Fast race day

There is nothing like having a great run after a not so hot run to remind you that all of the miles and speedwork and frustration can be worth the trouble.  I ran in the Cranberry festival 5k this morning and despite getting snippy with one of the volunteers over their parking nonsense, it was a good day for a fast run.  The course starts downhill for about a mile and up for a chunk but it is no steeper than anything in Franklin and uphills motivate my legs and my head to work harder.  I hope to keep up on hills during the fall non-planned training period.  I was the second female behind a familiar face who I will admit is flippin fast!  She won that race today.  I was more happy with my time which is probably one of the fastest I have gone all year.  I clopped in at 21.39 and I will take that!  I don't know where those sub 7min miles came from but going into the two weeks before Applefest, I enjoy having some mental reinforcement to keep me going.  A couple good training runs here in between marathon rehearsals and school and life happenings will keep me fresh for hopefully another sub 22 race.  Applefest is one of my favorites, but it is usually not a fast race for me.  

I got to follow up my race with some theatre time with the hubby.  We spent the mid to late afternoon painting and doing detail work for set stuff.  I hung out with a seven year old and chatted her up.  It was generally a blast minus the lingering headache that has been giving me the business the past few days.  

Also, new Lancome make-up was purchased today along with nude-hose (I just love saying nude-hose!).  The make-up came with a "free" gift (the only time I buy fancy make-up) of samples and sweet lipstick.  I have decided that I am going to make my thirtieth year of life the one where I become a lipstick wearer.  It is so sheek and fun and yet everytime I put it on, I feel not quite right.  Like I am trying to hard to tart it up or something.  I wonder if this is just because I almost never wear it and just need to make it a habit so I can get used to it.  I may try this to see if it works.  

Birthday week, post marathon blah non running week

School has been incredible this first month!  I am a lucky first grade teacher.  The kiddos that make up my class are fun, energetic, child like in a way they enjoy my childishness, and they work hard.  It has been a whirlwind of a first month with everything that goes into getting ready for back to school.  My room set up is the bomb; I am not going to lie.  I moved my desk to the corner nearest my central teaching area instead of in the Siberian corner it was in last year.  I still don't sit at it hardly ever, but I can set things there and they are closer than they would have been last year.  Teaching first grade still feels like quite the adventure, almost like the whitewater rafting of education. I am always surprised by how much I enjoy it.  Five/six years ago I could hardly picture myself in any classroom younger than fourth graders.  Now I can help pull out teeth and tie shoes and comfort weepy children like a boss.  Yesterday, one of my fellas spilt a bottle of water on my desk.  It completely soaked my desk calendar and part of my math manual.  25 year old Amanda would have melted down along with the child.  30 year old Mrs. Greene goes with the flow and tells the boy all is fine and that she is probably the clumsiest person she knows.  I told my husband it is probably all of the maturity.  However, I am not too old to play with six year olds and stuffed frogs and puppets.  It is a crazy awesome development I did not know would occur five/six years ago.

I am so thankful for the passing of time.  I turned 30 on Monday and thank goodness for the end of my twenties.  Do any other early 30-ers feel this way?  Relieved to be out of this period where you are a grown up but you are not really; people say you are an adult but don't treat you like one.  The shifting and changing and evolving of my twenties turned out great, but I am a creature of comfort and prefer stability and predictability.  

I finished out my 20s with a marathon in Erie.  It was a rough race.  My hip or IT band has been all out of sorts since the race in Harrisvile back in August.  I can push up to 2 hours and it gets all kinds of ouchy that I don't really know what to do with it.  The answer is probably to just lay off and let things heal.  I am taking down my milage, but I still have races coming up (tomorrow for instance!) and would like to have decent times.  I find it hard to turn off the competitiveness going into a race and do not need to get hurt.  In my mind, crossing the finish line on Sunday marked the end of my marathoning days.  This is probably not true.  Marathons truly demand not all but most of what a person has to give.  They take time, energy both mental and physical.  I am thankful I work in a profession where I had the summer to prepare for this race.  The two a days reminded me of my strength and capabilities.  I felt fast and fierce most of the summer.  I am excited to do some speed work and get into these last few months' races for 2014.  I will easily average one a month with only missing February because I couldn't find a nearby race to get to.  After 2014 what should I do?  Do I try to step it up somehow (how)?  Do I incorporate more tris (yes)?  When can I get back into the pool?  So many things to think about.  

