[I'm finished with my second weekend of freezer cooking...]

I really want to do this idea, but DH is absolutely opposed. He wants "fresh" meals when he comes home, not freezer meals. And he's diabetic and feels that freezer meals are not good for him and his diet. We just had a long conversation about this, where I tried to explain why I wanted to do *some* freezer cooking just to make life easier on days when I spend the whole day in the car driving from this lesson to that errand and back again.

 

He's ok with my frozen spinach lasagna, and with uncooked Turkish meatballs that I cook before serving, but as for the rest, he resists. Horribly. Makes faces - even if he likes it (he doesn't realize he's making a face, I just can read him well). I don't know what to do.

 

Any ideas from the experts?

 

What about dinner kit or "dump" recipes, where you put the ingredients in a ziploc bag, but don't do the actual cooking until dinnertime? That way a lot of your prep is done, but the food is still fresh. Marinades work really well for this - put meat in bag, put marinade in bag, seal tightly, freeze. Then pull out the morning you want to serve it, the meat thaws and marinates simultaneously, grill at dinnertime. You can do this with baked meat, as well - chicken breasts/salsa for instance; freeze them in the bag, thaw them in the morning, put in a baking dish and top with cheese, bake.

 

I also make up a huge batch of pizza crust dough, divide it up and freeze it in rounds (well - flattened discs for stacking). Pull it out in the morning and let it thaw, roll it out sometime in the afternoon and let it rise, top it and bake it at dinner time. That way our pizza is really fresh, and it takes up less space in my freezer.

 

You could have pasta sauces (meat sauce, alfredo sauce) frozen ahead of time as well, and just thaw it and cook dinner up fresh; this gives you the ability to include fresh vegetables in your pasta dish, as well.

 

Do you think he'd be okay with that?

[I'm finished with my second weekend of freezer cooking...]

Ohhh, your fried rice sounds so yummy! I usually just cook the Chicken Fried Rice recipe in the 30 Day Gourmet book, and my boys like it, but it's very... basic.

 

I chuckled at finding this thread this morning; I spent last night putting together a list of what I want to make on my next cooking day (including fried rice, burritos and twice-baked potatoes, lol!), and for a brief moment was toying with doing OAMC breakfasts and lunches, as well. Then I regained my senses. :D

 

Your meals look terrific! I know what a lot of work went into getting them prepared - you've been busy! Isn't it great when you have a freezer full of dinners? Then on busy school days you can just pull something out - no stress, no kitchen full of dirty dishes, no McDonald's or Banquet frozen dinners. Aaaah.

[NYT Article: Why are so many people in their 20s taking so long to grow up?]

Her BFF gets a $100/week in allowance.

 

:scared::scared::scared: Do you think her parents would adopt me??

 

 

 

I think there are tremendous media and marketing pressures in our society for people to advance to adolescence as soon as possible and then to stay in adolescence for as long as possible. Eight-year-olds who want to wear makeup and are "too old" to play with toys and 30-year-olds who don't feel ready to settle down yet are all part of the same phenomenon.

 

Eternal adolescence is a marketer's dream: adolescents are huge consumers of pop culture, have disposable income which they spend on themselves because they don't have responsibilities, are sensitive to trends and wanting to fit in, are pleasure-focused, seek out (and pay for) a lot of novel experiences, are image and brand conscious.

 

So of course there's going to be a multibillion-dollar effort to convince us that we should spend as much of our lives as possible in adolescence. Of course there is.

 

:iagree::iagree:

 

Yes, yes and yes. Add in the coddling that parents/schools do, the cultural paradigm that we should be having fun!! All the time!!, that work = pain (and our culture also goes to great lengths to avoid pain), and you can see where there would be zero incentive to embrace adulthood.

[cooking inthe summer and lack of air conditioning]

I agree... crockpot, takeout, main dish salads (like cobb salad, chicken salad etc), and the grill. Or, you know.. Cheerios. ;)

[And while we're listing free resources...]

I don't know if everyone here already knows about this one; I just found it the other day.

 

Open Source, downloadable Math and Science textbooks.

[s/o For those scouters...]

Scouters here!

 

I was CC of our first Cub Scout pack, and DH was a den leader for Tigers, Wolves and Bears. We helped start our current troop 6 years ago, and I am currently Recruitment Coordinator, DH has been Secretary and is now Equipment Coordinator. We are both MB counselors with 9 total badges, including 3 Eagle required, between us.

 

Our boys are both Life Scouts; older son is Brotherhood OA and is staffing camp this summer. He's been PL, SPL and is now Jr. Asst. Scoutmaster. Younger son has been Librarian, Scribe and is currently PL.

 

It takes a *ton* of time, but it is so worth it.

[Question for current TRISMS users]

I feel that TRISMS has plenty for an English credit. Not only are there more than enough literature excerpts and many varied writing assignments/opportunities, there are also many historical fiction and/or biography assignments throughout the year.

 

To throw in more literature or literature analysis would be more a family's personal preference, not a necessity. Just my thoughts...

