as far back as I remember..

As far back as I remember I have been able to see time in my head. As a kid my mom said I had a crazy ability to understand time even as a toddler. I can pull up memories really far back because in my head the different years and my ages look different in my head. It is 3d abstract space. They aren't colored and I can't draw them, but they are there. It is kind of like how a juke box flips through to a particular record and then pulls it out and scrolls to the correct song. That is how my memories are, but by age.

When I think about time all of the months are in a line and I am standing in the summer time. It is hard to describe, except that if I think about December 31, it feels like I am falling off the edge of the earth. The weeks scroll inside the months vertically and the days scroll horizontally. I do not stand on a particular day, it just scrolls depending on the day. The current day is bigger than the others.

When I think about numbers they ascend vertically in horizontal rows of 10. Math always came easily because I could just jump around through the numbers in my head.

I am not sure how old I was when I told my mom about this.. maybe 11 or 12. I was pretty sure that not everyone thought this way, but I never thought anything of it. I have never needed a planner, and I am really good with time and dates. Recently, my mom told me she heard a guy talking about how he could see time in his head.. she couldn't remember what he said he had. This made me want to know what it was called. It boggles my mind why I never googled it before- I guess I had no idea that there was a name for it.

I have synesthesia. My primary type is time/space synesthesia and my secondary is number form synesthesia. Some people with synesthesia see letters and numbers as certain colors. Some attach personalities to days or numbers (I did this as a kid- I have stopped doing it, but I can remember not liking certain numbers or days of the week because of characteristics they had). The strangest form I have heard of is when people associate certain words with tastes. Crazy right?! There are almost one hundred identified types of synesthesia.

this is sort of how I see numbers- not in color but out in front of me

My years are not circular, but they are shaped and colored spaces that extend from far left (January) through far right (December) I think I stand in the summer all of the time because my birthday is in June and I think in school years rather than calendar years.

Synesthetes do all of this subconsciously. Most kids who have it don't realize that other people don't think this way until they are older. When scientists have studied it and done brain scans- multiple parts of the brain light up when certain things are talked about or stimuli shown.

This always happens

So today I was watching Celebrity Rehab.. minding my own business and I hear this strange noise outside. I pause the tv.. listen.. don't hear it.. put the show back on and  I hear it again. I go outside walk up and down the sidewalk.. still don't hear anything and then I hear it. It is super loud.. it sounds like a lost animal or a baby animal crying. I was looking for a dog.. then I hear it blaring. I look down and it is a baby squirrel with the mama squirrel looking on. I run inside to get a dish towel and a box and scoop it up. The tree over where I park my car is really really tall. This is the third baby we have found under it since spring- 2 blue birds out of the same nest the first time. There is no way that this baby will get back up to his nest.. so into the house we go. It is crying and bleeding from its nose a little. A teacher at the school I work at is my go to guy for my random wild life I find.. this is not my first. 2 years ago I rescued another baby blue bird. You can check out Blue Bell here on his website.

I call his daughter and arrange to bring the baby to school tomorrow morning.. if it makes it through the night. So here we are. "Jumper" is sleeping in his box- in my warm back room- the bleeding has stopped and his breathing is normal. I looked on a "what to feed a baby squirrel" website and it said they are normally dehydrated so they should be fed pedialyte first. I also didn't want to put it further into shock. So baby Jumper has had a little less than 1 mL of pedialyte and seems to be doing great.








I feel like wildlife knows that I am a compassionate person and sick, injured, and orphaned animals ALWAYS find me. My mom has always had compassion for animals and I learned a lot from her over the years- we always were bringing some random animal to the vet or nursing a baby back to help in a pet carrier.

Earlier this spring we found a baby bluebird in the same place- the man who maintains my property found it and rigged up a pully and a trashcan for the bird to be as close to its momma as it could so she could take care of it. It lived up there for 3-4 days and then one morning I saw it out on a limb an it looked like it was about to fall. I go out there to lower the trashcan since the bird was hopping around on the ground. The original bird was in the trashcan. It was another baby that had fallen! At this point there was nothing we could do- my neighbor came out and said how every year the mama blue bird teaches her babies to fly from her fence- so we all herd the 2 babies over as close to her yard as we could. I was late for work at that point and just prayed for the best. I came home that afternoon- there were no dead babies on my street and they were all fluttering around in her backyard by the fence. Success.

Let's all pray that Jumper makes it through the night!

the coolest thing

I love flash mobs. They have been popping up all over the world over the past few years- I love the looks on all of the unsuspecting people around. Here are a couple a lot of videos- these make me so happy!

Getting my classroom in order

Today I spent my day organizing my classroom and setting up student binders. All. Day. Organized binders with colorful tabs make my heart flutter.

I am doing this post on my phone so I am not sure how the photo order will work.

I found half a roach in the bottom of one of my boxes... The more disturbing question is.. Where is the other half?!?! My mom works at a doctors office and they pulled half of a roach from a kid's ear... Where was the other half?!

I saw these boxes at office depot.. The label made me laugh.

It says "really useful box"

The Most Delicious Thing I Have Ever Made (recently at least)

I'm back!!

I kind of took an unofficial break from blogging over the summer break. School is starting back in a week and I am back at the blog!

I had a very eventful summer and I plan on sharing some pictures from my summer trips in some future blogs. :-)

 subscribe to tablespoon.com on my facebook account and I have gotten a lot of great ideas from them- everything I have made from that site has turned out great.

