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Happy Friday everyone! I cannot believe it’s FEBRUARY. What the heck? Ready for more Slice of Life? Okay then…
1. Like I’ve been telling you all week, today is Go Red For Women Day. It’s a day we wear red to bring awareness to heart disease in women. I know you’re probably tired of me talking about it, but heart disease is the number one killer of women. 1 in 3 women will die of heart disease. That’s a freaking scary statistic.
Are you wearing your red today? I will be. Post a pic and tag it #GoRed and #crazyforcrust so I can see!
Anyway, in case you’re not tired of me talking about heart disease, I devoted all of my posts this week to heart healthier recipes. I made mini pies, chocolate chip cake, mug cake, and cinnamon rolls all a little bit better. Simple baking substitutions, like whole wheat flour, applesauce or liquid oil, or using egg beaters, can go a long way to reducing your risk of heart disease (along with an actual healthy diet and exercise – life is about more spinach than chocolate).
My mom (and pretty much her whole family) has been touched by heart disease. It is very important that you know your risk. Take care of yourself. Also, you need to know the signs of heart attack and stroke, especially the sneaky ones. Women often (1) don’t pay attention to the signs because we’re doing everything for everyone else and/or (2) the signs are not normal chest pain that men might have.
Some of the hard to recognize heart attack symptoms in women are: shortness of breath, jaw pain, back pain, nausea, and flu like symptoms. You can read all about all the symptoms of heart disease on the Go Red For Women website. And wear your red today!
Okay, one last thing. If you’re looking for more heart healthier recipes, check out my post of 20 Heart Healthier Baking Recipes on Parade today. {Click here to pin it.}
2. By the way – did you know I’m now a contributor at Parade’s Community Table? You can see all of my posts and my profile here. In case you missed them, here are some of my posts so far:
16 Dip Recipes You Must Make {Pin it here.}
11 Ways to Eat Lemon for Breakfast {Pin it here.}
18 Single-Serve Desserts {Pin it here}
22 Amazing Red Velvet Desserts {Pin it here}
I’m having a lot of fun sharing round-ups over on Parade. Be sure to check there each week for my newest post!
3. Ginger likes to watch me take photos because she often reaps the benefits.
4. Here are some things around food land that I just cannot stop thinking about:
- I’m almost afraid to make this Peanut Butter & Jelly Granola (Averie Cooks) because I’ll eat it all.
- I love the layers so much in this Neapolitan Cheesecake Cake! (Sugary Sweets)
- These made me drool. Salted Caramel Lava Cakes (Grandbaby Cakes)
- So easy and, um, delish. Ritz Chocolate Peanut Butter Sandwiches (I Heart Naptime)
- I’d eat all of these Roasted Garlic Breadsticks (Sweet & Savory by Shinee) in one sitting.
- Because who doesn’t love apple cinnamon rolls? Gooey Apple Cinnamon Rolls (Very Culinary)
- I bet these are way better than store bought! Homemade Nutter Butter Cookies (Barbara Bakes)
- Those photos. Gasp. Chocolate Hazelnut Cheesecake Bars (Mom on Timeout)
- Avocado Fries (She Wears Many Hats), obviously.
- Seriously. I needed to clean the drool off my keyboard when I saw these Reese’s Stuffed Brown Butter Brownies (The Food Charlatan).
5. Okay, serious question, and I’m curious about your answers.
What is the point of 2/3/5 minute timed math fact tests in school? If the kids know their math facts (even if they can’t recall them in .01 seconds), who cares, really? Does it really matter? What if a kid knows every single fact but cannot pass timed tests? What then?
Remember, I’m an ex-math teacher. I taught HS math and I dealt with kids who mostly already knew their facts. However, many of the teens I taught were not up to grade level in basic concepts they should have known. (They were in Algebra but shouldn’t have been because standards dictated pre-algebra shouldn’t be offered in 9th grade. Many of the holes in their knowledge could be attributed to math fact deficiency.) Most of them had math anxiety. I read this article recently (it’s a little old, but the content still applies) and it made me wonder. What is the point of a timed test? My daughter struggles with them greatly even though, when we do flashcards at home, she knows the facts (and pretty fast too). If I’m being totally 100% honest, even though I majored in math and received a 3.8 GPA in college, if I was forced to take a 2 minute 48-problem test right now I probably wouldn’t pass. I have test anxiety and recall issues under pressure in math just like many students do.
