Lots of Letters

Guess who was at work from 6:30 am to 7:15 pm today? Yup that's me. I'm exhausted but I'm so happy because I finally actually got some stuff DONE. This year it just feels like the workload never ends. Not that it's over now, but I made a significant dent, so that's all that matters. Oh by the way, I was scooping ice cream that last hour at the Ice Cream Social, I'm not actually crazy enough to stay at work until 7:15 just for productivity.

Since I love Amber and love to steal her post ideas almost as much as I love her, here are my letters for the day...

Dear Head Band Breaker,

It was very sweet of you to bring a new set of headbands and a nice coloring book that said, "I'm Sorry" to school today for the girl who's headband you broke. On the other hand, she is not nice, so continue to stand up for yourself, just slightly more appropriately next time.

Love,

Your Teacher who had to put a little effort into using the words "not nice" instead of something worse...

Dear Sweet Former Students I Saw Tonight at the Ice Cream Social,

Come back to Kindergarten. I miss you. Please?

Love,

Your Reluctantly Former Teacher

Dear Everyone,

Read this great post by Mrs. Mimi, she sums up a lot of my thoughts on education and "discussion" of education.

Love,

Kelly the Teacher

Dear Body,

We are not going to run a 5K on Saturday. I realize you are exhausted from my daily insane life and I will most likely treat you with a nice hot yoga session instead. Hopefully. Just so you know, I would go more often but the times for hour long sessions suck and you know me well enough to know I don't do hour and a half yoga sessions.

Love,

Brain

Dear BFF Katie,

Our "Get Away From Life" trip now has the following stops: Vancouver down to San Diego (and everywhere in between), Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Thailand, Switzerland, Germany, Prague, Italy, South Africa. Anywhere else I should add to the list?

Love,

Equally Done with Life BFF

Dear Caramel Apples,

I love you. Thanks for reminding me that it is actually fall even though it was muggy and 80 today.

Love,

Your Biggest Fan

What's your letter for today?

Kiddos and Playlists, Take 2

I really don't know why I continue to use Ecto when it sucks SO SO SO SO SO SO much. I just lost yet another post and I KNOW I need to save my posts by now and I do, but unfortunately I got impatient and restarted my computer and gone it is.

Okay let's see if I can post again quickly. I had 2 good kiddo stories for you...

#1- I have been tutoring this little second grade boy who is struggling in reading. Today he was asking me why I have to make special Uno cards when we play with words on them instead of numbers. I was giving him some BS excuse about how I heard he was so smart at math that I don't want to play any numbers games with him because I'll lose even worse than I already do (normally I'm not for letting kids win all the time, but tutoring is torture enough haha). He says, "yeah, that's true, I am good at math, and my dad says people who are good at math get rich." Haha, awesome. Possibly true too, just don't become a math teacher.

#2- I have two difficult kiddos in my class who sit next to each other but don't get along well at all. Apparently (unknown to me, but frankly a lot is unknown to me this year with all the ridiculousness going on), the girl has been telling the boy that his work is terrible and she can do MUCH better. They kind of bicker often, but today he ripped her headband off her head and broke it right in half. I had a little chat with his mom after school, which is when she told me what the girl has been saying to him. He then told his mom that he had lots of bad feelings about her all week and then when he broke her headband all the bad feelings went away.

I know, it could be scary... OR I could consider what i would do if a few people in my life would like to wear a headband. Couldn't you just picture me reaching over in the middle of a meeting, ripping off someone's headband and then just breaking it in half? Not gonna lie, I would feel a lot better. I swear I'm not a closet serial killer...

But Dexter is. Love that show. ANYWAYS.

I have my eye on a possible 5K Trail Race this Saturday. I'm going to do a trial run with my new playlist tomorrow. I call it, Caroline's Awesome Playlist Meets 1997, with a fun country music warm up (for when I'm waiting by myself for the race to start).

