Mel's Box of Chocolates

The other day I saw this post from Michele at Scraps of my Geek Life about her finding her favorite color {which happens to be orange - what I would say is MY favorite color}.  How did she find it you asked?  Well go read her story to hear the whole thing, but the gist of it is that she used this awesome site Colorstology. Now I always am intrigued by things like this so of course I had to go find my own favorite color.   When I first went to the site I was mesmerized by the intro {yeah, it doesn't take much}.  It had the coolest music with  After coming out of the intro trance I entered my birth month first.  I discovered that my birth month color is Aspen Gold, which is supposed to be radiant, uplifting, and intellectually energizing.  Oh and it was pretty too!  Then I went on to find my personal birthday color profile. I went into the Aspen Gold world then chose my day of birth.  With a click of a button I discovered that m...

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While I was busy packing for FitBloggin and running 5K's while I was there, I missed posting my You Capture photo.  To be completely honest I forgot to take the picture last week too. But when we were at the park on Sunday I snapped this shot... and then when I uploaded it and decided that it captured "reaching" perfectly so I just had to share.   SUBSCRIBE to never miss a piece of chocolate Be Sweet, Follow Mel on Twitter

This April marks the one year anniversary from when I ran my first 5K. Unbelievable.  If you would have told me just a year ago that I would run a few 5K's in the coming year I would have laughed at you, hard! It's been a long, cold winter and I confess that not much running took place after October.  Instead it was re placed with feet up in front of the fireplace and roasting smores.  Yeah, not such a great switch, at least for my waist hip-thigh-butt-line. Last week though, here in Delaware, we welcomed spring with open arms. We were blessed with some absolutely gorgeous weather and it beckoned me to run with it.  So off I went. Last Monday I ran 3 miles up to my local beach. It felt fantastic! Then this past Saturday I ran a 5K at Fitbloggin. Once again - felt fantastic. This week I Learned that I missed running. I missed the sound of my sneakers hitting the pavement.   I missed the feeling of freedom as I run.   I missed the exhilarati...

Why is it that week days crawl and weekends fly? The weekend just passed me right on by before I could even put my thoughts together to schedule a few posts for this week.   Here's a funny story for you though courtesy of my 5 year old daughter.   This weekend was the FitBloggin conference in Baltimore and since I was staying the weekend, I was leaving straight from my school.  That meant that daddy had daycare pick up duty on Friday.  Now Zoe always does better when she knows the plans ahead of time so we had been telling her all week that I was going to run a race in Baltimore and was staying in a hotel so daddy would be picking her up on Friday.  She was good to go and everything was fine. Then came the drop off on Friday. Me - "Remember Daddy will be picking you up today and I will see you on Sunday." Zoe - "Ok, I remember" Ms. A {Zoe's teacher} - "So Daddy gets to pick you up today.  That's nice." Zoe - "Yes, daddy ...

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On Friday, I'm headed to Baltimore for another bloggy conference called  FitBloggin'10 .  This one is geared toward fit bloggers or as the about page says, " anyone who blogs about fitness, wellness, good food and a healthy lifestyle – regardless of where they are in their journey." There are the going to be the usual blogging sessions discussing SEO, how to pitch media, moving to Wordpress {I'll be skipping that one}, getting published, making money with your blog, and social media.  But then there is the session on Body Image and Blogging, a 5K in the morning, Mizfit's Muscles in Minutes, breakfast with a dietician, and some healthy cocktail and reception hours.   I've been looking forward to FitBloggin ever since I first heard Roni talking about organizing it last summer, but as the date approaches I have to confess that I'm getting pretty nervous.   Now I'm not nervous about the conference itself.  I'm looking forward to learning mo...

I love birthdays especially my own when I'm getting the presents and always enjoy celebrating them with others.  Today is hubby's birthday!  He's way older than me 41, but don't worry because he doesn't act anywhere near his age so it's all good.  We went out last night and celebrated with an early b-day dinner of crab fondue, crab nachos, and sandwiches and pizza.  Oh and yummy desserts like bread pudding and a warm peanut butter brownie sundae. Today will be a lazy day, although usually I'm far more lazy on Sunday's than he is.  Making sushi is on the agenda for dinner and if you follow me on twitter than you also know we will be enjoying the homemade cheesecake I made at midnight last night.  Of course what's a birthday party without presents...I think he is going to be a very happy guy when he opens his. Happy Birthday honey, I hope you have the perfect day and an awesome year to come!!  So very happy I get to share both with you!! SUBS...

