Polar Vortex 2 - Electric Boogaloo

I've lived in Iowa for 18 years and this is the first time I can remember thinking - I'm really sick of winter.

Just over it.

The winter of 1995 was exceptionally cold. I was young and stupid. I thought, "if this is the worst this state can throw at me, I'm good."

So naive. So dumb.

I feel like this winter has just kicked me in the nether regions and keeps coming back for more.

Everything aches. My hands and feet are in a perpetual state of numbness from the cold. It often feels like I'm breathing ice water.

This morning the temperature hovered around -11 and honestly, I don't know if it even got up to 0. Our district had a two-hour late start because of the cold. I was hoping and praying for them to just call the day off.

No such luck.

I was so ready to just have a day where I could do a little catching up on paperwork while in my grubbies.

Nope.  Not today.

And to add that cherry on top, the kids were, um, "ripe". That's the thing about middle school kids - hygiene is a tertiary concern.

I'm going to be out of class tomorrow as the math department is doing observations in another district of math curriculum that we are looking at adopting.  Tonight, it's my statistics class.

And all I want is to be somewhere warm.

TMI QUESTIONS: SUPER BOWL XLVIII

Yay!!! TMI Questions have returned!!!  Very appreciative to Sean for posting these.

SUPER BOWL XLVIII
1. Do you know who's playing in this year's Super Bowl?

Well, the Denver Broncos, champions of the AFC (American Football Conference) will play the Seattle Seahawks from the NFC (National Football Conference.  The game will be played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.  The Broncos have the leagues #1 rated offense and the Seahawks have the #1 defense.

Um, so yeah, I know who's playing.  LOL

2. Do you watch the Super Bowl for the game, uniforms, commercials or food?

If I have a team playing in the Super Bowl (49ers, Buccaneers, or the Chargers), then yes, I'm interested in the game. But normally I watch for the commercials and cute players. Our friend Jenny has a Super Bowl / Birthday party every year and we always have good food and way too much of it.  




3. What's your favorite food?

I'm a sucker for a chili con queso dip. Spicy warm cheese with meat in it?!  What's not to love?!



4. Are you entered into any Super Bowl Pools?

Nah.  I don't wager on any of that sort of stuff.

5. If you don't watch the big game, do you do something else?

If I were doing something else, it would probably be grading papers, be at the gym or reading.  

6. What sports do you watch?

In no particular order ---- women's and men's college basketball, football (college and pro, baseball, hockey, soccer, Olympics (love curling), volleyball, tennis, and rugby.

Jason Witten - my favorite Tight End 

BONUS


Are you the Quarterback or the Receiver?  Wide Receiver or Tight End. Take your pick. :-)

Oh My Aching Head

I've caught the head cold that's making the rounds.

Great.

I went to bed last night all ready to go to the gym first thing and then to our district professional in-service (technology edition). Then off to my weekly training session with my trainer Kyle.

At least, that was the plan.

I woke up with my head feeling like it was stuck in a vice. Oh no.

Hoping that maybe a little extra sleep would help, I crawled back under the covers and closed my eyes. An hour later I'm debating whether or not to even go to the in-service.

I ended up going. Heavily mediated mind you.

Fortunately the drugs made the day bearable. I attended session covering "Flipped Classrooms", "Twitter for Teachers" and... "Blogging for Teachers" (one that I coulda taught). I did pick up some great information, but by the afternoon, I was dragging. We were given time to "collaborate"... and listen, but my coworkers looked at me and told me to get outta there, head home and get some sleep.

I gotta say I'm not normally a nap person, but today it was just what I needed. I crawled into bed and napped for about 3 hours. Tonight it's a hit of Nyquil and a good night's sleep (hopefully).

Tomorrow's a busy day - gym, school, haircut, basketball and it's Mom's birthday, so we're taking her out to dinner. Gotta feel my best.

Sunday Selfie - Football and Grading

It's been a fairly quiet weekend.  I spent the majority of today grading papers and doing laundry. It's the end of the semester at school and I'm needing to get my grades recorded so that I can drop my grades tomorrow afternoon.  

Honestly, I'm disappointed in myself that I didn't get things graded sooner. The weather was beautiful today and it would have been nice to get outside and go for a walk and get some fresh air.  But because of my procrastinations, I had to spend the day indoors.  

Got no one to blame but me. 

Matt's been sick this weekend with a head cold, so we haven't been able to get out and do much. But last night I did have the opportunity to have dinner with new friends. I met Paul through a mutual friend on Facebook and he threw a get together last night at his house. It was a very fun evening, full of good food and great conversation.  