I am writing this post from my new iPad my husband got me for the birthday celebrations.  It feels too fancy, yet, I am enjoying its niftiness.  I got a keyboard to do the typing thing because touch screen keyboard typing is banana pants!  Yes, banana pants!

A plain day

Today was a day of only minimal productiveness, which I am finding out is okay. I am on week ten or eleven of marathon training and cannot shut up about it even though I find myself annoying me about it. There is a joke that goes something like, "if you are wondering if a person has run a marathon or not, don't worry, they will surely let you know." It is very much the truth, and I am so sorry. I feel I have so much more to talk about than one of the most boring activities ever. I am in that weird super nervous but still to far away to justify the nervousness phase. An email was sent out that the race is creeping up sooner and sooner, and yes there are long training runs but my head is just not there yet. In fact, my fight or flight response kicks into high gear Saturday night before long runs and the past two have been terrible.  I would rather do endless hills or hard intervals on a mid July/August stuffy day than go out for the many lonely, boring hours I have to do on a Sunday. Even diving into a pool at 5:30am with 40 others suffering the same fate in January would be preferable to the solitude. Just a few more weeks.

In other news, I am through my first round of actual graduate coursework, thank freaking goodness. The one class was low structure reading and writing assignments with some okay discussions. I feel like I do have a more solid foundation of understanding how literacy works. There were some crazy assignments where I was lucky to have a great admin to supply me with school specific information. The other class was just bananas with a professor lacking solid educational background and students in the class who said the most crazy bullshit.  Seriously, when you suggest books were, at any point in history, dangerous, someone is hopefully going to call you out. Between that weird exchange and the impractical class project, this class felt like marking time.  Taking these courses, I can't imagine not having any experience in the classroom; what do you talk about when the rest of us are discussing real use of strategies in the classroom or situations dealing with parents? Needless to say, I am ready for a break.  Time to focus on getting things going for another year with six year olds and some time to get the running business finished (or at least this race done-there are always races on the horizon to annoy people or just myself by talking about) and do some musical theatre business as the BCT puts on Chicago for Applefest. Looking forward to those journeys with my husband. 

Nothing Better

There are some amazing and wonderful things in life.  Sitting here in the office drinking coffee, post-run, with my husband and my lab is one of those things.  I never get tired of this. How did I get so lucky?!

Meta-analysis this!

Freaking Grad Class!

You don't want my impolite tone?  Don't post an asinine post when you should be discussing thoughtful, meaningful ideas.  Books don't kill people, people kill people.  You are a grad student for goodness sake!  Come up with something not ridiculous beyond reason and people won't have to call you out on it.  And if you're a professor, should you really be asking one of your students to censor their wording in a discussion about censorship?  Really?  You did that.  Be better. 

Make-up deal

Yes, today was the wrap up for school year 2013-14.  It is done and my kids are off doing summery things and my room is packed and I came home grumpier than a poked bear (or tiger-whatever four legged cantankerous creature you think fits).  I am just not ready to handle filling my own day with stuff of my own choosing; I will get over this and break out the daily lists sooner rather than later (probably as soon as I finish this post and relocate to the cushy couch to watch some Office).  My husband is being super understanding and patient with my ranting and raving.  He walked with Big and me and allowed me to vent incessantly.  We later dined out and explored the world of retail by stopping at the mall.  I was just going to snag some of the Clinique liquidy stuff but guess what...