5K Playlist

Help pour Out the Rain- Buddy Jewell

Anyway- Martina McBride

Highway 20 Ride- Zac Brown Band

All I Ask For Anymore- Trace Adkins

This Ain't Nothin'- Craig Morgan

Club Can't Handle Me- Flo Rida

Mo Money Mo Problems- Notorious BIG

Letting Go- Sean Kingston

Can't Nobody Hold Me Down- Puff Daddy

Just a Dream- Nelly

What You Want- Mase

Dynamite- Taio Cruz

No Diggity- Blackstreet

Ridin' Solo- Jason Derulo

Fire Burning- Sean Kingston

What can I say? Going back to 1997 makes me happy. Good times in middle school people, good times. I wanted to break less headbands back then...

Though perhaps there were more headbands around... or jelly shoes.

Kiddos and Playlists

Snapshots of Life

Amber says "Start blogging more, darn it!"

I started writing a post tonight on mindless TV, which I love. But my mind switched gears and so, it becomes a bit more mindful.

A lot of people tell me that they remember kindergarten. They remember their kindergarten teacher. This is good, because I'd hate to think that I work 24/7 for something no one even remembers :) But have you ever stopped to think about what you remember, and why you remember that instead of all the other things you could remember...

I remember the sweet block ROOM in my preschool. Not kidding, a room dedicated to blocks.

I remember the day I moved right before Kindergarten. I got to hang out with my best friend all day. We went to a really sweet playground and made a book. At the end of the day my parents picked me up and I had a giant ice cream sundae with m&ms on it.

I remember trading items during choice time in 2nd grade. I remember doing a research paper on Colonial Homes in 4th grade. I remember auditioning for the 5th grade play. I remember decorating lockers in middle school. I remember being cut from the soccer team. I remember scoring a goal in hockey. I remember Senior Skip Day at the beach. I remember my first night of college. I remember playing Catch Phrase in Aruba. I remember getting on the plane to Australia, and getting off back in Boston. I remember watching the sunrise on my last day at BC. I remember getting stung by a bee my first day teaching. I remember putting on my wedding dress.

What will you remember about what you are doing now? What do you want to remember?

Could Weekends Last Forever?

Ah weekends, why oh why can you not be longer? I can already tell this post is going to be all over the place because I have not blogged in almost a week and have so many random things to share. I really want work to stop being insane so I can have time for other things in life. Last week was a crazy mix of meetings and late night Curriculum Night (where the parents come see their child's class and listen to a presentation). I'm hoping the insanity of last week makes this week feel like a breeze. Maybe?

This weekend Eric and I went into Boston on Friday night for one my friend's 30th birthday parties. Yes, I do attend 30th birthday parties more than the average person and no I am not turning 30 myself anytime soon. It's just the year of the 30th birthdays, what can I say?

I recently had a minor freak out about posting pictures of people on the blog when they don't know about it...not that I hide it, just some people only hear about it once and forget or it just doesn't come up. So if you discover someone you know, tell me- not them haha.

Yes I am wearing the exact same outfit (down to the jewelry) that I wore to a 30th birthday party a few weeks ago. Just cuz everyone is turning 30 does not mean I have a lot of going out shirts :)

Last night Eric played in a charity football game against former NE Patriots. Kinda cool, right? Even though Eric was a big high school, college and arena football player, I've never seen him play before! (he hasn't played since I knew him). Okay so flag football is not the same as real football, but it did require two former Patriots to hold Eric so I mean, he is pretty sick haha.

If you are wondering how I got such close up pictures, Eric's dad so nicely took my bright pink camera down to the field so I'd have good pictures. Obviously Eric's parents = my personal photographers.

Eric was actually a bit more of a celebrity than the former Patriots because a bunch of his middle school kids and former football players (from his coaching days last year) were there and love him.

Is it obnoxious to brag about your husband? I'll stop now. Funny since I was just lecturing my kindergarten kids on bragging on Friday. I have some kids this year who are really already too high on themselves at the age of 5. I know confidence is good, but full on bragging in Kindergarten? Yuck. Plus I think when kids talk about how easy something is for them and how they are the "fastest in the class" (direct quote) it makes other kids feel bad if it's not easy for them or they are not "the fastest in the class." It's always fun to explain the rules of society to children... "You should have good thoughts about yourself and think you are smart and good at things, but when you talk about it all the time, you are bragging and people do not like that." Makes sense, right?

