Links and Yoga

It's Saturday which means maybe you have some extra time on your hands (or perhaps you are no where near the computer because you work on one all week?)...so I have some links for you to check out...

First of all, I did my first ever guest post on Meghan's blog and it's about my trip to New Zealand. You should definitely check it out and please leave some comments :) Part 2 of my post will be up tomorrow. My hope is that it convinces everyone to take some time off and take a long flight to a beautiful country (and while you are there stop in Australia, my real favorite place). I don't write a lot about my travels on this blog, but I love to travel and see new things. I asked you guys where you wanted to hear about and New Zealand won so...go check it out!

Link #2 and #3- I went a little crazy earlier today writing articles, if you are a teacher of kids in the primary grades check out math journals and if you love pumpkin as much as I do, check out healthy pumpkin ideas.

Also, you might be wondering: How is the Yoga Challenge going? Last Sunday (November 1st) I pledged to take 10 minutes every day and do yoga. Here are some observations I have had since I began:

• I have no problem with fitting in yoga on exercise rest days, but sometimes when I give an hour to spinning, it really annoys me to have to give more time to yoga.
• Doing yoga 10 minutes per day has forced me to come up with my own yoga routines and just do what feels right at the time. I like this style of yoga for a change of pace and even when I am using dvds now I find myself adapting to the poses that I enjoy the most.
• I love pigeon pose. I have to do pigeon at least once per day. Looking at photos online I think I may be doing it wrong, but everyone at my studio leans forward and puts their head on the ground while they do it, no one online seems to do that. Oh well.
• I have discovered yogadownload.com which I love. 20 minute yoga videos for free! You do have to know yoga a little bit to do these videos since they are simply audio. I like this because I am getting sick of trying to look at my computer screen in the middle of a pose, but obviously it's not for total beginners. There was something in the video I did today (Power Vinyasa Flow #1) that I had no idea what it was. I think it was called standing splits...or something splits, but frankly I doubt I can do anything with splits in the name so I just did some extra sun salutations while they went through that part.
• I totally did not do 10 minutes yesterday. I did 20 today to make up for it. I decided to change my sidebar to say "6 days this month" instead of the days in a row. I don't want to give up just because I missed one single day. I still did yoga 6 out of the last 7 days, that's pretty good.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Teacher Vents

The past couple of weeks have really been a whirlwind and it is starting to catch up with me. I need my weekends to get things accomplished and I haven't had those so I feel like my "To Do" list is so long I can't even remember what is on it! Plus, there is my work to do list, my tutoring to do list, my home to do list, my life to do list and don't even get me started on my wedding- I haven't thought about that in my months. I feel like all I do lately is run around like a mad woman and spend a ton of money, always on necessities, never on anything I actually want. Whew!

Then today, I had seven parent/teacher conferences. I started yesterday and I'll be finished by next Wednesday at this time. I had a couple of the more annoying parents today...sorry to refer to them that way, but when you hear "what do you do for the "gifted" children in the room?" multiple times in one day it's hard not to. I have truly never had a "gifted" child in my class I don't think, but I've had about 20 parents who THINK their child is gifted. I know I don't have kids, so I can't possibly understand how much love a parent has for their kids. I really do try to look at it from their point of view as much as I possibly can. But really...get off your high horse and realize your child (while they may be wonderful, and many of them are) has strengths and weaknesses just like everyone else. Just like you do. The end.

Sigh. But I won't be bitter, I swear. I can laugh about parents like this a lot more now that I have been doing this for a few years. I used to cry about them. It still makes me angry though with the amount of effort I put in, it still with never be good enough for these people. But oh well, it's always good enough for the kids.

Speaking of kids, I have a good story for you guys (let's lighten up the mood a bit). I was tutoring one of my amazing third graders the other day and I told her I was going to see Eric's football game after and I said, "my fiance's game." So she says..."what's a fiance?" At this point I explain to her that first someone is a boyfriend, then when you decide to get married they are a fiance, then when you actually GET married they are a husband. She looks as me and says... "oh, and then they are an ex-husband?" HAHAHAHA, what?!

And this girl's parents are still happily married I might add so her mom thought it was pretty amusing as well. Don't think about it too much or you may think its a pretty sad reflection on society...

Time to get back to that dreaded "To Do" list. Is it Friday yet?

Pumpkin Pancakes and Big Accomplishments

First of all, I started off the day with a DELICIOUS pancake thanks to- where else? Trader Joe's!

