A Cause for Recognition That Went By Unmentioned

I didn't get to mention this at the appropriate time because of our crazy hectic schedule, but still wanted to acknowledge my super husband for his hard work in completing his second master's degree! Although he actually finished classes in March, the formal graduation for his Master of Divity degree was June 6th which of course we could not attend because of our new job. The graduation ceremony is still available for viewing (click here) but unless you want to sit through all 2 hours of the program, you can move the video to 89:30 to hear Mike's name announced (Michael L Catanzarito, Honors, In absentia).

---

I'm sorry we couldn't have been in Ashland to celebrate, Honey...I'm proud of you for all you've accomplished!

Meal Planner Monday: Macaroni and Cheese

(Sorry, no picture...we are at a student home and don't have the camara with us...)

I tested this recipe on Mike tonight and he said it tasted good, so I'm going to try it on the kids sometime. I found it several weeks ago on the Food Network website when I was looking for healthy versions of recipes that kids might like. It isn't necessarily the best ever Macaroni and Cheese recipe but it's not too bad. (Is this the first time that you've ever eaten squash, Mike?)

---

I measured roughly, used the microwave and used cheeses that were already here. I think the idea to using the squash and not having the flavor come through is to use sharp cheese and the pepper and hot sauce.

---

1/2 lb (2 cups) macaroni noodles

1 package frozen pureed winter squash

1 cup milk

3/4 cup cheddar cheese

1/2 cup mozzarella cheese

1/4 cup fresh grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground mustard

1/4 tsp pepper

Several dashes of hot sauce

---

Preheat oven to 375. Cook macaroni al dente. Meanwhile, defrost squash in a greased casserole dish in the microwave, then add remaining ingredients and cook in microwave until cheeses are melted together. Drain macaroni and mix into cheese sauce. Add bread crumb topping if you like (2 Tbsp bread crumbs, 2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, 1 tsp olive oil). Bake for 20 minutes and then broil for 3 minutes if you used the bread crumb topping. Makes about 6-8 servings.

---

The original recipe is here

Celebrations of Birth-days - Sweet Moments with Family

We are so thankful to have had a quick visit with my sister, her family, my mom and dad and our new nephew, Aaron, last week before this swine flu virus hit campus. We made a quick trip to my sister's house during our daytime off-time. We certainly enjoyed our visit and I was blessed my a homemade cookie cake, cupcakes and ice cream for my birthday made special by my mom and sister with special added touches from the kids'decorating. This was as we were leaving...they were making fun faces at us and we made them laugh with the rubber chicken in the car window (if you click on the picture you can see their faces better)... Then on their way home, mom and dad stopped in Hershey for the "grand tour" of campus - again just a short visit during our off-time.

The Other Side of Things

I never would have guessed that just a few months after leaving my job as a public health nurse who spent hours on the phone giving advice in communicable disease outbreak situations and had participated in those pandemic flu drills, that I would be so close to the novel H1N1 "swine flu" virus pandemic. The school has been dealing with an outbreak of swine flu on campus for the past week. It has been under control for a few days now, but scheduling for the summer is not to resume for another week. We have been essentially "on-call" for the last week but I will say that it has been a such a blessing that we had a couple days without kids to finally relax a little bit and sleep in this week although I still don't know if I will ever be caught up on sleep or not. We are also very thankful that this outbreak has not placed anyone in the hospital and that so far we have stayed healthy even though we have been in and out of homes where there has been illness.

The cow

We have been very busy - it is hard to do anything other than work and sleep! In fact we have been "on duty" technically 24/7 since last Sunday and will continue to be on duty until next weekend because of the swine flu outbreak, although we have been able to stay at our training apartment off and on this week. I started this post a couple weeks ago, but am finally adding the picture and posting it. It seems that each day there is something new to learn and there is the MHS jargon to learn as well. One of the things that is unique to the student homes which I thought would be fun to share is "the cow." It is the milk cooler that holds the 5 gallon bags of milk. I do remember these at college, but I've never needed to know anything about them, and of course, even though we had 5 weeks of training, knowing how to take care of the "cow" is one of the many skills that you just learn as you go on the job. Fortunately, the kids know how to do change the big milk bags (which are very heavy by the way), so we just let them "show" us how its done with a little help from us.