boom! Make-up freebies!  This really is a silly way to save my day, but sometimes you just need fancy make-up that comes with free stuff.  It is not technically free and I know this retail trick, but with fancy make-up, it totally brings me in.  I needed a good mascara anyway.  Lancome is really good at picking a must spend price.  Their lower price items are generally in the $25 family while higher price goods like powders/creams are usually $50+.  So you either get two of the lower price point items or one of the high ticket items.  Touche, Lancome; I applaud your pricing techniques!  So what did I get with my mascara and brown liner pencil (because, I like make-up...it's why I keep my hair short...so I can just do make-up and not stupid old hair!)?  Mousse Radiance Clarifying Self-Foaming Cleanser is a creamy face wash/make-up remover; it is luscious feeling and may be my shower face wash for a while.  Two items from the Renergie line: first there is a purple tube of cream that lifts/plumps.  And then there is a small purple container that has a day cream with SPF.  Lancome's stuff smells so nice.  Light and floral but not overpowering in a way that suggests that it is covering up something awful.  There was also a blush pink lipstick.  This may or not get used.  Lipstick is something I feel I should use more often or that I would like more often and I have a few, but I rarely have it on.  Something about its texture and that weird feature of my lips almost not going with my face when they are a different color.  Finally there was some more mascara which is just fine; I put that business on my face almost everyday.  And yes, when I got home from hitting the make-up counter, I tried almost all of my new stuff. 

Now I just need to have a reason to leave the house so I can put some make up on and show it off.  This may be my next move tonight.  List making at least to get me in the routine of the next few days of vacation.  I don't understand how people don't just want to send their children all year, because, honestly, I would feel better and more productive going into the building with some lesson plans and some children to teach.  However, I turned in my key so alas, I will just tough it out until they allow me back in the building to do productive things.  And I will crank out some academic smartness in the meantime.  Or just be a general pain in the ass to my professor over the online articles that are just somehow not available.  Rant for another time, perhaps.   

"7 Ways to Cope With Retirement From Competitive Swimming" by Elle Meinholz

Coping with being a swammer.

Because you never really "retire." You could dive in and crush 6k if you really had to.  Because you have bonds and connections and stories that non-swimmers won't ever really understand because you just have to live it to know it.  

Nothing says summer...

...like a dog who wants you to go to work so he hangs out in his own office until you catch his drift.  And to think we were hesitant on crating because we thought he would not like it! 

First grade update for my first RS grad class!

100% so far!  Boom!

Almost like a first day of summer break

Here we are, June 7th.  Boy that came quick didn't it.  Yes there were supposed to be more posts and there weren't.  School happened and it will still happen for one more day on Monday, however, there will be no students and it will be a ghost building with people putting the finishing touches on packing up their rooms and people taking things home.  I have a car full of stuff that I through in a basket and will keep here over the summer.  Yesterday I officially transitioned my first graders into second graders and sent them on their way to three months of summer bliss (or camp or whatever they do).  It still feels like a sad moment and not a happy one.  One wasn't even there the last three days and so thank you for not even getting to have last day closure for that kiddo.  It isn't really closure anyway!  They go on, they keep learning, and I hope I sang and danced enough to create some memory or some tiny kernel of knowledge that will help them on their way.  Between all of my unique students with their very diverse needs/backgrounds, I learned a bunch about adaptations and classroom management that I hope to take into August with me as I get to do this again next year.

This is the first summer without work for compensation since I began lifeguarding at 15.  I am taking two grad classes through Wilkes online to begin my Reading Specialist degree program and so far it has not been too heavy.  The past week with the overlap of last week of school, first week of grad school, getting things moving for Junior Silver Cornets this year, and week 2 of marathon training, I was a grumpy gopher.  I am sorry for all of the snarky things I said especially to my husband when I was tired and overwhelmed and sore.

The first thing my grad classes have both had me do is be social which I am not sure they could do without because how else would you get all of these complete strangers to talk to each other in a productive academic way.  But, honestly, I have a very hard time being real social so this online (read "fake") social is really hard for me.  I wish I cared about these people's kids or hobbies or whatever, and while I managed quite well to do that during the PLS classes, this virtual community is so hard to get socially excited about.  I have to get over it and put on my big girl pants about this but for a little bit I am going to complain.

