Knit Night Got Me Through It

I woke up this morning just dragging:(. All I could think all day was, “it’s almost knit night”.

Teaching:

I have to show off the math my grade ones do. During calendar each morning the students have to come up with ways to make the number of days we’ve been in school. I’m not sure if I’m just not remembering or if these students really are slightly advanced in math. It seems like they do more difficult equations than I’ve had in the past!

This morning, the two grade one classes did Writer’s Workshop together. It went amazing! We discussed all the different types of writing you can do; lists, cards, reports, directions, poems, stories, etc. It was so neat to see what each student chose and most of them managed to write more than they did last week!   It was also amazingly quiet for having 41 children in one room!

LOL I had a student get a paper cut today and gave him a bandaid.  It turned out it was a Mickey Mouse bandaid which he showed off to other kids in the class. Well, needless to say, I am cleaned out of bandaids now. It’s amazing how dangerous paper is in my class!

The grade ones again played the clapping game today for a warm up in gym. I learned on Monday that a warmup doesn’t always have to be running. Two girls offered to demonstrate it.We also tackled an animals in winter mini book this afternoon which went surprisingly smoothly. It’s great to see how far my students have come in reading already!

Tea:

My tea today was David’s Tea: The Big Chill. It was actually really good! I didn’t find it to have a super distinctive flavour like my favourite, Forever Nuts, but I also didn’t need to pour it out either.

Exercise:

Today after school I had bootcamp at school. It seemed deadly, but maybe it was just my low energy. There were a lot of new moves though. We did 20 second/ 10 second tabatas of: super narrow & deep single leg lunges, single leg lunge hops, lateral runs through an agility ladder, diamond squats, suicides, plank knee tucks using the sliders, hamstring curls on the stability ball along with a double crunch on the ball, mule kick to frog jump, plank punches, bear walk, ISO squat with an overhead press, single leg press with the band and a lat pull down with the band, star jumps, and crab dips & kicks.

I was definitely working hard, but was disappointed that I just didn’t have any “get up and go” today:(

Knit Night:

I ran home tonight to try and finish tidying my house as Brenda was coming over for knit night. I had a plan for a baby sweater using chunky yarn, but I didn’t have the right size of needles:( Amazing when I have so many pairs of needles. Then I tried to start a cute sweater, but I didn’t have the right size of needles for it either:(. Looks like a trip to my LYS is in store. Let’s just hope I can behave myself this time and stay away from the sale basket!!!I’ve ended up just doing a seed stitch Cowl out of the super bulky yarn as it’s for the third quidditch match in HPKCHC.

Movies:

Brenda brought over the first Harry Potter movie tonight so at least I can now say I’ve seen one! I’ve read all the books eight times, but have never seen any of the movies. We’re going to try and work our way through them over the next eight weeks. I liked the first one as it mainly followed the book:).

Well, that’s all for me today.

Have fun!

AJ

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Continuously Busy

I’ve enjoyed my day, even though I was busy continuously!

Eating:

I’ve had a good eating day though it’s tough recalibrating for less food! I took this picture just for Maureen so she could look at someone else’s eggs for a change:) I’ll be eating them again tomorrow!I also thought I had better talk about the cookie I had today for my afternoon tea -as I don’t think I ever have.

A student brought me one of these cookies last year and they are actually very tasty for being free of the top eight allergens. They happened to be on sale the last time I went shopping. I have the ginger flavour this time, but I’ve liked the other flavours as well. Just beware that they are dense cookies, not light and fluffy.

It was interesting that the little girl who is going to be a food blogger when she grows up brought me a big bag of the bacon crisps she so liked last week. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I can’t eat them so I just took them to the staffroom.