How sad is it that I'm so excited that it is pouring cats and dogs outside? I never quite understood that expression.  Who thought of cats and dogs while watching rain? Anyhow it seems fitting right now though cause it is really coming down out there. It seems like it must be raining just about everywhere too cause my Twitterstream is overflowing with rain comments.  However I don't think many feel my same sentiments on the rain today. After a very stressful week that included state test {post coming soon on THAT topic}, many meetings, tennis lessons, breakfast at daycare, and then just life in general, I was excited at the idea of not going anywhere today.   It's 1pm and we are all still in our pj's.  The kids have done some dancing, played Wii, played DSi's, listened to music, and chatted with me.  I've paid some bills, renewed some magazine subscriptions, returned emails, read and commented on blogs, wrote a couple posts, and of course participa...

You may already know that I'm a 5th grade teacher, and well if you didn't, now you do.  I'm really not into debating the whole working mom and stay at home mom battle, that was so 2009, but for me, I've always felt that I am a better mom because I work outside the home.  I like having a career.  I've always been a driven person, looking for the next opportunity to keep me stimulated.  Since I do work and am not home with my kids all day, I feel that I appreciate the time we are able to spend together.  We have more quality time than quantity of time. Lately though, I have found my patience with my own kids stretched very thin.  What I'm beginning to realize is that my job is honestly just being "mom" to 20 other kids for 7 hours a day.  So not only am I a mom when I'm home, but I play one on tv all day too.   I find myself getting very annoyed with my own kids at night when they ask me questions because I've answered questions all day, or wh...

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I did it. I attended my first ever blogging conference. Saturday, I attended Bloggy Boot Camp hosted by SITS in Baltimore, MD.   From what I gathered from the conference veterans, bloggy boot camp is different from other conferences because of its intimate size.  There was probably 100 people or less.  My absolute favorite part of the conference was that you never had to worry about where to sit and you were forced (in a good way) to meet as many people as possible.  When you picked up your name tag it had a string of numbers underneath your name that told you where to sit during each session and even lunch.  Awesome. I'm still working on gathering my thoughts, notes, pictures, and trying to put together a recap post, but I did learn a few tips that I thought would be perfect to share for "What I LearnedThis Week."   What I Learned From Bloggy BootCamp Top Ten Tips Make sure you have an "About Me" page easily accessible on your blog ....

After participating in You Capture last week and taking pictures with a specific perspective in the back of my mind, I couldn't wait for this weeks assignment.  Then I heard that the theme was "HOPEFUL". How on earth does one catch that in the lens? All week I thought and thought and thought some more about what the heck I was going to capture. Here is what I came up with... Weird, but the first three are animals. Kitty is hopeful that somebody will open the door so she can run away,  while Max is hopeful that Dylan will take pity on him and just give him a nibble.  Then there are the seagulls at the beach, hopeful that some naive beachgoer will set down the bucket of french fries so they may help themselves. Then with the fifty-some degree weather we had over the weekend, I began getting very hopeful that spring is on its way.  We spent a wonderful afternoon outside and I was pleasantly surprised to see these...   ...

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  If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook then you probably heard that last week was when my school voted on teacher of the year or our TOY as we like to call them.  In order to be considered for the ballot you have to teach for 5 years along with meeting a page of other requirements.  Then your name goes on the ballot and the staff votes. This was my 5th year of teaching which qualified me to be on the ballot and while part of me was thrilled with the opportunity the other part of me was extremely nervous.  Why so nervous?  Well because basically our teacher of the year vote is a popularity vote.  While yes you are supposed to meet basic requirements such as working with the community, seeking professional development, showing leadership skils, etc., etc. as voters we never have the opportunity to really see or even hear about what the teachers have done.  There is no showcase, interview,  observation, or even campaigning.  The ballot is ...