Also, a friend pointed out this article to me. It’s long but the gist of it is that timed math fact testing only makes you memorize facts but does not help you understand them. Food for thought.
I see myself going to the principal on this one. I want to get time tests removed from our school.
What do you think?
6. Jordan is sick…again. I swear what is up with this year so far? Has anyone invented the lysol bomb-in-a-can yet? Someone needs to get on that. You know, like a flea bomb. Remember those? You’d buy 3 or 4 cans of flea bomb, bury all the pillows under the covers, and wait outside while your mom put a sweater over her face and ran through the house setting off the poisonous flea-killing pesticides? Then you’d go shopping for a few hours and come home to no more fleas?
Yeah, someone needs to invent that for cold and flu germs. Lysol, get on that. I would personally buy one for every classroom at school.
7. Shabby Apple sent me this dress to try. I really like it, especially the colors. What do you think?
8. My favorite recipes this month:
Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cheesecake Bars.
9. I had a recipe fail this week. I was trying to make white chocolate brownies, which in theory would be easy but in execution is not. I’m still not done trying, but as I tasted the fail I had a flash of memory. I’ve made white chocolate brownies before, or attempted too. I think it was almost the exact same recipe and they failed just like this one did. But, like these, they still tasted good, so I made truffles out of them.
Dude, I can’t even keep track of everything I’ve made for this blog. I think I need a vacation.
10. One recipe that didn’t fail last week? Tomorrow’s post.
Heart healthier week is officially over as of Sunday. I’m such jerk sometimes.
Have a great weekend!!
xo,
Dorothy
Last Updated on April 1, 2023
I am wearing my Burlingame Panthers red sweatshirt today! So helpful to all that you post the symptoms of heart trouble, and I love the heart -healthy recipe changes. The dress you have on looks fabulous on you. Timed math facts are ridiculous – the grade schoolteacher that lives across the street from me has a son who is a math whiz, now graduating from high school, and he never did well with the timed math facts. I think Montessori schools have it right – teach the concepts, and no testing. Too bad there aren’t more public schools that are Montessori.
Thank you Laurie! And yes, originally I never thought twice about Jordan in regular school, but lately I’ve wondered if it was the best choice for her!
I’m wearing red today too! And your dress does look fabulous …definitely a keeper! xoxo
<3 Thank you! xoxo
i totally get it about math. i dropped out of college b/c i couldn’t pass algebra and it was due to getting a good foundation in jr and sr high. oh and your dress is fab!
Algebra, OMG. I had so many students – freshmen – who should not have been in algebra because of standards. It was so stupid. Thank you Chandra!
Ugh. MATH = Mental. Abuse. To. Humans !! Love the dress! And thanks for linking to me, friend!
YES! Thank you Amy!
I’m one of those women with heart disease -congestive heart failure and cardiomyopathy. My biggest enemy is sodium. I have no problem with flour or sugar or fats/oils. But am limited to 350 mg sodium/day which means everything including condiments, must be cooked, baked or mixed from scratch. I subscribe to a lot of blogs and really love yours. When I find a blogger who can’t seem to make anything without soy sauce or salted caramel or canned or packaged items in their recipes then I have to unsubscribe and move on. Thanks to really basic bloggers like you it has been easy to amass over 1,000 recipes swapping out the salt for replacement ingredients like lemon juice, balsamic vinegars, parmessan, etc. Thank you for all your great posts.
I’m so glad I can help you Maralyn! Sodium is the worst, and that’s one of the things I love about unsalted butter. I almost always forget to add salt to my desserts and it doesn’t matter to me. I always list it because someone will come back and say “It was horrible there was no salt!” but it’s always optional!
