Spring Break is here!

Happy Monday!

My students are on spring break this week so we have ALL week off - i'll admit I don't know what to do with myself! I was so excited for a break all week and then yesterday I was thinking of what I needed to prepare for the week - oh, nothing!

I'm going out of town for a few days just to get away, but I'm looking forward to lounging on the beach and being a bum too :) I can't wait to get some R&R!

I've been doing a lot of reading as well - so that will give me something to do over the break. I am a big Jodi Picoult fan and am actually running out of her books to read. They are just fantastic - very easy to connect/relate to.

I'm off to go knock my cardio out - then I have a 9 am phone interview for a teaching job in the county. Then cook/pack and i'm OUT OF HERE :)

Day 1 down - lifetime more to go!

Happy Monday at 8pm! I made it through the day - my goal is to make it through 2 weeks without 1 diet mess up OR any skipped workouts/cardio seshs. So for the small term goal let's say 1 day down, 13 to go - cause lord knows that sounds better than weeks! I couldn't sleep last night - I had the sugar blues (wayyyy too much sugar). I read until about midnight and finally fell asleep. Needless to say when the alarm went off at 5 I was NOT a happy girl. I made it through the last monday before spring break - without too many incidents. I left school at 3:09 - yes 39 minutes after my kids were dismissed I was turning off the lights in my classroom - celebrateeee! I realized all semester I have spent WAY too much time there. I'm extremely anal retentive and I just can't leave things unless they are perfect. When you share space with 17 10year olds - things will never be perfect. Since I left school so early I got to the gym at 3:30 -and i took my sweet time! I didn't hop on cardio until 5 or so, it was so nice to just focus on training and nothing else! I had some taco-turkey and green peppers for dinner, it was so yummy! I'll probably have a cup of tea shortly and read before bed. four days left until spring break! xo

Where has the time gone?

Looking back on my last posts I'm looking at where I was at that time. Seems like so long ago I was talking about something I am about to finish! I'm currently 1 week away from finishing my student teaching in 4th grade. I can hardly believe it's over already. Seems like just yesterday I was learning all these students names, and now they are all little pieces of me! It has been the hardest experience of my life but I'm so thankful to have had the experience. They have made me laugh, cry, and scream but in the end I learned more about myself than I ever could have imagined. And through the roller coaster that has been my internship I still enjoy teaching and am even more excited to have my own classroom than before.

Tomorrow starts the last week of my full time teaching with my 4th graders. Then we have spring break and my final week in the classroom will be spent handing over the instructional time back to the teacher and observing other teachers. I can't believe it has come so quickly but I am so excited to finally worry about me again. I have put 100 % into this experience that my own needs and desires have taken a backseat. I'm ready to put me first again and start my own career and bring my passions back into full force! My fitness has still been here but more as a tool not as a lifestyle. I've put in the work I needed to do to make sure I was the best teacher I could be. Now I need to go full force towards getting my own career and going towards my fitness goals full force!

I have 5 days left with my students and I plan to let things roll off my back. Enjoy the process and give them my all. I'm going to hit every body part, make all my cardio sessions, and get every meal on time 100 % on track. I'm packed an ready to go and I'm excited. I had to put all my focus into this to make myself successful and now that i've done a good job I can follow my other goals simulatenously.

so here's to a great week - new goals and new focus. I have 2 interviews in two weeks and I plan to make those my stepping blocks to the next part of my life.

HEREEEEE WE GOOOOO. :)

Where does the time go?

Okay, so i've been M.I.A. for quite some time, but i'll give this another go around -mostly for my sanity not yours!

Today I am 6 weeks from the start of the season, and I also am convinced this is where it gets really difficult. Weeks 13-8 my body is constantly changing and I still have a lot of leway so it's not too bad, you're also so excited about competing in 2-3months that you hardly event think about being hungry/tired. At less than 6 weeks your getting SO ClOSE that you're worried if there is enough time to get ready, your constantly aware of how tired and hungry you are, your having mood swings, and every single thing you eat matters. So I can admit that although my energy levels are a little down, I know they always pick up on mondays so I just think of it as *2 cardio sessions and one lift til monday!*

I've been in Wilmington for a few weeks now, comuting back and forth to Jacksonville and although it's a pain in my a--, it helps me stay very organized and on schedule. If anyone could see how I've organized my school work they'd laugh, i may or may not have 3-4 folders/notebook per class! I can hardly believe I'm taking my last classes before I graduate-i'll be student teaching in january and then it's smooooooooth sailing after that (actually it won't be so smooth, i'll be teaching full time after that and that makes me nervous!). I've been looking into grad schools too though, I think I might like my M.Ed in Curriculum, Instruction, and Supervision-I could work for the county with that writing curriculum.

