My best run yet!

Hey Ya'll! Happy Monday to ya! I hope it's a great one and it starts your week off wonderfully!
I just had to share this morning about how I accomplished a big goal this weekend. I had the best run of my life. I don't want to toot my own horn but I was so proud of myself afterwards! My ultimate goal is to make it under or at 3 hours for my next half marathon. I'm running the Women's Half in Nashville on Sept. 24th. My pace has to be 13:44 for each mile to make it a 3 hour half marathon. I'm a run/walker so I needed to figure out my ratio to be successful! I was definintley successful because I ran 9 miles (by myself again :) in 2 hours and 58 seconds! I needed to run it in 2 hours and 3 minutes to be at a 3 hour pace. I started off with a 6 minute brisk walk and then went into 1 minute running 1 minute walking ratios. My wonderful best friend, Heather, let me borrow her garmin watch since she is off from running with a stress fracture. :( My slowest mile was 13:56! Hopefully I can upload my chart on here later today when I know what I'm doing and set up an account on the website! Sorry about no pictures today and I hope to be a better blogger this week!

Also, check out the book tab at the top of my page to see some more books I've read this year! I just finished Karen Kingsbury's newest book Learning from the Bailey Flanigan Series. It was AWESOME!

Anyways, have a blessed day!

Things that I love

Hey Ya'll! It's Wednesday and I'm sharing what I'm loving by linking up with Jamie over at This Kind of Love. 

I'm loving that this is a short week! Thank you, Labor Day!

I'm loving the cooler temperatures. Maybe not so much yesterday when it was in the 50's and raining all day long but today was nice!

I'm loving my first grade class. They are chatty but so sweet.

I'm loving pinterest and all the cute ideas I'm finding!

I'm loving, as always, my wonderful sweet hubby!


Onto linking up with Michelle from The Vintage Apple for:

I'm going to feature my "For when I have a baby" pin board this week. Sometimes I get the baby fever but I'm not ready quite yet to have kids but maybe someday in the next couple of years!

Source: google.ca via Tiffany on Pinterest

I really love this nursery. It's neutral but so elegant!

Source: etsy.com via Tiffany on Pinterest

I absolutely love this closet! So stinkin cute!

Source: None via Tiffany on Pinterest

I really like this cowboy nursery for a little boy! This would be perfect for down here in Tennessee!

Have a great rest of the week!

You can find more of my pins here:

 

Summersville Lake, WV

 My Daddy cooking in the dutch ovens :) We had pot roast with carrots and potatoes and an amazing apple cobbler!

 My brother, Jacob, and his jet ski. We had so much fun taking turns riding on it!

 The beautiful Summersville Lake!

My parents silly dog, tanner. He was afraid of the shutter noise on my camera and hid under my parents bed.

Well Ya'll, I thought I'd start off with the pictures to get ya hooked! (Actually I thought I could just move the pictures down so I could write first, but let's be honest, I'm tired and wanted to write this post before I forgot to!) We had such a great time over labor day weekend. It was great getting to be with my parents and brothers. Derek and I left Friday after school and didn't get to my parents until late. We then stayed there and got up the next morning to drive to Summersville Lake (about 2 hours away from mom and dad's). We got there, relaxed, went on my brother's jet ski, layed on rafts in the lake, ate, made a camp fire, etc. Sunday morning, my brother Adam ran 11 miles with me for my half marathon training. I did it in 2:45. Wish I could've been a little faster but we had to go down and up this HUGE MASSIVE GINORMOUS hill that was about 1/2 mile long.  Sunday afternoon we relaxed with some friends, The Hunts, from my parents church (the church I grew up in) on their boat! We had a blast! Derek also water skiied for the first time and got up on the first try! He looked awesome! Monday came too soon and we had to say our goodbyes and head home.

Luckily tomorrow is already Wednesday!! Hoping I can jump back on to what I'm loving and pinteresting wednesdays tomorrow. If not, I know you'll still love me, right?

What did you do over Labor day weekend? Travel or stay home?

Have a wonderful, restful evening!

Happy September!

Hey Ya'll! I'm so sorry that I've been an absent blogger. I blame it on the school year and how crazy it is!

I am so excited for fall! I can't wait for the weather to cool down a bit. It's still in the high 90s here in Nashvegas.....NOT FALL! I'm very excited for the long weekend coming up! I can't wait to recap our weekend! I'm running my longest run for my training this weekend. 11 miles with my brother, Adam.

