Welcome!

Summer is the best time of the year, and the worst time of the year.  I love, love, love the weather and getting to sleep in.  Getting a chance to get things done at my own pace is pretty awesome, too.  However, I miss my job and spend most of my free time thinking about how I want my classroom to look, my schedule to flow, and my management plan.  I have only taught for three years.  My first two years were spent in second grade, and then I was moved to kindergarten.  I loved both kindergarten and second grade (and my school!), but in March of this past year, my boyfriend of 5 years proposed.  It was an awesome proposal - Meet the Parents style.  He came into my school (some how everyone kept a secret), got me out of the room (with the help from some other teachers), gave each of my students a letter (or an exclamation point), and arranged them so it read "Marry Me Lee Ann!!!!!!!!!!!!"  

I have never been so shocked in my life, and I thought it was going to be impossible for him to surprise me.  I guess he showed me!  Anyway, my fiance lives about two hours away and we decided that after four years of living apart we should live in the same city again.  :)  I started searching hard for jobs in his city and spent a lot of time driving around and personally handing my resumes to principals.  I'm sure you all know how hard it is to get a teaching job right now!  I was prepared to sub, work as an instructional assistant, or even work at Target.  This wouldn't be my dream, but I would be with the person I love.  I prayed and prayed and hoped that God would put me where he wanted me.  About a month ago, I was hired as a fourth grade teacher at a school in town.  I am so excited!  


Now I am trying to build up my classroom library for upper level readers, learn about fourth grade curriculum, create my management plan, think about setting up my classroom (aka wasting spending a TON of time on Pinterest), finish moving, and coming up with a good workout plan.  I love teaching, but during the school year it demands a lot of time and energy.  For the last three years, I would get up early, drive 45 minutes to work, work all day, stay late and plan/grade, drive 45 minutes back, and go straight to the gym before going home.  That worked for me then because it was a small town and I didn't have too much else to do.  However, now that I live in the same city as my fiance I would like to be able to spend more evening time with him and some of our friends that live here (while still spending enough time at school planning and grading).  My goal for this year is to workout before I go to work.  This is going to be difficult for me, so I want to have a plan that is going to allow me to be successful.  I like to run, but I don't want to run in a dark neighborhood; most of the school year it will be dark at the time when I would be able to run.  Also, I want to do some strength training.  I could go to the gym, and that is still my backup plan; however, I have started looking into interval training (HIIT and some circuit training) that is time efficient and challenging.  I'm going to try to figure something out to help me be successful, and hopefully this blog will help.


I am going to use this blog to work through the challenges of fitness, teaching, and life in general.  I do know if anyone will find this interesting or helpful, but I am doing this for me.  I hope others can find inspiration or at least can commiserate with me on this blog.  This is my second attempt at a blog, and I hope it goes a little bit better than the last one.  I'm going to try to do better!