Boy! Keeping up with posting to my blog is more difficult than I thought! So it's very interesting that as I opened Blogger tonight I found Frank Buck had just posted on his own blog an article entitled, "Keeping Your Blog Going, and Going, and Going." Read it here. He has some excellent ideas I need to remember! The best one for now is I should probably write several posts at once--usually on the weekend when I have more time--and schedule when each will be posted. Once again, I have learned something new!!

You may wonder what has kept me so busy as to keep me from my blog. Well, I actually started back to work 5 1/2 weeks ago but the students started just 2 weeks ago. This year it seems a few of our Kindergarteners are having difficulty adjusting to school and that is keeping us occupied! A few of our Kindergarteners' parents are having difficulty adjusting, as well. It's difficult, at best, to convince these parents their children will be ok at school without them. Parents aren't interested to hear that year after year these 5-year-olds manage to walk themselves to their classrooms because there are so many school employees along the way to help them get there safely and on time. No, parents NEED to see it for themselves. That's ok. It's hard to let go....

What else has kept me busy? My daughter-in-law is preparing for the local children's consignment sale and she said she would put some of my youngest daughter's clothes in it. Very nice of her...and all I have to do is go through her clothes to choose those which will be sold. This is something that draws the procrastinator out of me quite quickly. But...I did it! Chalk one up for me, anyway.

Then, same said daughter-in-law says, "There will be a craft bazaar in November," and "Would you like to put some of your Christmas ornaments in it?" Well, yes, of course I would! But that means the craft table downstairs needs to be decluttered 'cause I can't paint ornaments unless I have an organized space on which to do it.

Is this enough? No, daughter-in-law starts talking about chalkboard paint signs, I find a burlap garland idea for Christmas, and then comes to mind the craft cabinet that I continuously cram with supplies and materials for projects I have yet to start. You have probably surmised I get overwhelmed pretty easily. If this is not evident to you just take a look at my Pinterest board titled, "Yummy Stuff I'll Probably Never Make."

Convinced yet?

Ready for school...

I'm learning that posting on a blog regularly is more difficult than I first thought.  I can't believe my last post was July 22nd and it's already August 11th! I guess I've been busier than I thought getting ready for the start of school. So let me share how I've been spending my time.

Leader in Me image

I saw this photo on Pinterest and immediately thought it would make a great statement around the restroom mirrors in the 5th and 6th grade restrooms. I make a big deal of reminding those students they are the oldest children in our school and like it or not, the other students are watching them and want to be like them.

I have been busy updating our data banks for the online programs we use and also uploading student and class information into a new progress monitoring program. These tasks I volunteered to complete after our system suffered the tragic and untimely death of our technology specialist. She is sorely missed....

Pinterest also led me to the "First Grade with Miss Snowden" blog where I found this beginning-school-year gift for teachers and staff:

1st Grade with Miss Snowden

I plan to use the Crystal Light and water idea along with the card, "You LIGHT up our school!" I also bought highlighters and made cards that state, "You're a HIGHLIGHT of our school!" I signed the cards from all 3 of us administrators because we make a great team!

This week I plan to visit our school bus contractor and give her materials to help the bus drivers reward students who follow directions and rules as they ride to and from school. Last year as I managed bus transportation for the first time the drivers and I worked together and we saw the number of incidents of misbehavior drop from the year before. However, looking at year-end totals of all the office discipline referrals we still had more bus referrals than anything else. At first thought I wondered why the students could behave 7 hours in school but couldn't handle a 20 minute ride to or from school. But then the difference hit me: there is more direct supervision in school. The bus driver has to do double duty--managing children and driving the bus--and his/her first responsibility is to TRANSPORT the children safely. So I knew I had to think of another way...or more ways...to support them and motivate the children to choose to behave safely. I am going to give the drivers SOAR cards like we use in school. They will hand them out to children when they see them acting responsibly and the children will turn them in at school for recognition and rewards. I'll try to post a photo of the SOAR card early next week.

I'm baaaaaack!

After a week on mission in Honduras, a week in between, and a week on vacation in PCB, I am back home and back online. I have the rest of today and all day tomorrow left in my "summer," so I am sitting somewhere between "just veg and enjoy the last of it" and "get up and get some things done that you can't do when you're working!" Vegging is winning.

I think I'll use some time to share insights gained over the past few weeks, starting with God's message for me as I visited the people of Vivistorio, Honduras.

I've spent a week each summer for the past 8 years serving the people of Honduras through the Baptist Medical Dental Mission. If you'd like to learn more about our particular mission, please read this article in The Anniston Star: Honduras Baptist Medical Dental Mission.

 A couple of the precious children who came through the clinic,

 my daughter, Erin, at her station in the pharmacy--dispensing liquid medications,

and the hand-sanitizing station--bleach, beta dine, and pure water--that keeps us from getting sick in the field.

These visits have always been very fulfilling for me, but this year the Lord had a specific message for me: "You serve me well here (in Honduras), but what will you do for me when you return to your 'normal' life?" Some people might view those who choose to travel to other countries in the name of Jesus Christ as generous, faithful servants. And I do, too--viewing others who go as generous and faithful. But I don't view myself that way at all. This one week a year in Honduras is probably one of the easiest things I do! OK, riding a school bus to the clinic site, sleeping on Army cots in school rooms, and hoping I don't see any frogs are 3 things I don't relish...but deciding to go, helping pack medicines and gifts for the Hondurans, getting up early each morning and standing on my feet all day as I gather the prescriptions for the patients are all no-brainers. It's not that I think I have no choice in the matter--certainly, I do. It's that I KNOW I am serving the Lord while I am there. So doesn't it make sense that God's question is, "What about at home?"

