Weird Running Shoes

23 May 2007, 2:05 pm by Giggles
Categories: Exercise, Random

There are all kinds of different running shoes. Today I saw these: Vibram Fivefingers. They looked too weird to even consider when I first saw them. But I’ve been looking at them, and the more I think about it, the more I can see myself wearing them and really enjoying them, especially in the summer. They’d be great for short jogs or doing yoga outdoors. I like doing yoga. I need to do more yoga. I need to go running more too. So I’ll think about it some more, and maybe some day when I need new running shoes, I’ll look into these.

1 Shared thought

Lloyd Alexander 1924-2007

20 May 2007, 9:55 pm by Giggles
Categories: Books

Lloyd Alexander passed away on Friday. His wife had died two weeks earlier. They had been married for 61 years. It makes me smile that they were not parted for long.

Lloyd Alexander was an author, especially of children’s books. I was introduced to him during my children’s literature class at BYU my third year there. We were assigned to read a lot of books for that class that I had never read before. I have never enjoyed buying books for a class the way I did for that one. There were a few we read that I didn’t like. I remember not liking Tuck Everlasting at all. But there were several I did like and I really enjoyed learning about different authors that I might have missed otherwise.

But I fell in love with The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander. It is the first book in the Prydain Chronicles, a series of five books about Taran, Eilonwy, Gurgi, Flewddur Fflam, and Doli, commonly referred to as the Companions. The final book in the series, The High King, won the Newbery Award in 1969. After finishing the first book, which was assigned for class, I quickly went out and checked the other four out from the library and could not put them down, even while I was walking to and from class. I would have to put them behind my back when I was crossing streets so I would remember to look for cars. I distinctly remember walking past the MARB and Clyde buildings on campus reading the last one with tears coming down my face at the sacrifices the Companions were making to fight evil. They are great books.

About five years ago, when I was looking for a name to use on the internet, before my students named me Miss Giggles, I was trying to think of something that would be me. I thought something from a book would be great, since I love to read, and particularly from a children’s book. I wanted something a bit uncommon. And I needed a name that had a lot of personality with it. The obvious choice for me seemed to be Eilonwy, the magical princess with the red gold hair who would rather be out fighting with the men then back home doing needle work. She speaks her mind, often to the annoyance of Taran. And so for the last five years my friends have known me as Eilonwy, and on occasion, Gurgi, for those days when I’m feeling a bit off.

I think I’ll go read the Prydain Chronicles again.

1 Shared thought

The Big Bad Gas Station

17 May 2007, 11:57 am by Giggles
Categories: Exercise, Random

Tuesday was supposed to be a day when nobody bought gas. Because that was going to show the gas station people who was boss. There was a whole email thing being forwarded to everyone. Luckily, none of my friends sent it to me. Mr. Me posted it on his blog if you are interested. You can check the story out on Snopes.com as well. KSL news also did a story, both before and after, about how bogus the idea was. But that didn’t stop the bagger at the grocery store Monday night from telling me not to buy gas the next day. He was very disappointed when I told him it wasn’t going to make a difference, but he still told the person behind me not to buy gas too.

I didn’t buy gas on Tuesday, but that’s because I didn’t need to. I bought gas on Friday instead. Better than not buying gas on a certain day is buying less gas all together, going to the gas station less often. So that’s what I’m working on. I’ve started setting my cruise control to 65mph when I’m on the freeway. Doing just that added 100-150 miles per each tank! And that really cuts down on how often I have to fill up. I also live just a few blocks from the bank, the grocery store, and my Saturday job. So I walk to all of those places when I can, which also cuts down on how much gas I use.

And Monday, I got a lot of exercise. I only had one thing on my calendar, so I walked. It happened to be a little more than five miles from my house, so I walked just over ten miles on Monday. My hip felxors were very sore Monday night, and my backside was sore Tuesday and Wednesday. But I’m very impressed that I was able to make it. And thinking about how far it was and how much gas costs right now and what the miles per gallon is with my car right now, I saved a little over $1 walking on Monday. Not much, but it adds up. And I can always use a good excuse to get outside and get some exercise.