For dinner tonight I made Caitlin's Sweet Potato and Baked Beans Wontons. In fact mine were actually Sweet Potato and Black Beans, but hey.

So good. So easy. Make them.

I highly recommend serving them with a beautiful piece of cornbread from a delicious restaurant we went to last night with Eric's fam before the game. I have no other pictures but don't wonder, I'll be back there so there will be a real review at some point. Tomorrow I need to buy some tempura sauce because I think that would be perfect with these. Tasty.

Now it's time for a little reading and a little bed. Pleasure reading? No, not unless you consider reading about how to teach children with autism social skills a pleasure...

Good times.

By the way, does anyone have a problem with Ipods skipping while they are running? I had this problem with my very first ipod and now it's back with my Ipod Touch. Very uncool.

Place of Hills

Ah, Monday. Kind of makes me want to reminisce about my weekend...

First off, did you see my 5K recap?  I forgot to mention that our fabulous photographer was Eric's mom, Cheryl. She always claims to be a bad photographer, but I don't know- I thought the pictures came out great, and it's not really easy to take pictures of people running!

After the race on Saturday, Eric and I did a Historic Sightseeing Tour of Boston Harbor. It seemed like it would take a lot of motivation to get ourselves into Boston after waking up early (well not me, I always wake up at that time) for the race. However, I was determined to do something really fun because sometimes I feel like we work our bums off all week and then finally get to the weekend and only have time for laundry, cleaning, doing stuff we didn't have time for during the week, sleeping and obligations of some sort.

So we dragged our slightly sore legs into Boston and it was worth it. There were beautiful views and all sorts of fun facts about Boston. And some wind haha...

See these rolling hills in the distance?



Those are the Blue Hills, that I've mentioned wanting to hike. On the scenic boat, we learned that "Massachusetts" actually means "place with hills" and was named because of these hills. Crazy that I never knew this, and that I'd never even heard of the Blue Hills until like this year.

Hello Boston.







Cool views of the airport as well.









Also, we got a perfect view of our friend Adam's place of employment (Adam is bff Katie's husband in case you don't keep daily tabs on my friends haha).



He is a longshoreman and works right in South Boston. He was working on a big cruise ship as we were riding by :)

It always feels like a good weekend when we do some touring of our own city.

Share with me a random fact about your city or state. It'll probably make me want to take a trip there! Then again, where do I NOT want to take a trip?

Red Bandana Run 5K Recap

One year and four months ago I ran my first 5K ever. I loved every second of it, but a terrible case of patella tendonitis kept me from doing another (unless you consider the 5K part of my sprint triathlon that I dragged myself through haha).

Finally this summer my knee started to feel better enough to run again. There is still occasional "awareness" feeling, but never the pain walking down the stairs like I used to have. In mid- August Eric and I decided to do an accelerated version of the Couch to 5K to prepare for my second and Eric's first 5K: The Welles Remy Crowther Red Bandana Run. Welles Remy Crowther was a BC '99 graduate who worked at the world trade center on September 11th. He was also a volunteer fire fighter. Using his Red Bandana to cover his mouth and nose from smoke, he rescued many people from the upper levels of the south tower. After saving so many lives, he was killed himself as he headed up to the Sky Lobby with other firefighters to rescue more people.

So, now for the Race Recap:

Before the Race:

We drove over to BC with Eric's mom and Chris and we made great time getting there and finding a parking space. Registering was a breeze, and Eric and I were number #123 and #124... that is our first benefit of having the same last name :) We waited around for a bit with Caroline and her friends. I have to say, I need to get to races early because otherwise I'd be nervous I was going to be late, but waiting around really makes you nervous too!

Then, someone we misunderstood the directions and got to the starting line before everyone, putting us at the front of the pack. This made me nervous too since I didn't want to get wrapped up everyone sprinting at the beginning.

