I am making a rolled sugar cookie with cream cheese, and naturally we’ll use a cream cheese frosting with it. (Yes this we all like cream cheese in this family.) The ones I made last year seemed to have gone over well with the extended family, but I couldn’t remember which recipe I used. Therefore it could be a new recipe this year, but most of them seemed very similar so it should be close if not exactly the same this year.

While I was searching on www.food.com for the recipe, I came across a recipe for a cream cheese cookie that’s completely sugar free. It’s what I would call a pinwheel style cookie and uses preserves. Since my dad is watching his sugar intake, I thought I would give these a try as well. For the preserves I choose Smucker’s Simply Fruit in Seedless Strawberry which does not have any sugar either. So these could easily be one of the healthier desert choices available on Thursday.

You might want to ask me how these cookies taste, but the truth is I don’t know yet. Cookies with cream cheese in them need to be chilled before they can be rolled out, so we’ll actually be baking them tomorrow, Though I have tried each of the doughs (naturally) and they both tasted good to me.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post

At Hudson Library I found the book Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. The first lessons from this book went fairly well, but one of the first constants they work with is S. As it appears Allyssa has a lisp, she didn’t like working with the S sound. So while the first lessons seemed to go well, after a short bit of time, she didn’t want to work on the lessons.

While when we started the book she was greatly interested in the reading lessons, that devolved to when I would suggest them, she would show little to no interest. Not that she didn’t want to read, more that she wasn’t interested in working on the lessons from the book.

When I had been looking for tools to help me teach her to read, I had come across other books on the subject. One of them was Teach A Child To Read with Children’s Books. Since it wasn’t actually at my local library, I needed to request it via interlibrary loan. (Wonderful system!) Since we were using the other reading system when it first arrived, I didn’t take the time to read it immediately. Only when it was coming due (and I wasn’t able to renew because of another request for the book), that I took the time to actually read it.

Now, I certainly wish I would have read it sooner. I had to take the book back today, but I picked a few of the PrePrimer 1 and PrePrimer 2 level books to check out from the library. Partly because I wasn’t exactly sure of her level, and it’s what was at the local library. Though most of the books I’ve looked for on the book list are available through the local library system.

She already knew some words, both from the 16 lessons we had done out of the 100 easy lessons, but more from the books she had memorized. Which was part of why I wasn’t sure of her level. When we came home tonight, I laid out the books I had picked up at the library and let her choose which one we would try to read by just looking at the cover.

She chose Blue Bug Goes to School by Virginia Poulet.  (Which the author considered PrePrimer Level 2.) We looked through the book first, talked about what appeared to be happening through the pictures. I pointed out a few words I was sure she didn’t know. Then I had her read the book to me. Now I will say she didn’t know all the words, and I did tell her those words after giving a little bit of time to see if she could figure them out, all in all she did a wonderful job of reading this book she had never seen before. For one word that she didn’t remember the second time we saw it in the book, I just pointed back to where I had first told her the word, and then she recalled it.

She immediately wanted to read it again after we finished it. Then she felt it necessary to read it to dad. Then she wanted to read it to mom again, after that it was time to read it to her babies. By now she’s read it probably close to a dozen times, and there is only one word in the book she has a problem remembering and that’s flannel.

I’ve always known she’ll be a reader once she learns how, what else would one expect from a child who when 3 would sit and pretend to read books that didn’t have pictures but she’d still sit there, look at the words, and turn the pages appropriately. The 100 lessons book seemed to take away some of her enjoyment of learning to read, but I think this style transfer may be just want she needed.

Now I will have to try and remember what to do from the book even though I don’t have it right now. Hopefully I’ll remember enough to be able to use the system, until I’m able to receive it again from the library soon.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post Feed https://plus.google.com/101948978596100334451/posts/EzX7VEf6NHd

Making bread in the food processor you ask? Well I had checked out a book from the library that explains how to make bread using the metal blade for 45 seconds to knead the ingredients into bread dough. I think it worked rather well myself. I’ll definitely be using this method again.

from Laura Lambert – Google+ Post Feed https://plus.google.com/101948978596100334451/posts/DbNmqeD4DkW

These classes are on Monday Mornings and will mean that she will not be able to go to the Wish Upon a Ballet and Fabulous Fitness classes we had planned on for her.  Instead I’m still looking into trying to get her into a dance or martial arts class that will work with our new schedule.

A nice side benefit of our finding this in Hudson is the fact that next spring we still plan on moving to Hudson or River Falls so she won’t be leaving her new friends behind when we move.  Not that it would be that far to drive to Woodbury but closer would be better naturally.

But in the interests of posting about new happenings, I need to mention a few things. I see that Shane as posted about his new job so go ahead and take a look at that as well. Unfortunately the sublease we thought we had all lined up didn’t work out.

Instead we found a woman in Woodbury who leases an apartment attached to her home out as corporate housing. She wanted someone who would stay through the entire winter so we have a lease here until the end of April. This way we don’t have to look for something and move in the winter again. Those who have moved in the winter know how unpleasant that can be.

The apartment is fully furnished with two bedrooms, 1 1/2 bath, den/mediation room, open office/second living area, living room and kitchen. One main floor bathroom has a stackable washer/dryer unit, and the upstairs bathroom doesn’t actually have a tub, but the shower is quite large.

Besides being fully furnished, it also includes all the utilities, DirectTV and internet.  On the down side the internet is only about a 256K download and upload, which isn’t fast enough for Shane to do his schooling online.  We will be seeing if it’s possible to increase the internet connection or we may have to supply our own connection so that Shane can continue his degree.

