2016 Reflections Highs & Lows

Unboxing BoxyCharm December 2016

2018 Travel Plans: Paris, Venice, and Vienna!

I booked another trip! I'm so excited about it!

Yay!

London

Lara in London

As I sit on the edge between summer and back to school, my inspirations are mixed...my trip, back to school, my trip, kindergarten....it's as it should be.

But I want to pay homage to my trip, as well I should. It was amazing. It really was once in a lifetime because I really don't care to go back to Rome again....but more about that in another post (don't worry, it was okay but I didn't LOVE it.)

So, London.....

I flew directly to London from San Francisco. I was nervous that I would need to ask for a seat belt extender which at that time, I thought would be the worst part of my trip. 

And I was mistaken...oh, not because I didn't need a seat belt extender, I was too large by an inch (but only an inch) but the universe chose to give me a lesson: being fat is not the worst thing can happen happen on a flight! 

Because these things can happen:

1) you can sit by a crying baby/toddler

2) you can sit next to a mansprawler (a man who sits with his knees spread wide apart)

3) you can sit next to a loud snorer

4) you can sit next to someone who twitches in his sleep

5) the plane can hit turbulence 

Or if you need a lesson in humility, ALL OF THESE THINGS CAN HAPPEN TO YOU. I tried and I tried, but I got no sleep on that flight, despite my exhaustion.

Lesson learned, the next flight I needed an extender and it really didn't bother me. It became the least of my worries.

My hotel: Hilton Kensington

But I arrived in London and got to my hotel (Hilton Kensington) and after a quick nap, was ready to meet my tour group.

My tour directer's name was Pascal. He met my car wearing a linen suit and looking very much like a British professor. He seemed kind so I figured it would be a good and instructional trip.

At dinner, I met my groupmates. Most of the people were from Texas, a few were from Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey...I was the furtherest west from California. 

Everyone seemed pleasant and there were 3 teachers including me in the group.

My hotel was right by Notting Hill a few blocks away from a very wealthy part of London (William and Kate live there). London is pretty flat and it was easy to walk around my neighborhood. 

I had to wear an earpiece during my tours.

The first day, I walked with a family to a small grocery store a few blocks away. And I saw a woman who looked familiar. It was Julianne Moore. And it wasn't, "Oh, that looks like her." It WAS her! She was shopping with her family and at one point, I was in her way and she said "Excuse me." to me. She was dressed casually in a denim jacket and wearing a hat, but she was still beautiful. And oh so tiny. I mean height wise. I wanted to respect her privacy, so I pretended that I didn't recognize her. I did run to my travel companions for a "ohmygod! isawjuliannemoore! andshe'srightoverthere!" moment. 

My neighborhood

When I booked my tour, I didn't realize just how much free time I would have. The mornings were for tours and excursions but the afternoons were totally up to you. Which was good and kinda eh at the same time. 

I didn't really want to be alone that much. Not in a city. 

Don't worry, I had a good time, but I didn't feel like wondering around that much. I did a little bit, after my city tour of London, I was the first to venture away from my tour group (they went to Windsor Castle and I didn't want to, so Pascal took me aside to ask what I wanted to do and then told me how to do it.) So with Pascal's direction, I walked from Buckingham Palace to The London Eye as my excursion had been cancelled. I got to walk past the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben on my way. The streets were super crowded with tourists but it was an easy walk. I also stopped in the Sea Life aquarium right by the London Eye. I got a deal on the price of the tickets. 

View of the Houses of Parliament from the London Eye

The London Underground

I took the Underground back to the hotel. The stop I had planned on taking was closed, so I took the one before it. I didn't realize that the stop after the closed one was a half block from my hotel but that's okay. I don't think my sense of direction was up to par with that one just yet. I just had to walk more that day, but it was a straight shoot from the station to the hotel. 

St. Paul's Cathedral

The next day, I took a tour of St. Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside but the day was beautiful and between churches, I stopped and had a snack at this little square where they had set up ping pong tables and people working in the nearby buildings started playing each other. 

