Happy 2016!

Happy New Year, everyone! The end of the year went by so quickly! Lots of good things - traveling and time with family, mostly :)

Here's a "quick" recap!

November:

I went to Philadelphia for a conference. I was only there about a day and a half, but it was very nice. I tried to split my time between conference going and self care. Including time with my dear friend who lives there, lots of good food, some nice long walks, and a trip (or two) to Uniqlo ;)

For Thanksgiving, we did potlucks in all my classes. We also made class cookbooks for each class, which is an awesome project that I highly recommend!

The next weekend I went to New York for Thanksgiving! Love getting to see my extended family. We ran the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day, ate tons of good food, and then took advantage of the beautiful weather the next day and went to a park. :) Also enjoyed going shopping with my cousin and aunts! (Are you sensing a theme here??)

Riding a dinosaur at the park. As you do. 

Beautiful weather for November in New York!

It was also the start of the "busy season" for Thirty-One. I did a lot of vendor events and had a great time!

December:

I finished up the semester in the middle of December. We had more potlucks. It was good. I made my Cranberry Bliss Bars. They are still magic

I used some of my free time after the semester was over to catch up on my craft queue :) Especially holiday crafts! (But there's still so many more projects on the list!)

Hair ties

Festive leggings/pants

Boot cuffs

We had a great Christmas. I was very fortunate to get to spend a lot of time with my awesome in-laws and nephews. I enjoyed shopping with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law, taking our nephews to the zoo, going to church on Christmas eve, and opening presents with my in-laws on Christmas Day.  I then drove to Virginia to spend time with my parents and brother, which was also great. (And also involved lots of good food and shopping with my mom ;) )   J came to visit for a few days (after a not-so-fun-and-exciting adventure getting there!). We decorated Christmas cookies together with my mom.

Cookies!

Conway and one of his new toys :)

For New Year's  Eve I had my usual party, which was small, but awesome. I love getting to see this group of friends and (now) getting to watch their kids grow up. On New Year's Day I ran my usual 5K and then J, Conway, and I headed back to Cleveland!

New Year's Day 5K

January:

We started off January with a fancy wedding with J's family. I loved getting all dressed up and we had a great time!

Since then, I've started my online teaching for the semester and have been doing new student registration sessions for my "real" job. Another week and a half before I go back to my regular teaching schedule. I'm trying to be productive and cross a few more things both off of my "should do" list and my "want to do" list. We'll see what actually happens...  Wish me luck!


Hope everyone is having a great year so far!

Bringing your passion with you

I feel like I start every post with "I've been so busy!" And this one is no exception. I'm coming off of a three-week stretch where I've been working all day for one or two of my usual days off (staff meeting, professional development, meeting with my online students, vendor event for Thirty-One) and it also happened that two of those three weeks I also had something going on Tuesday night, my usual evening off.  So here I am, nearly a month later and no blog posts. But, as you all understand, a girl only has so much brain power! I really hope to get more consistent with my posts..  (in part so you don't feel obligated to read so much at a time!)

I feel like I've had so much going on and so many thought-provoking things to say these past few weeks and I want to share them briefly, but not inundate you all with a dissertation-length blog post. So let's break this down into sections. The first are more updates on my daily life. The last couple start to get really deep :)

1. We've done some really fun things these past few weeks, like seeing a favorite Irish Band (not Gaelic Storm!) on St. Patrick's Day.  I also saw Carbon Leaf (one of my all-time favorites) last week. I've been a fan for 14 years and I swear they just keep getting better and better.  Some things I'm looking forward to in the next few weeks are the Passover Seder and the beginning of baseball season!

Carbon Leaf, always amazing!

2. My college students took their midterm exam the week after spring break. Which meant I was answering a lot of emails. And then grading ~60 essays.  And we had an in-person meeting the week after! I am glad things are slowing down in that class for the moment. 

This is why I struggle doing yoga at home!

3. I took Conway to a specialist today to talk about some issues he's had pretty much since we got him nearly 3 years ago. We'll be trying a strict elimination diet (his new food is made of, no April Fool's jokes here, kangaroo. I'm... not really sure how I feel about this!) and then seeing a DIFFERENT specialist in the next few weeks. Never a dull moment with this little guy. But if we can make him feel better, then it's worth it.

