Working for the Weekend

I've shared earlier that one of my {goals} for this year is to have more of a work-life balance.

Having a social life doesn't mean I'm not an effective teacher. It means that I realize there are more important things than work.

Last weekend was jam-packed with a friend's wedding festivities.

Friday night consisted of happy hour with friends from work.  

B was working on his fantasy draft, so I brought him home pizza.

Saturday we saw friends, went out to dinner, and went dancing.

Sunday we set up for her wedding at Mount Charleston and celebrated her magical day.

Monday we dropped our friends off at the airport and then I headed to another friend's bridal shower.  

A magical four days of teaching ensued and then it was the weekend again!

Friday night was low key with laundry and laminating new centers:

Saturday brought a lunch date at Olive Garden, grocery shopping, a nap, then a friend's birthday celebration.

Sunday brought putting the finishing touches on an upcoming baby shower, another nap, football, walking the pup, and a relaxing evening.

A busy week lies ahead, but next weekend is full of craft plans, family time, and more naps.

In the upcoming weeks, we've got a baby shower, 2 more weddings, friends in town, and an all day teacher conference (but it's close and paid!).

Goal Setting, Revisited

Here we are, 31/366 days into 2016.  How are you doing on your personal goals for the year?

I was recently asked about my goals and vision for 2016, so I decided to get crafty because I'm a visual (messy) person. 

So here goes:

1) Grow my small businesses ({TpT}, {Jamberry}, and {Younique}).  However, I want to do so in a way that feels authentic and genuine, and that means not morphing into one of those super naggy people.  (Unless you're a student with an overdue form...then I shall nag away.  Daily.)  I just get really excited about things and want others to be excited with me.

2) Get married without spending all my money on Etsy, being a bridezilla, and scaring B with the copious amounts of glitter.  I did hide my Joann's bag from him because I don't want him to see all the wedding decor...and glitter.  That poor man.

3)  Strive for this work-life-nap balance.

4) Continue having adventures with B, the fur babies, friends, and family.

5) Find joy in the classroom.  Every day.  Even when they are hormonal, puberty-stricken, hot messes.  I love them. I just don't like each one of them at every given moment.

6) Continue to cultivate loving, healthy friendships where we inspire and support one another.

What are your goals for 2016?

 

Well I won't be doing that...

I took a glorious nap this afternoon and as a result, am having trouble sleeping.  To cope with this, I'm slowly working on my first week lesson plans while listening to some pretty ridiculous shows on TLC.  (Four hours later...I've got my first two weeks meticulously mapped out for each subject!  I've got to set up a planning time with the other (willing) members of my grade level to compare notes)

Coincidentally, they are all about weddings and brides so it's nice timing.

However, these shows are ridiculous and the brides are even worse.

Things I have decided that I will not be doing based on these shows:

1) Having sled dogs transport guests to the ceremony.  This bride was getting married on top of a glacier, in Alaska, in the winter.

2) On that note, I won't be getting married on top of a mountain.  Or on a volcano.  Or on a glacier. Or in the middle of the forest on a mountain in the winter.  All of these magically ridiculous venues happened within one hour of this show.

3) Having a helicopter entrance.  More than one bride went with this route.  Can you say bridezilla? 

4) Wearing a cape.  There are plenty of super hero opportunities to wear capes.  My wedding day won't be one of them.

5)  Making my guests super uncomfortable.  We won't get married in the snow for an outdoor wedding.  The poor bridesmaids were unable to hide their whole body shivering, despite their pearly smiles.  Another bride had her guests ride in jeeps for over an hour to the venue site (on the side of a volcano).  I get that it's "my day" (ish) but don't be unnecessarily mean to your guests by making them endure bridezilla ridiculousness.

July goals revisited

Apparently July is ending soon, so I thought I'd revisit my July goals post.  The original post is in italics while my updated thoughts are in bold.

