Seven Traits!

I was tagged by Anais to list seven traits about myself and then pass it on to 7 bloggers.

I am passing it on to:

Jenny

Sarah

Lindsay

KT

Gina

Mia

Marlene

And anyone else who feels like doing it :)

Seven Traits About Kelly

1. I have to steal from Anais, but I definitely have an obsessive personality. This is best demonstrated in my obsession with online message boards. When I first started teaching I will obsessed with teachers.net, when my stomach starting bothering me I read boards about that, now I read wedding boards- haha. I am the same way with food, I eat more Cheerios, yogurt, almond butter, oatmeal and potatoes than the average person.

2. I can be very impatient. For example, if I hear about a book that is really good, I will go out RIGHT now and get it! When I have an idea, I want to implement it immediately. I try to wait, but I usually don't.

3. I am the opposite of procrastinator. Maybe it goes along with #2, but I want everything done and far in advance. This sounds like a good quality but sometimes it is really overwhelming when I am thinking about things that need to be done in 2 months, along with things that need to be done this week.

4. I love hand bags. At my parents house I used to have an entire closet basically dedicated to them. I've toned it down a bit, but I still like to get a new one every few months. Recently I have taken to borrowing them from my sister which is a great money saver since I'll obviously get sick of it soon and want a new one.

5. I'm a morning person. I love waking up early, getting a lot done and then being impressed with myself with all that I can accomplish before noon. This does not apply on weekdays when I have to wake up ridiculously early to go to work, then I don't love it- I just tolerate it.

6. I'm a townie in the same town I grew up in (never thought that would happen but here I am) but I justify it by being a travel freak. I love trips. I especially love planning them, but I also like going on them. I have to force myself to save money for anything other than trips.

7. I have a short attention span. I don't like to do anything for longer than 45 minutes to an hour at the most. This is why I really do not like movies very much (too long) and this is exactly the reason that I hate golf! I think the reason why I want to do a triathlon is because I like the idea of three different sports all in one. Teaching kindergarten also allows me to "switch gears" every 20 minutes or so. I'll do most anything for 45 minutes, but I'll do almost nothing for longer than that.

That's all for now. Looking forward to hearing your traits if you do it.

Pink Ice Cream and Honeymoon Plans

I'm getting back in the blogging grove, yay!
I took a trip to a famous ice cream spot in Cape Cod called Four Seas (anyone been there?). It's basically walking distance from my house but I tend to avoid it because it's always crazy. However, so many places have closed or stopped carrying good flavors so I tried it out the other day. I think I'll be going often because I was having a craving for mint chocolate chip and BAM it was pink! Obviously this made me love the delicious ice cream even more.
I will probably be going back here today on my way home. I am not going to leave anytime soon though because last I checked there was a 10 mile back up at the bridge. I have to work tomorrow obviously so eventually I have to go, but no time soon :)
I visited the Cape Cod YMCA this afternoon to do some swimming. It's a brand new facility and the pool is beautiful, however it drives me nuts that it does not open until 12 on a Sunday. No one works out before TWELVE? C'mon! I'm a morning person I like to get it done. However, today I had a great time there. I got my own lane and then a lady asked me to share. I was overly nice about letting her because I hate when people are mean to me (and I could care less if someone is in my lane). She said she'd try really hard not to bump me and I said it's okay if you do because I am doing a sprint tri next week and I need to get used to swimming with a lot of people. At this point, she told me that she was registrered for a sprint triathlon this summer but chickened out and couldn't do it. We got in a whole conversation about how she was nervous about the running part and she didn't want to finish last because she is walking (which is probably going to be me, but if I finish last at least I can blame it on my knee injury). I recommended the Couch to 5K plan to her and she said she was going to try it. She was so excited and ready to start entering herself in a bunch of sprint triathlons. I'm really glad I can convince people to do things I myself have not actually done yet, oh boy! I did a nice 30 laps, which is about 8 laps more than I will have to swim next week but I figured I should do some extra because obviously the ocean will be even harder. I'm counting on adrenaline to get me through the waves!

My other goal of this week besides finishing up training is figuring out where Eric and I should go on our honeymoon. We really want to do a honeymoon registry where people can get us parts of our honeymoon as presents so we need to figure out where we are going! I know some people find this tacky, but I decided to get over it because we already have a lot of stuff that we need and we love to travel. Besides, I wish my friends were doing this, I would love to buy them fun honeymoon stuff. We are debating between Italy, Hawaii and Australia, totally random I know. Here is my Pros and Cons list for all three. Usually when I explain to people how much trouble we are having deciding where to go they ask me what I want out of my honeymoon. So here it goes:
We want: gorgeous weather, a great mix of fun and relaxation, clean hotels, delicious food, and beautiful beaches :)

What do you guys think?

