26 days...Teaching

...and by its very definition, the opposite end of the spectrum, learning.

I LOVE learning!  I will know I am old when I stop loving to learn.  May I never be that old!

And I LOVE teaching!  I told you a few days ago that I love my job, because I love helping people.  One of the BEST moments in my job is when I get to help by teaching folks, showing them some nugget about the system that they didn't know before.  And we have that light-bulb moment that all teachers live for.  It happened just yesterday, in fact, when I showed a gentlemen how to write a return line item on a PO, and in this case, we actually both learned something about SAP (the system) behavior.

And it was good.

Teaching happens all the time, if we let it.  I talked yesterday about the Sandy Creek covered bridge and it's picturesque beauty from the past.  Well, today I want to talk about what we learned while there.  This bridge uses a Howe Truss design, which means it combines wood and iron for strength and support. 

We learned this from the kiosk setup near the bridge for that very purpose - teaching people about this bridge so that we could appreciate it more.  BUT, the real learning - the really cool learning was to listen as G learned about this bridge by simply observing the connections used.  I would show my ignorance if I tried to repeat what he noted, but here is a pic of one of the areas in the roof he enjoyed observing with a trained eye to understand the technology used at the time.  People like my friend Father Time or others will get this way better than I.  But I love the teaching this bridge is still doing. 

 

And it was good.

 

Learning can be as simple as what pork tastes like for the first time.  This young man had never had pork before, and I got to witness this little adventure.  And ya gotta give him props - he dived in with both feet...er...hands...BBQ ribs.  Oh, and he decided that it "wasn't bad."

 

And it was good.

 

While we were at Sugar Fire BBQ (on Olive, near I-170 if you've never been, but be warned!  If you go on a weekday at lunch, prepare to spend 20 minutes parking!), I noticed this sign and "learned" for the first time what a pharmaceutical lunch is...apparently people are hungry after binges....and Sugar Fire provides the "medicine" they need...





 





I have a friend, C, at work who loves to ask me baking questions.  And she asked me some the other day after reading this here blog that made me realize not everyone does dessert decorating like I've done for years.  I know, you're right, duh, Deb!  So now I get to be a bit of a teacher.  The question C posed was on food coloring.  I don't buy the liquid food colors for dessert decorating.  I buy these - little paste food colors that come in jars or bottles, because the liquid ones don't provide as intense of color and will water down your icing.  I have only bought these at cake decorating stores and/or the cake decorating section of certain Walmarts, so I don't know if they are sold in grocery stores or not.  I don't ever think to look there to be truthful...

And here is me coloring some icing recently.  You use a toothpick to color the icing...

 

You stir that around, and then you put it into pastry bags like these.  And yes, if you are like me, you will have multiple little bowls and spoons - and probably some icing on the countertop - before it is all said and done.

 

But food coloring isn't all that you'll need.  Here are just a few of the utensils I have accumulated through the years for dessert decorating.  The white plastic things in the container are couplers, which make it possible to switch out tips.  And the silver things are various tips.  Each tip is cut slightly differently at the opening to make different designs in the icing.  The box is full of clear, disposable pastry bags, (a serious time saver!), and the brushes in the container are just that - little artists brushes for painting the bag with additional food color for a striped affect.  More on all of this at a later time.

 

But I used these things on Saturday to decorate those gingerbread cookies you see above on the right-hand side.  And here is why I included this topic in this here post on teaching - I done learned something else when I was working on these cookies.  I can't use a particular new-to-me icing recipe that I had leftover for cookie decorating.  It was fine for some Little Devils that I made earlier, but not for cookie decorating.  It isn't the right consistency, but it is good to learn this.  See these?  They aren't what I had envisioned, because this icing wasn't strong enough for this sort of detail.

And that's ok.  I've learned so much more from failure than I ever learned from success, and by golly, they still taste good, so how bad a fail is it really?

 

Ah, yes.  I am thankful for teaching and learning.  And teachers - be they teachers at school or in the work place or pastors or smaller group community teachers - or be they bridges and signs. 

 

All good stuff.

 

Oh, and for pie.  I'm always thankful for pie.