One thing kinda bugged me about the tour. My local tour guide (not Pascal) for the day had another tour booked for Westminster Abbey later that day. Which would have been fine, but our bus driver got a little lost and she was running late. So she rushed Westminster. Hey fine, but after we saw Queen Elizabeth & and her sister, Queen Mary (known in history as Bloody Mary) burial spots, she rushed us to the Poet's Corner....right past Mary Queen of Scots, but not letting us go in. 

Westminster Abbey

Mary, Queen of Scots

If you've known me awhile, you'd know that I know my Tudor history, after all, thanks to Ancestory.com, I know that I am descended from the Tudor line (and the Woodville one too!). So to walk by such a figure of history (and a strong Queen at that) and not pay my respects, well, that was just not happening! What would my mother think!?! So before she had a chance to rush us out the door, I told her that I wanted to go back and see Mary, Queen of Scots. The tour guide laughed and asked if I was a Tudor history fan. I replied, "Oh yes, and my mother will kill me if I don't see her!" I wasn't joking though. I was determined.

You better believed I paid my respects.

Platform 9 3/4

After that, I took the underground to King's Cross. Harry Potter fans will recognize that station as the one with Platform 9 3/4 to the Hogwarts Express. I went to the store there and picked out items for my family.

Before I left, I made everyone take the sorting quiz on Pottermore.com to find their Hogwarts House. My plan was then to get a little something with their house on it. (Which actually caused some drama with not everyone liking their house ~ my mom got Slytherin!!)

I went back to my hotel and wanted to get something for dinner. I started walking around and I ran into a couple from my tour group. They invited me to join them for dinner and I was happy to do so. We had some amazing pizza.

The next day, we left London to take the EuroStar to Paris. 

I like London but I wasn't charmed by it like I was so many years ago. It's a city, with a lot of new skyscrapers and I felt the mismatch of the buildings made it hard for me to get a sense of London's vibe. Plus, there were so many tourists. I didn't walk around a lot and maybe if I wasn't alone, I would have. 

I'd like to go back again but with a travel buddy to really explore the city.

Next time: Paris was all I dreamed it would be and more!

I sat under this monument and ate a snack

Trafalgar Square

Tower Bridge

Big Ben

City street with view of the London Eye

Buckingham Palace

Statue of Boudicca with the London Eye - she was an ancient queen who burnt the city to the ground

This Isn't Real....

And yet it is! 

I'm talking about my trip to Europe this summer.

Remember when I was going to Iceland, how all I could talk about was Iceland...I'm seeing THIS! and THIS! I even showed videos about Iceland to my students.

But this trip is such a dream come true, not only did I burst into tears when I booked it that I haven't been able to even talk about it that much. Because it doesn't seem real....like it's not really going to ever happen. 

But everything is book and paid for....so I've decided to bask in the amazingness that is this trip.

First of all, I would have never booked this trip if it hadn't been for my Uncle Denny passing away. He was married to my Aunt Kim, who was a travel agent and together they traveled the world. My aunt passed away several years ago and my uncle soon followed. Not having any children of their own, they left money to their niece, nephews, and extended cousins. I was going to be super smart about my money, but I felt what better way to honor their memory was to do something amazing with it.

So I booked a trip to London, Paris, and Rome for this summer. I decided to travel with a group this time, instead of by myself like I did when I went to Iceland. 

London, England

So here is my dream trip!

Day One: 

Overnight flight to London 

Day Two:

Arrive in London!

Group dinner to meet everyone in my tour group

Day Three: 

Sightseeing Tour of London:

*Pass the grand Trafalgar Square and Baroque-style St. Paul's Cathedral

*See Westminster Abbey

*View Big Ben, the London Eye, and the Tower of London

Enjoy a free afternoon of London (and trust me, I WILL!)