Italy (probably the Amalfi Coast, Rome, maybe Tuscany if time/budget allows)
(Me + Eric in Venice, July 2006)
Pros:
• Beautiful
• Culture
• Delicious food (and usually not that expensive either)
• Quick plane ride (compared to other options)
• Lots to see and do

Cons:
• We have both been to Italy before, together- only Rome and Venice though
• Different language (normally fine, but if we are already exhausted from a wedding it may just add stress)
• Food will most likely bother my stomach
• Euro is not going to help us out
• Will be very hot

Hawaii
(Random pic of Hawaii, since I've never been there!)
Pros:
• Beautiful
• Polynesian culture
• Lots of Japanese food and seafood both of which my tummy likes
• Many fun activities to do- scuba diving, helicopter rides, volcano etc

Cons:
• Expensive
• Long plane ride
• I can’t decide between all of the islands! Also I have a fear that the islands will be similar to the many Carribean Islands I have been to)


Australia (probably Sydney, Whitsunday Islands, Darwin…maybe some other places, possibly a stop in Fiji along the way)
(Me + my Australian BFF, don't mind the fact that I clearly gained a thousand pounds during my study abroad experience, December 2004)

Pros:
• One of my favorite places in the world (I studied abroad there)
• Can do a lot of different things within one country- beach, water activities (scuba etc), and more touristy/city things
• Money is still a little in our favor
• One of those places you can really only go to if you have a lot of time, which we will next summer- may be once in a lifetime type of thing

Cons:
• REALLY long plane ride
• It will be winter there next July (northern Australia should be okay, but Sydney will be cool)
• I have been there before, but Eric has not

Would love to hear everyone's opinions. I know I need to just make a decision because obviously I cannot go wrong all 3 places.

Open Water Attempt

It's finally like a normal Massachusetts summer and I am back in triathlon training mode. I got down the Cape yesterday and found a new way to enjoy PT exercises. Or should I say for the first time I actually didn't mind doing them. Here we go leg lifts on a beach towel!
The strap around my knee is my new best friend the knee strap that holds my pataella in place. I also have my nice five pound weights around my ankle. You can see them even better in this picture:
Haha, it totally looks like I am leading one of those crazy work out videos or something. Oh well it prepared me well for my triathlon training today.

This morning my mom and I went down to look at some bridesmaid dresses and they even forced me to try on a wedding gown. I really do NOT like wedding gowns. #1- I am not a fan of white, but I really don't like when people don't wear white because then I have no idea who the bride is haha. #2- I also am not a huge fan of long dresses, especially not ridiculously heavy ones. #3- I am going to have to pee during my wedding and I really don't know how that is going to work with these massive dresses on. I did enjoy trying on bridesmaid dresses though. Alfred Angelo has this AWESOME fushia color that I love. Of course the sample dress was eggplant, but I could see the fushia and I swear I am going to be wanting to wear my own bridesmaid dress if I end up ordering them. I'll give someone else the bridal gown, any takers?

Anyway, after the "fun" of dress trying I went to the beach to try my first open water swim. I know it looks beautiful but looks can be deceiving.

Well also, this picture was from a few weeks ago when the water was calm and beautiful. Today it was beautiful, but not calm. My mom even commented on how she hasn't seen it this rough in a long time. GREAT day for my first open water swim. I should start by saying I am a little afraid of the ocean. I love it and I've been scuba diving before, but I do have a small fear of it. Not really of big issues like sharks or rip tides, but more like jelly fish and other smaller issues. I rarely swim at the Cape because normally there is a nice breeze and I'm not that hot. But I forced myself to get in (and Eric was a fantastic sport and came in with me). It was a little chilly but I got used to it. I started swimming and the water was going in my goggles and my mouth and I started to panic and tell Eric FORGET IT I CAN'T DO IT! Fortunately, he is a calm (normal) person and talked me down from my minor panic attack. I kept trying to convince myself that next week was not going to be so rough and he was like "WHAT IF IT'S ROUGHER? NOW SWIM!" So I fixed my goggles, stopped trying to swim INTO the waves (which I do realize may not be an option next week) and things got better. I still doubt I came close to swim 1/3 of a mile but I got over the mental obstacle so that is what is important.

The second thing I did today was go for a walk/run. It was 3.32 miles total, and I ran about 1.7 miles of it. My knee seems to be okay with it AND I am happy that I was able to run 1.7 miles without any running for over a month. I know that doesn't sound like much but I could not even run 1.7 miles in February of this year so I thought I'd be back to my pre-running self with all this running rest. Apparently not though. I could've gone farther also but I did not want to push the knee, so I am happy. Hopefully I'll have some more productive triathlon training (with no over doing it!) this week and be ready for next Sunday. I hope everyone is having great weather and enjoying the weekend!