If you have a Trader Joe's near you and you like pumpkin, there is really no excuse not to try these pancakes. I halved the recipe, but I really could've probably ate the whole thing. You were supposed to add an egg, milk and some butter. I changed it to make it friendly to my tummy by using egg whites, soy milk and oil instead of butter. I only needed 1 tablespoon of oil (2 for the whole recipe) which really isn't bad. I am not a big maple syrup person (and we didn't have any) so I mixed blueberries in. It was delicious and a great way to start the day. Some day I'll stop eating pumpkin stuff...but not today!

Tonight was my big *Professional Status Celebration* For those of you who are not teachers (and do they even call it that in other towns/states?), that means that I now officially have tenure. Which means...they can't fire me, well at least not without some serious effort. The past 3 years they could just decide they didn't really like me and bam, I'd be gone! Fortunately that did not happen and I made it to tonight. I'd like to say I knew all along that I would make it tonight but I definitely had some doubts my first year. If I had this blog that year, things would not have been so positive let me tell you. Plus there would've been less healthy eating and exercising and more comfort food and falling asleep at 7pm!

So tonight the School Committee had a meeting to recognize those of us who achieved Professional Status this year. They said the name of each teacher and then talked about us for a bit. When my friend first told me that they talk about you, I was a bit confused about how they knew what to say (do I know these people?), but it became pretty obvious that my principal wrote it, which was nice. My principal is pretty tough, she has really high expectations for her teachers. She had a reputation when I came to the school of never letting a year pass without getting rid of a year. In my irrational first year teacher state I thought for sure that teacher would be me since all of the other new teachers had taught in other towns and were already fantastic teachers. But, she really has pushed me to be a better teacher than I ever thought I would be at the age of 25. Isn't it funny that people who are the toughest on you can really make you push yourself? Oh, and also she didn't get rid of any teachers that first year, whew!!!

We got to go up and receive a certificate and a present:

Close up (aren't you getting SO curious about what is inside? haha, I knew it!):

Okay fine, I won't leave you in suspense any longer...

It was also special because I started teaching with 2 other amazing kindergarten teachers: Kathy and Katie. They were both already teachers before, but we started in my current school together. Kathy was there with me tonight receiving professional status, which was quite fitting. I sorta feel like Kathy and I have pulled each other through the last 3 years. At times kicking and screaming, at other times laughing and really having a lot of fun. I am so lucky that I really enjoy and like the people I work with, that makes every day so much better, especially when I am not loving the kids that day :) Katie (the other girl I started teaching with), moved back to Minnesota where she is from. She was such a positive and fun influence that we miss her every day, but we are happy she is back with her family and having her first baby later this month, whoa hoo!

This is a little more corny than my originally scheduled post tonight, but I couldn't let tonight pass without mentioning it. Even though I had to drag myself out of the house tonight to go to this "reception", it is a pretty big accomplishment in the little life of me :)

Day of Productivity

Today is my last day of freedom for awhile because I have some crazy weekends coming up. As a result I needed to be seriously productive. I woke up at 7, which I decided is the ideal time to wake up. It's light out and not too early, but still early enough to get a lot done. I hit the gym first to do some elliptical and a few of my PT exercises. Then I headed to my parents to spread out my stuff and get some serious work done.

I made a bunch of tutoring games on my computer and then set out to do some planning for the kindergarten kids for the week. I didn't come up with anything too great, but I am reading this fabulous book with a ton of kids games in it.

I am trying to incorporate a lot more fun and active activities into the regular school day in an effort to make my class more boy friendly. This is not to say that girls don't enjoy active games, or that my class is not boy friendly already, but I think school in general is more meant for "girls" and I want to try to change that the best I can this year. Hopefully it lasts even when the crazy academics that are now kindergarten take over in a few weeks.

When I got home tonight (after stealing my mom's food processor because we don't have one yet), I decided to cook almond crusted chicken that was in this month's issue of Body and Soul magazine. I have to admit I normally do not cook recipes from magazines because they always have SO many ingredients. However, this one only had a few ingredients: 1/2 cup roasted unsalted almonds, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, 1 clove of garlic, and 1/2 teaspoon of course salt. Even a simple girl like me can handle that. All I had to do was mix the ingredient, put them in the food processor and then rub them on my chicken fillets.

I also added some mashed potato and carrots to make a full meal. Since I can't eat butter anymore, I make my mashed potatoes using chicken broth. They aren't QUITE as amazing this way but I still really like them and they are much more heathy.

I ended up really enjoying the chicken. If you are planning to try it, consider how much you like garlic because the recipe as I made it tastes a lot like garlic. You'll want to put less if you won't like that :)

I hope everyone had a great weekend, I'm off to go eat one of my delicious small portions of Edy's ice cream!

