Happy Friday!  Friday is my favorite day of the week.  Every other Friday it is payday for me.  Currently, our students are in school till 11:30 am and the rest of the day they have asynchronous work.  That will change on 3/22 with the new hybrid schedule.  Monday will be how our current Friday is now.   We’ll see how that goes.

Anyway, I love taking pictures.  Right now I have almost 6,000 pictures stored in my phone.  Many are duplicates since I need to get the right one.  🙂 I take pictures of things I see on my runs, my students, my cats, and my mom.

Let me share with you 5 of those pictures from this week.

📷 I took this Peloton running class on Tuesday and just thinking about it makes me smile.  Since there are so many classes I have not taken, my plan is not to take any class twice.  I may make an exception here.  I had so much fun with Chase and the playlist was amazing.  In 45 minutes I listened to 10 songs (1 from each year) while learning something interesting about each song.  I highly recommend it! 

📷 I ran in shorts!  It made me so happy.  I wore one of my newest Oiselle shorts.  It was warm but very windy.  I also felt very tired (have not been sleeping well) and ran for 20 minutes.  

📷 I’ve mentioned that Lola and Mateo do not get along.  It is very rare to see them together.  I was in bed reading and Lola joined me.  Then Mateo came along.  Lola did not move and Mateo got comfortable.  I’d say too comfortable.  I don’t know how long they stayed like that because in the morning they were both gone.

📷 This reminds me of the hours and days spent last year on the balcony with my mother.  Did we enjoy being stuck inside the house?  No, but we made the best of it.  We ate, drank coffee, talked, people watched, and listened to music.  You bet I am looking forward to it again this year!

📷 Yesterday right before lunch my students asked me if we could have lunch together.  It made me feel really good and made me smile.  I thought that for sure they would be tired of being with me.  I guess not.  

Thanks for linking up with us again this week!  We’ve got FIVE incredible co-hosts, and we are ready to link up every Friday to share YOUR weekly fitness favorites!  Join hosts My First 5K and More, Running With Attitude, Run Laugh Eat Pie, Runs with Pugs, and Zenaida every Friday for Fit Five Friday!  Please add your link below.

In five years it will be 2026.  Nothing wrong with thinking ahead.  Things definitely will be better than how they are now, right?  I thought it would be fun and interesting to write about where I see myself in 5 years.  Keep on reading to find out.  🙂

🟣 I hope that I will still be running.  I won’t stop unless it is absolutely necessary.  Hopefully in 5 years I would have completed my goal to run a half marathon in each state.  Hopefully I would have run another marathon or a 50K.  I’ve run two 50Ks and my finish time from my second one is worse than my first one.  Yep, I would like a PR too.

🟣 I hope to still be blogging.  I enjoy it.  These past couple of months have demonstrated to me how much I look forward to reading different blogs.  Your posts have encouraged and motivated me.  You’ve all made me smile and let me know that things will be OK.  Hopefully in 5 years I will have met many more of you.

🟣 Still living in Chicago in a new house.  You know I have to add this one.  While I am grateful to have a place to live, I want something new.  I want to have my own house.  Though right now I am glad I don’t own a home because I hate to shovel.  

🟣 I see myself still teaching.  I already made a career change back in 2009 and don’t see myself making another one.  The only change I would like to make is to no longer be a classroom teacher.  I have a certificate in Math and would love to be a Math Interventionist.  This past year was really difficult and challenging.  While teaching isn’t as fun as it used to be, I still know that I am making a difference in these kids’ lives.

🟣 Hopefully I would have traveled to all of these countries or some of them – France, Italy, Hawaii, Africa, and Greece.  Of course I would love to go there to run but most importantly the chance to travel somewhere new.  While Hawaii is not in a different country, it sure sounds like it since it takes so long to get there.  That is how I felt when I traveled to Alaska.  I was in the US but it felt foreign to me.

Thanks for linking up with us again this week!  We’ve got FIVE incredible co-hosts, and we are ready to link up every Friday to share YOUR weekly fitness favorites!  Join hosts My First 5K and More, Running With Attitude, Run Laugh Eat Pie, Runs with Pugs, and Zenaida every Friday for Fit Five Friday!  

It is no secret that I am a morning person.  I also wake up early to feed my cats and then to catch up on reading some blog posts or start working on my next one.  I like that it is quiet and find that I work better like that.  I finally have a routine going here. 

Though I know I can run at any time during the day, I prefer doing it in the morning.  Here’s why:

👟 Sunrises.  These are wonderful to see in the morning.  With so many magnificent colors, it is a great way to make me smile and be alone in my thoughts.  My own world.  The same can be said for sunsets.  

👟 It is my ME time.  I’ve written about this before.  Running in the morning is my ME time.  I enjoy running when it is quiet and not a person in sight.  For the most part I listen to music.  I have a combination of English/Spanish and slow/fast music for my runs.  Sometimes I focus on the music or think about what is going on in the world or what I need to do that day.

👟 More free time in the evening.  I am exhausted when I am done with work.  Being online and talking all day (because my students don’t talk that much) takes up a lot of energy.  I want to come home to read or watch TV.  Sometimes I need to do some errands and I can go after work and still be home at a decent time.  Other times I want to be home and be with my cats.  🙂

👟 It is a routine for me.  I wake up, run, and go to work.  Repeat the following day.  I work well when I have routines set up for me.  I think this is another reason why I am enjoying going back to work.  Yesterday was one month since I’ve been back to teaching in my classroom.

👟  Beat the heat.  Of course this doesn’t apply now why for sure in the Summer.  There’s been times when at 6am it is already hot and humid.  Right now I am complaining about the weather here in Chicago but in a few months I will be complaining about the heat.  🙂

Thanks for linking up with us again this week!  We’ve got FIVE incredible co-hosts, and we are ready to link up every Friday to share YOUR weekly fitness favorites!  Join hosts My First 5K and More, Running With Attitude, Run Laugh Eat Pie, Runs with Pugs, and Zenaida every Friday for Fit Five Friday!  Please add your link below.