That's how you know you're a runner

Yesterday was free of entertaining things to tell you about. I was at work from 7-6:15. It was long. We had pizza for dinner, it was delicious.

I did manage to put up a new bulletin board.

I am incapable of taking a level picture.

I also set up our new sensory bin. I really want to add some more things to it, but I'm not sure what yet. Our theme this month is the circus!

This morning I was up bright and early to meet up with the group. It was raining, which apparently scared some people off, because there were only 8 of us today. The weather was actually pretty nice for running, we are in the trees a lot, so there was just the right amount of rain to keep us cool.

We did our usual 6.51 miles in 1:02:59.

We talked a little about cross training today, and I mentioned that I'm really bad about cross training, because I get the "I could be running right now" feeling. They laughed and said, "That's how you know you're a runner."

I tried this protein brownie from my RunnerBox when I got home.

Flavor-wise, it was a good chocolate flavor with less of a peanut butter taste than the name implies. Texture-wise, it was very much a protein bar. Nothing I would go out of my way to find again, but pretty good overall.

We don't have anything planned for the rest of the day, just the way I like it! :)

Surrender to feeling disgusting

The weather here is still so crazy to me. It is super hot out, then we get thunderstorms (and it's still hot out) and then it's sunny again the next day (and hot out, are you sensing a pattern?). I guess I'm starting to get used to the heat a bit because it was in the upper 80s the other day and it didn't feel too awful.

The humidity still kills me. I don't think that the air is something I should be able to feel unless it's the wind. The best (worst?) advice I have seen when it comes to the heat and humidity is this: surrender to feeling disgusting. Feeling gross and sticky is pretty unavoidable, and whining about it doesn't help, so I guess giving in is really the only option.

We did water play with the munchkins at work today. It's a whole ordeal of changing them all into swimsuits and water shoes, and slathering them in sunscreen (which took forever). Then we filled up our sensory bin with water, cups, and some toys, and wheeled it outside. They had a blast!

This dog is in trouble. He even looks a little shady in this picture from earlier in the day.

I came home from dinner tonight to a really gross mess on the floor of the hallway. His only saving grace was that it was on the tile, and not the carpet. He's pouting right now because he knows that he is in trouble.

Now I'm off for a little reading before bed.

What are you reading right now? I love new book recommendations!

Crazy teacher and random pictures

Um, so Saturday is coming up fast!

Today was the last run on my training plan, a one mile warm-up, one mile at 9:00 pace, and a mile cool down. My foot is feeling almost normal again, and it doesn't bother me when I run, so that's good.

I started off with my 7 minute workout warm up and finished up with my stretching app again. My phone is turning into an excellent training partner!

I started to put up a new bulletin board at work today.

And I am the crazy teacher who made an indoor sandbox in her sensory bin.

I will be doing a lot of extra sweeping this month.

Some pretty flowers on the side of the house:

And some neat clouds.

Buddy, keeping an eye on the neighbors.

Over the next couple days I am going to figure out my race goals. Or I won't, and that will be fun too! :)

Rogue clover population

The weekend always goes too fast.

I woke up early for no reason this morning and had a nice morning of coffee and the Today show.

And a tasty fruit/granola/yogurt breakfast.

I love berries.

I had to pick up some sand for my June sensory bin (how on earth is it June already?), so I headed up to Home Depot. While I was there, I couldn't help myself and picked up a little tomato plant.

It's a yellow pear tomato, because they're pretty much the best.

Buddy is an excellent gardener.

I also took a little while to weed my little planter to give my poppies a fighting chance. There was a rogue clover population threatening to take over the entire container.

They have so much more space now!

And then I got organized.

I haven't had a place for most of these things, so they've just been living on the coffee table. Now they have a home, and the coffee table is a whole lot cleaner! Go figure.

I wasn't sure if I was going to run today - I'm totally off my training plan at this point - so instead I did the 7 minute workout. Once I finished, I really wanted to run, so I did an easy mile and a nice walking cool down while I finished my show.

The Newburgh Half is THIS weekend - how did that happen?

Now I'm off to fold some laundry.

