So. Hey, guys.

Wow, I left for about two months and Blogger got a facelift! The new editing interface is nice- clean, uncluttered, Mac-ish. I see what you're doing there, Blogger ol' gal.

Let's see. I've so far survived my second and last semester of student teaching, and I have (consults calendar) exactly 4 weeks left of my year long internship, counting from this coming Monday. Even better, my full time grad school experience ends this coming Monday, so I get to enjoy these last 4 weeks with my students without stressing about my own homework as I hassle them for theirs. Bonus.

Speaking of students- next year I'll be enjoying teaching students in....


Tirana, Albania!

At the beginning of March I stumbled across a posting for a position in Albania, and after researching the country and the school (rave reviews from all former employees on international teacher's boards) I applied. It was about a month long process full of detailed e-mails with a kind and incredibly helpful director, and at the end of it I had a Skype interview. Within 30 minutes, I was offered the job. This was the first weekend of my Spring Break, so it was a nice cherry on top of the much-needed break. We're leaving Colorado August 1st and I don't have to be in Albania until the last week of August, so we have some... interesting travel plans in the works. More on that later.

This weekend I'm wrapping up the grad classes, planning my To Kill a Mockingbird final unit, and getting ready to cry my eyes out when I attend graduation for the kids I've worked with all year. Bobby is selling half of our possessions on Craigslist already, and I have a 5 week long solo road trip planned out for my Farewell, Family Summer Tour.

A huge part of the reason I've been so absent, though, is that there have been some rough times health wise in my family, and my Great Granny passed away in early March. She was sick for a while before, so we were able to go down and say our goodbyes, but it was truly awful and I'm still dealing with it. I still don't think it will fully sink in until I come home from Texas this summer and I'm not able to stop halfway to spend the night and share some time with her in Hillsboro, Kansas. I'll go into more details at a later time, but right now it's still fresh and I'm still dealing with it.

Who can say when I'll check back in- it might not be until after May 25th, when school is over. Right now I have a good balance of work, school, and life and I don't know where blogging fits in. There has been some drama around blogging recently that has definitely made me skittish of even blogging here on my piddly little personal blog, and I'm still trying to figure out if I want to move forward with an idea for when we're living overseas. We'll see. For now I just wanted to drop in and say hi.

So Far, So Good

I read this book in January, and I loved it. I can't wait to see the movie- I had no idea they were making it until I saw this ad in a theater.

 This semester has been better than last in every single area of my life. I'm doing a much better job of maintaining a good work/life balance, I'm able to work out thanks to not having a broken foot, I know what to expect and I'm comfortable at my school/with my students, and I see the light at the end of the tunnel to keep me going- what's up, May 27th!!

I figured I'd recap how January went in terms of my 3 Main Goals. The above pretty much covers One and Two, so I guess I'll go into a little more detail about Three. In January, I lost 6 pounds towards my goal of 18 pounds. I didn't count calories or obsess over anything, I just went back to eating mindfully and working out. Speaking of the latter- holy shit I was out of shape! It reminded me of how I work out primarily to be a fit, healthy, strong person, not just to "be skinny, yay!" Being able to tackle a hike, or go on a long bike ride, or do a hard yoga class, or go snowshoeing without feeling as though my heart is going to hummingbird out of my chest and explode in front of my face- that is why I work out. I love lifting weights and seeing myself get stronger each week. I look forward to the random crazy poses in yoga that challenge my flexibility, balance, and strength. I truly enjoy a brutal interval workout in spinning that makes me question whether or not my legs can even keep moving, and then they do. I think that Goal Three has probably been the foundation for making Goal One and Two so much more doable: I have more energy and I'm in a better mood, and (totally obvious observation alert) what do you know, that makes life in general a lot easier. As to the GoodReads 52 books in 2012 goal, I'm about 2 books ahead right now, and I'm finding, as I did last year, that having this goal is great for curtailing mindless internet surfing.