This week they featured Smores Candy Bars- I was inspired and headed out to Hobby Lobby to buy candy molds

These were actually pretty simple and worth a try- I'll give you a few shortcuts- that I figured out the hard way

All you need is chocolate chips- I used chocolate melting chocolate from the candy mold section, graham crackers, and marshmallow cream

I learned a new trick when I watched the video on how to make these- how to temper chocolate. This technique solves all of my chocolate problems.

I used one cup of chips at a time and had to make a few batches- maybe 4ish? Can't remember

Okay so you need 2 glass bowls- one to heat in and one to pour into. Heat the chocolate for 15 seconds a time and stop and stir. With my new fancy microwave I thnk I only needed to do 3 rounds.

Here is the tempering part- since you heated the chocolate in short bits and stirred along the way it heated evenly and didn't burn. So once its melted through, pour it into the second (room temperature) bowl. Then let it sit for a minute or so before you use it. This lets it cool down a bit.

Tempering your chocolate does a few things- first it makes it not burn- but the candy bar benefits are that it makes it shiny and smooth looking, it allows it to harden, and once it is harden it does that satisfying candy "snap" when you break it. Life changing stuff right?!

Next I poured the tempered chocolate into the mold- you don't need a lot just coat the edges.

***tip*** I did not spray these with cooking spray and they were a little hard to get out- so it wouldn't hurt to spray these first.

Let the chocolate set until hardish.

This isn't a necessary step- really just created more dirty dishes in my opinion, but I'll throw it in. If you want the toasted marshmallow flavor put your marshmallow cream under the broiler.

Be super super careful that you don't burn it. You have to do a few rounds of this so you brown it then stir it.. over and over. Like I said, I only did this once.

 Once the chocolate is set spread a thin layer of marshmallow over the chocolate.

top with graham crackers.

then top with more chocolate- put these in the fridge for 15-20 minutes until hard

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I tried them in peanut butter cup molds too- these were a lot easier to get out of the mold and they were prettier in the end

Next time I am going to put the cups straight in the mold so I can pull them right out 

These turned out so delicious!!! Candy making is not as daunting as it seems- these were so simple.

Batch Cooking

I have always been fascinated with batch cooking, meal exchange, and food storage. The problem is I have one of those 2 door refrigerators with the teeny tiny narrow freezer and the almost as teeny tiny and narrow fridge section. Whoever invented those had never cooked. So for my birthday (last week) I begged and begged for a deep freezer. John and my dad went in together and got me a small one so I was inspired to batch cook. Some days I'm just too tired to cook. I love to cook, but not when I am tired and hungry. I have found it to also be a great way to use all of the ingredients- limp, rotting celery  in my fridge drawer is like the story of my life.

Last week on one of my tutoring days off I decided to try my hand at batch baking. I have a once a month cook book, but like I have mentioned in previous posts, I can't turn down a good cooking magazine. Paula Deen had her 5 year anniversary best recipes cooking magazine out so I was inspired.

There are a few main rules/ideas that I have found that are very helpful to batch cooking:

1. get some storage dishes with tops- for my batch of stuff I used pyrex with lids- you want something that can go straight into the oven-for my grandmother's stuff I made I used tin pie plates and baking dishes

2. invest in some freezer bags, Glad press n seal freezer paper, and heavy duty foil- you don't want freezer burn to ruin all of your hard work

3. use centralized recipes- stick with a few main ingredients so you don't go bonkers in your cooking excursion- I used chicken and shrimp for my stuff and just chicken for my grandmother's

4. never thought you'd add a fraction again? add up all of the amounts of onion, celery, bell pepper, chopped chicken, etc and go ahead and cut it up and measure it. This will save your life.

5. Label, Label, Label!! Label all of your entrees with what temperature to cook them at, what else you need to complete the supper, and attach any toppings possible (I had individual portions of cheese to top stuffed shells)

6. Figure out the best way to store- some stuff needs to be cooked before you freeze, some half, some not at all- I assembled pot pies, stuffed shells, and enchiladas but did not bake them before freezing- i under cooked all pasta since it will be cooked again, I cooked things that needed to meld together all the way through- my jambalaya had raw rice and the squash casserole had bread crumbs

7. If you aren't feeling creative, check out websites on the internet dedicated to batch baking

individual meals

After I did my batch cooking I decided my grandmother would really benefit from this- I just did 1/2 portions of my stuff, but she is blind and bed bound most of the time so she needs individual portions of meals or small family sizes. I found some small chicken pot pie tins and bought 2 dozen. Even with organization and similar ingredients, both times I have done this I've spent about 5-6 hours in the kitchen- it is worht it. It feels so great knowing I have meals in my freezer if  I don't want to cook.

Here's what I made for me:

Spicy Seafood topping to go over stuffed potatoes
shrimp topping for shrimp and grits
chicken and sausage gumbo
tex mex lasagna
squash casserole
chicken cakes
chicken enchiladas
I also saved 15 c of leftover chicken broth in mini 1 c serving bags

For Grandmama I made:

Chicken Jambalaya
Chicken Enchiladas
Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken and Rice Casserole
Chicken Noodle Bake
Stuffed Shells

the best thing about sundays on the internet

I'm back! I'll do a life recap later this week.

Here are some more favorite postsecrets saved from years past. Check out the weekly post of new post cards at http://www.postsecret.com/