How I Survive Not Being a Morning Person.

This month I am taking an 8am class, and I don't like it.

I am not what you would call a "morning person." I never took an 8am class in my undergrad, because I hate getting up in the morning. I was the girl in high school who always wore her hair in a ponytail, or cut it short so she wouldn't have to fix it in the morning; I only wore makeup if I had a crush on a boy (that's a whole different discussion that we can discuss later), and I would only shower at night. I did all of this so I could sleep until the very last minute, throw on a t-shirt and jeans and go to school.  

Never in my life do I remember being a morning person (other than Christmas when I was a kid). This was highly inconvenient at times since I grew up on a farm. Despite my parents best efforts (which once or twice included using ice water), I am, to this day, not a morning person. 

You may well wonder why I am taking an 8am class this semester. I wonder too. But at the time of enrollment it seemed like a good idea, so here I am.

This issue is compounded by the fact that J. often works late into the night. I like to wait up for him so we can have time together. But this sometimes limits my sleeping time to 3-5 hours/night. I realize a lot of people sleep 5 hours or less and function well. 

I do not. 

I get grumpy, sometimes down right mean when I haven't slept enough. I find it hard to control my facial expressions, which have a tendency to express sarcasm.

Do you see how this can be a problem?

So my solution to this problem has come out of desperation. 

Coffee! 

I know what you're thinking: "DUH!" But let's be honest. When it's already 90 degrees at 7:30 in the morning  (Yay Texas!!!) do you really want a hot cup of coffee to start your day off? (My great aunt Shirley would say, 'Yes, and keep a full cup in your hand until you fall asleep at night.') Most normal people would not. 

I am not going to pretend like I'm normal, but I would agree with the majority here. 

A lot of people get around this by drinking iced coffee, they would purchase some designer frap each morning. But I can't afford this. $5/day on coffee five days a week is about $100/month--that's a huge chunk of change for a pair of newly-weds living on a meager income. 

So, you may say make ice coffee at home. That would be cheap! And I agree. I thought about this for a long time. But do you remember how much I hate getting up? What would induce me to get up early enough to make coffee, cool it so it doesn't melt the ice and get watery, ice it and add in the things that make it palatable? (I don't like black coffee, yuck!) 

Nothing is worth getting up that early and working that hard first thing in the morning. 

Also, we have an old school 12 cup coffee maker, no cute little espresso machine that makes a cup at a time. For some reason, I never can get the right ratio of coffee grounds and water to make good coffee for one. 

So I had to figure out a way around this. 

I was perusing Pinterest in a sleepy haze a couple of weeks ago when I ran across one of those funny e-cards. It said something about freezing leftover wine in ice cube trays. The joke was that the person didn't know what leftover wine was. While I'm not the type of girl to guzzle a bottle of Merlot in one sitting, this e-card gave me inspiration. 

I could freeze coffee in ice cube trays and make frozen coffee drinks quickly. 

They even look cool!

So one afternoon, I fired up Mr. Coffee and made a whole pot! I poured some into our 2 ice cube trays, let that freeze a couple of hours in our little freezer, then I put the cubes in a bowl in the freezer and filled the trays again. I repeated this process until I used most of the coffee. Then, when my bowl was full of cubes and I was tired of refilling the trays, I just poured the rest out. It took a while, but if you have a bigger freezer and more trays you could do it all at once. 

Now in the mornings when I need a little pick me up, I take a blender cup and put the cubes in it like if I were going to pour some iced tea. Then I pour milk over them. (Calcium anyone?) I add a little sugar, and sometimes I add in a little vanilla extract. (I'm thinking about trying chocolate syrup on Monday.) Then I just blend it until the coffee cubes are broken down.

It tastes great and only takes about a minute--start to finish. 

It's also cost effective. None of the ingredients are expensive at all unless you want to buy expensive coffee. Even that is exponentially less than buying a drink from a coffee shop each morning. It also takes less time than you would spend waiting in line at one of those places. 

Other perks include, we never throw out expired milk anymore; I'm getting more calcium, which almost all women need; and I'm a happier person in class every morning. 

I don't drink coffee every day, because I don't want to become dependent. But on those morning where I feel like any little thing may set me off, it certainly helps to have something sweet and energizing to start the morning.

I hope this helps some kindred spirit out there who also hates the morning. If you have other suggestions for me, please comment. I'm all ears! (...unless it's 8am.)

Doing a Little Dreaming

Today, I want to talk about some of my future goals. I'm doing this to prevent ranting about some things I see around me that I most definitely do not want to emulate. I find that focusing on the positive of who and how I want to be keeps me from being as negative as I sometimes am inclined to be. (Friends and family should feel free to remind me of this at any point in which I am sucked into a rant.)

With that said, here we go...

I would like to spend my life teaching in a number of ways. Not all of them are listed here. These are just the three most immediate ambitions I'm contemplating.

I wonder what Cat dreams about?

First and most immediately, I would like to teach in a middle or high school. Currently I work at a University assisting with undergraduate courses (mostly Freshmen), and in general I'm surprised at the massive gaps in their education up to entering the University. I feel like I would be better able to help them at a younger age and in smaller courses. By keeping standards high and personal attention higher, I hope I can make a difference in the skills students have when they step into the university they choose to attend. 