So let's set some goals for July:
1) I will keep my wedding prep talk to a minimum.  B's brother and fiance are getting married next month and we're both in the wedding party.  I don't want to steal their thunder.  

Yeah....I got a little carried away with the planning.  Sorry readers...I'll refrain from posting more for a bit.  I've tried to keep it to the blog and with my mom.  I did get my dress for their wedding and am helping with some craft project on Thursday morning. 

2) Finish The Blood of Olympus. I'm on chapter 14 and don't plan on doing much more the rest of the day.  Plus this will be my plane reading.

So my plane reading became napping.  I'm on chapter 32 (of 50?).  I plan to knock out a few more chapters tomorrow.  I'd be farther along if I didn't have my helper...

We've been doing lots of belly rubs!  Waffles has been amazingly helpful at blogging, reading, and crafting.  Her fur sisters have been equally helpful at aggressively smelling things and knocking sharpies to the ground for Waffles to play with.

My goal is to finish it before I go back to school...and before his next novel comes out!  The main character shares a last name with Annabeth and this is based on Norse gods.  My heart is happy.

 

3) Learn, a lot.  I'm off to DENSI 2015 tomorrow evening and super excited to reconnect with others.  I'm the only representative from my whole state...so no pressure there!

I learned so much! Now I just need to stop being a slacker and share what I learned.

4) Help a friend earn some great rewards with her online Jamberry party.  We are having lots of fun with our nail wraps and I love that I can have gorgeous nails without a trip to the salon for way cheaper! It's a win-win all around!  I previously posted, I'm currently rocking a Shark Week themed jamicure.
Favorite Jamicures:

Oh yeah, I did that glittery pink and silver ombre look at home in 20 minutes flat while watching television.  Bam!
 

Her party is finishing up on Wednesday.  We've had fun and I've learned a few things. I don't think the next online party will go as long because there isn't the sense of urgency when it's open for three weeks.  Now I know better. 
 
5) Finish watching season 2 of Arrow.  We've got just a few episodes left, but it's Shark Week and that obviously takes priority!

DONE!  We've got a new season of Ink Master to enjoy next.

6) Catch up with family and old friends.  We're seeing one of my oldest friends and his girlfriend tomorrow for dinner.  I get to spend next weekend in DC with my bestie.  I'll get to talk to my mom soon (she's gallivanting in Europe and having the time of her life!)

DONE!  I've had some recent painful moments where I've realized that the friendships I treasured just aren't the same because people change.  That's been a rough lesson to learn this month.  I feel like this is a lesson I keep learning over and over again because I have a hard time giving up on people.  But I've also had some great times with the wonderful people in my life, many of them my new friends  from my new school.  Thanks tribe for being awesome.

7) Finish up some minor craft projects that I've started.  I donated a bunch of old items to a friend for her church's garage sale, so it's nice to purge items that I no longer need.  I'm in the process of organizing the garage and cleaning out our guest room (since it will quickly be taken over by wedding prep craft projects).

Done...ish.  One paint project is currently drying.  Others are being finalized this evening (I am binge watching Netflix without shame) or tomorrow after my eye doctor check up.  Our guest room has three distinct piles: work, Jamberry, and wedding.  The school pile is the largest. 


August will be consumed with their wedding, math training, and returning to work to conquer year seven in the classroom.

I've got five or six small wedding projects (mostly for the engagement party) to work on next month.  I'm excited about my math training.  

I'm also excited for this free learning opportunity: 

It's an online PD on August 4th and I'll get teaching materials in the mail after completing the course.  I didn't have the opportunity to attend this at DENSI, so I'm pleased it's offered again.  To clarify, I'm not excited about the content.  I think the content is beyond important and I am excited to learn strategies for discussing this dark period in history with my students.  I plan to use Number the Stars as one of our grade level read alouds and want to do a better job front loading the novel with the historical context.

Last year we read Esperanza Rising and building in the historical context about the Dust Bowl made a world of difference with my students.  

