Don't forget about my Virtual 5K

Hey everybody, do not forget about my Virtual 5K that I am hosting this Friday-Monday (Labor Day weekend).

If you have not already signed up, then you can now on this post of my other post below! I will have the bibs up tomorrow night so that you can print them out and wear them on your run! I am so excited about everybody who has already signed up. I can not wait to see who else signs up!

What are you waiting for???????? :0) 

Back to School Virtual 5K

Alright everybody, I am going to host another Virtual 5K. Since I started back teaching last week I thought it only fitting that I did a Back to School Virtual 5K. It will be from this Friday, September 2nd through Monday, September 5th.

You can run this race while you are doing a long run, just make sure to check your time. You can ride your bike, run on a treadmill, or run outside. I know it is hot, so however you do it to get 3 miles in, just make sure you are timing it.

I have been putting in a lot of time at school the past two weeks. I have put in over 14 days straight worth of being at the school/work. I worked both Saturdays and I have not had a chance to run at all! I am needing some encouragement and motivation to get going again on my schedule. 

Also, today I was going to go run, but there was a heat advisory out. The temperature was 100 degrees and the feel was 110 degrees! Crazy, huh!!!! Gotta love that TEXAS heat!! 

So here are the guidelines: 

1. You need to tell me in a comment that you are going to participate in it.

2. Post your finish time and blog about it (recap). 

3. Spread the word......post on twitter, blog or facebook that you are going to participate in it before you run the 5K. 

4. Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate!!!!! 

5. Last but not least 

HAVE FUN!!!!! 

Each person will get a bib to wear for the race and will get a finishers certificate after you post your time. 

Giveaway and Virtual 5K coming soon

Hey everybody.....This week has been crazy busy. I have had time to only pull up my computer at school, come home, eat dinner work on school stuff, go to bed and then do it again the next day. I have currently pulled 2 saturday work days at school so that I can get stuff ready and going. It is crazy. I know this first year I am practically going to live at the school.

On to the giveaway and Virtual 5K. My giveaway is going to be coming as soon as I get the items in the mail and I am very excited to do this one. I have never used this product and I can not wait to see if I like it or not! I will give you a hint.....

It is something you use on your body. :0) hehe

The next thing is that since I have been so busy, I have not been able to run as much as I want too. It is either almost dark whenever I come in from work or dark whenever I get up in the morning to go run and if I run in the morning I am going to be dead for those precious kiddos I have to teach. 

Soooooooooooo......

on that note. I am going to host a Back to School Virtual 5K. It will be within the next 2 weekends (not this one). Stay tuned for that, because I will be providing more details about it. 

Good luck to all my back to college people! You are all amazing and can do it!!!!!! 

I hope everybody has an amazing weekend. 

Question: Would you want to do my Back to School Virtual 5K? 

Of course I am going to do it, and have cute bibs for it too. 

Question: What do you think my giveaway is?

Remember, your hint is that it is used on your body!! hehe

First Official Day of 2nd Grade

Today was my first official day of teaching 2nd grade! I was so excited to see my students today. I only had 6 kids, but that should grow over time! My students were amazing and so great. I am hoping that stays the same. The other day I posted pictures of what my room looked like at that time. I was up at the school late Sat. and Sunday night, but I am pretty much finished with my room. Here is what it looks like now... (Some of these pictures are sideways. Sorry about that)

Math Mania, Science and extra supplies

Front of the classroom

Center Board for now. This will change once I have my centers set in place. 

Morning Meeting/# Corner

Library Area

Other side of the room

My hoppy helpers, and student of the week. 

Discipline chart and Social Studies board

Bathroom Passes

The students cubbies! We moved these upstairs also. 

My door. It took me forever to get together! 

Frogtastic Masterpieces! They will hang their great work here! 

The walls were so bare, that I needed to add something to it! 

This is our library center. We are going to be adding books soon! 

My first day today went amazing! I loved my kids and they were so good listening to directions and what I had to tell them all day! It was fabulous! I do not even know how to put into words how great my first day of school was. I just want to thank God for all of his blessings!
My room mom gave me these amazing flowers today that were so beautiful!!!

Another mom gave all of the teachers a little jar that had our name on them. It was so cute and perfect to put candy in.

All ready for the first day of school!!! 

Overall I had an amazing first day and I love my students. tomorrow brings another day though!

One step at a time!

