Charleston Christmas Activities by Shelley Hopkins

The Charleston area is a wonderful place to celebrate Christmas, and to host out of town family members.  We may not have ice cycles and snowmen, but we are not lacking in Christmas spirit.  One local tradition is the James Island County Park lights.  We piled our family into one car, and drove all around the park, enjoying a lighted Santa, snowflakes, elves tossing snowballs, pirate ships, flags, and literally hundreds of lighted trees.  The show starts at the lake with our famous Ravenel Bridge nicely reflected on the water.   Midway through the drive we parked to walk through the rest of the attractions.  Kids and parents roasted marshmallows over fire pits, children rode a merry go round, and we walked among the smells of the fires, kettle corn and funnel cakes.  The best part was the enchanted forest full of butterflies, frogs and lights sprinkled all through the trees.  Our entire family decided to make this a new tradition for the Christmas week.  We enjoyed the light show a couple of days after Christmas, avoiding the long lines and crowds.

One warm sunny day before the holiday we drove to the beach on Sullivan’s Island, wearing shorts and sandals.  As we crossed the bridge we left the sunny day behind, driving into a wall of ocean fog.  We parked and walked along the boardwalk, the fog moving among the sea grasses.  We could only hear the ocean, hidden by both fog and low tide.  The lighthouse barely penetrated the mist, and it was eerily beautiful.  The fog cleared as the sun slowly set, the colors made even more vivid as the fog burned off. 

We took our family members to see the Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalaw Island.  We all drink tea and yet we had never seen actual tea plants.  We took a tour of the plantation, viewing the farm, the green house, and simply enjoying the beauty of the area.  In the shop we sampled different hot and cold tea drinks.  The plantation has 127 acres of Camellia Sinensis tea plants, grafted from original plants rescued from a Summerville farm that had been neglected.  We also stopped at the Angel Oak Tree, an absolutely beautiful and amazing tree at least 500 years old.  It is huge, rambling, and shades an area over 17,000 square feet.  To stand under this tree is to be amazed at the beauty and depth of nature. 

Charleston has so much to see with history, museums, architecture and home tours, but how wonderful it is to be able to enjoy the outdoors any time of the year.

Seneca Guns in South Carolina by Shelley Hopkins

Seneca Guns by Shelley Hopkins

Did you know that we have ghost pirates shooting at the shore here in the coastal South Carolina area?  That is one of the suggestions to explain the phenomenon of Seneca Guns that are occasionally heard around the coastal regions of North and South Carolina.  I have only lived here for a year, so this is new to me. Yesterday I saw a post from our local newspaper mentioning that several people from Isle of Palms to James Island had heard these boom sounds, and that people’s homes shook and windows rattled.  The paper was waiting to hear from the US Geological Service if the area had experienced tremors, but the writer said, if no tremors were measured then this was just a case of Seneca Guns.   So far, no tremors have been reported.

 I immediately began researching and learned that Seneca Guns is one of several names this unexplained booming sound is called.  James Fennimore Cooper wrote a short story about these booms that were heard in NY at Lake Seneca and the name stuck for the United States.  The same sounds have different names in other parts of the world, including Barisol Guns in India, Uminari in Japan, and my favorite, Mistpouffers off the coast of the Netherlands.

No one knows what causes these sounds.  One suggestion was sonic booms, but the Seneca Guns have been documented from as early as 1850.  At times these sounds are associated with earthquakes, or mainly with the aftershocks, including several mentions of these booms being heard after the Earthquake of Charleston in the 1800’s.  Other times these booms are heard on clear days with no possibility of thunder.  Seismic activity has never been recorded with the booms.  Generally they are heard along coastal areas or lake areas, so the suggestion of plate tectonic shifts has been made, but again no evidence has been recorded to suggest this is possible.

I read an article from the US Geological Service that discounted nearly every suggestion that had been made, from meteors to earthquakes to parts of the Atlantic plate sliding off in the ocean, to sonic booms.  The geologist concluded by saying, “The Earth is a complex place and there is a lot about it that we don’t understand. Perhaps someday we will understand what causes Seneca guns, but right now we don’t understand what makes them. However, they do not seem to pose a threat to anyone.” http://earthquake.usgs.gov/learn/topics/booms.php

I looked at a site from North Carolina, the NCCoast.org, and found a quote from a longtime resident, “Marlene Dixon Varnam has experienced Seneca Gun episodes all of her life. ….Varnam owns and operates Carson Varnam Seafood Market, a business she and her late husband launched back in 1955. 

“As a child I was curious about what they were. My first thought, of course, was that there might be a storm. But, then, there would be no clouds in the sky.  Our house might shake, but I was never frightened,” she recalls.

“Through the years, we heard a lot different things that might be causing the booms – earthquakes, part of the continental shelf slipping away and jets breaking the sound barrier,” she says.