Anyways, i'm off to the gym now for my second leg day, I am all coffee'd up and i'm going to go take 2,3, or 7 ;) motrin and get the day started. Considering I still have nails, costco, lululemon, food prep on my agenda!

gonna make you sweat!

hmm..i'm not so sure what to blog about today. I really need to get a video-blog up, but my memory is about as good as a goldfish. My sweet ass moms got me a new gym bag. Not that I necessarily needed one-but I wanted one, which is really just as important, she's prettty awesome! I have nothing constructive to do today other than bum around and wait for cardio and biggest loser time, and since those things aren't all occuring until later in the evening, i'm just waisting time vegetating :).

let's chat a little cardio-that's a question I get asked a lot. how much cardio do you do, what kind of cardio, in the morning or in the night, fasted or not fasted..etc.

How much cardio I do varies on my particular goal. For maintence I do about 5 days of 30 minutes of cardio, 2-3 of those being high intensity intervals, one being steady state, and one being a spin class. 30 minutes is easy for me to get through and doing it makes me stay relatively tight-as long as my food intake is clean and on track as well. If i'm trying to lean down I bring the length of time up or add a day, but I try not to exceed an hour, that's craziness. And I don't think you can keep up with an hour of HIIT-well maybe YOU can, but I cannot!

What kind of cardio I do depends on my mood. My staple machines are: stairmaster (or stairmill-whatever the hell it's called), elliptical (with arms), elliptical (without arms), treadmill, spin bikes, and the recumbent bike. For the treadmill I like doing interval runs (2 min run, 2 min incline walk) and I like doing high incline hikes (downhill and uphill). If i'm feeling real energetic I'll take dumbells up there and do lunges (very slow speed on treadmill) or do an incline walk with them-- thank you sarah cincotta. :) For the stairmill I usually alternate between all of the workout selections you can choose from (this is the only machine I don't do manual on-it's hard to motivate yourself to change the levels and speed), I do about a level of 7-15 depending on my energy level and I range from 15-30 minutes at a time. On the elliptical with arms I do intervals with a constant speed of around 9-11 and I just change the resistance level up and down. For the elliptical without arms I kinda just chill ;). That's the cardio I do when I don't really wanna do cardio! For the recumbent bike I like to alternate the resistance level for a few minutes or I do 40 second sprints with 20 second recovery time. The recumbent bike is my new found cardio love :)

Actually I like doing my cardio later in the day, right before my last meal of the day. A lot of people like doing their cardio early in the morning, and on days that I don't have a lot of time-I usually do that too. But I find that when I'm trying to lean out it's easier for me and my body to do it at the end of the day because then I can use all the rest of my energy and then be able to relax the rest of the day. Doing crazy cardio first thing in the morning sometimes wipes me out for the entire rest of the day!

If I do cardio first thing in the morning I like to eat some fruit before I go. I can't do ANYTHING on an empty stomach, so I have a few strawberries on my way and then eat a real breakfast afterwards, that seeems to work best for me. There is a ton of controversy on fasted/non fasted cardio, and although I'm sure there are a lot of benefits -I can barely function on the couch without food, I can't do anything physical without it either!

Speaking of food, it's about 30 minutes until meal time so i'm going to go sit and stare into the kitchen until go time! Happy sweating :)

--------------------------------update!

Okay so it's now 9pm and i'm watching the biggest loser which is pretty much the highlight of my Tuesday's-yes i'm super exciting.

I just wanted to add a quick point that between training hammies yesterday and my running intervals/lunges on the treadmill my lower back is certainly broken. Yep, I'm convinced tomorrow i'll be in a back brace. I'm ibuprofen 800'd up with a heating pad on my back, tomorrow is going to be horrible.

new roles, new goals!

Ahh, oh my goodness I cannot believe it's been so long since we've chatted (or i've talked and no-one listens!) -regardless it's been a while! Lots of stuff has been going on that i'm really excited about!

I recently attended the SNCAE Spring Conference along with Amelia who is the current president on our leadership team for the UNCW-extension chapter. We had a great time, met some amazing people, and learned some great great things. Some of the sessions we sat it on were:

• Constructing and building successful SNCAE chapters- Rodney Ellis


• Becoming politically aware- Sean McKillop


• Cecoming an activist, are we losing the american dream? - Sean McKillop


• SNCAE business meeting, nominations and elections


• Classroom management strategies- Angela Farthing & Tia Shue


• Parent/Community Partnerships -Keyth Harrison


• Becoming the best teacher you can be! -Cindi Rigsbee


• Surviving the First Year-Sean McKillop


• Surviving Student Teaching


• What it takes to be a great educator -Sheri Strickland

The information was overwhelming yet very helpful and beneficial to strengthening your teaching career. I have a stack of papers and notes to go through and organize, next week of course ;). Procrastinaton is a teachers middle name! I've never met so many powerful people in one room and I'm blessed to have the opportunity to work with all of these people in the future!

Also, fabulous news. I ran and was elected the State Secretary of the Student Association of Educators. Running for office was something I thought would be a good idea, but due to my lack of experience, it wasn't something I thought I would get over some of the other great people running. Needless to say when my name was called, I may have teared up a little and had trouble breathing. It's a honor to get to work with so many driven educated people and I plan on making this the best year the organization has ever seen! I am glad to have passed down my position at the university level to very motivated woman, and am excited to step up and take a larger role (that I can't wait to throw on a resume!)

