Weekend Wrap-Up

D & I had a pretty fantastic weekend, despite D's weird summertime cold.

Friday night, we met up with my cousin, also A, who was coming through town.  We had the chance to grab some good food at a local restaurant (for those local folks, my hubby & my cousin both grabbed a Boston zone).  There was also plenty of girl time catch up, though my poor husband I think tuned us out.  We're like 6 years apart in age, but she spent 2-3 nights a week at our house for most of her life, so she's the closest thing I have had to a sister growing up.  We tend to talk quickly and loudly, nonstop until we have to leave.  It's awesome.

Saturday morning, we debated heading over to a local car sale, just to look.  My motivation was seeing just how much money we will need to spend to replace our current vehicles.  My car is a 2005 with 175000 miles on it, and I'll be adding like 70 miles per day starting Thursday, so we're assuming next year I'll need a replacement.  D drives a truck which was made in 1990something.  His mileage isn't as high as mine, but we've already fixed the transmission twice, so we're just happy every day that it gets him to and from work.  Instead of heading to the car sale, we ended up meeting his parents.  We hit up a Cook-Out, which I'm in love with.  Everyone else?  Not so much.  Then we hit a Kohls, where his mom & dad grabbed a few quick things for the beach.  After that, we headed to the Harley Davidson store for his dad to pick up some oil-change supplies.  I slyly mentioned, "Oh look!  They sell helmets here!" This is a running joke in my household.  My husband owns a Harley (as well as 2 dirt bikes and a 4 wheeler), and, while he has a helmet that I can wear, the helmet has never fit well.  It sort of wiggles on my head, which I chalked up to my odd shaped head.  A size smaller and I have a headache because it's too tight.  The "proper size" doesn't stay 100% stationary.  Then, the salesgirl pointed me to these "new" egg-styled helmets.  Apparently, women's heads can sometimes be shaped like mine, so a change to the shape & I had a perfectly fitting helmet.  There were only 4 designs, none of which I loved, but we ordered one nonetheless.  I'll be very excited if we end up riding this fall to have a helmet that is comfortable!

That evening, we were supposed to go celebrate our friend H's birthday, but we ended up home too late.  So instead, D & I grabbed a quick bite at a new local sub shop Penn Street Station (Phenomenal subs!) and went to see The Lone Ranger.  Blog friends, if you haven't seen this movie, Go Tonight.  It's really entertaining, Johnny Depp is, of course, fabulous, as are the rest of the cast.  Unfortunately, the rest of the world doesn't seem to think so.  It's only been out like 3 weeks, and already it's only playing 2 times per day.
Sunday was a great, lazy day.  We filled it with a trip to Sam's Club, watching (and napping through) the NASCAR race, and grass-mowing.

I love weekends like this!  Also, I want to send a special Happy Birthday to my mom!  She had a birthday Sunday, and I get to see her Wednesday!

How was your weekend!  Do you have a weekend wrapup blog?  Leave it in the comments, I'd love to read it!

First Day(s) of School

Hey everyone!

As the new school year quickly approaches me (T minus 8 days of summer before my new teacher orientation!), I have been thinking about outfits for the first few days/weeks. 

For those who don't know me personally, I am one of those people who always gets mistaken for younger. When I was 18, my cousin, 12 at the time, was often mistaken for my older sister. At my first teaching job (and second), I was stopped in the hallway and asked to present my hall pass. Granted, I teach high school, so at least people don't think I'm 10. I had hoped that 6 years post COLLEGE graduation, I was past that stage of my life. 

Skip ahead to yesterday. A wonderful classmate of mine from college volunteered to give me a tour of my ginormous new school. (Here's perspective: the high school I'll be at is more than 4 times larger than the last one I taught at full time.) In the hallway, we met up with another Social Studies teacher, who very politely asked me if this was my first year teaching. Seriously. My first year teaching was in 2008. But hey, I guess she didn't think I was a student. (Though I was introduced as the new social studies teacher.)