Mile 1:

The beginning was a bit rough for me. I don't know if it was because I didn't really walk first, but everything felt really tight and my ankles were hurting which is SO random for me since I've never had a single problem with either ankle. Luckily, I got distracted by the fact that we were moving really fast and started to worry a bit about maintaining that pace so early. It was all downhill though so I was feeling pretty good when I got to mile 1. I did not have my Garmin so I don't know how long it took me to get through the first mile, I would guess it was probably our fastest though.

Mile 2:

I had a small mental struggle a bit into mile 2, as I started to think about not even being half way done, and still having a massive hill ahead of me. Luckily, right when I was starting to get worried, I saw KATIE who came to watch us with an awesome sign!!!

Perfect placement Katie.

After seeing Katie, I was totally energized and having fun. Mile 2 did seem the longest but I felt really good during it. We also ran into Caroline's friend Ashley at this point which also distracted me for awhile.

Mile 3:

Mile 3 is basically one big hill. A hill I'm pretty familiar with from my days of living at BC. I remember freshman year when I lived at the top of the hill I would try to brainstorm ways to avoid running uphill at the end of my run, and it was completely impossible haha. Either because I was so psyched up about the hill, or because I now live on a ridiculous hill, I didn't find the hill to be that terrible. It definitely slowed me down, but I felt awesome the whole way through it.

Last .1:

Eric and I my goals were to not walk at all, and to finish together- both goals were met!

Yay for us! And no, we did not hold hands while running, that was just our corny ending :) Eric may never run a race with me again so it has to be enjoyed haha.

Our time was around 33 minutes 20 seconds, I think. Truthfully, the time confuses me a bit. It's over 5 minutes slower than my last 5K, and it's even 2 minutes slower than my triathlon 5K, during which I definitely took walking breaks and struggled a lot (apparently I sprinted...and then walked?)

However, Eric and I paid absolutely no attention to time throughout our training and we really hadn't trained on a mile long hill either, so even though I felt like we were running really fast, it was probably just fast compared to our really slow training. Oh well! I felt 10 times better during this race than my first 5K, and literally 100 times better than during the sprint triathlon running section, and I had more fun. Oh, and did I mention I can actually run again? WAHOOO!

I definitely have the race bug back and I hope I can fit in another 5K at least before it gets ridiculously cold out. I don't think I've sold Eric on waking up early for races, but he did agree to keep running with me, which works for me. I should probably dust off that Garmin though... haha

Pear and Cashew Risotto

Guess what I have?

Eric's Pear and Cashew Risotto Recipe! Try not to drool on your screen.

Ingredients

2 pears

¾ cup of white wine + ½ cup of same wine

½ cup sugar

1 ½ cups Arborio rice

1 ½ boxes chicken stock

1 tsp garlic

½ cup cashews

parmigiano reggiano

salt/pepper

olive oil

Directions

Peel and cube 2 pears into about ½ inch cubes.

In a sauce pan add ¾ cup water mixed with ¾ cup red or white wine of your choice (I use a pinot grigio) And ½ cup sugar cook over high heat until sugar dissolves into liquid.

Turn heat to medium and add pear cubes to syrup mix.

Keep pears at a light boil for 45 minutes while cooking the Arborio rice

Place 1 ½ boxes of chicken stock in a pan and heat over low to medium low heat.

Coat bottom of large skillet or sauce pan with olive oil

Add 1 teaspoon of garlic and cook until golden

Add rice on top of garlic and toast until you smell a nutty smell (should not be really brown but maybe a light gold brown color).

Pour ½ cup of wine into the pan and stir into rice and garlic mixture.

When the wine is absorbed and the rice starts to moisten add 1-2 ladles full of the warm stock and continue stirring. Keep stirring until rice becomes thick enough that it slowly runs back together when you stir and then add another ladle to a ladle and a half.  Keep doing this until all the stock is gone and the rice is plum and has a soft texture with a little bite. With the last two installments of stock add cashews that have been toasted in a dry pan for 2-3 minutes over medium high heat to rice mix.

The risotto should be thicker than a soup but still runny.  Add parmigiano reggiano cheese to taste and stir in until it is melted.