4. Thirty-One stuff is going well. I did a Pet Expo two weeks ago which was great fun. And I just finished up a party for a dear friend of mine. Nothing huge on the radar for Thirty-One this month, which is fine with me. May's customer special is seriously awesome and I look forward to sharing it with you! I'm also going to be a vendor at wing cook-off in June. So come visit me there!

5. I tried a new running experiment recently. I've been hearing more and more about shorter run:walk intervals. I tried 30 seconds on:30 seconds off. It drove me a little crazy, but I felt great. Did 5 miles like that. I'm likely going to try it again.  Short intervals seems to help my stomach feel best when running... Looking forward to finally being home for run club this weekend (assuming I don't eat so much at the Seder Friday night that I feel like I'm doing to die ;) )

6. I've done approximately nothing craft-related these past three weeks and it makes me sad. Maybe tonight we'll watch a movie and I'll do some knitting. My regular Thursday-evening band rehearsal is cancelled for Maundy Thursday. I have been doing some fun cooking, like a totally meat and cheese lasagna (even the "noodles" were meat!). Tonight I'm making crepes and I'm searching for a good muffin recipe to make this weekend... 

These last few all relate to my ESOL teaching job and are much more thought-provoking :)

7. A few weeks ago, my yoga instructor said something that really spoke to me about teaching.  She talked about the difference between being a teacher and being an instructor.  I wish I had blogged about it earlier so I could remember it better, but the short version is that a teacher tells you what you need, and an instructor guides you and gives you ideas for how you can help yourself. Her point was, in yoga, we are the teachers (we tell ourselves what we need when we step on the mat) and she is the instructor. I really liked this as a metaphor for my ESOL teaching. My students all have such different needs and they really need to be aware of what they want to get out of the classes. I am there to give them guidance, but I can't *make* them learn. 

8. I heard an amazing episode of NPR's Ted Radio hour about success. As someone who isn't employed full-time in a career related to my degree, sometimes I struggle with things related to the notion of "success." One of the Ted talks focused on the idea of "status anxiety" which spoke some to me for sure. (Hello,I have a PhD and am a Thirty-One consultant! I do it because I seriously love it, but sometimes it's hard not to feel a little strange talking about it with certain people.)  But the one idea that really, really stuck with me was that we should not "follow our passion". We should "bring it with us."  I think this spoke to me because, had I just "followed my passion" - I would never have found this job that brings me so much joy. Instead, I've taken my passion with me and poured it into my unexpected career change/detour/whatever. I care so much about my students. I love teaching and goshdarnit I'm good at it and I'm going to do everything I can to be the best teacher possible.

9. Finally, my students are the most amazing people in the world. Every day they surprise me with their dedication, their humor, their passion, their struggles, and their genuine good hearts. This week a student brought me seeds for my garden. One said "Teacher, you look beautiful today." Another student asked if it was ok with me if he used his food stamps to buy coffee and snacks to share with the class. A student scheduled her cancer radiation treatments around our classes because that's how much learning English and our community means to her. My students shared their struggles with me and with each other about having to truly start over again. About having a Master's Degree or being a teacher with years and years of experience in their home country, but only being able to get a job at WalMart because no one accepts their credentials or believes they can do the work. If this all isn't inspiration to give it my all to make a difference in their lives, then I don't know what is. 

I've never felt more inspired than ever to just focus on a simple, one-word mantra: believe. 

Apparently it's spring break..

You wouldn't know it from all the snow outside or the fact that our high today is about 15*, but I'm (slightly unexpectedly - long story! Ask me privately if you really want to know) officially on spring break! And feeling very anxious to catch up on my to do list, which includes updating this blog!

But first, I just hit my 1000th blog view! So thank you to whoever that was :)

Things are going well here, just a combination of being very busy and having terrible weather which makes me want to hibernate. We just set the record for the coldest February in Cleveland since the 1870s! Average temperature for the month was 14.3*. No wonder I didn't want to leave the house.