So that leads me to my big questions: Does anyone else out there have this problem? Not just in the classroom, but any workplace. 

How do you dress to overcome some of that? 

Young, young looking, or young at heart teachers, how do you dress at the beginning of the year to have visual leadership in your classroom? 

I always buy a new first day of school outfit, so I'm looking for some inspiration for my upcoming year. 

Oh, and feel free to leave any stories you have of being mistaken for much younger. The only time it really doesn't happen to me is when I'm with my nephew, who has my eyes (they're pretty common in my family). Then people at least don't openly state that they think I'm young. They probably just think I'm a teenage mom, with a 6 year old. 

Midweek Confessions

I'm linking up with a former colleague, who blogs over at http://www.emyselfandi.com/ to join her Midweek Confessions. 

-I completely forgot to order my husband's birthday present. He asked for it in the fall, and I decided to order it Monday morning. His birthday is today. So it's not here, oops. 

-I am the ultimate procrastinator! Routinely I put off laundry, cleaning, even making phone calls.  It's such a problem that I've reimplemented using a planner in order to make that change over. 

-I am super excited for the school year to begin, ending what will have been my shortest summer ever. Why? Because I will be back in my own classroom after a whole year hiatus!

-I am a newly found Grey's Anatomy addict. Seriously. Lifetime has been running 2 episodes a day for the last several months, so I have been able to catch up on 9 seasons already. I'm so hooked. 

Want to add your own confessions? Link up to E by clicking the button above!

Weekend Wrap-up

This weekend was a pretty complex one. 

I start on Friday, when I drove home for the funeral for a family friend. While under sad circumstances, I was able to spend some time with family members I don't generally see. 

Saturday morning, we had a quick visit from the kids (during which my niece wouldn't give me a hug, complaining of a sore face because, "My Daddy cut my face with grass at my house." I have no clue where that came from, nor does my brother). That was followed up by my first trip out on my parents new paddle boards. Let me just say, I love me some paddle boarding! It's super fun, and I think it's way easier than kayaking (my mom disagrees with me on this point). 

The middle of the day brought on a migraine for my mom, and my dad needed to go get some parts for the tractor and the lawn mower. On his trip, he was going to stop and pick up Subway for us. About 45 min later, he called saying that he couldn't get the food because he left his wallet at home. I got in the car and headed that way, only to discover that their credit card machine was broken. I had to dig through my car to come up with the cash for lunch. I found it, and had a quick catch up with 2 girls I went to high school with, one of whom I hadn't seen since graduation!

That afternoon, after a series of showers, my niece walked over and asked if I wanted to eat at their house (after being sidetracked asking questions about my dad on the ladder). I had to go verify the invitation after she informed me that for supper we would have, "cheese sticks dipped in ketchup." Gross. (Please note: J served roast, potatoes, and corn, not cheese sticks and ketchup.)

The kids spent the night at my parents house, so we headed back down to the pond, where we paddle boarded and kayaked. B (6) did both by himself and did an excellent job! DP (3) struggled by himself but was too stubborn to not get a chance. He had to be drug back across the pond because he was stuck against the bank. And Miss O? She's only 2, and her biggest accomplishment was standing up on the board for the first time, though she did have a death grip on my mom's shorts the. entire. time. 

On Sunday, after I was woken up at 6:53 AM by an excited 6 year old, I spent the morning with the kids and my parents, before heading back to my parents house. 

My husband surprised me by installing this: 

 

See that wooden strip between the 2 types of flooring? That is something we've been wanting for a year. Before, we had a metal strip that the nails kept loosing out of, ripping holes in countless socks. 

Then, he surprised me even more!  

See this light? That is now installed in our bedroom closet! You see, this closet is my least favorite thing in our house. It's long, but the doors only open up to half of it. 

See, here's D's side, and all those clothes are inaccessible without moving them all to the center, and nearly impossible to see with just the bedroom light. I am so super excited to have a light in there, especially since my new job will have me up before 6 AM starting 8/1! 

