Fridays and weekends and "fall"ing back in time

I capped off my work week yesterday with a sort-of double-day. I received a call on Thursday night for a 1/2 day job at a middle school that, to be perfectly honest, I dread going to (never good luck there, particularly on Friday afternoons). But, since it was a morning job, I took it on and was happy that I'd still work, but I might be able to enjoy a bit of the afternoon. Yet just as I was getting up and furiously rubbing the sleep from my eyes, my cell rang again... with another job! It turned out that there was another English teacher at the same school who needed the afternoon off, so I ended up working a full day at the same school for two separate teachers. I'm pretty sure this is rare, but it was quite enjoyable to switch gears in this way.

Typically, these Friday afternoons can be a nightmare, particularly when there's a kid-oriented holiday mid-way through the week (even more particularly, a kid-oriented holiday that involves late nights and FAR too much sugar). But, I was fortunate to have a very understanding teacher to sub for yesterday afternoon, and other than one really brief short story assignment and a fun vocab activity for another class, she definitely prepped a few episodes of The Simpsons for me to show the class as a sort of tribute to Halloween (they do a Treehouse of Horrors episode every year... my favorite one, hands down, is in the first or second season where they spoof Poe's "The Raven", which is read by James Earl Jones. LOVE IT!).

To cap off this successful day, I also received an email from a local sportswear company to let me know that my club volleyball jacket was finally in! I've been waiting weeks for it and I was finally able to pick it up yesterday. The reason I was so excited is that I've been waiting since the spring to order/receive it, and it was a gift from my club volleyball players that I coached last year. It's wonderful and I'm definitely going to post pictures of it in the next few days.

Changing gears completely (so I can step out of talking about school/work and get into a more weekend-y mode), I've been on a big cooking kick lately. Well, in my head, anyways. Last Sunday, I decided that I was sick of waiting for two of my friends to send me their Squash Soup recipes (which I've been harassing them about for months), and I went to K's plethora of cook books to find an alternative recipe that I could make on my own. I'd never made soup from scratch before, so I thought, "Hey, that would be fun!". The one thing I haven't mentioned is that although I purchased my ingredients in the late afternoon, I cooked something completely separate for dinner, K was doing some baking and I was watching TV, I didn't actually start working on my soup until about 10pm! Now, this wasn't the smartest idea I'd ever come up with, but it was just one of those days that I was feeling ambitious so I went for it. After finally getting the soup cooked and pureed and cooked again, I ended up with about three litres of soup and noone to eat it! I'm a big eater, but I sure didn't have it in me to eat three litres of squash soup for dessert at 11:30pm on a Sunday night.

I ended up freezing most of it and keeping some to eat throughout the week. It was definitely delicious, so I have to thank the creators of the recipe for "Whisky Squash Soup" from The Girl Can't Cook cookbook... the book is actually really well put together and highly practical for the amateur chef. That's me.

But I keep trying to think up various things I could make... Hunter's Chicken might be on the menu for tomorrow if I'm feeling like another bout of ambition is approaching. For tonight, though, K and I are off to a friend's place for a little couples dinner party. Should be fun! And there will be wine, so double that dose of fun.

So, until after the wine and after the extra hour of sleep we get due to the wonderfully enjoyable Daylight Savings Time (I curse it in the spring and, to be honest, think the whole idea is a bit ridiculous in general), adieu...

T