What are your goals?  Did you achieve them? If not, (no judgment) what's your revised plan for success?

DENSI 2015 Overview

I'll start off with saying that I believe all professional development should be like DENSI.  It was a purposefully crafted week that allowed for whole group sessions, hands-on exploration, discussion, collaboration, and smaller break-out sessions that were dictated by teacher's choices (unconference).  

Here was the overview:

Sunday

We took arrived at American University and I was already exhausted.  I left Las Vegas at 12:30 am, landed in Philly around 8 am, then landed in DC at 11.  DENSI doesn't start until 3, but my suite mate was awesome and picked me up from the airport and let me drop my bags off in my room.  She had been there since Friday because she is on the Leadership Council.  I then found two newbies from Chicago and we went off in search of food.  We must have found the DENSI hotspot because I saw my roommate there (along with a good three dozen other hungry teachers).  After lunch (and gelato), we headed back to officially begin DENSI.

After getting our lanyards and fighting for the elevator, we took our press photos, unpacked, and had dinner.  DE brought in food trucks and then we did a gift swap and scavenger hunt.  Part of our packing instructions were to bring a gift that represented our home town, so I brought a mug, playing cards, and a poker chip key chain for my mystery person.  I got some peanuts from Virginia (lucky B!) and my person was super friendly.  We also got our DENSI swag, which included a Shark Week hat (I love Shark Week) and a selfie stick.

We then had our opening session, went over the schedule, and had some guest speakers.  We broke off into our smaller team meetings.  Since all of our team was female, we named ourselves the Estro-DEN.  One of the ladies on my team was also my suite mate, so that was a fun coincidence.

Monday

We spent the morning site seeing and the afternoon on our own.  I chose to spend the afternoon in the Natural History museum, including an accidental nap during an Imax movie on oceans.  (To be fair, it was a very soothing and calming movie.)

We saw the Thomas Jefferson, FDR, Martin Luther King Jr, Lincoln, Vietnam, and Korean war monuments.  We drove by Embassy row, the Washington monument, and the White House.

Snapshots from Monday:

(Inside and outside of the Jefferson Memorial)

Dr. King

(Fun fact: His position means he's staring at Lincoln's monument, where he gave his I have a Dream Speech)

President FDR's memorial

(We were told not to sit on his lap. I'm disturbed that the tour guide deemed it necessary to tell us that in the first place.)

Washington's monument 

(Fun fact, you can see the different layers because of construction issues about 1/3 of the way up!)

Korean War Memorial

President Lincoln (Notice the hands are A and L in American Sign Language)

(Added to the Lincoln memorial steps to honor Dr. King)

The White House

After site seeing and dinner, my roommie and I crashed.  We'd been up for a while and both were on West Coast time, so the 6 am alarm seemed very early.

Tuesday

I immediately began to hate my alarm clock.  We had to get to the dining hall early to compete for food with hundreds of enthusiastic children.  I'm pretty sure the future leaders of America (or a similar spin off) were there, so there were lots of sixteen year olds in business attire trying to navigate the campus in heels.  We didn't even bother attempting Starbucks when we saw the line out the door. 

On the bright side, this was a site we saw every morning:

(As a Nevadan, I enjoyed the greenery.)

After breakfast was our morning session, then break out mini-sessions (which I'll reflect upon later) with lunch in between.  I took notes on my pink memo pad, which is ironic considering I'm at a tech conference, but that's how I process information the best.

(On a completely unrelated note, I also process learning best when I have Starbucks and chocolate...)

I attended: PBL in the media rich classroom (project/problem based learning), doodling in the classroom (as a means of note taking), showing what you know (projects), and library and digital resources (to share with my librarian).  All my sessions were amazing.

Dinner followed, then the DENmazing race (the Amazing Race, Discovery Style).  My team was not competitive (hence the name the Frolicking Unicorns) but we had a great time.  As an added bonus, I found some new team builder games to use next year with Sunshine committee.

