Simply

 You may think it's been a minute since I've written, and that's because I wrote a whole blog post last week and I accidentally deleted it after spending soooo much time adding photos that I raged and didn't try again. But now I have new thoughts and have something different to write about haha.  If you've been reading all my blogs, I've talked about intuition in the past (about trusting my intuition, questioning if I even have it). Well, this has been on my mind after what happened at school on Friday.  This past Friday, I was supposed to have a meeting but the parent didn't show up so I now had an hour free at school. Every since time this happens, I jump right into working on lesson plans, grading, or anything else that there's always more for me to do. But for some reason, I had a feeling to go check on the teacher across the hall from me who was teaching a class.  Now I am still a newer teacher, and this teacher has been teaching for a long time. Ne...

(I wrote this a few weeks ago but forgot to post!) For my July track out, it was very busy for us. First with my mom and Summer coming for a week, then a week where I was busy with catch up chores as well as summer errands, and then Taylor came for a week. Once Taylor left I had 2 days before going back to teaching. Since my break ended, Clayton and I have been in a grind mindset, understandably. Clayton started studying for the PE exam, I started going back to work, I was planning out our meals getting super organized, we've been extra frugal with our spending, and just ultimately super focused on our day to day tasks. It's felt really good to get back into our routine, but I have been surprisingly reminded of some things in the last few days that I wanted to write about. I'm someone who naturally feels pretty happy in every day to day life. But the past few days I've been reminded of how important it is to find and appreciate true happiness in life. Let me explain.  M...

 My birthday this year was extra special because my mom and Summer came to visit us for the week! They landed the night of my birthday and we picked them up, opened presents, and chatted until 4 in the morning😐 Per Summer's request, our first day was spent at the pool. This week has been very hot so a good pool day was very needed. We stayed until we had to start getting ready for my birthday dinner.  We ate at the Angus Barn which is a place I've been wanting to try! This place was very cool, great food, and we had the best server I've ever seen. He even gave me a ginormous dessert for free for my birthday. After dinner, we went to Downtown Cary Park to walk around and enjoy the weather as it was cooling down. This is one of Clayton and I's favorite places to walk around and I think they liked it too.  The next day we started our day with Starbucks and went to the mall. Summer and I were on a mission to find a matching outfit.  Then we ate at Torchys and ended our ...

One thing that's been on my mind recently is the idea that I'm "too soft" of a teacher. This really bothered me the first few times I've heard it. I've had a few teachers imply this but not directly say it, and I've had two kids directly say it to me.  I distinctly remember it being my mission to try and be less "soft" in middle school and high school. I felt like I was a people pleaser or a push over and I hated it. And I have come a long way to what I believe is a good balance for me. So I was curious why these comments at school made me so mad. I guess I was so mad because I feel like I'm constantly trying to not be perceived that way?  I've come to realize that even though my classroom procedures and expectations are pretty strict, I am more of a soft person in the way that I speak and interact with the kids. There was this one day where I was so mad that I was yelling at the kids about how disappointed I was in their behavior. I felt...

 I have officially 13 days left of teaching before I go on my break! I am staying at Durant for at least one more year and am staying in 7th grade. I'm feeling very excited for this year to be over! There are some changes happening next year that I'm excited about. Subject Change There is a lot of movement in teachers this year and my principal asked me if I'd be willing to switch to teaching Social Studies instead of ELA. At first I was shocked and didn't feel like I could just switch. I have been working so much with the ELA curriculum and my materials so that next year would be a breeze, but switching would mean that I would start over with completely brand new curriculum. I told him I was willing but I honestly just needed time to think about it. After talking with the other teachers, they really got me excited for what this change could look like. I would no longer be teaching a tested subject, which means I can adjust the curriculum and lessons more than I could w...

 Teaching has to be the one of the biggest emotional roller coasters out there. Especially when you're at a school like mine. I know I've talked about the title 1 life a few times on here, but recently it's been feeling a little different. Let me explain. There's always challenges with teaching in general, and even more at a title 1 school, but sometimes it all feels like a lot. Let me explain.  Usually the challenges have to do with children with chronic absences, minimal funding, absent parents, and a lack of admin support. And don't get me wrong, all of these challenges are still happening, but somehow there's new ones.  First, there are a few boys from my 2nd class of the day that are my behavior kiddos, but we've always had a good relationship. They mess around in class, I redirect constantly, they never do work, but when we are conversating, there is no bad blood and the good relationship is there. The problem is, that admin has not handled things well...

 Hawaii 2026 4/5 Sunday All of us landed in Oahu around 3:00PM on Sunday and we immediately start heading to the airbnb. It's been a while since I've seen my family so it was so nice just to be together! Once we checked into our airbnb we instantly went to get shaved ice (Clayton's request every day this week) for a snack. This shaved ice honestly wasn't great but we had many more great ones later.  We spent this evening walking around Wakiki looking at the beach, walking around the shops at the international market place which was so cool. The beach was so much more cool than I remembered it being. We had dinner at Duke's and we had to wait like 2 hours which sucked but luckily every other night was not this way.  The airbnb had a nice balcony that we spent time on every evening where we could enjoy the city views and the warm weather when we were settled down for the night. The time on the balcony was a part of the trip I unexpectedly really enjoyed.  4/6 Monday T...