzmasukah?! I am ot the only one who does not celebrate Christmas - a number of students do not celebrate Christmas either.

Wow! All my students are reading now! Hmmm...amazing!

Anyhow, sorry for the rant, I woke up this morning with a cold, Tom's staff party is tonight, I have tons of work to mark, and I have many assignments to complete for my course.

Update: Parent-teacher interviews went very well! Much better than expected! I had all 'evidence' I needed with me to back up everything I wrote in the report cards, and didn't need to pull anything out. I even had 14 out of 21 parents show up! (Believe me, those are excellent numbers!)