Stress relief and Halloween

My life seems to be full of ups and downs. I guess that's normal, but I am stuck in this cycle of being mega-stressed, then being OK, then being mega-stressed again, etc. This week I was talking to my car-pool teaching friends about this and we came up with a nice list of stress relieving activities and ideas. I am going to be generous and share it with you!

-physical activity (we go swimming, but if your knees are OK you could run or do something else)
-yoga and or meditation (this helps to control your breathing and focus on your internal organs so I hear, I haven't actually tried it yet)
-a glass of wine (I prefer red, and it sure does take the edge off after a long day)
-a bath (after living in bath-free Mexico, I relish in taking a nice, long, warm bath)
-writing down and analyzing the stress-causing things (this helps to identify what it is that's stressing you out and freeing it from your mind in a way, I do this once in a while but I don't find it's the best one for me)
-there is one more thing... but I'll let you figure that one out and keep this blog PG-13

As for Halloween, we celebrated at school yesterday and it was a massive success! All of the cycle 1 (that's grades 1&2 for non-Quebeckers) teachers and I dressed up as one of our colleagues (a grade 2 teacher). When we told our friends and families about this, they were all appalled: "Oh no, she is going to be so offended." "Wait, isn't that like making fun of her?" We knew her well enough to anticipate her reaction correctly - she LOVED it! It was such a hoot! So there were 5 Madame Ls at school yesterday and our students even joined in and called us Madame L. It was awesome! I am very very sorry I don't have a picture of it, but I will try to describe our costumes so you can imagine the 5 of us. First of all, Madame L was dressed up as Glinda, the nice witch from the East, in a beautiful pink dress with silver stars on it and a silver wand accessory. MM was dressed up as 'leather L', so she had a leather skirt and jacket on with a white button up shirt and a fur belt, her black high heels completed the look. I was 'outdoorsy L' so I had taken my inspiration from pictures of her at camp with the kids. I had running shoes on, black yoga pants, a white T-shirt and sweater, and a brown vest. M was dressed up as 'working L' so she had a beige pant suit on. JC (who is a man) was dressed up as 'just out of the shower L' so he had a bathrobe on. The real killer was the blond wigs we all got, we had matching hair, and matching bright lipstick and our make-up was really well-done, exactly like L's! Oh and we also had little black roller suitcases, because apparently last school year that was her 'school bag'.  So really, it wasn't at all offensive, I think she took it more like a compliment that we all wanted to look like her. It goes without saying that she does dress really well, but it's not your regular teacher look, which is why we chose to dress up like her. So fun.

Tonight I'm going to wear the same wig, a sparkly shirt and black pants and heels and I'll be 'la femme Nikita' or Lady Gaga... it all depends on if I find a toy gun or how I do my makeup.