Great Hyannis Road Races 5K Race Report

Yesterday I completed my third 5K (or fourth if you include the running portion of the sprint triathlon). My other 5Ks were My First 5K and the Red Bandana Run.

This race was a bit different than the others that I've run because typically I have people to go to the start with and someone watching me. This time Caroline was running the half, but it started 45 minutes after mine and I insisted that Eric not wake up early because there comes a point in running 5Ks that I think he probably doesn't need to watch anyone one :)

I ended up arriving at the race about 3 minutes before it was supposed to start. I didn't meant to be THAT late, but I couldn't find my Garmin at the last minute and then the parking lot was much more full than I thought it would be. Oh well, less time to get nervous.

Mile 1- no split times due to missing Garmin, oh well!

I started out feeling pretty good. My ankle started hurting out of the blue and I considered stopping to stretch it out a bit but it went away on it's own. Interestingly, I was looking back on my 5K from last September and I had the same problem with my ankles. So random. But anyways, the rest of the mile was great and I was really caught up in the whole "yay I can run" thing. Plus there were a lot of kids running this race which I thought was pretty awesome.

Mile 2

Okay so I didn't officially see the mile marker in between 1 and 2, so I spent a lot of 2 thinking "oh my god please tell me I've gone at least 1 mile" haha. But I still felt good. I went by the ocean at this point and I was thinking about how awesome it was to run in such a beautiful place.

Mile 3

I did see the end of mile 2 marker so I sped up a lot at the beginning of mile 3 thinking I only had 1 mile to go. Well 1 mile is pretty far considering most of my training runs were only about 2 miles. Oops. I struggled mentally a lot during this mile because I kept thinking I was closer to the finish than I was. Eventually I did make it though.

Overall Thoughts

I really wanted to beat 30 minutes and I crossed the finish line at 30.06 which in my mind is basically beating 30 because it definitely must have taken me at least 6 seconds if not longer to actually reach the starting point. I think my race bib had a chip in it, so I may know that for sure in a few days. Either way I got my first running medal...

Eric makes fun of me for my love of medals. I realize that regardless of whether you get a medal or not, you still accomplished something. I just feel like it's cool for a race to acknowledge that a 5K IS a big accomplishment for some people. I know "real" runners would scoff at getting a medal for a 5K, but we all have our strengths and weaknesses, right?

Unfortunately I think my training for this race was not so good. Mainly my decision to train on a trail near my house instead of a street. My WHOLE body hurts today in a way I never thought it could after just running 3 miles! This includes my pesky injuries: my knee and back. I have ice on them both as we speak and I'm really hoping they can recover from this quickly. I know my injuries get worse when I run on the street which is why I tried to avoid it, but obviously I should've built up and not just done it one day suddenly. Oh well, nothing I can do about it now :) I probably will be walking my 5K next weekend though...

After the race I headed home to watch Caroline running the half marathon! She was rocking it at Mile 7...

While I was waiting for Caroline, one of the runners yelled out, "She Wears a Red Sox Cap!" and said she loves my blog! AMAZING. By far the coolest part of the day. I felt just a tiny bit famous! I have no idea who it was though, so if you are reading, tell me who you are! :) She was FLYING past and looked awesome at mile 7 too! Thanks for making me feel famous :)

I hope everyone had a good weekend :)

Where I've Been

It's been quite a whirlwind of a week with no spare time for blogging. Technically I probably should not be blogging now because I have a million end of the year reports to write, but after quickly busting out a few this morning I've lost my initial motivation and need a break from trying to phrase things nicely :)

Since I've done about a million things since I last wrote, I figure I'll just do a bullet post of some of the things you've missed...

-Last Saturday Eric and I went to a housewarming party for one of Eric's good friends who bought a house with his wife early this spring. They have done a ton of work to the house and it motivated me to put the finishing touches on our house this summer. We (and by we, I mean, almost entirely Eric and my mom) have done a lot to our house in two years. However, we still need some serious decorating in the hallway, "gym" room and guestroom. I'm thinking there will be at least one photo collage inspired by Amber. I just have to find some relatively cheap frames, any ideas?

