I’ve been an athlete for as long as I can remember.  The catalyst my running life was in 9th grade, when a friend of my dad’s said that I had the legs of a runner– and the fact that my best friend started running track.

Nevermind that we first started running to my house during practice, making popcorn, and watching Oprah.  Eventually I actually started to run– and have loved it ever since.

Running has taken me more places than I ever thought possible. It has saved me, on many occasions, from the throws of grief, stress, the isolation of new parenthood, and sparked creativity, goal setting, and joy in my life.

While I try to run as much as I can, it is never as much as I want to. And I have trouble, as many busy moms do, with self care.  I don’t get enough sleep, don’t eat as well as I should, and don’t allow myself much needed down time for fun and relaxation. This of course effects everything:  my parenting, relationships, running, and overall wellness.

Rituals of self care.  Activities like yoga, playing my guitar, eating healthful meals–slowly, and yes, running. I need more of these in my life.

That is why I am joining 25+ fabulous green bloggers in the summer 2012 Go Green Get Fit Challenge as part of the EcoMom Alliance Sustain YourSelf™ Program presented by PlanetShoes.com. This 12 week health and wellness series is where we will share inspiration, motivation, progress (or a lack there of), and encouragement  for whatever fitness goals we have.

And what of my latest running goals?  I’ve got two big events planned for the fall–more on that later.

You know what comes next!

Will you join us?

• Like the Go Green, Get Fit Facebook page.
• Follow @GoGrnGetFit and hashtags #GoGreenGetFit & #SustainYourself on Twitter.
• Follow the Go Green, Get Fit Pinterest board for great fitness ideas and inspiration.

What are your rituals of self care– and your fitness goals for summer?

It is graduation season, and I am saying goodbye to my wonderful sixth grade class.  As they head off into their adolescence, and all the challenges, joys, and discoveries of that tumultuous time, I ponder how I hold them– forever in my mind– at age 12.  Here is a poem I am reading tomorrow night at their graduation ceremony, and it is featured at the beginning of my book, Why Great Teachers Quit and How We Might Stop the Exodus. 

Guardian

I am the guardian of your 12 year old self

I bear witness, child one second

teenager the next

developing a sense

of what is right

what is wrong

and all in between

pushing boundaries of childhood

like water on the levees

intense daily interactions

reading, writing, thinking

talking, laughing, brooding

until poof! you’re gone

like summer in Vermont

or a flock of birds overhead

flying fast out of sight

I squint to see

the tiny dots disappear.

So when I see you in town

at the grocery store

don’t think I’ odd

because I stop in my tracks

shaken

because while I’ve stayed

the same in the mirror

you’ve gone through a

swirling metamorphosis

when I wasn’t looking

you’ve danced, sung

played, changed

and done more than

I’d ever known

or could teach you.

I’m looking for the relic

for the tiny piece

of your preadolescent

clumsy, shining self

searching the pictures

in my mind

head spinning.

So when you see me

on the street

stop and say hello.

Tell me who you are now

and I will tell you

who you were then.

image:  by Ro’smom on Flickr under Creative Commons

Managing, teaching, and caring for 23 students and 2 daughters, while meeting freelance writing deadlines, and keeping up with the causes important to me– well, it consumes almost every part of my day.

But there is a problem. And that is looking out for me– my health, wellness, creativity and self care. Of course these are interconnected with how I care for others.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I should say read more about it. There are more and more reports and articles showing the link between air pollution and health conditions, diseases, and delays.

Here’s the latest in how air pollution and chemical exposures are linked to allergies, autism and asthma, three particularly vexing health problems that are fueled by air pollution and increasing rapidly in children.

Allergies:

Are your allergies bad this year? Turns out you are not alone. Many health experts are pointing to climate change making allergies worse for many people. A combination of a warm winter and an early spring, have brought out more pollens much earlier in the year.

According to Leonard Bielory, an allergy specialist with the Rutgers Center of Environmental Prediction, and an attending physician at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in Allergy and Immunology,

 ”Pollen is an important trigger for both allergic reactions and asthma attacks. The longer and more intense exposure to pollen, especially when combined with pollutants, intensifies the severity of allergic reactions and asthmatic responses.” ~ The Star-Ledger

Please read the rest of this post at Moms Clean Air Force. 

Everyone seems to be talking about how to attract quality teachers to the profession.  This is absolutely important—but not many people are talking about how to provide a rich, supportive, engaging, and inspiring climate to help retain high quality teachers once they are working in America’s schools.

Why should we care about this?  With one in five teachers quitting in the first five years (NCTAF, 2003), and some early data showing these very teachers who quit are the ones with a higher measured ability (RAND 2004), this is a problem we can’t ignore.

Many of our schools have become institutions focused only on student achievement in the form of standardized tests—to the determent of the climate for students and teachers.

We need to make teaching a sustainable career, so that the people who enter this important profession can be challenged, supported, and empowered at every stage. With dwindling budgets, pressures from No Child Left Behind and an anti-teacher culture, making teaching more sustainable is not on anyone’s radar.

This has to change, because of course, the problems are interrelated.  Districts spend tens of thousands of dollars every year interviewing, hiring, and training teachers (Shockley, R., Guglielmino, P., & Watlington, E. 2006). With effort, planning, and a little more investment, schools can reduce attrition and improve the climate overall for students and teachers.

Read the complete edited version of this article in Educational Leadership magazine’s digital edition.

(March 7th, 2012  was World Read Aloud Day. I’m the WRAD advocate from Vermont, and planned all day activities to celebrate and support reading at my school.  I was interviewed by Litworld, the organization that coordinates World Read Aloud Day. Below is the post, followed by a link to the full interview.  Join us for this great event next year!)