Westminster Abbey

Day Four:

Free Day in London BUT I booked these excursions:

-St. Paul's Cathedral & Westminster Abbey

-London Eye and Pub Dinner

**Note on London: given my love of Tudor History, you might find it odd that I will NOT be visiting the Tower of London. The reason is that I was there when I was 16 years old and my mother let me run around the Tower all on my own and I had such a blast and it was one of my favorite experiences ever. Since I will never recreate that feeling, I thought, why bother? It's not like they've changed it and there's more I would like to see.**

Day Five:

Train trip to Paris (on the high-speed Eurostar Train that goes under the English Channel to Gare du Nord in Paris)

Day Six: 

Paris, France

Sightseeing Tour of Paris:

*Drive down the Champs-Élysées  in view of the Arc de Triomphe

*Pass Pont Neuf and Notre-Dame Cathedral

*See the Eiffel Tower, the Palais Garnier Opera House and Place de la Concorde

*See the Louvre and Hotel des Invalides

Excursion: The Palace of Versailles and Gardens

Day Seven:

Free Day in Paris BUT I booked these excursions:

-Luxembourg Gardens and Notre-Dame Cathedral

-Dinner in Paris and Seine River Cruise (with Paris all lit up!!!)

Day Eight: 

Flight from Paris to Rome

Coloseeum

Day Nine:

Free Day in Rome BUT I booked this excursion:

-Iconic sights: Vatican City (I'll see the Vatican museums and the Sistine Chapel)

Day Ten:

Sightseeing Tour of Rome:

*Pass by Trajan's Column and Piazza Venezia

*Stop at the ruins of the ancient Roman Forum

*View the Arch of Constantine, the Arch of Titus and the Temple of Venus and Roma

*Enter the Colosseum (there I can explore on my own)

Enjoy a free afternoon in Rome

Farewell Dinner with tour group

I think this is the Forum

Day Eleven:

Flight back home

And there you have it! It's exactly what I wanted. It's a quick stop to see places I've always wanted to see. And now that I know I can pay off a trip a little each month, it's opened up a world of travel that I didn't know was open to me. So I can come back and explore areas more in depth another time. It's super exciting and it is still not real that I am going on this trip! It makes me so happy!

To quote Jane Austen: "How shall I bear so much happiness!" (Pride and Prejudice)

It's still a dream......

I Teach K Conference

I requested more training to improve my Kindergarten Teacher Toolbox. A teacher toolbox is a figurative toolbox containing all your teacher knowledge and know how. If you come across a problem or your students aren't responding to your normal procedure/instruction, then you reach into your toolbox and can pull out another method to try.

It doesn't mean that I don't know how to teach, it's just maybe there's a better method to doing something that I can try. 

And I will be honest with you: I do not enjoy teaching the beginning part of Kindergarten. 

It's not just the fact that I have to focus on the procedures of being at school, I don't enjoy what I am supposed to be teaching, namely introduction to the alphabet. I have been teaching it the same way for the last three years and I think there's a better way out there. 

Typically, after Winter Break is when I start to love what I teach. Yes, the children have the procedures down by then and are more independent but we also move from whole group instruction to Guided Literacy Groups and I have my stations going with different activities while I pull small groups of students and work with them at their reading level because if you don't know, some children come into my classroom not knowing the alphabet and some come in already able to read. I love my Literacy Groups because I can meet my students where they are and take them to the next level. 

I want to start my groups earlier in the school year. I want to spend time teaching the independent activities so that it my students will know what to expect before they go on Winter Break. But to do this, I have to completely change how I have been structuring the beginning part of the year, but at the same time, I am totally excited to do this since I need to make changes anyways. 

I went to my principal and we talked about what I want to do in my teaching. She was so supportive that she is sending me to the National I Teach K Conference in Las Vegas this summer. So many tools for my toolbox!

I feel like this will help me really zero in on teaching Kindergarten. After teaching 2nd Grade for so many years, there are some aspects of Kindergarten that I would like to be more aware of. I feel like my eyes are being awoken to all the possibilities!

Here are the sessions I am signed up for: 

*Fabulous Fine-Motor Fun (a total Kindergarten thing)

*Bringing the Outdoors in & Taking the Standards Out (toolbox)

*The Magic of Music & Movement (granted, we sing a lot but there's so much more!)

