Organization With a Side of Pineapple

So have I told you about Hawaiian pineapple yet? Yeah, the word amazing is not good enough. As my mom would say, it's like a new food. I mean, I like pineapple at home but I don't go out of my way to have it. In Hawaii obviously I didn't have to go out of my way to have it at all, but I would've if I had to.

The most amazing pineapple I had while in Hawaii was on the dolphin boat. I like it was partly the cool set up that made it taste so delicious. Or maybe it was the overall setting...

I also ate pineapple in my oatmeal every morning in Maui. The oatmeal was not the most impressive (you know, oatmeal cooked in bulk) but the pineapple and a small amount of coconut made up for it...

When I got home I wasn't quite ready to part with pineapple in my breakfast. Eric and I got pineapples for our moms and my mom shared enough that I was able to make pineapple oatmeal in my own kitchen. Yippee.

I don't have the beautiful sunlight in the second picture, but the oatmeal was better. Plus I added some chia seeds :)

Tell me, what do you think of pineapple? What is your favorite fruit? Is there any food you have had somewhere other than home that you are shocked at how good it is? This happens to me all the time when I travel (of course there are also times when I'm like, oh no...for example, never try to get a bagel in Australia, yuckkkk).

On another note, this week Eric and I have been in SERIOUS organization and productivity mode. Our house was a legit BOMB when we came back from our honeymoon (a very clean bomb, thanks to my mom, but bomb nonetheless). We had not organized anything in months and with presents filtering in, things were really piling up. Finally, we had the energy to tackle it all, starting with our first trip to IKEA (well I had been once before to get book boxes for my kids, but first married trip to IKEA for furniture haha). I kinda love the place, but I don't think Eric agrees. It was a bit of an adventure that's for sure...

Just a few boxes. We ended up getting a desk for me, a desk chair, a filing cabinet and a small table for the kitchen area that was supposed to hold our plants (but we are having some logistical issues with plants that need to be in the sun and a table/shelf that looks weird near the window haha). IKEA is fantastic but you absolutely have to assemble all of the stuff yourself and I wouldn't say they go out of their way to pack it in as few of pieces as possible.

Since I have no talent for assembly and Eric is the KING of it, he attacked all 4 of these pieces of furniture in about 24 hours. While he did that, I attempted to manage the hoarding room, oops I mean office. While I was at tutoring this morning Eric did some major filing into the the filing cabinet we bought.

I have a good filing system going in filing tubs, but I hadn't filed anything in a few months and Eric hadn't since we moved in so he had his work cut out for him while I was dealing with the kiddos this morning (one decided to sing his whole book today LOUDLY, still rather be there than organizing haha).

Also today Eric got my new desk set up. I am SO excited. I have been using the dining room table to do work since we moved in. I love it because I have a lot of space and tons of sunlight but my butt starts to hurt after awhile, especially when I find myself working on report cards all day long. I think this will work better...

Consider that the "Before" picture. The highlight of my life every September during college was getting to redecorate my desk area. I will be enjoying that in the next couple of days.

While I vacuumed up our massive assembly/cleaning mess, Eric did some picture hanging. Two of my favorite things right now are our starfish that Katie gave out at our rehearsal dinner which are now hanging in our dining room...

We also hung up a painting that one of my former student's mom painted for me. and Eric. I talked about her last year when her daughter was in my class. She is a very talented and truly great mom, and her daughter is one of the sweetest and smartest kids I've ever had. She knew not a word of English when she came into my class and she was released from English Language classes after only about 4 months (only kid I ever let them release haha).

This family is from Korea (in fact they moved back earlier this summer...sad) and in Korea the wedding ducks symbolize a long and happy marriage. Awesome, huh? Also in learning more about the ducks, I learned that there are only about 300 last name's in Korea (no wonder I have so many unrelated kids with the same last name this year!) AND that women do not change their last name when they marry in Korea. Yay for them!

So yeah... organization to the max. You know what weddings + organization equals?

Our basement right now. Haha. Don't worry, it will be back to normal again after recycle + trash day on Monday, assuming it all fits in the driveway.

My current goal is to have my house + car 100% organized by the time school starts. Do you think it's too much to ask that my classroom would be too? Hmm...better get back to the productivity then.

Princess Consuela Bananahammock

So hi. Just wanted to let you guys know I am alive. Haha, j/k Melissa :) I'm really going to blog right now...