Teaching has been up and down. I have some fabulous new students and in general my classes are going well. Everyone is loving my experiment with the self-directed activities. I love that everyone gets to work at their own level and pace for at least a little bit every week and I also love that I really get to spend some one-on-one time with my students. It's so rare when I'm teaching the whole class that I get to sit down and really talk to / help anyone individually for more than a minute or so, but I get to do that during the self-directed activity time and it's awesome. The biggest problem so far this semester has been the weather - K-12 schools have been closed a lot, which means parents haven't been able to come to day classes, and the weather in general just makes it difficult for my students who walk or take public transportation. But hopefully the end is in sight. After tomorrow, the entire 10 day forecast is above freezing!

My other "fun" teaching adventure was driving to monthly meeting with my online students in a snowstorm a few weeks ago. My normally 2.5 hour drive was closer to 4 hours! I was so thankful when I got there and the majority of my students had actually made it to class. Whew :)

Things are also going well in Thirty-One land. I did my second vendor event and feel like a pro now! I have a pet expo coming up at the end of the month (I have ideas, but suggestions for what you'd display are welcome!) and am going to be a vendor at wing cookoff in June and two holiday shows in November/December. I also have a few feelers out for some other events, but I think I'm off to a good start. I have a drinks and desserts open house at my place tomorrow and I'm very much looking forward to having the excuse to hang out with some friends :D

And, even more importantly, I had a very successful fundraiser last month! We raised enough money to buy 127 kits of nail files and tubes of chapstick for Hanna House at University Hospitals. I talked to the director of the activities center this week and will be dropping them off during my spring break next week :) Thanks again to everyone who participated!

We've also been having a ton of fun things going on these past few weeks. J and I went to go see our favorite band, Gaelic Storm. For those new to our story - our first date was to a Gaelic Storm concert and almost exactly two years ago we got engaged at their concert :) This year, we brought a framed and matted copy of the picture taken with the band on the night of our engagement and got the entire band to sign the mat. I can't wait to hang it up!

Gaelic Storm, dancing on the bar at House of Blues

Speaking of autographs, we went to a minor league hockey game last week and J was incredibly surprised to see two-time Stanley Cup winner Ruslan Fedotenko playing for the visiting team. Fedotenko was on J's favorite NHL team when they won the Stanley cup! J and his buddy managed to get autographs :)

And, finally, last weekend we went to our friend's annual Arnold Schwarzenegger movie marathon :) We had a good time hanging out with some awesome people, eating and drinking way too much, watching movies, and generally being lazy.  Since I'm not always good at being lazy, I also made some good progress on the sweater I'm knitting. It's finally starting to look a little bit like a sweater! Since it's my first one, I don't have any delusions that it will be perfect, but I'm really hoping it's at least wearable. I'm pretty happy with how it looks so far. Maybe I'll have it done before next winter ;) My crafting progress is so slow during the school year! I'm hoping to make progress on my Etsy shop stock next week during my spring break, though I have quite a few personal sewing projects I also was hoping to work on. Why do I have a feeling that one week isn't going to be enough for all this? ;)

Stay warm, friends! Spring is just around the corner :)

Snow Day!

Actually, if we're being honest - it's really more of a cold weather day. I think we finally hit 1* sometime today! Tomorrow is going to be slightly warmer, but still pretty brutal.  I'm thankful for the time off, especially since I'm pretty sure none of my students would've come today (most in that class take public transportation and/or have children in public schools, which were also closed today).  I've spent most of my day trying to be productive. Including reorganizing the shelves on my bookcase where I keep my ESOL teaching materials. They actually look pretty neat AND are in some kind order so I can easily find things! I almost wish I'd taken a "before" picture :)  We're slowly making progress on getting the place organized!

We won't talk about what the rest of the bookshelf looks like... 

The picture of Conway above was actually taken on Valentine's Day, which was snowy, cold and blustery! J and I had a pretty low key day. We went to brunch, spent the afternoon shopping for home organizing supplies, had dinner (and a margarita) at our go-to Mexican place down the street, and rented Frozen from RedBox :) I also spent some time working on the sweater I'm knitting. It's my first one and is going slow, but steady, so far. I know it won't be perfect, but I do hope it's at least wearable! 