Have you tried the 7 minute workout?

I need to sleep more

I really need to get better about going to bed on time. I have been getting less and less sleep lately, and I'm starting to feel it.

Maybe it's a matter of getting more organized or maybe I just need to be better about turning off the computer/tv earlier. All I know is I need to do something, because sleep is essential to me still liking my munchkins and staying healthy enough to run.

For some reason, all the munchkins were really tired today too. We spent a lot of time outside in the morning so they (and we) could have space from each other, and they all took good naps!

Somehow, amidst the chaos, I managed to finish up our Mother's Day gifts so I don't have to think about them for the rest of the week.

I set up our new sensory bin during nap today. We're talking about weather this month, so it's weather themed!

It will obviously never look like this again once they touch it, but it's cute right now.

A little late-afternoon grassy playground action. (We have a grassy and a sandy playground. I hate the sandy one)

I had an easy 3 miles on my training plan for today, so I planned ahead and started part of my dinner before heading to the basement. It worked perfectly! There is still hope that I may get to bed on time tonight!

This is what happens if you leave Cadbury mini-eggs in your car and they get too hot. They still taste good!

A little bit of neighborhood springtime.

And springtime with Buddy.

And now a brief video of Buddy being ridiculous this afternoon.

How many hours of sleep is your ideal?

I try to shoot for around 8, but I've been closer to 7 lately and I'm really feeling the difference!

A wild, wacky Wednesday

For some reason, all the children at work today (in all the classes) were completely insane this morning. My kids have been so good lately that this came out of nowhere! We spent a while outside, but even that didn't calm them down. It was a room full of hypersensitive, hyperactive toddlers. There was a lot of screaming.

I had put off our monthly cooking project long enough, so I brought in supplies today and hoped for the best! Since we are talking bugs this month, we made "dirt" cupcakes.

The kids always love doing cooking activities, they just don't like that they have to take turns stirring and dumping in ingredients. Plus they know we get to eat what we make at afternoon snack!

Somehow, even after the cupcakes, they were much more mellow in the afternoon. Maybe they were just tired?

I didn't get out of work until 6 today, and I am really trying to push through and finish my lesson plans, so I didn't get a run in. On the bright side, I just need to figure out next month's sensory bin and write my monthly newsletter and then I'm done! The rest of my plans are finished! After last weekend, I wasn't sure it was going to ever happen.

We have some new play equipment in one of the yards at work (there are 4 sections of play yards around the outside of our building). It's the one we generally use, so we are excited and a little bummed, because we can't go out there until Tuesday when all the concrete (cement?) is dry on the equipment.

It will be interesting to see what my kids can actually use, some of it looks a little too tall and a little too advanced for us!

Was your Wednesday crazy or calm?

We're not speaking right now

Not you and I, we're good. Buddy and I, however...

More on that in a minute.

New month, new sensory bin!

We're talking bugs this month, so the sensory bin is now a bug bin! Some Easter grass, some plastic bugs, and magnifying glasses! The kids anxiously awaited the time that I finally let them play in it, and spent a lot of the day peering through the lid to see what was inside. I love their curiosity!

I finally got my new bulletin board up!

The ladybugs turned out pretty cute! The letters are all different sizes, which bothers me, but the set of letter forms we have to trace from are all mixed up and incomplete. I'm just happy I found all the letters I needed.

Buddy apparently somehow couldn't wait another 30 seconds after I got home to get outside. He was playing with his favorite toy and then abruptly stopped, and peed on one of my boots that was in the living room. We're not speaking right now.

This was much needed.

I have also been pretending it is perfectly normal for my to do all my dishes every day. It's working pretty well. I think I have myself fooled.

Dishes - do you let them pile up? Are you good about doing them? Or are you one of those fancy people who actually use their dishwasher? 

Taking turns makes us cry

The kids are winning this week. Today was better than yesterday, for the most part. In addition to the madness of nap time, it is our turn to clean the kitchen this week. Every classroom (the teachers anyway) is responsible for cleaning the kitchen after lunch for a week on a rotating basis.

