30 Hairstyles in 30 Days

I don't have long hair but if I did I would be tickled to have 30 different hairstyles to wear. To see how Abby met the 30 hairstyles in 30 days challenge go here.

Wordless Wednesday

What's better than sidewalk chalk? Sidewalk paint!

Comin' In Hot at the Ragnar Race

Our team of 12 amazing women runners and Van #2's driver. I'm 3rd from the left, front row. My daughter, our team captain is in the back row, 4th from the left.

I'm a runner! It really hit me. I've been running for about two years but I don't really think of myself as a "runner". Aren't those the people that have the expensive shoes, fashionable running clothes and skinny legs?  But after this past weekend, I will think of myself as a runner!

The Ragnar Race was the most challenging thing I have ever done (except for childbirth of course). I ran three legs: 6.2 miles, 5 miles and 4.2 miles. I trained for about a month and worked really hard to be able to run 6 miles. (Before that, my longest run was about 3.5 miles.) On my first leg I ran at 11am. It was sunny, hot,humid, no breeze. The road had been freshly tarred so it was black! About 4 miles of it was uphill. I was crushed that I wasn't able to run the whole 6 miles. I did have to walk/run it.

My 5 mile leg was around 11pm. It was cool but also kind of creepy. There weren't many runners along my way. We all had to wear lighted vests, tail lights and headlights. After the first half mile I had to run up a very steep hill for a couple of miles and then it leveled out. I felt better about that run. Only had to walk a little on the hill and I didn't run into any skunks or raccoons!

My third leg was early morning, three miles along a tarred path that was shaded and ran along a creek and then a lake. (Where was this shade on my first run?!?) Very pretty scenery. However, you guessed it. The last mile was straight uphill. Again I had to walk a little on the hill.

Wearing my Ragnar Medal. It was heavy!

All in all I think I did pretty good for this old body. It was very fun watching the other gals speed along their runs and cheering them on. I only wished I could have run half as fast and with half as much stamina as they did. But I realize they are much younger and have been running much more than I have.

The name of our team was "Comin' in Hot".

It was a great experience! My team of 12 ran 195 miles from Winona to Minneapolis in about 30 hours. I got to spend time cheering for them, learning how to properly eat to fuel up from them, sleep a few hours in the van with them and celebrate with them at the finish line.

Would I do it again? If they ask me and if I can have shorter legs to run I think I would. But then again, I'll be another year older...maybe I could just drive the van. :)

Adorable Nail Art

I have been seeing all kinds of adorable nail art lately--here and here.

Do you think I could turn these nails into something a little more glamorous?

Off to the Races

I'm off to run my Ragnar Race tomorrow. Tonight we pick up our van and drive to the town where we start in the morning. I'm running three legs for a total of 15.4 miles. That probably doesn't sound like a lot but to this old body it sure does! I'm hoping my teammates help to keep me fired up. The forecast calls for isolated thunderstorms (40% chance).Now wouldn't that make for a fun run!

Think of me and send lots of positive thoughts my way.

Wordless Wednesday

Nobody home...

Teaching--Behind the Scenes

Time to head back to school already. Where did summer go? I was just getting started!
I thought you might like to see a little of what goes on behind the scenes as I get ready for the first week of school. Today I drove out to my classroom (30 miles away). I took along my two granddaughters to help. (They were such big helpers!) The oldest granddaughter is going into second grade which is what I teach so she was especially excited to help.

We got there around 9:30 and stayed until a little after 3:00. We took 20 minutes for lunch. That was our only break except for a quick snack for the girls around 10:30.

When I walked in my room I was pretty shocked to see all of the boxes. We are using new science materials this year. I teach science to all of the 2nd graders so I get to store the materials in my room. (I haven't figured out where that's going to be yet!)

The girls and I worked on putting up new bulletin boards, labeling reading and spelling workbooks. I laminated a bunch of stuff for the bulletin boards,name tags,math charts,etc. The girls worked hard cutting all of that out.

At the end of the year I have to pack up all of the stuff on my bookshelves so the cleaning staff can move them to clean over the summer. (You can see the paper boxes lining the back wall.) So we unpacked many boxes of books, game and misc. items and put them back on the bookshelves.

We didn't get everything done that I would have liked. I brought hours of work home to do before next week. (If I lived closer I would just have gone back in another day.) Our adminstration has lots of meetings planned for next week but we will have some time to work in our classrooms. That time will be spent preparing lessons for the first week of school and getting ready for Open House on Wed. night.

(A little note, none of us get paid for the time we put in getting our classrooms ready.)

I'll take pics after I have everything ready to go for the first day of school. Hopefully, it looks much better than this! :)