Finally pull pear cubes out of cooking liquid with a slotted spoon and stir into rice and cashew mixture.

Season with salt and pepper as necessary (I edited where Eric wrote "to taste"- for some reason I find the words "to taste" annoying haha).

Happy now kids?

By the way, I never put cheese in mine and I think it's fabulous without it, and healthier. Just me though.

Let's Talk Travel on Tuesday

Hola. The kindergartners continue to stare at me blankly, and blatantly ignore rules one second after we talk about them. But I did have one child break out into "I wanna be a millionaire" today, which really made up for anything annoying that went down. This was only a few hours before the WHOLE CLASS started singing "Tonight's Gonna Be a Good Night." Good times, really. Now if only everyone around me would do their job, I would not be at school 300 hours a day. Well, that and administration would not find it fun to add extra work. Sigh.

Fortunately I did leave early today (and by early, I mean on time, not actually early) so Eric and I could do our last training run for our 5k on Saturday. I have to admit I was pretty nervous about us training together. I'm pretty self motivated and usually work out alone. Before we started training I hadn't run with anyone since my freshman year of high school soccer team. It ended up being really awesome and fun AND it turned out I actually needed the motivation more than I thought I would. Can't wait for Saturday.

As for today, I must do the 10 on Tuesday because they are all about travel! Thanks Chelsea!

1. Favorite way to travel (plane, train, automobile, etc.)

I like planes when I need to go somewhere far. I'd much rather take a 1/2 hour plane ride than drive 5 hours etc.

I like trains because I can relax, plug in my computer and watch dvds. I find them more comfortable than planes (usually).

I like cars when I am with someone fun to talk to, and for limited amount of times. I think I most prefer being IN a car, but not if the alternative is a much quicker plane ride.



2. Where’s your favorite place to travel to that you’ve been to?

Hard, hard choice. So many fantastic places. I very rarely don't love a place I visit. My top five cities I've traveled to are: Sydney, Barcelona, Rome, London and Edinburgh.



3. Where’s the place that you want to go but have never been?

Lol...um so I have a list. Let's just say, I will never get to all the places I want to go, especially if I go back to some places I'd like to go again. Oops. I think my next trip may be to the Amalfi Coast in Italy. I've been to Rome, but never to the coast in Italy. I'd also love to go to Switzerland, maybe in one trip.



4. Do you deal with traffic well?

I deal with it fine if I don't have anywhere to be, which is rare. I did hit a huge truck fire a few weeks ago on the way home from work. I wasn't in a rush to get home so I didn't get too angry. This morning on the way to work I hit terrible traffic going from tutoring to work. I only remained calm because I was talking to Katie on the phone. Otherwise I would've had a small panic attack.



5. Ever had an emergency while traveling?

Can't think of one...


6. Do you have a passport? What countries have you been to?

Yes, I do have a passport. I got it in 2003 when my family took a trip to London. Since then I have been to the following countries: Australia, New Zealand, Greece, Italy, Spain, France, England (again), Scotland, Ireland (x2).



7. Are you’ve light packer or do you pack everything but the kitchen sink?

Maybe somewhere in the middle? I wouldn't say I over pack, but I'm also not a really light packer. It also depends where I'm going. I tend to bring like 4 bags to the Cape for the weekend, but if I'm going to be charged for extra bags on a flight, I'll even share with Eric haha.



8. Do you take the fastest route or the road less traveled?

I would say fastest route. I might want to explore the road less traveled sometimes, but usually fastest. I like more seeing places then the actual act of traveling.



9. Do any activities on the road? (like road games, reading, sleeping, etc. )

I am terrible at sleeping on planes, trains and I NEVER ever sleep in cars (I am almost always in the front seat and I think it's the front seats job to keep the driver awake haha). I like to play games of any kind, chat, listen to music, watch dvds (if I'm on a plane/train). I can't read on any moving vehicle :(



10. Use a paper map or GPS?

Definitely GPS. I like that if I mess up it will "recalculate." Though sometimes I feel like it's more often it that is messing up. My GPS is named Tullulah, we have a love/hate relationship, but she is always better than a paper map.

