Spring Break!

Dear Friday, I am very happy to see you!!! What a week! Dear Spring Break, You are finally here! I never thought I would see the day! What will I do with all of next week off? Dear Seth and May, A friend brought me to your concert last night, it was the most amazing thing ever!! I honestly have never heard such a beautiful voice before! I was blown away, here is a clip of my favorite song they sang last night (fast forward to 1:38, they talk a lot before). I also have to say, this was totally out of my comfort zone because I listen to a lot of main stream music, but I had so much fun! It is funny what happens when you branch out a little bit :)

Dear Macy, I am so excited to dog sit for you this weekend. You are the prettiest yellow lab ever :) Dear March Madness, There is no way I will win now, but thats okay because Michigan is still in play and I am in LOVE with Florida Golf Coast :) When I was 18 I went on a college visit there and decided that was where I wanted to go to school, but being the first child off to college, my parents had a hard time allowing me to move away from the mitten (ironic because two years later my two little sisters moved to Pennsylvania and Indiana for college, I guess thats just part of being the oldest though :) ) 

Have a Happy Friday and Great Weekend!! And GO BLUE!! 




 

Who is with me?

Alright fellow bloggers, I am in need of some help, encouragement and an online working buddy to get me through these next few months! I am starting the Insanity workout again on April 1st. This is the official announcement, which means I can't back out now...

Starting last August I got serious about working out and have lost about 20lbs since then. 15 of those pounds were lost during the Insanity workout. For those of you who have never done insanity, it is definitely the most intense workout I have EVER done in my entire life (counting basketball practices and track practices in high school). I have never felt so tired and sweaty after a workout, everrr. Well before summer starts, I want to give it one last shot to help shed a few more pounds that are having difficulty coming off from just running. 

Here is a before picture last year at my last sorority recruitment event! 

and heres and after insanity workout

So whose with me?? Anyone? Or if you are doing another work out, lets keep each other accountable by commenting below and updating each other with our success :) 

Now for my Wed. link up:

I can't believe its Wednesday, one more day till I am officially on spring break for a week! 

I can't believe I actually ran this morning, it took everything in me to get out of bed. 

I can't believe I am not in the shower yet, looks like I'm running a little late this morning.

I can't believe how awesome the 5th/6th grade talent show at my school last night was! I was so impressed by beat boxing, signing, dancing, playing instruments, and people doing back flips! I felt like I was watching America's got talent :) 

Happy Wednesday everyone! 

Quinoa...Who is she?

I try to eat healthy as much as i possibly can. For the most part, I do great because I have a gluten allergy. So when I am out and about I can't eat fast food, or deserts, or the delicious loaves of bread served at restaurants. My food allergy has been rather annoying at times, but a blessing in disguise when I am trying to cut back on carbs and sweets :)

One of the foods I miss the most is couscous. I LOVED it! But unfortunately it is not gluten free. So I was told to try Quinoa. For those of you who were like me when I first heard the word Quinoa and thought it was the name of a girl in the group Destiny's Child or S Club 7....its actually a grain (aka food). 

As I headed toward my new found home in the grocery store, the gluten free section, I searched long and hard for the new food that was suppose to replace my craving of the ever so delicious ball like grains of couscous. I couldn't find it anywhere!! (Reason being because it is in the aisle of rice). 

Once I found where this new grain was housed, I headed home to prepare it. After reading the box, following the directions, preparing the grain, I took my first bite....and was disappointed. It was nothing like couscous. I was so upset! It was warm, and grainy, and had absolutely no taste, at all. 

So long story short, I made my own recipe for Quinoa. I prepared a cold quinoa salad, and I do have to say, it is pretty yummy :)

1 cup of quinoa cooked(follow directions on the back of the box) After cooked, let the quinoa drain out in a strainer and sit for over an hour to "dry out." 

Getting rid of most the liquid will make a better salad, and allowing for it cool to room temperature helps too. 

Add the following:

1 small container of grape tomatoes sliced

1 Avocado

1 bundle of green onions (or half a red onion)

Feta cheese

cucumber

Balsamic vinaigrette dressing (just a little for flavor not to soak it!) or Olive oil and balsamic. 

You basically can add whatever you want to it, but keep it refrigerated and eat when cold! It is delicious :)

Let me know how you like it! Or any other great quinoa recipes you may have! 

