Those who risk, win: Snow place like home

Whooooeee it has been a long week or two. Honestly, the days have all but blended together with all the snowstorms and school cancellations. February has never seemed shorter, and that's saying a lot, since it's already the shortest month! Seriously though, if the snow could quit, I'd be a little bit happier. There's pretty much no place left to walk, park, or drive if another car is coming at you. It's getting out of hand. Yet, we are intrepid, we carry on. What else can you do, with all this snow around and talk of another storm or two heading this way? The good news is, it's almost February vacation. The bad news is, it's almost February vacation. I make this next statement with the knowledge that teachers in the state of Massachusetts will be calling for my head, but it's about time we did away with February vacation. Let's be honest, we just got back from Winter Break, and with the SEVEN snow days we've had in the past 15 days, this vacation is a bit of a joke. What the students could really use is 5 more days of work. Besides, we're one of the only states that still has this vacation hanging about. I say scrap it, start school earlier than the Wednesday before Labor Day, and use March for Spring break. It would solve SO many problems. But, who am I to change things? Alright, aside from the snow days, there's no where to run, so I've been spending a lot of quality time with the treadmill. I don't love it. Also due to the snow, I missed 4 days of being able to workout. I know, that's insane! At this point though I've made it up and I feel like I'm back on track. Wouldn't you know it, that means I'm getting a cold. I can feel it coming on. My nose is stuffy/runny, my eyes are itchy, and things hurt. Fantastic. Nothing like a good cold to start vacation. Since I don't have a new goal in the near future, I decided to work towards upping my punches at boxing. I started low today with a total of just over 3000 punches. My goal is to try and add on at least 100 more punches each week. I only need to track one day, but I might track all and just pick my best. Except Sunday's because that's a 12 round class and that would feel like cheating.
Completely out of the realm of working out, but back on the snow day thing, I made one final pair of shoes a couple of weeks ago. I went Little Mermaid themed, just to see how it worked out, They came out alright, but I'm not sure I love them. However, I did want to try and fix the paint chipping problem I had on the first pair. The paint on the rubber part of the sole chipped off as they were worn around, so I wanted to try and fix that. I saw a trick online that if you sand the rubber with fine grain sandpaper it makes the paint more likely to absorb into the rubber, so I tried that. It looks like the paint held up a bit better, but still chipped off in places. At this point, I'm beginning to think it's the sealant that's chipping it off, not the actual paint. Anyways, I'll add a picture of those in a minute. Finally, the students at my school are number one in the city for the math program we've been doing. Yes, that's right, number one! We're third in the state, and in the top 100 in the nation! There are some days when I feel like I'm doing a real bad job teaching, but learning this made me feel like I must be doing something right. I'm very proud of the school and I love being able to brag about the students. Tomorrow they're getting a special award from the school committee, which is very exciting. So, that's it, snow city in a nutshell. Enjoy the pictures!