“There are no definitive answers, and the booms have become part of our lives.  We just go about our business when it happens. Some mysteries you just can’t solve,” Varnam concludes.” http://www.nccoast.org/

I love the fact that despite all the scientific knowledge of our time we still have mysteries.  It is exciting to try and imagine what might cause these sounds.  I do not believe the answer is ghosts or any other mystic phenomenon but it is fun to imagine the possibility.  A little mystery in life is good. 

At the same time I did find an explanation that seems reasonable, that involves atmospheric inversions due to cold air and warm air that could create a microphone effect.  This would explain why the sounds are heard near the coast and why they are so loud, yet does not explain the cause.  Life is interesting.  My goal for now is just to hear and feel one of these Seneca Booms while not seeing a ghostly pirate ship on the horizon.  If you have any experience with this, please share it, I am very interested.

thoughts on plans for the new year

Goals and Plans

For the last 20 years I have been a stay at home mom.  I learned a lot from that experience, and believe it or not, what I learned there has carried over to my new career in Real Estate, to my dream career in writing, and to my life in Christianity.  A stay at home mom is not on a life pause, but is working for her family as a self-employed home manager.  The pay is not great, but the perks and rewards are without measure.

One of the roles I played was household management.  I worked to save money, be frugal and provide good nutritious meals for my family.  I enjoyed making homemade baby food, cooking, baking bread and sewing.  Well, maybe not sewing.  The biggest struggle as a stay at home mom is the freedom I had to plan or not plan my days.  I found I needed a schedule and goals.  Home management does not just happen.  To have frugal, tasty and healthy meals takes planning.

What were our goals?  First and most important was to raise, nurture and be there for my children.  We had values to instill.  We chose to always attend church, to put God first.  Walking at the park we could talk about God and the beauty of nature, in the playground interactions we could talk and model Christ like behavior.  I wanted my kids to enjoy life and live simply.  I wanted them to play outside, build forts with blankets, read books and delve into their creativity.

I learned how to cook.  I tried different vegetables and fruits and always we experimented with different recipes.  We grew a garden and saw where our food came from.  We also ate fast food and frozen pizzas, but hopefully we had a balance.

Now the children are grown, and I am working.  I have found the lessons learned are needed in my “real world” life.  I am a Real Estate agent, a wanna-be writer, and a Christian.  In each area of my life I need goals, a plan and a schedule.  No one is going to lay that out for me, there is no clocking in and out for any of those sections of my life.  This is scary.

This week I am writing out my Real Estate goals, and trying to create a loose schedule that I can use to plan my days in order to achieve these goals.  I must do some form of prospecting, or advertizing in order to let others know about the services I offer as an agent.  I must read and train myself on contracts, financing and the market.  I must get out and look at neighborhoods and homes.

I want to write.  I need to schedule time for that, to sit and write.  I need to read a wide variety of texts; I need to improve my vocabulary and grammar.  I need to get out and observe life, and to see and experience.

I want to grow as a Christian, and to share my faith.  I must have a faith in order to share it.  I must pray, study, work on my relationship with God and my church.  But to share this faith and to challenge myself and grow, I must get out and participate in life, meet others and use my faith.

One action item, so to speak, is the same for all my goals.  Get out, become involved in life, and develop relationships.  People will only trust me as an agent if they know me.  I will only have writing material if I have a life, and Christianity not shared is dead.  How can we love and teach others if we don’t care, don’t know them and remain aloof?

For me, I need a balance of scheduling, planning, goal setting and getting involved in living.  I like to just see where life will take me, and some of that is natural and who I am.  A true plan that will work will take my natural personality and strengths into consideration, so for me a mixture of well laid out plans and “lets just hop on that road and see where it goes” is what will work best. 

What are some of your plans for 2014?

Recipe for Shelley's Frugal Frittata by Shelley Hopkins

Cooking is always an adventure for me, kind of like walking a trail and ending up on another path, maybe even in a different forest.   As always, I start a recipe, find out I am missing ingredients, rummage through the pantry or refrigerator and end up with something else, different but good.  I enjoy these food adventures.  The other night I decided to fix a frittata, a simple egg meal. The recipe called for zucchini and Parmesan cheese to top the frittata, and of course I didn’t have any.  I ended up creating a topping with bacon and all the left over veggies I could find.  I topped the final product with feta cheese, and provolone and we loved the meal.  Last night I did the same with my soup.  I wanted to make the Tuscan pasta soup but the kale had been in the fridge a little too long.  I cooked chorizo, onions, garlic, peppers and mushrooms, added the beans and pasta and we had a great supper.

Shelley’s Frugal Frittata

Cook some bacon and set aside to cool, then crumble or cut into pieces.  We used turkey bacon.   In olive oil cook onions, red peppers and garlic till soft, then add mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.  Add the bacon to the veggies and set aside while you prepare the frittata. 

Whip 6 eggs, add two tablespoons water and whip again.  Pour into hot omelet pan greased with butter.  When eggs begin to set, top with the bacon and veggies.  Add salt and pepper if you wish.  Add whatever cheese looks good, I used feta and provolone sections, and place under a hot broiler until the top browns and is set. 