PS. I now have Eric's pear cashew risotto recipe. I'll post it soon!

Day for Fun, Night for Sleep

My name is Kelly and I have a confession to make.

I really really really dislike going out at night. No, I don't mean I dislike going out to dinner, or I dislike going to bars in general. Truthfully, I actually like bars most of the time. I enjoy dancing. I enjoy a couple of drinks. The issue is truly the night part. This weekend I went to bed at 10:30 on Friday night and woke up at 7. Last night I went to bed at 2am and still woke up at 7. That is what my body is going to do. So if I stay up until 2am I just feel exhausted and terrible the next day.

If it was up to me, social events would be different. All social events would begin no later than 4pm, the earlier the better. Brunch with friends? Absolutely. Afternoon BBQ? I'm there. Day time pub crawl? Sign me up. Then, the early start time would not be an excuse to still stay out until after midnight, but rather an excuse to be home in bed by 11pm.

I know this makes me sound like I am 76 instead of 26, but I don't care. I have TWO days of a seven day week that I get to enjoy and do what I want, I don't want to spend one of them exhausted and feeling disgusting.

I do realize that the world does not revolve around me. I know that a lot of people like nights and enjoy being out at night. I know that some people don't like drinking at 1 in the afternoon, or going to bed early. I know that some people work on weekend days and wouldn't be able to attend social events unless they were at night. I know that when it's my birthday or event that I get to decide what time it starts at (or Katie throws me a party at 3:30 in the afternoon because she knows me so well). I know that when it's not my birthday or event I don't get to decide. I do know this. So I will continue to begrudgingly attend social events that begin at 7 or 8 at night (and be thankful that they no longer start at 11 like when we were in college!). But will I like it? No.

Did I have fun? Of course I did.

There was an awesome cupcake tower...

and good company...

Yes Eric does look like the most ridiculous person there. But I can promise you, he was not.

They are resisting bunny ears behind us. Yes, my social life is a lot like my job.

So, did I have fun? yes.

Would I have had the same amount of fun and more today if the party had been at 2 or 3 in the afternoon? Yes.

Anyone with me? At least I will fit in nicely at the age of 76...

PS. Just for the record, I was not always a grandmother. I have always been an early bird at heart, but there was a time when I would stay up late with no regard for how I would feel the next day. However, those days are over.

All About KelCandy1

Eric and I just busted out an awesome training run this afternoon. We didn't do the full three miles (I don't know, though we didn't really measure), but we did end our run with a ridiculously tough hill. We thought it would be good prep for our race next weekend since a long hill hits after about 2 miles.

Kids continued to be annoying today. And there was some crying, which is what I get for saying there was no crying. So from now on I make no more comments. Except kids = bad. Maybe that will make them good now? Wishful thinking...?

Let's talk about something way more fun than running or kindergarten kids. AOL and AIM. You know, America Online and AOL Instant Messager. Did Canada have these things...I mean it's still technically North America right? haha.

Let's discuss my history with AOL and AIM. This will surprise a total of no one, since I clearly spend a lot of time on the internet STILL to this day.

It all began in 8th grade when I got the internet at my house, you know dial up style. It was connected to our phone line which worked for about a month until my parents realized they would no longer receive phone calls because their daughter would be online 24/7. Yup, KelCandy1 was in action as often as possible. Somehow I still managed to do my homework and talk on the phone for excessive hours as well, but who knows how middle schoolers do it.

My greatest chat buddies were also my greatest friends (so no, I did not chat with random people online thankfully): Tiffypop9, Cricket113, SusaTort, TurboGrax, and Chockolat to name a few. There was also RLCDuke4, Mbair23. I even had a great friend Matskidive, that I almost never talked to except online because he was in classes for brilliant people and we had different friends. I maintain I did better on my SATs because he constantly used words I did not know the meaning of and he always explained them to me. Contrary to popular belief (AHEM Caroline and Jake), he was NEVER my boyfriend. On the plus side, despite having to convince Caroline and Jake every boy I spoke to was NOT my boyfriend, having siblings 5 and 7 years younger than you was a bonus when it came to AOL, no one to fight with over the computer!

