Long week

Especially since it's only Tuesday!  We picked a bad week to move.  I have two parent nights at school, one was Monday, one is Wednesday, those go from 6 - 9.  Track practice is still going strong every day from 3:00/3:30 - 4:30/5:00, and we have a meet on Thursday at 4.  Maybe this weekend we'll actually be able to get more done.  At least we have the kitchen all unpacked and put away.  Now if only we had the other rooms squared away too.  Unfortunately, we don't have a bedroom set yet, so we can't move anything up to the bedroom, which is causing the rest of the rooms to be a mess of half unpacked boxes.  We also need a desk to get the extra room set up as an office.  Hopefully though, there will be more time next week, since it's V A C A T I O N week.  Woo woo! Which also means the marathon is on Monday.  I'm not sure if we're going to watch it.  Stanley Steamer is coming to clean the floors on Monday, so we might not get out there.  I'm undecided if I want to watch it anyways.  Boston is the one marathon that I really want to run someday, and preferably on my own accord, not under fundraising.  Speaking of marathons, I put my name in for the Chicago lottery.  I figured I might as well see what happens, and if I get in, then good for me.  If not, oh well, not a big deal.  But it could be fun to run Chicago.  While we're on the topic of running too, the track team is showing significant improvements.  All the girls on the long distance side have gotten their mile times down under 10:00. Two of the girls are down under 7:00.  Seems like my training is really working, so I'm happy with that.  I feel a win coming on in the future.
Obviously there's still a lot to do and very little time, so updating is going to be slow for a few more days/weeks, but I swear I'll get back on it when I start running more again.  Which I should probably do soon considering there's a half coming up at the end of May.  It would be nice to get my time down to a 1:50.  We'll see.

And now, please enjoy these pictures from the closing.

Just left the lawyer's office, after waiting 3+ hours for the sellers to Fed-Ex the signed papers over. 

First night in the new house

Still undecided on whether or not I like this picture.

Moving on up...

As long as everything goes fine tomorrow morning, we should be moving by the afternoon.  I say should be, because you just never know.  This whole closing thing seems to be a bit more difficult to nail down than it should be.  The sellers don't seem to be on top of their game and the whole townhouse thing is making it more complicated than it would be if it were just a single family house.  Not to mention we just got the final numbers today around noon, which left very little time for gettig cashier's checks/money transfers.  Thank goodness the track meet was cancelled and I was able to miss practice to get that done.  I would have felt bad skipping a meet, but since it was postponed, I figured the house stuff took top priority this time.  Sorry track team.  I promise I'll be back on Saturday.
Packing seems to be mostly done, except for things that Ryan doesn't want to put into boxes, because he thinks it will be easier to move out of them.  I don't know, I'm not a professional packer, so I'm going along with it, because really, who cares.  It's not like we can't come back here for our other stuff if necessary.  Plus, there's an issue with the gas being turned on at the new house, so we might have to come back here to shower for the weekend anyways.  Because apparently whenever we move, we can't just move into a place with a ready and working shower, there always has to be a problem.  Now that everything is basically all set though, I just keep thinking of all the things we need to replace.  It seems to be a never ending list at this point.  Anyways, moving will keep me busy for a few days, then there's meetings and parent's nights at work, so who knows when the next time I'll get to update will be.  Not like I follow a schedule for updating anyways, as you all know.  But, until next time, here are some fantastic new pictures to enjoy.

Mostly packed

Medal selfie before they got packed away

More posters

I'm not sure how I feel about this whole poster situation.  By which I mean, I'm not sure if I like this one or not.

Long distance workouts....because it needed decorations

Selfies with Nala.  We ran 2 miles and then I dropped her off so I could finish off 1 mile of hill repeats.  It was miserable.  Awesomely miserable.  

True story

And my old friends the three hitchhiking ghosts.