For the record, and for those that missed the announcement, I will no longer be working on a teaching degree. After finishing my Associates Degree last month, and doing a lot of research, I have found that I will be better off in the long run staying in the IT field, and this job is in that field. I will be working with other developers on a scheduling system used primarily in the EMS field. I have met one of the developers already and though he is not as much of a geek as I am, it looks like we will work well together.

We will travel to Hudson on Monday, July 25th to tour the office (both old and new, they are moving soon which will be fun) and look at a place to stay. I have found an apartment in River Falls, 25 minutes away, that we can sublease for three months. During that time we will look for something suitable in Hudson and finally have our own place again in November.

With this new job I am just going to stop all the other stuff i have done to make money. No more blogs, web sites, hub posts, or anything else of the sort. I will work during the day and spend time with family and on hobbies during the evenings and weekends. It will be great to get back to a normal life again. Heck, I might even start posting here on a regular basis again!

In September, I will be going back to school to work on a Bachelors of Science in Information Technology. I am fortunate that 57 of my 62 earned credits will transfer, but I do have to take one extra math class for this new degree.

I have chosen a concentration in Multimedia and the Visual Arts. This will teach me skills I need to build the consumer facing side of web sites and other online communication. With a firm understanding and 20 years experience working on the server-side of things, the classes I will be taking should give me a well-rounded set of skills for the entire aspect of web sites and online communications.

I am both excited and just a bit nervous. Previously, I would be assigned two classes that each lasted nine weeks. This spread the work load out a little more. When I go back, it will be one class at a time in 5 weeks. Though I will only have to focus on one subject a time, the shorter time period and more advanced classes will likely mean more work for me. Oh well, it will be worth it.

I know in the past I said that I really wanted to teach, and that nothing will stand in my way, but I have to look at the facts. I know the IT world – I have lived in it for many years. I am comfortable here, and quite honestly, I am much more valuable to employers with the experience I already have.

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She was having a great time making several snow angels.  Then Shane and Allyssa walked to Family Dollar, to pick up some treats.  Then this evening she’s been running around the Living Room with her cousin Zach.  Hopefully she’ll sleep well this evening.  Naturally it’s a bit early to tell yet, but we can hope.

Yesterday, Allyssa and I walked to the BP which is across the street from the Family Dollar both of which are about 2-3 blocks from the house.  Of course, Allyssa was just as wrapped up yesterday as she is in these pictures so she didn’t get cold, except perhaps for a bit of chill in her cheeks.  Mom on the other hand was very cold.  The little wind we had still managed to cut directly through my jeans and other exposed parts, like face, ears, fingers… well you get the picture.

I haven’t mentioned SCA things here for a long time, but we haven’t been to an event in a while either.  Shane had agreed to make a lunch for That Moot Thingy XI which was held yesterday.  He spend a good portion of this past week, making homemade sausages, a 13th century sugar cookie, and some macaroni and cheese based on a 13th century poem and 13th century macaroni recipe.

On Friday, he went to the storage units and started looking for our garb.  We know it wasn’t left behind, since everything was moved, but most of it is in one of the two storage units.  Unfortunately, when he looked through totes he wasn’t able to find it.  This is the day before the event and suddenly we apparently don’t have anything to wear.  He was able to find a tote that had some things in which he expected to find the garb but it wasn’t there.  In the tote he did find, there was Allyssa older garb, including her very first garb from when she was only a few months old.  There was also a blue linen shirt/tunic Shane could wear but nothing for me in that tote.  Luckily I was able to give a friend a call and she had something I could borrow.

Oddly enough in that tote we also found our old camera.  I have no idea how it ended up in that tote, but there it was.  Shane ended up being right, it was pack in with other stuff and we would eventually come across it.  Though I do have to say I really like my new camera, so I’ll continue to use the new one.

Okay, the new camera actually arrived on Tuesday, but I’ve been enjoying it.  I’ve taken a number of pictures, and I really like how well it handles lowlight and flash.  I have taken several pictures of Allyssa, and she is quite the camera ham.  She wants her picture taken daily, and she wants to see every one of them as well.  I haven’t seen any yet that I like as well as the ones I took the day the camera arrived.  I’m sure I’ll find new favorites though as time comes.  I’ll have to find a few in portrait rather than landscape orientation so that I can update some picture frames.

I’ve been very pleased with it’s zoom function, and Shane has even tested it’s macro features on some of his HO scale trains.  It focuses well even in macro, shows plenty of detail, and all in all we’re very happy with this camera.

I’m very pleased at how well how easy it is to download from the camera to my computer which runs lubuntu (which is a LXDE variant of Ubuntu Linux).  I just plug in the USB cord to the computer, then the camera, and select PC on the camera.  I hadn’t uploaded from the old camera to my laptop,  mainly because we only had the one USB cord for the camera, and the laptop does have an SD slot if needed.  Since I prefer to run linux, it’s harder to install the windows software that came the camera, but I’m not really likely to have used it, or installed it even if I was using Windows so that’s no loss.

We purhased a 8GB class 6 SDHD card for the camera, and at the 14 MP setting we can take almost 1600 pictures before needing more memory space so I don’t think we’ll fill it up any time soon.  I’m planning on taking pictures off the camera at least monthly and more frequently if needed.  I am not sure we’ll even have 1600 pictures a month, but who knows?

It did not come with any sorta of camera case (our last one had a very basic stretchy case that came with it), so I found one I liked online (okay at ebay since they had the best price) and it’s on order.  What I like about the camera case I ordered is that it has a metal clip as well  as a double zipper.  The thought is that I should be able to carry it from a belt loop and still easily get to the camera when I wish.