-Last Sunday was the beginning of the celebrations for Caroline's college graduation. I really can't believe my younger sister graduated college this week! We went out for a family dinner at a place called Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steakhouse and Seafood. It's on the new waterfront area in South Boston. I can't believe how much this area has developed even since I was there last summer at Legal Test Kitchen. Back when I was little, we used to go to a restaurant called Jimmy's which was in this same location on Christmas Eve. The view was just as gorgeous as I remembered it, and Del Frisco's has done a fantastic job designing the restaurant so basically every table is a water view!

Del Frisco's was a seriously amazing restaurant. We sat down and about 10-15 minutes later, we noticed no waitress had come over. My dad just casually asked a guy walking by if he could find our waitress so we could order drinks. No sooner had he asked that we were suddenly surrounded by apologetic wait staff and managers who explained that our waitress that left because of a family emergency and they were SO sorry to keep us waiting. Even though I swear it couldn't have been more than 10 minutes or so, they insisted on buying us a full round of drinks AND giving us a bunch of free appetizers. Amazing! I'll wait 15 minutes any day for that! Plus the appetizers were awesome...

I wasn't quite as amazing as taking pictures of our entrees, but my salmon was delicious and everyone else really enjoyed their steaks and seafood. Del Frisco's is definitely the perfect kind of restaurant for a special occasion.

-Monday was Caroline's graduation day. The weather was the same as it had been for a few weeks, cold and rainy. Luckily, we scored a great seat inside for both ceremonies. That didn't stop me from wearing pants and a bright pink rain coat, but what can I say? it's been to be warm and comfortable than look amazing :)

And if you look really closely, you can see Caroline graduating...

I have to admit, graduations are not the most entertaining things ever- but luckily I had my brother's hilarious comments and funny e-mails from my classroom assistant who was teaching my kids for me ("K decided it would be fun to take a purple crayon and draw all over your rug. Needless to say, he WILL be writing you an apology note during choice time this afternoon." haha, oh 6 year olds!). In the end, I am quite proud of my sister for conquering the challenges of college. By this I don't really mean the academics, but the challenge of making new friends, creating a home away from home and taking risks to make things better when they were not going as she hoped they would.

-Immediately after graduation, I walked to the D line, hopped on the T and headed into Boston to meet my own college roommate who was visiting from Ohio this week. This began another whirlwind of days in which we ate at great restaurants (Picco and Trattoria Il Panino), cooked dinner, relaxed in front of the TV like we did in college and I continued to unfortunately, attend work haha. Somehow I did not take one single picture of us even when we went to Boston to meet up with Katie and Adam for one of the dinners. This is very unlike me so I must have been exhausted from all the excitement at this point.

-I am now at the Cape for the long weekend. I am exhausted and do not feel the best, so my agenda for the weekend includes as much relaxation as possible. I'm also running a 5K tomorrow. Plus I really need to write report cards and start some end of the year things. I have a love/hate relationship with May and June because I usually do a lot of fun things but it's also stressful because social obligations and work obligations seem to increase right at the same time.

What have you been up to the past week or so? What is on your agenda for this weekend?

How to Overcome Workout Obstacles

Lately it seems everything is against me getting in a good workout 4-5 days a week. It's very frustrating. However, it's important my mental (and obviously physical) health to maintain a relatively normal workout schedule so... I must overcome obstacles. Here are some of the obstacles I have dealt with lately:

Time

I doubt there is anyone out there who doesn't struggle with the "time to workout" issue at some point in life. It's not that I really have NO spare time, because that's not true. But a lot of my spare time tends to be at night, when I don't have much energy to get in a good workout. For some reason, I mostly subscribe to the belief that once I eat dinner, I'm probably not going to get a work out in after. It seems obvious that I should then work out in the morning before I start my day. I have definitely gone through phases of doing that, but right now I can't seem to do that either. You see, I am most productive in the morning with everything. This means there is a lot demanding my time in the early morning. I tutor a child 2 days a week early in the morning, and the other three days I get to work as early as possible so I can get a lot done. I could potentially wake up even earlier so that I can workout and get work done in the morning, but I already go to bed by 9:30 every night and I'd really rather it not be earlier than that. Losing sleep is not an option for me either.

Sickness

I don't know if it's because I work with children or what, but I'm either sick or fighting sickness the majority of the winter. I am pretty good at letting this be an excuse for not working out, which it simply cannot be for the amount of the time that I feel not 100%.





Injury

If you read this blog you know that injury has interrupted my work outs more than once. This is probably my most frustrating obstacle.


Motivation

Then there are those days where none of the above excuses are relevant and yet.... you just don't wanna.