This recipe was adapted from the Frugal Gourmet by Jeff Smith, whose cookbooks  I love.  He suggests serving the frittata sliced like a pie with a salad.

Travel trips and how to plan by Shelley Hopkins

I just finished reading a description of the Blue Grotto of Capri, written by Richard Halliburton, an explorer who travelled and wrote during the early 1900’s.  I am reading his book The Complete Book of Marvels.  He writes about geography and travel in a way that makes the reader want to get out of his chair and go, now!  If I were still homeschooling we would be reading these stories as a way to enhance history and geography.  As I read I am laying out a plan of study, then I remember, I no longer have students.  I am reading for pleasure only.

Halliburton shares his visit of the Blue Grotto with us.  The entrance to this cave is nearly under water.  The guide and the writer had to lean down into the boat to enter.  Inside this famous cave the writer was amazed at the beauty, the rock walls, the sparkling light made when his hand trailed in the water and the very deep luminous blue wavering throughout the cave.  They were the only visitors, and changing into bathing suits they dove in the water, splashed and had a great time.  I could just imagine how it would be now, for me.  I looked up the Blue Grotto on youtube, and found a home video posted by a vacationer.  It looked like Disney Land, a line of boats waiting to enter the cave, taking turns with the exiting boats.  Inside the water and the rocks sparkled a deep blue, guides sang Italian love songs and children shouted at their echoes.  I’m not sure how much magic is left.

So often our travel dreams and travel reality are not equal.  We forget, in our plans and excitement, to think about the realities; traffic, parking and crowds.  The very things that cause us to want to visit a place entice others as well.  A few years ago my kids and I drove out west, and one of our stops was the Grand Canyon.  We decided to visit the North Rim, choosing it over the more popular South Rim.  We had a wonderful visit.  We camped at a Forest Service Campground and in the morning, after coffee and breakfast, we drove into the park.  There was a slow moving line of cars at the entrance, causing maybe a 15-minute delay, but once in the park we all spread out, driving to the various overlooks.  We never had trouble finding a parking space even though we saw plenty of cars and people.  At lunchtime we ate at a picnic table along with many others, but we had no trouble finding an empty spot.  We spent the entire day in the park.  By evening we enjoyed a few of the pullouts by ourselves.  We walked to a fairly remote spot, peacefully enjoyed the sunset and the blending of colors across the canyon.  Other people were nearby, but it was never crowded.

 Near the end of summer we met a man that worked at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon.  He told me that during the same month we enjoyed the North Rim, he was at the South Rim, where cars waited in line for over an hour just to enter the park gates.  Crowds were huge, and vacationers were tired.  The South Rim is so popular the park has a bus system to move people from one viewing spot to another.  Visitors sometimes have to wait for a second or third bus before they can find a seat.  A few years later we visited the South Rim, and saw many short tempers, frustrated visitors and perhaps disappointed faces.

We don’t expect to go on vacation only to encounter more stress than our daily lives, but often that is what happens.  There is a disconnect between the desire and the reality.  Here are a few tips to help prepare and avoid these troubles.

 Travel Trips

1      Plan plenty of time for crowd related delays, long lines and long drive times.  Look at a map and understand the distances you may be driving.

2      Pack water bottles and snacks to avoid dehydration and the crankiness that comes with hunger.

3      Relax and enjoy.  Don’t set a goal to see the most things possible, instead set a goal to enjoy the things you do see.  Live in the moment, not in an imaginary expectation.

4      Go to places that are less popular.  The Grand Canyon is just as beautiful from the North Rim as the South. 

5      Understand that just because you are on vacation it doesn’t mean you are not in the “real world.”  You still have to look before crossing the street, you still have to take turns and be polite, and plan ahead.

6      You are still “you” on vacation.  You have not entered a magical world where suddenly personalities have changed.  If you have problems, you will bring those problems with you.

7      You must be alert.  Thieves go on vacation too, just for different reasons.

8      Treat the vacation place as you would your own home – don’t litter, don’t park on the grass, take care of the resources.

9      Most importantly, have fun! And learn something! 

How to Cook Fresh Pumpkin by Shelley Hopkins

This year for Halloween I waited until the last minute to buy our pumpkin, and all that was left was the small sugar pumpkins.  It was too small to carve, so we created a face from paper, and took it with us to our trunk or treat.  It sat in the back of our car looking out over all the children and their costumes.  Back at home it looked over the kitchen for several days, smiling at me as I cooked.   Today, I turned it into muffins, and very good muffins they were too.

Pumpkins are harder to cut than I expected.  I had to use both a huge sharp knife, and leverage as I pulled the cut sides apart.  I cleaned out the seeds and pulp, cut the pumpkin into two pieces and placed them in an oven safe dish.  I cooked the pumpkin parts for an hour and a half at 325.  I cleaned the seeds, salted them and placed them on an oiled cookie sheet.  I cooked them about 25 minutes at the same time and same temperature.  When the pumpkin was fork tender, I let the pieces cool, then scraped the meat into a bowl.  With a hand blender I pureed the meat and used 1 cup of it in my muffins.  This was so easy, I don’t know why I had never tried it before, and fresh pumpkin is so much better than canned.