Eh, it’s about automaticity and fluency. Just like the DUMB reading timed tests. However, with math, if they don’t know their facts automatically, they struggle with long division, etc. Everything builds on it. I usually hope they learned them in 3rd grade and they almost never did. So we start from square one in August. I do a lot of timed tests the beginning of the year, but I try to make it fun. I don’t grade them all. I also play a flash card game that works wonders and we play/practice the game “24” everyday. Jordan should try that!
What math curriculum does the school use? I can tell you that if it’s part of the curriculum, they can’t remove it. 🙁 and I think it’s part of every one out there.
Oh, I give them a multiples chart to use on their desk, so it’s like a crutch but it slows them down on the timed tests. Helps on everything else. I often give them just a timed test to practice on.
Ok, I’ve spoken my piece/peace. 🙂
I don’t know if it’s part of the curriculum, but it is part of her grade. Every class does them differently, and in fact a friend of mine who teaches there just said, after I posted on FB and linked that article she found the other one and decided she’s no longer using them. #win
I totally get they need to know them for division and long multiplication. That was a huge struggle for Jordan – and she still struggles because she’s not fast. (In fact, they give them a multiplication chart at school and I want to just rip it up. How is she supposed to learn with basically a calculator sitting there??) We’ve been doing multiplication flash cards all year and she knows them all, but can’t get to 43/48. She went from 12 at the beginning to 34 or something at the first trimester and now she’s at 40. But when we do the tests at home she never finishes either, but they are all 100% correct. When we started division flashcards a few weeks ago, she could do 95% of them – and we went through the entire stack front and back – but it just took her awhile. So they’re there, but it’s the test she can’t handle.
When we look at her grades they are all good going down the list and then a bad one pops in every once in awhile. Wouldn’t you know it’s always a test that is the poor grade? Most of the time she gets the concepts but the tests are killer. I just hate that the timed test, which I know she’ll never pass, is part of her grade. I’ve told her not to worry about it and after we get her grade I’m going to factor that out, but that she still has to do her best. 🙂
I just made the fluffy potato rolls…they’re proofing! Man, that was quick! I just printed a similar recipe from Allrecipies , but chose these as soon as saw them like 20 minutes ago. I also made that mash-up that you inspired me to do about 6 months ago when I was leaving Cape Town and heading towards the Gulf of Mexico during my transit. This time I did peach pie filling on the bottom of the pan and topped it with pecan encrusted cinnamon rolls! You probably don’t remember it, but…my crew loved it!
We are on a King Cake Binge out here on the rig because everyone is getting psyched about Mardi Gras…..But I thought we needed a change! Ergo; the breakfast pastry mash-up! Thanks Dorothy!
Oh my gosh, I love your cinnamon roll mashups. You are thebombdotcom. I’ve never made a King Cake….I’m putting it on my list right now!
Timed tests- I used to teach 5th grade and we did a timed test each week, rotating thru the operations. I kept track of the scores and the students who improved on their previous scores were recognized, not just the kids who got them all correct.
Her teacher definitely applauds those who improve! Jordan went from, I think, 12 on the first (out of 48) to 34 to 40. But since she can’t get to 43 (the “pass”) she’s getting discouraged. She knows the facts (multiplication, anyway) completely, but the time freaks her out. I doubt she’ll ever get to 43 unless magic happens. That’s what’s frustrating me most; that she knows them but the act of the test itself is making her doubt she knows them.
I am wearing red today! Yay! I feel as passionate about the subject as you do. It is so important!
Your teaser of tomorrow’s post looks amazing!!
Thank you Anna!! 🙂
I loved this post!! I didn’t realize the symptoms for women are different than men!! 2. Congrats on being a contributor to Parade’s Community Table! 3. I hear you on the timed tests!! I have two in school 1 in 2nd grade and 1 in 1st grade and they are really struggling with these timed tests and around the world because they are not as fast as their peers. Thanks again for this great post and all of the really good looking pics of food!!
Thanks Malinda! <3
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