At least I am balancing this weird grad experience out with kicking my own ass with legit two a day runs and getting ready for the Erie marathon.  I am officially off the wait list and signed up so now I need to stick with the plan and keep myself motivated and going.  I fell off this week's workouts Wednesday after a terrible day of school, but am getting myself back into it today.  It is so much better than falling off mid-January and needing to get back into things when it is negative degrees outside.  I am excited about the process of this again especially with a real schedule for doing things.

Oh, the dog is laying on my feet again.  He is so charming when he is floppy and resting.  

Favorite Animated Musical Numbers (Part Three-The Emotional Opening Number)

The thing about comparing the music of Frozen to other animated music features is that it was not as emotionally touching and charming as many songs I have seen at the beginning of these films.  "Part of Your World" also falls into this category; and technically Hercules leads off with the big showstopping Gospel Truth lady singers, but "Go the Distance" is our main character's big song moment.  "Belle" not only gives us her sweet backstory, but also an introduction to some of the other characters, notebly Gaston and his buffoon sidekick.  And my top favorite for lead off numbers is "Deliver Us" from The Prince of Egypt.  I recently rewatched this (it's been a while) and got the soundtrack to replace my worn out one.  The opening song is the definition of epic.  Hugely epic.  Of course, Frozen could have taken a cue from it; if you want epic and big music sound and emotion, like Wicked (is this not what they were going for?), you get Steven Schwartz and Hans Zimmer.  But Frozen has poppy little tweenage girl sound, and maybe they were going for that.  I do not know. 

Favorite Animated Musical Numbers (Part Two-The Little Mermaid)

I was 5 when The Little Mermaid came out and I LOVED it! I swam, she's a mermaid and the music is phenom so it made sense at the time that I had the soundtrack (back when CDs were new and all the rage) and the Ariel doll and all of the toys.  The big songs from this one hold up very nicely over the years, even her mushy song.  The best one though is definitely Ursala's though. She is a kick ass villain with a bad ass song.

Favorite Animated Musical Numbers (Part One)

So going through YouTube, I was able to find many of the musical clips I would categorize as my top classic animated hits.  "Let It Go" from Frozen is an easy listening addition to this list, however, it would not be my top song or even top five/ten.  It is very processed and while I like the not so fraught-y nature of it (definitely not a poop-song), it is quite pop-licious and feels very generic.  Idina Menzel rocks, there is no question; she brings it hard in Wicked and Rent, she just isn't given memorable music to utilize her awesome voice. 

Anyways, this may take a few posts to get them all here.  I will try to break them up into groups.  They are not just Disney, because that would be a huge mistake.  There are so many other musical animated features and tidbits out there.  Starting with two here from Ferngully. Not the most obvious choice for musical numbers, but Toxic Love really captures the awfulness and yet coolness of Hexus, and the Batty Rap paves the way for the Genie in Aladdin. 

As for Aladdin, the best songs are not the cheesy love-fest that is the pop duet although it is pretty and has key changes that make my heart happy.  One jump is poppin' and both the Genie's songs are the top tracks when I am making a must listen to playlist.

How I felt about Frozen

So we went to finally see Frozen and I was all pumped up for how awesome and wonderful and musically fresh it was claimed to be with its sweet neoDisney stance of sisterhood and lady-power and "you don't need a man" (yet Anna did some, didn't she, she needed Christoff to help her get up the mountain; wouldn't it have been fresher if it had been a lady ice peddler who helped the two princesses and the possibility of romantic love was taken out of the rescue equation?).  Speaking of love, I just wasn't sold; the amount of true love between Christoff and Anna that I was supposed to believe by the end but I didn't feel/get it.  And even between Anna and Elsa; yes they are sisters who have spent years not speaking to each other.  And why on earth are we telling Anna's story?  I read this question in a few places; I am not really interested in how it's hard to be the sister no one will play with.  I want to know more about the emotional baggage that Elsa deals with having uncontrollable powers that keep her isolated from those she loves and cares for in fear she will kill them.  We just don't get that deep with any of them.  It was just supposed to be emotionally magical and it fell very flat and shallow for me. 