So sometime during the time we have between getting the kids laying down on their mats (usually around 1), and when they all get up (around 3), we have to get them all to sleep, clean the kitchen (which takes about a half hour) and take both our breaks. With the amount of time it takes to get them to sleep, we don't actually have time to do all those things.

On the bright side, I don't think it is our turn again until sometime in May.

I finally let them at the sensory bin today.

Once they stopped crying (because there were 10 of them and they had to take turns - taking turns makes us cry) they had a blast! Definitely a successful sensory bin pick!

After work I somehow managed to drag myself down to the treadmill for the two miles I was supposed to run yesterday.

Now Buddy and I are watching Big Bang Theory and relaxing on the couch.

I think it might be time for ice cream.

What's your favorite flavor of ice cream?

Run, Tiny!

I somehow took no pictures today. I'm not sure what happened there.

Things at work this morning were a little disorganized. I was on my own from 7:30 to about 9:15 and had a total of 4 assistants in and out of my room until 12:30 when my assistant arrived. It made the kids a little crazy.

We started growing some water beads in class today. The kids are fascinated and can't wait until we put them in the sensory bin!

There was no snow today. None. So the Friday email about closing early was a little preemptive. We were open all day, but somehow we actually had an extra person so I got to go home at 4:30 today!

Then I got a really exciting email from Tiny (my BFF who lives in Oregon)! She's thinking about starting running, which made me really happy. I sent her the longest email ever with thoughts on how to get started and lots of little things that popped into my head. Then my mind got way ahead of itself and I started thinking about how if she likes running and gets into it that maybe we could meet up somewhere cool and run a race together! I'll just be over here having a running nerd moment if you need me.

Tom is making delicious broccoli rabe, bacon, and garlic pasta awesomeness for dinner. I'm spoiled.

What advice would you give a new runner?

The good, the bad, and the squishy

One of the worst things about my job is the constant colds/sickness. When you're getting sneezed/coughed/spit on all day long it is difficult to avoid. And of course there's holding sick kiddos when they're waiting to get picked up. It is just constant exposure to little kid germs. No amount of handwashing and hand sanitizer can fully protect you.

That's a long winded way of saying that I'm sick again. Right now it's just a bit of a sore throat, but it woke me up at 6 this morning, which is not cool. Hopefully the weekend is enough of a break from singing songs, reading books and constantly talking to give my throat a chance to recover.

One of the best things about my job is that I get to play with fun things like this:

 
They don't seem to be easily squishable, which is good - two year olds are experts at destroying things. The bag says there are different sizes/shapes in there so it should be fun to see what they end up looking like. There are also somewhere around 4,000 of them in the bag - that might be too many.

I also put another bead in to show the size difference when it is fully formed. Not just because I think they're fun and want to watch another one grow.

I think when I take these to class I may put some in a water bottle or other closeable container so the kids can hold it and look at them while they grow. Then we can transfer them to the sensory bin once they're done.

What's your favorite part of your job? Least favorite?

How early were you up this morning? (I'm hoping someone got to sleep in!)

Indestructible, round two

I never really realized that there was a numerical reason why Fridays are so much better than other days. I have the fewest (8) kiddos on Fridays - of course it feels more manageable!

I ordered Buddy a new toy the other day. It's supposed to be nearly indestructible.

It's also made in Bozeman, MT, which is cool because it's where Kate is from!

If your dog destroys it you can send it to them and they will mail you a replacement. Pretty cool.

So far so good.

It has already lasted longer than the last toys we got him!

I'm getting a new kiddo in my class. He's supposed to start in May, which (in theory) means my boss has until then to find a third teacher for my class or I will pretty much be out of ratio all the time. Since I'm still working 9 and 10 hour days because they can't find a part time person for the afternoons doesn't give me a lot of hope for this plan. We'll see how it goes.

This tiny little red ball is the start of my sensory bin for March. 

Allegedly it will soak up water and turn into some kind of big squishy marble. This is my test one before I take them to school.

This is after about an hour. The package says it takes 6-8 hours to reach full size. 

I'll let you know how it turns out!


What makes your Friday better than other days?

Any fun weekend plans?