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Lookie here, if you’re thinking this is just any old mac and cheese, you’re wrong! Steev cooked this last Saturday!

Looks yummy, huh? This is his first real cooking attempt though he could cook rice by the time he was 8 and has been cooking the occasional Ramen (instant noodles) since.

And while that mac and cheese was bubbling merrily in the oven, Raine took over the skillet and cooked these spicy tricolor spirals.

Not too bad, eh !!

I’m so excited that my home cooking classes have finally taken off! But somehow because of all our different schedules, it’s been really hard to organize.

When Steev leaves home for college, I won’t be there to cook for him so he’s going to have to learn in a hurry. Like I tell the kids, cooking is not hard once you get the basics down pat. So begins our crash course.

Looks like we’re off to a good start. If I keep up these cooking classes, he should be able to whip up a few easy meals for himself and the rest of us will need the best fat burners for sure.

Way back in college, I was the proud owner of a ten-speed bike just like this one except mine was red and black. I named it Scorch!

Scorch and I had lots of adventures, lots of tumbles. I also had a pet cactus which I named Morris after Morris the Cat on a pet food commercial you’ve probably seen on TV way back when.

And my minivan is affectionately called Truck. Okay, so I’m in the habit of naming the inanimate objects in my life. Now you can go ahead and call me weird !!

A group of Raine’s classmates are organizing an outdoor photo shoot for the graduating high school seniors sometime next week. This bunch of 17 year olds are going to get dressed up and have their photos taken at the mall (why the mall? beats me!) by a professional photographer.

My dear princess isn’t keen. It doesn’t surprise me, considering that Steev wasn’t that keen about stuff like that either when he graduated high school 3 years ago. But he being a guy, there was probably less pressure on him. Well, he did go to his high school prom but he came home early and wasn’t that impressed!

Raine tells me she doesn’t want to go. She thinks it’s blah, a waste of time, it’s not really her scene. Says she’d rather stay home and read a good book or hang out with us. I’m okay with whatever she decides. She definitely has a mind of her own, my middle child!

Yesterday’s torrential downpour was exceptionally bad. Or maybe it was because it happened at a time when I had to send Raine to her tutor’s house and we have to pass through a low-lying area which is very prone to flooding.

I was driving at my normal speed which, even on a regular day, annoys the heck out of folks. But you know what? I pay more road tax than many of them so I figure that gives me the right to drive like a tortoise if I want to. If people don’t like it, they can speed right on ahead. Into the flood.

Which is exactly what one Toyota did. He sped right past me into the deepest part of the flood, rudely splashing water all over my minivan. Bet he never read the story of the tortoise and the hare.

Minutes later, I saw him stalled at the stop lights. Motionless. Stationery. As in Stuck! As in Helpless! With flood water in his exhaust pipe!

The tortoise wins, hehehe!

When it comes to makeup and hairdos, my niece is the authority in the family. Heck, she’s been at it since she was a toddler playing pretend. So it’s not surprising she has finally decided on her calling in life and that’s to be, what she calls, a beauty expert.

She’ll be starting a course at a Cosmetology school in Colorado soon. Pretty exciting, eh? I just know she’s going to make the family proud seeing as this is something she really loves. As for this aunt, I’m just looking forward to the free beauty advice and treatments she’s going to dish out !

Steev has been getting an increasing number of late night cell phone calls since he started college. If I were like most parents, my first suspicion would be girlfriends. But I know my son better. In fact, I know most times he switches off his phone at night and those other times when his cell phone rattles and plays his ring tune, I sometimes hear him swear under his breath.

Yup, his popularity rating seems to soar during the semester, not because he’s a party animal who flaunts expensive men’s polo shirts but because he’s a serious student who does his work, pays attention in class and has a sound command of the English language. He’s frequently the only one in class who knows what and when assignments are due and is clear about what the lecturer wants. Hence the late night phone calls from desperate classmates!

Steev doesn’t like team projects, not that he’s not a team player but if only his team members would carry their weight. In most projects, he takes on the role of compiling the project paper in addition to writing up his own part. Most of his group members submit their portions of the project to Steev, copied wholesale from the internet.

Steev takes it upon himself to rewrite all of his group members’ work (not just compile them) complete with sources and citations before turning it in. That’s a lot of work, additional work. I don’t blame him when he goes off into a bad mood, typing furiously into the night or waking up before dawn to finish up.

I teach English in college and when my students hand in plagiarized work, I will happily give them a big fat zero . Not having a good command of English is one thing, dishonesty is something else. And get this, some of Steev’s classmates even have the nerve to call saying they want to make advance bookings to be in his team for the next project !

So what would I be doing on a cool rainy night holed up in an air-conditioned room with my two daughters and the fan on full blast (brrr!), you ask? Why algebra, of course?

Yup, helping Skye with her homework. Actually it’s not too bad if you’re doing it “For Your Entertainment”, I mean, with Adam Lambert blasting in the background. Gives it that much-needed oomph and excitement you wouldn’t normally associate with either algebra or homework !

To be honest, I don’t remember being particularly fond of Math when I was in high school. I was never very good at it and it certainly wasn’t something I would do for entertainment, not when there were friends, campfires and hiking trips waiting for me.

What was your experience with Math when you were in school? Did you love it, hate it? Were you a Math wiz? Gosh, I hated those Math wiz’s in my class !

The longer school hours this year is really taking its toll on my two girls. Not only do they have to be in school for 9-11 hours on some days of the week, in the hot sun, with only recess but no lunch break, they also have tons of homework.

As a result, they frequently have tummy aches from not eating proper meals at the proper times. Lunch time is now 3:00pm for us on days when they finish school at 2:30pm! I try to wait till they get home so we can all have lunch together. And even for me, after eating 2 breakfasts, my tummy is already in knots by 3:00pm, not to mention for the poor teens.

Their complexions too have suffered. My girls are so tanned now it’s ridiculous, and before they never had problems with pimples, etc, but lately I’ve had to buy these nose strips for them to remove blackheads!

They have to rush through their meals to get to the mountains of homework. By the time, they get through that, there’s barely any time left to study as it’s already past their bedtime. It’s so hard to wake them up for school the next morning. So school ain’t no fun no mo, like I say. I just can’t wait for my poor babies to be done.