Graphically it was pretty in moments and blurry in others, almost like rushed in a sci-fy movie, don't see how we didn't clean this up quite right kind of way.  This is not my area of movie watching expertise and yes, Sven the reindeer looked so fuzzy and "real" (um, we've been before too here with Sully's fur in Monsters, Inc), but it all seemed just not enough.

Which brings me to the music.  I held off listening to any of this until I could see it in context.  I was enlightened of its fabulousness and excited that others had rated it music better than Tangled which I highly enjoy.  With the double sisters duets, however, the movie had the musical feel of Wicked Light, or wannabe Wicked without being convincing.  Do You Want to Build a Snowman was cute and sweet.  Most of the songs I have walked away from not really remembering; the duet between Hans and Anna, Anna and Elsa's open the door song, the weird tribal song that bookended the movie (seriously, was that a throwaway track from The Lion King?), Olaf's second act opener, the troll song (worst!).  I give the women credit, they are fabulous singers!  You could give Idina Menzel "Mary had a little lamb" and she is going to make it sound as epic as a Florence and the Machine number.  "Let It Go" is basic pop fluffiness with a kick ass lady singer.  I have to say, I listened to it while running twice today.  It has a nice slow tinkly beginning, and soaring lady vocals that make me want to fly when I move my legs.  The instrumental music was fine, non memorable honestly.  Maybe this music will grow over time, but it didn't hit me in a sweet spot and while "Let It Go" is perfectly pretty and driving, it falls quite short of my top animated movie song favorites (I am compiling a list, when I have the energy to battle putting many videos into blogger, I will get them up). 

 

Happy 30 months and 2 days

Not after a while, though. More like right now and always. 

Looking ahead

Getting ready for talking about equality and fairness and diversity with the little folks this week. Happy MLK jr. Day (just a bit early-not that we couldn't use his spirit on a more regular basis).

January's Race and Punching Ice in its Stupid Icy Face!

Yes, don't those look snazzy and fierce?  Like they will karate chop ice right in its sneery icy face!  Let's hope so.  After not running because of the powdery devil I figured it was really time to not give up but get a set of these.  It was hard to tell on the box as it is also in these pictures, but those little triangles on the corners of the orange polygon, are metal spikes.  Meant to puncture and punish the snow and keep me from sliding to my utter demise on the ice.  Also purchased were a set of UA cold gear running gloves.  I have given up on finding the matching Nike one that has had a sad mate for over two years (now that I have made the purchase, the elves are sure to sneak it back with its partner-oh well, backups!).  They make exciting cold piercing sounds (the sound effects that I generally make up that don't seem to make my  husband wonder why he entered into this marital union) that battle the chilling temperatures that seem to have swallowed up January.  Now to get back into it, for reals.  I did also sign up for the first month's race.  There was a choice of either a 5 or 10-miler in Hermitage's Buhl Park.  It is in two weeks and going based on my lackadaisical training through December, I am going with the 5.  I don't have the time/energy to properly train for ten this soon.  It will be a good test of my winter racing endurance.  It will also be my first race in Buhl, which I have heard cool things about the place, so I am pumped to see someplace new.  It's a good feeling to get this going.    

A New Year's quote

So here we go 2014

http://funny2014.com/new-year-quote-2014/

What do I want to do (lots, so much to do, need more time!)? Where can I make improvements (plenty of areas for this) personally, professionally, spiritually, and athletically?

The big thing on my mind is school.  I have some habits I would like to work on and techniques I want to get better at.  I am hopeful to get moving on some more professional development and hopefully enroll and start my Masters this summer.  I just need to buckle down and get it done.  I love the extra learning opportunities; I could be better with making them count.  Sometimes I forget to follow through with my Act 48 hour online business for school, so I need to become more organized at making my PD count.  I am excited (read, EXCITED) to get back to school.  There are some fun, content rich things we will get to do over the next few months.  Sitting in the room the last day before break, listening to one of the girls read a beginners' chapter book was awesome and a real kick in the pants.  My kids are doing really well and I am ready to raise the level of the game to take them further.  I have lots of writing things to give them a boost and a connection to a skill that is not just a necessity but also personally gratifying (I will come back to this later).  I want them to want to do it; I just need to figure out what gets them to that point.  I did some organization of math/reading lesson plans that will hopefully streamline/expedite that process throughout the rest of the year.  I really want to work on the language barrier with my ESL guy and possibly add some of his first language to my repertoire to help this process. 

