Happy New Year! Welcome 2018: A Year of Wellness, Purpose, and Abundance!

Happy New Year friends! Welcome to 2018!! Have you made your New Years Resolutions yet? Have you broken them yet?  <LOL>  I LOVE the start of a new year!  As teachers we get to have a fresh start twice, and it's a wonderful feeling to know I can start another semester of school next week with fresh eyes, and a rested mind, body and spirit!

I'll be the first to admit that I'm horrible at making resolutions.. well making them is the easy part, it's keeping them that I always have trouble with!  So this year, I've resolved to focus on 3 things: Wellness, Purpose, and Abundance!

Wellness:
I"m going to start by just making a few changes to my lifestyle.  I know myself well enough to know that if I try to do too many things, I won't DO any of them.  I am an awesome planner, but sometimes I get overwhelmed by my plans, and then well, I don't do any of them.  Anyone else do that too?  We should make a TRIBE!

I'm going to start 2018 by:
1) Going to a yoga class once a week.  I'm hoping I can up the ante on this after a month or so and make it twice a week, but baby steps for me tend to turn into bigger leaps down the road, so once a week is the plan at the moment.  I'm making this blog my accountability piece, so once a month I'm going to post about my progress and focus.

2) Getting my steps in each day.  My goal is to get between 8,000 - 10,000 steps in each day.  I've been a huge slacker in monitoring my steps, but my mom just gave me her Fitbit tracker when she got an Apple Watch (Yes, the jealousy is real), so I'm going to hold myself a little more accountable.

3) Staying above the Wellness line and taking my vitamins and supplements daily.  Right now I am loving a new supplement I just tried called Ningxia Red.  It is made with wolfberries, plums, cherries, and tons of other things to keep me healthy.  It's all natural and so yummy. I drink 1-2oz a day, either straight or added to my morning smoothie, and I know I am doing the best for my health.  I also take a Super B vitamin about half way through the day.  Ain't no tired like afternoon teacher tired... am I right?  Taking the Vitamin B at lunchtime gives me the energy to keep up with my teens and their activities in the evenings.  Otherwise, I'm toast by 6:00 and I want to #watchallthetelevision.  Since couch potato is NOT in my wellness plan, Super B is going to stay my go-to energy supplier!

Purpose:
A second area I want to focus on in 2018 is my Purpose:

I'll be honest, I haven't quite got this one figured out yet.  I want to continue to help my parents, friends, and family in any way possible.  I want to find a church where I leave every week with a message to meditate on. I want to continue teaching my students, but I'm thinking there might be something bigger in my future.  Maybe a coaching position, or something where I can help teachers be better educators as well.  I want to coach people not only about teaching but about living a full life.  I'm not 100% sure about this, but I know that if I have faith... I will also have answers.

Abundance:
2018 is going to be a year of ABUNDANCE!  Not just financial abundance... because hey, we could all use a little bit more of that am I right?  But of an abundance of patience, kindness, and SELF-CARE!  I want to be like Oprah... and you get some.... and you get some.... and you get some......, but not at the stake of my own wellness and financial peace, and that is what I tended to do in the past. I want abundance for myself and others. I want the people around me to have full hearts.  I know this starts with what I put out into the world, and I only have that control over myself.

My self-care routine is going to include my wellness activities I talk about above, and the following:
1) Read an abundance of books
2) Try an abundance of healthy new recipes.. (have any you want to share with me?)
3) Gain an abundance of time for meditation and reflection
4) Give an abundance of time listening and cognitively coaching others

So I'm ready 2018... ready to hitch up my Big Girl Pants and tackle what you have to offer!
Anyone else ready to DREAM BIG this year?  Anyone ready to create a tribe for people to be accountable?  As I said earlier, I'm going to make this blog part of my accountability board, so feel free to comment and let me know how you are doing on your goals.  Let's make 2018 a great year, by being supportive of each other!

Namaste,

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2016: A Year in Review

Happy New Year friends and family!  I'm sitting here with my coffee cup in my quiet new kitchen doing a little reflecting about 2016 and all that it has had to offer.  At first I was majorly beating myself up because I haven't blogged in... I don't know... FOREVER!! Even after Megan created this beautiful new design for me in the summer, but then I thought... STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP.. put in the past what is in the past and start being in the here and now.  SO.... for here and now, here I am with a little bit of year in review.. both educationally and personally... well, if you've stopped by with your coffee cup before, you already know that about me.

2016: was a Year of Interactive Math:

I worked hard in the early part of 2016 to come up with ways to make mathematics more interesting and fun for my sixth graders.  They were NOT keen on having to learn fractions, and algebra and distance on the coordinate grid, and we had some major intervention to do.  I started a bi-monthly blog post called Mid-Week Math Motivation, (which I'm hoping to kick start again) which helped me think out and share some of the ideas I had to keep math engaging.  One of my favorite activities was creating a gigantic coordinate grid on the cafeteria wall.  We rolled foam dice for creating the integers on the grid, and I had candy prizes at different coordinates.  The kids had to tell me the integer and it's quadrant to keep the prize.  You can read more about it in this post {HERE}.  My class loved this activity.  It was engaging, fast, and fun.