Pumpkin Muffin recipe from allrecipes.com

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

½ tsp ground ginger

2 eggs

1/3 cup buttermilk ( I just add a drop or two of vinegar into milk before using)

1 TBS molasses (  I didn’t add this, I was out of it)

½ tsp vanilla extract

1 cup white sugar

 1 cup canned pumpkin (or fresh)

½ cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350.  Grease muffin cups.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices.

Beat together everything else except pecans in a large bowl.  Mix the dry ingredients and stir just until moistened.  Then fold in the pecans.  Spoon into muffin pans and cook 20 – 25 minutes.

When done I added an orange glaze.  I mixed powdered sugar, a drop or two of vanilla and a couple of spoonfuls of orange juice.  I stirred until a glaze formed, and this glaze tasted great with the pumpkin.

raking and memories by Shelley Hopkins

The rake swept across my grass, pulling brown leaves off the lawn and into little piles.  I moved about the yard, adding leaves and combining small leaf piles into larger ones.  I made a few large piles, smelling the musty scent of decay, enjoying the cool breezes of a fall day, and stopping so often to enjoy the colors.  The sky was a brilliant fall blue, the grass green, and the air fresh. 

Leaf raking is much easier without small children helping.  I walk around the house to find a container, and when I return the leaf pile is still intact.  The work is done quickly.  But, I remember when my children were small, the fun they would have jumping in the leaf piles, burying each other and jumping out.  Sometimes I would stop work and enjoy watching them, sometimes I would join them, but sometimes I would sigh, chase them away or put them to work, focused on the task.

I look at my lawn.  Freshly raked, but still there are stray leaves scattered about.  I go around raking up the missed leaves, but for every leaf I catch, three more fall or are not caught by the rake.  I feel frustrated, but then I stop.  I look over the entire yard.  I can either see the scattering of leaves on a yard, or a yard freshly raked, with a few leaves.  The choice of focus is mine.

 I relax, put away the rake, pour a glass of lemonade and sit on the porch.  I think I’ll call my grown children today and say hello.

Try something new! by Shelley Hopkins

Don’t let the fear of Failure Paralyze You!

            A commercial on the radio says, “I remember one Thanksgiving when my Mother tried several new recipes.  The turkey was dry, the gravy was salty, and the sweet potato pie was burned.”  The commercial ends as the speaker cheerfully says, “the good news is mom never tried a new recipe again!”

            How sad!  Sometimes what seems like a great idea in a cookbook falls flat on the table, but other times the meal is wonderful, and a new favorite is discovered.  If we never try to create a new meal, we will never enjoy a new meal.  Perhaps that is obvious, but it is still true.  We have to try new things, reach out and take risks, or we will never grow.

            Our family used to host game nights in our home, and I decided to try something new and special for my last one before moving out of state.  I cooked several tapas, Spanish snacks, and they were, well, not as good as hoped.  Actually they were awful.  I am still not sure what I did wrong.  Even so, I had fun making them, creating something new and different.  The game night was enjoyable, we had other good snacks to eat, and we all learned that tuna in half-raw dough was not appetizing. 

            All Southern women have to bake a batch of burned rocks before they can serve flaky biscuits, and we all have to cook pots of glue before serving creamy grits.  If no other lesson is learned we discover that a bad meal, a burned biscuit is not the end of the world.  We will be hungry again; we will eat again and cook again.  Daily.

            Of course this applies to other parts of life; taking risks, trying new things, failing at times but not letting failure stop you, all of this is necessary and a part of life.  If we fail, and learn from our failures, we grow.  Failure can be good.

            One year I attended Girl Scout Camp and I wanted to use the canoes.  Every girl had to take a canoe out on the lake, swamped it, turned it back over and demonstrated that they could bring the half sunken canoe back to the dock.  After passing this test we enjoyed the canoes with less fear.  We already knew what it felt like to capsize and we knew what to do.  Maybe our little failures are like that.  We see that we have failed and we move on.  We see what the worse thing that can happen is, and we are OK, we try again.

Do toddlers learn with computers and apps? by Shelley Hopkins

When a toddler plays educational games on the ipod, ipad or other screen device, are they actually learning?  What is happening with their brain development?  Pediatricians don’t know, but they have seen a corollary between early TV watching and shorter attention spans.  There are many educational apps out there, and quite a few of them are aimed at toddlers and small children.

I have my doubts that a child playing with a finger paint app is enjoying and learning in the same way as a child sticking his hand in gobs of gooey finger paint, smearing it all over the paper, making patterns, and creating pathways of paint with depth and texture.  He can smell the paint, feel the paint, create with the paint, and of course he can make a huge mess with the paint.  But, perhaps that is the point; his paint is real, with true consequences, sensations, and responses.