*Teach Sight Words So They Stick! (I hope to move away from relying on homework)

*Kick Learning Up a Notch with Literacy Center Fun (more activities!!)

*Phonemic Awareness & Phonics Fun (toolbox)

*Interactive Read-alouds through Deliberate Instruction (not covered in my teacher college)

*How to Re-Tool Your Busy Day to Get Everything Done (YES! PLEASE!)

As I've said before, I'm a good teacher. I can and do teach children to read, write, count, add & subtract. I am the best teacher that I can be at this moment. I have even won a local radio station's Teacher of the Month.

Me rocking R2D2 on the front page

But my goal is to be an amazing Kindergarten Teacher. 

Three years ago, I was handled materials and told, "This is how we do it in K." Well, hang on to your hats, cause I'm about to shake things up! 

Pintrest Teacher Bloggers

I've been teaching Kindergarten (K) for three years now. There are aspects I truly love about K, but there are also aspects that I don't love. I like my end result but I think there is room for improvement. 

Looking to make some changes/overhauls in my teaching, I went looking for inspiration. I turned to the internet to see what other K teachers around the country were doing. 

And there I met the Pintrest Teacher Bloggers. 

The Pintrest Teacher Blogge

Their classrooms are immaculate, beautifully decorated and organized, and their lessons/projects are delightfully created with cute images and sweet fonts....and all of the lessons are available for purchase on Teachers Pay Teachers! (And some actually have stores where you can buy the decor!)

Now, I love Teachers Pay Teachers, because my classroom is not immaculate, beautifully decorated and organized and when I created a lesson/projects it tends to be very linear and handwritten with a sharpie. But I can go on this site and I can look like I am a Pintrest Teacher Blogger. 

And I love my Pintrest! I get ideas for organization, decor, anchor charts, and projects. 

These are all great resources that let me fake being a Pintrest Teacher Blogger, but I wasn't finding the inspiration that I needed. Because there is more to teaching than decor, organization, projects, and worksheets....and any teacher will tell you that. 

I wanted to dive in and be inspired by everything K. I checked out blogs that showed 5 year olds writing like Second Graders the first 3 weeks of school. Oh, really? Pictures of every child behaving and following directions....

These teachers remind me of images of the perfect housewife of the 50's, vacuuming in pearls and heels.

I'm so prepared and organized!

I like to think of myself as a good teacher but next to these teachers, I'm quite inept. 

So I've decided to embrace my role as an Inept Teacher Blogger. 

JUST like the teacher guide!

Like today, we built 2D and 3D shapes using marshmallows and toothpicks. And I posted a picture of one of my students building beautiful shapes, like right out of the teacher's manual! But I didn't take a picture of the marshmallow that was stabbed with 20 toothpicks. I should have in retrospect, because there SO MANY toothpicks...it really was a feat actually. That little boy was quite proud. 

Well from now on, I will show both sides of my classroom! The brilliant and the WTH! 

And maybe one day, a teacher looking for inspiration but not perfection will find my site and get one or two (or a hundred) good ideas that they want to try. Maybe other teachers will find this site and give me a great idea to try. 

I have nothing to sell but I will give credit when credit is due and send you over to other teacher's stores.

I've got big plans for next year and I will be heading over to the national I Teach K Conference in July this summer. 

Maybe one day I will be a Pintrest Teacher Blogger but given my preference of a blank paper and a black sharpie over cute fonts on my computer, probably not.

Diving into the past.....

My father and I don't agree on our politics. He's a Trump supporter and against unions. I am terrified of the violence and hate that stems from Trump's campaign and I am very active in my local teacher's association. After teaching up in Alaska without a union, I vowed never to teach anywhere where no one had my back. But that's a separate post I will save for another day....

And I don't need my father to agree with me. That's fine. 

You see, my father didn't raise me. My mother did. They split when I was 5. My father stayed in Connecticut and my mother moved back to California where she was from. Their story was an East Coast man meets a West Coast girl. What do you do when the story crumbles? Each person goes back to their coasts, licking their wounds. 