This whole week I have been working on my classroom, trying to get it organized and ready for the kids! I am so beyond nervous, but also very excited about teaching these 2nd grade babies! I have gotten to meet a few of them already and they are such sweet hearts! My classroom theme is tie dye frogs and I love them! I am trying not to go to crazy with them! I have not had a chance to run this week because I have been working since early in the morning to late in the evening. Not only that, but yesterday we had to move these things.....

These tables were crazy heavy to carry every where! 

My arms and thighs are so sore! I am pretty sure I have gotten in a good workout all week. I am going to run this weekend, but nothing crazy, just a few miles to get back on track.
Here are a few pictures of my room. It is not finished yet, so please do not judge!

My door. It is finished, but I have not taken an updated picture. 

My door has a bunch more frogs on it with the kids names on it and then some cattails and lillypads on the water part! I love my door! These next few pictures are progress pictures from Tuesday till this evening.

I did not have a whiteboard or anything hung up yet! 

I had not decorations or anything up yet and my desk were driving me crazy!

A little more updated!

My pull out table! 

This is where I will do their morning meeting and math stuff. It is small, but my classroom is one of the smallest ones in the school.

My desk area. It is more clean now!

Birthdays, science board and word wall. 

Student of the week and Classroom Jobs

Discipline Chart! 

It was pretty neat! I created my discipline chart and then a lot of the other teachers modeled their discipline chart after mine!

We got Rao's Bakery cookies one day! Yummy!!!! 

I am having a great time decorating my room. It is taking a lot of time, but I love being able to decorate it since it will be my very FIRST classroom!

Classes start on Monday, and we get some of our math curriculum that day as well. Looks like I will be staying late for quite a few days to get it organized and ready for school.

On another note....I picked up Milly from the groomer and she looked so great!

She was not very happy with me for leaving her. My 4 mile run the other day had me starring straight into this.....

It was quite miserable and hot! No shade or anything. I also got my very first pair of pumas! I needed some nice tennis shoes that I did not use for running, just casual shoes....

They came in this eco friendly bag. I thought it was really neat and I love the shoes!

I have a ton more work tomorrow to do as well as a meeting and so much more to get ready for school on Monday! I hope I can get everything ready!

Question: Have you ever done strength training another way besides using weights? 
Yes, lifting over 20 HUGE tables and over 150 desk this week! :0) 

Hi Ho Hi Ho It's off to work I go

This is going to be a little bit of rambling, so I hope you can stay with me. I know I have not blogged in a while, but I have been super busy!

So as you all know, I finally found a teaching job and I am so excited! I started yesterday in my new job and boy did we get our initiation into the school. We had to move over 150 desk from a trailor into the school. I think I made around 25+ trips up the stairs to bring over 75 desk up the stairs. Needless to say, I definetly got my workout in. On top of that, I also moved my desk, 2 bookshelves, a large filing cabinet and a smaller one as well as a bunch more desk and chairs into my room. Needless to say I was beyond tired and sore. Brian was there to help me, but it was still exhausting!!

The past couple of days, my hand has been killing me. I had my brother look at it on Sunday and he said it was probably some torn tissue and to just take it easy. Well that is easy to say, but not to do because I had to cut out so much lamination. I probably spent a total of 4 hours at least cutting lamination up. That made my hand hurt even worse. I noticed yesterday that it was swelling a little bit. So I put my big girl panties on and iced it and tried not to whine, but today, it starting hurting even worse whenever I put pressure on it. So tonight, I had my bro. look at it again and he said it wasn't torn tissue, but instead it was TENDONITIS!!!! (At the time, I thought only old people got this). I was sadly wrong. My bro. said that I just have over worked it to much and I needed to take it easy. I have a prescription to help with it as well as a hand brace. This should be interesting considering I have so much more stuff to move as well as to do to get my class ready!

Let's back up a little bit to a couple of weeks ago. I do not think I uploaded any of these pictures. I went to training for school in Dallas and these are just a few pictures from that.

I had an awesome kitchenette in my hotel room! 

I got to meet my AWESOME friend Alyssa. She just got back from being in the peace core in Grenada!  

Very yummy food from Le Madeline! 

I have never eaten here, so I was excited to try it out! 

I love me some fruit tart! 

I got to work out a couple of times that week
on the treadmill in the hotel! 

This past weekend, Brian and I went to Houston for a weekend getaway. I will have more pictures later from this, but this is all I had time to upload. Sorry this next picture is sideways. I did not have time to change them.

I got to visit Luke's Locker! I really like the store and I even
got to try on some Vibrams. I am hoping to buy some soon! 

Just chilling before the game! 

Enjoying out dinner at PF Changs! 

We also went to a few other places, but you will have to wait till later to see those pictures.

