Got Stress?!?

How do you de-stress at the end of the day? 

As of late I definitely have been feeling stressed.  We are moving on September 28, not too far from where we are, but we have a lot to do before then, arrangements to make, boxes to pack....I am super excited though.  Only 17 more days and we will officially be home owners.  Feel free to send housewarming gifts:-), we also take cash!

Tonight was Back to School Night, for teachers that is one of the least favorite days of the year.  I got to school at 6:40 and just got home at 7:40 so I was at work for 13 hours. I know, some of you work more than that. I, however am not used to it at all.  

So tonight I am having a nice slice of Dairy Queen oreo cookie ice cream cake.  

I'd also really like a glass of wine, but we don't have any bottles currently. I guess I could run across the street, but I'm just too tired and I am already in my pjs. I'd post a picture, but you would all be too jealous of the look I am sporting right now.  

I think food is one of my favorite de-stressers...I also enjoy running, but after putting in a 13 hour day I'm beat.  I'm also a little worried about my half marathon on Sunday....eeeek, so not ready. If I was going to run a 10k like I am at the end of October I would be set.  Let's just hope we have beautiful weather.  The last few days have been truly "Fall" weather.  

Can't wait for this to happen!

It's hard to believe that tomorrow is only Wed, just gotta push through.  Happy Hump Day a day early!

Duck Butts

My body is tired....which was evident in my run today.

After getting up at 5:15 all week and working with new first graders and planning and trying to work out kinks I am tired.  Plus I had to work at my other part-time job last night which was tiring too.  However, on that note I did make it through the first week of school.  

I overslept this morning which totally threw me off.  I am just lucky that I woke up. Crisis averted, sort of.

My run on Tuesday was great, but that was only two days into the week.  Add three days later and phew body knows it.  It's 9:30 on a Friday and I will most likely be going to bed in a half hour and I won't complain.  Bed will feel A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! 

Ideally I would love to sleep here, but I guess I will settle for ours.

So my run, I managed to get in 5 miles. I had meant to do 6 but then decided to cut it to 4, but when all was said and done it ended up being 5.  It was also pretty warm/humid today....not my favorite type of weather.

The fun part is I get to do lots of people watching thanks to all the tourists.  People are also quite fascinated with our squirrels.  They are overly friendly and overly fed I believe.  So just making that like clicking sound really calls them over. As you can see by my picture.  It's kinda scary how close they will get though.  The tourists love it though and I find it quite amusing as well.  

I also ran past a bunch of ducks in the pool in front of the Capitol.  I like ducks. Not as much as my SIL, but they are super cute.  I had to take a picture of their cute little duck butts bobbing in the water, hence the post title.  

I hope you didn't get too excited over the title- or wonder what kind of duck smut I was talking about.

Hope you have a wonderful and restful weekend!

Tired Thursday

Well, it's Thursday, so you know what that means.....

As school is coming to a close, so should my energy and yet I keep finding just a little extra here and there.  

Monday afternoon we had a surprise wedding and baby shower for some co-workers.  I had the job of "secretly" setting it up.  The hard part was that my teammate was one of the "surprised" and of course she's also on the social committee so she wanted to set up for the wedding shower. Kinda crazy- luckily I have some pretty fabulous children who helped me. 

Tuesday: End of the year staff meeting.

Wednesday: Retirement party for two colleagues and tearing apart my room. Thankfully I have many hands who want to help.  So I let the kids do centers while I throw stuff out and pack stuff away and wipe tons of dust off of things haven't been used. 
Made panda cupcakes for all of my students- therefore was up until waay past my bedtime

Thursday, today, we had our end of the year pizza class party, school dance and I'm attempting to have my students put on some plays. And....for some reason the parents think it is going to be some BIG deal?! No, it's the end of the year, I'm trying to keep the kids busy and fluent and doing something they enjoy doing.  We won't be using a stage, no full costumes. Sorry parents.....I am a achiever, but not that huge at the end of the year.  

Tonight, finishing gifts for students, photos and cleaning up the house.

I am TRULY going to miss these kids. I loved my 17 boys and 10 girls.  While I may have had 3 or 4 children who some "issues," I still loved them.  I have been teaching for 7 years and while I've liked most of my classes, there have only been 2 that have really won my heart.   A fourth grade class and this year's class.  I would loop with them and I know they would love that and so would I.  However, I also love the team that I work on and I fear that if I loop I would never get back to my team again, so unfortunately I miss bid adieu, farewell, adios and au revoir to my babies. They've grown up so much.  I hope and pray that they won't become the menaces that were the 5th and 6th graders this year.  I fear for some of these lil ones.  

I guess I'm selfish, I don't wanna share them with anyway. LOL

Zooma Women's Half Marathon

Hobby of the Day: Running

Race: Zooma Women's Half Marathon in Annapolis, MD

[source]

Goal: Sub 2:19 (which was my last time, for my first ever 1/2)

Problem: Haven't trained as much as I should have...whomp whomp, might come back and bite me

Hoping: That my husband would be at the 10/11 mile marker to finish the race with me, if allowed....