Yesterday I went to the Cape Cod RMV to change my name. I had hope that it wouldn't be as crazy as the ones near Boston but I was wrong, it was still crazy. However, it did come with some funny stories. The best was when the guy who worked there was calling people up to take their road tests. He calls one guy, let's call him Joe Smith.

RMV guy: Joe Smith? Joe Smith?

Joe Smith: right here

RMV guy: Oh! YOU again!?

Lol. What do you have to do to be THAT guy?

As for my name change, it went relatively smoothly. Apparently they couldn't put a space in between my two middle names, so its Kelly MiddleNameOldLastName with no space. I referred to myself as this for the rest of the day.

Today after tutoring I went to the bank to change my name on my accounts. I learned that it is totally acceptable to take all my money in my joint account and run without Eric's consent, but if I want to change my name, he has to sign something. Logic? No.

On another note, I love kids. Please remind me of this again in a month when I'm drowning in another September of teaching kindergarten kids how to walk in line, sit on the carpet and give half a crap about someone other than themselves. Who am I kidding? Kindergarten kids are very concerned about others when they are crying and demanding attention in the middle of my lesson. Awesome.

Today I love kids because the kids I am tutoring this summer are just awesome. Love them all. Also I received a wedding gift last week from my friend's daughters. I should first mention that these two girls are by far the cutest girls that walk the planet. I'd show you a picture but I don't know what kind of creeps read this blog. Any creeps out there? Try to picture two blond, curly haired, gorgeous girls in your mind. Got it? good. They made me and Eric ice cream bowls in our favorite colors...

I know it seems like nothing could get better than ice cream bowls. But what if I told you that my ice cream bowl said, "Ms. OldLastName" and Eric's said, "Mr. MYOldLastName" hehe, cuz thats what they wanted it to say. Little feminists in training. I love it.

In honor of it being 1 month since my wedding...

I'll catch up with you guys tomorrow, I have lots of food pictures for you.

In Praise of Facebook

Good morning! Thanks for all of your comments in regard to my name change dilemma. Eric and I have decided that it is this year's version of the August Breakdown (which is basically my stress breakdown before school starts again every year- it always manifests itself in different ways). Still don't know what I'm going to do about it yet, but my current plan is to keep old last name at work for now (already told a class of 20 children including 3 children with autism, not a good idea to switch that up I don't think) and see if it annoys someone with authority enough to let me change my network name/e-mail back. Yes, I am not going down without a fight.

ANYWAY, I had some great pictures to post for you this morning of delicious Hawaiian pineapple oatmeal but I am at the Cape and left my camera cord at home so... we'll have to wait until Monday for that. Instead, let's discuss Facebook. Have you ever noticed that people tend to have very strong opinions about Facebook? Particularly if they don't have it and refuse to get it?

Source

I remember when I first got facebook (over 6 years ago now!) I didn't really get the point of it. Some days...when someone has posted a ridiculous status message that I don't want to know about, I still wonder that. But overall, I'd say I'm a lover of facebook. I love that it is a quick way to say hi to someone or ask them a quick question without necessarily knowing their e-mail address. I love that I can see pictures of the party I was at on Saturday without someone having to send each individual picture out. I love that it is a quick way to invite people to something, or in Eric and my case a quick way to get all of our friend's addresses for wedding invites.

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The biggest argument I hear against facebook is that it is an invasion of privacy. People say they talk to everyone they want to talk to and everyone else does not need to know anything about them. To this I say, #1- you choose what to put on facebook. You could put absolutely no information but your name on facebook if you want. I made myself completely unsearchable so that I don't have student's parents trying to friend me (I also keep nothing on facebook that would be a big deal if they did find me!). #2- Do you really talk to everyone you want to talk to? I mean truly? Maybe I just like more people than the average person but I barely have time to talk to my close group of friends on a regular basis. There are people that I went to school with from age 5 to 18 and I like them, I care about them, but I simply don't have time to stay close with every friend I've ever had.

I find this is particularly the case with guy friends I have had over the years, especially those that were attached to my old boyfriends or my friends old boyfriends. We had a blast hanging out for years, we have tons of hilarious stories and memories. But, unfortunately gone are the days of drinking on Tuesday nights (usually) and we don't have as many mutual friends anymore, and maybe someone moved away, etc etc etc. I wouldn't really say we are truly friends anymore. But we were, and so therefore I care what happens to them. I want to know when they get married, and see pictures. I'm curious if they got a great new job that they are really excited about, or graduated from med school. It's not that I want to know so I can gossip with Sarah (okay FINE, we do sometimes gossip about high school people), but also because once upon a time they made sure to include me in their crazy get togethers, and once upon a time I worried if they would get home from the party okay, and it's not that I don't care about them now, it's just that there are not enough hours in the day for all the people I care about now. So that's why I love facebook. It's an easy way to stay "in touch" (aka somewhat aware of) a large group of people.

