Weekend Recap 5/3-5/5

Another weekend has flown by at lightening speed and I am left sulking on my way to work that its all gone. (At least I'm assuming so. I'm writing this Sunday night and scheduling it for the morning. Who knows, I could be sunshine and rainbows.)
Now that the sun is out and temperatures are up, I'm finding it harder to get to work on Monday mornings. I just want to go out and play!
Friday afternoon started out though, with not any playing at all. As a volunteer coach it's not required for me to help out at high school meets, but seeing as I would eventually like to get a paid coaching job in this district or out, the more I help out hopefully the better.
It was a hand timed meet; I worked at the finish line writing down the times with some of my middle school-ers running the times over to be announced.

Sounds easy enough.

And I mean it was. But  I'm pretty sure that's because I'm a teacher.
There was a lot of multi-tasking. It was a 5 team meet and half of the timers where high-school-ers. So sometimes the  times didn't match up with places, or just no times at all.

And then the computer that was printing out the events got coffee spilled on it. So up in the botth they weren't really in a place to figure out places, and I didn't have the official sheets left, just the tiny lists of every runner in each event not split into heats...

So I was taking down times, scanning sometimes 8 sheets of results and figuring out places, making columns and lines to organize the tiny printouts, and organizing my middle school runners.
All at the same time.
 Go-go multi-tasking super-powers!


Thank goodness Dave came with a huge ice coffee for me, and then stuck around and directed high-school-ers that wanted to ask me where to check in for their even away from harms way.
It was also pretty nice to have some of my most reliable kids hanging around and helping me out.

After we left the meet at 8:30 PM (WOOF!) we headed to our local Greek Pizza place where the owners are literally Greek. They were close to closing but we're regulars so they sat down and ate their dinner with us with the whole place to ourselves. Let me tell you that pizza hit the spot!

The next morning we went on a hike up a small mountain with my Mom, Dad, and their dog Molly.

But before we left, Bruin and Linus got some sun.

Oh and just in case you don't follow me in on Instagram or Twitter, while I'm showing photos of my pets, here are a couple of Bruin giving Linus his nightly bath on last Monday.

You're welcome. 

Back to this weekend.

There's nothing to make you feel like you need to get into shape like your Mom kicking your butt up a mountain. Not that she's out of shape. She's one of those crazy runners that stays in amazing shape even after having 4 kids.
Don't hate her because she's beautiful.

It was pretty steep and quick, but was fine once we got into  the swing of things.

We decided not to summit since we were pretty ready for lunch around 1. But we did find a place with a nice view to eat at.

Here's Dave with apparently a  turtle/giraffe neck, nom-nom-noming on his sandwich.

I don't have any photos of my parents or their dog because I took a nap while everyone else ate.
Don't worry, Dave got photos of that. 

Bruin is my cuddle-buddy even at the top of a mountain.

This was right before I rolled onto my side and gave a few snores. It's fine. Pine needles were really meant to be nature's pillow.

 That would be Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. (We were hiking in Maine.) Still snow. To think Dave wanted to hike/ski that this weekend. NO THANKS.

The descent was nice and we got to have some pretty good conversation, and watch the dogs spaz out on the trail together.

Here were our sweaty butts when we were done.

Dave wet my bandana in a brook to cool me off. It was perfect.

 On the way home we stopped for Ice Cream. We're those people that get vanilla ice cream with a dog bone on it for our dog.
Bruin deserves to be completely spoiled before we start having kids in a few years and he's not the only one we take hiking.

 Another shot of Bruin getting it done.

When we got home, we were pooped. We took showers, poured some boxed wine into juice glasses and caught up on our "Thursday" shows on Hulu. Pretty awesome.

Sunday was pretty relaxed. Dave showed off how handy he was when he took off the dog bed cover to get washed, realized the foam was falling out, and patched it with some old pants. 

Good as new!

Sunday afternoon we also decided it was about time to hang up the twine that the Morning Glories and Moon Flowers will *hopefully* climb up on our front porch/awning.

 

We have had mixed luck with gardening, so we're hoping this project will work out. Or else we're just those young kids with the strong on the front of their house.

 Dave put in the nails and tied the knots because I get all wobbly when I get onto ladders.

