Cut and Paste

Pinterest. It used to be this cool website where I kept all of my ideas of what I want to wear, eat, and do on a daily basis. I absolutely love all of the outfits that I "pinned" to my virtual bulletin board and I can honestly say that my board devoted to Small Baby Animals has turned a bad mood around once or twice. While I suppose Pinterest is still all of that to me, it has now become my biggest source of Professional Development.

Elementary teachers everywhere: forget your curriculum, drop out of your master's courses, and just go on Pinterest. It will have the same effect on your teaching and it's free. I'm sure I'm the absolute last TFA-er to maximize Pinterest for the benefit of their teaching, but I always thought: "No, Anna, you should stick to exactly every activity the curriculum says to do because who knows what they'll say if they come in to observe and you're doing something you're not supposed to be doing." First of all, they won't be upset if my kids are engaged and excited to learn about something in a creative way...they aren't all that scary anyway. Second of all, KIDS SHOULD HAVE FUN AT SCHOOL AND I'M SICK OF STANDARDIZED TEST PREP AND I WANT TO DO FUN THINGS. So Pinterest it is. And Pinterest it shall be. Last week we did a Christmas tree activity that helped us practice using a ruler to measure to the nearest inch. And listen here. If you would have told me that throwing out some scissors and glue would make a room that contains 14 squirrelly 6-year-old boys (and let me tell you what the other 7 girls aren't lacking in spunk either) turn into a place of extreme focus, I would have slapped you.

But here we are, and now I am searching for cut-and-paste activities for every single lesson. Check out my cuties getting into the Christmas spirit. Four more days until break people. FOUR MORE DAYS!

 

Sippin' Champagne

Hay layyyydiessss! Or guys too. Some guys enjoy drinking girly sounding things like strawberry champagne smoothies. Not that there's anything wrong with that. (Yep, you got it. Yet another Seinfeld reference. I can go on if you want.)

Yep, you're super perceptive and inferred from the above paragraph that I'm going to show you my new favorite drink: Strawberry Champagne Smoothies! Great reading comprehension guys! Usually I would say, "Hey friends, make this for those dainty special occasions that call for an adorable champagne toast!" Well, our circumstances were not as glamorous. It was a boring Wednesday night. Susan was on Pinterest. Anna had some strawberries. That's what happened.

Here's the (short but sweet) list of ingredients:
1 bottle of champagne (we chose a classy $7.00 variety from Dominic's)
1 16 oz container of strawberries
2 TBSP honey (preferably out of a container shaped like a teddy bear, believe me it's better that way.)
1 blender (or really fast and really strong person to stir manually, but just get a blender to make this work.)
2 ice cube trays
2 days (so plan ahead!)

First step. Pour HALF of the bottle of champagne into the blender (save the other half in the fridge for later!). Then, wash those strawberries! Who knows what's on 'em - they've been living side by side in the fridge with your roommates' leftover pasta and old sour cream containers. After cleaning them and cutting them up, throw your sparkly clean strawberries in a blender to join that half bottle of champ you added earlier. Finally, to finish this first step, add in that honey to top it off. Then blend it! (Make sure the cap is tightly on before you press that blend button. It's in the details, people.)

Now you have a good looking pitcher of stuff on your counter! To finish the first day's work, get out those ice cube trays and pour the delicious mixture into them to make little smoothie ice cubes once you put them in the freezer. (Now on the down low, do the classy thing and drink the extras yourself. Hey, if you supply your roommates with a drink this good, you deserve it.) 

Oooo. Champagne-y. And Strawberry-y.

Such a careful pourer. I can't be trusted
with tasks like this. 

Fun ice cubes amongst the Pizza Rolls

Yep. This happened. 

Next step in your list of instructions: Go to bed. Those ice cubes need time to freeze, so the best thing you can do is sleep. The next time you give me a list of things to do and include a command to go sleep for awhile, I will listen. What can I say, I give good directions. When you wake up the next day, there's a nice little extra incentive to get out of bed waiting for you in the freezer. Now isn't that nice? Take your cool new ice cubes and pop them out into the blender again. Bring out that other half bottle of champagne and throw it in with the ice cubes. Blend that together, and voila! You have now made strawberry champagne smoothies for everyone to enjoy! Now all that's left to do is find an occasion for which to have a fancy toast. We went with: It was Thursday. A worthy occasion, in my opinion. 

The strawberry ice cubes and the rest
of the champagne, just before the last step.

This recipe will also make your roommates indebted to you and
you might get a favor someday in return. I'm giving these away for free, people. 

The Best Pintentions

For my resolutions this new year, I've recruited Pinterest to find my inspiration. For those of you not familiar, it's a website where people share cute/cool/interesting/inspirational pictures on a massive virtual bulletin board. While it can become a black hole of time-consumption and procrastination, I have also used it to find some helpful quotes for what I'm going to do differently and better this year. The pictures below line up with each of my goals. Check 'em out girl scout.

Goal #1: Listen to my own body. I do this weird self-destructive thing where I push myself to my limits for no reason. I don't eat well, don't drink enough water, am sporadic on exercising, and I wonder why I feel tired and stressed all the time. I've decided I will slow down and really assess how I feel and respond accordingly. Stressed out? Go running. Feeling sluggish? Eat some fruit and healthy protein. Desperate to keep my eyes open? Go to bed and start tomorrow with enough energy. When I do all of these things, I feel amazing. This practice will also hopefully help me finally reach my goal of weighing what I did before I went to Spain. I'm 9 pounds down, 3 to go in that effort to get back to normality. Woohoo!

Goal #2: Stay open. I want to be ready for new opportunities and adventures as they come up. I want to listen to God, my friends, and other people who present me with direction. The world is so big. And there are possibilities everywhere. And instead of responding with, "Let's sit this one out," I want to respond with an emphatic, "Let's go."

Goal #3: Practice the best kind of love.  The best kind of friendship is the kind that puts your own self and interests below the interests of others. This friendship is what makes the best kind of love. It's the kind of love that changed human history as well as my entire life. While the Disney princess posse might have us believe that romantic love is the best kind, I think they're one level too shallow. Strong, amazing relationships (romantic or not) are primarily based on a self-sacrificial friendship. That's a worthwhile way to spend a life, in my opinion. 

Goal #4: Be brave. This is a big year coming up. Heck, it's a big 5 months coming up. I have to somehow start on the path of growing up and leaving the comforts of my college years to see what I'm going to do with my life afterward. I figure I have two choices: chicken out and cry, or man up and be confident. I want to be courageous as I look for jobs, meet new contacts, and put myself out there to the adult world. My brother one time told me "Anna, we're Gesches. We can do anything." I like that attitude. 

Goal #5: Cut myself some slack, Jack. I know I might have some big ideas for my future, but I also am acutely aware of how life rarely follows the course of anyone's pre-laid plans. If things don't work out how I envisioned, I'm not going to beat myself up over it. I'm going to remind myself along the way this year that life does not always go according to Plan A. And that life more often follows plans B, C, and even sometimes you have to work your way all the way down to Plan Q. But that's what makes it fun, right?

Here's to a healthy, adventurous, devoted, brave, and unpredictable year. Let's go.