Teaching:

We had a good day and I enjoyed my students today. I wonder why? We spent this morning doing a sharing circle about our weekend. I was shocked to learn that only four children and myself spent time outside this weekend. 😳I understand it was raining, but it’s always raining here! We also wrote in our journals about animals that hibernate. I had wanted it to be a bit of assessment, but my students seemed to need a little prompting, so I left off with that idea and let them share ideas. The best thing was that my little boy who is very low (doesn’t know all his sounds yet) managed to write a sentence by himself. Yes two of the three words were on the board, but he did it, which with his low self-esteem, was amazing. I had helped him with “A bear hibernates.” And by the time I got back to him he had done, “A frog hibernates.” Score 🎉🎊

We reviewed our addition strategies and also brainstormed with the other grade one class how we can help the community. It wasn’t as great a brainstorming as the others we’ve had about community, but I have to admit I don’t have a ton of ideas either about what five/six year olds can do.

Last thing, we taught all the grade ones a clapping game we learned at our in-service yesterday. I have to admit I loved doing this as I never got to play these games as a kid so it was neat to do it now. I definitely understand how you could spend hours doing this. The kids were having a blast and kept at it much longer than we were expecting them to. I’ll have to see if I can get a video of it tomorrow to show you all:)

After school we had the fun of putting the gymnastics equipment away🙄. After that I was super happy to get my addition file finally organized into the different adding strategies I teach. Hopefully it will be much easier to find appropriate practice pages and games now!

Tea:

My tea today was David’s Tea: Organic Jessi’s Tea. It was actually quite tasty:). I only have one more day out of this box of tea so tomorrow I get the fun of recycling another box. I can’t decide if I’m going to choose the next box based on size or age🤣

Exercise:

I got home by 4:30 so that I could have dinner before my run clinic at 6:30. I was halfway through my bowl of oatmeal when my running buddy texted to say she wasn’t going tonight. I figured I had the option of running in the cold, dark and wet with strangers or just in the cold and wet by myself. I hustled out the door and got my run done before dark. It was a little tough tonight as I literally finished eating as I was going out the door and I wore the wrong pants. They soaked up about ten pounds of water and were dragging behind me by the end, but I went😀. I also pushed myself to keep a steady, faster pace which felt good. A guy on a bike went by and said hi with a smile- makes me wonder what I looked like from behind out there with my pants trailing and splashing through the puddles🤣

Knitting:

I haven’t knitted anything today, though I have found my next project which will be a quick baby sweater out of chunky wool. It will fulfill a HPKCHC challenge and hopefully will suit my friend’s baby to come. I can’t wait to find out what she’s having so I can knit in girl or boy colours rather than white, yellow and green.

Several of you asked for a picture of me in my new sweater( yes I’m like a little kid and had to wear it today). I don’t know if it’s mental or not, but I swear it kept me warmer than any store bought sweater does! Please just remember I’m not photogenic! I swear I gain ten pounds just turning the camera on!

I’ve been tidying at home tonight as knit night is at my place tomorrow.

Photo Project:

I got one box of the developed photos labelled and erased off my phone. I really thought it would free up more space than it did. Of course, I seriously don’t understand my phone as this morning I did nothing and watched the memory decrease by 0.3😏

Reading:

I took another page from Maureen’s book and spent some time this evening on the couch enjoying my book, Ready Player One by Ernest Clive. So far so good, but I better get going on it as I think book club is approaching rapidly! I had really better look that up!

I have also spent some time reading blogs tonight. I’ve been trying to go and read the latest post of whoever has liked or commented on my posts. It’s a different approach, but I’ll give it a shot and see how it works.

Well, I’m going to try for one more chapter of my book before I head for bed.

Have fun!

AJ

Brrrr

A day without children.

Teaching:

It was a Professional Development day today so I had to sit and learn instead of teach. This always gives me a lot of insight into my students as I’m horrible at sitting and listening, especially in a freezing library!!! We had theory on the new Physical Literacy curriculum this morning followed by a half hour of hands on games. They were doing pretty good until the last one that put me right back into elementary school and reminded me why I hated gym class then! Three on three “you can’t touch me”. The object of the game was to pass the ball five times to get a point. I, of course, was guarded by the tallest person on the other team so I touched the ball once:(. It wasn’t fun!

This afternoon we had a meeting about a whole school ADST project we’re doing around the book “The Most Magnificent Thing”, where students have to create something out of a box. We’ve decided to tackle it in March so it’ll be interesting to see how it works.