Please don't misinterpret this as an attack on teachers in these schools. I personally had some excellent teachers throughout my education. But I know that teachers get tired. The amount of work to be done often seems insurmountable, and the system seems to undercut many of their best efforts. For more discussion on these types of things you can read this blog. (I don't write Chalk, but I often agree with its content.)

Because of these factors, students often slip through the system unable to read, write or think clearly for themselves. I really want to zero in on those kids who aren't getting the attention they so desperately need.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to accomplish great results for these kids, but I think one on one attention is a place start. They have a lot of catching up to do, and they need to know that there will be a lot of hard work to do it. But I firmly believe that students are capable of attaining much, much more academically than they generally leave high school doing. So I want to jump in with both feet, and really work hard, for basically no pay, after I attain a master's degree in history to inspire, improve, and give confidence to every kid I can possibly herd into a classroom.

I feel like the amount of energy I want to pour into this may not be sustainable for a full 40 or 50-year career. At the point when I realize I am burnt out, I want to stop teaching and pursue something else. If nothing else, out of fairness to the students who deserve all the energy a person can put into their education.

If you have any direction for me in this aspiration, I would greatly appreciate it! (I know I have some excellent teachers and former teachers who may be reading, I am really hoping you'll comment or contact me with your advice.)

There's a second way I hope to spend my life educating, that is with my own children. (No, this won't be happening for a long time, Lord willing.) I know I could catch some flack for saying this so early in my life, but I really want to homeschool my future kids for as long as it's beneficial. (Right now I'm thinking maybe K-8th grade, but nothing is written in stone.)

I get so excited thinking about creative, personal ways to engage them in education. I want my kids to love learning and, I hope that by keeping them home I can really cultivate that desire to learn. I want to make sure that they get unlimited instructional time in areas where they struggle. (For example, if we don't adopt our children, genetics don't bode well for their math skills.) I hope this gives them their best chance at academic success. This is not the only reason I want to homeschool, but it's the one most relevant to this post.

A third way I hope to teach is through public history. I still hold on to the ambition of working in museums and publishing publicly accessible monographs on historical events. I grow so weary of the abuse and misuse of history in political debates, knowing that the public may be just unaware enough to believe what these men and women are falsely proclaiming. I hope that through public history I can promote a more educated public who is less susceptible to the falsehoods they are constantly bombarded with.

Beyond educating voters, I know that people often appreciate the deeper sense of belonging and identity history affords them. It preserves the legacies of people, the reality of their lives and their humanity. Museums especially give people a greater sense of the reality of history. When you can see the actual objects people touched, created and took for granted you can relate to those people and that time more concretely. I feel like it's sometimes a life-changing experience when a person can make that connection. I really want to be a part of cultivating and guiding that experience.

There are other reasons for this aspiration too, but this blog is plenty long as is, so I'll cut it off here. Meanwhile, I'll keep plugging away at these graduate courses and dreaming. Please let me know if you have any knowledge that could help me with any of these endeavors. I'm eager to learn how I can be better, how I can get closer to achieving my goals.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes recipe in review

Today I attempted a new recipe. I generally like inventing my own recipes, but this one incorporated one of  J's favorite desserts into a cupcake. Whats not to love?


Here's the recipe I used:


Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes Recipe:
(Recipe from Heck Fridays)

24 cake-mix yellow cupcakes, cooled and unwrapped (I used a butter golden mix)

1 (3.4 oz) box French Vanilla instant pudding
1 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup sour cream

Make cupcakes according to directions on box. 

Mix together pudding, cream, powdered sugar, milk, and sour cream. Beat on medium speed until stuff peaks form. Cut each cupcake in half and add a dollop of filling. Put top back on cupcake and frost with ganache.

Ganache:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

Heat cream in sauce pan until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat, pour over chocolate in a mixing bowl. Stir to mix together. Let cool slightly.

Keep in refrigerator until ready to serve.

So I followed these directions, and let me tell you, these cupcakes are a delicious and delightful mess! 

One of the less messy ones...

Here are a couple of mistakes I think I made along the way that may make yours come out better. 


First, I shorted the butter a little in the cupcakes. I was about a tablespoon short and didn't have any more, so I just went with it. I think this is what made the cupcakes a little flimsy and harder to deal with. Also they were a little flat on top. 


Second, I took the word "stiff" a little too literally. My filling didn't really form "dollops" in the traditional sense. They were more like spikey blobs from a bad science fiction movie. Doing it again, I might whip a little less. 


Third, I made too much frosting. I would say you really only need about half of what the recipe calls for. But, I LOVE chocolate, so I went ahead and used it all. The result is some drippy, messy cupcakes. 


While forks will be a must for these messy treasures, there are a few points of this recipe that I think are delightful.


This filling is delicious! I had a little leftover after I finished putting the cupcakes together. I will confess that I ate it. (Shhhh don't tell on me!) Delicious is not the right word; I think I may dream about it tonight. 


In fact, it was so delightful that it has inspired me to attempt a new recipe later after these are gone. 


I recently pinned a recipe for "Hocus Pocus Buns" that are supposed to yield hollow cinnamon-sugar pastries. I want to fill them with the Boston Cream filling (maybe dip them in chocolate) and freeze them like eclairs.  Do you think this will work?