I wanted to tell you what I'm most excited to do/looking forward to this upcoming season:
*Cooler weather
*Colorful leaves
*Apple Cider
*Pumpkins
*Fall Wreath on the front door
*Scarecrows
*Pumpkin Spice Lattes
*Boots
*Sweater Dresses
*College Football! GO WVU!
*Pumpkin bread
*Chili, potato soup, and beef stew
*Crockpot dinners


What are you most excited for this coming season?

Camping Classroom

Teacher week Wednesday is all about your classroom. Since I wrote a post about my classroom a few days ago, I'll just add the link in this post! I'm not finished with the room quite yet even though this is the second full week of school. Also, I have to add more pictures of an awesome addition to our classroom library. STAY TUNED!!



Thanks Ya'll for reading! Check out my 1st grade camp out!
Link up with Blog Hoppin' to share your classroom pics!

Teacher Talk Tuesday

Teacher Talk Tuesday- Top ten things newbie teachers should know. The first year is always survival mode but trust me, it gets way better after that!

10. Establish classroom procedures the 1st day of school. If you teach little ones, like me, stretch those out between the first couple of days but PRACTICE those explicitly EVERY DAY for several weeks. They will catch on!

9. Be organized- I'm still working on this one :)

8. COMMUNICATION is KEY! Communicate with your teammates, staff, parents, other students in the building, etc. I use email communication a lot with my parents and notes for the most part.

7. Don't be afraid to ask for help. If I wouldn't have had my awesome 1st grade team my first year, I wouldn't be where I am today. I still need them and we work awesome as a team but being hired to teach for the first time 1 day before school started was completely overwhelming and they helped me out so much! This is not only about asking for help with co-workers, ask parents to volunteer as well!


6.  Make to-do lists! Prioritize what is important and what needs to get done first!

5. Be a life long learner- read new books that will improve your teaching, go to professional development, check out all these amazing teaching blogs, etc.

4. Smile to everyone you see in the school! Smiling in contagious!

3. Be flexible! Things will not go as planned and you have to just go with the flow. If you don't get something done on your lesson plans that day, carry it over to the next day.

2. Have fun and stay positive!

1. Most importantly, take care of yourself and your family. We can get caught up in school work that we forget what is most important. If we don't take time for ourselves to recharge, burn out and sickness will occur.

Hop on over to Blog Hoppin' to play along!

Teacher week-Monday

Meet the Teacher Monday

Tell us a little something about you...

Hi, I'm Tiffany! A 24 year old wife and teacher...I'm married to the most wonderful man ever!  We have been married for a little over a 2 years. This is my third year of teaching and I've only taught 1st grade. I live in the Nashville area and LOVE the south! I'm originally from WV and I have two younger brothers. I graduated from Mount Vernon Nazarene University in Ohio. I am a huge WVU football fan! Go Mountaineers! My husband is a Buckeye fan....but we won't hold that against him! :) I love to take pictures! I got a Canon Rebel xsi DSLR camera this summer for my birthday/anniversary and I love to go around towns and find architectural letters made from the buildings. I hope to share my work, maybe open up shop when I get a chance to learn how to edit pictures. I love to read, exercise (run/walk, zumba, xbox kinect games, etc) I'm training for my 4th half marathon! I love Jesus, spending time with my family, making new recipes, hanging out with friends and cinnamon dolce lattes :)

How long have you been teaching?

This is my third year teaching.  I have taught 1st grade for all three years.  I *love* first grade.  I had taught the ESL (English as a second language) kiddos last year and am teaching them again this year! I LOVE IT! Firsties are so silly and cute. There is never a dull moment! Seriously, I just love them! 

What are you looking most forward to this school year?

I'm most looking forward to seeing the growth in all my kiddos. Especially the sweet kiddo that came from Russia that speaks no English! I'm so excited to see this child learn English and see their growth! I'm also looking forward to seeing how the "Bucket Filling" Strategy works in my classroom!

What do you need to improve?

I would like to work on a few things.  First of all, I want to manage my time better before and after school so I don't wind up in my classroom late or on the weekends.

 Secondly, I want to accomplish learning and teaching our new Envision math curriculum with success!

Lastly, I want to be more organized and make sure I don't ignore cut short my writing time.

What teaching supplies can you *not* live without? 

My Promethean board! I couldn't live without that amazing piece of technology! 

Smelly stickers! I love them and the kids love them! I want to get some smelly markers and flair pens!

I love big chart paper.

Sharpies! Lots of colorful sharpies

Books, books, and more books!  It's another crazy addiction!

Hop on over to join the party!!