Tawna Perkins: New Year, New Changes...New Me!

I will admit it, I have NOT been a great blogger this past year. The lame old excuse that life got in the way can be applied here. 2011 was a good but challenging year, with a few changes. Here are the top five events that happened in 2011, in no particular order:
1. Cruise to Alaska, departing from Seattle. That vacation was 10 days of pure bliss for me! First cruise and I fell in love. I will be a cruiser for life! Who's with me?!
2. Starting grad school. Wow...love it, hate it. I've learned so much, I've challenged my brain to grow (what I always tell my first graders...challenge your smart brain to grow even bigger!), I've become a better writer, and teacher because of it. However, it is VERY time consuming with class, homework, research papers to write, articles and textbooks to read, projects and presentations to prepare, etc. Last semester was the hardest yet. I literally gained the grad school 20 pounds in one semester!
3. Moving to a new place. I LOVED the house I lived in before, I had the best roommate on the planet, but it was time for a change. My new house is HUMONGOUS, and I am in love with having my own bathroom and garage space. Every time I move to a new place (which happens about every year, sadly. One of these days I will find a permanent city to live in, and buy a house!) I gain new experiences with different roommates. They all challenge me in very different ways. For better and for worse!
4. Getting a new first grade class. Every school year, the group of students I get is so diverse and unique from the previous group. My last group of first graders was massive (26-that's a lot of them!) with a few challenges that I have never experienced in my seven years of teaching before. I loved them, and I learned so much from them, but they were an exhausting lovable group, and I was ready for them to move onto second grade. This new group has brought different challenges and strengths...plus I have 21 of them! Having 5 less students in first grade is a HUGE difference...those cuties are very needy! I love my new group as well, and I've learned a lot from them, and from a lot of changes I have made to my teaching this new school year.
5. Random trips that I took to Denver (two times-my favorite city on Earth!), Kansas (NFL game against Broncos-Broncos won!), and Las Vegas. Good memories, good times! No matter how old I am, and if I don't remain single for long, I will still continue to travel. It brings me joy to visit people I love, and see places and things I haven't seen before. That's what life is all about, building relationships and memories!

This new year, 2012, brings a lot of changes for me that I will be SO much better at updating you about. First new change that I will be honest about on here..because after all, this is MY blog! I am on a weight loss journey to be healthy again. I miss being active, healthy, and being happy with how my body is, so I am working hard on changing that. I am extremely motivated and excited so far in changes that I have made. It will be a hard but gratifying journey of change to be in love with my body again! So here's to a new year, new changes, and a new Tawna!