Tonight Matt and I watched the NFC Championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and Seattle Seahawks.  Both of us are Niners fans, so we were hopeful that the team could win on the road and head to a 2nd straight Super Bowl. Unfortunately it was not meant to be. :-( 

Justin Smith of the San Francisco 49ers. WOOF!

This year I'll be watching the Super Bowl primarily for the commercials. Unless of course the teams decide to play shirtless. Then I'll be MUCH more interested.

Of course the game is being played outdoors in New Jersey, so I'm guessing that's not going to happen.

Time to get ready for the week!

Crushing It

This morning I hit the elliptical machine hard.  For the past few weeks, my goal has been to burn 500 calories in 35 minutes - a little over 14 calories a minute.

I've been busting through the 500 calorie barrier pretty regularly. Including my 5 minute cool down, I could never quite hit 600 calories over the entire 40 minutes - until today. 

I smashed the 600 calorie barrier - 622 today! At first I didn't even realize that I came within a breath of doing 4 miles.  

Tomorrow I may be trying something new.  You'll just have to wait to find out what. :-)

The Man I Want To Be

I'm tired. It's been a long day and I'm exhausted. The kids were kinda crazy at school today, I'm starting a Statistics class through the local community college and we've got a hell of wind blowing snow around outside.

But I needed to write.

Not my dentist, but
this guy reminds me
a lot of him. 

Yesterday I got my teeth cleaned.  I used to hate going to the dentist. I had bad experiences as a kid and for a number of years I avoided going all together. Finally I got to the point where I had to go. I was fortunate to meet my present dentist (I've been going to him for going on 14 years now). He's a great dentists and well, he's kinda easy on the eyes.

Not gonna lie - he makes going to the dentist A LOT easier.

I've been to the gym almost every morning this week and I've been feeling good about it. My workouts have been strong and for some reason, my body has been waking up early. I guess to make sure that I get my fat ass to the the gym.

Today I had the opportunity to chat with "Le Sigh" again. We're both fans of the San Francisco 49'ers and with the NFC Championship coming up this Sunday, we stopped to talk about what to expect. He was wearing a tight black "Under Armour" style shirt and it took everything I had in my to not allow things to "pop up". I also got his name. :-)

Seeing both my dentist and "Le Sigh" really made me think about what it is in them that I find so appealing. They're strong, confident and just all around "guys". I think I'm a little jealous because to me they represent the "jocks" or the "popular" guys. Both of them are around my age, so it hurts me a bit that I see men who are my age and yet in such different place physically.

I was never part of the "in" crowd in high school or college and I desperately ached to be. In a lot of ways I'm still that insecure kid aching to belong. I think in a lot of ways I haven't allowed myself to create the body that I want to have because I never felt deserving of it.

With the help of my husband and friends, along with some helpful hypnosis, I'm slowly realizing that I can build the body I desire because I deserve it.

222

Yesterday I posted my Sunday Selfie and was pretty pleased with it.  In fact, MAC made the comment that it looked like my gym visits had been paying off.

Well indeed they have.  :-)

Yesterday morning I went to the gym and did my usual workout followed by some relaxation in the sauna.  After my shower I hopped on the gym scale ----- 222 pounds.

That's the "lightest" I've been in a while.

Now I know, I had just been in the sauna and probably sweat out a pound, but I try to stay consistent about weighing myself AFTER a good steam.  The 222 is the lowest measurement I've gotten.

Woohoo!!!!

On another gym related note, I went for my normal Monday morning workout around 5:30 this morning and the place was packed!

I realized that the new semester starts at Iowa State today and that a lot of the college kids are back from break.  In addition, it's actually been nice here, so I'm guessing that a few of the people who had yet to start their new year's resolutions finally got outta bed.  Slackers.

Oh yeah, and He was there.  There's a guy that I've been majorly crushing on at the gym.  He's about my height, my age, but has a great beefy build.  He's not cut, but just built like a brick house. And yes, I've seen the goods - so loverly. And he's a nice guy. I've had the opportunity to chat with him a couple of times - just general stuff.

For now, I'm calling him "Le Sigh" in homage to a term that CB uses.  And he is so very "Le Sigh".

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. :)

Sunday Selfie

Hey what do you know?  It's above freezing!!!!  After a week in polar vortex, "warmer" temps have finally worked their way into central Iowa.  Granted, it's only supposed to be about 40 degrees today, but it feels a lot warmer considering how cold it has been.  

Yesterday morning I celebrated my 10,000th page view.  From there, well, the day didn't go as well.  