I finished the day with some laminating and escaped. I loaded my car up with some donation stuff, but it was packed at the donation centre so I’ll have to go back another day.

Eating:

I went out for lunch with five co-workers today for lunch. We went to our local sushi place and it was a disaster:( I asked and was told the steamed rice was gluten free. Great! I ordered two rolls that didn’t list anything I couldn’t eat and made sure the waitress marked down it had to be gluten free and dairy free. Well when my food arrived and I picked up a piece, just as it got to my lips,my lips started to burn ( early warning system I guess) and one of my colleagues cried stop. The side of the roll facing away from me was coated in tempura bits. The other roll had a deep fried, battered prawn in it:( I sent it back and ended up eating tuna sashimi.

This was the second disappointment of the day as there were snacks provided this morning so I didn’t eat breakfast. I got there and all I could eat was fruit:(. They had yogurt and muffins:(. I guess it was good as it definitely cut down on my calories for the day.

Tea:

My tea today was David’s Tea: Coco Chai Rooibus. It was okay, not my favourite probably because I’m not a big chocolate lover,but I didn’t pour it out either.

By the way, the Oat milk worked well in my tea today:)

Knitting:

I stayed up late last night and got my sweater done! Who knew sleeves could take so long?!?! I am very happy with it and will wear it to school tomorrow.

I used the Anthi Pullover pattern that is free on Ravelry or through Knitty Magazine. On a side note, I seem to make a lot from Knitty. I made the ties at the neck shorter and I may just make it so the neckline buttons. I also lengthened the sleeves as they were very short! I used the Riverstone Yarns fingering weight yarn I bought at Knit City so I’m happy about that! I made the XS and before I started I was very worried it would be too small, but now that I see it, I’m glad I didn’t make it any bigger. The amazing thing is that I actually checked the gauge before starting and was right on! I ended up with only 5 yards of yarn left. I got it entered for the HPKCHC class of Care of Magical Creatures. Hopefully it will work for that!

Exercise:

It has been pouring here for days so I’ve been very unmotivated to run. I forced myself to get out there tonight though. My Runkeeper came up with a speed interval workout so I did it, but my phone died with two minutes left:(. I felt so uncoordinated and yet it was my fastest run in the last little while. In the end I was glad I went as the sun peeked through the clouds and made my favourite type of light and it actually didn’t rain on me until the very end.

Project:

I started getting the Boston photos labelled that I picked up late last week. I am so looking forward to having all those photos off my phone! Maybe it will stop acting so weird!!

Movies:

I watched The Best Christmas Present Ever tonight. It was very sweet and had not one, but two cute men in it:)

Well I’m off to read before bed.

Have fun!

AJ

Lazy

Well I’ve definitely had a quiet weekend!

Exercise:

I was hoping this morning that another woman would join our group who would run with me, but I yet again ran on my own. I told my friends walking I would be about forty minutes, but it actually only took me 28 minutes to get around the park. I did a little extra on the flats to make up some time and get my average pace down from 7:01 to 6:57🤣. Nobody should ever let me see a stat!

It felt great today as it was a double exercise day with a Lyndsay workout this evening. I don’t know why I like that woman so much when she made me do: 150 jumping jacks, 82 push-ups, 140 squats, 87 sit ups, 215 lunges, and 84 mountain climbers. It was all split up of course, so I didn’t know I was doing that many! I changed burpees to mountain climbers so my downstairs neighbours wouldn’t lynch me and I split the squats so I did normal, sumo and plié to work my entire leg. I was definitely sweaty by the end!

Reading:

I really wanted to be reading The Trouble with Gold today, but these sleeves are taking forever and I can’t watch movies with them so I’ve been listening to Wives and Daughters on Librivox. It’s a good book- has even made me smile at times, though it still seems familiar. Maybe I can read my book tomorrow during my seminar.

Movies:

I watched The Sweetest Christmas tonight. It was fine. I liked the ending.

I got some laundry done and the house tidied slightly, but mostly…

Knitting:

I have been a knitting machine for the second day in a row and hopefully will be done this sweater tonight!!! Now I just have to figure out how to get it to count for a HPKCHC class!

