ProD Day

It was an okay day, but I’m worried!

Exercise:

I got to sleep in a bit and still got to get a workout in with L this morning. We did a hill workout and then did bicep curls, overhead tricep extensions, double crunches, pushups on the stability ball, ab rollouts, pike pushups, bent over rows, and something else I’ve blocked. It was a good workout and my hip did pretty good:)

Teaching:

It was a professional development day today so I got a couple of hours in my classroom to get myself organized and then went to a workshop this afternoon. It was good but sounded just like a program I’ve been using for years.

Blog Hop:

The final day of Teacher Turned Mommy’s back to school blog hop.

What’s in my lunchbox? I usually have a piece of fruit for recess, but not oranges anymore as one of my students is allergic. I then have leftovers for lunch:). It’s simple, but does the trick.

Knitting:

I have been working on my Not A Boring Sweater year knit and am on the hem pattern. I’m really starting to worry that I’m not going to have enough yarn left to do the sleeves:(. It makes it tough to keep knitting when I don’t think I’m going to be able to finish:( I have a message into the company, but doubt they have any. If anyone has an idea to solve this problem, please let me know.

This is what the sweater looks like.

Well I’m off to bed with a book!

Have fun!

AJ

The First Day/ Trivia Tuesday # 20

It was back to work for me today!

Exercise:

Amazingly I managed to get up at 6:15 to get out for a run. It didn’t go completely according to plan because I didn’t get out until 6:38. I think tomorrow I have to try it again but not allow myself to look at WordPress until I am stretching!  The late start did mean that I didn’t get to go as far, so only 3.18km this morning, but that does mean I am only 2.7km behind. I’m supposed to run with Dennis on Thursday night so that should be taken care of then:)  It was busy this morning as I saw 8 people out on the path at that time.

Teaching:

I was at work with plenty of time to spare, though I had already spilled my tea all over my hand and foot:(  We had a meeting, then the children for half an hour (it was awesome to see them), then another meeting for two hours and had two hours as prep for the week.  It seemed to be a busy day, but not too bad.  I like that it was agreed that we will have last year’s class for this week, which really simplifies matters.  Unfortunately, at this point, it doesn’t look like I am going to get to teach the same as Liane this year:(  I will continue to keep my fingers crossed something changes though!

Blog Hop

I am joining Teacher Turned Mommy for her September blog hop:)  So the first day of school…

This truly is the start of a new year for me, much more so than January.  Every year I have high hopes of all the things I am going to accomplish, but I also have anxiety about what my class will be like, whether I will be able to teach them all to read, what problems or drama will occur this year, etc?

However, with it being the first day of my school year I want to think about my goals for this year. I want to go through at least forty file folders (that’s one per week and I did get one done today😀), I want to avoid work weight gain (my weight today better be the highest of the year!) and I want to talk less and listen more. I am sure I will come up with many more things I want to do this year, but this will have to do for now.

Thanks Lori for putting this together.

Reading:

After a quick stop at the library, I have started my Bookclub book of How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Let’s hope I can get it done by Sunday!

Trivia:

It was again just the three of us tonight, but here’s what I knew…

The Sandra Bullock film about space?

Gravity

What pet did Hermione get in The Prisoner of Azkhaban?

Cat

What is a word that goes with prime?

Time

Put three grades of oil in order of thickness?

5w20, 10w,30, 10w,40

What is the name of the bridge from PEI to the mainland?

Confederation

Which African country has no coastline?

Chad

What band is Gwen Stefani in?

No Doubt

I got the fraction question.

Who sang We Are The World?

USA for Africa

Which actress was in When Harry Met Sally?

Meg Ryan

Rainman has to go home to watch which show at 3pm?

People’s Court

Who founded MCDonalds?

Ray Kroc

What is bad breath known as?

Halitosis

Who painted the Sistine Chapel?

MichaelAngelo

well I’m late to bed, so that’s it for me!

Have fun!

AJ

Back to Reality

Well it went better than I was expecting:)

Exercise:

Lyndsay told me last night I would feel better if I got up this morning and went for a run, and she was right. I only went for twenty minutes (in torrential downpour so it must be worth forty minutes😜), but hopefully it’s the start of getting back into routine. I took a slightly different route and passed the woman I pass every morning on my park route. I wish there was a way to ask her if she wants to run together since we’re the only two crazy people out there.

I also got a yoga routine after school! Lyndsay sent out an email to staff saying she would be putting on a yoga routine video after school for anyone who wanted to join. There were five of us and though it was a basic routine, it felt great to get back to it. It’s on the schedule for Mondays now:)

Teaching:

I was ready for the worst, but thankfully it was t that bad. Most years, I’ve had to retrain my students after the holidays, but this year they were pretty mellow. I’m thinking this is just the honeymoon so I’ll be on my guard all week.

The cutest moment today was when a little guy explained his drawing to me. He is super creative! He drew an earth and then added spiders to it, but the spiders weren’t spiders, they were…aliens. Lol he definitely has imagination to spare!

It was a lovely day with my class- we did calendar, gym, music, writing about our holidays, buddies and a desk change. My crier didn’t show up today so I had another day’s reprieve. I actually had five children away today- amazing how two weeks just isn’t enough 🤔

We also started our new read aloud novel. I know I should branch out to a new novel, but I do love Roald Dahl books for read alouds, so this term we’re going to read Matilda, one of my favourites!

Overall, it was a busy day with supervision at recess and a meeting with the assembly speakers at lunch, but I survived:)

Tea:

My tea cupboard is once again bursting, but I think I came up with a plan today. I always feel guilty using a whole David’s Tea run at one time or only using tea once, but then I realized I could use one tea tin per day on my thermos as it has to last all day and I often pour more hot water in. This should start to use up the tea! Today was a lemon flavour, but I wish it had been sweeter!

Knitting:

I ripped out the temperature scarf and decided to try it as a circular Cowl before giving up on it. I casted on doing thirty stitches in each colour for 150 stitches. I then moved onto the second row for day six. I’m hoping in this way I won’t get a block of gray. So far, it’s tough to tell what it’s going to look like, but I like it better or at least enough to give it a few more days:)

Reading:

I took Maureen’s advice and read on my lunch hour or at least for part of it. I had taken the book I started yesterday with me but ended up reading blog posts to try and catch up. Boy do a lot of people post on Monday!!! Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to read my book:)

Blogging:

On the topic of blogging, I have a question. I never know what to do when people follow me who don’t write in English. I try to follow back anyone who follows me, but I don’t know if I should follow blogs I can’t read?🤔.

Movies:

I was getting so much accomplished today! I decimated my list first thing this morning and got dinner and knitting done after I got home, but then I turned on a Hallmark movie. Tonight I watched With Love, Christmas. It was very cute, though boy the guy in it, isn’t a great actor. Cute, but he’s exactly the same in every movie!!! The movie did give me some ideas I’ve noted down for how to get into the Christmas spirit next year:). It’s great how many ideas I get from these movies:). What isn’t great though was I was supposed to start writing this post at 8, so I’d be asleep by 9, but I lost an hour of my life to the movies and didn’t start until almost 9!😫

Well, I’d better get going as I imagine, it’s going to take more patience tomorrow!

Have fun!

AJ

Can I Move Any Faster?

It has been quite the couple of days! I’ve decided to try and move my posts to my lunch hour so I’m not using so much data, but we’ll see if I can organize my brain around this!

Running:

Yesterday morning was the first day with children at school. I have decided this year to get up earlier so I can run before school (it worked really well this summer) and also not be so rushed in the morning. Yesterday morning was going along great- solid run, great hair, even remembered to put some make up on! Then I went to cut my English Muffin for breakfast and managed to slice through my left pointer finger instead😫 Lol I’ve dealt with a multitude of injuries with my brothers but I’m not good when it’s myself. I managed to get a bandaid on it and then got myself off to school. The first aid attendant looked at it and said I should have gotten stitches. I took it easy that night and just web for a walk, but it started bleeding again. Thankfully one of my running buddies is a retired nurse and she fixed me up and gave me strict orders for no physical activity for a couple of days. I hate being benched!!!😖 And I was just getting into a routine!

Teaching:

It was great to see my old class yesterday, even if just for a half hour! They’ve grown so much!  It was nice to also get all of their stuff out of my room so I can quit walking around it! The rest of the day was a whole lot of meetings. I find these more difficult to get through than teaching all day!

Reading:

Since exercise and knitting are off limits due to my finger I have been doing lots of reading. I just finished Love Me Again which is the seventh book in Jaci Burton’s Hope series. I love reading books in series as you get to know the characters so well. Jaci Burton is fabulous at this aspect as the friend group always plays a big role in her books. She makes me want to have friends like these as they do such fun things!  This is a store of second time love but what is unusual is that the leading lady left the guy when they were teenagers. I love how kids and dogs also play a big role in this book!  It is also a pleasure to see the leading lady, Loretta,grow stronger and stand up for herself. The only problems I had with the book were minor- I wanted to know what happened between Loretta and her parents and I felt that Loretta and her guy got back together too easily.Still it was a pleasure to read and it is a series that I wish I had bought! If you like small town romance, series romance, kids and dogs or second chance love, I highly recommend this book!

Knitting:

i may not be able to knit right now, but my nurse/ running partner distracted me with talking patterns last night and showing me her current projects. She went to visit her sister this summer and came home with tons of new project ideas. It made me want to visit someone who knits as I sure didn’t get this during my holidays:(!  I have to say we managed to track down the Mika wool she was looking for on Ravelry and I discovered a new website- Purl Soho which is amazing! I just want to make everything. They have tons of free downloads and if you sign up for their newsletter, you get a free paid download! I can’t wait to pick one!

Well I’ve taught young minds all day so I’m off to read a chick lit book:)

Have fun!

AJ

Good Things

Why does there have to be balance in life, can’t it all just be awesome?

Running:

Well… I did it! I got up this morning ( though I didn’t want to), laced up my running shoes and walked over to the Coquitlam Crunch. I was giving myself a pep talk the whole way there- ” it doesn’t matter how far you get, it’s a starting point, you’re lucky you can run at all, just do your best,” etc. I gave myself no chance to chicken out and started as soon as I got to the gate. I ran the entire first section which is all uphill, ran to the stairs in the second section, did 437 stairs at a steady pace, ran to the end of the second section. On the third, fourth and fifth sections I ran parts and walked parts. It took me 25:24 minutes to get to the top. Yesterday when I walked the crunch it took me 31 minutes so I suppose I was better. There is a lot of room for improvement, but at least I’m now over the mental hurdle of the first attempt. I’m thinking that I will try to run it every Saturday morning. Now that I have a time, I can work on lowering it! Lol for being not into competitive sports, I’m sure competitive with myself!

I also got my inlet walk in and a workout. I know I need to work out daily as I noticed on my run up the crunch this morning that my legs didn’t feel very strong😞Definitely need to work on that!

Back to School:

I gave in and went to the teacher store downtown Vancouver today. Collins Educational has everything a person could possibly imagine! It cost me $60 to get out of there, and that didn’t include the paper I had to buy for the school! I keep telling myself that I won’t spend any more money on my classroom, and yet I do at the first opportunity. Collins is an interesting place because while the three women are very helpful, none of them seem to enjoy their job:(

Eating:

My mom came to the teacher store with me and on the way we stopped at The Gluten Free Epicurean. 

http://www.glutenfreeepicurean.ca

This is a totally gluten free cafe and bakery. It has a large selection of baked goods along with smoothie and frozen and packaged items you can take home.

My mom and I got the vegan cinnamon bun, a strawberry galette and a pot of English Breakfast tea.  We demolished everything. The galette had a crisp, flakey pastry that had sugar crystals on it. The filling was sweet without being too sweet. The cinnamon bun was moist and doughy.  My mom even liked both items and said they didn’t taste gluten free or dairy free! That is a big compliment coming from her! I noticed on the way out that they even have gluten free waffle cones!  I baked the frozen cinnamon buns I brought home ( it got too hot in my car for them) and they turned out fabulous too! This cafe is definitely worth a visit and I will be stopping by to try other goodies for sure!

