Volunteering Gig

 Hello everyone!

   So a part of this whole AmeriCorps gig is that we have to take on a volunteering job, of no more then 10 hours a month.  This officially starts in November, so I've been trying to figure out what I could do.  After my co-chaperoning the field trip I decided that this would be the perfect volunteering gig!
  So I am officially part of the Venturing group!  I am very excited about this, as I loved hanging out with those girls and feel that I could really be a good "cool" adult for them to talk to and perhaps look up to.
  Also, I have joined in helping out with the Garden Club on Thursdays at the Elementary school.  Lets see if I can get those garden skills sharpened!

  That is really all the news for right now.  Other then I am super excited for Thanksgiving!! I am going to be having Thanksgiving in Sonoma with Leslie and Owen and the rest of that side of the family.  Very excited to see everyone! And very glad that I can still have Thanksgiving with Family :-)

  I guess there is one more exciting thing going on.... but I'm going to wait a bit longer before I share that one with you all ;-)  I'll give you a hint though... it has to do with a boy! :-)


  Will fill you all in more soon!

xoxoxo

Field Trip + Zumba!!

 Yesterday I co-chaperoned a field trip to Fort Bragg with the Venturing Girls group.  This is a group that my co-worker Mitzi leads.  It was started by the AmeriCorps worker last year and is like a girls version of Boy Scouts, but not quite.  They meet a few times a month and plan fun day trips like the one yesterday. 
  We first went to MacKerricher State Park and walked around to look at the tide pools, however the tide pools weren't really there since the tide was in.  None the less, it was beautiful!  On the way back to the van we came across two men who had just come in from catching Abalone, they look like ginormous slugs!! Gross.  But the girls were fascinated by them. 

Mitzi, the girls and Zach (mitzis' son)

  After that we went and got lunch, then headed off to the water park. Mitzi and the girls and Zach (Mitzis' son) played around in the water, while I took advantage of the gym!  I then talked Mitzi into taking a Zumba class with me.  She was hesitant at first, but she also used to be a dancer and I knew that this would be a form of exercise that she would actually enjoy.  She is quite out of shape, self proclaimed mind you, but she kept with it, I was quite proud of her.  Afterwards she was just beaming!! The rest of the ride home she couldn't stop reminiscing about her old dancing days, and we both were talking about our favorite musicals.  I was so happy that I convinced her to take a class because she was like a different person afterwards, totally into it!  She even said that she'd be willing to take the one Zumba class that is held here at the high school once a week with me!  Woohoo!!
  The trip was a great trip.  I got to know the girls and they all said that they really wanted me to come into the health class to do some smoothie demonstrations and talk about nutrition.  I need to get that squared away with the health teacher on when I can do it, but super excited about that!

Local Womens Music Festival

  What a beautiful Saturday today was/is!! It's in the mid 70's, sunny, breezy, and was filled with lovely women playing music at a winery.  Today in Ukiah at the Nelson Family Vineyards was the Local Womens Music Festival.  I went because a fellow AmeriCorps colleague was playing her very first show at the festival.  It was  a small affair, but still totally amazing.  Although, there were also a few musicians who played, where you really wish they hadn't... not quite so musically talented.  In any case, to my surprise there was an old celebrity there! I had no idea who she was until I googled her after they announced that she used to sing with Pete Seeger... Now after being home and googeling her some more and watching some old youtube videos, she was quite an amazing singer back in the day!  Can you guess who the celebrity was??  It was Ronnie Gilbert!! She is now about 85 years old, and can't quite sing like she used to, but still I loved hearing her speak.  She is writing a memoir which I hope will come out soon, because from what she read of it, I want to hear more of her stories!

  She read for about 20 minutes, with a few songs in between of some old campaign songs.  Then she ended with a song which apparently she sang quite a lot of back in the day.  She sang "Goodnight Irene" (click on that to see a great old video of her singing it with The Weavers) which we all joined in on singing with her, it was very cool indeed.

 
  The festival continued on, with some nice singers, and a few not so great singers, then my favorite of the day were these two girls who called themselves "The Plain Jane Society", they both were in two separate groups who toured around together, then they joined together and recently started their own group, and they were totally awesome!! Really wish they had a CD but they said in the near future they will have one.  Their voices together really meshed very well.