Product Review:

I tried another product that I got from the GF Expo today. It was a Chocolate Chip Cookie from Wendel’s.

The other day when I took cookies to my secretary, the principal commented that they weren’t like chalk and I didn’t really understand what she was saying, but now I do! It was perfectly circular and quite pretty, but it was so dry it disintegrated in my hand as I was biting into it. It also didn’t have much taste:( I won’t be buying this product. I would suggest they explore the world of vegan butter because their cookies needed some!

Cooking:

I also tried making Cinnamon Oat Milk from Emma’s Eats tonight. It wasn’t difficult to make, though it did take about 35 minutes, but only because I only had a Tea strainer. If it’s good tomorrow I will definitely buy cheesecloth before I make it again:)

Well I’m off to finish watching Christmas in Homestead with the impossibly cute mayor and hopefully finish these sleeves!

Have fun!

AJ

Bread Recipe

I wanted to call the post A First because I did something today I’ve never done before, but I’m going to attach the bread recipe I used today and I need to be able to find it🤣

Baking:

I had avocados in the fridge and desperately needed bread to spread it on, so I got busy this morning and got the dishes done and the bread machine going. I used this Recipe. It turned out I didn’t have any milk so I made up some soy milk powder and used that. Amazingly this bread still tasted delicious and was relatively light for a gf bread machine loaf. There is nothing like a slice of bread still warm from the oven!!

Exercise:

I was supposed to do a 10km run this morning but it has been cold and drizzly all day and I just didn’t want to trudge through that for ten kilometres! I’m hoping for some dry weather before the end of the month so I can still fulfill my monthly goal.

I did do a Lyndsay workout this evening though. It was actually the only time I got out of my jammies all day, something I have never done before as I was raised that if you were up, you were dressed. I have been nice and warm and cosy all day so I may have to do this again!

However, back to exercise. Here is the workout I did:

It did its job as I was hot and sweaty by the end.

Knitting:

I have been knitting on my sweater all day and thought I would have it to show you, but unfortunately I’m not done the sleeves yet. By weight I think I should be doing the ribbing, but to the eye there is still a lot of yarn left and I want my sleeves as long as possible. I think I’m going to get a second pair of DPNs and start on the other sleeve so I can just work on both at the same time and knit them as long as possible. Hopefully tomorrow there will be a reveal!

Movies:

I have watched a lot of movies today as I was knitting away! I have watched Finding Santa, The Christmas Cure, Midnight Masquerade, Eat, Play, Love and The Perfect Bride. I am now onto The Christmas Ornament. I really think I should get a job with Hallmark as I have definite opinions about their movies now 🤣

Well, I’m off to set up my other sleeve and finish my movie as I have an early run in the morning.

Have fun!

AJ

Better

I didn’t get much done so I don’t get why I’m so tired!

Tea:

My tea today was David’s Tea: Mother’s Little Helper. I have to admit that it is not my favourite!  So far, in this 8 Nights of Tea set, I have only liked one:(

A colleague rescued me with a tea bag she likes. It was delicious!!! I would totally recommend it!

Teaching:

Today was better. We finished up our gymnastics, without any falls. We also completed our visualizing activity from yesterday along with a community ABC mini book. In the afternoon we revisited hibernation in Art by making these:

We talked about using different medium in art and looked at examples. I think we did pretty good for only having a picture to go from since I couldn’t find any directions.

The only incident I had was when bad breath boy told me he was smarter than me this morning. Some children….🙄

Exercise:

I met up with lyndsay after school for a workout. We did 25 minutes on the treadmill and then hit the floor for squats, overhead triceps extensions and knee tucks. It was like a ladder- first round one set of 8 each, second round two sets of 8, etc. We then did v ups, static lunges with weights and hamstring curls using the stability ball. The same ladder set up but with a minute on the elliptical between sets. The coolest thing about my workout today was that I had to up the weights. I ended up using twenty pound weights for the squats and lunges:) It’s nice to see progress:)

Reading:

Just a bit of Ready Player One on my lunch hour:). I highly recommend reading on your lunch hour. It’s such a nice, calming twenty minute break:)

I read a blog post by Perfectly Tolerable this morning that talked about Goodreads stats so then of course I had to go have a look. I never knew that Goodreads could tell you what author you’ve read the most of!!! So cool! Then of course I started wondering how I could change those stats. I need to get two short books read quickly so it will quit telling me I’m behind on my goal!

Knitting:

Tonight was knit night and I got another twenty one rows on my sweater finished and that used up one ball of yarn. LOL I’m already starting to think of what my next project will be.

I did look up how to determine the weight of yarns do i will hopefully get going on that.Not a super busy or productive day, but I sure am tired so I’m off to bed.

Have fun!

AJ

It All Worked Out in the End

For the past several months I’ve been trying not to worry as much and just see how things work out. Today was a good example of what would have worried and stressed me before.

Knitting:

I started the day by checking the weather and realizing I had missed recording the temperature for my scarf for the past two days:( I knew down deep that this would be the challenge of this project for me! Thankfully I found the information on the weather network website later, though now I should be knitting it!

I got a couple of rows of my sweater done this morning which is completely frustrating because I’m at the part where I just want to knit because I’m so close to being done the body. Maybe if I can get my fingers to work faster I can get one more row in before bed. Oh right, I have to do my scarf…

Teaching:

The boys were so fixated on the map I put up before school this morning for us to record where their families came from!We read the book Matilda and worked on visualizing as we read. The students had some very cool pictures from this activity. We’ll finish it up tomorrow.

We worked on the doubles strategy for addition in math and it was nice to actually have every child complete the work:)

I usually love my Thursday afternoons as we have computers (a prep for me) and then gym, planners and silent reading. This afternoon in gym I assessed the children on their gymnastics and then said I’d take a video of them at their favourite station. Grrr my boys decided it would be fun to fall off the equipment. They haven’t done that once during the entire three weeks, instead they saved it for their parent videos. After the fifth I took them back to class. It was an awfully short gym class today since it took them three tries to get quietly to the gym.

Lol I had some interesting conversations today too. When I asked one boy to try and remember to brush his teeth before coming to school ( his breath makes me want to retch daily), he informed me he never does🙄

At the end of the day we discussed their behaviour. I told them I wanted to go back to bragging about them rather than complaining as I would be today😂

At lunch it was really interesting to watch one of my students. She had a new snack and after watching her, she reminded me of Pinkiebag’s product reviews. She asked me to read the bag to her and she proceeded to look carefully at every inch of it. She then opened it and took a long sniff. She proceeded to take one piece out and smell it and then nibble a corner. She paused and then ate the whole thing. After repeating this sequence one more time she declared that Tesco’s bacon crisps were delicious. Maybe she has a future as a food reviewer or blogger:)

Shopping:

I woke up this morning to the news that snow was expected from 8-10am and again from 3-4pm. I had planned to drive to work today because I was scheduled to have my car in for a replacement headlight at 3:30pm today. When I heard about snow though I wasn’t sure I wanted to be going up and down the hill to work. I spent some time trying to decide what I was going to do. Normally I would have worried all day about this and been very stressed. I ended up walking to work (glad I did when I saw this sky right outside my building) thinking I could either come home at lunch or right away after school for my vehicle. Well it did start to “white rain” about 2pm, just about the time my mechanic called to see if I could come a little later at 4pm. It all worked out:) I walked home and got my car and drove over there with no problems. He had been sent the wrong replacement bulb and so I switched my plan and went and picked up my Costco items (600 photos from my last trip and a lot of other food items that weren’t on the list -$50 later🙄) first and then came back for the headlight. Yet again, it all worked out. I just ended up eating my snack in the Costco parking lot rather than the mechanic’s office:)

Reading:

I got a little more of Ready Player One read at lunch. I’m enjoying it so far. I also downloaded the kindle version of Trouble With Gold as a blogger reviewed it this morning and it sounded like a nice light read:)

Tea:

My tea today was David’s Tea Just Peachy which I have had before. I enjoyed it again this time:)

Eating:

I tried a product I got from the GF Expo this afternoon when I was waiting. They are Sea Salt Spokes. They are similar in weight to popcorn but are shaped like pretzels. I liked how they satisfied my Salt craving and popcorn craving and yet were only 300 calories for the entire bag!! I’d buy them:)

Exercise:

Tonight was my athletic yoga class which was a challenge tonight. Not only because the instructor came up with new ways to torture us, but also because I ate way too close to class. I bought a rotisserie chicken when I was at Costco and in the five minutes I was home I took the skin off it. Unfortunately I always think it tastes best when it’s still warm so I ate some… big mistake😖😏😞. I so couldn’t push myself as my stomach was gurgling through the whole class:(

I had to laugh at myself as I realized I was doing squats while waiting for the cookies to bake and reading blog posts🤣. I just can’t stand still!

Baking:

This afternoon our secretary was saying that she desperately wanted an oatmeal raisin cookie, so I made some tonight to take to her tomorrow. I know one of my goals for the month was only to bake once, but I figure baking for someone else doesn’t count! These were super fast to make, easy and taste delicious! The one missing is the little one I tried:)

The only changes I made were to use normal sugar and to use a mix of gf flour and potato starch with xantham gum. I would definitely recommend this recipe:)

Well, I’m off to knit 90 stitches on my scarf and to put something else up for sale on Facebook:)

Have fun!

AJ

Disappointed

A good day but with a disappointment that was all my own fault.

Teaching:

Today we managed to get things done which felt really good. We did a lesson on counting on. It’s funny how six years are already in habits. We were talking about putting the big number in your head and counting on the smaller number, but I have one little guy who always draws lines for the two numbers and then counts the lines. He was bound and determined to continue this practice, even though its slow!! I laugh how early humans get into ruts. We also did a lesson on hibernation along with a song. I realized I only know the chorus of Alouette🤣

The one thing I did with my class today at the end of the day is that we verbally reviewed all we had learned that day! I think I’ll try to keep it up:)

The only other thing I managed to do today was to spill my water bottle all over my desk. I was glad my phone was still in a ziploc from my run yesterday (even though the staff at work had been bugging me about it), but I can only hope that my work laptop is okay. I guess I’ll find out in the morning:(

Exercise:

After work I did bootcamp. Lyndsay made them 20/10 tabatas again today so that I wouldn’t be late leaving and would get through the entire workout. We did:

Burpees, kneeling rollouts, pull-ups, seated knee tucks, donkey kicks and fire hydrants with an 8lb weight, overhead triceps extensions, lunges on the gliders, frog jumps, pliecalf raises, swimmers, push-ups to plank jacks, one legged lunges, jump squats, and squat walks. At the end Lyndsay said she purposely did supersets. There were times that my legs were screaming- like at the plié calf raises and frog jumps! It’s a good thing though as I’d love to have sleeker inner thighs.

This was my only exercise other than a walk to and from a restaurant of about six blocks each way.

Socializing/ Eating:

I had arranged to have a Dine Out Dinner with two friends tonight. Vancouver has a Dine Out each year where restaurants have set three course meals for either $20,$30 or $40. I had gone through and perused all the menus and given some choices based on dessert selection. If I’m going out for dinner, I want to be able to eat dessert! My friends chose Cibo Trattoria. I carpooled downtown with one friend and we parked at the other friend’s place and then walked from there. It turned out that the menu they advertised was not the same as the one they had. I was expecting to eat cauliflower soup, salmon and a chocolate hazelnut torte. What I got instead was salad, salmon and fruit.Tome this was totally not worth $51.45!!!! It may have been my fault, maybe I misread their codes and thought v stood for vegan, not vegetarian, but one of my friends also remembered things being different or at least labelled differently on the advertised menu:( Oh well, it was still a nice night out midweek, and I suppose it was quite a healthy meal.

