Devils Food Cupcakes with Raspberry Buttercream Icing

I am incredibly stressed. Actually, stressed does not even begin to describe how I feel, but I can't think of any other words for it. Today I found myself so overwhelmed that I was literally in a trance staring at the wall because I didn't even know where to begin with the millions of things I have to do. So, to try and keep myself from freaking out (didn't work, just held the total meltdown at bay for a few hours) I decided to do some baking.

Today's treat? Devils food cupcakes with raspberry buttercream frosting, topped with a raspberry filled with chocolate ganache. Um, can I just say YUM! I need to bake more often, because each cupcake I make seems to be far better than the last. These are quite delicious! Chocolate and raspberry were made for each other, I swear!

So, without further ado, here is today's final product:

Now that school has started back up I can do a lot more baking! It's wonderful having a place to take all the extra cupcakes. I want to bake them because I enjoy the actual baking part; I only really want to eat one or two cupcakes. Drop these off in the lounge tomorrow morning though, and I bet they'll be gone by 9am haha.

In completely unrelated news, today during Sunday school I was holding the elevator door open waiting for all the kids to get in, and one little girl looked up at me and asked if I was an Aggie. I said yes, and asked her how she knew (thinking maybe I had said it). She pointed to my ring and told me her dad is an Aggie and so is she. LOVE that a 5 year old can already pick out an aggie ring haha! Those parents sure are raising her right ;-)

Walking Advertisement

When I was in college I had this friend who was a walking advertisement for a certain place on campus. No need to go into details, but the two of us used to joke that they should literally pay her because she was such a strong advocate of their service and pushed others to go there too. She would talk about it all the time, and rave about how great it had been for her. Like I said, walking advertisement.

I have decided that Jillian Michaels should pay me for being her walking advertisement. Seriously, my new job could be to promote her 30 day shred workout video. I'm obsessed with it! I feel like I have been talking about it all week at work. Every day someone else asks me what I have been doing to lose weight and I go into my spiel about this video. I have it down pat. Every time I include key points about what makes the video great, easy to do, and effective. I am a total nerd! haha If you click in the comments of the post before this you can see I even gave my little spiel there. I'm weird, I know.

30 Day Shred

Some of you know that I have been doing the 30 day shred workout this summer. I started to try it at the beginning of the summer, but when I went out of town I missed a few days, and when I came back I never did it again. Well, about a month ago when I got back from Vegas, I decided to try it again. I figured I had 26 days until school started so it was the perfect time as I would be just about done by the time I was back to work. This time around I PROMISED myself that I was going to do it for 30 straight days. I told myself that if I didn't do it every day for 30 days then I was going to have to start over at day 1. I am happy to report that today was day 30, and I did not miss one single day! I am super proud of myself for sticking with it!

I hadn't weighed myself pretty much all summer. When I gain weight I am extremely hesitant to step on the scale, because it sort of really freaks me out (and weight gain seems to have been the trend for the past 2 years since leaving college ... not good). I knew what I weighed at the beginning of the summer, and I didn't want to weigh myself again until I was pretty sure I had lost a good amount of weight, like 10 pounds or so. After starting back to work this week, I had a number of people comment that I looked great, like I had lost a good amount of weight. I don't really see it; but I guess I see myself every day. (although, if you follow me on twitter you know that a week or so ago I tried on some old clothes that haven't fit in a year or so and they all fit, so I guess I had at least toned up a little bit). Today, at the end of my 30 day shred workout, I weighed myself.

GUESS WHO LOST 16 POUNDS?!?

YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY!

Guess who has a whole closet of clothes that fit her again, and thus does not need to buy new clothes for the fall? Double YAY!

Today is a marvelous day! :)

Is my leg broken?!?

I don't have a clue who actually reads this blog, so you may or may not already have heard the story about me falling down the stairs. If you have, skip the next paragraph and move on to the third. If you haven't, keep reading.

3 1/2 weeks ago I was running late for church on Sunday. I put on a new pair of shoes, headed out the door, and down the stairs to my car. Since these shoes were new, they were quite slick on the bottom. Can you see where this is headed? I most definitely fell down the concrete stairs at my apartment, and it sure did hurt! I sort of laid on the steps for a minute trying to decide if my leg was broken or not ... I decided not. My leg was in some severe pain, and was completely cut and bruised up, but like I said, I was running late for church, so I just had to suck it up and deal.