 

I agree that there are plenty of reading/writing opportunities, and a lot of variety. But to me, at the high school level, there does need to be more analysis, especially for the college-bound student. I also think there needs to be more explanation of the readings - their history, significance, etc. than what EOC seems to provide (in my initial skimming, anyway; there may be some pieces that they provide sufficient background information on.)

 

For Beowulf, to use that example again - my college-bound student is going to be sitting in an English 101 classroom with plenty of other students who have studied Beowulf in high school. If they've had a decent English teacher, they will have talked about the Viking warrior ideal, about the tension the writer seems to have between Christianity and paganism, about the structure of the poem - alliterative meter and caesura and kennings, heck, about the fact that it's about a bunch of Danes and Geats, but it's written in (Old) English. They will probably have written about (or discussed in class) some themes, such as good vs. evil, mortality, identity. I would want to make sure that my student was on a level playing field with their peers; if they're going to study Beowulf, I want them to study it well. If they're going to be in a college classroom, I want them to have enough exposure to literary analysis that even if they don't love it, they can do it well enough to hold their own.

 

I do like EOC, as far as it goes; I think it's got a wide variety of readings across times and cultures, and I really like how it's integrated with the history studies. I think if I wanted to rest easy in that English credit I was giving, I'd want to beef up at least some of the major pieces. I don't think this is hard to do - pulling in some sparknotes or going to shmoop.com would do it.

 

Just my .02...

[Question for current TRISMS users]

Ahh, thanks for the input! I think I'm starting to feel better about this.

 

 

We used DAW last year and will be using EOC this year, so I'm speaking from my experience with DAW. Trisms does include some literary analysis. I use them but sometimes beef them up or otherwise change them. Also, a few times last year when Trisms used an excerpt of an important work, I used the whole work instead for the every other unit book choice. I'm not sure if EOC follows the same pattern as DAW.

 

 

It sounds like EOC follows that same pattern. There do seem to be some analysis questions, I agree - but the literature part of the curriculum feels light compared to the history. I've got no problem awarding a hs credit for the amount of history that they would be doing, but the reading feels more like a supplement - valuable, but not complete.

 

 

 

I have not seen EOC yet; I'm planning to get it for my 10th. So keeping in mind I haven't seen it, have no experience ...

 

When I read that it was literature excerpts I viewed the literature portion as one more thing helping the student to get a feel for the culture and time, and not as a literature credit. I'm getting EOC for History and will be awarding a credit in History for it. (Which is not to say a person couldn't do a lot more with it, this is just how I'm choosing to use it.)

 

Yes! That was my sense, too, that the literature component functioned best as something that was enriching the history study as opposed to a stand-alone credit.

 

Not much help, I'm new to TRISMS - just received EOC in the mail last week. We had already planned on using Sonlight's British Literature course for ds literature credit, and only picked up TRISMS to use as a guideline for his history and culture studies.

 

I've got SL British Lit, as well - and LLLOTR (curriculum junkie, anyone? :blush:). I was thinking either of those might dovetail nicely with EOC, and make me feel better about knowing that literature was well-covered.

[Question for current TRISMS users]

bump.... anybody?

[Question for current TRISMS users]

I'm hoping that someone can chime in here and answer a question for me; I just received the copy of TRISMS Expansion of Civilization that I ordered, and it looks very usable for my rising 9th and 11th graders for the coming year. Lots of research, pretty thorough history, as well as history of science, etc.

 

But... (there had to be a but!)

 

While there's a reasonably wide variety of literature selections, there doesn't seem to be a significant level of depth. I just looked at the Beowulf excerpt; in addition to the excerpt itself, there is one short explanatory paragraph (most of which is spent summarizing the story rather than explaining the history and importance of the piece :001_huh: ), no explanation of kennings, alliterative meter, etc., eight somewhat "softball" comprehension questions, and an assignment to design a movie poster based on the story. This just doesn't seem like an appropriate high school level handling of the subject. And this feels typical of the literature selections.

 

So, is there something significant that I'm missing? Is there something in IEW TWSS (which looks like what TRISMS is using for writing) that teaches literary analysis, that the student/teacher are just supposed to *know* that they do when looking at a piece?

 

Do you use the literature assignments in TRISMS as written? Beef them up on your own? Scrap the literature component and use something else entirely?

 

 

TIA...

[S/O of essay topics--evaluating?]

rubistar.4teachers.org/

I use this website sometimes.

 

 

Thank you for this website! It looks like they have a lot of interesting rubrics there, which is great for the mom who's not talented enough to come up with her own. :001_unsure:

[how to remove pinetree sap from clothing]

Ooh, ooh! I know the answer to this one - my son came home from Boy Scout camp last week, and had sap all over the seat of his pants from having sat on a downed pine tree. I tried rubbing alcohol and it kinda worked, but then I just went at it with Goo Gone, and it took everything out. It took two washings and a lot of elbow grease to get it all out, but they're clean now. I was afraid the dark green dye of the pants would discolor, but they appear to be none the worse for wear.

 

I think you can get Goo Gone at pretty much any grocery or hardware store.

[Active member roll call....just say "Here!" :0)]

daily lurker, posting noob... here! :seeya: