Best Laid Plans

I had a plan and got one post done and then my summer turned sideways.

I will state right away that nothing horrible has happened, some of it would probably be considered good, but it has all made for stress:(. Not exactly the type of summer I had planned! I am down to my last few weeks of summer and today is really the first day that I have felt stress free in a while.

But let’s forget about all that and talk about the last few days.

This week I had a workout on Monday and had a snack lunch with two friends from school. Her driveway was horrendous and I was a little afraid Sparky (my new car) wouldn’t make it up or down, but we did and had a lovely visit in between!

Monday night I left with two of my running buddies to visit two other running buddies. They are actually the couple that taught me to run and they moved to the coast about five years ago. We visited the first two years and then missed three due to Covid.

It was a lovely visit! We hiked at Hidden Groves the first day which has 21km of beautiful trails to walk ( they’d be fun to run too)! The second day I went for a run with Dennis in the morning. It was a lovely trot along the waterfront until he suddenly took off. I ran after him and turned the corner to see the Starbucks sign. I knew that man was obsessed! The final day we went for a walk at Trout Lake whiz was very green and quiet:). Along with the exercise was amazing food and good visiting ( though I had forgotten how much my friend talks- quite a change from my silent condo)!

We went out for dinner on Wednesday night to El Segundo which was amazing! Lots of gluten free and vegan options and I am still dreaming of the corn chowder and shrimp tacos I had:)

Thursday we made the long trip (only due to traffic) home and I got another workout in.

Friday I started with a short run and a massage and then met up with two friends to visit a street market two towns over. It was okay- though the lineups were horrendous, there were too many people and I paid $5.25 for about 1/3 of a cup of ice cream!! Ugh we’ll chalk it up to quality time so I forget those parts!

Today was lovely! I have done laundry, blocked a sweater and two pairs of socks, knitted a cowl for my niece for Christmas, got caught up on my temperature tree stitching and started a cowl out of my new knitting book. I also had a nap, made bread from my sourdough starter discard (good taste, but not cooked enough) and watched plenty of flosstube and knitting podcasts.

Tomorrow I run and then start house and dog sitting for my brother’s family. I am hoping life will continue calmly for the rest of the month though!

Have fun!

AJ

Vacation Week 1

Maybe with no work I will actually have some time to write.

This week was the first week of vacation and it has seemed busier than I was expecting!

It started right after work last Thursday with a staff gathering for the end of the year and one of the teacher’s retirements. It was fun, but I have to admit that I was too exhausted to really enjoy it.

Friday was the first real day of holiday and it was Canada Day. I ended up checking out a local festival with one of my oldest friends. It was a little weird as I spent most of my childhood at this festival, but I have to say I wasn’t impressed with their new version. They had some activities for the kids and they had plenty of companies and organizations happy to take your money, but there really wasn’t a whole lot for adults to do:(. We ended up continuing on to the ice cream store which was amazing as usual.

Saturday was a quiet day at home and on Sunday I was home other than for my run n the morning. I had to go around a park that is uphill both ways!

Monday I had a massage which was great as I’ve been having some neck pain which is unusual for me. It turns out I need more stretching than usual with the extra weights I’ve been doing.

Tuesday I had a run with Dennis around the river and then a pedicure so that I was no longer embarrassed to wear sandals. That night was neat as I met friends to go axe throwing. I am not a natural, but did get it to stick three times. I think it would be a really good date activity. Unfortunately my night went downhill when we tried a new restaurant and they gave me the wrong bowl and I ended up with a dairy incident:(

Wednesday I checked out a new coffee shop with a friend that I have not seen for a year. We are both teachers and it was July last year when I last saw her. It was great to catch up and we will try for one more before she’s off to Europe to see her boyfriend for the summer. That night was knit night which is always a good time!

Thursday I celebrated my summer vacation with the Sunday morning crew by having Chinese food. This is a big deal for me as until now there has been no gluten free Chinese food anywhere around me. It turned out there was no dine in option (though their website said there was), but that wasn’t a big deal- we just went back to Brenda’s. The food was awesome!

Today I have gone for a nice long run on the dyke this morning with Dennis and then had a leisurely coffee. It was great to feel good on my run and to do 7km. Lately every run has been just 5km and the lack of mileage has been getting to me. Maybe by the end of summer I can be back to my regular 10km!

I also got boxes for my parents today and finished both of my current stitching and knitting WIPs.

All in all, nota bad week. Hopefully I’ll be back next week to tell you about week 2.

Have fun!

AJ

Vacation Day 1

I had all these plans for my day, but nothing went as planned.

It was pouring rain so I had no ambition to go running since my running buddy is out of commission.

I decided to head to Michaels to get more yarn for my friend’s afghan, but though they said they had some, they didn’t:(. The store also didn’t have any pompoms or even pompom makers:(

I went into Pomme instead and spent way too much money. I was looking for some appetizers, but didn’t find any:( I guess I’ll have to add those to my list to make over the holidays.

The best part of my day was when my nephew texted me to go for lunch. I grabbed him and we went to Red Robin. I had the Tuscan salmon burger with fries and it was wonderful! I rarely get to have fries so this was a nice treat.

We then carried along to two different ice cream stores to get the ice cream for Christmas dinner. I spent way too much on ice cream and now really want to try making eggnog ice cream!

We also stopped at Michaels on the way home so I could get some red, white and black yarn to make G a scarf for Christmas. I’m glad he finally wanted something!

I came home and made myself go for a run! I really didn’t want to and probably shouldn’t have gone as running on burger and ice cream didn’t feel very good:(. It got done though!

I finally got my advent knitting done. I have been opening and knitting the advent from Wool Interrupted into the Land of Sweets cowl. I didn’t realize until today that I had opened and knit the wrong day yesterday so today I had to take yesterday’s knitting out and redo it with today’s. I am finally caught up.

I really need to get going on sewing a bag for my friend. I’d better get off the couch and get going.

Have fun!

AJ

A Moment

It has been a crazy busy day!

It started off great with opening my advent calendars. We won’t talk about how many yarn advent calendars I have🤣

It continued to be great when my behavior student was away- the tension in the room instantly melts away! It was also a lovely morning as we started the day making cards for seniors with our buddies. My students love their buddies!!

My lunch break was improved By my tea advent calendar. I splurged and shared a bird and blend tea advent with my teaching buddy. It was super expensive but the first two days have been wonderful- Christmas cranberry pie and mulled cider.

I got my report card final changes made during my prep. We finished the book Stuart Little and so began watching the movie with our lunch and ended the day doing gym with the other grade 1/2 class.

The best moment came after school though! I had Bookclub with the grade 3/4/5 students. We had 22 kids show up today which was wonderful! As we went around the circle letting kids give their opinion of the book, one kid I taught in grade one (I’ve taught 90% of these kids at some point) said that he remembered my talking about how when I read a book, I see it like a movie in my head and that’s what the book was like for him. Awww a kid actually remembered something I said!!! It was such a great moment as most of the time it feels like the kids forget all about grade one and two when they get to higher grades.

After that I dropped some books off that I had sold, went for a short run (finally!), had my eyebrows and eyelashes dyed and picked up groceries.

I finally got my advent knitting done. I am only knitting using one yarn calendar right now. I am knitting the Land of Sweets cowl with my Wool Interrupted advent, however, I am knitting two of them concurrently- one for me and one for my mom. Even with knitting two, I still have yarn left over🙄

I’m going to need to come up with another plan, but right now, I need sleep.

Have fun!

AJ

Tuesday Trot

I need to rethink my blog. It has always been so that my mom knew what had happened in my day, but now that I talk to my mom on the phone each night, I find myself not writing and then I feel bad. Hmmmm🤔

Teaching:

Today was quite the day. My behavior kid was unmedicated and my assistant was away:(😢. We got through calendar, our phonemic awareness warm up, and printing in the morning quite well.

I hear recess and lunch was nothing but troubles outside.

We tried counting by 5s for the first time as my class is amazing at 10s- both forwards and backwards. It was a learning process, but they were already starting to improve.

We also had our hip hop dance lesson which was very interesting😜

This afternoon we had planners, reading group, chalkboard spelling and then the kids went to music. I got some more posters organized. This feels like the never ending project.

After school I had a phone call with my doctor that was pretty useless. I get to try a different form of iron and go for another blood test in February. Oh yeah🙄

I picked my mom up and we went to Michaels where I finally found yarn for my friend’s afghan and some more floss for my project. As I sit here I realize this is the first day where I have missed stitching.

I then had run clinic. We did five long intervals of three minutes. I did four of them hard – challenged myself to keep up with Karen and then went and hung with Sarah for the last one because she wasn’t feeling great. My stomach wasn’t feeling great either since I left school. I hope that goes away quickly!

I am now home, ensconced on my couch very happily:)

Have fun!

AJ

Lest We Forget

Remembrance Day has always been a big deal in my family- seems to be bigger than Thanksgiving even, but this year, while lovely, was weird!

Our local service was cancelled. I understand it as you don’t want all those seniors in a big crowd, but it was still sad. I have been at every service my whole life, so it just made the day feel weird.

It was a nice day though, don’t get me wrong.

I started with a run with Sarah and Dennis. We did a different route where we walked up the big hill by my house and then ran down through the trail and my old neighborhood to the lower road and then home along there and the inlet trail. It was awesome to have the first 2.5 kilometers downhill! I would love to do it again and see how fast I could come down that hill. It definitely helped that we had perfect cool, dry running weather this morning!

I then got home and tidied up my place and myself.

I then joined my two friends Melissa and Em for brunch. We had to wait in a lineup for 45 minutes! It was wonderful food though. I had the Hipster Hash in the big pancake.

I enjoyed the socializing, but brunch was super exciting because Alexa- one of the designers of Tin Can Knits was diagonal to us. I had noticed the two ladies knitting in line outside while we were eating and was dying to talk to them about knitting, but then I realized who it was and that was just even more exciting! I didn’t disrupt her brunch, but did send her a message on Instagram.

After my lovely meal, I had Brenda over for knit night, the afternoon version. It was lovely! I did a stripe on my Christmas socks and then worked on my baby sweater which is a Flax Light by Tin Can Knits.

Since Brenda went home, I have been knitting on my test knit. I can’t wait to be done so I can wear it!

Well, I’m off to knit more on this lovely bonus day, though I do also plan to do some upper body strength training this evening still.

Have fun!

AJ

Moving On To Urbandale

I can’t believe I missed last month’s update! Though on the bright side, it makes for a lot more progress this month.

Two months ago I had just set out from Kathy in Rapid City to visit Mildly Granola in Urbandale, Iowa. I had gotten to Okaton and this month I have made it to Welker Lake outside of Alexandria, South Dakota.

Alexandria has a population of 644 people which makes for another small town stop on my trip. It has been around since 1885 though before it existed as Clarksville. It was named after Alexander Mitchell who was a banker.

It was kind of nice to see such a big jump in my location. I’ll just keep running from here:)

Tuesday Trot

It was a busy day, but thankfully better than yesterday!

We got through the printing of c and a poppy poem. We also did some chalkboard spelling and a fire and earthquake drill. I then had to sit through a meeting that was useless:(

I finally got home and set up a stitching area for myself. I have determined that I don’t stitch because it takes forever to get everything out and ready. I am hoping that this will get me to stitch more. It definitely worked tonight as I did some stitching and then wanted to do more.