The smells of finger-paint and play dough triggers pleasant memories.  What will the iPad playing toddler remember?  Flashing lights and an unnatural zoning out, a calm dopamine enhanced trance? 

When my kids were younger we tried a few of the educational computer programs, but quickly I discovered that they were simply clicking on answers until the right one was chosen.  They were not thinking, creating or working; they were chasing green lights or whatever electronic reward they could get.  Some games were better than others; our favorites were puzzle-solving games that made the kids try to figure out clues or keys to solving problems. Their favorite educational game was The Oregon Trail, where we learned that pioneers died of dysentery, nearly all of them.  I never blocked computer and video games for my older children.   As long as the kids were enjoying real experiences, real books, and the outdoors, I had no trouble letting my school age kids play on computers or video games.  I would feel different about toddlers and babies, who do not need computers, iPods or video games and especially TV.

Games have improved, but they are also targeting younger and younger children.  I believe these games encourage passivity, not creative thinking or working for an answer, just a passive clicking to earn a reward.

Do I think computers and electronic items are bad for kids?  It depends on the age of the child and how they are used.  I read about a group of children that used their tablets in exactly what I would call the perfect learning activity.

A group called One Computer per Child chose two very isolated villages in Ethiopia and dropped off boxes of tablets.  Each village got a solar powered charger and instructions on how to use it before the group left.

The children opened the boxes, found the tablets and began to explore.  The goal was to see if the children could learn to read through the use of educational apps alone.  A few of the kids learned to sing the ABC’s, and one boy worked out how to write LION on an animal word app, but the real learning was observed in a different and unpredictable way.  With no computer training or experience, some of the kids figured out how to override programming that had disabled the cameras, and they also figured out how to change the tablet start up screens, overriding another program.  Instead of learning how to spell or read, they learned how to hack systems that were beyond their experience.

Now these kids were learning!  They took an unfamiliar object, learned how to use it, and then with creativity they leaped beyond the expectations.  There was no one to direct them to correct learning outcomes, no one to show them what they should be learning, so their natural curiosity and desire to understand and achieve a goal pushed these Ethiopian children to learn more than planned.

Tuscan Bean Soup by Shelley Hopkins

Last night I cooked a Tuscan Bean Soup that was a hit with my family.  Since they don't usually like soup, and since it was another meatless meal, I was shocked and pleased and thought I would post the recipe here.  I love soup, and could cook it nearly every day, which is why I think my family doesn't like it too much, but when we find a soup we like, I am a happy Momma!

Tuscan Bean Soup

1 T olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3 cups low fat, low sodium chicken broth
1 cup canned whole tomatoes
1 1/2 cups kidney beans, I did used 1 can drained
2 tsp fresh thyme
1/2 cup chopped kale
1 cup seashell pasta

In a large pot over medium high heat, combine the oil, onion and garlic and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the red pepper and kale and sauté for 3 more minutes  Add the broth, tomatoes and beans.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.  Add the pasta and simmer 7-8 minutes, till the pasta is done.

Enjoy!

What I learned from teaching by Shelley Hopkins

My first real experience with being a teacher was in home schooling my three children.   I especially remember our first day of kindergarten; I think I was as nervous and as excited as my son.   For weeks I had scoured bookstores and the library, planning the themes of our first days of school.  I had purchased cheerful math books, tons of educational toys, posters for the walls, and of course crayons, paper, glue, paint and other art supplies.  We woke early, ate breakfast together and then walked downstairs to our “school room.”  Looking out the window I watched a mother and her two children waking past our house carrying little backpacks, eager for their first day at the school down the street.  I felt a little nagging doubt form in the back of my mind.  Was I denying my son these memories of first days, of walking to school and playground antics?

            We read a few books, played with toys and worked on a math sheet.  He painted a picture, and then it was lunchtime.  This first day had an anti-climatic feel to it, as if it should have been more special.  I wondered what the kindergarten down the street was doing, and if my son were missing out in some way. 

            I tried to decide what we should do next, how to pass the rest of the first day of school, and almost before I knew what had happened we were packing a picnic for the park.  We returned just as the neighborhood school was letting out.  The crossing guard stopped us, so we were able to watch children running, packs bouncing on their backs as they hurried home.  My son observed them for a minute and then said, “I hope their first day was as good as ours.” 

            Before long I had a classroom of three children, of different ages, different temperaments and interests, and vastly different learning styles.  Teaching my kids at home was the best hands on educational research I could ever participate in, plus it was fun and created mostly good memories with our family.

            Of course, there was stress too, and difficult moments when Mom had to push a child for better work and deeper thinking.  This need for a new voice of authority led me to my second educational experience, the University Model School, or two day a week school.

            The UMS is a hybrid of private school and home school, and with it come some of the good and some of the bad of each experience.  The parent is no longer in charge of the curriculum or day-to-day teaching, and the parent looses the control and freedom of being the teacher.  Students have opportunities to learn from teachers with new learning styles.  They can participate in labs and public speaking.