January pretty much zipped right before me before I could blink, and it's strange to think that I have only 4 more months left before I am a certified teacher with only 4 classes left towards my second master's degree! Our lease is up the end of May, and we're not sure yet if we're staying in Colorado through the summer until I find a job overseas in Aug/Sept, or if we're going to spend the summer bouncing around the U.S., road tripping and visiting friends before I take up said overseas job. I'm hoping for the latter, but that depends on job situations out of our control. For now I'm just enjoying teaching, getting myself back into shape, and having dedicated free time to spend with Bobby and our friends, actually having a life outside of school/work.

Snowshoeing and Sunrises

Just a collection of cell phone pictures from my mornings on the way to school and our weekend snowshoeing trip. No editing or fancy filters, kind of grainy, but I like 'em.

School is going well, teaching is great, and I've been reading a lot lately. All in all, life is good.

Oh, Right...

A perk of leaving my house at 7 a.m.- sunrise as captured on my cell phone, no filters/editing

I suppose I never did the follow-up post to my 2011goals in review post. I know we're almost an entire month into 2012, but I figure I'll get these goals nailed down for posterity, so I can either revel in victory or toil under shame, depending upon how they work out.

As I mentioned, I think a huge issue last year was my glaring oversight in not making pre-grad school and during-grad school goals. This led me to decide that I would make a set of goals that were specific to January 1st- May 31st. That encompasses my entire second semester of grad school, plus all of my student teaching, plus the end of our lease here in Colorado. What happens come June 1st is truly completely up in the air. A lot depends upon where Bobby is working by then, where I might be working, where family members are in the U.S. and where we might be visiting them, etc. There is a possibility we may go month to month and stay in Colorado through August, maybe not. Basically, the only logical thing is to plan from January to May because that is the only thing I'm sure of at the moment. I'm also taking into consideration how much of a brutal, stressful time suck grad school+ student teaching is (something I had no idea about last January) which led to a significant paring down of any goals. In fact, I only have 3, as follows, in no particular order:

1. Work/Life- specifically Work/Relationship- balance: A lot of the particulars of this goal are personal to my, well, personal relationships, but let's just say that last semester was a big stressful wad of no social life and little to no fun/going out. This isn't good for me, or the people who put up with love me. Therefore, I set up my weekly schedule so that I do absolutely no lesson planning/homework on Friday night after school, all day Saturday, and Saturday night. This gives me two nights a week of guilt free, I'm not worrying about homework freedom. It also averts the problem of letting fear of finishing a project interfere with needed downtime, which I wrote about at length. Plus, it gives Bobby and I a guaranteed date night, or time for hanging out with friends, or making random day trips to Boulder/Denver, etc. And I get to stay out late/sleep in, because homework/lesson planning are not even options.

2. Graduate School and Student teaching: My goals here are simple and straightforward: successfully complete my student teaching (with all the reviews and lesson planning and grading and after school work and professional development that entails) and end the semester with another 4.0 in all of my grad classes. Come May I will have 27 hours towards my graduate degree and have all of the necessary training for my certification. I've kicked ass for the first half of this journey, and I want to finish strong.

3. Health and Fitness: Return to my former level of fitness and lose the 18 pounds I gained while on crutches. I know a lot of people think it's terrible to focus on a scale, but facts are facts: before breaking my foot, I was incredibly active and ate whatever I wanted, in moderation. After breaking my foot, I wasn't active at all, and I turned to food for entertainment/stress relief. There were several times when I wasn't hungry at all, was physically full, but was so bored and stressed that I would knock back dessert and sweet coffee and sodas because it was the only fun to be had when one is chained to a chair with a broken foot doing 5 hours of homework. I am not saying that everyone who gains 18 pounds does so because of inactivity and eating poorly, but for me, that is clearly the case. Further, only 1 pair of jeans fit, none of my professional slacks fit, and half of my button front shirts do not fit. Further still, in only two weeks of going back to my previous activity levels/eating habits, I have dropped 6 pounds. I'm not counting calories or obsessing, I'm just returning to my previous lifestyle of frequent, fun activity and eating mindfully. I went snowshoeing- one of my favorite activities- last week and was so out of shape that I had to stop after every single hill, no matter how moderate. This is not a feeling I enjoy, at all. I want to be fit again. I will be fit again. My specific goals in this arena are to do the following, weekly: 2 hours of cardio, 2 hours of yoga, and two sessions of weightlifting (full body, free weights). This schedule is necessary for my sanity in order to counteract all the time I am forced to sit for hours on end as I commute and lesson plan and do homework and grade papers.