A couple of post ago, I said something about a new fro yo place they have here in town. Here is what it is called....

The Yogurt Spot

This place is so very good! I love it! We have only gotten to go once, but I want to go back soon!

I got Dulce De Leche with candy rocks and almonds! I want to try some with fruit next time, but this one was delicious!!

It was packed whenever we went that time. It had just opened that week, so it was full of people!
____________________________________________________________

On a running note. I ran 2 mi. on Mon., 3 mi. on Wed., 2 mi. on Thur. and 4 mi. on Sat. I haven't had a chance to run this week, but I am pretty sure I got my strength exercise in yesterday as well as my bleachers/running!

I hope everybody is having a great week!

Question: How many of you are going back to school/work/teaching this week? 
I started back on Monday and am working like crazy to get my classroom up and going! 

Blister Help!!!!

Okay runners out there. I have a huge question/favor! 

I have been running for almost 2 years and it will be 1 year in October since my first half marathon. So, I have a little experience, but I know there is so much more that I can learn over time.
The past couple of months I have been running here and there and I am now on a strict schedule for my half marathon training.

On my run today, the side/inside of my feet started to hurt, like a blister was forming, but I didn't do anything about it until I got home. Once home, I realized that I not only had one, but 2 blisters. I had one on each foot in almost the same exact place.

Here is my dilemma. I am not wanting to buy new shoes just yet, because I am getting ready for school and there are things I need to purchase before shoes and these do not even have that much milage on them. (Plus, I am debating about getting some vibrams. More on that later). I have already changed my socks...thicker, thinner, and everything in between. I have also checked my shoes and there is nothing in my shoe that would be rubbing my foot there. I have also tried blister band aids, but those fall off during my run.

Do you think I need to change the insole to a different one?....What would you suggest? 

I am seriously at a loss here and am not sure what to try! Anything suggestions I am willing to try! 

HELP!!!!!!!! 

Amazing Blogger Award

As mentioned in my last post, I was nominated for the Amazing Blogger Award by Karen at Just Me and My Running Shoes. I have been out of town all weekend and am going to try my hardest to catch up on my blogger, but it has been so hard! Between school starting and being gone, it has been tough to catch up.

I was also nominated for another award, but I will try to blog about that later.

Here goes:

"Favorite Character"

and

I love Disney, so this was an easy one. I have so many different favorites that it was hard to choose what I really liked. 

"Favorite Thing to Photograph"

I love photographing my baby girl Milly and the lake.

The lake makes me feel so calm and in such a mood to pray be the person that God created me to be. 

"Favorite Thing to Cook"

I love cooking new recipes, such as this shrimp etouffee, which I have perfected now. I am always willing to try to new recipe, especially if it looks really good! 

However, the one thing that I have cooked that people love is called Layer Dessert. It is a layer of pecans, chocolate pudding, creamcheese, chocolate pudding and whipped cream. I had to make it around 3 or 4 times within in a couple of weeks at Christmas time. 

"Favorite Way to Exercise"

Duh, running of course!! I love running, but I also love to swim and bike. 

"Favorite Movie"

This is a hard one. I am not sure how to choose, but if I had to right now I would have to say Soul Surfer. I read the book right after it happened and I have watched the movie so many times already. 

I love the christian side that it puts into the movie. Such a bold and awesome move!! She is such a powerful girl full of so much faith and ambition! 

"Favorite Article of Clothing/Store"

I have two places that I love. New York and Company and Kohl's. I just got a whole weeks worth of clothes at Kohl's last week! It has such great sales and clothes! 

"Favorite Flower"

I love yellow roses! I used yellow roses in my wedding and they were beautiful! 

"Favorite Breakfast"

I love greek yogurt, fruit, and turkey bacon/sausage! I usually switch between these things to eat for breakfast. 

"Favorite Book"

Currently I am waiting for Karen Kingsbury's new book in the Baily Flannigan series to come out, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE reading books on my kindle. Not only has it saved me money, but it has saved me a ton of space. 

"Favorite Place to Be"

I love being in Disney (especially at Christmas). It is the happiest place on earth and is so much fun to be spend time there with my husband. Although, there are so many places I want to visit eventually. I also love Tennessee, but I do not have any pictures from it currently. 

"Favorite Sporting Event"

I love Volleyball....playing it, watching it, and whatever else is included in that. I miss playing the game so much now. 

Now I need to choose a few people to post this on their blog.....let's see....

Ros at Life's a Wheeze

Monika at Monika's Miles

Alyssa at Against the Tide