            As a teacher in this school I observed differences in the students from the private school system and those from the home school system.  The private school students, in general, were better organized, better at working in a specific time frame, and better spellers.  The home school kids were better at grasping the main ideas, working on their own without too much direction, and in seeing the big picture.  They generally had wider areas of knowledge.

            What does this mean?  I think all educational choices have strong points and weak areas.  Which path we choose, we have to prepare well, and be honest about the downsides.  It’s our job to try to reinforce the good while doing what may be needed to improve the bad.

            One of the main things I learned while I taught the middle school and high school classes was how much time I spent teaching things besides my subject.  I thought I was teaching science, but really I was teaching life skills, character traits, and organizational skills.  I taught them how important it was to do your own work, to ask when you don’t understand, to listen politely when another student speaks.  I really wanted to teach science, and I did, but the other traits and skills were needed, and perhaps in a way more important. 

            Later two of my children attended public high schools, and they had both good and bad experiences, as usual.  They have suffered mind numbingly boring classes, and classes where teachers had no idea what they were doing, classes where the students were in charge and chaos ruled.  They also have had inspirational teachers that they will remember forever, teachers that inspired them to learn more about a subject, or to believe more in themselves.  I am sure they have learned valuable lessons from both the bad and the good experiences, and I am not sure I would want to take those away from them.

            I guess that is the conclusion I have taken away from our experiences.  From our choices of education we have learned and grown, and I would not trade the good or the bad, because these experiences have shaped who the kids and we are.  The three kids have turned out wonderfully and with no lasting damage as far as I can tell.  Whatever your experiences are, make the best of them, learn and grow from the good experiences, and the less good as well.

Great Vegetarian recipes. Black bean burgers by Shelley Hopkins

This Week has been great for vegetarian meals, and they have all been yummy.  I had no plan to eat this way, as a matter of fact we were eating meal number three when I realized we were eating meatless.  It all started when I got my latest issue of Cooking Light Magazine with a beautiful cover photo of sweet potato soup.  I guess we weren’t entirely vegetarian, because the soup had a few bacon pieces as garnish.

First we ate home made black bean burgers, and they were extremely good, so good that I took an extra one to work, reheated it in the microwave, and it was still great.  The next night we had creamy mushroom fettuccini, followed by black bean tacos and then the wonderful sweet potato soup.  I don’t know which meal was my favorite of the week, but when even my husband didn’t seem to mind the lack of meat, I knew we had a good group of recipes.  Of course, we had salmon burgers from Costco today, just to meat up a little.

Here are two of the  recipes that we enjoyed so much this week.  I hope you find them to be as good as we did. For the rest of the recipes check out the Thanksgiving issue of Cooking Light, November 2013. 

Black bean burgers

1 (15 oz) can black beans, rinsed and drained

¼ cup chopped onion

¼ cup fresh cilantro

1 Tbs minced garlic

2 tsp soy sauce

½ tsp kosher salt

¼ cup bread crumbs

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat oven to 425.  Place beans in a large bowl and lightly mash.  Stir in onion and the rest of the ingredients listed above.  Divide mixture into 4 portions and shape each into a ½ inch thick patty.  Arrange on baking sheet coated with cooking spray.  Bake at 425 for 8 minutes; turn after 6 minutes. 

I had to cook these much longer than the 8 minutes, I think I cooked them more like 10 – 15 minutes.  I then melted a little cheese on each burger and served the traditional way, for us that was with coleslaw, mayonnaise or ketchup and mustard.

Creamy Sweet Potato Soup

2 pounds sweet potatoes, halved lengthwise (about 2 large)

¼ cup water

2 tsp olive oil

1 cup chopped onion

½ tsp cumin

¼ tsp red pepper

4 cups chicken stock

¼ tsp salt

6 bacon slices

1 oz fresh Parmesan cheese

Place potatoes, cut sides down, in a microwave safe dish and add the water.  Cover with plastic wrap and microwave on high for 15 minutes.  Cool slightly, and discard skins.

Heat saucepan over medium high heat.  Add oil, swirl to coat.  Add onion and sauté 1 minute or until translucent.  Stir in cumin and red pepper.  Add stock to pan; bring to a boil.  Place half of the sweet potato and half of stock mixture in a blender.  Remove center piece of blender lid (to allow steam to escape); secure blender lid on blender.  Place a clean towel over opening in blender lid to avoid hot splatters.  Blend until smooth.  Pour pureed soup into a large bowl, and repeat with the rest of the potatoes and stock.  Stir in salt.  Divide soup into 6 bowls and sprinkle cooked bacon and cheese on top.

I have a hand held blender that I can put directly into the sauce pan to blend, so I removed the stock from the heat, added the potatoes and blended all of the soup at one time.  I still had to be careful not to splash out hot soup. 

Enjoy!

The Simple Life, a few thoughts by Shelley Hopkins

Simple Life

Living simply is a popular movement among busy Americans.  We can see the path to joy and fulfillment lies not in things, stuff and busyness, yet we have to struggle and plan to keep from being swept up in the tide of the To Spend is to Live Lifestyle.