Things in the classroom are going relatively well, though classes have been smaller than usual with all of this nasty weather. My self-directed activity time experiment has been going well so far. It seems my students of all levels particularly enjoy doing word finds. I think that different levels get different benefits from them.  For example, the vast majority of my level 0 students are native speakers of languages that use very different alphabets (Cyrillic, Nepali, Arabic), and a few aren't even literate in their native language, For them, the letter recognition aspect of word finds is great practice. I like to use word finds that have themes. This week's theme was "baking" and my more advanced students enjoyed learning new words like "bundt" and "butterscotch" :) 

From a chapter on clothing I was working with a student on this week. I'm pretty sure the answer here is "A".

 I also wanted to thank everyone who donated to my fundraiser! We raised enough for 127 kits of a nail file and tube of chapstick for Hanna House! You guys rock! I'll be sure to post pictures when everything arrives :)  In other Thirty-One news, I'm doing my next bridal show this weekend! Hopefully the weather will cooperate and there will be lots of people there. I'm also hosting an open house at my place on March 6. If you're in the area and want details, let me know! There will be desserts, drinks, and the chance to check out some of the new items from the catalog, including my new favorite - the limited edition Mini Diamond District :)

And that's all I've got for tonight :) Stay warm, everyone!

Sky scarf

This post has been a long time in the making. Over a year, in fact. On January 1, 2014  I cast on my sky scarf. And every day for all of 2014, I took note of the weather and knit two rows in a yarn that best corresponded to that weather. And now I'm finally ready to reveal the finished product!

A few progress pictures and close-ups of the finished product:

These are my weather conditions. From top to bottom: sunny, partly sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy. 

The scarf on January 31, 2014.

February 28, 2014.

March 31, 2014.

April 30, 2014.

And, sadly, that's the last progress picture I took. Because then May happened. and I defended my doctoral dissertation and got married. And somehow life got really busy ;)

But I do have a few more pictures of the finished product to share!

Another view to give a general sense of the length.

First half of the year.

Second half of the year.

I knit two little rows of bright, bright blue for May 25 - our wedding day :)

And that's it! It was a fun project and I'm so happy to have this to document one of the most eventful years of my life. But I'm also glad to be done with it for now. Whenever I had just a few minutes to knit in a day, they all went to this scarf and now I'm looking forward to using those little bits of time to work on some other projects. 

Have any of you ever taken on a big project like this? How did it turn out?

A very crafty Christmas + my favorite baby blanket pattern

Conway does his best burrito impression (using our comforter)

It was very cold and windy this morning. The kind of cold that makes your eyeball hurt. Not fun. No one wanted to get out of bed this morning and definitely no one wanted to go outside. Walking Conway was not pleasant. And, yet, despite the fact that his feet were obviously cold (even though I used paw wax, which usually does the trick) he kept stopping to smell things instead of just doing his business and going home.  Dogs are weird :)  The class I was supposed to teach today was cancelled, which I think was a good call. All of the students in this class are refugees, many of them walk a mile or more to class. Often in clothes that were donated to them because they came from countries with warmer climates.  I don't think it would've been safe for them to be walking 20+ minutes in windchills of -20* (actual temperature was around -2* when class was scheduled to start).  The only thing I like about this cold weather is the satisfaction I get in knowing that something I made actually is good enough to keep me warm in these temperatures. Here I am bundled up in a hat and scarf I knit :)

Speaking of making things, I wanted to share some of the handmade Christmas gifts from this year, now that some of the craziness has died down and everyone has been given said gifts :) The one that isn't pictured is J's PJ pants. I still need to do some adjustments for size on those (that's the beauty of sewing clothes for yourself and loved ones, right? That I can actually make those changes so that they fit him right!)

First up - a Cleveland Browns tote bag for my brother-in-law. He loves everything Browns. This bag has a hard bottom (my first time attempting that) and is great for groceries, tailgating supplies, or any other random things. I am planning on posting my go-to bag-making method on this blog in the future, so stay tuned in the next few weeks for that.

Next are the pressed-flower necklaces I made. I actually made a few of these. For my mom, my mother-in-law, and for myself. What makes these necklaces special is that I made them with flowers from my wedding bouquet :)  I decided not to get the bouquet professionally preserved or to keep it as a whole bouquet, but I wanted to have some keepsake from it.  I learned while making this that I am capable of making necklaces :) and I hope to include some in my etsy shop eventually (though they're not a priority just yet!)