4. Read 52 books in 2012: This is the only yearlong goal I'm making, because I can do this wherever I am in the world. I love using Goodreads to keep up with this easily, and it definitely motivated me to turn off the internet and pick up a book instead.

Really, 1-3 Jan-May goals all come back to this: organizing my time wisely. I'm trying to avoid the trap of feeling pressure to get homework done, not wanting to do it, forcing myself to sit at the computer, and then wasting 3 hours on the internet as I try to avoid said homework. If I can structure my weekly schedule more realistically/efficiently, I can easily have time for a social life and working out, and still be successful in school and student teaching. So far, it's going well. I think just keeping a laser focus on these three areas will keep me sane over the next few months, not to mention give me a lot of happiness and stress relief, too.

Happy New Year's!

This was Martinelli's Sparkling Apple-Cranberry. I highly recommend it for all the perennial DD's like me out there.

New Year's Eve was really the perfect kind of laid back but still fun and social night- exactly what I look for in a NYE experience. We picked up our friend, Matt, for a late dinner and then headed to a house party hosted by Bobby's co-workers. Lauren was one of those thoughtful hosts who made appetizers, put up pretty lights everywhere, and generally made sure we all had a good time. I only knew Bobby, Matt, and one of their co-workers, Christy, and it was fun to hang out with new people and talk to random strangers. We were up and out until 3 a.m. and unfortunately I woke up at 8:30 this morning, but if that's my only complaint I'm doing okay.

We spent New Year's Day eating a late breakfast at Whole Foods before getting a much needed pile of groceries to replenish the pantry that has been barely used all fall and early winter. Laundry and house chores and a 3 hour nap followed while Bobby picked up snowshoes- weird, this is a carbon copy of last year. It's 10:30 p.m. right now and I feel so terribly sleepy and fuzzy headed/dizzy that I can't even imagine how crappy I'd feel without said nap. I just finished making this soup on Jenna's recommendation, and I'm keeping myself awake by blogging while I wait for it to cool enough to food process- fascinating stuff, I know. Trust me, forming semi-coherent thoughts is about all I have right now, witty/interesting is a frill that requires more sleep. The first day of 2012 goals have gone well so far, but I'm much too tired to blog about that, so another time.

Tomorrow morning it's back to the grind with a 6 a.m. wake up before heading to school to plan and prep all day. I'm actually, in a weird way, kind of looking forward to getting back into a routine of school and teaching, if only because I'm looking forward to May when I will finally be certified. I have a feeling the next 5 months are going to be stressful, rewarding, overwhelming, and busy. They'll probably also fly by, if last semester is any indication.

Ok, off to food process and then drop from exhaustion. Merry fabulous 2012!

2011 Goals in Review

Yeah, sometimes 2011 goal accomplishing felt this futile, I won't lie.

Back in January, I posted my goals for the year with a lengthy musing on goals in general. From January until May I did monthly reviews- all found under the "2011 goals" tag. Then June and July were packed with traveling and school prep and people visiting from out of town, so I didn't do the monthly reviews, although I kept up with the goals. Unfortunately, I broke my foot right around the time I started school. The crutches, naturally, killed any working out, and the school going and student teaching began to eat almost every ounce of free time I had. I was impressed with my progress from January to July, but so many things fell apart in August to December. I feel I should almost break the year into two parts- Before Broken Foot/Grad School/Student Teaching and After. Let's just say "Before" and "After" for brevity's sake, shall we? Without further ado, the review...

At one point, as evidenced by this crappy phone pic, things were going pretty well in this department.

