Day 17: Teachers v. Students

January 31, 2011: We had a little basketball game against some of the 8th graders today and boy was it pretty terrible.  :)  Our school has a really cramped "gym" and we played on a tiny little court. The boys weren't that good but neither am I and I was reminded of that today.  Luckily we had some tall men and some basketball playing women (that can do things like shoot and pass and dribble unlike me).  Either way, since I couldn't find a picture that made me look like a good basketball player, I'm posting this instead. 

Day 16: Nightstand

January 30, 2011:  Last time I asked for recommendations, I only got one - from my crazy wonderful mother.  I took this picture to fish for some more recommendations.  Hopefully this time you all come out from your hiding places and leave some comments below.  So, there is my current reading queue.  What are you reading?  What do you recommend I read next? Leave some love below in the comments. 

Day 15: Fight Gone Bad

January 29, 2011:  Hey, hey! Lucky you gets another picture of me!  It's the only picture I took today.  I had intended to go out after this picture.  In fact, I'm all dressed up to hit the town.  Next thing I know, I'm out on my couch.  I blame it all on "Fight Gone Bad", today's crossfit work out.  It was the last of the bootcamp class and they wanted to prove to us that we were ready for "real" cross fit.  It kicked my butt pretty good. The workout was 17 minutes long - 1:00 min rowing machine, 1:00min wall ball, 1:00 min sumo stance high pull, 1:00 min box jumps, 1:00 min push press, 1:00 min rest and then repeat two more times.  Any way, I survived (barely) and am ready to fork over some more hard earned money to Cross fit for the next couple of months. 

Day 14: I'm a math teacher

January 28, 2011:  That's a picture of my word wall.  It's very colorful.  I have no idea how well it helps the students learn the language of mathematics.  I probably should use it way more in my lesson plans. Alright, next week.  Math word wall games.  Holler.

Day 13: Bama Boyfriend

January 27, 2011: Picture 1 is my bama boyfriend during the storm yesterday. Ask me why he posed like that.  I do not know.  I think perhaps he thinks it's cool. Unfortunately for him, it isn't.  Today, we went out to clean up from the storm and he thought - hey take another dumbass picture of me today doing the same thing.  And thus, picture 2. Anyway, shoveling snow with Thugs is maybe the worst experience ever.  He is OCD about it.  He wants to get every single pile of ice and snow up and out of the way.  I just want to move enough so my car can get out.  Because of his neuroses, after cleaning his spot, he wants to clean the spots next to him, just in case one of them comes out and dumps the snow from their spot onto his.  It's really annoying.  We were out there so long we got stuck helping two other folks dig their cars out.  WTF?! At least I can count this two hour dig as my workout today. 

Day 12: Snow Cluster F*ck

January 26, 2011:    The federal government decided to dismiss people from work 2 hours early at 3pm, right into the thick of the two inches per hour snowfall that hit the metro area.  And because most companies look to the feds for guidance, much of the private and public sectors did the same.  The result - the biggest clusterf*ck ever.  Our school decided to let out at 4pm.  FAIL by my school.  Luckily, it only took me about 2 hours to get to my place (the drive usually takes about 25 minutes).  These are two pictures from my commute today.  I left around 4:10ish and arrived home at 6:10ish.  As you can see it was light when I left and got dark quickly somewhere in the middle.  I was able to snap pictures since we were crawling the whole way.  When I got home I thought my commute was bad.  Then I started hearing from some of my co-workers.  Many of my co-workers had 5-6 hour long commutes.  Really.  FIVE to SIX HOUR commutes.  They were essentially trapped by untreated roads, poor visibility, car accidents and abandoned cars.  Sheer craziness. And even worse, some of them got home to no power after their hellish commutes.  What. a. day. 