Reading:

Last night I finished reading Baby It’s Cold Outside by Kait Nolan. It tells the story of Ivy who is an author of thriller books who has a horrible case of writer’s block. She runs away from her agent and editor to the Misfit Inn (Nolan’s other series). Unfortunately on the way to the Inn she is caught in a freak snowstorm and goes over the side of an embankment. Enter Harrison, a former military man, who is having trouble adjusting to civilian life and letting go of his guilt. He rescues Ivy and things go from there.

I liked how Ivy takes charge of the relationship at several points and doesn’t just wait for Harrison to make the moves. I also liked how the story included some of Kait Nolan’s other characters. The characters seemed deep and realistic.

The pace did seem very quick as by my calculations they were getting close on their third day of knowing each other. As well, I loved how the characters came together, but I wanted more at the end. The story seemed to just stop:(

Anyone who likes a military romance or a strong female lead will enjoy this story!

Today, on my reading lunch hour, (thanks Maureen) I started my next book club book. It’s called Ready Player One and it already has me hooked after 25 minutes of reading:). I’ll tell you all about it when I’m done!

Knitting:

I’m working away on my sweater still. I really wanted to be home working on it tonight as I’m getting close to being done the body:). Soon!

Tea:

I didn’t like my tea today at all so I have blocked the name of it from my mind and it’s just too cold to get out of bed to go look! If it matters to you, ask me in the comments and I’ll look in the morning:)

Well my eyes keep wanting to close so I think I will let them!

Have fun!

AJ

News

A good day that actually almost went according to plan.

Exercise:

After thinking it over, I got out of bed this morning and ran. It wasn’t fun to have to go in the dark again and it wasn’t a great run as I had a 7:06/km average, but I went and got it done. It was weird that I didn’t pass anyone today:(. I was glad I went when I got back and saw my stats in Runkeeper. Runkeeper was great today and sent me a summary of my year in running last year. I know it includes walking but it was still neat to see.

A blogger has recommended I try using Strava, but I thought that was for elite runners. Before I do research, anyone know anything about Strava or have an opinion??

I haven’t done any other exercise today as I’m too busy enjoying my nice loose body after my massage:)

Teaching:

Well we at least got some work done today:). We read a book about animals in winter and illustrated a poem to start our new science unit. We reviewed how to add zero. I wasn’t planning it, but each student took a turn telling me an equation that had +0 in it. Sometimes the students come up with the best lesson plans themselves:). We also finished the writing and drawing of our socials studies project about us in the world – community, city, province and country. The students did really well and tomorrow we will assemble them.

The funniest story came to me today. I have Lyndsay’s son in my class and she came to tell me. Yesterday morning she made her son his favourite, a breakfast bagel. He’s not a morning eater so she put it in his bag and told him he could eat it when he got hungry. What does he do! He gives it to his daycare worker and says, “my mom made you this sandwich because she likes you”. Now there’s a way to get out of eating🤣🤣. The same kid today came wearing a pair of glasses- completely fake, but I love how children try different things out until they find themselves (hopefully at some point!)

Friendship:

I got the happy news from my oldest friend that her and her husband are coming to visit in March and that they are expecting their first baby. My other closest friend was scheduled for her c-section today. I guess I’ll be doing a lot of knitting if baby things this year! I am so happy for both of my friends, but it did bring up the question, what’s wrong with me? Why hasn’t that happened for me? Don’t worry, I’ll get back to normal soon😏

Reading/ Blogging:

Still working on Baby It’s Cold Outside. Most of my reading time today I spent trying to get caught up on blog reading. It was really starting to stress me out that I was missing so many. Please someone tell me how you deal with blog reading- there must be a better way as I need time to read my books too!

Tea:

I had David’s Tea Organic Peppermint Amour. It was okay, but nothing life altering for me. So far, I’m glad I didn’t pay for this new box of tea that I am working my way through!

Movies/ knitting:

I am in the middle of watching Home For Christmas while I am knitting the stockinette in the round part of my sweater. I have seen this actress, Danica something, in other movies, but in this one she is so ditzy, can she ever shut up??? I obviously didn’t notice it in her other movies or else she is an amazing actress!!!