When I am knee-deep in my day-to-day life at home it is difficult for me to always know if I am truly serving the Lord in all I do. My mind tells me I am being faithful by teaching children and cultivating relationships with coworkers, students, and parents. My heart, however, doesn't always support the concept. I feel I should be doing more. From this point, I want to be more focused and stay more alert to opportunities God gives me each day to serve Him and others.

I hope my family and friends will hold me accountable to this goal.

Inground trampolines, decks, and patios: I've looked at hundreds if not thousands of photos of decks, patios, and hot tub installations (which has nothing to do with trampolines) over the last week. You see, I've wanted a nice, finished backyard for almost 19 years now...since we first moved in to our brand new, built from the ground up home. This has been my dream while my husband's dream was a finished basement. He got his wish completed two years ago when my son and his wife needed a place to live for a short time. I'm still waiting on my dream to be fulfilled, but I think I see a light at the end of my very l-o-n-g tunnel! Take a look at this

patio idea 

( just the hot tub and semicircle seating area where a fire pit will be) and imagine it with the screened deck here:

minus the lower deck... that's where the patio will be. The only other thing I'd like is to put a roof over the hot tub so I can hang outdoor curtains around the sides for privacy when we would like it. Something like...

idea for covering the hot tub. 

It is very definitely possible that these ideas way outweigh my budget, especially since the plan is also to level part of the yard and make a fenced area for the dogs. We've already given up on the idea for an extended drive/parking area to handle extra cars when the children visit. But if you don't dream, you don't get! (BTW, the inground trampoline mentioned at the very beginning is my daughter's request.)

And how does all of this fit in with this blog?? Well, I accomplished adding links and photos to it, which means I learned something new!

Now, my daughter and I leave on Sunday for a mission trip in Honduras, so when I return I hope to upload "before" pics of the back yard. And I hope to chronicle the process here from time to time while also interjecting my learning about apps for school, social media, and who knows what else!

Summer finally started for me...

officially as of last Tuesday, but since I went to AETC on Wednesday and Thursday and my brain needed Friday to process all the great info I received (and weekends are a given) I consider today my first day of summer. So how did I spend it? I cleaned my bathroom! I wanted to use this homemade recipe to clean my shower...

but it just didn't happen. I should have taken the time to try because the commercial brand cleaner I used didn't give me satisfaction. And now I have to do it all over again tomorrow.

The more important item in this blog is the learning that has taken place. Today I learned how to add the Pinterest button and a link to one of my boards at the bottom of my blog. I ran out of patience when learning how to add one of my pins (of the pic above) as a widget, but I don't think that's what I wanted anyway. I just wanted to add the photo in this post. And voila! I did!

And the learning is the more important item because I told my two girls we would spend this week doing/learning something new each day. My young one decided to learn how to use sketchup.com to create original works of art that we plan to turn into jewelry later this week--maybe Thursday's new thing. My older one used an electric sander for the very first time ever to prepare her desk chair for a new paint design. And even before I delved into html code tutorials I designed 3 t-shirts at cafepress.com! These websites are two I learned about from Kevin Honeycutt, who is an AWESOME speaker and teacher!

SO...I not only accomplished one new thing today, I accomplished five!! The t-shirts, the Pinterest button and board, the javascript code I had to figure out how to add so the Pinterest things would show up, adding links and photos to my post, AND I made something new for supper tonight from recipematcher.com! My son said the chicken turned out very tender, so check it out if you'd like:

(Well, I guess my good luck has run out for today. I'll have to update this post with a pic of the dish I made when the website is available. I can't get it to open tonight. Maybe they're closed....)

Day 2 at AETC

I'm sitting in session 2 of day 2 at the Alabama Education Technology Conference...and I am on overload!!! After 2 full days of excellent ideas at the JSU CORE Academy last week and 2 days of more wonderful ideas this week I am just a little (!) overwhelmed. The lingering question,"How in God's great world will I be able to manage all the social media apps that these presenters recommend I use??" I understand that each of them are, or can be, beneficial to my professional life and most of all for my students. I just can't fathom how to organize it.

Yeah, that's me. I am an organizer. I think it is my true hobby. I like to think I'm a crafter, a scrapbooker, a Bejeweled Blitz champion...but really I am a craft organizer, a scrapbook materials organizer, a Blitz geek.

Now there's social media apps-Twitter, LinkdIn, Facebook (which I have been on for sometime), Tumblr (which I learned yesterday is the app kids are moving to from Facebook so I have to be on it if I want to know what my children and my students are doing), and I can't remember which others I was told to get on. But here's the best part for me... the organizer!!! Hoot Suite manages several of these apps' streams in one place! So, I think you can imagine what exactly is going to happen with me next: I will get stuck managing/organizing my Hoot Suite account instead of actually tweeting and ??? (I don't know what it's called when you tweet on other social media sites!!) Boy, I have a long road to travel.

Side note: auto-correct is so frustrating! Yesterday I tried to type, "...herding cats," and it came out "HDTV cats!" Wouldn't have been so bad but it was shared with the whole audience through Todaysmeet.com. Don't you know people were thinking, "Who is that idiot?!?"

Hi to all--or even just one!--person who comes across this blog and reads this much! I am relatively new to blogging. I set up one last year just for the teachers that participated in a summer book study I led in my school but I abandoned it as soon as the study was over.

After attending the JSU CORE Academy just this week I have gained the courage to try again. With the help of Farrah Kilgo, http://thinkshareteach.blogspot.com and Cara Whitehead, http://teachingmycalling.blogspot.com, my eyes were opened to all the great ways social media can be used in the classroom--both with the students and for my own professional development. I owe it to myself and my students to tackle this tool. And I can't wait to learn all about it!