I'm a big fan of both the Iowa State men's and women's basketball teams.  I haven't missed a women's home game since December of 1996 (and that was because I was attending a funeral).  I have a strong connection with the women's team and when the team wins, I'm on top of the world.  Yesterday wasn't one of those days.

Both squads had started the season 14-0.  We were the last team in Division I to have both their men's and women's teams be unbeaten. 

The men lost at Oklahoma 87-82.

The women lost to Oklahoma State 69-62.

As always, I took the women's loss harder.  They're my girls and I always want them to do well.  It was made worse because it was a HOME loss.  It's like being punched in the gut having another team come into your house and beat your team.  

I felt so crappy that I need to "hate eat" something bad for me.  Fortunately we needed to run by the grocery store, so I knew exactly what I wanted.  

"Hate Eating" is similar to "Hate Sex", except that instead of having sex with someone that I despise, I eat something that I know that's not good for me, but I can just channel all my hatred towards.  

Does it make sense?  Not really.

Did it make me feel better?  Absolutely.

This is the other half of the cake I bought to
make myself feel better after the ISU loss. 

10,000!

I woke up this morning to discover that "Welcome To The Middle Ages" has gotten 10,000 page views!  It took me quite a few years to get to 5,000 views, but only 2 1/2 months to get to 10,000!  

To my reader....

Thank you!  Thank you!  Thank you! 

Back to Work.....

And suddenly it's been nearly a week since I've blogged.

Wow.

Note - I'm watching "Pitch Perfect" right now, so I keep getting distracted.  It's Aca-Awesome.

After my misadventures on Friday, I had a decent weekend. Saturday I got in my workout and got a hydrotherapy massage (it felt pretty good). Matt and I had dinner with friends and just hung out.  It felt good and was the kind of day I was hoping to have on Friday.  Oh well, c'est la vie.

Sunday I had planned to work on grading papers (the ones I had put off grading for two weeks...whoops).  Of course, then the POLAR VORTEX moved in and all I could do was watch tv as I anticipated our school district would call off school since the wind chill would in the -30 to -50 degree (Fahrenheit) range.  No one wants to be out in that kind of cold weather.  So, my papers just kinda sat there (okay, I did get one set graded).

Mom was supposed to bring over her car to park in the garage, but again, it wouldn't start.  Ugh.  I was pretty sure it was a frozen fuel line (she had less than a half a tank of gas), but we wouldn't be able to confirm that until the temperature rose above 0.

Monday school was cancelled, so I actually was able to get those papers graded. YAY! It was nice to have one more day off. Plus, we got a two-hour late start on Tuesday - WOOHOO!!!! And yes, I did actually go out on Monday.  I thought my face was gonna freeze off.

Oh and here I am burying the lead --- FLORIDA STATE!!!! NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!!

Monday night was GREAT!  Well, okay, the first half of the game sucked and I was pretty pissed about how badly the Seminoles were playing. But the second half was amazing and my alma mater claimed the BCS National Championship.  It was amazing night. I still have to order my championship t-shirt. :-)

It did feel good to be back at school on Tuesday, although about 2 hours into the day I needed a serious nap (staying up until 12:30 the night before surely didn't help). It's always hard coming back to school after an extended break. For me, I get out of my normal sleeping pattern and it takes me a few days to get used not staying up later and on a few days, sleeping late. So hopefully next week I'll feel more myself at school.

Wednesday night we got to see the Iowa State women's basketball team improve to a perfect 14-0 record. I have no idea how this season will end, but I'm loving the ride so far. ISU's men's team is also undefeated (same 14-0 record). It's been pretty special and in Ames, we're not taking it for granted.

Tomorrow is a workout day with Kyle, my trainer.  I'm looking forward to him kicking my ass.

Until next time......



Oh yeah - "I love you awesome nerds." :-)

The Best Laid Plans....

Warning - I just reread this post after writing it. I just needed to vent about my day. The world didn't end and everyone is fine. I'm grateful for the opportunity to just write and release it. 




Today was my last official day of winter break. On Monday, tentatively, we head back to work. I say "tentatively" because the weather on Monday is forecast to be WICKED cold.  Not as cold as Minnesota, where the governor has already cancelled school that day, but still pretty damned cold. We're expecting wind chill temps between -30 and -50 (Fahrenheit), so it wouldn't surprise me if school were delayed or flat out canceled.

My plan for the day had me getting up early to go workout and then head in to school to work on prepping my classroom for Monday and then meeting with the other math teachers in my department to plan out our next two weeks of class. We're piloting two math series that we are looking at purchasing for next year.

