First Day of Internship!

Today was my first day of Internship and I just wanted to take a quick minute to document it!

I am interning at Acorn.  I think that I am going to really enjoy it!  My cooperating teacher is very nice and I am looking forward to the next semester!!

The past few years I have struggled with a little bit of anxiety when it came to school and classes. In December when I did my first public school “teach” at Mena, I was SO nervous I thought I was going to be sick. And all I had to do was teach one teeny tiny lesson to a group of well-behaved students in one classroom for one period. And at college I had some major test anxiety – mainly in classes like Accounting and Business Law.  BUT, I must have had a lot of people praying for my nerves last night and today because I was not nervous at all last night! I was at complete ease all day yesterday and I slept fine last night. I really had no reason to be nervous, so I wasn’t. But I don’t think I’ll be nervous at all this semester.

As far as today – it went great! I was tired from going to bed too late and not having any caffeine in my system at all. I need to become a coffee drinker. I gotta have something to wake me up in the mornings!  I went to school, met the principal, and basically observed in the business classes all day long! It was super easy.

As soon as school was out, I went to pick Christopher up from his babysitter. (I need to do a whole separate post on Christopher SOON!)  I was so happy to see him and to learn that he had a very good day. We came home and spent a few minutes with Stephen before I had to head to Bunco with the girls! Bunco seemed to last forever tonight and by the time I got home from there it was after 7:00.  Right after I got home, Stephen and I went over to his mom’s house to meet my mom to talk about the house! I haven’t mentioned it on here yet, but Stephen and I are moving into his mom’s house while our house is on the market. We are really hoping to get our house sold by this summer but I did not want to have to deal with having it on the market while I was student teaching… since her house has been unoccupied since September, we are moving in there and that way we will be able to leave our house for sale, keep it clean and uncluttered, etc. Much easier on everybody.  We will stay at her house until we know where I will be teaching next fall and then go from there…

By the time I got home, put Christopher to bed, read him Goodnight, Moon (twice) got my clothes ready for tomorrow and cleaned up the kitchen, it was nearly 9:00. I. AM. EXHAUSTED.

I know that today will not be the norm – go go go until 9 pm. It was a good first day for internship though!

I’m ready for bed now – Stephen and I have been watching Frasier on Netflix at night after we get in bed. I’m pretty sure I won’t make it through a whole episode before turning over to fall asleep!

Getting Fit

One of my goals for the new year was to try to live a healthier lifestyle. This includes doing the Couch to 5K program, eating healthier, & exercising.

I’ve been doing the Couch to 5K plan. I love it. LOVE IT. Big time love it. I loved it when I did it last year. I’m hoping to finish it this time. I really want to participate in a 5K.

I use an app called “Ease into 5K” for my running. I can listen to my own songs and it tells me when to walk and when to run. It also has GPS built in so it tracks my walk and run pace, how far I go, etc. I really like it!

I planned on doing C25K while at orientation last week, but it was dark and rainy on Monday and Tuesday, on Wednesday Stephen, Deanna, and Christopher came to visit me, on Thursday I spent too much time at Walmart after orientation and on Friday I headed home as soon as I could. Not to mention I was just flat out exhausted at the end of each day of orientation to even think about putting on my running shoes. I mean… I didn’t even pick up the laptop and blog. Running? Um, no. Didn’t happen. BUT I did run yesterday – my first full day back at home – and you can see that I am walking further and my average pace has improved by over two full minutes.

I’ve seen several of my friends on Facebook talking about myfitnesspal, so I decided to check it out and see what the fuss was about. I really like it so far! One of my favorite things about it is that you can scan the UPC of an item and it automatically pulls up all the nutritional information about it. I don’t have to input calories, fat, carbs, etc. Love that about it! You can also add friends so that you can encourage one another. Hopefully I can keep up with that and it will help me watch my calorie intake. :)

I do not have a goal weight. I have a certain size I’d like to be and if I get to that size and decide I want to be smaller (keep in mind I’m 5’2” so a size 9 on me is bigger than on a woman who is 5’7”. For a 5’2” woman the “ideal weight” is 122 pounds – seven pounds LESS than when I started dating Stephen and was wearing a size 5 pant.)  My main goal is to just be healthy  and happy with my body. I’m tired of being uncomfortable in my own body, ya know? Yeah.