Most people think that I was born and raised in California. Not so, I was born in Connecticut and my parents moved back and forth from coast to coast having their babies along the coasts. They met and married in California, had me in Connecticut, my middle brother in California, and my baby brother in Maryland. Then it was back to California, where I was raised.

miss ruark in kindergarten

When I was six, my mother met my future step-father, Robert. He worked long, crazy hours and wasn't a strong presence in my childhood. But he's since retired and actually drove me to my oral surgery last week, waited 2 1/2 hours, drove me to the pharmacy, and then took me home. He's a good man.

But there's a whole chunk that I don't really refer to. I don't hide it because I'm not ashamed of it by any means...it hurts in a different way.

But more background is needed: my grandfather is wealthy. As in old money wealthy. But he comes from the beliefs that being given a large amount of money isn't a good thing. He believed that people should go out and make their own way. So when his daughters reached the age of 18, they were expected to leave his house, get a job, and start living their own life. He didn't think women needed an education, so he refused to pay for college. My mother never went to college.

When my mother left my father she had 3 kids ages 5 to 18 months, no education, no job, and nowhere to live. Her parents weren't an option. So, she went on welfare and rented a trailer in a trailer park in West Pittsburg before it became Bay Point. 

My father refused to support us. I've heard his different reasons over the years...he didn't have a job but he's also said that my mother left him to run back to her father, my grandfather. He expected my grandfather to support us.

My grandfather wasn't around much in my childhood. He didn't come in and rescue us. Someone else did.

After a year in the trailer park, my mother found out she was being evicted. We were going to move to the projects when my mother's new boyfriend (Robert) said that we could all come and live with him and his daughter. 

My mom learned a trade (medical transcription) and built up clients. She got herself off of welfare. We moved to Benicia. We weren't as poor as we were before but we never had a lot of money. I would say we were lower middle class. Instead of being able to afford a child getting the Star Wars Trilogy for Christmas, one year each of us got a movie and we put them together and shared. My movie was Star Wars: A New Hope. That's how we got presents like that. We'd get one big thing we wanted. 

My father sent gifts and called but he didn't pay child support. I didn't see him again until I was in the 3rd grade. Then he came out again the next year for a day. He was a "Disneyland Daddy". He would shower us with gifts and be super amazing and then disappear for long stretches. I saw him again when I was in high school. He was bad mouthing my mom to me and the boys so badly that the boys started being mean to my mother. I felt bad so a lot of the presents I picked out for my father to buy me were actually gifts I picked out for my mom. 

In stores, he never turned around when we called out, "Dad!" I started calling him by his given name just so he would know I was talking to him. I've never called a man Dad. If you notice, I never refer to him as my dad. 

me and my brothers around the time of the split

Dads are something special. Dads stay. Dads know you. Any man can be a father, but only a special man can be a Dad. I saw that on a card once, and it's brutal truth stuck with me.

I've tried to have a relationship with my father. There have been years where I didn't hear from him, both as a child and now as an adult. He told me once the reason he didn't call me on my 18th birthday was because he didn't have anything new to say. We really only connect through Facebook. My brothers don't have a relationship with him at this time. 

Lately, my father has been slamming my political posts on my page. It's been pissing me off. I saw a post on his page complaining about people on welfare....that was hard, doesn't he know his own children were living off of welfare? Has he forgotten? He posted that fathers and daughters are best friends for life on his page. But he didn't tag me or anything, or post it to my page. It was almost like it was for his friends to see it, to show what a good dad he is. 

Facebook is my only contact with my father and he's not making it easy. Acquaintances of mine will see his comments, see that he's my father, and think he's my dad.

So here's my truth. I need it out there. I don't want to hide it. My father was a dead beat dad who told me once that he wished my mom had gone after him and thrown him in prison for not paying child support because then he would have had the time to work on his novel. 

Not everyone has to agree with me. Not everyone has to support me. But he doesn't get to express himself on my posts. He has his own page for that. To pretend whatever thing he wants to pretend, and I leave it alone.

Geez, daddy issues much? 

The Weighting Game

I am tired of obsessing about my weight. I am tired of the constant battle between what I should be doing, what I am doing, and what I am not doing.

