Everyday...

I love driving while the sun is coming up in the morning. So pretty.

Confused

I am confused about these two things:



1. Why it is 51 degrees on January 30 in Iowa.

2. Why it is so complicated to buy macaroni & cheese. Turns out the "original" was on that very bottom shelf, clear in the back. Woofta.

Robotics Competition

This weekend was quite eventful, and I'm only going to post once, because this is lengthy. It's the same post I used at my Wildcat Librarian blog, only I added the picture of my family to this one :) Thanks Mama, Granny, Brenda & Bailey for coming and supporting my nerdy obsession with robots!



I will preface this post with three things:
1. I have never been more proud of a group of Central City students.
2. You can see photos/videos on our Facebook page.
3. This is going to be a long post. It's worth it. (look at bold sections for short/sweet version)


Wildcat robotics took two teams to the Ottumwa Qualifier: 4156 (our mostly senior team that competed last year) and 5097, freshman students from my robotics class. 

At a qualifying tournament, each team gets to play 6 "round robin" matches and then the top 4 teams in those matches (based on points and win percentage) get to advance to the finals.

In the first 6 matches for 4156, we did fairly well. During one match we fell over and didn't score any points, but our alliance helped win that match. Several times, we scored 80 points. At the end, we were in 4th place out of 16 teams, which was enough to go to the finals.

The first 6 matches for 5097 couldn't have gone any worse. The first 5 matches we had technical problems or programming problems and our robot didn't move at all. It was discouraging for the kids, but I told them to keep trying, and they did. Between each match the reprogrammed the entire robot & made some hardware changes as well. Finally, in the 6th match we went out and scored some points. We ended up in 8th or 9th place after the initial matches because of our alliances, but it wasn't enough to move on.

Then we came to the alliance selection, where the top 4 teams get to pick teams to move into the finals with them. Team 4156 was the 4th seed, but the 2nd seed picked the 3rd seed, so we got to move up into 3rd (which was a big advantage, because #1 plays #4 and #2 plays #3--meaning we didn't have to face #1 seed in the first finals round).  When it came our time to pick, Tyler chose a team who declined our offer (they wanted to be with the 4th ranked team). We were shocked at their declination, because the rules state that they couldn't go with the other team, which they of course didn't know. So, Tyler picked our 5097 team to be the alliance. I was thrilled with the choice, because 5097 worked hard all day and finally got things going in the 6th and final round.

Finals are best 2/3. We faced the #2 seed. We won the first match, but 5097 broke their tank treads and their arm. We had to call a time out, and they went to work, fixing the treads & completely removing the arm and changing strategies. We ended up winning round 2, despite being tipped over onto our backs.

We moved on to face the #1 seeds, which just so happened to be both Oskaloosa teams. We lost round 1 by quite a few, and then won round 2. Which meant it all came down to round 3. We ended up losing 127-102 as the team scored with only 2 seconds left in the match. 5097 played excellent defense, and 4156 got an 80 point stack, but it wasn't quite enough. Oskaloosa had two excellent robots that also had a good autonomous scoring method. 

So, despite awesome driving by Noah & Lucas, we finished 2nd. Not enough for a trip to state. However, the team who wins 1st & 2nd place in the overall achievement award, the Inspire Award, also gets to move on. Team 4156 was nominated for a couple of awards which we didn't win. We were surprised to win 1st place for the Inspire award, which I fully believe our team deserved. Which also means, we get to go to state! 

I was so proud of Tyler for picking our freshman team, who had had many failures that day. It truly could have cost them a trip to the state tournament. It was the ultimate display of gracious professionalism, and our kids had so much fun working together. They deserved the overall award because of the performance of their robot, their awesome interview with the judges, and mostly their dedication to getting more kids in our school interested in robotics--they can even get freshman basketball players to skip a basketball game to compete at robotics today, and made it worth it to them by allowing them to move on into the finals as an alliance team. In their interview, Tyler talked about leadership skills, and he showed some great leadership today. It was a great display of loyalty and school spirit, and it paid off!

There was much celebrating, but we were all exhausted after a long, emotional, tense, exciting day. Now, 4156 is ready to prepare for state competition on February 25! 

1-26

I have great friends! Ms. Za-Za brought me some red hots, popcorn & a diet Coke after school tonight. Just what this girl needed to stay at school until 9:30pm...at least it isn't 10:30 like last night!

I'm not quite sure why this is sideways...but I don't really feel like fixing it.

Tall Socks

Have I mentioned that I LOVE wearing tall socks?

Snow Day Dos

Moral of today= snow days are rare gems.

I know, some teachers will complain, "But now we have to go back a day in the summer..."

Well, friends, that may be true. But in the summer, there are so many days. In the winter, a day off here or there should be used for living life and having fun. Thus, these photos:

A little guitar in the morning--sorry neighbors.

Chick-fil-A for lunch. And goofy chairs to sit in.

Our loot from the popcorn shop.

We found an Orange Leaf--also with fun chairs!

I bought this lion because we had the same hair-do today. My mane was outta control. Plus, the kids at school will love him and he'll be like the lion from The Lion & the Mouse.

My Diet Coke was frozen, so I just heated it up. No big deal.

And we watched The Help. The book was far better in my opinion, but that's also coming from someone who generally hates movies. (Plus, this was two movies in one {long} weekend, people!)

To sum up, I'm perfectly happy with a well-placed snow day (or two).

January 22

Last night, we ate at The Londoner. We requested to sit in these fun chairs, and totally hogged them for over 2 hours before leaving. People were jealous. And, The Londoner had a Titanic sign...seriously. I must go there again.