Well, it's been 3 1/2 weeks since this falling down the stairs incident. My leg STILL hurts like heck to even touch, and you can still see a large bruise on it (or it might just be a scar from where it was scraped, I can't really tell). Well, since it has been so long since it happened I started to really inspect it to see what the heck is wrong since it's not getting better. I've asked a few people and the consensus is that I have a lump on my leg. Either one part is inflamed into a bump, or one part is dented in. Either way, My shin is not flat anymore. I know people can get bumps on their head if they fall, but can you also get bumps on your leg?!? Or is this something I may need to worry about? Thoughts?

Before I leave you, I thought I would share a random story from my day. This morning I was reading a story to my class and they were sitting on the carpet in front of me. This one little girl kept inching closer and closer to my feet. Before I knew it, she was tapping her finger on my big toenail. I sort of moved my foot and ignored it, but that didn't stop her. She tapped/rubbed my big toenail throughout the entire story! Kids can be so strange sometimes! haha

hugs

Today my kids were sitting at their desks working silently (shocking compared to last year's chatty class lol!) and I was sitting at my guided reading table grading the math pretests they had taken earlier in the day. One little boy stood up and walked over to stand next to me. I turned to him, about to ask him what he needed and why he was out of his seat, and before I could say anything he blurted out, "Ms. McCormack, you were the nicest teacher in first grade and I am SO lucky to have you in second grade!" Before I could say a single word he wrapped his arms around my neck tightly and is gave me the biggest hug ever. That made my whole day! :)

first day of school

As far as first days go, today was surprisingly wonderful! (shockingly enough haha)

The first day is never fun. For one, the kids can come in the room at 7:30. That means you have to have something to keep them occupied independently from 7:30 until about 8:15 when announcements are over. That extra 20 minutes of kid time in the classroom is killer! Secondly, outclass is only 30 minutes long, not 45. That's another 15 minutes with kids that you don't normally have.  I like my breaks, they are necessary, the first day is hard haha.

Anyway, I had a bunch of very excited kids this morning.  One nice thing about teaching kids you already know is that there isn't much of a teacher-student learning curve.  They came in, we went quickly over rules, and we got working. We actually did real work today, not just busy work! It's not often you teach much of anything other than rules the first day, so I would call this a definite success.

And, I have to admit, it does make me feel pretty good to be stopped by MANY of these second graders so they can tell me, "It's not fair, I wish I could be in your class this year!" There is no shortage of love for me from these kids. I even got a first day gift from a student who is not in my class this year haha.

I'll update more later, but for now I have got to figure out what the heck we are going to do all day tomorrow! I have wasted 4 hours just sitting around this evening haha. Just wanted to let you know that I survived day one.  1 day down, 179 to go.

*edit*

I forgot to add that I got a great gift from another student that is in my class this year. Her mom is a teacher (on my team actually) so she knows what it's like. Anyway, she brought me some chocolate kisses, a scented oil diffuser to make my room smell nice, and a bottle of ibuprofen. I laughed out loud when I pulled that bottle of ibuprofen out of the gift bag. What an appropriate gift for the first day! haha

Quilt Retreat 2009

This past weekend was been a nice relaxing break from the reality of my life.  I probably didn't have time to take a break from my life (actually, I KNOW I didn't have time to take a break), but oh well.  

Just like last summer, I drove up to Milford, Texas (North of Waco about half way to Dallas/Ft Worth) with a bunch of ladies for a quilting retreat. We stayed at this bed and breakfast that is made for groups of quilters or scrapbookers.  It's really nice, because apart from the rooms where you stay, they have this large craft room set up so that each person staying has their own large workstation. They have cutting tables set up, ironing boards, and craft walls, so it's very convenient for you to work.  Plus, they fix these amazing meals so you pretty much get to just stuff yourself silly and quilt for a whole weekend.

I wasn't really on my game this year (perhaps that's because I feel so lethargic about life in general) but I did manage to get one project completely pieced together (no picture because it may end up being a gift), 

help with a baby quilt for Molly, 

and make some very good progress on my scrap quilt I started working on last summer.