Food and Fitness

Do at least two cardio workouts a week + three additional workouts (any type including yoga):  

Before- I was rocking this goal. I was lifting weights again, doing yoga, bicycling up to 10 miles a day as a main form of transportation, and kicking ass at C25K.   

After- Well, clearly I did a whole lot of nothing when I was on the crutches for 8 weeks between August and October. I got off the crutches October 9th, but just walking made my foot sore for a good month after that, so I officially started working out again November 9th. I made sporadic starts and stops, but was honestly terrified of hurting myself again so I shied away from working out. I've been doing much better in December, working out on average about twice a week for the month. So far the foot isn't hurting at all, and I've done spinning, yoga, and today I lifted heavy weights again with no pain. I have very high hopes for 2012 in this area.

Get down to one soda and one coffee per week or less:  

Before- I was probably averaging more like two each per week, which was still a huge positive change. After- Please. I was bored because I wasn't working out, exhausted from my new schedule, and turning to any kind of fun that could be had in the form of a beverage. Fail, miserable, miserable fail.

Give C25K another try (applies to cardio workout goal above):

See above- great Before, unable to do it even if I wanted to After and possibly not until February or March of next year.

I did more than just contribute to other people's projects, I promise.

Misc Goals and Projects

West Coast Swing lessons- aim for once a week, go at least twice a month; belly dancing lessons on Sundays:

These stopped over summer when we were doing all of our traveling (you pay for them on a monthly basis and it would have been a waste) with full intentions of picking up again once school started. Again, broken foot/crutches made this impossible, and by the time November 9th rolled around we were into holiday travel season and had planned to be out of town for 1/4 of November and half of December. 

Finish rainbow quilt, blue crocheted baby blanket, and Kate’s quilt- work on similar projects at least twice a month

I finished the blue baby blanket and Kate's quilt, but didn't touch the rainbow quilt. I also made a scarf and did some other crafting here and there, but all of that stopped once school started. It just wasn't a priority to me anymore, and I willfully stopped doing it.

Scan in journals/letters/cards; finish editing pictures & deleting unwanted pics; organizing files

I organized the journals/letters/cards in a major way. I threw away a good 75% of them when I went to Texas in April/May because many of them were just random birthday or Christmas cards with nothing more than a signature. I wanted to save and scan in cards with lengthy messages and personal notes in them, not just cute cards, you know? I did the same with letters, when I realize that many of the things I had saved were from when I was 18 years old, and the people and things that were important to me then just aren't anymore. In fact, when I cleaned out my hope chest I threw away all of my medals/trophies from high school, my scripts from One Act Play, etc. It felt good. I also threw away a lot of journals that were also more painful than anything, things I wouldn't want anyone else to read, things I barely wanted to read anymore. Again, I realized it wasn't worth the time to scan them in. I did well on scanning in the things I did care about from January-July, but I haven't touched this project since August. I kicked ass at the second part of this goal- my pictures are 80% sorted and edited (cropping, lighting, not Photoshop or anything crazy) and organized. I'm very happy with my progress on this entire goal, in both parts.

Update blog at least twice a week/creative writing once a week

Before- Yep.

After- Nope. 

Dinner theater performance at my placement high school

Career and Finances

Continue to volunteer with SSI and VE & complete Community Based Development Certificate:

Done and done! I actually finished the 4th and final class towards the certificate this semester, which meant at one point I was taking 4 classes 0_o  I'm excited to continue working with both of these organizations, I really believe in their work. Bobby and I were able to go to the fall gala for VE, and it was really moving and reminded me of why I work for free :)

Begin Teacher Certification program and internship in August:

Check! I currently have a 4.0 and things are going really well. As they should, considering how much work I've put into it.

