Traci Highland's Blog

Miss Behave’s Guide to Happily Surviving Teaching During the Pandemic

​What’s not to love? The masks?  The constant need to remind students to make sure the masks cover their noses?  The paperwork?  The half an hour it takes just to take online attendance?  The unending lectures about academic standards falling and it all being our fault?  And let’s not forget the lack of adequate compensation?
 
Please, darlings, forget the stimulus checks, Uncle Sam needs to pony up and buy every teacher in America two weeks in Cancun.  With open bar.  Never forget the open bar.
 
The pandemic is ending, the birds are returning, and apparently all anyone in the government seems to want to do is to find ways to make more work for us, by hunting naughty students down and forcing them to rise to some kind of academic standard.
 
Please, like any of us can afford to give us our summer jobs, darlings!  Miss Behave kindly suggests that legislators, in their infinite wisdom, get their precious manicured hands dirty and actually do something for once.  Chase down absentee students?  Watch students as they take their Google Meets with them to the bathroom?  Or better yet, as they brag about the high scores they have just hot during class in the chat they think teachers can’t see? That on YOU, dear legislator.  I think I can speak for the entirety of the nation’s teachers in saying that yes, we are done for the year.  Done.  You would be lucky if any of us are brave enough the enter the classroom come September.
 
Miss Behave and her fellow teachers will be drinking margaritas by the dozen while sobbing in the corner for the entire two months of summer.
 
Cheers!
 
Love and Xanax,
-Miss Behave
teaching, pandemic, surviving the pandemic, surviving teaching during the pandemic

All

Hint about the new book!

Hold your hat, cupcake, because Tuesday, July 31st is the release of Miss Management!  

J'adore ca

Dear Miss Behave,
My son is dating this girl named Chloe.  I believe the name is French, and you know what they say about French girls. Anyway, she is terriblyforward.  Why, just the other day, she walked up to my son and told him, “Get in the car.”  No please, no hello, how are you today, Ma’am?  She took one look at my baby and just barked her order, expecting him to jump.  He’s thirty, how is this an appropriate way to address anyone?  Please tell me how to deal with these appalling manners in a way that ensures that she will not become my daughter-in-law.
Sincerely,
-Fed Up
 
Dear Fed Up,
Oh my pet, you simply musttell what it is they say about the French.  I do hope it’s kinky.  
Anyhow, forward women are inright now, my lamb.  So you need to make sure your son is happy, and then turn your attention elsewhere.  I suggest using your obsession with proper manners and maybe joining some kind of club, perhaps a bonsai society?  Pet grooming?  Flower arrangements?  Then, once entrenched amidst jars of hydrangeas and carnations, you should be forward yourself, and maybe ask someone new out for a coffee.  Or, you know, high tea or something.  Own the forward woman thing, darling!
Love and margaritas,
-Miss Behave

New Release and Giveaway!!

Darlings!  My book, MISS BEHAVE, is finally live!!  And to celebrate, I am giving you, my dearies, the chance to win one of two gorgeous necklaces!  So pour yourself an icy-cold beverage and enjoy the read!  You'd look AMAZING in this necklace, trust me, and you deserve it!  Love and Margaritas!!!

Spread Love

In these days that seem flooded with hate, I'm going to take a moment on little ways that we can spread love.  Because love and kindness is the sustenance of future generations.

What can we do?
1. Smile.  At your kids. At strangers in the grocery store.  At people who look different than you.  At everyone. Kindness starts with a smile.

2. Preach love.  Support your neighbors. Help someone load groceries in the car. Buy the coffee of the person behind you in line at the drive-through.

3. Step away from the television.  Turn off the news.  Take time with your family.  Go for a walk with your dog.  Play Connect4 with the kids.  Swim.  Read a book.  Quiet your mind.

4. Do something pro-active. Donate to a cause you believe in. Feed the hungry.

How about you, darlings?  What do you do to spread love in your life?  Please share.    #mc_embed_signup{background:#fff; clear:left; font:14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; } /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */Become one of Traci's VIP readers!* indicates requiredEmail Address *

At last!

Success!  After messing with mashed banana recipes to come up with a faux ice cream treat that wouldn't break my diet, I've finally found a winner!

I made it up myself, my lambs, and you can tweak it at your leisure.

Here it is:

1 cup Plain low-fat yogurt (not Greek)
2 ripe bananas
2 packets Truvia
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract

Mash the bananas and mix all the ingredients together.  Stick the mixture into a freezer-safe container and let it freeze up.  In just a few hours, you will have a creamy, delicious froyo of your own!

Also, I'd imagine that if you put the mixture in a pre-made graham cracker crust before setting it in the freezer, you'd have a rather delicious base for a fruit tart.

​Enjoy, darlings!

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My day-to-day problems

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True Love

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Banana Ice Cream is a Lie

Favors and ideas?  I have an idea: don't try to substitute bananas for ice cream.  

Let me go back.  I am watching what I eat.  Typically, this consists of watching way too much food go into my face, but lately, I have been watching portion sizes and things.  It is summer, after all, and darlings, my kids, bless them, really love to go to the pool.  So I would not be the mama in the mumu, I decided to get healthy.  

Which is a problem, because I love my sweets.  So, when I saw a recipe for how you can replace ice cream cravings with frozen, blended bananas, I nearly wept with excitement.

Like a little spring lamb, I chopped and froze all the bananas that we had in the house.  I couldn't wait to throw those bad boys in my Cuisinart.

Well, sure enough, I cough down dinner to get to dessert.  Tossing the banana chunks in my food processor with gusto, darlings, I blended them up.  Bananas and vanilla extract and some honey, oh my.

And the result was a cruel, miserable lie.  Frozen bananas taste like bananas, not ice cream.

There, I have spared you the humiliation of having to learn this lesson for yourselves.  Frozen bananas are wonderful if you are craving cold bananas, but from now on if I want ice cream, I'm going to eat ice cream.  A whole little half cup of delicious, frozen heavy cream and sugar.  

I will just eat it less often and save those frozen bananas for my smoothies.  

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I have a cover, you guys!!!

Isn't it gorgeous????  I can't wait for you cheeky ladies to read it!!

Here's the low-down on the plot, darlings:

 She's great at giving advice, too bad she never takes it…
Piper Anderson wants to be a serious journalist at a serious paper covering serious news. Instead, she’s stuck at the Pendleton Falls Herald, where her massive investigative skills are wasted penning the paper’s advice column, Miss Behave. 
Her shot at a meaty story comes when she’s assigned to write up a profile of a local business, Brookes Jewelers. She is determined to write the piece so she can use the article to impress a real paper.
Unfortunately Hunter Brookes, co-owner of Brookes Jewelers and the Pendleton Falls Herald, is rather persistent, in his own hot little way, that the piece should be nothing more than a glorified sales pitch. 
But when diamonds disappear, Piper may get the chance to do a real investigation, leading her to confront family secrets and worst of all, turn to her mother for help.
Piper soon realizes that there is more to Mr. Brookes than a tight ass and a ridiculous fascination with name tags. Together they deal with roasted pigs, crazy cat ladies, and gun-toting fashionistas.
In all the chaos, they just might find the one thing that neither one was looking for: true love.





​So tell me, what do you think??
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