Mango Madness

Hi everyone. I know I'm slacking on the blog posting, but my summer job has been tough and having a little bit of extra time has made me feel like I need to be incredibly productive in all areas of life. So now I think I have a lot less time (funny how that works).

One of the only benefits of being diagnosed with IBS a little over two years ago was that it has gotten me into a lot of new foods. One of these foods is mango. It's not something I really ever thought about before, but it is one of the only fruits that has a lot of soluble fiber (the fiber my tummy likes) and so I began trying to eat it. I quickly found out that fresh mango was not for me. It was really tough to peel/cut and I read somewhere that the skin was poison which freaked me out (no idea if this is actually true of course). So I have been buying frozen mango at Trader Joe's for the past year. At first I was not quite sure how to use it, so I just mixed it with yogurt and enjoyed it. That was good, but then I started to be a bit more creative. I made a fantastic lunch mixture of rice, quinoa, black beans, carrots and mango. As per usual, I decided to eat that every day until I got sick of it. The past two nights I have tried some dinner with mango and here are the first results:

Fillet of sole, baked with mango slices on top...yum! Here is my whole dinner including baked potato fries and some carrots (also an excellent source of soluble fiber).

The next day I had some leftover sole, so I decided to mix it with more mango and some quinoa. I didn't even need any sauce, the mango added delicious sweetness, yum.

If you have never had mango, or haven't had it in awhile- give it a try. You'd be surprised by all the places you'll find to put it. I also make delicious smoothies with mango and banana, but I ran out of bananas so I haven't had one in a few days.

On a different note, I have continued to train for the triathlon in a low key sort of way. I know I said I am not going to do it, but I actually probably am- just very slowly and carefully. I am at the point now where I no longer mind if I am last, because it probably means I was taking good care of my knee. I think I'll be in a better place to take a long rest and deal with my knee after I complete this goal for myself. Given the fact that I ran on my knee for almost a month before I went to the doctor, I think running one more time will not kill it. Plus I am most likely going to walk the whole time since I haven't actually run in over a month now and I am not one of those people who can just bust out 3 miles without any training. So today I did 22 laps in the pool and an 8 mile bike ride. I'm going to continue to take it easy but also make sure I get some quality pool time in. I'm sure I'm going to regret not doing an open water swim before the tri, but I'm going to tell everyone to keep a CLOSE eye on me in the water to watch for drowning. Haha...not funny though. Tomorrow is Friday, yay!!!

Lake Sunapee

Whew! I am finally back. Did everyone have a great 4th of July? (if you celebrate it of course).
I had a fabulous long weekend.

I went up to my family's place at Lake Sunapee. The story behind this place in short: my Dad's family had a summer house on Lake Sunapee in NH when he was younger. However, when the 8 children in his family grew up, one house was not quite big enough for all of them. Right before I was born, they decided to buy a bunch of small cottages so we could all be up at the same time. I am so happy they did, because it meant that I basically grew up with all my cousins in the summer and since there are 21 of us, that never could've happened in 1 house! You can sort of see our "complex" in the background of this picture of me and Eric.
A huge chunk of my childhood memories were made here and one of the biggest is the 4th of July parade. As a kid, me and my cousins would dress up in crazy red, white and blue clothes and ride in my grandfather's convertible or my uncle's truck. We dressed up like Betsy Ross some years, and others we were Miss Americas and there were always lots of red, white and blue hats, bathing suits and anything else we could get our hands on. Since I have not been up to Sunapee for the past few 4th of July's I decided to wake up early to see the second generation of cousins (as I like to call them, really they are just my cousins but 15-20 years younger than me) march in the parade. Here is a picture of their awesome costumes:
And a picture of all of us (and by all of us I don't mean all of my cousins, just the ones who were willing to get up early enough to watch this haha) with my grandmother:
Just for fun, here is a picture of me and my cousins when we were little, still at Sunapee. This picture is NINETEEN years old...
In case you couldn't tell by the insane curly hair, that would be me in the front left- with my cousins Kristen, Brian, Kate and my aunt Kim :)

Now that I am home, I have to get back to torturing children- oh sorry, I mean helping them learn to read. I had a second evaluation last night at PT, and she said I have gotten a lot stronger and more flexible, yay! Except it still has not helped my knee feel any better, but hopefully it eventually will. I'll keep you posted.

Maybe?

Hi everyone. I know I already posted earlier today but I am back again because this weekend I’ll be going to my family’s house in New Hampshire where there is NO internet (yes, I will probably die and then somehow go to the library and find internet haha). I just wanted to post a few updates before I go.