I didn’t eat again until this evening when my parents and I went for dinner at the Brew Street Pub in Port Moody. I had been there before and had been very impressed, but unfortunately this visit was not as successful. You now seat yourself so my parents and I found a spot on the patio with a few other patrons. We waited more than fifteen minutes and then had to flag down a waitress. We were sure to order both our drinks and food at the same time. It still took another fifteen minutes for our drinks to come out. The food came quickly after that. I had the tuna tataki and it was okay, though the tuna was not very flavourful:(. The sangria was also not very flavourful and had canned peaches in it:( We had to ask to have our table wiped off as it was filthy dirty and when we looked around we noticed the patio as a whole had a lot of garbage on it and was mainly being used for storage it seemed. I hate to say it, but I don’t think I’ll be back.

Shopping:

Had a chance to go shopping with my mom today. It’s a nice treat to have a brutally honest opinion to go shopping with! I definitely know if something flatters me from the back as well the front with my mom around. I found a cute jean jacket to replace the one I shrunk out of, a blouse for work, and a couple of pairs of pyjamas:) All in all, a good shopping trip. I even convinced my mom to buy a new pair of shoes!

Knitting:

i am enjoying knitting this afghan pattern. It comes from a Leisure Arts book I bought years ago and is about the eighth afghan I have completed. This book has definitely paid for itself! I am getting a little concerned though as I’m only on my second pattern repeat and I am already on my third ball of wool😳

Well I suppose all these good things today had to be tempered by something not so good:( I thought that my parents were going to the Oliver Wine Festival and then coming home for a month or so before heading south for the winter, but they informed me today that when they leave for the wine festival they’ll be gone until Spring. This is great for them and I’m glad they’re enjoying their retirement, I just was expecting them to not be leaving before November 11th! I just need to wrap my head around this. I suppose it’s just because I don’t have my own family that I really notice their absence when they’re gone. It almost makes me want to go back to online dating so I’m not alone so much!

All of these great things happened to me today- vanquished a running fear, a craving satisfied, successful shopping, peaceful knitting and great company and allmy mind focuses on is the one element not to my liking that I can’t change! Grrrrr!

Well that’s enough complaining for one night.

Have fun!

AJ

You win some, you lose some…

Not exciting day, but a productive one:)

Running:

I just got my usual inlet run over to Rocky Point park in this morning. I was frustrated because it took until 25 minutes for me to get into a good rhythm and the run is only 30 minutes! Grrr😖 At one point I thought that after I had been running for a while I wouldn’t have bad or weird runs anymore, but I’ve come to the realization that those odd runs are always going to crop up no matter how often, how far or how well I run normally. I guess I might as well just embrace them. Lol but I do hope I go back to normal soon!

I also got a walk in, shorter than normal and no workout as my legs are feeling achy. I figured a little rest was better than an overuse injury. Tomorrow is another day:)

Back to School:

My mom and I worked all day in my classroom today. I got the major project of my classroom library completed so I’m happy! My books for older kids are all stored and the easy books look enticing:) My mom even got my centres tidied up as well so that they look more inviting to the children. I have a couple big organization projects left, but nothing that can’t be done after the children come back.

Eating:

In June I received a gift certificate to go for high tea at the Cakes and Sweets Bakery in Coquitlam. I called yesterday and made a reservation for today at noon for my mom and I. I was so looking forward to it! I didn’t pack a morning snack as I know that I’m usually so full after high teas ( they are one of my favourite events to go out for)! This morning I received a phone call saying that while they could accommodate gluten free, they couldn’t deal with dairy free. I ended up cancelling my reservation:( Have they never heard of vegan butter or oil??? If I can bake delicious gluten free, dairy free sweets ( that the skeptical men in my family will eat), then they should be able to as well! I was really disappointed and am thinking of stopping in and seeing what they can do for me since I now have an unusable gift certificate:(

With the tea disappointment, my mom did exuded to go to Pasta Polo in Coquitlam for lunch as we needed to get blue painters tape at Rona down the street from there. It was obviously not my day for eating out. I was so hungry that I couldn’t make a decision by the time our waitress got to us, so I ended up with gluten free fusilli with a bolognese sauce. I always get seafood when I go out and I should have stuck with that trend. The food was fine, but it really tasted like something that I could have made at home.😞 The horrible part was the service! I actually had to go looking for someone so that I could pay the bill!  This isn’t my normal experience here so I’ll give it another shot.