 Click here for their Website! (They have one song under the Audio tab that you could listen to)

Then finally came time for Katrina to perform, my fellow AmeriCorps buddy!  It was just herself and her guitar, she was quite good for it being her first time performing, I certainly could never do that, unless it was dancing of course.  But I was glad I was there to cheer her on, no other AmeriCorps people came, so it was just myself and Katrina's girlfriend as her cheering section, and the rest of the audience made quite the applause when she was done.

  As you can see I am getting better about bringing my camera with me when I go to various fun things now!  I had my camera with me last weekend, but forgot to use it!! Oh well... 

 Oh and HAPPY BIRTHDAY HANNAH!!!!!

Week two of classes

  Well it has now been 2 weeks that I have been teaching my classes.  So far I am totally in love with my Mom's nutrition class, the women are so engaged and eager to learn and love everything I am teaching them!  In fact, I was so proud of them this week, they also come on Tuesdays for language class with Mitzi (my co-worker) and afterwards they usually have a potluck style lunch.  I've been around them for a little while now to see what they usually bring for lunches, and usually its a lot of traditional foods that are heavy on the oils and overall just not so healthy.  Well this week they all brought salad stuff!!! They were so proud of themselves too and made sure to show me what they all brought, lots of it was fresh from their gardens too.  Made me feel pretty good.
  This week we made homemade Almond Butter in class, I separated it into three batches: 1st was plain, 2nd had some honey added to it, the 3rd had honey and cinnamon.  They all liked the 2nd and 3rd batches the best and made the most hilarious looking faces when tasting the 1st one.  Meanwhile I was like "what?! oh my goodness the first one tastes so sweet!!" They all looked at me as if I was crazy.  But then we talked about that, and how since I don't eat much processed food that my palate has adapted to natural tastes and that I don't need a whole lot of added flavors to the foods I eat.  Where as they are used to lots of processed foods and processed salts and sugars which require a lot more to flavor their foods.  This was a great way to demonstrate that factor, and they understood it well too.
  As for my kids.... this has become a lot harder then I was expecting.  This week I made up some sheets of paper that had on the top of them: "Being healthy means...." and I gave them all about 10 minutes to draw or write what they think "being healthy means" then we reconveined and talked about their answers.  Most of them drew fruits and veggies and sports.  I then asked them "well what about our insides? have you all heard of Diabetes?" most said yes, then I asked if anyone had any family members who had diabetes, a few said yes, so then we discussed that a bit.  For the older kids I am creating a chart for next week, which they will  be partnering up with another kid in the class to have a Nutrition and Fitness Buddy system.  They are going to have to do 30-60 minutes of some type of activity each day as well as to make sure to get 5 servings of veggies a day along with 3-4 servings of fruit a day.  This is going to be like a competition and at the end we will have some type of a prize... yet to be determined.  They are going to have to check in with each other to make sure they are doing it, and it also makes it a  bit more fun to do.  I'm also going to be doing a salad competition, where I'll split them into groups and they will have a list of salad stuff to choose from and they will create a salad that will have a lettuce base then they choose veggies, fruit, proteins, good fats and some add ons, then whoever wins (or maybe they will all win) I'm going to get the school to feature their salad creation for lunch!
  Still trying to come up with some fun things to do with the kids.  Next week we are going to be making a replica of their favorite snack, which are "hot cheetos".  I am making them with whole wheat tortillas brushed with olive oil, kosher salt, garlic powder, nutritional yeast (for the cheesy flavor) and cayanne pepper.  Then we will toast them for about 5-10 minutes.  I still need to test this out, but I'm pretty sure it'll be tasty and hoping it will taste some what like hot cheetos... since I've never had them before I wont know for sure, but I have an idea of what they probably taste like.
  So thats what's going on over here!  Oh and the race last weekend totally kicked my butt!!! Running 3 miles in the soft sand plus add in some obstacles...... I was dead afterwards.  But it was a blast, and I got a funky tan line from my capri pants Lol.  Then the Bluegrass concert in San Francisco was amazing!!! I totally plan to go to all three days next year!  So awesome!