Today I was tutoring a little boy I work with and he told me he had some test results for me in his back pack which was up the hill. I told him we’d finish a little early and I’d walk to his next class with him so he could give me the papers. After walking up a pretty minor hill, my knee was killing me again. That’s when I knew I really cannot do this triathlon. I’m very sad about it, but I really have no idea what is wrong with my knee. PT isn’t helping, resting isn’t helping, Advil isn’t helping, stretching and foam rolling aren’t helping. My PT is going to do a full reevaluation with me next week and then I am probably going back to my primary care doctor for a referral. I already made an appointment with an orthopedist but the first opening he had was for September, so I’m going to see if my doctor can get me in somewhere earlier. I just hope I do not need surgery, because I honestly do not think I could do it until December unless I got it in before school starts again in August. I know I have to do what’s best for me, but I can’t even write sub plans for as long as I might be out of commission. Plus I can’t imagine teaching with crutches! Hopefully it still is pataellafemoral and just really STUBBORN and that’s why it won’t go away. Maybe?

So, even though I cannot do the triathlon right now, I still hope to be able to do the Hyannis one in September, or at least train for some other race. I will continue to make the focus of this blog on fitness and healthy food, even if I am not specifically training for a race until the knee improves. I am not going to officially give up my spot in the triathlon until early next week so maybe a MIRACLE will occur over the weekend. Maybe?

Also on the note of surgery, one of my friends from work is having surgery this summer that she will be recovering from for 6 to 8 weeks. One of her friends is putting together a care package of stuff to do during that time and I want to contribute some items. Does anyone have any ideas?

I hope everyone has a great 4^th of July weekend (or celebrates a late Canada Day for the Canadian readers!). Hopefully the Boston weather will stop being the WORST ever! Maybe?

Would You Work for Free?

I am officially sick of having a hurting knee and I want to RUN!!!!!!!!

While we are on the topic of things that I want, I also want it to stop raining and be summer!!!!

Okay, that's enough exclamation points for one post. Yesterday I was a great triathlon training girl, I swam in the morning and went on a bike ride with Ash in the afternoon. Yes, I would bike much more often if Ash lived near me. But I took her to the airport last night so no more Ash and Kel bike rides for awhile. Luckily I still have my sis to bike with me, because I basically have not biked alone in weeks and I'm pretty sure I have no motivation to do it.

Today I did not do any training because I had a crazy busy day with the kiddos. I did have PT though. One of the only things I like about PT (besides the fact that I do feel like I am building my leg muscles, which is nice) is that I now actually watch the news at night because it is on there. Today a very interesting story came up about one strategy that a failing school in Washington DC is using to try to help their students. They are paying their students for good behavior and good grades. WOW!!! As a teacher, I was IMMEDIATELY interested. But actually, anyone who is a parent, might become a parent, or cares about society at all should be interested.

At first thought the idea sounds CRAZY. We are going to pay kids to do what they are supposed to be doing? If you think about it though, I would not work for free- and yet we expect kids to do it all the time. If money was no factor to me, I would still do something productive with my day- maybe work part time or volunteer- but I would definitely not work the kind of crazy days I have now, and yet when I was a teenager my life was probably equally insane and I was receiving no extrinsic rewards at all.

This also brings up the moral question of whether or not you believe in giving children rewards at all or whether you believe kids should do the right thing because it's the right thing. Ideally, of course, kids would do the right thing because it's the right thing. But what if they don't? Here is how I see this:

Pros to Paying Kids: The fact of the matter is, there really are not a lot of rewards or consequences for kids right now. Usually when a child is incredibly rude and does something bad in my classroom I will inform the parents. Although the parents often claim to be shocked by their child's behavior, they also often blame other children in the class, the situation or some other external factor other than the child simply being rude. On top of that, most of these kids treat their parents the same way. Most parents do not want their child to be punished at school and there are only so many options about what to do anyways, particularly with older kids. If we had a reward that would really get kids motivated, it would benefit all students because most kids would be more motivated and therefore there would be less behavior problems that affect all children. Plus, this is being implemented right now at a very low performing school. Perhaps if we pay those kids, they could gain motivation and lead truly successful lives. The fact is, where you end up in life has a lot to do with choices you make at a very young age. Hopefully, your parents make many of those decisions for you, but of course in a lot of cases that does not happen.

Cons to Paying Kids: I think the major con here is what kind of society we are promoting and what we are teaching children if we begin paying them for doing the right thing at a young age. I also wonder if kids who already have all they need would not be motivated by this at all since young kids don't normally have a lot of bills to pay.

Overall, even though my pro list LOOKS longer, I think it's probably not a good long term solution for kids. What do you guys think?