Day 11: P-R-rah

January 25, 2011:  Some of you may know that I started Crossfit this calendar year.  While I was home in LA for Christmas, I was on the internet looking for something athletic to do.  My brother, mom and myself are having a "fat off" of sorts, for lil homie K's graduation this year and I thought, maybe it was time to try and find a new activity so I could win the fat off.  Anyway, I ended up googling boxing gyms because secretly I want to be thug enough to feel like I could whoop someone's ass.  While looking up some of the gyms in the DC area, I came across Crossfit.  I never heard of it, but I googled around and found a gym with a boot camp/teach you how to do it class that worked with my schedule.  So I signed up and have been crossfitting 3 times a week since the start of the year.  For those of you that don't know, Crossfit is a mix of Olympic lifting, body weight exercises, and gymnastics with some cardio in the mix.  Either way, this week is the last week of the "bootcamp" classes so we are re-doing some of the work outs we did in the first week.  Today we did a 1/2 Cindy which is 5 jump pull ups (eventually I'll be able to do real pull ups), 10 push ups and 15 body weight squats for as many rounds as you can complete in 10 minutes. (The full Cindy goes for 20 minutes - we are not there yet - but some day).  So week 1 - I got 5 rounds and was GASSED.  Huffing and puffing and basically thought I'd go throw up somewhere (yes, this is how out of shape I was).  Today, I got through 8+ rounds and think that if I did it again tomorrow, I could get more.  The picture above is my assortment of exercise items at my apartment - not the Crossfit gym but it still represents the p.r.  (personal record).   It's been a long (really, really long) time since I've had a p.r. (mostly because what the hell could I p.r. in recently - hours spent on the couch watching tv?)

Day 10: Iron(wo)man

January 24, 2011:  So, when I was growing up, my folks used to give me a Timex Ironman for Christmas each year. It started when I was young - maybe 8 or 9 years old?   No joke, I remember the first indiglo Timex Ironman (it was sooo cool).  Not sure why they started it in the first place but I always looked forward to the gift.  It was always placed in the stocking and I could pretty much count on a new one being there each year.  I  heart this watch despite it not being the most attractive watch in the world.  As a kid, I would time races at the track meet with the watch, as teen timed my "long" runs around the neighborhood and as a college kid, I'd time the 400 repeats on those wonderful Wednesday before Thanksgiving 6am workouts.  I've tried wearing a more "professional" and "adult" watch but this one just suites me best. Either way, the forced fit way to make today's picture represent my day - today I was an ironwoman when i graded all of the tests my students took today.  Ta da!

Day 9: Three Blue iPods

January 23, 2011: I was going to upload a different picture when I saw all of my ipods sitting together plugged into my computer.  It seems that Apple is where all my money has gone in the past couple of years - if you look closely in the background you can even see the MacBook they made me buy.  Funny thing is, I'm not a music buff at all.  I rarely listen to the music on the radio (more of a sports talk gal; the kids keep me somewhat current in the latest radio happenings) and I'm not hip to any music scene (other than random top 40 type love songs of the 80s and 90s). Anyway, to all you lurkers out there, what's on your ipod?  What do you suggest I put on mine?

Day 8: Square the Circle

January 22, 2011: The idiom doesn't quite work but that's what the picture made me think of.  This is a picture of some art work at the pizza place where CJC, G and I had lunch.  I had a yummy salad with mushrooms, something I'm trying to make myself like more.  Somewhere in my life I told myself that I didn't like mushrooms but every time I have them they're not so bad.  On a different note, I'm having trouble thinking about things to take pictures of (already).  I went to the park and took some pictures of the playground.  I also took some pictures of row houses and a church.  I'm thinking maybe next month I will go for a theme and try to take pictures based on that.  We shall see. 

Day 7: I conquer?

