School and Health/Fitness

5th grade and 8th grade are SSI years in the State of Texas. SSI stands for Student Success Initiative, meaning the student MUST meet satisfactory on both the Math and Reading STAAR tests. A LOT of pressure on all involved in this standardized test process. We took both tests at the beginning of April, and got the scores back this past week. My babies did AMAZING!!! I am so so so sooooo proud of all of them, and it has been so rewarding to see how proud they are of themselves! The day after the envelopes with scores went home, I got lots of hugs and smiles from students, and sweet e-mails from parents.

No school for students on Monday, but teachers have a district meeting in the morning, and professional development in the afternoon. I am looking forward to getting some work done in my classroom. I am going to try to get a little bit of organizing done every week so that way when it does come time to close up the classroom for the summer, my return will be much easier the weeks leading up to school.

Health/Fitness Update:
I am still working out daily with our music teacher! I had a bit of a set-back with some intense pain in my foot. I'm still not convinced that I know for sure what it was, but I took a week off from running to heal it. In that week off, I continued to do what I could in the work out videos, I went to a Zumba class at the gym one day, and did a Spin class another day. This past Monday I was happy I was able to run, but could barely keep up with Rachel. She ran ahead of me, but I kept going. Yesterday for whatever reason, I was on fire. I was able to keep up the same pace as Rach, and I didn't feel like dying at the end of it! I was the first time we've ever gone further than 4 miles! I'm going to continue to stretch and keep that foot as healthy as possible. New shoes will probably help as well!

And I am down 10 lbs!!! 10.4 to be exact. I am still 8 lbs away from being where I was when the school year started, but I'm confident I can take that off before the school year is over. My mind set is finally in the right place to take the weight off [again]. I am looking into running a 10K in August, and a 15K in February. After my 5K last summer, I gave up running and working out and went into "school mode" I need to have events that keep me motivated and training so that I am forced to find that balance.