Midweek Randoms {July 31, 2013}

Hi everyone! Happy Wednesday! I'm linking up this week with Megan from In This Wonderful Life for midweek randoms!

• How can it possibly be the last day of July?! HOW? My parents always told me that time goes by more quickly as you get older and they weren't kidding! I just wish my summer didn't fly by so darn fast! :(

• Speaking of summer ending, I went to school yesterday and Monday and got a LOT of work done! This will be my seventh year teaching and I'm telling you, I've never been more calm and productive. I always get crazy stressed out and can barely think straight because of everything I'm trying to remember. Daniel and I have been praying these last couple of weeks that I will have a calm and peaceful mind and be able to get a lot accomplished. The Lord has completely answered that prayer and I'm so grateful. I am way ahead of where I normally am at this time of year and I started in a new classroom that was packed up in boxes. Praise the Lord! I can enjoy this last week and a half of summer without that burden! You can go here to see how my classroom looked after we worked last week. Here are some pictures of how it looked when I left yesterday. I still need to put some things on the walls, but a lot of that will come as I teach different concepts.

 

This is my favorite spot in the room right now. Colorful and cozy... :)

• I found a super fun trick yesterday while I was working at school. I needed to write items for my "wish list" on Post-it notes and I thought it would look so much nicer if I could just print straight on the Post-it notes. {I know, totally unnecessary, but I'm an elementary school teacher! Things like that make me happy!} I knew that I'd seen somewhere {probably Pinterest} that there is a template for printing on Post-it notes so I consulted Google and found one! Here's the template and directions if you want to try this. The template is for 3x3 Post-it notes, but of course, I wanted to print on apple shaped ones. :) I just centered the apple Post-its as best as I could in each box and it worked perfectly! I was so excited!! It really is the little things...

The font I used here is CK Handprint.

Here's my finished wish list. If parents want to donate an item to our classroom, they'll just take that apple off the tree and send the item to school with their child. I've done this at our "Meet the Teacher" event every year and it's really helpful!

• We had our family cookout last Saturday and my brother and his wife brought the BEST smoked pork. They own a restaurant called Holy Smoke BBQ in Gadsden and it is so yummy! Their fried okra and french fries are amazing! And of course, the pork is incredible, too. You should totally check it out if you're in the area! We were sad when all of our leftovers were gone!

• And last, but certainly not least, I finally got my cheesecake fix. We went to The Cheesecake Factory to get our half price cheesecake and it definitely did not disappoint. Even after two weeks of careful thought and deliberation, I still struggled to make up my mind when confronted with the huge case of cheesecakes and that crazy long menu! I powered through, though, and went with the Reese's Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Cheesecake. I had never had this kind before, and oh my. It was the perfect balance of cake and cheesecake. There were also layers of peanut buttery caramel! Divine! Daniel ended up going with the Fresh Strawberry Cheesecake. A boring choice, in my opinion, but he's more of a "straight up" cheesecake person so I guess it makes sense for him. ;)

Well, I think that's all my randomness for today! I hope you have a fabulous rest of the week!! :)