Once my meeting was over, my plan was to check on my Mom, who had dental work today and then spend the afternoon working on grading some papers. Matt would come home and make stroganoff for dinner and all would be right with the world.

At least, that was the plan.....

My alarm went off at 5:15 and when my alarm actually wakes me up, it's not good. I was exhausted. After wrestling with my conscious, I made the decision to go back to sleep. I'd make up the workout in the afternoon.

I woke up a couple of hours later feeling a bit less exhausted but at least functional. After grabbing a quick shower, it was off to school for a productive meeting. Seriously, it was productive!

Then, my phone rang - it was Mom. Her car wouldn't start and could I give her a lift to the dentist. Of course I said I would. After the appointment, she asked if we could run a couple of errands - sure.

Knowing we needed to get her car running, we called for a tow truck to take it to our mechanic (trying to jump start a frozen battery is not a good idea). They told her that it would be about 2 hours until they could get to it.  Ok. This gave me the opportunity to run back to school and finish a few things.

Let me stress that I love my Mom and would do anything for her. It was just that I really wanted today to be about me.

It's okay to be selfish once in a while, right?

I got done at school and went back to my Mom's place and we waited, and waited, and waited. Mom finally suggested she try to start the car again. Well, whadda ya know, it started. We immediately took it to the mechanic to have him look at it. It turned out the battery was bad and needed to be replaced.

As I type this, I realize that I am glad that I was able to be there for her and help her in her hour of need.

I finally rolled home at 5:00, exhausted. I didn't make it to the gym and the papers are still sitting ungraded.

Matt did make a wonderful dinner.

I've still got the weekend to get things for Monday done. I'm heading to bed now. Tomorrow is another day.

Driving Me Very CRAZY

It's been a very unusual day -  some great things and some very frustrating things.

I started off the day working out at the gym.  Yup, Day 1 of the #FitIn14 Challenge was a success. I had a great elliptical workout while checking out some hotties in the weight room.  It wasn't near as busy as I was thinking it was going to be, but that might have had to do with the fact that it was about 0 degrees outside (the low tonight is gonna be -8...yay).

Following my workout I FINALLY got to meet up with Paul. He and I became Facebook friends through a mutual acquaintance. He also lives in Ames and yet we still hadn't met up. Well, today was the day. :-)

Paul also works out at my gym and following my workout and his fitness class, we headed out for breakfast. It was a lot of fun getting to know him better and making a new "real world" friend. :-)

Next it was off to pick my Mom up to take her to get her Iowa Driver's License.  Ugh.

From everything I had read online, all Mom had to do was take in her Florida DL, Social Security card and two pieces of documentation that she actually lives in Iowa.

No fuss.  No muss.

No such luck.

The "helpful" lady at the DMV told us that she would also need copies of her birth certificate, marriage license and divorce decree. All of this is part of the "REAL ID" program started by Homeland Security. When you have all that stuff you get a "gold star" on your license.

Mom had done all of this when she got her Florida license, so you would think that it would just transfer, like a marriage license or property title.  NOPE.

Florida verified her, and the Federal Government recognizes that... not Iowa.  Double Ugh.

So now we have to go through stuff that she brought up with her from Florida. In the rush to get things packed up over the summer, it could be anywhere. At worst we'll need to send in for more copies of the stuff. Thank goodness her license is good until 2019.

After the DMV disaster, we had a nice lunch at Hy-Vee. I had the salad bar and was VERY good. Only salad and lean meats, dressing on the side, fruit. No potato or pasta salads or other bad stuff.

Then we headed over to Nevada (the town, not the state) to get license plates for Mom's car. This fortunately went much easier, so at least we got something done today.

More about my challenges tomorrow!

Happy New Year 2 x 19 x 53!!!

The math geek in me just couldn't resist finding the prime factorization of 2014.

Hi, I'm Robert and I'm a math nerd.  

It was a pretty quiet New Years.  Matt and I hung out with our friends Pete and Tas at Buffalo Wild Wings. Wings, trivia, basketball and football. Yup, it was a good night. Matt and I grabbed slices of French Silk Pie at Perkins (yeah, it's all about priorities) and then headed home to watch the ball drop at midnight. 

So now it's 2014. A year full of promise and a fresh start.

I have three goals for the new year -

*Allow myself to unleash the fit guy within.

*Pay off debt

*Read a book a month.

I've created SMART goal plans for two of the goals.  I'm going to post a bit more about them tomorrow, but I wanted to own up to them from the get-go.

HAPPY NEW YEARS TO EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!