From reading the blogs I have found some more knitting books that I’ll need to explore!! Shopping:

It was shopping in reverse as a woman came and picked up the mug I sold on Facebook this week. Another thing gone✅

I did manage to finally pop into the grocery store and get some milk and veggies and fruit. I only bought one thing not on my list- mini avocados. I am so excited for breakfast tomorrow morning now!!!

I was looking for more packages oatmeals as I took that for lunch today and it worked really well, but the store didn’t have any that were gf/df. I’ll look around a bit, but that might be something I have to ask my mom to bring home with her. I would just take oatmeal from home- but I only have old fashioned oats that need to be cooked and I only have a kettle at work. I don’t think it will work, but I may need to experiment!

Well I’m going to curl up with my movie for another three rounds of stockinette stitch.

Have fun!

AJ

The Liebster Award 2018

Ok another special post as I was nominated for this award a few days ago.   I always have to wait until I have access to a computer before I do these posts. My regular daily post will be up later:)

Thank you to Penchantress for nominating me.  She is new to WordPress and has only been with us since December, so lets support a new blogger and go check out her blog!

Rules:

Acknowledge the blog who nominated you.

Answer the 11 questions your nominator asked.

Nominate 11 other bloggers.

Ask them 11 questions.

Let them know you have nominated them.

Questions:

What is your native language?

Though I took French all the way through school, I would honestly say that I only speak English well.  I had to attend speech therapy when I was a kid to even be able to speak English, so this was enough for me to learn. I wish I was the kind of person who picked  up languages easily!

What according to you is an ideal personality? 

I think humor and positivity are  the most important things in a personality to me.  I feel like most other things depend on the situation.

Writing in a diary Or typing words in MS Word- which one do you prefer?

I am not a big writer which is why I keep a blog to keep track of my life so definitely computer.  I write myself lots of notes every day, but then unfortunately, I can never remember where I put them:(

Who is your favourite author and why?

Oh gosh, this one is impossible for me to answer. I was an “Anne Freak” my entire childhood so I would have said LM Montgomery then, but now, it depends what I need at the time as to which author I enjoy.

How important do you think is reading?

LOL even my students can tell you that reading is everything to me. I don’t think I’ve ever gone a day where I have read nothing. I actually can’t even imagine that! I’m of the belief that if you can read, you’ll be successful because you can teach yourself anything else you need to know.  My love of reading is one of the reasons I love teaching grade one because I get to introduce my students to reading!

If  you were to write a biography of someone, whose would it be?

I would write a biography of

Which movie/series can you watch over and over without getting bored of it?

Hmmm I have watched the Anne of Green Gables movies a lot, as well, I seem to have  a penchant for watching Pride and Prejudice (the BBC version a lot).  Amazingly, movies are my escape, so even the Hallmark ones work for me. I don’t ever just sit and watch, I’m usually knitting or doing something else at the same time.

Given a chance to do something for the society, what would you do?

I would make sure that everyone could read!

Do you believe in the saying- “The Best things in life are free” ? 

Yes I do because they don’t charge for love and they don’t charge at the library for books and you can run on the street for free:)

What inspired you to start blogging?

I just wanted a place where I could keep track of the knitting, reading, crafting, exercising, running, baking, cooking and successful teaching I do and where I wouldn’t lose the notes!  I also wanted to make an effort to concentrate on the good things in life and realize how many wonderful small things happen every day!

What do you want to be remembered for?

I want to be remembered as a teacher who cared.

Nominations:

As usual, I don’t want to put anyone on the spot, so if the following questions are of interest to you, please answer them!

Questions to Answer: (sorry they are a mishmash)

1. How do you keep up on reading and commenting on blogs?
2. Are you an inside person or an outside person?
3. If you had a day with absolutely no obligations, what would you do?
4. What makes a good blog?
5. How do you decide what to write about on your blog?
6. Who is your favourite actor and why?
7. If you could become anyone, past or present, for a day, who would you become?
8. Do you follow blogs that you can’t read?
9. How did you decide/fall into on your career?
10. Is reading or writing more important?
11. What inspires you to keep blogging?