What are your thoughts on Facebook? Do you have it? If not, why do you not have it? (and by the way, there are awesome reasons out there for not having it, I'm just saying I like it for me)

No More Strawberry Popsicles

Enter 5 year old Kelly.

I am upset, very upset. It's over something really stupid and I know that but I'm still very upset. I have cried about it, more than once. Yes, I know I have issues.

You may remember my brilliant compromise as noted in "The Best of Both Worlds" post as far as my name-change was concerned: change it in life, but not at work.

Perfect, right? I thought so. But it turns out I was wrong. Quite wrong. It is not perfect. Because unfortunately, work is how I make money, and it's also how I receive benefits. My paycheck must match the name on my bank account, and my benefits must match my name on my license. That's okay, I'll just change my name in the office, but not have the kids call me a new name, or any of the people I actually work with (I don't work with the paperwork department anyways).

However today I learned it's a bit more complicated than that. The district only wants me to have one name in their system, which means my network name which was previously "koldlastname", will have to become "knewlastname". Unfortunately, this also means my e-mail address, so parents and work friends that call me "Ms. Old Last Name" will have to e-mail me at knewlastname. Extremely confusing? yes.

I know what you are thinking... because everyone has already said it to me already. JUST CHANGE IT YOU STUPID FIVE YEAR OLD (okay no one has said it like that, except maybe Eric with his eyes). In fact, someone even told me (on a teacher chatboard when I asked what others have done) that everyone she knows who has resisted the name change ended up divorced in a few years. Awesome.

But since I'm acting like a 5 year old right now, I don't care what you think. I know that tons of women change their names every day and don't bat an eyelash. Unfortunately I am not them. I want to have the same name as my kids and as Eric. But this compromise was my one little form of rebellion. It was my one place where I get to stay me without any hassles. And now it's not. And since I'm 5 (or maybe 7?) I am upset.

And I already sent out my letters as "Ms. Old Last Name"

And I don't want my e-mail to change, we don't have forwarding... what if one of my old kids wants to find me?

And my name is the same as the school, which is fun.

And my Dad's whole family grew up in the town I teach in and I like meeting their old friends.

And I am out of strawberry popsicles to make me feel better.

So I'll just go cry instead. Cuz I'm five, so I can.

My Body CAN...

You may have noticed I don't talk about body image a lot on this blog. It's not because I don't think it's important, but in my life I've been lucky to have pretty good image of my body. That's not to say I don't ever participate in fat talk, but in reality, I have never thought I was fat (unless I was... which is another story).

I think part of it is just how we are wired (as you can read about on Ashley's blog), but part of it is that I just mentally choose to focus on other things. Really, in the scheme of life does it matter if I will never (and I mean never) have a six pack? Will I be a bad teacher because I am not 10 pounds lighter? Or a bad wife or a bad friend? Nope. Those are my priorities and so I choose to think about things that will make me a better teacher, wife or friend like being healthy and active. I choose to focus on what my body CAN do, not what it can't.

So today, in honor of Caitlin's "Change the Way You See, Not the Way You Look" week, I will tell you what my body CAN do.

My body can...

Play...

Teach...

Bike over the Golden Gate Bridge...

Raft...

Jump...

Finish a sprint triathlon...

Cheer...

Run...

Dance...

Ice skate...

Play golf (even if my mind doesn't love it)...

Hike...

Write...

Celebrate...

Love...

What are 5 great things YOUR body can do?

Let's Get To It

I would say that in general, I dislike Mondays. However, today was a productive day that began with a beautiful night of sleep. Very necessary. My biggest accomplishment of the day was changing my name at the social security office. I had to wait an hour and a half to get through the 10 people in front of me (yeah it's not the most efficient place), and I got the pleasure of hearing more than one person yelling at the people who work there (for things that are very clearly out of their control). Remind me not to quit teaching to work at the social security office. Now I have to wait 48 hours to change my license so it can get in the system, so that delays that. What a terrible process. Why is their not a creative and smart woman out their simplifying this process with some kind of computer program?

So, ready for my exciting announcement?