Friday's Letters

Dear Friday, I am SO happy you are here, what a long week this week was! You definitely kept me on my toes all week! Dear Spring Break, you are right around the corner! Since I am student teaching, I didn't get the original college spring break off, but thats okay, your almost here. Dear School, I registered for my last semester this week! I can not WAIT to be done with you :) (finally, 5 1/2 years is a little long). Dear Sister, you turned 21 this week! I had so much fun going to dinner and drinks wednesday night with you :) I am glad I was home to finally spend a birthday with you! Dear Students, only four more weeks I have left with you :( I am going to be so sad to leave you all and I have decided this will be the hardest part of teaching, letting my students go at the end of the year. Dear Bangggz, I have decided we are not friends, as much as I loved you at first, it is time for you to grow back out and become your original length again. But thank you for a good week of change and fun :) Dear Blonde Hair, in the picture below I might be interested in you again? But maybe I should take a break from some hair changes for awhile...

Have a GREAT weekend friends! 








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Sister, Sister

Good Morning all! On this Irish saturday morning I have decided to put the holiday on hold and buckle down on some school work! Also, I am not a huge Saint Patricks day lover for many reasons:
One, green is not my color. 
Two, I am not Irish. 
Three, I hate getting pinched for not wearing green.
Four, who wants to drink colored alcohol anyway? I just don't understand the point! But hey, that's just my opinion

So I decided to head to the local coffee shop to get some lesson plans and projects completed :)

I forgot to mention I had surprise last night! My sister goes to college at Indiana Wesleyan and surprised my whole family by coming home last night! I was so happy because I have not seen her since Christmas. She is one of my best friends and I am so lucky to have her as my sister :) 

So we decided to take the morning and head to the local coffee shop to "do homework" aka talk, talk, and more talking. We have spent the past two hours catching up, so obviously we have not been able to get much homework done. But who cares! It is so nice to have her to talk to and to catch up on each others lives, especially over a nice cup of coffee :)

These are the moments I cherish, the moments I get to spend with my family and hang out with my sister. It is hard not living together anymore, and I often find myself thinking about the days when we were younger and playing barbies or dress up. But the best thing about a sister is that the relationship never changes. Even though it has been a few months, I know that I will always have her to rely on. 

As my dad once said:  

friends come and go, but sisters are forever 

CHANGE

Every year I go through the March blues. Living in Michigan, I get so sick of the cold, snowy, dark weather! What makes it worse, is those few days that the sun comes out, the temperature rises to the mid forties and I begin to think spring is right around the corner. I pull out my bright colored ward-robe (which only consists of about 4 colored shirts since I am a grey/black clothes loving girl) and start to pack up my winter clothes. Suddenly, the temps drop, the snow falls, and I am stuck in a bright blue short sleeve shirt in twenty degree weather. 

Now usually I pack my bags and head to Florida for a nice vacation. Last year I was lucky enough to go to the Bahamas with 16 of my sorority sisters (for those of you that don't know I am a proud alumni member of Sigma Kappa sorority <3). 

But this year, I am stuck in the snow! I needed something to brighten up my winter blues, so I decided to make a change. 

For me, this change was dramatic! I really stepped out of my comfort zone and did something drastic! I cut my hair!! I guess I didn't really cut all my hair, but enough to make people notice! I got bangzzz! I actually was really scared to do it, which is funny to think about because its just hair and what should I care about what it looks like. I shouldn't care about what other people think about it and as long as I love them, what does it matter what anybody else thinks! 

Well I went in to the hair salon, feeling liberated and spontaneous. I sat down and informed my hair stylist of the change I wanted. She seemed a little hesitant at first, so I thought to myself "is this something I really want to do?" I decided I couldn't turn back so I told her "yes, this is what I want." As the sharp metal scissors slowly approached my face I thought "this is it, no turning back now" and snip, I watched my long hair fall to the floor. Scared to look up I let her cut the rest. She turned my chair around to look in the mirror, and to my surprise I LOVED what I saw. Who knew bangzzz could be so liberating! 

The rest of the day I felt so free and I truly didn't care about what other people thought of them. The bangzz lesson I learned is that as long as I feel happy with what I look like, as long as I feel confident then who cares what others think! I felt great! I thought I looked great! And no one can change that opinion of myself :) 

Change is scary, but the lesson I learned from it was well worth the inches of hair I lost :) Heres to the knew look! The look thats solving my winter blues, and the look that made me realize self worth is more important than changing my look for anyone else :) 

This is my first post!! I am not exactly sure how this whole blog thing works yet, but I have been following my friend Erin's for awhile and have been inspired to start my own! 

I think I might have to have her teach me everything on our weekly wednesday hang out :) Nothing better than a girls night in the middle of the week!

I am actually excited for tomorrow, back to the grind of school! I am currently teaching for sixth graders in my first semester of student teaching (I have a whole year to complete of student teaching till I graduate). Only 5 weeks left, and although I am super excited to be closer to graduating in December, I am going to miss the kids so much! 

Here is a picture of me learning to break dance with them. So much fun :)

Well another week of classes, another week of teaching, and I couldn't be happier :) Have a great week! 

-Erica