Monday Morning

Oh Monday - how did you get here already?!

This weekend was a good mix of relaxing, errands, and excitement. My beloved Green Bay Packers walloped the Falcons - which made the weekend an overall success. I grocery shopped, organized, and RQ ventured to the outlets with me.

I also set out for a four mile run this weekend - which is the longest I've logged in a couple of months. After an injury and many months of non-running - it's hard to ease back into running. It's hard to look at 4 miles as a long run - because during weeks of 60+ miles- 4 is an easy run. I've been trying to think back to my beginning as a runner - a freshman in high school - when my very first day of cross-country was the longest I had ever run (3 miles!)

The run felt really great - although I'm getting frustrated that it's dark so soon. Where we live - it's dangerous to run anyplace but our neighborhood. My 4 miler had to be a 2-mile loop twice - which is fine until we get up near 8 miles... My leg didn't bother me too bad - it was actually more sore from my exercises and strengthening than from pain which is a great sign!

When I get tired during a run - I always try and think about why I love to run so much - and how much pain and depression I went through when I couldn't run. Most of my favorite photographs are of running! Seeing them reminds me of the passion and energy and time I had to put into each experience - and takes me back to the friendships I made from each.

J'aime le cafe.

I love coffee.

Like LOVE LOVE LOVE coffee.

I ESPECIALLY love coffee on mornings like today. Alarm doesn't go off, don't want to get out of bed, headache kinda mornings. I used to take coffee in a travel mug to school (actually I used to take two travel mugs to school...) but I really love to drink coffee out of mug. So I've gotten into the habit of taking a thermos of coffee to school and sipping on it throughout the day. This makes my day much nicer.

Image from: imagechef.com

New Years Resolution

Last year around April, RQ introduced me to Google Reader. Since then, I've been reading my reader daily and while it always inspires me to blog, when I actually sit down to get something started, I feel like I have nothing to say. Or nothing that's good enough. In order to combat that - I've decided to making blogging one of my New Years Resolutions.

While I was in Paris -I did a really good job of both blogging and keeping in contact with people. Living in Paris was perhaps the best six months of my life, and looking back I'm so grateful that I have the time so well preserved through a book of my conversations with others and my blog. Occasionally I still look back at my blog and sometimes I even get emails from "mes amies" telling me they just reread the blog and had a good time laughing at our misadventures.

The last time I blogged on here - RQ and I were just about to move into our house. We successfully closed, moved in, decorated, and celebrated Halloween within about four days. Everyday I open the garage and walk into MY house, I feel so blessed.

I have been running on and off since then. I've been trying to build back up to a level of working out that actually relieves stress for me - which is about an hour or two. Back in high school and college I was working out at least two hours a day - and while I'm not quite ready to make such a commitment, seven days a week, it's where I'm headed. With FRC (aka Robot mania) starting for RQ - I've been trying to think of things that will keep me from going insane. I've also already started thinking about how I'm going to bring in my 24th year of life (although I'm having a hard time remembering my age...). The decision I came to was to try training for a marathon and if my leg holds up - aim for a marathon on my birthday weekend!

It's 20 weeks until my birthday weekend. In about three weeks, I'll make my decision. Hopefully blogging will be a way to both keep my New Years Resolution and track my training!

Runs 2 and 3

Sometimes, despite all the planning and list making that goes on in my head, I get behind myself. After coming home from school, I was hurrying to get ready to get out the door for my run by 630 since it's starting to get dark at 7:00! When did that sneak up on me... Anyways - our HUD for our closing next week arrived and it didn't get out the door till 8:40. It just reminded me that no matter how much I plan, life and God always have their own plans, and that in order to remain sane, I need to accept those changes. The two hour delay didn't stop my run, it just forced me to run on the treadmill, something I really dislike. When I was in seventh grade, I used to walk the mile to our local YMCA, rain or shine, winter or summer, in order to workout. It started innocently enough as a way to get healthy, but became an addiction to exercise. To me the treadmill represents that time in my life. Although I occasionally climb back on the treadmill - I much prefer the great outdoors!

Back to Training

After two years of my running on and off due to injuries, I am finally back to training! I am so excited to finally have a plan in place to get back to the trail and the road. With RQ and I moving into our new house in just a week, I figured there was no better time to get it together. Throughout high school and college, running was my clutch, my stress relief, and my sanity keeper. When I lost running due to injury upon injury, I lost those outlets. To go from running 2hour long runs to 0minute runs - I can't believe I didn't die from boredom. BUT - today I am back. Four easy runs this week is the goal. Run 1 complete.

Countdown: Three Days

Three days from now I will officially be a second grade teacher. The past two weeks I've been working in my classroom 8+ hours a day to clean it up and make it a place that we love to learn in. Coming from two teachers, twelve+ teaching internships, and more ideas that I can get my head around, I've tried to organize my room as much as possible. There are so many things that I want to accomplish this year - but until I know my students and curriculum, I won't be able to visualize how all of that will happen. These past two weeks have simply been me trying to grasp how to incorporate all of the ideas I have about how I want my classroom to flow, function, and facilitate learning.

Thursday and Fridays used to be the only days in High School and College that I would be full of butterflies. Not based on a big test or speech, but rather a cross-country race. As a teacher, I function the same way. I'm not nervous to see students on the first day of school, or what I'll say when they sit in their desks staring at me for their next move. I sit in my classroom and look around and all I feel is excitement. Excitement to meet the new little people that will sit in these desks and spend the next year of life with me. Excitement to settle into a routine and love coming into school everyday. Excitement to see what each of my little ones will come to me with each day. And excitement for the last day of school when I can look at my room, empty again and know that my new little third graders are ready for whatever life hands them.