 But mostly, it was nice to just sit around and chat.

Year two of our quilt retreat was a success ... and year three is already booked for next summer.

Unfortunately, now it's back to real life; and real life is not so good right now ...

Encouragement

Here is what I learned this week. I am incredibly lucky to know quite a few people who have been blessed with the gift of being an encourager.  My friends have always been good at making me laugh and raising my spirits when I'm not so happy, but what I found this week was that there are a lot of people around me whom I would never have expected to offer such encouraging words to me when I needed them. Be it a random phone call to offer encouragement, a quick 3 sentence email, or simply sending me an encouraging scripture, I am very blessed to have such wonderful people in my life.

And, day by day I'm breathing a little easier. I'm trying really hard to be positive, and some hours are better than others, but there are fewer tears each day and I guess that means it's getting better.  Now that I have all my stuff moved into my new room, I've unpacked everything, I've moved around the furniture, and even put some things on the walls, I'm feeling MUCH more relaxed about the whole thing.  I still don't have a clue what I'm going to do with the kids in a week, and thats more than an incredible stressor, but when you are trying to make it through one minute at a time, a week is like a lifetime away. I don't have the energy to worry about that yet.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." ~ Matthew 11:28-30

Plans

Many are the plans in a man's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails. ~ Proverbs 19:21

I know I've said this before. It's not you that needs the reminder, it's me, and sometimes putting my thoughts on paper (or in this case online) helps me to hold onto the idea better. 

My plans? My plan would have been to stay at Palmer when I was first hired. My plan would have been to spend months last summer setting up a classroom and getting ready for a new grade level. My plan would have been to teach first grade again this year.

But it's not about my plan now, just like it was not about my plan before. If I hadn't gone through the stress of moving schools and coming to Highlands I would not have met some wonderful people who have had such a positive impact on me as a teacher and who have become wonderful friends. If I hadn't had to wait until a week before school started to move to first grade last year, I would have had a totally different class and thus would never have been influenced to be a better person by one very special first grader (that's a story for another time though). I'm sure this year won't be any different.  At the end of the year I'll have another "If I hadn't been forced to move to second grade then ..." story. It wasn't about my plans before and each time something wonderful came out of something I thought was bad.

It's the waiting that's hard. Because right now, this seems very bad. Right now, I am very unhappy. I just have to hold out for the good, because it will be there somewhere. It may be one step and one breathe at a time for a little while, but at some point it has to get easier.  God's plans are always better than mine, and He knows where this is going, even if I don't. I'm holding tight to that knowledge for now.

Second Grade

So, I'm going to be teaching second grade this year. This means I will have taught the same group of kids in kindergarten, first grade, and now second grade.  Don't get me wrong, I love these kids, they are obviously special to me, but I'm ready to experience getting a NEW group of kids at the beginning of the year, not just a new mix of the same kids. It would also be very nice to be able to have JUST ONE year where I am not living day to day in survival mode. I cannot even begin to tell you how incredibly hard and frustrating it is having to learn a new curriculum every year. How the heck am I supposed to become a better teacher if I never get the chance to improve on what I did the year before?!? Apparently I'm not supposed to. Apparently I am going to be just a decent teacher forever, but never a really good one ... I think that's really sad. I think I have the potential to be a great teacher someday, but at the rate I'm going, I'll give up teaching before I ever get there ...

I'm trying to focus on the positives, but I'm incredibly sad that I don't get to teach first grade again (thus, it's not going very well thus far). I LOVED first grade :(  But, I guess you don't always get what you want ... and if you're me, and you teach at my school, you never get what you want ... oh well.

Anyway, you know how much I love my lists, so I'm going to make a list of the positives about this grade level change. This is more for my benefit than yours, but read ahead if you want anyway:

- no need to be nervous about new kids, I already know ALL of them

- One of my most favorite kindergarteners will be in my class again this year

- 3 super sweet kids from my first grade class will be in my class again

- I only have 17 students!

- I already know where these kids are academically, so even though I don't know anything about teaching second grade, I know where to start

- the new things I planned this summer will still work for second graders (and may even work better with second graders): Daily 5, CAFE, Words their Way, Units of Study

- My classroom library that I worked on ALL summer can still be used

- The kids will actually be able to read more of the books in my classroom library so they will be better utilized

- I'm not teaching 5th grade (which was a seriously concern for awhile there!)