Try to find a part time job that works around current internships:

I was offered one job at the beginning of September that I turned down- teaching English online- because while the pay was good for a part time job- $15 an hour- there was a lot of extra unpaid work. Basically, you didn't get paid unless you were teaching, so all prep work/grading/e-mails were unpaid. It worked out to less than $8 an hour, plus I would have had to get up at 5 a.m. four days a week (including Saturday) in order to do it. I then successfully applied to a local call center around the end of September. However, by that point I was knee deep into the reality of my student teaching/volunteering/full time grad school and my 50-60 hour weeks left not room for this. Bobby and I agreed that a part time job would be an unnecessary additional stress, and that I should focus on my internship. Thankfully I paid off all my debt two years ago except student loans, and those are deferred and interest free in school.

Personal Improvement

Read one book a week/52 books in a year:

Accomplished! Click the widget on my sidebar or go here to check out my books. I'm really glad I made reading a top priority this year.

Regular Spanish study- Rosetta Stone, books, Spanish Word of the Day- at least 3 times a week:

I should have taken this off of my list after the first two months of failure. With everything else I had going on, I just couldn't bring myself to make this a priority. I threw myself into reading and researching everything I could get my hands on about education/teaching from June until now, so any spare education time was spent on supporting my current endeavors in grad school/student teaching.

No more than one hour of internet during weekdays:

Nope. From January to August I probably averaged about two hours- for everything, from FB to blogs to news to whatever- but once I started school I would spend hours researching and looking for lesson plan ideas. I would also turn to internet for entertainment/winding down when my foot was broken. I think this needs to get better in 2012.

Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Nat'l Park

Travel To-Do

Montana and Yellowstone Nat’l Park: Check. We turned this into a 12 day long, 3,000 mile road trip that included Seattle, Vancouver, Portland, and Utah. I never blogged about it, but it was amazing.

Badlands: Check

Go to at least one hot springs location: Nope.

Travel to Denver and Boulder at least twice each for events or day trips: Check. We more than accomplished this and it was nice to do some local exploring.

See a concert at Red Rocks: Nope. We had tickets to see Death Cab for Cutie, and it was two weeks after I broke my foot. It's a hike to get out there, and my foot was newly broken and sore, so Bobby went with a co-worker.

Travel to Texas at end of HP contract for an extended amount of time: Check. We also threw in the Thanksgiving trip as a bonus.

Sweet old pic of the 3 of us- I'm rocking the hell out of that side pony and yellow dress.

Family

Call all grandparents and parents at least once a month/ Send more mail (specifically to Great Granny monthly): Accomplished. We also started a tradition of sending postcards to the kids in our family/grandparents/parents from all the places we travel. It began in Peru/Ecuador, and just kept going. My cousin's son and Bobby's niece and nephews really look forward to getting mail. I'm actually about to write a postcard to my Great Granny right now.

All in all, even with the derail that was "After" I feel pretty good about this year. The only place where I really feel like I failed miserably was regarding the Spanish study. I think I should have divided my year, preemptively, into Before School Starts and After School Starts. This would have been more reasonable. As a result, that's exactly what I'm doing for 2012 goals. I have goals for January- May, that take into account that beating that is full time graduate school and student teaching. Bobby and I hung out at a coffee shop and talked about our respective goals day before yesterday. I have 3 main areas of focus, with very specific goals, to keep it simple and sweet during next semester but still get the important things done. They'll probably go up on New Year's Day.

I have to say, all the self-reflection about goal setting and accomplishing things is making me feel even worse about the fact that I have severely procrastinated on a few important things for the start of next semester. Maybe my productive procrastination, in the form of writing this insanely long post, did serve a purpose after all other than contribute to my eventual carpal tunnel syndrome? We'll see.

Great Sand Dunes National Park

On the drive back from our Thanksgiving trip to Texas, we decided to hit up Great Sand Dunes National Park. They're the tallest sand dunes in North America, and they're at 8,000 feet elevation. As a bonus, it had snowed the night before. It was gorgeous, and totally surreal to see huge sand dunes ringed by snow capped mountains. We didn't have as much time there as we would have wanted, but since we have to go back to the general area for Royal Gorge sometime, we decided that we'd also re-visit the park. The dunes, for your viewing pleasure...

If you're ever in the area, please check it out. It's definitely worth driving a bit out of your way (two hours round trip for us added on) to experience it.