 We of course didn't plan ahead for the actual planting of the seeds, because we forgot to soak them ahead of time. So I guess they will be going in tomorrow.

If we remember them.
Or the cat doesn't go fishing and eat them all while we're at work.
That would be some weird poop in the litter box.

To end the weekend, Dave and I needed to go grocery shopping.
Now we've been both trying to think of ways to eat healthier. We did some research on some different ways to cleanse and get a little more natural and realized that we actually have a lot of sugar in our diets.

So for two weeks we are going to eat "clean" and do a "No Sugar Challenge". This means nothing with added sugars and if they have sugars are pretty low.
Lots of smoothies, salads, and overall, actually, fresh deliciousness.

We'll see how this goes...

This is what the check-out looked like. So many vegetable bags! So much money!

But I think it will be nice to get ourselves back on track and not have sugary stuff every day after every meal.

And when we got home from shopping?
Well we kind of had a "last meal" of sorts.
We did have some frozen Chinese food and Ben and Jerry's in that cart, and we did eat it all. We're going to be good for two weeks, so we figured our body will appreciate it more if we had Chinese and ice cream right?

We finished the night with me updating the blog, Saturday Night Live on Hulu, and getting some grading in the grade-book.

I will keep you updated on the flowers and the sugar-free eating.
I wouldn't want to keep you up at night wondering if I've broken down and eaten an Oreo or not.

Hope your weekend was as eventful as me sleeping on a small mountain and buying some kale in bulk!

Stay Awkward, 
Tricia

Thoughts of the Day

1. I know I have been complaining about it raining for 2 weeks in a row and how I was starting to grow mold behind my ears. But the past 3 days have been beautiful. And after coaching two track meets and one track practice, I need to take a nap.

But not in the sun.

I have  officially turned into a human being that is useless when I get home because of the sudden reintroduction in the sun.

I guess I'll have to take it easy this weekend.

Watch a movie, finish random tasks around the house,  take it slow serving ice cream, and cuddling with my boys.

Or maybe I'll go tanning. I never said moderation was my thing.

2. Speaking of my addictive personality, I don't know if I'm quite there yet, but I may be on my way to becoming an extra-large-scented-candle-hoarder.

This self diagnosis is legitimate because I now believe I am an expert after carefully watching multiple episodes of "Animal Hoarders" and just plain old "Hoarders: Buried Alive."

I can tell you a story about each one, become unruly when someone even hints at trashing them, and forget which ones I have.

I haven't found like a dead mouse underneath all of them.

Yet.

3. My hands are a little sore right now. Not because of anything cool like battling a bear or playing guitar. But because I continued to hit my whiteboard in excitement while discussing the format of persuasive essays today in class.

4. Does it bother anyone else that out of all of the women that star on VH1's newest trashtastic show, "Mob Wives", not one of them is currently married to an active member of the mob? First of all, I was excited to see some horse heads in bed and other godfather like things. But no, just lots of phone calls from jail in botox.

(Go on and take a guess as to whether this has stopped me from watching. )

I guess my real point here is that when I get my own reality television deal, the title of the show will be unelaborated and as literal as possible.

Tune in Wednesdays at 10 for the, Come watch me as I run around like a crazy person and tell stupid jokes to children and adults alike at my job, and then go home and get stressed out about everything but by the end of the night haven't made any progress in my goals. Except for that game of Sudoku on my phone, I totally owned that,  show.



5. My dog just walked over to my other open laptop and nudged at the keys with his nose. After no success he walked over to the other end of the couch, laid down and let out an exasperated sigh.

Just a day in the life. NBD.

6. I've never been one to wake up in the middle of the night thinking about every possible thing that you have to do and then not be able to fall asleep again. It happened to me last night for the first time.

Are there stages of craziness? Because the fact that as a last minute hail mary a half hour later I chugged a glass of water and then fell right to sleep. I had not been thirsty at all.

Or maybe it's about time to get rid of our down comforter? Waking up in 60 degree whether with duck feathers or whatever is going to stress anyone out.