We had to jog through the hoops and then crawl through the tunnel before throwing a football through another hoop at the end of the station.  There were at least eight different embarrassing games.  

After the DENmazing race, we did an escape room.  This was my first time participating in one and it was awesome.  It was 1985 themed and our team escaped the room the fastest.  We had to work together to solve clues and figure out puzzles to enter different rooms within the escape room (there were six rooms total, so I guess it was the escape suite).  

Wednesday

Again, the alarm clock came too soon as did the fight for the omelet line with the children.  The day was again broken into smaller mini-sessions.  

I attended: Coding (which I definitely need to investigate more), app smashing (combining different apps into a project), portable presentations (a good dozen things to use besides Prezi), and took the last session off to process everything I'd learned so far.

I also had some time with the DENSI gnome. 

He is not to be left alone and enjoys meeting all the DENSI participants.

We then did another team builder that focused on mini-debates that could be used in the classroom, had a team meeting, (had a post-dinner nap), and then had a DENovator (craft) fair.  I made a shark week coaster (because obviously), a few other small craft projects, and had a great time chatting with others.  

I don't know how, but I want to do something like this for our wedding.  The craft wheels in my mind are spinning!

I also snagged this iron-on to use on a future project:

Next time I attend, I'll definitely plan a craft to share :)

Thursday

Thursday is both my favorite and least favorite day of DENSI.

It's my favorite because it's unconference day, which means the sessions are all created based on what we as educators want.  It's loosely structured and meant to allow for glorious amounts of collaboration.  

I attended information on utilizing twitter and instagram in the classroom (teaching_with_avice if you choose to follow), classroom dojo, mystery skyping, and more.  There was so much wonderful information that I can't wait to share (both here and with my school).

Thursday evening brought our history-themed closing session.  Being the only delegate from my state, it was a little sad to see all the group themed costumes and not have anyone to collaborate with.  I represented the West with Annie Oakley because I already owned all of my costume components.  Some of the other states went as cave women, Egyptian pharaohs, and history bees (yes, bees).

Friday 

We cleaned our room, headed to breakfast, and then to our tear-filled final session.  I headed to the airport to meet Erika and then began our best friend filled weekend.  

I returned home late Monday evening and have been slowly processing the week since then.  I'm a little frustrated in my delay at getting out DENSI notes, but I've also had eye doc appointments and the puppy is interested in chewing on everything but her toys, so she requires constant vigilance.  Good thing she's cute.

Stay tuned for more in depth session notes!

DENSI 2015 Take Aways

After much reflection (and reading others' blogs), here are some of my take-aways from DENSI 2015:

1) People matter.  

One of my favorite things about the DEN is that it's truly more than a digitally connected group of educators.  It's a family. It's a tribe.

I know that if I'm stuck on a concept or just need a little inspiration (DENspiration) after a tough day, they will be there.  One of our tribe members, Lindsay Foster, has a daily twitter image or message to inspire creativity and spread the love.  She challenged herself to spread positive vibes and I whole heartily embrace this.  In education, it's ridiculously easy to fall into a negative attitude because there's so much that is out of our control.  So I'd rather surround myself with happy vibes and that love for teaching was overwhelmingly evident at DENSI.

I can reach out on Edmodo, twitter, facebook, or texting when I need advice from my tribe.  This doesn't mean my work family isn't amazing (because they are) but sometimes it's nice to get other perspectives.  My tribe offers that.  From the first moment I walked on campus, I started to recognize people from DENSI 2013 or from the facebook group.  Everyone is welcoming, everyone is positive, everyone genuinely operates with the mindset that everyone should be successful.

I met people that recognized me from my TpT store picture and had previously purchased products, which was a surreal experience.  We ended up discovering this over the less-than-appetizing cafeteria breakfasts.  The friend requests are still coming in and my PLN (professional learning network) is ever-expanding.  It's nice to know I've got people in my corner.