I have faced many obstacles to overcome in my life, but my greatest obstacle has been my weight. And what makes it even more delightful, is that my incredibly raw, heartbreaking journey is out there for everyone to see...and judge.

Oh, don't worry, I judge myself far more harshly than anyone else could.

I'm not writing this because I want pity or attention even. I've been wanting to write but felt that I haven't had much to write about because 1) I don't enjoy writing about my classroom and 2) if I'm not in my classroom, then I'm obsessing about my weight.

And who wants to read about that?

Then I figured, I'm a morbidly obese woman trying to lose weight. If I am successful, then it's a story. But the fact I haven't been successful after years of trying kinda makes it not so interesting a story.

I would love to tell you that something clicked in me and I suddenly became determined to lose this weight. I looked over and found my "why". For some, it's their kids, or another loved one....my why is that I don't want to be fat. It's completely selfish: I don't like being fat. It really sucks. 

Okay, I used the "f" word. Normally, people want to jump in and tell me that I'm still beautiful and try to make me feel better. Here's the funny thing: I don't actually think I'm ugly, I just think I'm fat and I don't like it. But I have days where I like my outfit, or my hair, or my makeup and I think I look pretty. I don't associate fat with ugliness. I can look at women of all sizes and think they are beautiful. So please don't think when I say that I am fat, I am also saying I am ugly. 

Some people might think that I am ugly. But they aren't seeing me. Granted, I don't like how people look through me or don't make eye contact with me. I think I must be lucky, being a pretty fat because I can't imagine how a homely person of my size would be treated. Ever since I dyed my hair blonde, people have seemed to notice me more and they are being nicer. I used to blend in the wall and people made a point not to look at me. I felt even more isolated from people. It's very lonely being obese.

And how people love to give me advice how to lose weight! I actually know how to lose weight and honestly, most advice isn't very accurate. Me eliminating one food item is not going to help a woman of my size...or doing anything that is "easy". 

Losing weight is freaking HARD. For me to lose weight I have to: completely change my food choices (like from scratch), write down everything I eat, count those calories (or points if I happen to be on Weight Watchers for the bazillionth time), not go over the calorie goal, drink 10+ glasses of water (bigger people need to drink more), plan my meals, exercise (making sure I mix up cardio with some strength training), get my 8 hours of sleep a night, and give up any junk/crap food like soda or sugar in the meantime.

Not only does the process suck, but I have to wait forever for the results. See, after a month of working on this every day, there won't be a very noticeable difference. That's another joy of obesity. I have to lose 10% of my weight before it's physically noticeable. So the more you weigh, the more you have to lose. I think it is very sweet when people notice that I have been making changes and they tell me that they can see the results already and they really can't. And because plus size clothing spans 20 pounds in one size, I can't even lose a dress size until I lose over 20 pounds (and most likely - closer to 30 pounds). 

I went to my doctor, to get help losing weight. I was referred to a weight loss surgeon. But I won't be taking that route. I'm actually only 15 pounds over the qualifying weight and my blood work came back that I have actually gotten healthier in the last year. And I'm okay with that, I want the freedom to try certain foods without it making me sick. Or having to obsess even more with what I eat. 

My doctor recommended I try Alli for weight loss. I was hesitant to try it, especially since some of the side effects could be messing your pants. And It Works has Fat Fighters which blocks some of the fat in a meal but doesn't have nasty side effects. But I tried the Alli.....and boy, was I sorry. It gave me a horrible headache for 4 days (I thought I was experiencing caffeine withdrawl until I realized I in no way drank that much soda!) and when I stopped taking it, I felt like I had food poisoning. I'll be sticking to my Fat Fighters, thank you very much! I don't take them regularly, so I should really start doing that.

Again with the shoulds! 

I hope that one day I can not obsess about my weight. I hope when I hit maintenance mode that diet and exercise will be such a habit, it's no longer the soul sucking annoyance it is today. And maybe I will have an inspirational story to tell after all! 

Me, as I am

In the meantime, I will just keep going....