Mel's Box of Chocolates

After sharing last week about bringing home something extra from vacation , I'm thrilled to report that as of last Saturday I have shed my spring vacation pounds. I'm right back to that extra special number: 142lb. That weight seems to haunt me. My scale consistently goes right back to it. Then it stays there. So frustrating. I was really hoping after running my first 6K on Sunday that I would kick off the week the right way, but it's Tuesday and my weekly points are depleted. My excuse: The summer weather and need for ice cream. I have only had Breyer's Slow Churned, which is good, but the 2 servings per night, not so great. I also have been slacking with my veggies and fruit because basically we don't have any of them in the house right now. I really need to go grocery shopping! So far this has also been an exhausting week at work as there are some personnel issues that are draining me. I have many things I'm contemplating and choices to make and all I feel li...

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I remember way back in February how I kept counting down the days until March and the arrival of spring. Well March came, along with the snowstorm I had waited all winter for and then the first day of spring arrived along with more freezing, cold weather. It was okay though. I decided to hold off for April where it was sure to become sunny and warm. Along came April and with it still more cold weather only this time mixed with many gray, rainy days. Still I remained optimistic with my spring break vacation right around the corner and knowing I would head south to Florida and was sure to enjoy some nice, warm days there. Vacation came, we went south, and the weather was gorgeous. Ten days later we come back to Delaware only to be greeted with more gray days, low temperatures, and lots of rain. Yuck. Then we get to this past weekend. Full sun. Blue skies. 90 degree temperatures ! Excuse me, but did I miss the whole spring thing? What the heck? It's summer out here! Honestly, I...

I love my Nike+ My favorite part is hooking it up to Nikeplus.com and seeing my run graphed. Here is what I saw yesterday when I uploaded my what-was-supposed-to-be a 5K run. 5K = 3.12 miles Notice I ran just a bit farther than that. Lesson learned: Drive the course once before running it!! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

This morning I accomplished one of my most physical goals. I ran a 5K! I joined my friend Holly, a.k.a. my personal Jillian, in a Race for Autism. Holly was there the first day I ever stepped foot on a treadmill. She saw me go from walking to running, so what if it was for about 1 minute tops at that time. Throughout my running adventures she has encouraged me every step of the way! It was awesome being able to experience my first race with her. The races were kicked off by a child singing the National Anthem that brought tears to my eyes. What a great way to start the race! Then it was the Kiddie Race, wow can those kids run. Next up was the 1/2 marathon racers, 13 miles of running...um no thanks! I don't think that will every be a goal of mine actually. Finally it was the 5K racers turn to line up. I was surprised by the number of kids who were in the lineup to run the 5K. Holly kept telling me to not let them fool me because they were about to kick my butt and boy she ...

Tomorrow I will be running my first ever 5K. I know, right??!! Tonight hubby picked up my race packet and in it was this... Oh my gosh, I have a real race number!! 231. Sounds lucky, don't you think? I must confess that I am pretty nervous about this challenge. I'm proud of myself for how far I have come with my running, but there is a doubt lingering if I'm ready for this. I never in a million years would have believed that I would actually be entering a race. I am sitting here with goosebumps as I write this post! I've never even been a spectator at a race so I'm a bit naive about what to expect tomorrow. I did find an article on what to expect from your first 5K , which was extremely helpful. The race that I'm running is a fundraiser for a local autism program. In the article, it mentioned that choosing one of these type races for your first was a good choice because people are there to have fun and show support for the charity/program rather than just to r...

One of my favorite things about teaching 3rd grade is our field trip to Washington D.C. Today is the day that we load up the bus and head for the mall in DC. I love seeing the looks on kids faces when I tell them that "the mall" doesn't have any stores to shop in. Since I grew up about an hour or so outside of DC I remember many summer trips to the city. We would park outside of town and take the Metro in which was an experience in and of itself. Then we would visit the museums, play on the mall, and enjoy hot dogs and pretzels from the trailers surrounding the mall. Good times!! Now living in Delaware I am amazed by the number of students who have never been to DC. We live only 2 1/2 hours from our nations capital and they have never seen the Capital building, Smithsonian Castle, White House, National Monument, or any of the other memorials, museums, zoos... I can understand if you live hours and hours away, but only a couple hours and still not been. Weird! Anyways, I l...