I am sure there are other school related goals I want to work towards, but I don't have the complete thoughts to articulate them now. 

From Mental Health 5k

Running was a big plus for me this year.  I hit some major milestones, with the marathon and the 5k wins.  I'd like to keep that momentum going in 2014.  Pete gifted me with a SWEET garmin running system.  I got a few tryouts of it in before more snow dumped down (some YAKTRAX might be my next running investment-seriously, I can do cold, but slipping and sliding is the worst).  It is a boss of a tool.  It tracks HR and the GPS tracking map is phenom.  I don't know if I would want to get lost with it, but it had my steps and where I was down to a T.  I think I clocked in about 1,000 miles for 2013; I'd like to do about the same for 2014.  Without a marathon to train for, this will be harder (it is easy to rack up miles with long-run Sundays), but I hope to make it work.  I would like to not just run but learn to be a more effective runner and a better racer.  I am doing a couple halves this year, but my big goal is to race.  I want to do at least one race per month.  I almost averaged this in 2013, but this year I want to get in any length race for every month.  This may require some hunting around to find some, especially when it is this time of year, but I am hopeful.  Also getting back into a tri or two would be nice.  Actually, being more committed to cross training on a more frequent basis would also be a good goal.  I have a sweet bike that needs more miles!

Last year, one of my goals was to read more, and while I successfully did compared to 2012, my reading was sporadic and sometimes not effective.  I have this habit of starting many books and not getting to complete any of them.  I also tend to reread, which is great for somethings, but not in helping me get through more material.  I covered some fiction and nonfiction which is good (I tend to lean towards nonfiction).  This year here is the reading plan; every month I want to do one and one-a nonfiction and a fiction.  I will not allow myself more than these two a month unless I have successfully completed them.  For the fiction, I have been stuck in juvenile work (Hunger Games, Matched trilogy) and I'd like to read something more appropriate and mature.  I am hoping to blog more about book reading like I tried before, but one step at a time.

Speaking of blogging!  I need to write, more than once every couple of months!  When did this get so hard!  I think I got to the point where I didn't think anybody would care what I had to say, so why was I putting the mental energy into putting stuff out there.  Well, dummy (read, talking to self), you write whether or not you have something interesting to say, whether or not people will care about it.  I had this notion once upon a time; I just let my writing muscles atrophy and getting them back into shape has been a mediocre effort at best.  So the writing plan (do you see I am big on plans this year?) is to set aside some time yet unknown once a week to write about something/anything.  I would like to write about what I am reading (more importantly, what I am getting out of it), or how school things are going, or what fashion trends I liked (this one is a must-I have tons of magazines that I need to go through, and this would give me a reason to commit to it), anything.  I just need to do this at least every week. 

Most importantly, I'd like to see and talk to my family more often.  I am terrible at maintaining relationships-this is a familial issue, we are proximity people and we are best at communication when the folks we want to communicate are right there.  This has made me sad though in that I feel like I sometimes shelter myself from the events/happenings of the people that are closest to me and I miss things, and I miss them.  I can do something about this though, or at least I am going to try to this year!  I would like to get on a regular talk schedule with Sarah and the HI crew, and maybe make more dinner or game dates with Tom and the Franklin crew.  It was too easy to let this relationship maintanance go by the wayside; now that job things are stable-ish (teaching-do we ever feel comfortable-or is this just me?), I have no excuses for being a slacker here.  Just get it done, Amanda Rose!

I think that about covers it. Maybe some other minor things (finding a local dentist and getting back into a regular routine with them; taking a multivitamin; continue to try to cook things-maybe), but for the most part, it looks like I have a pretty full plate of business ahead for me.

Oh!  I almost forgot!  Finish that effing quilt for your nephew in time for him to take it to college!  This quilt will be the death of me.