Katy is a teacher, and she’s getting all her students involved in World Read Aloud Day. All this week, her sixth graders are creating bookmarks that support reading as a life changer.  They will sell these bookmarks on March 7-9, to support Litworld and global literacy. On World Read Aloud day, her class will read aloud to every elementary student at Rumney Memorial School throughout the day.

Read the whole post and interview here.

(First posted at Non-Toxic Kids)

I hope you’ve all had a lovely weekend.  What are you reading?  In addition to the second Hunger Games book, borrowed from a student, these articles are what I am reading tonight.

“Under the law that prohibits discrimination on pregnancy, childbirth or related medical condition, lactation is a related medical condition to pregnancy and childbirth,” argued Timothy Bowne, an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission attorney. “There are no people that we know of who lactate who haven’t given birth recently.”

(first posted at Non-Toxic Kids)

Can you hear it?  If you listen very, very closely, you might hear a huge sigh of relief from parents everywhere, across America.

It’s hard to understand how profound the Penn State child abuse scandal is unless you live or lived in State College.

Unless you grew up in a town where on Saturdays every living soul was either heading to the game, was already at a tailgate, or was already in their seat in bleachers of Beaver stadium.

Unless every Saturday your family spent together—either meeting  up with family friends at a tailgate, eating cheesy, saucy foods in sweaters and Penn State sweatshirts, tossing  footballs, goofing around, and looking for players.  Checking in about lives, laughing, and talking about how Penn State could win.

Unless you sat in the stands, layered up against the sub zero cold, cheek to cheek with your brother and parents, screaming and yelling and cheering, hair covered with flecks of snow.

Unless you watched the exuberance of the sport, for years, and the community building effect it had on students, children and adults alike.  Collective, soul rousing cheers–raising your voice with thousands of people.  White outs.  The Nittany lion’s endless antics. The shirtless, painted, screaming fans.  The thumping band, echoing in your chest.  Eating stadium food in all of its salty, unhealthy glory.

Unless one of the first songs you learned as a toddler was Fight on State, and the song is as familiar as Mary had a little lamb.

Unless you grew up beside Joe Paterno’s and Jerry Sandusky’ children.  Knew them, went to classes with them, knew Joe’s house, even partied in Sunset park behind it, and kissed a boy in his backyard.

Unless you spent away games dressed in your Penn State clothes, eating tailgate food in your house, gathered around  the TV.  Mom cheering at the screen, my dad ironing, looking up, eager to find for the score.  The landscape of your weekend, the planets in your family constellation.

You really can’t imagine.

The trouble with pedestals is that it is a long fall down.  And a community, a university, and a family falls along.

One of the intricacies of youth is the ability to idolize, and place upon a pedestals, our parents, our leaders, our heroes.  It is dangerous, reckless, and damaging when we see them fall—when we learn that people aren’t perfect, that indeed people we believe in so much, and have watched for so long, can fail.

It takes your breath away, and leaves you wondering about your own  life, your own potential failings, and the indelible and oppressive vulnerability that haunts us all.

I’ve seen this in my life—I  know the familiar let down, the hollowness and the sense of becoming  unmoored.  Growing up, I saw it my one of my coaches, and in my own family. I carry these disappointments deep in my adult self, under layers.

But it doesn’t make it hurt less now.

It only reminds me how fragile this life is and how easily things are taken away– how every single decision we make can change our lives forever.

And none of it really matters, even how my own childhood, the fabric of my upbringing, was centered around this mythic sport and coach.  What matters are the relationships, not the vehicles, necessarily, or the traditions that surrounded them.

Because in this instance, what matters most is that children were hurt.  They were abused, horribly and irrevocably hurt and victimized and no one stopped it.  Not even the one who saw it, or our beloved Joepa.

That is our biggest tragedy.

And no matter who is fired, or how many students turn over cars, or who might pine for the simple glory days of a Penn State youth, it doesn’t change this.

We mourn for the children first, for what they lost.  We hope in our hearts for their recovery, for healing, for justice.

Second, our childhood, and our family traditions, have been altered forever, but what remains is what always mattered most.  Love of community, family, friends, and sport.

This will rise again in Happy Valley.  But yes, we have lost our innocence, and another hero.

image:  by acaben on Flickr under CC

(Eat Non-Toxic is now exclusively available on Amazon for Kindle!)

We all want to keep our kids safe from toxins and chemicals in food and feeding gear. Every day there seems to be a new report about what to eat, what not to eat, what to buy, what to avoid. It’s overwhelming for many new and tired parents!

Many of you don’t want to read scientific studies or lengthly articles. Who has time? You just want to know what to do keep your kids safe and healthy. Now. Yesterday, actually.

That’s what you’ll find in the new eBook, Eat Non-Toxic: A manual for busy parents, written by author, teacher, and the founder of the blog, Non-Toxic Kids, Katy Farber. In this book, you’ll find clear, useable, helpful steps for how to protect your family and the earth from the toxins and chemicals from food and feeding gear.

From Eat Non-Toxic, readers will:

1. Discover why you should avoid toxins in food and eating gear.

2. Learn the essentials for cutting your family’s exposure to chemicals.

3. Find real, practical, and usable tips and ideas feeding your family in a safe and healthy way.

4. Discover credible resources for more information.

5. Find trusted online retailers that feature safer, greener products for families.

6. Receive recipes and ideas for using more whole foods in your cooking.

7. Find background information about important environmental and safety issues.

8. Learn how to limit toxins in your family’s diet without huge costs, effort, or time.

This is officially launch day!  Woot!  For the next 4 days only, the manual will be priced at 25% off its regular price of 9.99.

This manual will help you simplify meal times, protect your children from unnecessary toxic exposures, eat healthier and lighter on the earth.

Please spread the word!