How I Beat My Own Excuses


1. I schedule my workout in my calendar. Although afternoons are not as productive for me, they do tend to fill up quickly with obligations (part of the reason why the mornings are more productive for me at work). If I schedule an afternoon work out in my calendar, I'm more likely to do it.



2. I schedule a work out date with Eric, or a friend. Then I'm more likely to do it.



3. I agree to do something quick. If I tell myself I will only do a yoga video for 20 minutes, I'm more likely to do it. And something is better than nothing.



4. I put on my work out clothes. Sometimes if i really don't want to work out I'll tell myself I'm just going to put on the clothes. But once I do, I'll probably at least do something!



5. If I'm sick or injured, I will often change my work out plan and expect less of myself, but not skip the work out completely. There are times when rest is the only option, but for the majority of the winter- it can't be! Walks and quick yoga videos are my go-to exercises when I don't REALLY feel like exercising.



6. Sign up for a race or challenge. When I couldn't run, I did an Elliptical Challenge and a Bike Challenge to try to motivate myself. Lately I've been signing up for races and I will be doing a 5K the next two weekends, which I really hope I'm ready for! I'd like to do a Yoga Challenge at some point, but my studio only does 30 day-in-a-row ones, which I've pretty much decided I'm never going to do. I need a little more flexibility in my challenges.



The past few weeks my motivation and time have been lacking, but I've been pretty good about fitting things in. The other day I go home from work and I was starving. But I decided instead of skipping my work out, I would bring my yoga mat downstairs and do a quick yoga video while my dinner was cooking. Sure, I didn't really get in the zen mode while I was listening for my water to boil in the next room, but at least I did something!



What workout obstacles do you most suffer from and how to do you overcome these obstacles?

Wine and Love

It's time for another week of...

Nora is a genius for coming up with this. All week I think about what will be in "wine" and what will be in "love." Wine = makes me want a glass (or several) of wine. Also could be considered what I "whine" about :) Love = LOVE.

Wine

1. Probably the top annoying thing of this week was when I received an e-mail from a parent of one of my students on Monday night. I've been working with this student a lot on her reading this year and she's making good progress. She has grade level skills but hasn't quite put everything together yet. That day I had sent her home with a predictable reader to read to her parents to help boost her confidence and excitement about reading. Well, the e-mail detailed how she had read the story to her mom and her mom had shared with her how she was CLEARLY only reading from memorization and using the pictures and she refused to use such poor materials to teach her daughter. It when on to attack my methods of teaching reading and suggest that I try something different because what I am doing is OBVIOUSLY not working. Yea... so, what's a teacher to do? I updated all of her assessments, scheduled a meeting with the parents and our reading specialist. Then two of us with Masters Degrees in Reading explained to the parents what we are really doing, the value of "memorized" reading and using the pictures when you are FIVE and the actual progress she has made. They admitted to overreacting, which I appreciated, but CAN PEOPLE PLEASE THINK BEFORE THEY SEND E-MAILS? Thank you! Oh, and PS. adding in "you are a terrific teacher" does NOT make up for the fact that you just trashed my teaching skills for the last 4 paragraphs. Thanks again.

2. Work in general. One of my kids did some impressive math to figure out we had 20 more days of school today, but instead of being impressed I was freaked out... I have SO much to do in that time!!!

3. I really dislike when I can't sleep. Sleep at the beginning of this week was not good, probably due to wine #1. However, I am against sleeping problems. If I am going to dedicate my precious time to lying in bed, I expect sleep to come. Thank you.

Love

1. I came home today and Eric had a giant bag of fortune cookies he got from work. Wahoo!

I love fortune cookies and the last time Eric got me a bag of them, he and my brother accidentally got me the "dirty" ones- which were so dirty I actually just didn't GET them for awhile until I figured it out haha.

2. Summer is coming after 20 more days of work. Wahoo! I am really excited about the kids I am tutoring this summer. They all seem really awesome. Today I had to meet one of the kids and his mom for pizza. I was kinda nervous about it because I don't eat pizza and kids usually won't talk much the first time you meet them. But, his mom is nice and the kid plays hockey and loves the Red Sox so we had plenty to discuss. I had a tiny slice of pizza that probably was not enough to hurt my stomach but was enough to look like I was participating in the pizza eating :)

3. Caroline is graduating on Monday and I am a proud older sister. It seems like yesterday I was jumping on the table at my grandmothers house yelling, "yay! i have a sister!"