The other night I told you all about the new Momentum WWalk-it Challenge and that on Thursday I would share a secret. If you follow me on Twitter you may already know the secret... Are you ready to hear it here? Wait for it... Wait for it... Alright, enough already, I'm running in my 1st race ever on Sunday. Eeeeekkkkk. If you've been around here awhile or, again, following me on Twitter then you know that I have recently completed the Couch to 5K program . If you are beginnign the Momentum WWalk-It Program and are interested in becoming a runner I highly recommend this program. It starts with mostly walking and a couple short intervals of jogging and then the jogging times slowly increase until at the end of 9 weeks you are running a 5K. Before I started the program I could barely run up my stairs without thinking I was going to have a heart attack. If you would have told me last year that I would be running in a race this year, I would have laughed my butt off. But, now I can...

You may have noticed that I did not post a Weigh In Wednesday last week and that would be because I didn't have a weigh in. Matter-of-fact I didn't even have a scale. I was on vacation and loving life. When I was packing for vacation I had great intentions of continuing to shred while I was away and packed both the DVD and my weights. Unfortunately my intentions fell flat and I haven't shredded in almost 2 weeks. The good news though is that I did run a 5K one day and two other mornings Dave and I went on bike rides and probably rode a good 5+ miles each time. Then there was the day spent walking through SeaWorld and the sightseeing walking too. I definitely wasn't sitting around on vacation that is for sure! When I got home I felt pretty good about my exercising while away. On the other hand there was the food! Easter was spent with family and lots of delicious food including ham, a yummy potato dish, deviled eggs, and my mother in law's blueberry muffins which I ...

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As I was trying to decide on a title for my end of vacation post I came up with the title of this post. While I don't think it fits bidding goodbye to vacation, if I ever decide to throw in the towel to blogging (which at this point hasn't ever crossed my mind) you will most definitely see it again. Wouldn't it be a perfect way to end a blog? Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

...and that includes our vacation. Today is the day that our vacation comes to a close. We have been home for an hour and I'm happy to report that... Zoe is already in her princess dress up clothes, Dylan is happily playing Lego's in his room, Dave is spread out on our bed watching TV , and I'm sitting on the couch with the laptop catching up on the blogosphere . All is right with the world. Now I just have to unpack three suitcases , wash loads of laundry, sign papers for school, pack backpacks, oversee baths, and catch up with my Desperate Housewives and Brothers and Sisters. Back to the real world! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

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We spent Easter afternoon enjoying the sun, sand, and surf. Where we are staying is about 2 miles in of the Atlantic Ocean and the beautiful weather on Sunday beckoned for us to play at the beach. Thank you Florida for allowing me to hang out at the beach in April!! I needed it. Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

For all my teacher friends, enjoy! For all my mommy readers with children in the public school system, don't take it personal unless of course you have called your school with any of the excuses/complaints the message addresses. *This was an email I received from a co-worker This is the message that the Maroochydore High School Queensland, staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This is the actual answering machine message for the school. It came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes. The outgoing message: Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order t...

I can't believe we have been in Florida for two whole days already. How come vacations go a million times faster than any other times? It's not fair!! We have had quite an action packed couple of days! Let me backtrack to day one, Saturday. First, I just have to brag for a second and tell you that I did run a 5K outside on Saturday. The weather was gorgeous and I was in the mood to run so I did. The path I chose was right along a river with absolutely beautiful houses mansions. The scenery kept my mind occupied along with all the other joggers/bikers out exercising. They all kept inspiring me to keep going! After my run, I had to reward myself so we went to lunch at one of my favorite little surf restaurants here in Melbourne, Florida. Here I enjoyed the lunch I've been craving for weeks...a clamboat with waffle fries and cole slaw. Thank goodness I ran! When we got back home from lunch the kids had to dye some Easter eggs since we hadn't done any yet. They had fun ...

