Stress Relieving

With any job, there is stress. During my long term assignment, I definitely had my fair share. So what did I turn to?

Baking.

Yup, baking. I follow some awesome pages through Facebook and email, so baked whatever I thought looked yummy. I found it to be such a stress reliever. I felt stressed, and while whipping up the ingredients, it gave me such a calming feeling. When I felt stressed and I didn't have enough time to bake, I kept thinking about baking. What to bake, when I would have time to do it....no joke.

Luckily I didn't have the urge to eat it all after it was done. I enjoy baking, but didn't care to really eat too much of it. I'd have others try it and eat one or two. 

What did I do with it all? I brought them to work the next day to share with my co workers. Everything I baked, I made sure to bake enough for them, especially with my grade level colleagues (because they were so awesome and I felt a whole lotta gratitude towards them for helping me so much). During the last 2 months of work, I baked every week. Yup, it got pretty intense, but I was glad to find something that helped me and my co workers seemed to enjoy all the goodies they got. I mean, who wouldn't love to get some treats in their box Monday morning? To thank them for everything at the end of the year, I baked my 3 favs. That was a loooong weekend. :)

What I find funny is that I haven't baked all summer. Only twice did I bake, but using good ol' Betty Crocker. I'm starting to find recipes that I'd love to try, so I think I'm gonna start again soon!

Here were some of my favs:

 Banana bread.

 Thumbprint cookies with jam.

These last two are my absolutely favorite. It was really hard not to eat all of these.

 Chess cakes.

 Oatmeal-cranberry cookies with white chocolate chips.

Thank goodness for baking!

Breanna & Antonio's Wedding

Rudy and I went to a wedding in Riverside over the weekend. It was definitely hot. When we got there, it was actually raining! Raining! What the heck man?? We got their early, so waited in the car. Luckily it stopped right before the ceremony started. 

They had buckets like this with all of the bottled/canned beverages. Such a cute idea!

Everything about the wedding was absolutely beautiful. I must have said, "I love (fill in the blank)" a million times. I loved the bridesmaids' dresses and their hair, the idea of the beverages, the mason jars, signs....pretty much everything. 

The flower girls were so adorable. One of them wanted to make sure that the petals were actually on the aisle, so she picked up ones that were outside of the aisle and placed them where they belonged. They were a bit restless waiting though. Luckily the maid of honor, Tarren,  watched over them. 

 Here comes the bride! She looked beautiful!

Mr. and Mrs. Guerrero!

They had games that guests could play. Rudy was excited for the horseshoes. Later we found out from one of the other guests, that we were playing it wrong. Lol, oh but of course! They even had an area where you could build a tent!

 Cupcakes and ice cream. Yup, they had an ice cream stand!

I'm thinking of keeping the beard. Rudy's not too fond of the idea.

est. 2002

I met Breanna through her sister, Tarren when we were dorm mates about 10 years ago. Breanna was 16 when I met her and I've seen her grow into a beautiful young woman, who is now married! I am so proud of her and love her very much. 

 I love these girls!

What a wonderful night it was!

Congratulations Breanna & Antonio!! <3

I'm back!

Holy moly, has it really been 10 months since my last post?!

I looked back at my last post and noticed that it was October of last year, which is when I started my long term assignment teaching fourth graders. When I was offered the assignment, I was nervous and stressed, but looked at it as a wonderful learning experience (when I had my own classroom, it was for kindergarten). Since that day, I was on full speed, organizing, planning, and pretty much everything else I needed to do for the kiddies, which explains the lack of blog posts. 

I have to say, that teaching this fourth grade class was one of the best experiences of my life. There were many stressors, but it was all worth it. I had my own class again and the most amazing grade level co-workers. No joke. Since I started in October, I swear, I felt lost, but they helped me without hesitation, were there when I needed to vent, and pretty much all of the above in what you would want in awesome co-workers. I don't know what I would've done without them. While working, whenever someone asked me how work was, I could never answer without saying how awesome my co-workers were. I was very lucky.

So, thank you, to the wonderful people who helped me more than you know. 

"Surround yourself with people who take their work seriously, but not themselves, those who work hard and play hard." - Colin Powell