Spring-ish

The past two days have been nice in the weather department.  I mean, nice enough to be outside without freezing your face off, so that's Spring in my book.  I've been taking the track team out for neighborhood runs when we're not at the actual track so I'm glad the weather is cooperating.  Today I tried to take the girls for a 2 mile run. Key word there is definitely tried.  Out of the 20 girls that are running long distance, 1 made it the entire 2 miles with me.  Yes. ONE.  She managed to come from behind in the middle of the first mile, catch up to the front, and keep up until the end.  What happened to the other 19 you ask?  Well. 3 said they got lost. (We ran in a full circle and then a straight out and back down the street by the high school, so you be judge of that excuse...) 10 stopped at the front of the school and eventually figured out that we were in the back and the other 4 straggled in sporadically with various excuses and two other girls must have missed the entire memo about the course because they ran the same 1.5 loop two times.  Good for them for that ambition, unfortunately, they weren't super fast at it.  At least they got in a good workout.  I was a little irritated at the girls who "didn't know what we were doing" because I felt like that was just an excuse because they didn't feel like working.  As far as I'm concerned, if you're not going to work hard at practice, don't bother wasting the time.  After all, we only have 30 uniforms available, so we're going to end up having to have a bunch of girls sit out anyways.  Just another joy of an urban school district. But, as irritating as it is to see them give up so easily, I will say this.  They keep coming back, they keep attempting the workouts, and they all did the core and the punishment workout without much complaining.  So at least they have that going for them!
Outside of track, day 2 of MCAS was today.  I think my fifth grade friends did fairly well.  It seemed like the entire fifth grade was working straight up to the end of the school day bell, so that's got to be a good sign, right? Before we started this morning I played the Rocky speech from the newest Rocky movie.  You know, the one where he talks about how "it's not how hard you hit, it's how hard you get hit and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done. How much you can take and keep moving forward...You have to be willing to take the hits..."  To the average reader it might not seem like it would have made a difference, but I am convinced it home with the one student who I was really aiming it for.  I've never seen him work as hard as he did today.  So, even if it only really inspired that one student, that's enough for me.  Tomorrow the 4th grade is doing their long write.  EEP.  But then there's no school Friday, so at leas there's that to look forward too.  I might try to get in a 6 mile run on Friday morning if possible, as long as it's not raining.  Supposedly it's going to be in the mid-50s, so that would be some ideal running weather.
Still looking for summer work, so if you or anyone you know needs a tutor, remember to stop by my website Gibbs Tutoring.  Right now I'm pretty open as far as scheduling goes, so get in while you still can!

And now some theme pictures.  This month's theme: The Haunted Mansion.  Special focus on forced perspective for buildings.  When I figure that out, I'll add the actual mansion to the background of the first picture.

Beware of hitchhiking ghosts - Phineas, Ezra, and Gus.

Haunted Mansion wall-paper design. So cool.

