Long Time...No Blog!

Hello there! 

Remember me?

 If not...I totally understand.

 It's been quite some time since I shared anything here. I know I had been posting less and less over the past couple years and then last year I just stopped posting at all after June. In my defense, life was pretty busy. I went back to work at the very beginning of August and the first couple months of the school year are always extremely busy and challenging. Add a couple of students with some pretty bad behavior and this 49 year old (peri-menopausal...another story for another time) teacher was overwhelmed and exhausted. 

You might also remember that I was helping my daughter, Miranda plan her wedding. Throw in a bridal shower, all the holidays, my nephew's wedding, Miranda's wedding (February 2nd) and several other occasions between last June and today and my little old blog was totally forgotten about....until now.  Most of you are on Instagram and I love keeping in touch with you there but I miss those of you who aren't. And...I miss writing on this blog. I'm not promising anything, but I sure have missed showing up here. I really want to try to post here at least once per month. It will most likely be a recap of what I have been sharing on Instagram but I'm OK with that if you are. 

I was going to try to share some highlights from the past several months but I got overwhelmed when I started looking through all my photos. Trust me when I say life has been very good. I am still happily married...Joey and I celebrated our 30th Anniversary with an amazing trip to Walt Disney World. Miranda and Slade planned and paid for it all and went with us. It was a blast! Here's a picture from our trip of  Joey, Miranda, and I. 

You already know I am still teaching...this year I went with a dog theme in my classroom and love it so much that I am keeping it next year as well. Here are a couple pictures...of course I have rearranged a bit since these were taken but you get the idea. And as for the behavior students, it has improved significantly. I have worked really hard with them. I can hardly believe we're in our last quarter of the school year. I've been on spring break this week and have enjoyed it so much but now I am refreshed and renewed and ready to see my firsties. 

My son, Dakota has the sweetest and prettiest girlfriend now. Her name is Cheyanne. He is totally smitten and we really love her too. I'm happy that he is so happy. And of course, Miranda and Slade got married in February. The wedding was every bit as beautiful and wonderful and we had hoped it would be. It was such an amazing day. I will try to write a post about the day and share more pictures soon but for now...here's a photo of my family on wedding day....these people hold my heart.

And of course, I still have my Sadie and Rooster. They also hold a big portion of my heart. Here's Sadie keeping me company in my craft room and Rooster snuggling with me. He's such a big baby!

I also still love decorating and piddling around my home. I had put this love by the wayside for a while but have recently begun to take more interest in it again. I dearly love my home on Willie Mae Lane. Here's one of my recent projects...my mug racks Joey helped me build. I plan to display my seasonal mugs on them.

And that's about all I am going to share for now. I sincerely hope to post here more often. I'm feeling more like myself again most days. I mentioned peri-menopause earlier and goodness did it wreak havoc on me. I'm sure it's not over but I really hope the worst of it is behind me. I am so happy to be back. I hope to visit you soon as well. 

Until next time.....

 

 

I know I say this every month...but  where did this month go? I can hardly believe tomorrow is May 1st...and this year is one third over! I am trying to post at least once a month and am scrambling to try to get my post up before I fall asleep. It's not even 10:00 PM but today was the first day of testing for my firsties and then after work, the hubby and I had to go buy some groceries. I was gone all weekend and didn't get to grocery shop. Needless to say, I am tired! Anywho, let me give you a quick run down of April.....

I have been enjoying my plants and my porch. I got a table from Miranda and am working on finding a couple more mismatched chairs to paint in different colors to put around it. So far I have red and green. I am adding a blue and yellow and then recovering the seats to match. I'm trying to be patient while I wait to find two more chairs. 

Joey and Dakota finished the race car. 

They put a new body on it for this year and it looks so nice! I will be going to watch Dakota race on Saturday night. I went weekend before last but they got rained out. 

I decided on my new theme for my classroom next year. 

Big surprise...my classroom is going to the dogs. :)

Sadie and Rooster gave their approval. :)

I had date night with the hubby...we ate at Bahama Breeze and then went to see I Can Only Imagine. It was great! We both really enjoyed it.

I  found a great deal on new drapes for the living room and I have been enjoying piddling around the house a bit. I will admit though, I have so much to do still. I have tons of stuff to donate and sell at consignment that is just piled up right now. I just haven't had time or energy to deal with it much.

My firsties were recorded saying the Pledge of Allegiance and will be featured on a local radio station. They were super excited!

