First week of school is over!

I made it through my first full week of teaching, and it was great! I think the kids were overwhelmed with the big selection of music I picked out for them for the football and basketball games, but I know that they have grown to love the music, even if its a little more difficult than what they are used to.
As for the four grade schools I work at, its a slow process seeing who will be in band and who wont. These are four private schools, so the band will be small no matter what. But I am extremely excited about one of the schools who has 8 6-8th graders in the band as of right now. Thats more than the other schools combined so far! Though, I am not 100% sure of the numbers in the other groups until this coming week when I do presentations to all the schools about why joining band is fun!

My days have been pretty slow recently. Mostly because I am teaching HS band at 7:30-8:30 every morning, and then I pretty much have nothing to do since the GS bands have not started yet. So, I am able to get some crafting done. Not much, but just enough to keep me satisfied.

First up is the socks that I have been knitting up for quite some time now. They could have been done weeks ago, but I was having trouble getting internet connection, and I wanted to make sure I was grafting the second sock correctly. So here they are finished! They are the Charade by Sandra Park. 2.5 mm needles, and the yarn is unknown as I cannot find the tag for it.

These are the first pair of socks that fit well, They do not have weird gaps anywhere, and they are snug. So I am very happy with them!

You can see the cute pattern. It was easy. I would recommend the pattern. For sure. I would have made them longer, but I still do not have a sense of how much yarn I will have left over. Next time I am in a yarn store I will buy two balls of yarn and make long socks out of them.

And of course, Kitty wants to be in the pictures too!

Now for spinning, Sarah (rainlover on pretty much everywhere) gave me this fiber a while ago, and I decided to practice my lace weight spinning. It is not great for lace weight. But I am trucking through. This will also be the first yarn I plan on dyeing. With Koolaid. To test it out.

As I have been stash busting all summer, I continue on. This is a baby blanket I am working on of some baby yarn that has been sitting in my yarn stash for ages. This will be on sale in my Etsy store within the next week or so, along with my Emma baby blanket. Let me know if you are interested!

It looks like just plain white from afar, but it actually has some cute baby colors in it!

Also going along with the stash busting, I crocheted up this scarf in a couple days, and when winter comes I will be posting it to the shop.

I actually like how the colors came out. I think I would like it more if there was now white part, but still, I dont mind it!

Also with the yarn, I made these cute little circles, which will eventually be built into a unique scarf. Not quite sure what I am going to do with it, but when the time comes, I am sure it will be great!

GARDEN TIME!
I have two tomatos that are gaining color, and I cannot wait for them to be done. Not sure how I am going to devour them, but I will come up with something. Maybe Grilled cheese with tomatos. hmmm

And then the Cherry Tomatos are coming out! Look at the little cuties! I also caught a few more cherries popping up, and eventually these will be in a pesto, gnocchi type salad.

As for my weight loss. I purchased the 30 Day Shred after hearing how it is working wonders by Sarah, and Erin at Mommy Needs Yarn- http://www.mommyneedsyarn.com/
I thought I would add it to my exercise routine. I try my absolute best to make it to the gym every other day, and on the opposite days I don't go to the gym I do the Shred. I have done Level 1 twice, and did not have too much trouble with that except for the push ups. (My upper body is weak while my thunderthighs are intensely muscle.) I did not get too sore the day after, so I moved on to level two. Big difference. It has been a while since I have sweat that much. Its tough because I'm tall and alot of those moves use the upper body, whicha s I said before... needs some work.

But with Zumba at least twice a week, and foundations once a week, and then cardio (including walking the mile back and forth to the gym, elipticals, and stationary bikes) I think I am doing pretty good. I have decided Fridays will be my day off of working out. I was not losing weight, which I am sure has to do with the muscle gain, until I took a day off and then weighed myself the next morning. Today I am at the lowest weight I have been in 6 years. I have finally reached 150.0! And I am so happy.

So to treat myself with something sinful, but still somewhat healthy, I made myself blueberry ricotta pancakes for breakfast, and tilapia fish tacos for lunch! :)

And did Shred level two for the first time. wow.