Never too late

Except when it is.  Boom. Logic drop. That's all I wanted to say.
Nah, I'm clearly kidding. Tomorrow starts the MCAS testing window so obviously I had to at least get in a little bit of blogging.  Even though this has nothing to do with MCAS. Except for the fact that I hate how much of my job is determined by a test that has to be taken by kids who don't speak or read fluent English, have major home issues, and sometimes just don't know how to read at the appropriate grade level.  But that's been a topic of discussion for years already and I don't see it changing anytime soon, so really, what point is there in complaining. Instead, here's a recap of my weekend.
I sat through the first time home buyers class so I could get the certificate needed to process the loan.  The class was ultra boring because it covered all the parts that we've already done.  It's hard to say if it would have been helpful in the beginning, because now I don't know what I knew from before and what I learned during the process.  But, I went and got the certificate, so hopefully everything's fine and we'll be moving next weekend.  Which, if that is the case, means we need to get packing.  However, we have friends coming in for this weekend, so it looks like the packing is going to get done at the last minute the week of the closing.  Ah well, it's not like we haven't moved before. Plus, we can come back and get stuff whenever, it doesn't have to all be taken right now, so that's making it a bit easier. I would like to go order a new bed for delivery by the time we move, but I think we're going to wait.
Aside from the house activities, track is going well.  Today we did hill repeats.  Right now my main goal is to get the girls to be faster at their miles.  I'm not entirely sure what a good mile time is for a high school female, but I'm fairy certain it's lower than an 8:30 minute mile.  Part of me thinks it would be a good idea to offer a reward to anyone who can beat my fastest mile time, which right now is a 7:10. But, what to reward? Also, I don't want to push the girls too hard.  After all, I know what my body is capable of handling during a run, but that doesn't mean that a teenage girl will have the same capabilities.  Especially if she isn't in top shape or hasn't been working out consistently.  For now I'm sticking to hill repeats and sprint intervals, with leg workouts mixed in. Then, of course, we do a core workout for the last 10 minutes or so of practice. But it's been really fun.  Maybe I should have been a track coach or a gym teacher all along.  Except I probably don't want to do that forever.  Even though it would be nice to just workout all day and get paid for it.  I thought by this age you were supposed to know what you wanted to do with your life. How come I still feel like I have no idea if I'm in the right grade, position, subject etc? Where's the easy answer button here? Seriously, who are these people that have it all together and figured out?  Sometimes I think I do, but then I change my mind.  Maybe someday I'll actually have it together....
And now, a picture of whatever I have in my phone.

Nala. Good enough.

Fraction fiasco

As you might know, Common Core is taking over Massachusetts.  I'm okay with this, I like being able to have more than one way to learn a math problem.  But a lot of common core, and incidentally, MCAS, is fractions.  They start in the 1st grade and everything builds on that knowledge.   So you can probably imagine that if you don't get the foundation in 1st grade, you can't really build up in the higher grades.  For a first grader this year, that's not a huge problem.  We can catch those students who don't understand fractions and work to explain/show the concept in a way that makes sense.  Unfortunately, not all students are in 1st grade.  Many of these upper grades began school in the middle of the State Standards/Common Core crossover, and may have missed a key foundation in the lower grades that is now being built upon.  This is most glaringly obvious in the case of the fourth grade fraction fiasco.  I will say that most of the fourth graders have a basic understanding of what a fraction is and can at least use a fraction model, even if they are struggling to add and subtract the fractions.  But, most isn't all, as I discovered last Friday.  Seems I have a fourth grade student who has no concept of what a fraction is.  When I say no concept, I mean, seriously, no idea.  Couldn't tell a half from a fourth, doesn't even know how to recognize a half.  I'm not really sure how this has slipped past us for the past two years, but now that I know this gap exists, I'm doing everything I can to fill it.  Unfortunately for me, everything doesn't seem to be working.  We used fraction models, we made flip books, we cut, colored, and labeled pieces for the past three days.  Then, today, to see if the student was picking up on anything, I gave the 2nd grade end of the unit fraction test.  And, it was a failure.  I hate to say that, but it's the truth.  I'm talking every problem was wrong kind of failure.  No, you didn't read that wrong.  The student got every question wrong.  On a test that just asked to identify shapes with pieces colored in. You know, a basic fraction model.  So it looks like it's back to the drawing board for this one.  I can't have this student try to follow along with the new unit, which is multiplying fractions, if the student doesn't know what a fraction is.  I'm going to try a new approach to this whole situation tomorrow, but if anyone has any suggestions or ideas, I'm more than willing to try them at this point.  Anything to get this student to understand what a fraction is!