That's all I can think of. 

I'm not ready to start work on Friday. I have yet to make it through more than an hour without starting to cry. How am I supposed to make it through a whole day around other people?!? 

I'm a mess ...   :(

Road Trip With My Favorite 7 Year Old

If you follow me on twitter you probably saw where I tweeted a few days ago about going on a road trip with my favorite 7 year old. Here's the story.

Remember A from my class this past year? (I've blogged about spending time with her earlier this summer.)  Well, her mom and I have become friends over the past few months, and while we were chatting on the phone last week it came up that A was going to Austin to spend the week with her Granny.  They were planning on driving her up there on Sunday, then turning around and driving straight home. That's 6 hours in the car in one afternoon!  Since I was also planning on going to Austin on Sunday after church, I offered to take her to save them the trip.

So, come Sunday we met up after church, and after having lunch together at Lupe Tortilla, A and I set out for Austin. Can I just tell you how much I love that little girl?!? I had SO much fun with her for 3 hours in the car! She chatted up a storm and had me laughing half the trip. It really made the drive go by quickly!  We stopped about halfway through the trip to get a drink and while we were waiting in the drive through we snapped a few pictures.

"Wait, my animals didn't get in it! Can we take another?"

you know how much I love silly face pictures haha

Seriously, could I love this child anymore? I'm not sure it's possible.

When we got to Austin we met up with her Granny and then I went on to my mom's house.  This child was the bright spot in an otherwise pretty horrible week. Love her to death!

Butterfinger Banana Cupcakes

I'm heading to Austin tomorrow to see Mom and Woody, so I decided now was as good a time as any to make some more cupcakes! This time I will actually have people to share them with, so I figured it was perfect. As per my mom's request, I made butterfinger banana cupcakes with a peanut butter cream cheese frosting. Let me just say, YUM!

I definitely could have eaten the entire bowl of batter with a spoon it was so good haha! But, I managed to save enough to make some cupcakes too ;-) The cake itself could sort of be described as banana bread meets cupcakes. It has a banana bread type flavor (with a little bit of butterfinger crunch) but with a cupcake texture. I LOVE banana bread, so I LOVE these cupcakes! Add in the peanut butter frosting, sprinkle some crushed up butterfingers on top, and these are pretty darn good!

The last time I baked cupcakes I learned that my oven cooks faster than I expected. So, this time I watched these very carefully and they turned out wonderfully moist and delicious! yum! yum! yum! :)

Knowing vs Feeling

Here is the thing: it looks very bad. Impossibly bad, actually. Bad enough my dad could hardly think of anything positive to say to me about it. I know it is going to be okay; I know that. I don't need to be told that it will work out, I know it will. I posted this the other night:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

and I believe it, really.  It. will. be. okay.

However, knowing that it will be okay does not change the way I feel  right now.  What my brain tells me and what my heart feels are not the same. I can know one thing, and feel something completely different. I know it will be fine, but it does not feel fine. It feels awful in fact. It feels like my life is falling apart. The reality is, it's not. It will be okay (how many times have I said that now?!?), it's just not okay yet.

Right now, I am not okay. BUT, I know that I will be okay and that's what is most important. And I'm clinging to that knowledge for dear life.

Hey, I got out of bed this morning ... that's a pretty good start haha

Worry

Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own.  Matthew 6:34

At this point, I don't even know what a "best case scenario"  would be anymore ...

I've hit the wall

Someone pointed out to me today that I had been very cranky and in a bad mood all day.  Everything that happened was just one more thing to complain about.  I was a little taken aback at first, until I took a minute to think about it and realized that they were right. I've been in a bad mood the past few days and was bringing everyone around me down with me.

Faithful are the wounds of a friend ... Proverbs 27:6

It takes a real friend to tell you things you don't necessarily want to hear. I know I personally don't always want to hear it, nor do I always take it well, but more often than not it takes someone else looking out for my well being to open my eyes to the situation. Thankfully, I've been blessed with some truly amazing friends.