4. Eric. He gets to be on the love list this week even though technically he always is, obviously! He provides hilarious comic relief during extremely frustrating situations (see Wine #1). Also, he is just in general amusing. For example, during a debate last night about the okayness of wearing black shorts with a black shirt (I say no), Eric defended his position by saying his character in Tiger Woods golf wears black shorts a black shirt. THE CHARACTER HE CREATED. Awesome.

5. My college roommate is coming to stay with me next week, starting on Monday! Wahoo :)

6. Cheryl (aka Eric's mom aka my mother in law- I need a who's who on this blog, don't I?) brought me spring rolls tonight that look like the ones I'm obsessed with from Not Your Average Joes or possibly better because they have seaweed salad in them! I am SO excited to eat them for lunch tomorrow. This will be a big improvement over my lunch today which was supposed to be a peanut butter sandwich... til I forgot the peanut butter. Go me.

It's funny ALL week I though this week was kinda bad, but looking back I guess the good outweighed the bad (or perhaps I just really like food). I love Wine and Love. What's yours today?

Win a Tour of Fenway Park!

I hope everyone is having a lovely Tuesday and hopefully the weather is FAR better than it is here (cold and rainy, with no end in sight!). But a few weeks ago when I was at Fenway Park, it was sunny, sunny, sunny!

I'm excited to work with Tickets-for-Charity to bring you an chance to win a VIP tour of Fenway Park and lunch provided by Tickets-for-Charity!

Tickets-for-Charity is an organization that offers fans access to great live seats and unique VIP experiences while benefiting charitable causes in the process. If you want to buy tickets and benefit a great cause at the same time, all you have to do is visit the Tickets-for-Charity website. Here you can buy tickets at face-value plus a pre-determined donation amount.

Some important information to know includes:

1. 100% of ticket face value is remitted to the artist/team.

2. 100% of donation amount is distributed to TFC partner charities, featuring the artist-or team-aligned charity.

3. Fans pay the same or better price they're currently paying ticket brokers and scalpers, but now 100% of the benefit above face value supports charity!

4. TFC charges a per-ticket service fee to help maintain the platform and manage all Charitable Sale aspects, from fulfillment and customer service to donation funds distribution and reporting.

TFC has partnered with artists such as U2, James Taylor, Tim McGraw and sports teams like the Red Sox and Celtics!

TFC supports charities like Boys and Girls Clubs of American, Habitat for Humanity International and Feeding America!

Do you want a win a private VIP tour of Fenway Park and lunch on TFC? Of course you do! The tour will be during the day on May 25th. If you'd like to enter, please click here and enter your e-mail and my blog name in order to be entered. That's ALL you have to do! :) Good luck everyone!

*You must enter by Thursday May 19th at 6:00PM.

PS. I would appreciate if you would spread the word to your Boston friends!

On Living In My Hometown

Today after work and a boring meeting, I had to go to the center of my town to run some errands. With the exception of visiting the library, bank and the best pharmacy ever- I almost never spend time in my actual town. I work in a different town, my friends live in nearby towns and I usually enjoy restaurants in other towns. But, try as I may to pretend it's not the case, I currently own a house in the town I grew up in.

Truth be told, that was not the plan. That was the opposite of the plan in fact. Growing up if you told me I would EVER live here after the age of 18 I probably would've laughed very hard. But, if you want to hear God laugh tell him your plans, right?

I guess you could call me a homebody... though I'm not sure if anyone would really describe me that way. I've lived here, went to college 25 minutes away, moved back here, moved to one of the bordering towns, and then moved back here again. The one notable deviation from my predictable "move back here" life has been my 6 month study abroad in Sydney experience. It was at this time that I said goodbye to everyone I knew, jumped on a plane by myself, and moved to Australia for 6 months. Did I handle it well? I think so. Was I perfectly capable of handling life on my own? Sure (if you call life in school life on my own, which is questionable). Somehow even at the time I knew that was going to be a brief exercise in proving to myself I was capable of being "Miss Independent" so that I wouldn't have to do it again. Not that I couldn't, but just that I realized, why? I mean sure, there is something to be said for being able to handle life on my own... but I was missing a lot here too.