I also did some knitting. At lunch I worked on my first pair of Christmas socks. I am supposed to do one stripe a day but I’m loving it so much that I think I’m just going to knit it straight through.

I also worked on shawlography this evening. I can’t wait to be done this shawl. It’s tough to keep going when I don’t think I’ll wear.

I showed up for run club and it is pouring and it’s hills. Ugh what a night. It was dark and pouring rain and windy. We did a 1km warm up, twenty minutes of hill repeats, and then a 1.5km cool down. I then quickly rushed home for a hot shower. As miserable as it was, I really do love run clinic!

Now I get to sit down and do some more crafting with a cup of tea:)

Have fun!

AJ

Tuesday Changed Up

It was a busy day, but better than yesterday! We had a new owl poem, and tried to get as many students done the owl mini book as possible. There was some impetus for finishing by the idea they got to make a bat for the classroom when they were done!

After recess they did a science assessment on solids, liquids and gases, otherwise known as a cut and paste.

We also got back to our McCracken Spelling. I was going to go to sentences for the grade twos but when I went to get the McCracken book I realized there was still a lot more to cover so the grade two’s just picked up where they left off in June while the grade 1s started at the beginning.

We also had seven minutes to start a math game called Roll a Monster. They just got started and were super into it so I will try to fit it back in tomorrow.

This afternoon we actually got ten minutes of Centre time before they went off to music. My pre was super productive as I finally got the Halloween books out, got the duo-tangs ready for November/December and got the special helper calendar made for next month.

There was a meeting after school but I had already given my regrets as I had a long standing massage appointment, but then it was cancelled and I decided to just go home anyways. It was lovely!

I had spent my morning reading and finished Last Single Girl by Bria Quintana which was a cute, fast read. So after school I spent my time knitting. I had finished my Second Chance Shawl yesterday and today I have been working on my Halloween socks. I really want to work on shawlography, but the socks have to be done by Friday! I have about 36 rows to go so it shouldn’t be a problem to finish them tomorrow.

Finally tonight, run clinic returned🎊🎉. It was awesome to get out and run with other people. My group actually only had six people in it (and we all had to be double vaccinated to join). We did intervals- 60 seconds hard/60 seconds easy, 30 seconds hard/30 seconds easy and we did that for about twenty minutes. I stayed in second the whole time and it felt good to push myself to stay there!

It’s also nice that run clinic ends earlier than trivia did. I am home, showered and ready for bed at a decent time:)

Have fun!

AJ

Trivia Tuesday

Last Tuesday was a theme night so I didn’t bother talking about it.

I went to work today and had four kids away. I hope it’s just holiday!

We got through some Thanksgiving writing which was cool to hear what the kids had done.

In math we did a couple of math games and also worked on our math printing booklet.

This afternoon we had a longer silent reading so I could do reading group with the lowest group. We read I Paint and they did great do I need to find more books about this.

I spent my prep trying to get as much organized for my TOC as possible.

I met up with Sarah for a run after school. It was great to get a little run in. It was pouring rain, but still good. I’m hoping maybe I can get one more run in tomorrow morning!

For trivia it is still just us four girls as our lone male is still away.

In round one I knew:

What is Bourne’s first name?

Jason

Which Vancouver team has won the Stanley cup before?

Millionaires

Which hotel in Vegas has an Eiffel Tower in front of it?

Paris

What does IQ stand for?

Intelligence Quotient

I hitch blimp blew up?

Hindenburg

In the music round it was:

Original Artists

Hits of 1985

Is it Snoop Dog?

Eagles Greatest Hits side 1

I can’t remember a thing about the Kahoot round because I hit the buttons.

In the last round:

What is the first name of Beckham’s wife?

Victoria

What movie series has Diagon Alley?

Harry Potter

Who wrote a Brief History of Time?

Stephen Hawking

Which team has the Honey Bears as their cheer squad?

Chicago Bears

Ok that’s it for me- I need sleep!