Lunches, Teaching Challenges, and Wedding Pics

I have been so incredibly busy this past week spending time with my family and catching up on my shopping that my blog posts have definitely fallen to the wayside! Sorry to anyone who has been checking in and finding the same post over and over.

I have a few questions left to answer from my post last week, so here it goes.

What do you eat for lunch? What do you cook for dinner? (from a fellow American living in Germany)

I try to eat pretty healthfully, so the typical German diet does not really work for me. Typically I will have a mixture of small things for lunch like a yogurt, an apple, a Babybell cheese, carrot sticks, something with peanut butter...I am definitely tend to eat a lot of little things rather than one big meal. I am going to try doing some salads for lunch once I get back as I want to try to get a healthy start to the new year and I want to include more veges in my diet.

For dinner, I have made sushi, roasted chicken with potatoes, sauteed veges, soup, grilled cheese, chili with rice.... I try to be a good cook, but I think I am still honing that skill. I am much better about cooking now that I don't work full time because I was pretty lazy with my old job and found that I did not have the patience to cook nice meals after working all day. I got myself the Pioneer Woman cookbook for Christmas, so I am hoping to try out some of her good recipes in 2010! Although, her recipes don't seem too good for the waistline...

What is the biggest challenge you face as a teacher?

This was a question I asked my readers a few months back and I got a lot of different responses. I think I also answered it back then, but now that I have a different job, the answer has changed. I have to say my current job is not that hard. I am not the one that has to spend all the time working hard to prepare lessons. I am not in charge of the curriculum, so a lot of the challenging parts are done by others. With that said, I am really learning a lot in this job because I get to witness great instruction done by others, so I am really happy and am enjoying it a lot. I think the biggest challenge that I have right now is collaborating with other teachers and making sure I am working within their classrooms in a way that works for them. I want to make sure that I am helpful and a positive addition to their teaching environment which means accepting that they are in charge and driving the lesson and I am there to support and help based on their choices/instruction/teaching methods. Although I am a "real" teacher, I feel like I am still in a position where I need to take a back seat and let others be in charge. I don't find this super difficult and I think I am a good team player, but keeping a good balance and relationship with several different teachers who have different styles and expectations for me can be challenging at times. I hope I am doing a good job because I really hope to get hired back next year for the same department.

Did you ever show pictures from your wedding?

I think I have posted a few pics from my wedding, but here is a brief recap:

John & Katie

August 18, 2007

This is one of my favorite wedding photos (my nails never look that good!)

something old

handkerchief that my grandmother gave me. It belonged to her mother.

bouquet with yellow roses because my grandmother-in-law loves them

mom and dad

my maid of honor (bff)

my girls

gotta love the wedding day footwear....

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Tomorrow we head back to Germany and hopefully this end of the trip is not as eventful as the last! We arrive back in Germany around 11 am on Monday. Hopefully my posting will get back to normal then!

I did not take a lot of pics, but my sister-in-law's sister did, so I am hoping to steal those from facebook and have some nice family shots to post!

Happy Holidays everyone!