The Exercise Cure

I made it through the first day of school. I had half of the kiddos today and they were okay. You can never tell much from the first day because they are mostly quiet and just shocked by the whole thing. I hate the first week or two because its a lot of me talking and pretending to be excited about REALLY boring things such as learning how to stand in a line, be a good listener, etc etc. So boring and exhausting. I did have kind of a funny experience this afternoon though when this little boy showed up at my classroom door. I recognized him as being the little brother of one of the girls I had last year. I came to the door to say hi and he said, "where is my sister?" I was confused at first but then I realized he was looking for her and didn't realize she was in a new class...haha cute. And don't worry I did bring him across the school to his sister's new class. Why a 3 year old was roaming the school himself is also beyond me but you never know with some people...

It was only a half day today (we start full days on Tuesday, oh boy!) and I was still beyond exhausted by the end of the day. It was nice to have the afternoon to get things done but I was so tired and my head was killing so I was not all that productive. I wanted nothing more than to come home and take a long nap after work but I took yesterday off from working out and I know I need exercise to stress relieve so I went for the shred instead.

It was like my body did a complete 180 during the 20 minute shred video. All of a sudden I had energy and my head ache went away completely. I was so energized I cooked dinner and cleaned the whole kitchen. I decided my new plan is going to be to do a few minutes of cleaning while cooking dinner at night so I really stay on top of it. I took on "baked tofu" for the first time ever and I have to say the results were delicious.

I started by draining and cutting up some Trader Joe's extra firm tofu. Then I quickly dipped it in some Trader Joe's Soyaki sauce (are you starting to see a trend in where I do my grocery shopping?).

I am obsessed with this sauce, it's truly delicious and such a nice change from teriyaki sauce. Anyway, I put it in the oven on 400 for about 20-25 minutes and turned it over about halfway through. Although it tasted really great, I am not sure if this sauce is really meant to be baked like that because it burned a bit. Of course I am no master cook so it's also possible I just cooked it too long or on too high of a temperature. I served it to myself with some white rice and cooked veggies. Here is my final creation:

It was a nice change from my usual meals lately and I am REALLY looking forward to one of those amazing ice cream cups I purchased at Target the other day. Thanks for all of your great stress relieving tips the other day. It's good to know other people stress without even realizing it. I think today helped me to realize how important making time (and energy) for exercise is. And then maybe it will be more okay to also relieve stress with ice cream!

My 21st Day of School

If my first day of school could drink, tomorrow it would be legal :) (in the US of course, it's been legal for years in some countries haha). Tomorrow is officially my 21st first day of school. I've had 13 as a K-12 kid, 4 as a college student and tomorrow will be my fourth as a teacher. It's weird to think this is my fourth year teaching. My first class started THIRD grade today. Unbelievable. I've spent the past two days preparing the classroom so hopefully it is ready.

One of the things I love about being a teacher (and believe me, I do NOT love everything!) is the idea of starting over every year. Of course a lot of what we do the year before affects us in our reputation and relationships with coworkers, children in the school and parents. However, we get a new group of kids every year and we get to do it all over again, change things that didn't work or won't work with a new group, and repeat our favorite things. My focus this year is to make kindergarten fun again. I am sure the kids think it has been fun all along, but really it has become so academically based it's really sad. I am reading this book called "The Trouble with Boys" by Peg Tyre. It is basically talking about how our sit still and do academics attitude in early elementary school is really hurting boys success in school. I have always made an effort to keep my kids active and engaged, but this year I am going to make even more of an effort than usual.

My goal for this year for myself is to CALM DOWN. When I was younger I think I was a relatively calm person but ever since I began teaching, I am the least calm person and it takes a toll on my whole body. Already, school has not begun and I've been waking up SO early (this is my version of not falling asleep at night, I just happen to be backwards) and my neck started hurting today for no reason at all (clearly stress related). Exercise is really the only thing so far that I have found that REALLY helps me tame the stress so I have to make sure to keep it up even when I am busy. My biggest problem is the fact that sometimes I don't even know I am stressing until I feel it in my body somehow. What do you guys do to calm down? Any stress relieving tips?

Stay tuned for tomorrow's 1st day post :)

What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up?

I have a tradition in my kindergarten classroom every year. 26 days from the last day of school, we count down using the alphabet. Each day is a new letter. Tomorrow is Letter C day and we celebrate- Career Day. All the kids have to dress up like what they want to be when they grow up. In the past I never dressed up, after all- I am already grown up (though I don't like to admit it). However, this year I'm motivated to pick something else to be- just for fun (or to fall back on when I really can't stand teaching anymore). At first I thought I'd be a retired person, maybe dress up like I was going to play golf :) Even though I really don't like golf, but no one has to know that. Then I started to think about what the ideal job would be. It's hard though because every job has it's ups and downs. For example I'd love to be a travel writer, get paid to travel around and tell people about it. But then again I'm kind of a homebody, would I really want to spend my whole life traveling? When I was younger I wanted to be a writer in general. I still think this would be an amazing job. But then again I like stability and a dependable paycheck, so maybe I should just stick to teaching. If only kids could be slightly less annoying...
I don't know what I will dress like tomorrow, perhaps just myself. If I come up with anything good I'll let you know.