And now that my fraction fiasco is taken care of for the moment, onto running.  Yesterday it was a lovely 33 degrees, so I ran outside.  Ya, 33 = outdoor running now.  There was no wind so it felt super warm.  It was a nice run and I enjoyed almost all of it.  I'd say 3.98 miles were enjoyed. 0.02 were grossed out as I ran down the road and almost stepped on a disembodied deer leg, hoof and all.  Yes, in the middle of a fairly busy street, just lying around, was the lower half of a deer leg, muscle and bone sticking out of the top.  I have no idea what happened to the rest of the deer, but it's leg is hanging out in the middle of Sylvan St. Needless to say, I was completely grossed out for at least 2 seconds of my run.  Tomorrow it's supposed to be 56, but rainy.  However, I might just go out in the rain and run a little bit, because it will still be nicer than running on the treadmill. 

Track practice is going fine at this point.  Today I timed the girls on their miles, so now we at least have a starting point.  Since I know their general times, now we can work on getting faster.  That means more sprint and hill repeats.  If I can get a few of the girls to meet my mile time, I think we'll be in a good shape.  If I can get them past mine, that would be ideal. Besides the running, we do a lot of core and leg work.  The workout we have right now is ok, but I think tomorrow I'm going to add more stretching in after the mile warm-up, and another stretch at the end.  Some of the boxing trainers gave me some running specific ab workouts to do for core, so that's been helpful.  The girls seem to like the core more than the actual running, which makes me wonder if they're trying their hardest, but we'll work on that.  Our first meet is supposed to be in two weeks, so hopefully the snow is melted enough to make that actually happen.  I'm excited to see what the girls can do. Oh yea, and I registered for the Run to Remember today.  Ryan got a cool sticker in the mail and it made me super jealous that he was running and I wasn't, so I gave in and signed up. The only other two races I really want to do this year are the Lazy Lobster and the Seacoast Running Festival.  I'll definitely do the Lazy Lobster, because it's for Morty and it can be done as a virtual run.  I'll have to wait on the Festival for a bit and see how I feel about it come the summer.

Here's yesterday's run, and some extra pictures

It was so warm yesterday that I was able to run outside in this outfit! Minus the slippers of course.  

And I just really liked how cute Nala looked last night while she was sleeping.  Sometimes I wish I could just spend all day at home with my little buddy(ies).  *Stella not picture, obv

Friday,Friday, Getting Down on Friday

Actually it wasn't that exciting.  Lamest Friday in a long time.  Felt like a Monday.  It's the first day of Spring, so of course, it snowed.  But, we did get our Girl Scout cookies in the mail, so that's cool.  Because when you buy Girl Scout cookies, you obviously buy them from the family in Louisiana instead of anyone in Massachusetts.  They arrived in good condition, all things considered. Not smashed or really even broken.  Now all I have to do is avoid eating them all at once.
I'm trying to set good examples now, because I'm the assistant track coach at one of our high schools, and I feel like I should do more than just tell the girls what they should be doing.  I should probably be practicing it as well.  We've only had a few practices, but so far it's been fun.  The hardest part is not knowing anyone's name.  I'm hoping that will change soon, but there are a lot of girls on the team.  Right now our numbers are somewhere in the 60-70 range, so trying to remember those names, on top of all the 400 kids at my regular school is a little bit of a challenge. Pretty soon though, the hardest part is going to be coordinating my schedule to make time for practices! Right now since there's so much snow on the ground we're running the indoor track at a different high school in the city.  It's difficult because both teams are practicing and sometimes there are other sports practicing in there as well.  But this is what you get when you live in a city without a dedicated indoor track space.  Our outdoor track is still under snow and they hope to have HALF of it cleared off by next week.  Yes, half.  Not even the whole thing. That's cool though.  Who needs a track? Anyways, I'm covering the long distance girls with another assistant coach, so I'm hoping what I'm doing actually works.  So far I've been having them do my distance/speed workouts, so if anyone has any tips, feel free to leave them.  We also do core, which is super fun.  Well, not really, but I've been taking the workouts I do at the end of boxing and twisting them into my own, so it's been working out so far.
Still moving forward on that house buying process, and now we've signed the purchase and sale.  Unfortunately, no one informed us that we have to take the first time home buyer class, so we had to find one of those being offered in the next two weeks.  Luckily we found one in Newburyport.  Not so luckily, it's a two day course, Saturday and Sunday, 12 - 5.  I probably wouldn't have minded that if we were earlier in our process.  However, the first three sessions, of the four total, cover what to look for in a house, finding a realtor, and getting a loan.  Basically all the stuff we've already done! But whatever, you have to do what you have to do.  At this point though, I have started the hunt for boxes.  You can never have too many boxes when you're moving.
Ryan's sister is coming out to run the Run to Remember in May, with Ryan.  I'm still hoping that I can sign up, but I don't want to spend the $100 while we're buying a house.  Mostly because we need that money for a new bed.  And a new couch.  And a washer and dryer. So, we'll see what happens there.  If someone wants to, you know, buy my way into the half for me though, I certainly wouldn't say no.  Heck, I'd run under a sponsored outfit if someone was willing to pay my entry.  By that I mean I'd totally rock your company name/gear in exchange for entry and obviously, the gear.  So all you savvy business people out there, just keep that in mind.  Well, that's the end of this recap.  Catch you on the flip.

