Workin' It

I LOVE my job. Seriously. I love the school, I love the kids in my class, and I love the people I get to work with. It all just goes to show that all the stress I went through this summer was silly and God had a plan all along. But I'll write about that another day.

Over the past few months I've gotten to be good friends with the teachers on my grade level. One day over the holidays a few of us got together to have lunch and just catch up. While we were there we started talking about how we had all gained a few pounds (even though they're still super skinny, but whatever) and decided that we wanted to start walking together after school. It's nice to listen to music or a book while you walk, but it's so much nicer when you have someone to talk to. Or it is for me, anyway.

So last Tuesday we started walking after school. The road to the school is a little over a mile long, and the school is pretty much the only thing on the road, so there's not a lot of traffic in the afternoon. We thought it was about a mile and a half, so we were a little disappointed after the first day when we realized we had only walked a little over two miles. The next day we decided to walk all the way around the school before walking up the road, and around the school again after we got back. I took my phone and used the Map My Run app that Sunny told me about, and that ended up being 3.6 miles. The time passed so quickly since we were enjoying talking. We walked four days last week!

I've really liked doing this because even though I get home a little later than I could, when I do get home I've already exercised and I can just relax. The other teachers on our grade level are planning on joining us, and we put a note in the school newsletter in case anyone else wants to join us. We figure the more people that go, the more motivation we'll have :)

Just by walking after school and not changing my eating habits much, I lost 1.5 pounds last week! Granted, I gained quite a few pounds over the holidays, so I don't expect to lose that much every week just by walking, but it was a good start. This week I want to add a little strength training to get toned up a little. I'm going to try to eat more fruit and drink more water, too. I should quit drinking carbonated drinks altogether, but I'm not ready to give up my Diet Cokes just yet :)

Netflix and Hulu

I love Netflix. We got mad at them a while back when they upped their prices and cancelled, but a few months ago we started subscribing again. We did it mainly because of a show that Lee wanted to watch, but I'm glad we did. I like it mainly because I have the app on my ipad and I can watch my TV shows while I walk on the treadmill :) We had been streaming it through the Wii so we could watch on the TV in the living room, but Lee recently got surround sound that lets us watch through that. So now the Wii is in the bedroom and we can watch Netflix in there too. Kind of a problem if I actually want to PLAY the Wii, but we can deal with that later.

Last week we started watching Downton Abbey on Netflix and got hooked on it. The only problem is that Netflix only has Season 1. Being the TV show addicts that we are, we decided to get the week-long free trial of Hulu Plus and watch it on there. When we were setting it up to stream through the surround sound we found out that we could get a 3-month free trial of Hulu Plus! So now we have plenty of time to watch Season 2 [but it won't take us much longer than a week].

Now we're debating on turning our cable completely off and just using Netflix and Hulu Plus [if we decide we like Hulu Plus, obviously]. The only problem is that not many of my Bravo shows are on there and not many of Lee's Food Network shows are on there. It would save us a lot of money every month if we did that, but I just don't know how I feel about it. Anybody have any thoughts on doing that? Also, any TV show suggestions for watching while I'm on the treadmill? I think there's a Hulu Plus app for the ipad too.

Hey there, 2013

Once again, my new year's resolution is to blog more. I've written on here several times why I want to blog, I just can't seem to keep it up. This year I'm really gonna try. So here I go!

The last time I blogged I was having a hard time because I couldn't find a job. I had started looking for a job ANYWHERE and had a couple of non-teaching job interviews lined up when I got an offer to teach at a school really close to the house. It was the job I had wanted all summer! I got the offer on Thursday and school started MONDAY! The three days before school started were a blur, as were the first few after school started, but I LOVE it! I'm teaching fifth grade and I love the kids, the school, and the other teachers I work with. I really think God was teaching me a lesson in patience and trusting in Him by having me wait it out. I spent so much time worrying about what I was going to do when He had a plan all along. 

School has pretty much been my life since I got the job. That, and college football. I love football so much and I'm a little sad it's almost over but I'm kind of excited to have my weekends back. I started reading again, too! I didn't have time for much reading for a while, but I've learned to balance things a little better now so I've made time for it. It's been nice :)

Since this is my first post of the new year I feel like I should put some of my resolutions (I like to call them goals though). I have several goals for 2013, but I thought I'd just share a few (besides blogging more) on here:

• Get my car paid off
• Start saving for a new house
• Work out regularly (3-4 times a week)

Real exciting stuff there, I'll tell ya!