I wanted to share a quick resource that I am so excited to use. This is a blog from a teacher who also has a fitness passion- so she must be smart! She is formulating an idea of having "sight word buddies" using beanie babies (or any stuffed animal). You name the beanie baby "Mr.(sight word)" and put a name tag on the bear. Each week the student picks a buddy to put on their desk and take care of through the week. She also talks about having the students use the sight word buddy in the line up process, yet this has many many many opportunities for disaster (little ones can find almost any way you attack another student!)

http://sneakerteacher.blogspot.com/2010/04/sight-words.html

A final education point..

"MISSING: EDUCATORS SINCE AUGUST 2009. THANKS TO BUDGET CUTS"

May 15 NCAE is holding a rally at high noon! We will be yelling loud and clear to the nc legislation exactly what we think about the budget cuts! There will be tons of local teachers and administrators as well as the NCAE community making sure that the state knows how we feel and if nothing is done they'll have to hear from their educators! I cannot wait, mostly because i like to yell but also because the projection for teacher cuts is 300,000 for next year. THREE HUDNDRED THOUSAND TEACHERS will be cut in the upcoming year, lawmakers need to know that 50 full inclusion students in aclassroom with one teacher is not going to yield educational success, and we aren't going to stand for it. BE THERE! -contact me for more details. I'm planning on lunch, petition, shopping, ya know the usual ;)

Tomorrow is my last day in the classroom-wrapping up my part of the citizenship unit and handing my kiddos back! I'm relieved yet I miss them already. We start serious EOG review next week, so I'll be taking over the math review with them so that'll keep me occupied. I also get to spend some time in my sisters 1st grade classroom, I love my 3-5 kiddos to death but I miss the little ones sometimes! I also get to play with some technology in my girlfriends high school classroom- I swear I'm lucky I can turn a computer on. I'm ready to play with some fancy technology!

I'll be stuck unit plan writing/babysitting all weekend so I'll have plenty of time for posts, I may even be inspired for a video blog, so much fun!

Random Ramblings

I want to give a quick shoutout to my savage south ladies that ROCKED the N.C. NPC state show in High Point this past weekend! I'm so proud of you ladies, 2010 is going to be a great year! I love my coach and my entire team- http://www.cathysavagefitness.com/

Okay, I don't have a blackberry, but I have an iPhone that lives in my hand and I should not be in class right now using such technology! I am coming to the end of my internship and instead of thinking of the ten thousand things I need to finish before it's over i'm rather focusing on the fact that there IS a light at the end of the tunnel and it's so close I almost need my sunglasses! So i'll admit that I'm not fully attentive to these lectures on unit organizing or the fact that i have a citizenship unit sitting on my desk unfinish- oh but there is plenty of time for all that hoop-lah. (I'm sure that isn't a word, but this is my blog and i don't have to be gramatically correct!)

I started Gregg Valentino's book Death. Drugs. And Muscle: Surviving the Steroid Underworld. I'm by no means supporting drug use of any kind, I don't use a single supplement (other than yummy flinstone vitamins-cause i'm a child), BUT this man's story teaches a bigger lesson than strength in body building. I love memoirs, I love book's about real life thing's that people have been through. Gregg talks about the stupid ass things he's done, and calls himself an asshole numerous times, he's aware that he has made mistakes but his though processes about his mistakes are what makes the book truly interesting. I would say this book is very much like the movie Blow only with muscle and steroids. Being involved in fitness whether it be bikini or bodybuilding is just a very dedicated hobby, but the issue with self image is a huge problem. This doesn't just apply to the fitness industry. People are rotting their bodies away with testosterone, women are taking every pill that has "FAT-LOSS" typed across it, people are spending over a hundred thousand dollars on plastic surgery a year-for WHAT? Just to look better? I bust my ass almost every day to get to where I want to be at physically, and even though there are numerous times I wish I could do certain things to get that "boost", I am not doing this merely for the physical aspect, I am strengthening my inner self as well. It is so easy to get dragged down into this dark side of the world in anything, but you need to remember who you are and what you value. It's not about having faith or being partically religious but what are your morals? What do you believe in and what do you need to do to get there? If you make mistakes then learn something from them, and learn something from other peoples mistakes-it'll save you a lot of heartache. If you're looking for a little perspective, forget that fact that Gregg is a freaking idiot and has the massive arms..blah blah blah, and read the book you'll be surprised on what "wisdom" he has to put across.

Then again I have a strange taste in literature :)

My favorite quote from the book, and seriously there is like 100 of them is:

"We all have the opportunity to find that place where awareness trumps our actions. And I've reached that place, I can't go back"

I better get back to focusing, well actually I've never actually started focusing-but I will NOW! I got my training in at 6 this morning, so now I have all day free to be productive (or take a nap and lay around all day baking turkey meatloaf-which reminds me I MUST go to the grocery store today, i'll add that to my untouched to do list!). Spending some time outside and then spinning later tonight!

*Note to self: buy a bike. it's too nice to sweat inside.

Oh yeah and I paid off my stupid best buy credit card and chopped that thing right up. I only paid $2.45 in interest fee's the entire time I had it-TAKE THAT BEST BUY, can't suck me out of money!