About two and a half years ago now, Eric and I decided to start looking at buying a house. My first words to my real estate agent, "Eric and I are not super picky about the town. We know there are a lot of great towns around here. We'd like to be in the middle of our two jobs. Oh and forget about ____, I grew up there and I'm NOT moving back." She laughed, but respected my wishes and showed us houses in many of the neighboring towns.

Fast forward through way too many terrible houses (or okay houses that have such low ceilings Eric can't even stand up) and I find myself at a house that can only be described as ON A HIGHWAY.... not kidding. My mom and Eric were both with me and I was clearly getting fed up with the house buying process. "Okay, I realize it is on a highway, but it is a nice house and a good price" (obviously because it is on a highway!). On the way home from highway house, we decided to stop by one more open house in my hometown. I couldn't believe I was even giving a house in this town a chance, but I figured I wouldn't like the house since I had not loved so many others. Well, of course- we did love the house and that is the story of how I found myself living in my hometown.

Honestly, I have become quite skilled at not revealing this fact about myself. I'll try not to mention both where I am from and where I currently live now in the same conversation. I also have become the master at describing my house as "on the town line of my town and the town next to mine." Even Eric has adopted this philosophy after learning that the town next door creates more of a "oh, great for you guys" reaction than our town... with it's more "snobby" reputation.

Is it really that bad living in my hometown? No... it's actually fantastic. I'm a 7 minute commute from work. I'm 3 miles from my parents. 20 minutes from Fenway Park. I have tons of great tutoring opportunities 10-15 minutes away. I love love LOVE my house.

I very rarely even catch sight of anyone I know, and I tend to have a lot more awkward encounters in the town I teach in than I do here. I think I always worried that if I lived here, my whole life would feel like high school. In fact, my life feels not at all like high school (at times it could use a little more high school!). It feels like an every day, normal life, just like it has felt like in any other town I've ever lived. Today I drove past my high school and it felt so far away from my life... like someone I know went there instead of myself.

Life is crazy.

On a positive note, I did manage to secure a house on the opposite side of town, meaning I will not be talking my own kids to my elementary or middle school and am at least 16 years or more away from setting foot inside the high school. And if the next ten years are in any way as unpredictable as the last ten years have been, who knows if I'll ever be back there?

Yet somehow, far away from my high school life, I'm reminded of one of my favorite quotes from back then... Turns out no where but who you're with that really matters.

How far away do you live from your hometown? Would you ever consider moving back? Do you think it's important to move away, at least temporarily, before coming back?

Wine and Love, Take 2

I'm taking on Nora's Wine and Love again this week. I'll be telling you what is making me want to grab the bottle, and what I love this week :)

Wine

1. This week has been SO long. I feel like things that happened on Monday were months ago. I've felt the same way about several days this week. There were times when I got home and forgot to tell Eric something important because I felt like I had already told him (because whatever it was had happened in my mind at least a day earlier!). Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday.

2. I got my hair cut and highlighted today, which I am happy about but WHY does it have to be so expensive?

3. We did placement this week for our kindergarten kids into Grade 1. Placement is the worst. I would explain why but there is no point in boring you. Trust me, it's the worst.

4. I was going to put American Idol in the love category because I love this season. But I am mad about the results tonight so I'm going to sulk instead.

Love

1. We had our Teacher Appreciation Lunch yesterday which is one of the best parts of every year (other than the fact that it comes right before placement). Yesterday was my favorite one so far because one of my very talented mom's made a cake for the event...

See the above bookworm with curly brown hair and a pink scarf? That's me! Haha. I never thought the day would come where I would be on a cake. I'm telling you people, being a teacher is like being a celebrity. I promise not to take the Lindsay Lohan route.

2. I have lots of great things to look forward to right now. My sister is graduating college in a little over a week (I would look forward to this more if it did not involve her moving away but anyways!). My college roommate is coming to visit that same week. In early June I have my 5 year college reunion (seriously- how is that even POSSIBLE?) and I turn 27 in the same week. After that only a few more week until summer!

3. I got my observation over with.

4. Did I mention that cake tasted amazing too?

The week was kind of crap overall, but the cake really puts things in a more positive light.

What's your wine and love this week?

Undiscovered Talents

The past few days, a couple of different random thoughts have led me to writing this post. They are...

1. Caitlin's post on self doubt, which led me to reflect on what areas of my life I experience self doubt.

2. My observation yesterday by my principal.

3. This little girl in my class who is very good at drawing.

I understand if the connection does not seem clear yet!