Eric and I are going to run a 5K!!!!

Yup, you read that right, I am going to run again!!!!! For new readers, I had to stop running over a year ago because I had patella tendonitis in my left knee. It has continued to hurt whenever I run for the past year so I have tried basically every other possible work out instead. However, lately it seems to be a lot better and I think it's time to start running again. Eric even agreed to do it with me, which is also amazing since his feelings about running are... it sucks haha.

The 5K we are going to run will be at my alma mater, Boston College and it's called the Red Bandanna Run. This run is special for a couple of reasons. #1- it is the run that Caroline did last year for her first 5k! and she'll be doing it with me too! (though by with me I mean like 5 minutes ahead of me haha). #2- it's at BC, yay! #3- this race is in honor of a BC alum named Welles Crowther. He worked in the South Tower of the World Trader Center on September 11th. In addition to his job, he was also a trained firefighter, which came in handy that day as Welles selflessly lead a rescue effort on floors higher up than the official rescue workers were able to reach. He lost his own life that day, but saved many others and was identified by the red bandanna that he used to block smoke and debris from his mouth and nose. If you are interested in his whole story, it's available here. Obviously an amazing, amazing person.

Eric and I will be following my own version of the Couch to 5K training plan, which I used to train for my first 5K last May. I had to make some changes this time around because we don't have as much time, but I think it will be okay since neither of us is quite "on the couch" so to speak :) You can view our training plan here, which includes 3 runs a week starting with alternating timed run and walking, and leads us to running specific distances including 3 miles the weekend before the official 5K. I actually think I could likely run at least 2 miles right now without stopping, but I really want to start slow and hopefully keep my knee happy in the process.

Today was our first official training. We'll be doing ALL training on the treadmill or the cork track, another strategy to satisfy the knee. Today we did a track day so we could run together. We started with a ton of foam rolling (well I did, don't think I've sold Eric on the foam roller yet) and some stretching.







Then we started the walk/run alternation. Today our plan was to do 90 seconds of jogging, followed by 2 minutes of running. It ended up being about a half a lap (lap = 1/4 of a mile) of walking, half of a lap of running. I love the walk/run alternation because the time went by SO fast, before I knew it 30 minutes was over.



When I got home, I stretched and foam rolled again (yup I'm going to be a little psycho this time around) and then iced the knee. So far, no pain... though I did feel it slightly when I was running, but I think it will be okay.

Tonight I'm on a thank you note mission. We got our first batch of thank you notes in the mail today, they came out awesome...



Our second batch is going to have our rainbow picture from my amazing photographer (seriously amazing- if you need a wedding photographer around here, talk to her)...



See the double rainbow in the background? Very awesome. At least having cute thank you notes will make me more excited about writing them. Okay, it's back to productivity for me...

What was the most productive thing you did today?
Do you like training for races? What is the best race you've ever ran (or biked, swam etc)?

So It's August...

Hello and Happy August. Um..AUGUST? Can someone please tell me where July went? I feel like July was 3 seconds long. It was, second 1: July 4th weekend, second 2: wedding, second 3: honeymoon. Over. August is going to be one giant catch up on life because school starts for teachers the last day of the month. Hopefully I'll be ready by then.

So this weekend as I mentioned, Eric and I headed up to NH with Eric's family. It was a little crazy getting home the day earlier, but the whole family was going up so we had to rally and go. Life = one big rally.

Friday night we celebrated Eric's brother Mike's birthday with one of the famous family cakes...



and obviously the Captain Zoom birthday song, cuz what's a birthday without it?

On Saturday we took the boat out to a place called Loon Sanctuary where you can swim around and stand on rocks...





Apparently it's a family thing to enjoy swimming under the boats (when they are turned off obviously) so I had to participate in that.



I can swim for awhile, but holding my breath, boy do I suck at that.

The boys then did some crazy flips off the boat. In case you haven't noticed, Eric comes from a family of acrobats.





and drinkers...



haha.

I love this picture of Josh and Erin. Like me, she's always cold and everyone in Eric's family is always hot haha.



On Saturday night we had a nice fire going outside.







Great weekend, and what's even greater will be my own bed tonight. I'm hoping I can fall asleep before 2:30am!

Don't forget that tomorrow I have a fun announcement, key word being "fun". I know I just got married so "announcement" = pregnancy, but since you all know me so well you know that if I was pregnant now, it would not be fun at all haha, ask me again in 5 years.

How was your weekend? What was your high and low of your weekend?