There are several reasons I think AOL and AIM are way better than the phone (which I also had a lot of love for back in those days, as my parents will recall). The first reason is that you never have to worry about interrupting someone online. Clearly you wouldn't be online if you didn't have time to chat, so if you IM someone, you know they are available. The second reason is that you can talk to several people at once. This was particularly useful when it was time to go to college. I could talk to all my lovely high school friends who were anywhere and everywhere, while simultaneously bonding with my new buds (especially LilFlash24- that's Katie!) and even occasionally IMing my roommate Asho930, just for fun. I could even keep in touch with my sister, who's screen name I will not reveal because it reveals our last name (sorry her last name, and mine at work, for now haha) but I swear you used to have one that had to do with Sunapee, didn't you?

When I studied abroad in Australia it was even MORE key because I didn't have to worry about long distance charges OR a time change. My parents even took up IMing then to chat with me. Plus, it's fun to get Australian's doing AIM especially "Holler Ozzy" aka Kirsty.

I also talked to Eric (aka BigDogTE) a lot online back in our early dating days. I wish I could remember exactly who got who's screen name first, but I seem to recall some online stalking involved. Or maybe it was just normal back in those days to be like... so, what's your screen name? lol. Good times.

Sadly, my AIM days are over. I logged on today for the first time in literally years and I didn't even remember half of the screen names on my "Buddy List." Now it's all Gchat, Twitter and Text Messaging (all of which I support of course). But I kinda miss IMs. Remember away messages?

Did you use AOL or AIM? What was your screen name? The more ridiculous, the better!

The Bright Side

Ah, the year of the blank stares.

That's what I'm referring to this school year as. Because each time I give directions, I am met with blank stares, 21 of them to be exact. Oh how I miss my class from last year. Really I do. I've plotted ways to casually steal them from their first grade classes. Do you think that would be appropriate?

Bright side Kelly. Bright side. I got paid today?The kids are cute. Would be cuter if they could follow simple directions, but hey. They are cute. There has been VERY little crying. Yay! (knock on wood)

On the brightest bright side, Eric made the most AMAZING risotto the other night...









Pear Cashew Risotto. Sometimes known as heaven in a dish. I'm not going to lie, I loved this so much that I also ate it for dinner on Tuesday...and today. I totally would have eaten it again tomorrow except that I finished it tonight. Sad.

Also on the bright side, I am enjoying a relaxing night of Friends dvds and Purple Cow Frozen Yogurt (black raspberry yogurt with chocolate and white chocolate chips). I really have never found a problem Friends can not fix.


Tell me about your ideal night of relaxation...

End of Summer Sadness

Well HELLO, sorry about that little disappearing act, first week of school stress and all. Now that summer is "officially" behind me I can safely say I am back in Kelly stress mode. Wondering how this is different from summer Kelly?

Well stress out Kelly has nightmares that her classroom assistants hate her and decide to turn the kids against her (likely, I know). Stress out Kelly wakes up at 4 am with to do lists in her head that have to be started NOW. Stress out Kelly is exhausted by 8pm (might have something to do with the 4 am wake up calls haha). I hate stress out Kelly.

There were definitely some fun kiddos on Thursday and Friday so I know I'll have some good stories this year. Friday was actually more me putting on a show for a million teachers than anything else. My two special needs kids came for the first time on Friday, so both my aides were there, one from preschool helping one of them transition, the speech teacher and the resource teacher. That's 6 teachers for 11 kids (only half come each day)...haha. So thankful no one was paying that much attention my first year teaching, that might have set me over the edge back then. Now I just feel bad boring everyone. I'm thinking they don't need 4 reviews of meeting area rules in one morning...but the kiddos do!

On Friday afternoon Eric and I decided to use a giftcard to The Capital Grille. We've never been there before because we thought it would be a million dollars so a gift card was a good excuse to try it!