7. I leave you all with a cute picture of my dog due to lack of a better way to close this post.

What I'm Loving Wednesday

I haven't done this link up before but I figured since I didn't have Tail Wagging Tuesday, and I don't want to get back in the funk of not blogging for 4 days straight at the end of each week that I've been finding myself in, I shall link up!

Oh, and I guess I'm loving some things.

1.  I am loving the fact that my students are totally getting into their books for their literature circles.
At the end of the year I need a way to keep the 8th graders going, so I assign them books for literature circles. They grade each other and have to lead two classes a week within their book groups. I found last year that these were an easy way to keep the kids accountable for still doing work up until the end of the school year. And guess what, THEY'RE LOVING THEIR BOOKS! Which I of course totally love this Wednesday.

2. The track team that I am one of the assistant coaches for won their meet by like a gajillion points  a lot! It's been so cool to watch these guys grow as athletes and take pride in what they do as the season goes on.

3. This guy.

For someone who is responsible for 90 adolescents during the day, I can barely take care of myself when I get home. Or in general.

Like that time when I didn't look at the weather and packed sweatpants instead of shorts for 70 degree weather. Oh NBD just sweating my face off and dying from heat exhaustion as I yell at children to pump their arms, stretch their stride, drink more water and "No you may not hold the baton you will poke eachother's eye out."

Who comes sweeping in to save the day with a pair of shorts and Iced Coffee? You guessed it. The handsome man in the picture.

This may have been only one example, but my general incompetence to perform basic tasks this week has for some reason exceeded my own expectations, and my brown-eyed wonder continues to step up and treat me like a queen.

4. The fact that it's starting to FINALLY get warm.

I have maybe 3 outfits that I can wear to work that are appropriate for this type of weather. Uhhhh I feel a shopping trip coming on.

5. I have 20 days until summer vacation.

I am actually starting to not be stressed out about jamming in curriculum and easing into a state of the following:

Happy Wednesday!

The Blogging Game.

So I'm posting not because I have a ton to write about and am dying to share my life. I'm posting because I realized a few things:

1. I've been averaging about 3 posts per week, and I was hoping to do something closer to 5. I figured staying regular would encourage followers out there. I am trying my best to do better.

2. I think my last three posts have had mentions of Bruin, or at least pictures of him. Now while starting this out I knew he would be a regular feature on here just because he's always around, easy to write about because of his circus like antics and is extremely photogenic. (He gets it from his papa. Dave doesn't take bad pictures.) But I don't want this to just be a "dog" blog. Don't get me wrong, I love writing about him, love linking up to Tail Wagging Tuesday to share stories about my dog and read about others etc. But I want to make sure I'm not focusing too much into just one demographic of reader.

Also if I overload any followers with too much information, I run the risk of Bruin having a celebrity stalker type situation that leads to attempted kidnappings. There can only be one of us in that situation here.

3. Progress reports for my students come out tomorrow. There's a looming pile of grading in my bag to finish before tomorrow. Sooooo blogging is a logical thing to do right?


SO it's also been one of those rocky couple of weeks. I've been a little preoccupied and a little more stressed. Like I posted earlier, there have been lots of ramblings within the city about the budget and cuts. The city raised the budget, but because of inflation etc, there will need to be some cuts within the district even still. So I've had a lot of late nights, in depth discussions, and time just spent thinking. My fate is a little clearer but it's not set in stone and I have some decisions to make. I just keep on having to tell myself that they'll happen in time.


So, with that said, I am super excited tomorrow is Friday. I only have my 7th graders for long blocks. Which don't get me wrong I live for teaching both grades, but it's nice to just have one grade sometimes since each age has it's strengths and weaknesses.
Also, I don't, (er, Dave doesn't, in case you didn't get the memo, Dave is an angel and packs my lunch when I'm running around in the morning yelling about how all of my pants are too short, ) have to pack lunch because our Principal and Assistant Principal are providing us a complimentary Teacher Appreciation Week lunch. SO FANTASTIC.
Another plus is that it's supposed to be nice out so we can have Track practice outside again. (I'm one of the middle school track coaches, I guess I didn't mention that yet...) There's totally a difference between working the kids hardcore in a closed in room versus an open space where your workout options are plentiful.

Finally, just the fact that it's Friday is good enough I guess. :-)