I'm off to a good start with my Yoga Challenge. I did a 10 minute Yoga for Runners this morning after my 2 mile run on the treadmill. I will post my results from the challenge on Fridays and if you are doing it to, comment back and tell us how you are doing!

I was actually pretty happy with myself for getting through the 2 mile run. For some reason lately I've been having more trouble with my short runs. I think because I tell myself, "Kelly it's just two miles, no big deal" and then as I'm doing it, it's still hard! Where as, with the longer runs I get myself pumped up and tell myself this is going to be long. Weird I know but oh well, today I tried to get myself pumped for the two miles. I told myself it was going to be hard because it was going to be on the horribly boring treadmill (which is not much of a stretch) so I did it. My knee wasn't too bad after, and I'm going to the doctor tomorrow so I'll know more about the knee then. I had some extra time tonight so I tried to convince myself to go for a bike ride, but it didn't happen. I need a biking buddy, it's just too boring on my own. Hopefully I'll get some motivation to either bike or swim tomorrow. For some reason I just don't feel like I get as good of a work out when I do these two sports, even though they are both incredibly hard.

I am all over the place tonight (so much for being a writer) but I was craving pizza again after my creation last week. I used basically the same ingredients (tomato sauce, summer squash, zucchini, mushrooms and black beans), but this time I decided to use Panera Sour Dough bread instead of pizza crust, yum.
Delicious. Probably going to be lunch or dinner for the next few days :)

I need a new book...

I am absolutely exhausted today and I don't know if it's because I am fighting whatever illness has kept half of my work out this week or if the kindergartners are just pushing me over the edge...probably both. I am so ready for this year to be over! I can't handle the immaturity anymore. I was literally about two seconds away from searching for a new job (yeah right, like I could find anything in this economy) when I did have something sweet happen that made me (SORT OF) remember the "perks" of my job. We have this "Secret Reader" in my classroom where someone comes in to read to my class, but I don't tell them who. Today the Secret Reader was the mom of one of my students. Her daughter just learned to speak English this year, but she does not know it well (and by that I mean she is still WAY better than I ever was at Spanish after 8 years of class so I'm still impressed...). She came in today and brought a book with her. Apparently it was a traditional Korean tale about a wood cutter and it has a moral about the importance of telling the truth (which a few of my kids could use to learn!). This was really exciting for my class because two other students are also from Korea and knew the story already. Anyway, the mom read the story and then she asked the kids a couple of questions about it. She also gave the kids little pencils she bought in Korea when she went to visit a few weeks ago. The kids were so exciting and her daughter was smiling ear to ear. When she left she told me she had been nervous for two weeks about this because she knows she is not great at speaking English. She kept telling me how her daughter really wanted her to come and she was really scared and didn't want to. I think she had rehearsed reading the story and asking the questions! This got me thinking about all that mom's do for their kids. How they are willing to do things every day they are scared of, just to make their kids happy. Of course, I was so uplifted about this for awhile until I realized that none of my bratty children will come close to appreciating all of these things but hey! That's not fair though because this woman in particular has a wonderful, appreciative daughter who I am sure will be excited about what her mom did for her for a long time to come :)
In other news, since I can't eat cheese (although at this point I eat ice cream and greek yogurt, so I should probably just start eating cheese too and see what happens), I haven't eaten pizza in almost two years. Today I finally decided to make my own pizza, inspired by Meghan. I took a pizza crust, put on tomato sauce, black beans, summer squash, mushrooms and zucchini.
It was actually delicious. Of course it's been so long since I ate real pizza, I may not have a lot to compare it to. I liked it though. I was thinking of putting mango on my next one to make it like Kelly's version of a Hawaiian pizza, but who knows if that would be gross. I was too scared to risk it this time around, but maybe next time.
I also went for a 30 minute bike ride today. I was proud of myself for getting off my butt when I am this exhausted, however I also realized I am the slowest biker alive. I really have to work on that. Training for a triathlon is weird because you only do each sport twice a week. It doesn't feel like enough to really improve in any of the sports. But it also seems impossible to do more than that. It's very strange.
Lastly, I finished my book last night- The Red Tent. It was really good, nothing like what I usually read (as mindless as possible), but it was much better than I expected. I need a new book, anyone have any recommendations?