I loved the overall atmosphere of the place and our waiter was a really fun guy. The bread was a great added bonus of course...

Followed by a king crab with avocado on the house...

I ordered the salmon with mashed potatoes on the side...

Eric got the steak au poivre...

and truffle fries...

The best part was my coconut gelato for dessert...

Overall, I thought Capital Grille was really good. The price wasn't terrible considering we both got drinks and desserts, but I wouldn't make it a habit to go there either.

On Saturday we headed straight for the Cape with a small stop for my favorite sandwich at Stephany's on Newbury. I wish I could have this sandwich for lunch every day, I'm serious.

The way down to the Cape was filled with traffic since everyone decided to go Saturday instead of Friday it seems. Hurricane Earl didn't leave any damage that we saw, but it was really windy all Saturday and Sunday.

Looks like the type of day Eric and I would accidentally decide to go kayaking haha.

Other highlights of the weekend included a yummy dinner with Katie, and Eric and my first 3 mile run together this morning. We are officially ready for the 5K :) We mapped a great run around the Hyannis Harbor area, starting here...

ending here...

I tried to take a picture of me running but it looks like I am doing a dance instead of running, oops...

Eric needed a "I'm dead I just ran 3 miles" pic...

He's not really dead though, just sweaty.

Both of us were really excited about how far we have come since the days when we were tired running 1/8 of a mile haha. We just hope the BC hills do not kill us in less than 2 weeks :)

Time to go do some planning for the week. Goodbye summer.

"There is no word for end-of-summer sadness, but the human spirit picks up the first of it's approach. We see it in the slant of the sunlight, in the autumnal blue of Cape Cod Bay. We hear it is in the drone of the cricket chorus from the salt meadows. Six weeks til frost, six weeks til frost. Suddenly each day becomes precious, something to be hoarded like candy in a child's pocket. - E. B. White

What will you miss most about summer?

*If anything doesn't make sense in this post, you may want to blame it on Stress Out Kelly, but I actually think it might be Ecto's fault. It keeps mixing up my post. I think I fixed it, but again if you are reading and you are like WHAT? I blame Ecto haha.

Let's Get Positive and September Goals

Today was open house where the kids come and see the classroom. We did it closer to school starting (tomorrow) than usual so we got more kids. It was honestly a bit overwhelming, but maybe I'm just remembering it being less crazy in the past and it's always crazy. Some of the parents drove me even more crazy. If you are curious about crazy things parents do, read about them here.

There was a point today when I realized how annoyed I already am about my job. I'm annoyed that I don't have an assistant when I really need one with this group of kids. I'm annoyed at parents already. I was even a little annoyed at one kid today. I'm annoyed that it is literally 100 degrees in my classroom and a parent actually complained to ME about this today, um yes- I built the school clearly! The list could go on. Then I realized it is Day 1 of 180...and that's only days IN school, not days worrying about it on the weekend. I can't be negative yet. So, tomorrow is a start over, take 2. With that, I decided to go back to doing my monthly goals. I haven't done them for several months, since maybe May? I hope they'll get me back on track.

September Goals
1. Stay positive about work. I really had an attitude adjustment about teaching last May when one of my former students passed away. He was in my first class and that class made me insane, literally. I worried about them 25 hours a day, every day. Turns out, what I should've been doing was enjoying every second of them. Every single second, good or bad. Silly or serious. I know there is no point in saying that I will never have a negative thing to say, or never be annoyed. But I am going to make a serious effort to stay positive, and that's all I can expect from myself.

2. Run my 2nd 5K in two weeks! Today was a much better run than Monday, I did 30 minutes straight running, wahoo. I'm looking forward to it getting a little cooler so Eric and I can run together outside again.

3. Go to yoga twice per week. I truly think this will help with goal #1 and goal #2.

4. Did you know there is a 7,000 acre reservation area right outside of Boston called Blue Hills Observatory? Eric told me about it a few years ago when he went on a field trip, and then we were reminded by friends recently. September is kind of a crazy busy month for us, but I'd love to get in at least one hike there. So that's goal #4.

What are your goals this month?