Share your thoughts

The drive to work

16 May 2007, 9:47 pm by Giggles
Categories: Random, Work

I live six miles from work. I take one left turn and two right turns on the drive. When I started driving to work four years ago there were ten stop lights along the way. About two years ago they added an eleventh. And this week they put up the twelfth, although it probably won’t be turned on till next week. I blame Wal-Mart for both of those lights.

Two of those original ten lights are timed extremely poorly, but only in the morning on my way to work. If you have to stop at the first one, you are almost guaranteed you’ll have to stop at the next one a quarter of a mile away. An hour after I get to work they change the timing on it so you generally only have to stop at one of them. I’m not sure what they were thinking with the timing of those.

I drive out of Orem, through Lindon, and into Pleasant Grove. Lindon is really skinny and it doesn’t take long to drive through it. But there is the Lindon hill, which I go down on my way to work. It is a long enough hill that you can pick up more than 5 mph in speed without touching your gas while you go down it. There have been many, many mornings where the person right in front of me got pulled over for speeding at the bottom of that hill. I’m grateful for those people because otherwise it would’ve been me who got pulled over. I’ve learned to watch for cops sitting at the bottom of the hill, and I’ve learned when to start coasting at the top so I’m still pretty close to the speed limit when I get to the bottom. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a cop there though.

My favorite part of the drive though, at any time of the day (because I have gone in to work at 11pm before), is just as I’m approaching the Lindon hill. Off in the distance I can see the Mt. Timpanogos temple. In the morning the sun has usually broken through the canyon just far enough to light it up. At night it is lit up beyond the small house lights between where I am and where it is. Seeing it is a moment to pause and breathe and relax on my way to work. And since I’m not a morning person, that is a much needed moment when I’m driving to work in the morning.

Share your thoughts

On the Radio

15 May 2007, 1:06 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Happy Things, Work

KSL radio features a different Utah teacher every Tuesday morning as their Teacher Feature feature. People submit letters to the station nominating different teachers and then people at the station and the state office of education go through the letters and pick a teacher to honor every week.

This morning they said this on the radio: radio clip. The clip misses the first second or two where they say “This week’s featured teacher is…” and then they say the name and where they teach.

And then, when I got to work, I had to talk to a newspaper reporter for the local paper about the movies that fourth grade made.

Not a bad way to start a work week.

3 Shared thoughts

Be Sure to Wear Some Flowers in Your Hair

13 May 2007, 6:09 pm by Giggles
Categories: Family, Happy Things

There are a lot of flowers that are associated with memories for me. All good ones. I love a lot of flowers specifically for the memory they bring to mind. One favorite flower is the snowball flower bush (Viburnum opulus for those of you who want to know exactly what it is, at least that’s what I’ve been able to figure out after doing quite a bit of internet searching). The first house our family lived in had these bushes lining the entire back wall in the backyard. I remember cutting them and putting them in my hair when I was little.

It just so happens that there are two snowball bushes growing in my apartment complex. So this morning I got dressed enough to go outside and went over and cut two small snowballs off and came back home. I curled my hair and then put the flowers in my hair. I love it. I felt so pretty with just a simple little thing. And even better, my hair stayed curled all day, which is amazing considering how long it is getting right now.

I took a picture of the flowers, unfortunately you can’t see all the flowers nor my curly hair. It’s just too hard to take a picture of the back of your own head.

1 Shared thought

Movie Premier

11 May 2007, 3:43 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Science & Tech, Work

Today was the movie premier party for my fourth graders. They have been working on stop motion movies for the last two months. They worked in groups of 2-3 to figure out what objects they wanted to use, take all the pictures they needed, and then put the pictures together complete with title credits and sound effects. It has been a lot of fun for me to teach them the last few months because they’ve been so excited about class.

With all the work they put into these, and because all 40 movies were barely 12 minutes all together, I decided it would be best to watch them all with all the classes together. So I worked with their classroom teachers and for the last half hour of school today they all got together for the premier. I popped 36 bags of microwave popcorn last night and today so that all 118 of them would have popcorn to watch the movies with. I even laid out some red butcher paper on the floor in front of the door so they could all walk the red carpet into the movies.

They loved them. They all did a great job. Their teachers were very impressed with what their students had done. The few parents who came were also impressed with what their kids had done. I showed a few of them for my graduate class on teacher research and they couldn’t believe that fourth graders had made them.

Today was a good day at work, and I didn’t even work today.

Share your thoughts