How was your weekend? I'd love to hear about it!

Happy July 4th!!!

Anyone who knows me well (or has known me since high school), knows that the appearance of July brings me (and my family) into a dark place. To remedy that, above all, I try to think of ways that I can be thankful for everything I have. 

So here's a shot of the gorgeous fireworks Carowinds shot off in honor of our 1st anniversary! Wasn't that super awesome of them!!! Just kidding...

They are in honor of the sacrifices so many men and women have made over the years to secure freedom in America. 

So Happy Birthday America!!  Even if yours was just as soaking wet as ours (seriously, we huddled into a tunnel by a roller coaster with maybe 20 of our closest strangers debating whether or not to make a run to the car or wait for the coaster to start back up), I hope you enjoyed it. Even more, I hope you take the  time to remember why we get the day off to celebrate. Finally, I hope you take a minute to send up a quick thank you for all those who didn't get the day off, because their job is to keep fighting for our safety. 

Teacher Binder

In honor of my new position, I have been diligently searching for a way to organize everything I need for teaching in a much better way. In the past, I've tried electronic planners, file folders, separate gradebooks, you name it. 

Thoroughly dissatisfied with my level of disorder (if you're a former student, you know that piles are my thing, for better or for worse). So, I have been searching online for a complete binder that satisfies my high school needs. Unfortunately, most teacher binders cater to elementary folks, so I endeavored to make my own. 

Here's what I did. (Also, if you want my files I will totally send then to you, just comment below!)

1. Use a heavy duty binder, and put in a super cute cover sheet. Mine is 1.5" which at first I thought was too big, now I'm wondering if it will all fit.  And, of course, use command strips to cover your name. 

2. Buy some tab dividers, becasue you will create tons of sections. I have one for each month, behind which I placed a month view calendar and my weekly view lesson plans. I also have one for grades and one for attendance, the pages for which I'll print off from my gradebook once the semester is underway. I'll have one for SOLs also. I'm thinking behind that will go my IEP and 504 paperwork for my SpEd students, divided by block. 

Here's a look at my monthly planning page

3. For each month, you'll have a view like this for important dates and to space out your pacing guide. I don't have a calendar or a pack g guide for my new school, so my months are blank for now. 

Weekly lesson view. I need color in my life, and I broke it into 4 sections left to right with the dark colors denoting M-F and the column on the right denoting the dates, handwritten. 

4. In each month, you'll also want the weeks lesson pages. There are tons of lesson pages online. My lesson pages are designed for a 4x4 block. This gives me 3 courses per day, plus a planning block. I leave a block for planning each day because I like to jot down, "make copies of" or "call soandso".  Thats whah I struggle to find, because most are aimed at elementary teachers with 1 class covering all the subjects. I learned a lesson here about spacing when you print, so I have to print some more. I am definitely willing to send directions for others. If they want. 

5. Wait until the semester begins to get the grade sheets, attendance pages, etc. I plan to print out a blank one for each course with my students names already typed in. I can use that for checking off HW, etc. Then, as grades are entered in, I'll also print off an updated paper copy of the grades in case the system crashes. 

As the year progresses, I'm looking forward to adapting my teacher binder for how I've been using it. 

How about you? What type of system do you use to plan and keep everything organized? Do you write anything down? Are you even asked to have lessons to show ever? Or are you at a school where you must submit lesson plans every so often?

Update: New Job

Last week I posted about all the career changes that have happened for me in the past year. 

And I now have an update! Drumroll please....

I will be teaching Social Studies full time once again beginning (gasp) August 5th!!!  It's at a not so local, full 55 minutes away school, but that's a minor issue. I am PUMPED. 

I'll be teaching WHI (which I have never taught before. Ever.) and WHII (the only course I've had regularly). I have to call in tomorrow to complete the official paperwork. Hopefully, once the principal returns from her vacation, I can head down and pick up some prep materials.  

Thank you to everyone for all of the support you have given me over the past year! I am so looking forward to an exciting new journey.