I plan to join either Curves or the gym here in town… I’m not sure yet how my schedule is going to be with internship semester, so I plan on waiting a few weeks until I know when I’m going to be able to work out. I would prefer to join Curves, but their hours may not work with my schedule. So much of my schedule also depends on Stephen – and he never has the same day twice between school, work, and various types of sporting events that he has to cover across the county. It’s crazy.

Almost Halfway!

I’m trucking along through Orientation. I had great plans to do a lot of catching up on blogging and even making a trip to Hot Springs or Texarkana to do a little bit of shopping… but so far all I’ve done is come to the apartment, turned on the TV, and park my butt on the couch till time to move to the bed. It’s been rainy and gloomy and I haven’t really wanted to be out. If I’m this tired after all day of sitting at a table listening to lectures, what am I going to do when I have to be in a classroom… working?!? Haha. I’m exhausted!

I miss my family. Good news is that I get to see them tomorrow! Stephen, his mom, and Christopher are heading up here and (hopefully) will be waiting on me when I get out of Orientation!!! I’M SOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!  This is the longest I’ve ever been away from Christopher so I’m itching to get to hug and kiss on him.

AND right as I typed that Stephen called me to tell me that Christopher – who is spending the night with his Nana tonight because it’s Stephen’s late night at the paper – just woke up with a low-grade fever. I hope it’s nothing serious and it’s gone in the morning. Boo.

I texted my mother-in-law tonight asking for a picture of Christopher. Apparently he had already gone to bed and she went into the bedroom to take a picture of him for me and turned on the light so that she could take the picture with her phone – these are the pictures she sent me. They made me laugh and cry at the same time. I can just see him saying ‘ight! in his little voice like he always does when the light is bright in his eyes. I just wanted to drive to Mena so that I could give him a kiss on the cheeks and turn out the light for him. Sweet boy.

Every night I’ve had great intentions of going to bed early and getting looooots of sleep. And both Sunday and Monday night I was up past midnight. Right now it’s 11:22 and I’m watching tv and blogging. Fail.

Happy mid-week. Ha!

Orientation Week

Tomorrow morning begins Internship Orientation at Henderson. I can’t believe that one week from tonight I will be freaking out about starting my student teaching the next day. Haha! I am all settled in at Tyler and Britney’s apartment in Arkadelphia. They are somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico right now, cruising with my mom and dad.

Originally we all booked a Caribbean cruise together back in June or July… After I started back to school in August I found out that I was going to be required to come back to campus a week earlier than when classes were scheduled to start. I was NOT HAPPY. Stephen and I had to change the date of our cruise and my parents, Ty & Britney kept their date for January. Deanna and Leonard decided they would like to go on a cruise as well, (Leonard has never been) so they made arrangements to go on the same cruise as us in May. I’m excited about the cruise… but I’m super upset that I’m not in the middle of the ocean with my family right now.

Anyway. I’m fortunate that I get to stay at Ty and B’s apartment because it saves me a lot of time and money from traveling back and forth every day. I already miss my boys like crazy and I plan on driving to meet them and see them at least once, probably twice this week! Christopher probably won’t even know I’m gone because his Nana is flying in from Missouri to help keep him this week.

I’m hoping to spend the week catching up on blogging and kind of prepping myself to start internship next week. I hate to spend the whole week away from Stephen and Christopher, but I’m hoping to to kind of use the time to rest and relax… enjoy the quiet, toy-free, ESPN-free environment. =)

I did finish one blog that I started last week. It’s directly below this post, or click here.

I’m exhausted but I know that I’m going to having trouble sleeping tonight. Guess I should get off the computer and try to wind down. I have orientation all day tomorrow and I have no idea what to expect.

Shopping and My Little Helper

This is the last week of my Christmas break. While school at Henderson doesn’t start back for almost two weeks (Wednesday, January 18th), I have to be there bright and early on Monday morning for my internship orientation.

I’m glad that I am interning, but I think it’s kind of crazy that I have to be at school 40 hours next week before the semester begins for orientation. Seems like something they could have covered last semester in our Methods class.  Whatever.