We need shoes for every athletic activity, kitchen gadgets for each new recipe, various activities to raise well rounded children, and things, stuff and do-dads to fill the closets of our large houses.

Even the simplicity movement encourages spending as we read the magazines and books, and collect the trendy colored cloth bags.  I remember reading an article written by a frugal mother of six children.  She wrote books and articles sharing her tips to save money.  A TV station profiled her, and wanted to film the family in frugal activities.   She suggested they film her not eating at McDonalds, not shopping in department stores or buying soft drinks and chips, and not attending theme parks.  Of course this doesn’t make for good TV or video clips, but the best way to be frugal is to decide what you can do without.

The joy of life is not in possessions or even activities, but in something less tangible.  The things that bring us joy, can they be planned for, scheduled?  Can they be purchased?  I have a nice bicycle, a bike that I enjoy riding.  I like the color of the bike, the sleek shape and ease of changing gears, but the joy it brings is not from its color or shape, but in the freedom I feel flying through the trees.  I love the opportunity I have to explore pathways, to follow my family through old railway tunnels along rail trail parks.  The joy comes from spending time with my family in nature, in an activity we all enjoy together.  I did have to purchase bikes, but the bikes were not the fountain of the joy, only the tool we used that day.

Enjoy the simple pleasures of life.  Sunsets and rainstorms are still free, home cooked food is the best, and library books have all the same words as the store bought ones.  Remember there is a difference between the tool and the fountain of the joy, and always try to keep your focus on what is true.  Good luck!

How do people of other countries see the USA? by Shelley Hopkins

Books are transport ships to other worlds, the worlds of imagination, history, new ideas and great learning.  But more literally, books are transport ships to other lands, especially when travel literature is being read.  A good travel literature takes us on a grand ride as we experience the culture and land being explored.  It educates us on the history and geography of the place, but it also causes us to come face to face with our own ideas and cultures and beliefs, to evaluate them and understand their and our place in this world.

 One such book was written in the 1950’s by a foreigner discovering the United States, Manuel Zapata Olivella.  Zapata Olivella was a black Colombian doctor and poet who also considered himself a vagabond.  He spoke some English, and he finished a major world travel by crossing the United States during a difficult time in our history for a black man.  Zapata Olivella entered the country with Mexican guest workers, invited farm hands that were sprayed for insects like cattle, and then trucked out to the farms to work.  Zapata Olivella travelled on to California where he experienced American racism for the first time.  Although he was a medical doctor, he wasn’t licensed to practice medicine in the United States, so he was hired as a janitor in a hospital, with all the other black men.  One day, while sweeping the floor of one of the hospital rooms, a teaching doctor and several students entered and observed the patient. The doctor quizzed the students on the case of this particular patient, and when none of the students were able to answer the question, Zapata Olivella did.  He had an interest in the patient, and he was naively expecting to be treated with the respect due a doctor that had studied and understood difficult cases.

The doctor was shocked.  A black janitor had answered a difficult medical question, correctly, and in front of his students.  The doctor complained, and Zapata Olivella ’s reward was the assignment of having to clean all the bathrooms on his floor of the hospital.  The other black janitors were so proud of him, they gladly did all the cleaning, not even letting the young doctor help.

Later Zapata Olivella continued his travels, meeting black war veterans that couldn’t find work after fighting overseas.  He met and befriended Langston Hughes, and these two men remained friends for life.  The hardest experience for me to read was his’ bus travels through DC and Virginia.  The bus was segregated.  Zapata Olivella had to ride in the colored section, and he spends some time writing about the sign on the bus separating people based only on the color of their skin.  He sat next to a wealthy black mother and her child.  The bus stopped, as they do, at a rest area that offered restaurants and diners for the weary travelers.  The child was hungry, but all the restaurants were white only, so even though the mother had plenty of money, she and her child had to continue their trip hungry.  She had money, she cared for her child, but she was unable to provide a meal or even a snack, simply because of the policy of Jim Crow.  How sad, and how humiliating for the mother, and how difficult for the child to not understand why his mother couldn’t take care of him.

Not all of Zapata Olivella’s experiences were bad ones.  In many ways he enjoyed his travels and the friendships he collected while journeying through the United States.  Unfortunately the racism left its mark, and he returned home.

I had studied Jim Crow laws, and I knew the history of our country, but how much more informative it was to experience these times from a visitors eyes.

Usually travel literature takes us to distant lands and gives us opportunity to experience the lives of other countrymen, but this book allowed me to see my country fresh from the perspective of one that is outside, not shaped and influenced by having grown up here.

The book he wrote is in Spanish, He Visto La Noche, or I Have Seen the Night.  I am not sure if it has been translated into English, but if it ever is this book should be a classic.

Another book, written in English this time, and in a more modern era, is Steven Fry In America.  Fry is a very dry British comic who comes to America and visits every state, all 50 of them.  He made a video series of this trip which I thoroughly enjoyed, and can be viewed on Netflix, at least right now.  The book is also excellent. 