Cookies!

Oh yea, St. Patrick's day.  I made these hats with a 1st grade classroom.  Pretty simple, paper plate, construction paper, and glue. So much fun.

Cap't Ryan.  I love it when Ryan's dad sends the monthly photo stock.

Also, Stella.  She had to have her back tooth extracted the other day.  She's bounced back fine and is sitting pretty again.

Oww

My triceps are dead.  Seriously. 100% gone off the deep end dead.  At least for today.  I first noticed it when I woke up at 2:30 a.m. with a serious pain in my right arm.  It hurt to move my arm in any direction, so I just lay there hoping to fall back asleep.  Which I did.  Then I woke up again at a normal hour just to find out that it still hurt almost as much as before.  It was a serious struggle to brush my teeth, get dressed, or really do anything conducive to my morning routine.  But I pushed through and made it through the day.  You would not believe how hard it is to write/teach when your dominate arm does not want to work.  Around noon both arms started to hurt, so that was extra miserable.  I finally managed to ice them when I got home for work, but the ice ran out far more quickly than I would have liked.  Now they're both super sore, but I think the worst has passed.
"How did this happen?", you may be asking.  Well, I started the week with my usual 12 rounds of boxing, not a problem.  Then on Monday I did my usual 8 rounds plus 3 miles on the treadmill.  Tuesday was generally the same, except one noticeable difference.  On Tuesday I finished my treadmill run  just a bit earlier than usual and I wanted to keep my muscles warm. So I asked one of the trainers to give me an exercise to do in the meantime.  The challenge was 100 push-ups in under 10 minutes. Me being me, of course I took that challenge.  The first 50 went ok and I was able to do them in 3 minutes.  Then I took a break because my arms were sore.  I manged to get in the next 50 in the next 5 minutes, so I totally won that challenge.  Unfortunately, then I went on to do 8 rounds of boxing.  Since I like to take Thursday as my off day, I go boxing on Wednesdays so I don't feel bad taking two days off in a row.  That was another 8 rounds.  Plus I ran outside because it was so nice out! Anyways, that's the reason my arms are dead today.  36 rounds of boxing and 100 push-ups in the past 4 days, plus all the warm-ups and ab workouts.  Which involve lifting medicine balls. Lesson learned there.  Ice is your friend.  If you're going to do all that, ice those muscles and ice them good. Otherwise suffer the wrath of angry arms. I'm going to attempt another round of ice in a few minutes just to see if I can get some relief before bed.  That's about all I've got for today. Oh yea, poor Stella has a toothache that needs to be taken care of, so in the meantime she's got a puffy face. She's very lopsided at the moment.

Ice arms

A Spring-like run surrounded by snow.

A puffy faced Stella