2016 was a year of a BIG MOVE:
In the summer this year I moved with my kids to be closer to my family in Florida. I also found an amazing house for us to live in, and I'm proud that I have managed to buy it and run it all on my own.  I love the area where I live.

I have a pond in the back of my house that is filled with Cypress trees.  There are literally hundreds of birds that live there.  I love sitting with my coffee cup on the deck in the morning watching and listening to them chatter. We also have a gator we've named George.

What better way is there than with perfect Rae Dunn mug... yes I've become a collector of these,  and Fiesta dishes.. I need more quirky and color in my life!

2106 was a Change in Grade Levels:
Along with the BIG MOVE I also changed from teaching sixth grade to teaching fourth grade in a new state.  Learning new curriculum has kept me VERY busy this first semester of the school year, and I will definitely blame my lack of blogging on treading water at school.  I do really love my class, and the staff there, and we are working hard at improving our school report card.  We are a D school right now, and we want off that list! My smarties are working hard, and they have ME working hard.  That has its pluses and minuses as I've totally gone off of my taking care of myself regime, and I'm spending WAAAAYYYY more time at work and doing school related planning than I should be, but I'm hoping things will even out in 2017.  New Year... New Hope... <Yep.. that's me, putting in the whole Star Wars reference... You know I shed some tears over the loss of the Princess, but I digress>

I mean how can you not love that THIS is the type of place you get to go to on a FIELD TRIP!

Gorgeous right!


So that my friends in a nutshell is why I've been MIA for the past few months.  I'm hoping to get back to blogging and catching up with my peeps in 2017.  I have always enjoyed connecting with teachers and sharing ideas.  Let me know what was amazing about your 2016!

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Teacher Week: Five Fun Facts about Me!

Hi friends!  With classroom routines starting to settle into place, I wanted to try and get in a little more blogging.  I love being able to connect and learn from other teachers.  I'm linking up with the girls at BlogHoppin to this week.  Today I'm sharing Five Fun Facts About Me

#1:  I'm a New Yorker living in the sweet South.  I was born and raised in Upstate New York, and I'm currently learning a little Southern culture in my sweet home of Alabama.  I'll admit, I'm not 100% sold on all things southern.. I mean I still think my teeth will crack from all the sugar in the tea, but I will admit I do love the weather.  This time of year I miss the NY apples, and the State Fair, but I do love that it's still 90 degrees every day and I don't have to worry about finding a winter coat! The picture below is from Mardi Gras 2015.  I'll take shorts and short sleeves in February any day!

#2: Converse sneakers are a little bit of an obsession.  I have pairs of black, blue, red, brown and purple.  Gray will be my next pair.  I'm hoping I get them for my birthday.

#3:  This is my 22nd year of teaching. I've spent 16 years teaching sixth grade, and I love this age group.  They are finding their sense of humor, beginning to understand puns, but still haven't become jadded and snarky.  I mean how can you not love these faces!

#4:  I have a bit of an obsession with The Tonight Dough ice cream.  If you have read any previous posts, you may have known this already.  One night in a moment of weakness my daughter and I scoured the local Walmart and bought out all they had.  I'll be eating it for weeks!

#5:  I'm shy and quiet until you get to know me.  I love to read books and listen to all kinds of music.  My family is really into music, my husband being an Assistant Director of Bands, my daughter the principal chair tuba player in her Wind Ensemble, and my son, principal bass chair in the Mobile Youth Symphony Orchestra.  ME?   I used to play the saxophone, and the drums, but now I'm content to clap and cheer from my seat. 

Thanks for letting me share a little about me!  Have an amazing Monday!!!

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Get to Know Me with A Little This and That!

I love this linky from The Tattooed Teacher!  I'm sharing a little about me, and I'm hoping to find out a little more about you too.

1) I'm most definitely a jeans kind of gal.  I've been trying to wear more skirts and dresses, it seems like such a Southern thing, but I'm not there yet.  I love the days we are allowed to wear jeans to school! This is where I am the most comfortable 2) Earrings for sure.. when I remember to wear them! 3) Yea.. I've got nothing there.. LOL 4) Silver jewelry all the way!  I don't wear gold very often, but I have recently gotten some Lilly Pulitzer clothing, and that seems to be more of the gold category.  5) I'm an online shopper.  If I can avoid the mall, I opt out in a heart beat.  Thank goodness for my husband who even went and bought my daughter hair bows for softball regionals! I like Stitch Fix, and really appreciate my siblings who are both managers in retail.  They pretty much tell me what to buy, and I do what I'm told. :)  6) Showers, quiet listening homebody... enough said.. I love my quiet time, books, and binge watching Netflix. 7) Breakfast is my favorite meal.. at least on the weekends, and I totally run on Dunkin, so they go together nicely for this early bird! 8) Finally, I'm really a low key, flats wearing (converse or boots), people watching Central Park girl.  I love riding the train, and wish there were trains where we live now.  I miss that about NY and the east coast.

Thanks to Rachel for setting up this linky, and thank you for spending some time getting to know me!  I'd love to know more about my readers!  How about commenting below with something about you?

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