Reading:

I finally got to the Burnaby Public Library, McGill Beanch who have a great selection of trashy romance novels:) They even had the book I’ve been looking for! So glad as I refuse to spend money on trashy novels!

Knitting:

I only got eight rows of my afghan done tonight ( I wanted to get my kitchen floor washed in case my mom sees here tomorrow), but it’s fun to do more than just knit one, purl one. This pattern even has a cable.  I will appreciate when I get to know the pattern better though as right now, I’m just following the pattern very carefully!!

Well tomorrow will be another busy day with going to the Fair, so I’m off to bed.

Have fun!

AJ

Phewf!

Have I stopped today??

Running:

I set my alarm this morning after yesterday’s fiasco, but of course it wasn’t necessary as I was wide awake at 6:20am😫  It did mean I got out for a run. I love the start of Fall for running! It’s so crisp out! I had fun with my running app, Runkeeper, this morning as I changed its voice. Now I get my timing cues and a little humor with a Boston accent. It seemed appropriate after my recent vacation:). It was just a half hour but made all the difference! Phewf, I won’t be a monster with a bad attitude like I was yesterday!

I walked to and from work and got out for half of my normal walk today.

Blogging is obviously good for me as I got my workout squeezed in at the end of the day here. I didn’t want to have to admit that I hadn’t done it! I did the ” More than a Minute” workout which is actually twenty minutes of heart pounding cardio. Phewf, I completed all my exercise today.

Teaching:

I went to school today but didn’t see my classroom much:( I met with my co-teacher and we planned and prepped next week ( tough to do but I know I’ll appreciate it next week!). We also got a good start on a year plan. It’s difficult to do and not laid in stone, but the plan definitely helps keep us focused and so that we don’t spend two months on place value🤣

I also had a Department Head meeting today. It looks like I’ll be doing the scheduling and the assemblies this year. A little daunting as the previous teacher was really good at them. I have a tendency to be very blunt so these assemblies might be quite short. I’m going to try and get as much done in advance as I can!!!

Hopefully tomorrow I will get back into my classroom as there is still stuff everywhere!

Eating:

I was good until I came home from school. I had no snack prepared so I ate everything I could find:(

Socializing:

I ended up going to Earls in Port Coquitlam with a couple of friends for happy hour. We do this sometimes and it often makes me feel like I’m actually an adult, lol. All I need now is to come home with leftovers to complete the picture I have in my in head of being an adult. Lol my life is definitely not as exciting as I obviously thought it would be.  I had tea really looking forward to having a fish taco butter then r waitress didn’t seem too sure it could be gluten free and dairy free so I just went with garlic fries that are done in their own fryer. For three dollars you would think I could have stopped eating when I was full, but no I kept going and ate them all. By the end I felt completely sick! Thankfully it seems to have been a case of eating too much, not an allergic reaction, phewf! I’m just so mad at myself because I was already up in weight this morning and now this afternoon and evening I’ve let my eating get out of control😞 I think the timing was the biggest problem for me. I am hungry when I get home from school and usually have dinner right away, so I ate too much before going out. Next time, I should take a small snack and just stay at school until it’s time to leave for the restaurant. I also had a gin and sprite to drink and didn’t mind it. I’ll have to remember that one as $7.50 for a night out seems pretty good!

Happy hour wasalso beneficial as my friend’s calmed me down about my classroom by reminding me that all the stuff I’m seeing on Pinterest and Instagram is stuff we used to do, but now my district takes a much more calm and natural approach to our classrooms. Phewf, I’m not a screwup, I’m just keeping my surroundings calm so we all remain calm!

Shopping:

I decided to share my garlic breath with everyone and stopped in the way home at Chapters to get a birthday gift for my friend’s son who turned one earlier in August. I bought him three Robert Munsch books and I’ve de used that this will be the beginning of a collection for him. They are a lot of fun to read and he’ll enjoy them for many years.  Now I just have to find a safe spot for a list keeping track of which ones I’ve bought him.