Official Time 2:34 


Feelings: Sad and Disappointed, but pleased that I finished

Smiling before the Race

I am overly disappointed with my time.  I added 15 minutes to my time, instead of subtracting. No PR there.  I would have been happy if I had even taken off a minute.  Like I said, I did not train as regularly as I had before.  Gary wasn't running this race with me so I didn't have a training partner.  It really helped last time when we both trained together.  

Last time we drove the route we were running, but not this time so I didn't really know what to expect.  And.....Holy Hills Batman! I mean I thought that DC had some, and there was one long one, but Annapolis was like hill and then hill and then more hills. Ugh and of course they are right in the middle.  I know what I HAVE to work on now, hills.  


 



I had Gatorade on my refuel belt, but it ended up being too sweet for me and left me just wanting water. Funny thing is that I usually run with Gatorade.  I didn't have any sports beans or gels on me. I thought I would try swedish fish this time. I only was able to get down one, that was an epic fail, the vanilla GU that they handed out worked MUCH better! 




My friend Jenna and I had signed up to do this race and we had matching outfits, even though we both did poorly, at least we looked cute, HA. I would have rather looked gross and run better though.  We started off together, but we each gave the word that if one of us was faster to just go.  I just kept plodding along at my turtle like pace.  It was nice because our husbands weren't watching, so they ended up being at 5 places that we ran by.  Good sports waiting that long in the sun.  Truthfully we couldn't have had better weather.  
In the end I didn't ask Gary to run with me.  Having him cheer me on and support me was Wonderful!!

We ran over several bridges, past the Naval Academy, and then through a park, which was nice and shady, then looped back.  They had plenty of water stations and plenty of port-a-potties. Most of them never even had lines at them.  This race was no where near as big as some of the races I've run.  This one was mostly female. The last like .1 was over grass.  I was not a fan of that.  They really could have made it go over sidewalks/road, but instead I plodded over grass and then up a little hill to the end. I swear that all races end on an uphill, why is that?!

Still smiling after=survived.  

I thought we were going to be getting a medal, but we got a necklace instead. At first I was a little disappointed because I like having that medal, but then I realize, I don't wear it and we don't have room to display them, so the necklace was nice and different touch.  

Snow-balls, great idea! 

Girl Power!

 Barefoot Wine- cheers

So, even though I didn't get my PR, I am proud that I finished to the best of my ability.  My next half probably won't be until Sept. It seems that big races tapper off during the hot summer months and I'm not complaining. I'll look up some shorter ones maybe I can find something good and not too expensive. 
* If you know of anything, let me know!*

Tired Thursday

I think that I am pretty good about posting M-W, LOL, but midweek I hit a wall! It's my I'M TIRED wall.  I go hard at the beginning of the week, especially this one.  

I took over the job of Career Day at our school and still taught- I know people, BE AMAZED!  In the past it has been our guidance counselor who has done it, but she was assigned Testing Coordinator this year and therefore we really didn't have a guidance counselor. She needed to take a whole day off to create the schedule.  Thankfully, I can't leave anything least minute, that's not how I roll.  I am get it started waaay before it its due so that it doesn't come back to bite me in the butt. 

Here is a picture of my "organization" of the presenters schedules.  This is actually the teacher's schedules. Next year I will have one for the presenters.  I would have been more OCD if all the post-its really lined up and if I had had more colors.  Unfortunately we only had 5 colors in stock and I was not going to go out and spend more money.  I apparently need something like 15 colors of post-its. Does that even exist? 

Dear Post-it, 

If you have other fun colors will you please send me some for next years Career Day so that I can be even more organized?! 

Sincerely Avid-Post-it User!

What I loved was that I could move people around really easily, or just cover them up with another post-it. It worked for me, It might not for everyone. 

While I'm not really excited about trying to organize for next year, I am kinda excited to make up another schedule and re-wow my fellow co-workers......

Thank goodness for my fellow 1st grade team, without them I would have been in tears. They pitched in waaay BIG! Love them! 

Tiiiirrrreeddd

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you just feel run down, or run over?!

 Sometimes I almost do this at my desk....

It's definitely been one of those weeks and I don't know why.  I even had a "sick" day on Tuesday.  I haven't been overly busy, not like my two job husband.  I only had to make dinner once this week and I haven't really cleaned cleaned the house yet.  I hope that doesn't mean.....sickness.....ugh. I've been doing pretty well lately in the health area.
Not my kiddos though.....and by kiddos I mean my students.  I had one out all last week and then this week I've had 3 out pretty much the whole week. I also sent one home with double pink eye. Yup, that's right in BOTH eyes!  I sanitized his seat area real quick.  Poor kiddo, didn't mom notice his bright red eyes?!
I am an early to bedder during the work week. Teaching wears me down! Well the kids run me down. So it's now 10:30 at night on a Friday and I'm calling it quits.  This looks like a fabulous place to rest and very peaceful, but alas it's "winter" and no beaches in sight.

What time do you go to bed?
I wish that I was one of those people who needed like 4 hours of sleep. Imagine the accomplishments you could have? or just procrastinate more....haha I need 8 or more.  The weird thing is I sleep the best when I have to wake up early the next morning. When I have no arranged time- I wake up early.
Thus I go to bed between 9:15-10:00 and up at 6:00.