Baby Steps

A chicken goug?re but imagine this filled with mushrooms, instead! Same theory :)

A chicken goug?re but imagine this filled with mushrooms, instead! Same theory šŸ™‚

Some days it seems as though it’s all I can do to maintain forward momentum. I have to remind myself that sometimes things come in baby steps and what’s critical is getting something done even if it isn’t precisely what I thought I’d get done.

That’s sort of why I’m blogging again, actually. Kim got me hooked on the concept of showing your work over the summer and it got me to thinking about how very little of my work (and life) I was actually showing. And oh well hey, I’ve got a blog for just that sort of thing!

Work today was not the soaring joy I’d like for most days. Instead it’s the grind of emailing paypal about the GSES account (in old staff hands, not current) so I can get the new event system I built for them working and move forward on the donation system for their annual fund. There is 1/4″ of emails and notes about the state of this account – I’m not hopeful I can fix it in time to use for cooking classes, so I’m falling back on my old friend paper, which thankfully is still fashionable with school ages. Oh and building forms on publisher – joyful!

I’m also trying to fix the weird jQuery theme dependency on the FHNA site. For some reason the theme developer has the theme using its own jquery file (v1.6.1), instead of the one installed in WordPress (v1.11.0) so of course it’s throwing off bizarre javascript errors. Bug hunt!

School today was awesome, though. The lunch program has grown (again) and today I fed 60 and a bonus parent. I had 2 helpers today, 1 experienced, 1 a middle school student doing community service hours. The menu was baked Parmesan & Herb Chicken Tenders, Italian roast potatoes, maple glazed julienned yellow, white, purple and orange carrots and a gluten free, dairy free mushroom goug?re as entrees with sliced peaches and grapes for our fresh finish.

Yesterday I realized 4th, 5th & 6th graders are getting ready or going through a growth spurt so I over-prepped today thinking if kids were hungry we’d have plenty. We breaded 16# of hand cut tenders, roasted 18# of potatoes and 8# of carrots. That fed all 61 and I had 2# of chicken and 1# of potatoes left which will go into some potato & leek soup tomorrow. I also made a gallon of chicken tortellini soup and have a cup or two of the broth left for starting the potato soup off. We snacked today on D’s banana bread – it was delicious and I’ll try to get recipes up soon!

More steps, now!

Ideas, Networks and Change

This is a great talk from one of my favorite big thinkers Anil Dash on how new tools can assist in the spread and scope of change. Highly recommended for people interested in learning how one person really can make an impact and help create change.

Anil Dash at Gel 2011 from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

On the power of networks: Anil Dash tells a story of family, history, governments, and ideas – starting and ending with three Malcolm’s.