Roll with the punches…

Punches for real.  The past week has been nuts at school….in good and bad ways.  I’ve been through a bunch of “rough” parent teacher conferences and feel pretty beat up about it!  I’m over it though…just rolling with the punches.

On a brighter note, our school district is on a mission to become the HEALTHIEST district in the country by 2015.  We’re already ranked as one the healthiest, but we’re working towards the best.  As an added incentive all county employees were offered a pedometer, stability ball to use in the classroom, and access to a really cool website, SonicBoom wellness.  I started wearing my pedometer a few days ago and am amazed at how many steps I take.  Around 5,000 yesterday! And that doesn’t include any running/walking for fitness purposes…just my overall steps to get through the school day.

The ped itself is pretty small, but definitely noticeable.

Not that I care – especially when almost every other teacher/staff member is wearing one.  I think it’s fun!  I also love love love the fact that the ped and stability ball have started some great conversations in my classroom.  My students are really curious and love to guess how many steps I’ve taken so far.  The also think it’s funny to watch me balance on a stability ball while teaching.  I usually stand when teaching, but sometimes I sit to write on the document camera or to grade assignments…I could feel my back muscles getting sore yesterday after sitting on it all day.  Sweet!

Overall things are great (even if I want to bury myself in school work).  I can’t believe Thanksgiving is so close.  Andrew and I have plans to run our second annual Turkey Trot (4 miles) with Charley on Thanksgiving morning and then we’re going to have our first Thanksgiving with just the two of us. Wish me luck in the kitchen!  I’ve never made a turkey….or dressing….or anything besides baked goods on Thanksgiving (that’s usually left up to mom, kellen, kat, and burke.  Rory and i take care of the sweets).  Shoot….I hope it’s not a major flop!  Even if it is, Andrew and I are looking forward to spending the day together.  Regardless of the quality of the food – let’s face it…both of us would be happy just having dessert….hello dollies, pumpkin pie, cookies, you name it.  We are the King and Queen of the Sweet Tooth.

Are you cooking and/or  baking for Thursday?  If so – what?!?!  I need a few ideas!

Loves – KK

 

Giant Soup

I’m glad you all agreed that Library Yoga is a great idea.  The mom who teaches the class is extremely sweet, funny, and has a kick ass strong body.  Very inspirational!

The school week ended on a chaotic note – pretty normal.  I came home on Friday night and decided to make homemade ‘zza for dinner.  I love love love Kate’s easy weasy pizza dough recipe.  Literally all you have to do is:

• mix 1 packet of yeast with 1 cup of warm water and let it sit for 10 minutes.  easy right?

Then in a separate bowl:

• mix 1 c whole wheat flour
• 1 c white flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp honey

After the yeast mix is ready, mix all together and then spread onto cookie sheet!  voila!

I topped ours with pesto, shredded Italian blend cheese, yellow bell pepper, red onion, and baked chicken breast.  Bake for about 8-10 minutes and enjoy. (This pic was before baking.)

sorry bout the iphone pic

DEeeeelish!

Yesterday (Saturday) we woke up really early (Charley broke through the back fence at 5:45 a.m….luckily when I ran out frantically to find him he was just running around playing in puddles…).  We took advantage of being up early and cleaned our house from TOP to BOTTOM.  Literally.  It took a while, but I was we were both happy to have it done before 9 a.m. on Saturday!  Woo hoo!!!

I took off for Andrew’s cousin’s bridal shower while the boys stayed home to watch football.  Charley bear waited for me while I was gone…for 4 hours…

Yup, that’s the same chair that he chewed (see the arm that he’s resting on).  It’s definitely his chair now.  Hopefully we will find a new home for that chair the next time we move.  Or sooner if we’re lucky.  It’s gross, but he loves to sit there and peak out of the window for.e.ver.

The snow really started to fall when we were on our way home from the Bridal Shower.  I called Andrew on my way and asked if he was up for a quick dinner out.  We went to our favorite sushi restaurant, Japon!  This was our 3rd or 4th time at Japon since our first visit when my sister Kellen visited in April.  We always try new things and are never disappointed.  So you know I wanted a warm bowl of soup before my sushi last night.  The special was an udon soup with egg noodles, shrimp, etc. etc….but it was $14!  I was curious as to why the soup was so pricey, but we ordered a bowl to share.

Holy cow.  30 minutes later (again, I was wondering what took so long for a bowl of soup) the waitress brought out a POT of soup with a LID!  It was a cast iron kettle FULL OF SOUP.  Andrew and I were laughing like crazy and trying to figure out how the hell you’re supposed to eat longer-than-spaghetti-noodles in a soup with chopsticks.

We had fun and agreed that the soup was delicious!!!  It was enough for 3-4 people to eat for dinner, and we ordered it as a “starter” to go with our 4 sushi rolls.  We have a huge bowl of leftovers in the fridge now!

The snow keeps falling and we’re snuggled up reading/laptoping.  I’m about to tackle and hopefully complete 27 Report Cards!  wooo!

Library Yoga

Yup, you read that right.  Last night was my second week in a row for “Library Yoga”.  One of the parents at our school is a certified pilates and yoga instructor.  She graciously offered a Thursday night package deal to all faculty and staff.  The class is a mix of pilates and yoga and the package included eight weeks of hour-long classes for only $25 total!  Wowza…that’s so cheap! AND I love it!  I am sore in all the right places today.  We did a lot of plank-pushup-cobras (sun salutations?) and my chest/upperbody is SO sore!  I love it!  We also did a nice series of lunges/squats to work on the yoga-booty.  Loves it!

Besides being a great way to take care of myself, the class has brought me closer to some of my coworkers.  We all change into our clothes quickly after the kids leave and head to the dark library where the only light seeps in through a skylight.  The instructor is great and we even laugh a little while relaxing.  I’d say I was pretty worn out last night.

After cooking dinner and relaxing, Andrew finally came home from work to join me (at 8:15!!! whaa??).  We watched The Office and 30 Rock.  Next thing I knew, it was 9:45 and I woke up on the couch.  I was leaning on Andrew and was so confused!  He told me I’d been asleep for over 30 minutes….and I was snoring.  Night night!    What a sweet boy – he just let me sleep and snore while he watched sportscenter or something.

Not much else has been going on.  This week marks the first fullllll week of school for me in about 6 weeks.  Needless to say, this day is cuh-reeping by.  I’m ready to get out of here!  It’s supposed to snow again all weekend…. we shall see!

Don’t you just want to snuggle with him?