Starting at an early age, kids start to realize what things they are good at, and what things are hard for them. This year, I've actually been stressing this point a lot with my class because I have some students who's challenges are very out in the open, and I want my students to understand that EVERYONE has things that are hard for them and things they are good at. There are actually many advantages to helping children and adults see their own areas of strength including...

1. It builds confidence and encourages a child or adult to pursue that area further and become even better at it.

2. It helps to diminish jealousy among siblings and friends because everyone sees that they have something to offer.

3. It helps children and adults get through challenges to know although this might be tough, there are other things that are not tough.

However, last week I was playing a game with my kids and I started to wonder about some of the disadvantages. In this game, every child put a shoe in the center of the circle. Each child had to pick one shoe and give that child a compliment. I chose a shoe of my most artistic child. I said, "okay I have to think about this because I want it to be good." One of my students, thinking I was having a hard time coming up with a compliment, shouted, "how about J is a good artist?!" I replied that I really wanted to do something different than that. I decided instead to talk about how great J. has become at speaking in front of the class. By great, I really meant that she now will somewhat do it where as at the beginning of the year she would not. However, I meant it as a genuine compliment because her improvement in this area has been amazing and I am proud of her. Is it useful for J to continue to hear what a great artist she is, or is it important for people to notice other talents she has and help her to see that there is more to her than being a great artist?

Then yesterday I was observed by my principal. It went fine, but of course there were a few things I would've changed. After I was a little mad at myself that I picked to be observed during math (a new thing we are teaching in math no less) since my principal always makes a big deal about how great I am at teaching reading. Does it make me feel great that she thinks I am a great reading teacher? Absolutely. It's easily my favorite part of teaching, and I've worked hard to be good at teaching it including getting my Masters degree in Reading. But, does it make me feel like maybe I'm not such an awesome teacher of math? Does it make my coworkers feel like they might be awesome at math, but reading, not so much?

In reality, our Kindergarten team is amazing. We ALL work very hard to get our kids where they need to be in reading, math, social skills and independent work habits. I have got SO many awesome ideas about all these subjects, including reading from them. While I think we are all proud of having a subject in which we are seen as the "expert," I just wonder if this sometimes creates doubt in other areas or perhaps undiscovered talents?

Some "undiscovered talents" in my life include...

*Finishing a triathlon. Okay, so maybe it's not a talent, but it is an accomplishment. Let's just say no one ever complimented me on my swimming, biking or running ability- at least since I learned to ride a two wheeler anyway :)

*Starting a Blog. When I was younger I always wanted to be a writer and people would tell me I was a good writer. But then, I went to a really competitive high school where writing was ALWAYS about a book we read and much as I love reading, I have NO discovered or undiscovered talents in figuring out what the authors "hidden meaning" is...

Do you have any previously undiscovered talents you have just started to realize? What are the things people ALWAYS compliment you on?

Wine and Love, Take 1

It's been a very busy week and my blogging has been on and off lately, so I figured now was as good as any to play along with Nora's Wine and Love. From the first day Nora posted this, I thought it was an awesome idea. I like to complain as much as the next person, but it's always nice to be thankful too. So in "Wine and Love" I'll be telling you what has made me want to grab the wine glass this week, and what is making me smile.

Grab the Wine

1. It's been two years since I was last formally observed by my principal. I received tenure a year and a half ago, and my principal and I get along well. Yet, my stomach still dropped when I got the e-mail "Hi Kelly, can we set up a time for me to do an observation next week?" Nooooo. There is NO reason for this to make me nervous. I am a good teacher and even if something goes wrong, which it does at least once a day in kindergarten, that is OKAY.

2. My body has been hating me lately. I've had a cough for more than 3 weeks and it's finally starting to go away thanks to a steroid inhaler. Then last night I woke up with a terrible stomach ache. I thought I had ate something terrible at my work event last night but no one else seems sick so I don't know what my deal is. I had a lot to do today so I just sucked it up, but I still feel pretty yucky. I'm sick of sickness.

3. Life is crazy busy right now. I had an awesome weekend last weekend but I was busy every day and night which left me tired before the week even started. Right now is placement time for next year and there have been a lot of meetings etc. On top of that I'm trying to get a lot of new tutoring jobs for this summer so I've been constantly going to "interviews" which are usually pretty low stress but when you pile them up, it gets exhausting!