Zoe was a little worried that the Easter bunny wouldn't know where to find her because we weren't in a hotel. You see every year we take vacation on my spring break from school which always begins Easter weekend. For two years we were in Disney and then last year in San Diego so she hasn't known Easter at a house. She was a bit concerned, but we reassured her that the bunny would find Gramma's house because that is their absolute favorite place to visit. Gramma stayed up late last night to string up the Easter bunny's trail throughout the house, wrapping yarn around presents and eggs, until finally leading the kids to a basket. Then they hunted for some eggs and ended up finding other baskets, or should we say sand buckets? Who knew he left filled buckets instead of baskets here in Florida? As you can see the kids made out like bandits. Such a fun way to begin Easter morning!! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

From sunny Florida, I just want to send you Happy Easter wishes. Let us rejoice for He is risen! Have a Blessed Easter!! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Yesterday, I planned a spring party for my students that included special cupcakes, a huge egg hunt, and yes, the dyeing of eggs. Every year I try to add something new to what I do with my class to keep it fresh so I thought this year I would dye eggs with them. I always like to give my students experiences because you never know which ones do not have the opportunity at home. So I sent home a letter asking parents if they would like to donate hard boiled eggs so that we could dye them at school. So today I had dozens and dozens of eggs come in. (I have some rockin parents this year!!) When I was setting up everything, I mixed the eggs to sort them for the students. Since I had so many come in I volunteered to share some with a new teacher next door who hadn't planned on dyeing eggs. Everything went smoothly with the dyeing. The kids had a blast and it wasn't nearly as big of a mess as I imagined. Skip forward about 2 hours later when I receive a frantic email. Evidently one of...

As of 3pm I'm officially on... SPRING BREAK!! Bring on the warm sun, sandy beach, flip flops, dolphins, and theme parks. The plan is that we're leaving Delaware around 3am and heading south, no even further south, all the way south to... So needless to say I'll be pretty spotty with the blogging although I like to take lots of pictures on vacation so will definitely be stopping in to share. If I don't talk to you before then... HAPPY EASTER!! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter

Evidently, Delaware is in a deficit of millions of dollars. Raise your hand if you're surprised? Honestly, I think I would be more surprised to hear of a government entity that is actually in the black. Anyways, our brand-spanking, new governor has decided that in order to offset this deficit, state employees salaries will be reduced by 8%, while their health care fees are also raised making the total reduction closer to 10-12%. I shall save my opinion about this for perhaps another post or then again maybe not because it would require me to speak a bit too much of politics, which I avoid like the plague! However, all the salary reduction talk has provided for some interesting emails in my inbox. The other day I received this from a fellow teacher... After being interviewed by the school district administration, the prospective teacher said: "Let me see if I've got this right. You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe ...

Time to weigh in for the Shrink into Summer Challenge . Finally, I have good news to share, which is why this is actually posted on Wednesday rather than Thursday or Friday or whenever I can avoid it no longer. I made some big time changes to my eating habits this week and on top of that have been busy shredding away. For the past three weeks I have continuously been over my daily/weekly allowance points. I kept using the excuse that it was okay because I was exercising, but really it wasn't, which was evident from my scale reading each week. Before I wouldn't necessarily count my activity points so I didn't have them to consume, but lately I had been counting my activity points since I was exercising regularly and eating the extra points plus more. Well I was determined that it wasn't going to happen this week! I'm happy to report that it is Wednesday and I still have 13 weekly allowance points left. Plus the past two days I haven't even used all my poin...

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Dylan experienced his first, of at least 11 more, science fairs last week! The science project was completely left up to him and daddy. I declined any participation. I know, mean of me, but when I have 19 students to make sure are completing projects, have all the materials they need, and understand the scientific process the last thing I want to do is come home and do another one. Hence, why science fair projects are now and forever will be daddy's domain. So after days of Internet searching and discussions of what to do, the decision was finally made and here is the finished product... Not too shabby for the first science fair project, huh? This teacher gives it an A! Do your children participate in science fairs? What was your favorite project they completed? Or do you have any funny science fair stories to share? Leave me a comment and let's talk science! Subscribe in a reader Follow me on Twitter