And today after church, there was fun to be had at the movie theatre: Beauty & the Beast in 3D. This was the first time seeing a 3D movie for both of us, and it was pretty monumental. There was singing, laughing, ducking, crying and grabbing at things. All in preparation for Titanic 3D in April, and Nemo 3D in the fall. 

January 21

Today, I made oreo-chocolate chip cookies. I think that speaks for itself.

Cooking with Rum

We had a snow day today, so I looked through some recipes and ventured out through the snow to the store. One of the recipes I wanted to try was a fajita recipe that had a marinade of orange juice, woozy (worchestire) sauce and some spices. I had happened to buy some limes at the store today because I had some rum that I wanted to use up (from making mojitos for our work Christmas party). Anyways, long-story-short, I decided that instead of drinking the rum in my coke with the lime juice, I should just put it in the fajitas. So I did.

The marinade was: orange juice, the juice from half of a lime, some woozy sauce, a little salt, some cayenne pepper & some Bacarde limon. Then, I put enough marinade in the skillet to cover the bottom, and I cooked the chicken in the marinade. When the chicken was done, I cooked the onions & peppers in the marinade. 

Threw it on a tortilla shell, with lettuce, some cheese and a little salsa. Wowzas. 

Then, I remembered how much I love salsa, but I didn't have any chips. So, I cut up a tortilla shell, sprayed them with cooking spray, and then, dashed some rum on each chip, and baked 'em. Seriously. Yum.

January 19

I sported my Eli's Army shirt today, in honor of my buddy Eli who died yesterday after a battle with cancer. He is the strongest person I've ever known! Here's KCCI's link to part of his story.

How did I survive...

...before the internet?

I can watch Criminal Minds/CSI on my tv and ISU basketball on ESPN3 on my computer. This is a pretty common occurrence on Wednesdays!

2 Hour Delay

Our first two hour delay of the year! Unfortunately, I didn't get to sleep in because I was already awake when I got the call. But luckily, the roads weren't too bad by the time we started. I love snow.

January 16

This is a photo from last night: went sledding! Had a blast, though I hurt my tail and hit my head a few more times than my mom would be comfortable knowing about. But seriously: so.much.fun. Can't wait for more snow to do it again!

January 15

Instead of getting right to work after church this morning, I decided to do some food experimenting. I've been trying to make a sauce that tastes like the "quarry sauce" at Stone City General Store. Every time I go there I order chicken strips--boring, huh. But the sauce, oh the dipping sauce, makes it so worth it. I could eat that sauce on most things. So, I've been trying to decide what's in it. One of my friends was there last week and brought me some back and I made about 5 people at work taste it and weigh in.

Most people thought: honey mustard, jalepenos, pickle relish, sweet relish, maybe some cayenne pepper.

I thought: mayo, honey mustard, pickle relish

So, I made 3 different sauces--2 starting with a honey mustard base, one starting with the mayo base. I added some spicy pickle relish (homemade from a friend at work), some sweet relish, a little cayenne to one of them and some mayo to both. But neither was sweet nor spicy enough and both tasted way too much like mustard.

So I started the 3rd bowl with a mayo base with a little bit of honey mustard. Then some spicy relish. Then a little sweet pickle juice (also homemade by my mama). Then quite a bit of sugar. This was by far the closest, but it is still missing something. I still think jalepenos would be a little too spicy, but next time I have one in my possession (remind me to take some, mom), I think I'll try it out.

So I baked up some chicken, and had a snack.

Now to get some work done!

January 14

Breakfast of champions:

Midnight snack of champions:

(Yes, all 5 pounds of mashed potatoes are gone. Yes, I feel a little guilty. Yes, they were absolutely, deliciously worth it.)

January 13

A mini pumpkin in the trash at the school in Alburnett in mid-January? Sketchy...

#Fail --January 12

Well, school let out early today, so I thought I'd do some cooking. Well, things started off well, and turned out fine, but there were some major bumps in the road (not turning on the burner, not finding things in the cupboard that were in plain sight)! 

Final product: cajun chicken pasta, olive cheese bread & blackberry cobbler for dessert. 

Then the next disaster: my craft sealer leaked, thus sealing all of the things on my desk, to my desk.

Not good.

Made some fun coasters using adirondack ink.

Oh, B-dubs

Wednesday night wings? I think yes.

For the record--this is not my picture. I ate my wings before my camera could even flash, I was so hungry. And I ate all EIGHT boneless wings--usually I'm lucky to make it through 4.

Motoramaxoablutophobia

Ok, so that isn't a word--yet. It's "motor" (car), "amaxo" (riding in a car), and "abluto" (washing or bathing). Thus, the fear of going through a car wash. It's not just me, either--do a quick Google search, and you'll find all sorts of blogs, just like this.

Poor Pearl needed a wash desperately, and since it was 51 degrees, I figured today should be the day. It really is scary--you know you feel it too. You can't see anything & are stuck in a small space with machines encircling you, spitting out water! Yikes.

January 9

I've been officially ousted as Subway queen, but the new queen convinces me to go more often than I would! Luckily for me, I got a few Subway gift cards for Christmas, and I get a $5 footlong and make it into 2 meals.

January 8

Did some cooking today: Chicken strips and mashed potatoes and hot fruit salad. Pioneer woman's mashed potatoes are definitely the best potatoes I've ever eaten. I literally could have eaten all of the 2.5lbs that I made. And, just like she said, you can't even tell there's cream cheese--I hate cream cheese! I'm perfectly happy to eat these leftovers for the next 3 days!

January 7

For as major of a fail as Friday night was, Saturday night was that much of a success! Good karaoke fun with good people.