This week has been really good! I have been trying to “soak up” time with Christopher – and I think that God knew that my heart needed that. Tonight and last night he has been SO sweet and loving and cuddly. He is usually a really good kid but of course we have been dealing with “terrible twos” and an independent streak recently.

One thing that I am so excited about and thankful for is that he will be starting at a new daycare – this one is a home daycare and not a big daycare with several different classrooms. It’s just one lady and her daughter with several children around Christopher’s age. He attended a local “bigger” daycare here in the fall and I just wasn’t a fan of it at all. Our new location is cheaper (by $80 a month!) and she doesn’t make you pay if your child doesn’t attend one day – which is awesome. I hated that the other daycare wanted us to pay even if I felt like keeping Christopher home with me some days. SO that was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders! The only negative is that it is several miles out of town – but that is really a small thing that I’m not too worried about.

Today I went shopping with my mom and Britney. I was in dire need of a new “professional dress” wardrobe.  I have only bought a few dressy things since Christopher was born because I had great intentions of losing a bunch of weight.  WELL. Here it is, one week before student internship begins, and I have one pair of dress pants and just a few blouses to go with them. I was really nervous about going shopping because I am short and round… My waist is a certain size but my hips are a size smaller, so by the time I find a pair of pants that feel comfy in the waist, they look huge across my hips and thighs.  I was SO excited because I found a certain brand in Target that fit me perfectly (except being a bit long – but that is almost always the case for me with pants) and they are SO cute! I also found several tops and cardigans at Target that worked. Who would’ve thought that Target had such great dressy clothing?!?  I also found a few cute tops and pants at Dress Barn (Moo) and I scored an adorable (although PRICEY) pea coat at Dress Barn as well.

Stephen had games out of town tonight so Christopher had I had the house to ourselves tonight and spent some good time together. He helped me fold and put away the towels. Such a good little helper!

The first washcloth he folded looked like this:

I was… hmm, surprised, to say the least. He folded this washcloth perfectly! I made a big deal about it and took a picture and high-fived him… then he folded a few more and they all looked like this:

And of course he kept wanting me to take pictures and make a big deal about it. :)  He also “helped” me put them up in the cabinet after they were all folded.

Love that boy.

New Year Goals

First off, Happy New Year! I can’t believe we are in the year 2012! Crazy.  2011 was a pretty good year for Stephen and me. Once I’m all caught up with my blogging (hopefully over the next few days) I will do a recap of 2011, some of the main things that went on with us last year. I’m excited to see what 2012 brings… hopefully a graduation and a new job for myself!

Moving on -- I kind of hate the word resolutions. I have “goals” for this year. I rarely do these because I am kind of known for starting things and then not finishing them. (College, Couch to 5k, painting a room, craft projects…)  I have tried to be better about finishing things that I start, and I feel like I really have gotten better this year.

There are a few goals that I would like to try to achieve this year. I’ll try to remember to do a review at the end of the year to see how much I accomplished.  I am also going to put them on my sidebar. >>>>>>>

Here they are, in no particular order. (I also may come back and add more goals on as the year progresses.)

**Start and complete the Couch to 5k program.
**Participate in at least one 5k competition and complete it. (Cross the finish line; time doesn’t matter.)
**Obtain my bachelor’s degree.
**Start living a healthier lifestyle by exercising and eating healthy foods.
**Start attending church on a more regular basis.
**Spend lots of time with Christopher and Stephen doing fun family activities.
**Hike Pinnacle Mountain.
**Organize my time around the house. Devote more time to housework and yardwork.
**Take more pictures of Christopher – he’s growing so fast!
**Use our video recorder more.
**Be a better wife to Stephen and a better mom to Christopher.
**Go on at least one mini-vacation with Stephen and Christopher.
**Continue to learn about Photoshop and Photography
**Spend time with my girl friends and strengthen those relationships. It’s important to have friends!
**Start putting extra payments towards the G6. (We are already doing this, but I’d like to do a little more.)
**Become more organized with our finances.
**Eat out LESS and cook at home MORE!

These are all that I can think of right now… just off the top of my head. I know that I will probably not be able to complete all of these, but I am definitely going to try my very hardest!

Happy 2012!