After this person called me out, I got to thinking about why my week seems to be going so poorly. Here's the thing: I have hit the wall of frustration about my job situation. All summer I did my best not to worry, and overall that was pretty successful. But now, with school starting less than 3 weeks away, with me still not knowing what grade I'm going to be teaching, I've hit the wall. I'm stressed and I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated that every year it's the same thing. I don't handle uncertainty well, I surely don't handle stress well, and this is about as much uncertainty and stress as you can get. This one thing was putting a damper on everything. I was getting upset about the most insignificant of things, because of this one big thing in the back of my mind.

Instead of continuing to sit around and cry or whine about it; instead of continuing to live in a constant state of frustration, I decided to pray about it. Oddly enough, the verse that first popped into my mind was my all time favorite verse in the Bible:

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

The thing is (and for one reason or another I have to be reminded of this often), it's not about my plan and it's not about my timing.  That's a hard concept for me to accept, but it's not about what I want.  This situation is out of my hands, and whether it turns out the way I want it to or not is not what matters. You see, it's not my plan, it's His.  I don't know what is in store for next week, next month, or next year, but if I follow the plan He lays out for me there is a promise to go along with it. A promise of hope for the future. Another verse I love goes right along with that:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

Did you catch that? He works for the good of those who love Him.  He doesn't make mistakes. No matter what comes, He will work good from it. So, I can rest assured in my faith that it will be okay. That doesn't mean it will be what I want. That doesn't mean it will come without stress. But I can be filled with His peace that it will be okay, and good will come of this.

Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4:6-7

I shouldn't be surprised really, but I feel so much better. I'm ready to tackle tomorrow, next week, and whatever comes my way.

Texture to Photos

Today I learned how to add texture to my photos using photoshop. I played with this for way too long this afternoon! It's okay though, because I got my entire classroom library project finished and that was pretty much the only thing I had to get done this week. (side note, YAY!) I think this is a really cool trick because it dramatically changes the appearance of your photos. Here is an example:

This is the original shot I took of the Dry Bean in College Station last week:

I initially changed it to black and white because I liked the look much better. Gave it a little more of a rustic feeling:

Today I took that same image and added texture to it, resulting in this photo:

Now, doesn't it look much more old fashioned? Like it's been preserved from long ago? I love it! Such a dramatic change!

Maybe you don't think this is as fun as I do, but I'm pretty thrilled about it so I thought I would share. I see how this can be very addicting haha.

school is coming

I guess it is officially back to school time because I have started to have back to school nightmares.  You know, things like: I show up to school expecting first graders and find a class of eighth graders, or I get to school on the first day and realize I don't have one single thing planned and the kids are already there. Oddly enough, I did not have these types of dreams before my first year teaching, but they did start at about this same time last summer.

I am totally unprepared to go back to school.  At the beginning of the summer I made a list of 13 school related things I wanted to accomplish over the break. Some were simple projects, some only required reading and some planning, and some were major overhaul type projects. I pulled out that list today (when I realized it was August first, yikes!) and found I have only completed one thing on the list. ONE. That's it, one. Well, technically it will be two if I ever force myself to finish this massive classroom library organization plan I have. I'm almost done, I just have no desire to finish. That's bad. But seriously, what have I been doing all summer?!? I had so many plans and so few of them came to pass. I need 3 more months of summer, how can I make that happen?

I'm starting to stress a little. And by a little, I mean a lot. The thing is, the first day of school is close. It's coming up VERY quickly (23 days!!). I should be starting to get things organized, labeled, put together, and planned, but I STILL don't know what grade I'm teaching.  It's frustrating. I'm trying to have faith it's going to work out, and I'm trying to be patient, but it's hard.  It's hard to be patient when you want things organized and lined up in little rows just so. I can't start setting up my room, because I don't know what room I'll be in. I can't start planning, because I don't know what grade I'm teaching. In once sense, I'm ready for school to be here because that means I'll know what the upcoming year holds and I'll be past this uncertainty.  But on the other hand, I know good and well the level of stress the upcoming weeks hold and I want to hold that off forever.

Remember, I've been here before. I know how this goes. I know what it's like to change rooms and grade levels at the last minute; I've done it twice now. It's not fun. It's extremely stressful. But, it's manageable. It won't kill me. It won't be the end of the world.  Do me a favor, remind me of that if you talk to me. It's getting harder to remember each day.