Miranda and Slade recently moved to the Panama City Beach area and I went to spend this past weekend with her. 

Slade was working out of town so we had a fun girl's weekend. It was just what the doctor ordered. Her new apartment complex is just beautiful and so serene.

I saw my grand fur babies....Bell...

and Rizzo.

We ate some yummy food including Emeril's Coastal Italian where Emeril himself was in the kitchen. According to the waitress he is there most days and lives just down the road in Destin.

These beach pictures are actually taken in the Destin area. The beach there is absolutely gorgeous!

We had such a nice weekend and I look forward to going again. She's almost 4 hours away so I won't get to go too often but  every chance I get, I will. I discovered a great new podcast to listen to on the drive which helps the trip go faster. 

April was a wonderful month full of fun and memories and May promises to be the same. I only have 18 school days left with my firsties. I seriously can't believe this year is almost over. I am ready for summer break though and have a long list of things I hope to accomplish around my house. A really long list. Maybe I will share that next month. 

Well friends, I made it. I'm hitting publish just before 11:00! I hope you all had a lovely April ad that May is even better. Thanks so much for visiting and until next time.... 

Christmas Happenings

Hello friends and welcome back. Can you believe it? I am actually posting again after just a week!

I'm trying to get back to it, even when there isn't much to blog about. For instance...this post. It's just a few random pictures from life over the past week or so. 

I took this photo for Instagram and thought it turned out really pretty. I am a new coffee drinker and am enjoying trying all kinds of creamers. I love this thrifted Pier One mug I've had for a few years now.

This is the view of my tree from the kitchen. I love how it can easily be seen from the living room, kitchen, and dining room. 

I also love the reflection of the tree in this mirror by my front door.

Over the weekend, my friend, Jeana, my sister, Nancy, and I went to a delightful show at a church in Gainesville. It was amazing....so much goes into this production. This was the display in the lobby. 

Here we are...me on the far left, Jeana in the middle, and Nancy on the right.

I only took a couple pictures because I was too busy enjoying the show to take pictures. This one shows snow falling from the ceiling.

And this one shows one of the live animals used in the production. During the third part of the show, the story of the birth and life of Jesus, when the three kings came in, one came on horse, one on a camel, and one with alpacas. It was awesome...I wish I had pictures to share!

I wanted to introduce you to my new grand dog....Babybel aka Bell. If you follow me on Instagram then you may have seen her already. Miranda and her boyfriend, Slade adopted her. She is absolutely precious!

I mean...look at that face! Isn't she precious in her new Christmas collar?

I wanted to share a picture that is very exciting to me! This load of lumber is the beginning of my soon to be new porch. It's going to be 10' x 32' and I can hardly wait to get started! Sadie was making a silly face in this picture...lol!

Joey and I went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast over the weekend and I had the stuffed French toast...oh my was it divine!

And while I'm on the subject of yummy stuff, I was thrilled to find a new peppermint ice cream this year. I love peppermint and look forward to the ice cream every Christmas. This one is the best I have had! I am about to have a bowl of it when I finish typing this post. I would share if I could!

Since my last post, a few things have happened around here. My mama had surgery on her rotator cuff and is doing very well. It is a slow recovery surgery as the shoulder only heals about 10% each month and the success rate is low, meaning it doesn't always help. We are praying that it will heal completely and she will not be in pain with it anymore.  My Aunt Loretta's (mama's sister) house caught on fire, but my uncle was able to get the fire out. Unfortunately, in the process, he slipped and fell and broke his hip. He had to have surgery and has two huge pins in place and is in a lot of pain. On a brighter note, I attended a fun Christmas party at my sister's house over the weekend. This week at school will be filled with lots of fun. Our Christmas program is Thursday night. The kiddos are always so cute singing  the songs we have been practicing. Sunday, the hubby, Miranda, Slade, and I are going to see Trans Siberian Orchestra in Tampa. I loved it so much last year and can hardly wait! I know Miranda is going to love it too!

I hope all is well with you. Hopefully I will be back soon!

Until next time.....

Heart Smiles

Hello friends! Once again, it's been a couple weeks since my last post. I just don't have much going on lately. Well, not really blog worthy happenings I should say. But this blog is about what is currently going on in my life, be it big or small, so I'm sharing. The little things bring so many heart smiles to my days and really are what life is all about anyway. :)

A couple weeks ago, Sadie and Rooster had vet appointments. Sadie for her yearly check-up and Rooster for his first visit. They had a great visit  with their new Dr. (out former vet retired) and they enjoyed their car ride over and back. On the way, the hubby held Rooster so he wouldn't be bouncing all over the car, but on the way home, he let him sit in the back with Sadie and he did great. Here's a picture of them, and yes, Rooster is being a copy cat or should I say dog, again. 

