:) :) :)

I know a toasted hoagie roll + 7 a.m. caramel frappe are NOT the ways to properly carb-up for an afternoon run but I suddenly and deeply understand the whole "Me Time" thing ... I am in love with this so-good-it's-hideous, so-bad-it's-awesome concoction of a week's worth of empty calories and fat stuffed into a tiny cup of pure joy, topped off with more whipped cream than anyone should ever, ever be allowed to consume in one happy sitting. Love.

At least I order a small every time.

Kids met awesome new DARE officer and NFL player-turned-motivational speaker Eason Ramson all in one day - exciting for them! We're also being trained to administer HSA online this Spring - exciting for us! Only one of those statements was sarcastic. Actually, if the whole online testing thing can get its act together and iron out the numerous kinks, it seems like a promising incarnation of the dreaded assessment. While initially intimidating, the computer (for some kids) is actually a much better medium for testing. They are given multiple opportunities to test, cannot erase a hole in the screen, and legibility is no longer a concern. (It's still a concern IRL, of course, but when was the test ever about real life?)

Neckish/backish injury kept us (well, me) literally out of the running for a little under a week, and I'm itching to go today - the first day since my odd injury that I've woken up and stayed completely pain-free all day. We're scheduled for four miles today, but I don't do four of anything, so it might be three, but hopefully five.

Got RAP on Thursday night - I did not find the first session as fab as I'd hoped - too much Vegas-style hype over pizza and big-ticket prizes (I'm talking $50 D & B gift cards, body boards, etc.) taking the emphasis off the kids' love of reading, which I had hoped would be the focus of the program. It's why I got involved in the first place. I wanted to read with fifth- and sixth-graders, and I ended up fixing torn nametags and coaxing shy two-year-olds to get within ten feet of the Toddler Reader instead. I guess we'll see how the second session goes. After Thurs it'll be two down, four to go. Furlough madness on Friday (usually consists of some kind of hike + domestic maintenance), another session of Exploring Literature Through Creative Movement PD on Saturday, and whatever we're doing for Valentine's Day on Sunday. (I hope it involves a lot of sleep.) Monday is Presidents' Day, which means GAR! Eight-point-one miles ... and this time, there will be no McDonald's bathroom breaks. I looked over our 2-hour plus time last year and realized it would have been way less pathetic minus the potty break at McD's, where a girl went in and mysteriously never came back out, holding the rest of us up for 20 - 30 minutes (honestly, I didn't time it. And honestly, our time this year would still be better even if we did spend 30 minutes in a fast-food restroom, because this year we bothered to train.)

Oh, and bc it's that time of year, the second half of Pres Day will be spent meeting with my co-chair for this year's ACUW fashion show. I always feel so jazzed for the whole thing around October - model roll call, the fashion, the exuberant meetings with talented and feisty professionals, the fittings ... and when springtime rolls around, have lost the taste for it. Gotta get back into it by Monday.

Time to go home and run!