2) Work-Life Balance.

If there's one thing to know about DENSI events, it's the importance of #napchat.  Nap chats fit perfectly with my love of naps.  Sleep is valued.  Taking care of yourself is encouraged.

DENSI focused on putting fun and joy back into the classroom.  Our jobs matter.  But home life and social life matters too.  There was time for learning at DENSI, but there was also lots of time for connecting to others.  I don't think Kate and I got to bed before midnight any day of the week because we were up chatting with others...oops!   Again, people matter.  

Last night, while B had softball, I went over to a friend's for dinner.  Several of my pals inquired as to where he was, which was appreciated.  He was not only missed by me, but my friends as well. I ended up staying for many hours after because I was having such rich, meaningful conversations with others.  The evening did include Cards against Humanity, at which point those meaningful conversations fizzled into ridiculously inappropriate ones.   

This year, one of my personal goals is to be better at the work-life balance.  I've already shared with two of my lovely grade level ladies that I need to leave by 4.  Most of this is to get home to let Waffles out, but I want to make sure I have my evenings for me.  I'll set aside one night to work late from home (whichever night B has class) but I want my nights free for our family time. 

3) Leadership matters.

I'm fortunate enough to work for two amazing administrators who aren't afraid to get a little bit silly when leading by example.

Beyond my admin, the leadership of the DEN is awesome.  The DEN (Discovery Educator Network) isn't as strong in my district as I'd like, so I'm excited to be in conversations about strengthening it to build community.  When educators in my district hear "Discovery Education", they tend to think of the benchmark assessments and the frustration that usually accompanies standardized testing.  I'm hoping to help change that conversation.

4) Have fun and be yourself.

I'm a creative person.  I like having my classroom be a slightly loud, slightly messy, melting pot of learning.  I take risks and sometimes lessons flop.  That's okay.  I learn from them and move on.  I have fun in my classroom and that's okay. 

My classroom is a reflection of me.  My classroom is a reflection of my students.  My classroom is a reflection of our learning journey. 

When you're excited about what you're doing, that enthusiasm rubs off on your students.  That's a good thing.

5) Share.

Often times, we get so wrapped up within the walls of our own classroom that we forget to connect with others.  We forget to share the great things that are happening.  We don't recognize the greatness in ourselves and feel inadequate when compared to others.

This has to stop.  There are exciting things happening in classrooms and they need to be shared and celebrated. 

We need to share with each other and learn from each other.  Part of my hesitation with sharing is that I don't want to feel like I'm doing someone else's work for them.  Truth be told, I've worked with some lazy educators over the years.  My definition of lazy has shifted because I acknowledge the importance of a work-life balance.  I didn't always appreciate that in my early years and would be unfairly critical to others who left on time to see their families.  I didn't think they put enough effort into their classrooms, but looking back, that wasn't my place to judge. 

Luckily, my tribe is filled with hard working educators who want to share their ideas with others.  

6) Take the time to laugh.

Not everything at DENSI went perfectly.  It rained when we saw the monuments.  I went eight straight days without soda.  I survived on grilled cheese and omelets.  There was ridiculous jack hammering during our trainings (not to worry, it was dealt with). Worst of all? The sheets. I had two flat sheets that did not fit the dorm bed.  I ended up in a cocoon-like ball each night and just slept on the slippery, rubber mattress.  

Could I control any of this? No.

So I chose laughter and rolled with it. 

7) Don't stop learning.

I haven't dived into my pages of notes yet, but I'm so excited to try new things in my classroom.  I obviously need to buy a green table cloth to try greenscreening and videos in my classroom.  I'm excited to incorporate mystery Skype into our geography lessons.  Doodling with note taking will be a new adventure this year.  

If I expect my students to be life-long learners, I should model that myself. 

Thank you, DENSI and my tribe, for helping me feel excited about this upcoming year.