This lace scarf was not really a Christmas present, but it was something I had been working on for a while and finally finished in time to wear to church on Christmas Eve. For this one I used a pattern I found on Ravelry: Simple Lace Scarf. Made with one skein of Patons Silk Bamboo. It's a lovely yarn!

Last up on my show and tell is this baby blanket for my dear friends' little girl! (I've always been a blue and green fan myself, so why not make the blanket in those colors instead of pink??) I made this with Bernat Baby Blanket, which I'm now in love with. They make a version of it in "grown-up" colors and if I didn't have so many other projects in my queue, I just might make a blanket for myself with it! 

My Favorite Baby Blanket Pattern

I used one of my favorite blanket patterns for this. I love it because it looks nice, it's easy, and it's very versatile. You can use any type of yarn you'd like and can make pretty much any size square. I've made it with both this yarn, as well as Lion Brand Pound of Love. Some of you may recognize it as a typical dishcloth pattern, but it translates very nicely into blankets, too.

Decide on your yarn. The needle size and amount of yarn you'll need will depend on what you've chosen. I recommend going with the suggested needle size for your given yarn (which was size 11 for this one). You'll need circular needles for this (or very,very, long straight needles. But I recommend going with the circular ones!)  I used about 260 yards of super bulky yarn on this project and the blanket is probably "stroller sized". If you need help estimating how much yarn to buy, I recommend Jimmy Beans Wool knitting calculator. This will give you a good place to start. 

Cast on 4 stitches. That's it. Just four :)

Row 1: Knit 4.

Row 2:  K2, yo, knit the rest of the row.

Repeat row 2 until the blanket is a triangle that is half the size you want the full blanket to be (you will basically complete the square.)

Row 3 (when you've reached the halfway point): k1, k2tog, yo, k2tog, knit the rest of the row

Repeat row 3 until there are 4 stitches left on your needles

Row 4: knit

Bind off

And that's it!

What about you? Did you make any gifts this holiday season? 

Christmas in pictures

I love the holidays and all of the traditions associated with it. I had lovely Christmases with J's family and with my own parents. It would take far too long to describe them all, so I'll share some photo highlights instead. :)

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Our tree is up and decorated. We have some great new ornaments this year :)  And a stocking that one of my students made for me is hanging on our mantle. The shopping and crafting are finally done. I may have made four stops for additional craft supplies in the past week. (On a side note, did you know that Home Depot's website will not only tell you if something is in stock, but also what aisle it's in? Very helpful!) The presents are all wrapped. I think we're in the home stretch! Ready for Christmas tomorrow, but definitely still have some packing to do before leaving to visit my parents this weekend. But one step at a time, right?

One of my students made this!

It's been a good week. First, there is nothing is wrong with my car! Which is always good news. Whew. I finished the scarf I've been working on intermittently for months now. The yarn is a lovely silk/bamboo blend. I'll have pictures of it later :) And I gave myself another fun, festive manicure. 

This week I'm very thankful for friends and family. Last Friday evening and again Saturday morning at run club I got to catch up with some friends I hadn't seen in a while. I'm feeling very inspired by several in this one group of friends who have decided to change careers or take another similar major leap after years of doing something else. Going back to school in a completely different field, opening up their own business, etc. It's really quite amazing. Monday evening was the alumni dinner for the high school group at our church that J has been advising for several years now. Even though I've never been "officially" a leader, I really feel like I've watched these kids grow into young adults and it's so great to see them again and hear what they're up to.  Last night was the annual Christmas Eve Eve party with a different group of friends. We do a Secret Santa Exchange and the present I got this year was awesome!

Yup. That's yarn and festive socks packaged up to look like a wreath. So cute! We also got a nice little package of chocolate dipped treats AND another baggie of homemade doggie treats for Conway from another friend. So sweet and thoughtful :) I'm very grateful for all the friends I've made here!

Took this picture on my run this morning. Yes, folks, it was 58* in Cleveland on Christmas Eve. Crazy!  Now we're hanging out with J's family.  Conway is currently running around, barking and trying to get a bite of the beef brisket. :) We'll be going to church later and then having our big Christmas celebration tomorrow morning.  Looking forward to it! And also very much looking forward to seeing my parents in a few days!

What holiday traditions do you look forward to?

Happy Holidays to everyone out there!