Feel the Love

1. I have some good student stories from the week. The first comes from one of my hilarious kindergarten students. She was working with an aide to do math work. I noticed it was probably a bit hard from her and came over to figure out how I was going to adapt it for her. As I crouched down next to her, she put her arms around me and the aide she was working with and said, "I think I'm going to make you guys chocolate chip cookies!" Haha, who cares if it was trying to avoid the math work? I want some chocolate chip cookies!

2. I also started tutoring a new kiddo this week. He ended up being AWESOME, he loved literally everything we did. The best part was at the end:

kid: are you coming back next week?

me: yup

kid: I wish now was next week.

3. I have to admit I was a little nervous about the effects of Bin Laden on the little ones, especially when I realized first thing Monday morning I would be out of the room for a meeting. Luckily the kiddos did not bring it up while I was gone and the first mention I heard of it came yesterday while the kids were playing at blocks:

kid 1: I hate Osama bin Laden

kid 2: you should not say hate

kid 1: fine I don't like him

kid 2: how do you know him?

kid 1: I just do

kid 2: is he a kid?

kid 1: no, he is a grown up

kid 2: why don't you like him?

kid 1: he is a bad man

kid 2: okay

You just have to love the innocence of this conversation... don't you?

4. At work this year, I had to take on this really annoying role of "team facilitator" for these professional learning teams. I do not mind being a leader at all, but this was annoying because it involved attending a class on how to lead a group. It was a waste of time and it cut into tutoring time where I could've been making money. Plus, I was leading my 3 best friends at work (K Team) and frankly I had no trouble leading them at all because they felt massively indebted to me and did whatever I wanted them to do. Mwahaha. Anyway, this week was our last meeting of our group (I still get to go to another training on how to be a leader AFTER I'm done leading, gimmeabreak!) and I got a present from my amazing team. They got me a gift card to Not Your Average Joes AND Kathy actually went and asked them to give me a big container of the delicious peanut sauce from there that I love so much. I may bring myself some to my meeting next Wednesday afternoon to make it more bearable. I love peanut sauce.

5. It's going to be sunny and 70 tomorrow. Wahoooo!

What is making you grab the bottle of wine this week? What is making you smile?

What's Right For You

The other day I had a conversation with someone at work about how many of the teachers in my building are total Type A personalities. After the conversation I found myself wondering if I am Type A. I think I am in many ways, but that I also have been surrounded by people who are Type A in my life (I went to a good high school and college) and work at a school with high expectations for the teachers and the students, so compared to all the crazies in my life- I sometimes come out quite normal haha. By the way, I attempted to take an "Are You Type A?" quiz online, which Eric thought was pretty amusing. He said that only Type A people would take such a quiz. Shoot. Anyway, it didn't really tell me if I was Type A or not, simply said it's bad to be Type A because it contributes to heart disease. Good to know.

Anyway, the point of this is... there is something I am simply not Type A about, and that is running. Remember that 7.2 mile race I signed up for? Yea... I dropped down to the 5K, haha. I was already really nervous about it because my back was killing after every run. Then I got the never ending cold/cough which limited my running to 3 times in the last 3 weeks. Yeah.



Then I started thinking about back in the day when I lived at my parents house (and when I moved out but still used their gym equipment). I used to just jump on the treadmill- walk/run for 30-40 minutes and that was it. But I did it like 5-6 days a week. I also did a good amount of pilates and later some yoga as well. Sure I wasn't constantly pushing my body to new limits, but I think I was probably in better shape than I am now because I was not constantly injured and I was more consistent (this was partly because of lack of injury but also because I did not always have the all/nothing attitude about working out so even if I didn't feel like working out I would just hop on the treadmill for 25 minutes and call it a day.



Then I started training for the triathlon, blogging and putting more pressure on myself in regards to working out. Sure, I was probably in better shape at times but working out had previously been a stress reliever for me, and I've lost some of that with all the new goals.



So when it comes to me, good enough is going to be enough. See? I'm not Type A :)



Are you a major goal setter when it comes to fitness or sometimes do you think it's just enough to do something?

Also, I haven't posted any Easter pictures yet so here are a few of my favorites, just a little over a week late, oops.



Easter dinner at the Cape





Easter Egg Hunt





Dreaming of fish...