Happy New Year!

in , by Erin Lynne, July 31, 2010

Okay, so some of you think that I have lost my mind, or perhaps that this blog post has been lost for eight months. But that's because you are all using the wrong calendar. The one that starts in January may make sense to you, but to me, today is New Year's Eve. I guess it's 8 years in the school system (not counting the years I was there on the other side of the big desk), but I consider August 1st New Year's Day. That's just the way my brain works. As such, here are my New Year's Resolutions:

  1. I will not stress about my job. The job I currently have is funded through a two year grant, this year being the second. However, with my tenure, I will have a job in 2011. It may be teaching Kindergarten (Lord help us all), but I will be employed. So there is no need to worry about what the job will be, because that's not going to help anything.
  2. I will not quit grad school. As some of you may know, I am working towards my second Master's Degree/Principal Certification. I have learned in these first two classes that I am not as motivated as I used to be. But I am not going to quit. (Besides, Heather would kill me)
  3. I will continue to make a conscious effort to stay positive even when the environment around me isn't.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I will go have some champaign. And by champaign, of course I mean beer.

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Southern Belle

by Erin Lynne, July 14, 2010
I love being from the South. Not in a "The South Will Rise Again," Confederate flag and gun rack in the back of my pick-up kind of way, but I do love it. In fact, I have even toned down my complaining about the humidity (I am not cutting it out completely, mind you, but I am lightening up) and just decided to wear my hair curly most days. For those of you who may not understand this, let me fill you in on why I love the South:

  • SEC Football, SEC Basketball. Enough said.
  • People in the south smile and say "Hello" when you pass them on the street. We aren't weird, that's just the way we were raised. You may walk past 100,000 people a day in NYC, but not a single one of them even looks at you.
  • I can get sweet tea at restaurants. (Quick Side Note: I will never understand why some of my friends order unsweet tea and then add artificial sweeteners to it. There is no way that tastes better than sweet tea. And yes, they are saving calories, but is it worth it? Not to me, that's why I drink my tea with sugar. The way God intended.)
  • We have great restaurants like Cracker Barrel, and more importantly, we know how to make the food on their menu at home.
  • I like having four distinct seasons. Not too far north for a long winter, not too far south for sweltering heat all summer long. Like Goldilocks would say, Just Right!
  • And my favorite: I can basically say anything I want about someone, and not be considered the least bit mean as long as I end it "Bless his/her heart."
FYI: technically Annapolis is south of the Mason/Dixon Line. I'm just sayin'...
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Hello, my name is Erin and I am a Cookbook-aholic

in , , by Erin Lynne, July 08, 2010
When I first saw my townhouse, I fell in love with the kitchen. It was big and open and looked like the perfect place to make a meal. It was one of the main reasons I even put in an offer on the house, and when it became mine, I quickly filled up the kitchen with more appliances and accessories than a single gal should probably have.
See, I love to cook. Appetizers, soups, main dishes, side dishes, desserts, I don't really discriminate. Some are old tried and true family recipes and some are off-the-wall new ones. Some are super healthy, and some would make Paula Deen blush. I just love to cook, and thus, I love cookbooks. I mean REALLY love them--especially if they have pictures of every dish (which personally I think should be a law).
So tonight, I was rearranging my kitchen and thought it would be nice to bring all of my cookbooks out and display them on the counter since some were actually in a cabinet. When I got them all out, that's when I realized I had a problem.

Did you count? There are 40 of them. 40! And this does not include the dozen Pampered Chef "Season's Best" booklets I buy every time I order from them. Or the 19 Kraft Food and Family magazines I have saved and tabbed. Or the 100 or so recipes I have torn out of Every Day with Rachael Ray or Real Simple and organized in a binder by genre (did I mention I have OCD?) Or the recipes in my recipe box. And the thing is, I only use about three of my cookbooks on a regular basis. The other (37!) I have made one or two things from, or worse yet haven't made anything yet, but have tabbed a page or two with the intention of making something. But I can't get rid of them. Nor do I have the room to store them all on the counter without looking like the cooking section of Joseph Beth, so I compromised. My favorites and the ones that were Mamaw's are staying on the counter, along with a few others, and the binder.
The rest are stacked two deep in the cabinet for now.
Maybe I will rotate them out on some sort of schedule. Or buy a house with a bigger kitchen.

Do you think there is a 12 step program for this?

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