Halloween

Well, we made it through today! I have officially survived my first classroom halloween party. Costumes were all put on, students walked in their parade, candy was distributed, games were played, parents helped to celebrate. Phew! Then, I sent them all home with sugar filled bellies.

The only photo I have to show for today was this beauty of all of the dwarfs from our school. I forgot my hat... oops.

Thank goodness there are no students tomorrow. Whoever scheduled a Professional Development day for October 31st, thank you. I can not even imagine what kind of learning we would accomplish if we did have school. 

I did find out that party days exhaust me. Students are a little more wired on a party day than for regular school so I feel like I have been "on" more so than usual. Throw parents, candy, costumes and games into the mix and that comes out to a perfectly exhausted teacher. 

Tonight I'm off to yoga- hopefully to sweat out all the little stress bugs that hit me today. My plan is to leave a little less stressed and a little more positive.

Hurray for the weekend right around the corner! 

Fall Chili

I plan. I plan my lessons for the week, I plan what I need to do each day, I plan what I'm going to wear at school, what my workouts are going to be, and I or I mean we plan what we are going to eat for the week. Like really plan - we sit down, think about what we have, what we need, and what just sounds good. Together we come up with 4-5 meals that will last us for the next 7 days or so. One of things that we have been making sure to do is make a soup or a stew on Sunday night so that we have leftovers for lunch all throughout the work week!


Our soup of choice this week? Chili! Yum. Now, Missouri has been abnormally warm this fall. I'm talking 80 degrees at the end of October! I'm not complaining one single bit but it's not technically sweater, boot and chili weather when it's 80 degrees outside.


But it's still fall. We need a soup. And sometimes chili just sounds good. Plus it's one of the easiest dinners to make. Not that I made it. BUT I did do the grocery shopping and smell it in my kitchen all day long so that counts for something right??

Here's what we used to make our chili:


1lb beef
1lb venison (or more beef)
1 can of tomato sauce
2 cans of diced tomatoes
2 cans chili beans
1 can black beans
1 can of navy beans
Italian Seasoning
Salt and Pepper
BBQ sauce
Ketchup
Crushed red pepper
Jalepeno juice
4 garlic cloves
1 Cup beef broth
Creole - Cajun Spices

Wanna know the greatest part about making chili? You just throw it all in the crock pot and put it on low for 6-8 hours. You can use however much of each spice or sauce that you would like!  Easy. Done.

Hats off to the chef - husband! Now we can have lunch all week long! Phew.

Once we ate our chili and made our lunches we took our doggies to the park to get some energy out and to take advantage of the 80 degree fall weather! Who knows how long this will last.

3 Cheers for Blogs!

Hurray for blogs! Hurray that I finally decided to start my own and keep it! That's the goal at least. I love blogs, all blogs, running blogs, foodie blogs, fashion blogs, teacher blogs, you name it and I'll probably enjoy reading it. I just think it's wonderful to read a blog from a fellow elementary teacher who tried something fabulous in her classroom and succeeded! Or following the training of a runner who is running their first half or full marathon. If you can run a half or a full marathon AND you blog about it, yea I do think you're cool and I will read about you via your blog of course.

Do you write a food blog?? Then why yes I have been to it, I have ogled and ooggled at all of your delicious recipes and have tried (key word TRIED) to cook them. Some successful, some definitely not. We are an eat at home most days type of family but I can tell you that my husband is the chef around these parts. You can give him a pantry full of nothing and he will make you something pretty incredible. Me? I'm learning. Everyday. I'm learning how to be an elementary teacher, a wife, a yoga teacher, and myself! I wear many hats, along with everyone else! Trying to find a balance between all of these different hats is a tricky, tricky process. Some days I feel like I am a superwoman getting it all done while other days I feel like I have fallen face first into a pile of mud - big fail.  Good thing there is always a new day to try again.

My goal for this blog is to chronicle my little family's life, our eats and our adventures, as well as my successes and flops as a teacher, wife, and chef in training.