The wildflowers are in full bloom and so beautiful right now. I love these little wild phlox and have since childhood. Some of my sweet students picked these for me last week at PE time. So sweet!

I finished my cookbook project a couple weeks ago and am so happy with my binder. It is packed so I made need to start volume 2.

I designated a few pages to Christmas cookie recipes from my friend, Jeana's annual cookie party she used to host. It was such fun and I always enjoyed trying to come up with something clever and creative. The second from the left, is a recipe card I made into a bookmark. The cookies were displayed in a book shaped tin. The one with Santa on it was called Santa's buttons and the cookies looked like buttons and were displayed in my sewing basket. The snowball cookie recipe card was glittered white and made to look like a snowball. The orange one was made to look like a creamsicle because that was the name of the cookies. Such fun! I won one of the prizes many years.

When she was old enough, Miranda was able to attend the party. Her recipe "card" for one of the years is below...be sure to read it. Coffee stained and written on crumpled notebook paper...too funny! We had to make enough cards for every lady, so she hand wrote around 20 of these. Good memories!

This was such a fun project to put together!

We studied butterflies in kindergarten...well, life cycles. We had two painted lady chrysalises but one did not make it. This little beauty did though and the kids were so excited to release it.

One of my students whom I love dearly, left this on my desk after work one day. His mom works in pre-k so he was able to slip in while I was waiting for my other students to get picked up. I had done something special for him (he was recently hospitalized with his asthma) so he told his mom he wanted to give me the turtle he made in her classroom. She told him he could make me another one but he told her he wanted to give me that one because I do so much for him and the other students, so he wanted to do something nice for me. It brought tears to my eyes and made my heart smile. This kid is precious and I pray if I am ever blessed with grandchildren, they are as sweet as him.

We celebrated Earth Day in kinder. We painted and wrote our promises to help take care of the Earth. This student did a great job on her painting and writing. If you aren't able to read invented spelling, it says.....

I promise to recycle every day and leave the water off when I brush my teeth. So cute!

We made an anchor chart of ways to love the Earth.

My higher level students practiced alphabetical order and did an amazing job!

They make me sweet pictures all the time and I bring the really special ones home to hang on my fridge for a few days.

They made monsters in art class! So fun!

And, speaking of art, I hit Tuesday Morning, Target, and Hobby Lobby last weekend and bought some fun stuff! This stack makes me happy!

I went shopping and out to lunch with my sister, Nancy and our friend, Jeana to celebrate Jeana's birthday. We had yummy burgers at Square 1. I had sweet potato fries with cinnamon sugar on them with my burger. So yummy! 

We shopped a while and went for dessert before heading home. We had yummy pizookies at BJ's. Mine was lemon blueberry...wish I had another one now. Jeana had the monkey bread and Nancy has salted caramel. Theirs were good too but I liked mine the best.

Yesterday, the hubby and I went grocery shopping and out to lunch. Nothing too exciting, but I did pick up the supplies to start my new teacher planner I am creating for next year. I will share details soon. I have had such fun creating the pages for it. It is going to be a disc bound system. I can't wait to get it finished and put together. I found a few fun things at Dollar Tree, including these adorable washi tapes.

After we got home and I put things away, I tackled my bedroom closet. Oh my...what a job! It had not had a good clean out in quite some time. I was exhausted when I finished, but I am happy to say I got rid of more stuff than I kept. Clothes, shoes, purses, jewelry, scarves, and more! It felt so good to purge so much stuff. I also cleared out our winter clothes until we need them again. I am excited to remodel the closet when we start on out room in June. It will be much easier now that I have cleaned it out. 

And, that brings me to now. I have just been piddling today and taking it easy. This week will be a busy one. My kinders will be taking the Stanford 10 test which will tell if they are ready to move on to first grade in the fall. I pray my kiddos do as well as I think they will. I have such a great group this year and will be so sad to see them leave me. I will enjoy the time I have left with them though and am so proud of the growth I have seen in them over the course of the year. Hope you have enjoyed a wonderful weekend. Prayers for a beautiful week.

Until next time.....