Fired Up!

So this evening I had Hope Circle at Church.  It is the LWML Circle that I attend.  What I wanted to tell all of you who might be out there reading my blog (and I know some people do!) is that we are about ready to start a 2 year process of reading through the Bible.

We are doing it with the Today's Light Bibles, which is a great devotional Bible.  It provides a preview of the reading, then you read scripture and at the end it has a summary/devotion of sorts to bring it all together and most importantly remind us of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The Bible can be purchased in brown or in purple either at the links provided or even at your local Christian Bookstore.  If you want to be part of our discussions online please follow this link and subscribe to the blog on the left side.  As we want everyone to be "In the Word, Of the Word, Walking with our Lord" this is something that is open to everyone, male or female.

The actually Bible Study that meets is just for women though, as it is an LWML group.  :-)

I just can't wait to celebrate the 4th of July with the first reading from this wonderful devotional Bible.  I have done it before and I think highly of it.  Please consider joining me!  If you don't want to purchase the Bible, you can still subscribe to the blog and we'll make sure you know what the readings are.

Languages... Or Specifically, Italian :-)

So most of you know that I have a little thing for languages.  :-)  I love learning languages and teaching them too.  Which is why for the last week I have been hard on organizing online resources for my Spanish students.  Again, check out my other blog Spanish Practice to see the current results of that endeavor.

I just want to share an online resource that I discovered in the process that I have fallen in love with.  Last fall I had learned about StudyStack as a website to do free online flashcards.  Though it has a large variety of games to play with it I quickly found that I wasn't learning the Italian vocabulary from my Busuu units like I wanted to.  So when I stumbled across Quizlet I was like a kid in a candy shop!  That's seriously how much I geek out at language learning resources.  :-)

Here is an example of what Quizlet is like:

Choose a Study ModeScatterLearnFlashcards

Study these flash cards | Study books flash cards

As you can see there are different modes you can set it on.  If you sign up for an account you can do a game called SpaceRace and create tests to take online with the flashcards.

I have been finding with these flashcards it has been forcing me to learn the Italian words I am studying much better than I ever did on StudyStack.  I have fallen in love with this resource and encourage everyone to check it out who is learning anything.  You can make flashcards on Quizlet for any situation and there are many ways to customize your flashcards and different learning modes as you use them.

Lots of Updates since I last wrote in May. :-)

It seems I left on the thought of me training to run a 5k and a 10k and with me reading through the whole Bible in one summer. The 5k was on the 4th of July and I finished in just over 30 minutes, averaging a little of a 10 minute mile. I was ecstatic! Then I ran the 10k on September 11th and did not do as well as I wanting (my training was interrupted a bit...), but managed to at least pull off a pace just under 11 minutes a mile.

As for the Bible reading, I did not quite make it in 90 days, but more like 101 days (or something like that). I did finish pretty close to on time and I was pumped about that part! The Old Testament was the roughest, especially when it was explaining the dimensions of the Temple again.... :-) It was a great experience on the whole and I would really encourage my fellow brothers and sisters to attempt it as well! You do need to make sure that you will have time to do the read most days though...

This summer the craziest thing happened to me! I was mowing the lawn and it threw a rock at me! This was right in the middle of my 10k training... I couldn't put a shoe on for a whole week! I couldn't comfortably wear dress shoes for a month! Let me back up and explain:

YES, I was wearing shoes! And yes, I still have a mark from where the rock hit my foot and occasionally it still feels slightly tender... 4 months later! It happened at the end of July. I should have taken a picture of the wicked bruise... So after I could finally put on shoes again I started going back to Body Pump and I could do everything except the lunges and my lunges are still weaker to this day! For those of you not familiar with Body Pump, it's a weight lifting class. You lift weights to music and when I haven't done it in a while it has a good way of making my entire body very sore! It's so much fun and I have a great instructor (I generally go to the same class).

Student Teaching has started and is almost over. It has been an incredible experience. I mean that in both positive and negative ways. I worked with a Spanish teacher and a German teacher every day throughout the entire experience, which I don't think I would encourage a dual placement like that in the future. It can work really well, but the communication across the board has to be very strong or else it becomes really easy for things to become tense... Although I have enjoyed student teaching on the whole and have enjoyed my time in front of the classroom, I am not sure that I am going to pursue a teaching job. I have been working as a tutor for the last year and a half and have absolutely loved that, so I am contemplating working as a private tutor and not pursuing a teaching job. We'll see how that goes!

One thing I can say about student teaching is that I have NEVER had this many colds in one semester and I mean serious colds! I have one right now, and let me tell you, going to school and working all day with it has not been fun, but I haven't missed any days this time...

Ben and I were able to spend Thanksgiving with some family in Missouri this year. The highlight of the trip was seeing his brother Nick and his family. They have orders to Germany, so they will be MIA from the States for a while starting in about March. The good news is, that I should FINALLY be able to get Ben on a plane with me to Germany so he can FINALLY meet my friends there! I miss my German friends a lot and it really is a loss for Ben never to have met most of them! Germany, here we come! At least once we have the vacation time and money saved for such a trip...

Well, I should get ready for some good rest (and get over this cold). Hopefully I will not wait most of the year to post next time!

Summer Bible Reading

I have decided to take on a challenge, anyone who wants to join feel free. I am going to read the entire Bible this summer. I found a website (http://www.biblein90days.com/index.php?option=com_challenge&pgID=5), where you can download a bookmark with the daily readings on it. I am not signing up for the challenge online because I know I won't go on there and write there, but I am doing the challenge and telling you if I succeed or not. Who knows maybe I will make this a summer occurrence. Anyone and everyone can feel free to ask me how I am keeping up with the challenge, as it is a lot of reading each day that I am planning on doing.