January 21, 2011: I came home today to find a letter on my door from the apartment complex I live in.   It's starts, "Dear Resident...I conquer that we all had a fantastic new year with family, friends, and loved ones or potentially even by ourselves.  One of my New Year resolutions is to read more, I figured that the only way one can expand dreams, aspirations and goals is by reading, right? :) "  I had to read it a couple of times, just  to make sure that I read it correctly.  It even includes the happy face.  And that was perfect. And perhaps it's wrong of me to find all of the grammatical and language errors so funny. Is it bad if I conquer that reading really actually might be the perfect resolution for this person?  

Day 6: It's me!

January 20, 2011: I read somewhere that as part of the project it's a good idea to take a photo of yourself once a month.  And my not so creative self thought - perfect, 12 photos that I don't have to think about.  So every 20th of the month you will see my lovely face.  How very lucky you are.  Don't ask about the fingers thing.  I think it's mom's influence.  I don't know.  But there I am - sans glasses because - well i had taken them off to put on my hoodie (I have a large head) and I didn't realize that I hadn't put them back on.  Oh well.

Day 5: Full Moon Blues

January 19, 2011: Is that not the worst picture you have ever seen?  The full moon was so pretty tonight and I decided it was perfect for my photo today. I first spotted  it on the start of my drive home when it was much fuller and closer.  When I got back to my place it was much more distant but still very pretty.  And I had already determined that it would be the subject of today's photo.  And so there it is.  Crappy moon picture. It's just awful, but in many ways a good representation of day.  I took several other pictures after crappy moon picture. I tried desperately to find something that would be better to post.  And all the pictures I took afterward were indeed much better than this one.  And as I was looking through the pictures of the day I toyed with putting up a better pick.  But when it came down to it, this one best sums up my day. Crappy moon picture.

Day 4: School Delays

January 18, 2011:  See that ice all over the car?  The ice that took a full 25 minutes to remove? And the ice on the cement next to the car?  The ice that I slid around nearly breaking my ass while cleaning my car? Usually that would be the start to very bad morning.  But not today.  Today we have our first weather related school delay of the year.  So take that ice.

Day 3: Friends and Food

January 17, 2011:  Happy MLK Day to all.  Today the girls and I went out for our monthly food outing.  We went out to dinner some 4 months ago and decided that it was a tradition worth continuing.  So each month one of us (usually Silvster) picks a place to eat and we all go out for dinner.  So far we have ventured into Italian, Indian, Mexican and now Thai food.  Good friends, good laughs and good food.

Day 2: Dodger Gnome

January 16, 2011:  So to backtrack a little bit.  I decided to make resolutions for new years.  One of them was to take a picture everyday for the year.  It was an idea I came upon while perusing the internet and it seemed like a cool thing to do.  Plus, I got a camera for Christmas and I'm determined to use it.  Fast forward.  It's January 16th and I haven't even tried to keep up the goal.  Oops.  Either way, I had a couple pictures from our Philly trip so I picked the one I liked best.  Today, while looking at the pictures, I remembered about my little goal and thought that I better take a picture of something today so I can officially get it started.  And so, the dodger gnome.  The gnome was another gift for Christmas.  It currently sits on my TV stand with Aloha Obama.  Seeing how much of my day was spent on the couch doing nothing, I thought I'd take a picture of the dodger gnome that watched me do nothing today.  And so there's the story for today's picture.  And here's to 363 more pictures to come. (Fingers crossed).

Day 1: Ivy Stones and Anniversaries

Jan. 15, 2011:  Thugs and I traveled up to Philly to celebrate 10 years (ten years!) since our first date.  It was the perfect get-a-away from a busy, stressful and hectic work week.  As part of our trip, we headed back to our alma mater, reminiscing about times of old and marveling at how new and different the campus is since I graduated seven (and him nine) years ago.  While touring the campus, we came across my class ivy stone.  We don't know where his class stone is and we didn't look too hard to find it (maybe next time).  We ended our campus tour with a pit stop at the book store (where we willing gave some more of our money to the school) and some refueling (aka large margaritas) at a campus bar.  It was a lovely trip and some nice quality time together.