I was obviously meant to go to Chapters today as they had a gluten free, dairy free cookbookSweet Eats For All I’ve borrowed from the library before on sale for $5!!! And they only had one left so it was meant to be!  As I write this I realize I probably should have been looking for a birthday present for my friend as well! I’ll have to think of something bird related for her.

Projects:

I really wanted to start my next knitting project but figured I should finish something already started instead, so I finished my photo album for my trip to Montreal three years ago ( can you tell I’m behind lol). I’m happy it’s done, but mainly because it means tomorrow I can start a new knitting project! Now just to pick one….

Well I want to get up for a run in the morning so I’m off to sleep.

Have fun!

AJ

Voila:)

Today was my first day back in the classroom and of course it was the first day that I managed to sleep past seven all summer:(

Exercise:    Grade:D

With waking up at 7:30 there was no time for a run before I got into the school. Unfortunately, I let this mess with me. I was feeling down because I felt like school was already messing with my positive, healthy lifestyle on the first day. Definitely not the best way to start the day!

Overall, unfortunately the only exercise I got in today was an inlet walk in the sunshine. This was beautiful, but definitely not cardio. I started to do my “More than a Minute” workout but my feet are seriously swollen and sore. I’ve never had this before and hopefully it’s just from the heat and being on them and it will go away quickly!!!  Well tomorrow is another day and I have already set an alarm so a run will happen in the morning:)

Back To School:      Grade: C

I walked into a nice clean room, and felt completely overwhelmed as to where to start. I set up my room every year, but I always seem to draw a blank when I first start. For this reason I mainly just put stuff back where it was so the room is useable and I’ll go from there making changes.   I’m only on box ten of my classroom library out of forty boxes so I see a long day in my future tomorrow,😝 And unfortunately my room is messier now than when I started.

It is always darkest before the dawn.

 

The biggest problem I faced in my classroom today was letting go of my expectations of myself!

What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it’s supposed to be.

I see all these amazing rooms on Instagram and forget that I need to make this work for me and the grade one students I’ll have.

Eating:                Grade: C-

Not my best day as the uncertainty I felt in my classroom caused me to eat all my food before 10:30 so by the time I got home at 3:30 I was starving. I did however manage this evening to organize some food for the rest of the week without going grocery shopping!

Knitting:      Grade: A

Well, I finally finished the Nubby Knit Turtleneck ( though mine is not a turtleneck).  This sweater took me longer than most, and I was very worried that I would have put all this effort in for nothing.  It is my retro sweater as it is made from wool my Grandmother originally used to make a sweater vest for my uncle with a pattern from one of her 1960s/70s Good Housekeeping Needlecraft Magazines. I realized about 3/4 of the way through the pattern that it was a retro pattern so was probably sized smaller than the patterns of today 😳 But it turned out perfect!!!!

This pattern is truly the perfect pattern when you have a show you want to binge watch.  Every piece is literally knit one, purl one with increasing or decreasing as needed. For this reason, a show to watch is a necessity as otherwise, it’s an incredibly boring pattern!  It is easy to follow as a pattern and would be fine for a beginner knitter.

I made a couple of changes to the pattern and would make a couple more. I ended up going to 57 stitches on the sleeve increases instead of 53 as I felt they may be a little tight. In addition, some of the parts end with you doing a full row of purls ( front left and right side), I wouldn’t do this as I don’t love that it shows up on the front of the sweater as a ridge.  I would also be tempted to either do the cuffs with the larger needle or add stitches as they are quite close fitting.  I really liked how all the parts matched up really well, there was no need to hide any extra in the armpit or anything:)

It is not the most exciting sweater, but the plan is a white button down shirt underneath with my skinny jeans and brown boots to make a warm, comfy work outfit this fall:) I think this sweater will get a lot of use in my wardrobe between September and November! Even better, the wool ended up not feeling scratchy against my skin:)

Now I get to go and dream up what project  I’m going to start on next:)

Have fun!

AJ