When a foreigner visits our country sometimes they see the way things really are, not clouded by our own stereotypes and beliefs.  Perhaps we are too close to see the truth at times.  Zapata Olivella wasn’t raised in our culture, so he saw our racism as an outsider, yet as a fellow sufferer.  Fry was able to peer through our culture and grasp the strengths and weaknesses of it.  In the introduction to his book, Fry says, by way of apology for not getting everything right about the USA and the individual states, “My eyes, those of an outsider looking in, are bound to miss and to misinterpret.  As it happens, I enjoy reading impressions of Britain written by visitors to our shores; the mistakes and misreadings only add to the pleasure and often make me think about my country in new ways, so perhaps my sweeping inaccuracies and dumb failures to grasp the essentials can be taken in that light, as revealing rather than obscuring.  Sometimes the spectator sees more of the game.”

My favorite inspiration recorded by Fry about my country came from Johnny Ive, a design guru for Microsoft that lives in Washington state.  He was born in Britain and chose to work and create in the United States, because he felt that our country was the best place to nurture creativity.  He said of the US, “There’s a conspicuous lack of cynicism and skepticism.  Ideas are so fragile, aren’t they?” His fragile ideas included the ipod and the macbook. 

   Here he felt the environment was better for trying out ideas, taking creative risks, and just thinking. What a great commentary on us.

Why Go Out To Eat? by Shelley Hopkins

Why go out to eat?  There are many reasons, such as not having time to prepare a meal, not wanting to cook every single day of the week, wanting to get out of the house, and my favorite, not having to do the dishes.

When my husband and I go out for dinner we both want healthy and clean choices, but mainly we want variety, something we can’t get or cook at home. 

Last weekend my husband and daughter ran errands and I joined a friend for our own activities.  We ate out in separate restaurants, cultures and countries.  My husband and daughter went to a Vietnamese place.  Laura ordered a soup in which the ingredients were all listed in English except for one item –Gan.  Laura asked, what was Gan? The owner/waitress shook her head and, said it was tendon.  She offered to serve the soup without tendon, but Laura loves to try new things, and despite being asked twice, she ordered the soup with all the ingredients and enjoyed the meal.  The waitress checked several times just to be sure.

Later in the week they brought me to eat at the same place and the waitress remembered Laura and her meal.  The day I joined them we were the only customers that had to speak English to order, at least at first.  While we were eating another English speaking couple entered and sat near us.  They eyed our meals and asked what we were eating.  I’m not sure they liked their food as much as we did.  I think some people try food of other cultures expecting it to be the same or very similar to what they are used to.

We had summer rolls on our table, beautiful food works of art.  The bread that held the veggies and shrimp was clear, like cellophane, yet it tasted good, like bread.  The soups had cold noodles in broth, with bean sprouts, vegetables and large chunks of peppers.  A plate of fresh cilantro and mint was included, and the bright green leaves contrasted in texture, color and taste with the soups.

Chatting with the owner we learned she had just made a Vietnamese cake.  We showed interest and on our way out she made us wait while she heated some of the spongy green bread for us, served in a paper bowl.  I’ve never eaten moss green cake before, but it was excellent.

On the first day that they were discovering this place, my friend and I decided to eat at a Central American Café we knew about.  We would probably be the only non Hispanics in the place and we were eager to try our language skills and enjoy the meal.  When we pulled up to the building it was closed, and the lights were off.  Disappointed we drove on.  At the end of the street, at the last minute, we decided to at least have ice cream, and we stopped at a little cement building with pictures of ice cream cones painted along the walls.  At the door a printed sign said, “We do not serve ice cream – We serve Hispanic foods.” 

Inside several customers were chatting in Spanish while waiting to order.  The building was small, with only 3 tables.  My friend and I chose our food, ordered in Spanish and enthusiastically soaked in the languages around us.  One lady was the sole employee.  She stood behind a cabinet and took orders.  Soft drinks and jarritos were in a cooler at her feet.  A butcher’s block held fresh cilantro and a package of corn tortillas.  On a griddle she warmed the tortillas, added pork or chicken, sauce and cheese.  To the plate she added a salad, and lemon wedges for dressing.  We ate, dripping juices and cheese on our faces, plates and laps.  The food was excellent.  On the way out we thanked the cook/ owner for being patient with us in speaking Spanish.  She smiled and laughed a little and said no problem. 

Why go out for warmed up pre-cooked lasagna’s, and yesterdays meatloaves, or the many varieties of chicken and sauce, chicken and noodles, chicken and cheese, or chicken burgers and fingers when you can experience a new meal and a new culture all at once.  Here in South Carolina the culture and food is unique, with the Gullah influence and the fresh vegetables and fruits.  Gullah food is the local culture, and it can’t be found anywhere else, at least not with the South Carolina twist.  Why eat the same food in every place, when visiting other countries or new states?