Teacher's Summer To-Do List

Been out of school for weeks, counting down your last days or right in the middle of a term I hope that you'll find my summer to-do list inspiring.  I've really thought about this list and I commit to trying to do everything single thing on it.

1.  I am going to take a nap in the afternoon.  Maybe every afternoon.  I may even start the nap before noon.  Just because I can.

2. I'll eat breakfast sitting at a table, maybe even the patio table.  I won't shove food from my fist to my mouth as I frantically try to make it to work on time

3.  I will have longish and meaningful conversations with grown-ups. 

4.  I will pee at will. AT WILL. 

5. I will cook real meals with real ingredients that require more attention than a microwave or crock pot. I mean microwaves and crock pots are fine, but it might be a treat to eat something that I didn't have to cook all day or cook in just a few seconds.

6.  I will go braless and shoeless for days and not care at all.

7.  I will go out on Friday evenings in cute and completely impractical shoes and not worry about getting rocks and tire from the playground in them.

8.  I will replace the fumes of bus duty with the fragrant and inspiring fumes of my essential oil diffuser that I can't use at school.

9  I will not care when I have to count backwards from church day to figure out which day of the week it is.

10.  I will lay in the sunshine and read something funny, smutty or both and not feel guilty about it.

11.  I will not say "Show me your hallway expectations." not even one single time.

12.  I will stay up late and bask in the great world of late night TV, weird infomercials and interesting text conversations with people who can stay up late like me.

13.  I will shop for groceries in the middle of the day.  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY.  And when I shop for groceries in the middle of the day I will take my time and fill my cart with food I can cook for a normal amount of time.  (See #5.)

14.  I will take extraordinarily long showers at any time of the day I choose.  Heck...I might even skip a few days.

15.  About two weeks before back to school time I will allow myself to start obsessing about my classroom.  Not before that.  Not even if the back to school sale ads come out early.  Not even if I make it to IKEA for the first time.  Not even if a dump truck load of beautiful school supplies is dumped onto my porch.  (Okay...well.....maybe that last one.)

16.  I will listen to whatever kind of music I want.  Loudly.  I won't screen it for cuss words. I am such a rebel.

17. I will spend time near water.  Maybe I'll reflect on my school year or reflect on my reflection or maybe I'll just throw rocks in the creek.  Maybe I'll just breathe in the fragrant, intoxicating scent of chlorine and dream of endless summers.  Maybe I'll join that Aqua Zumba class.  Bwahahaha...uhm...maybe.

18.  I will be thankful for a job I love and sunny days to share with my awesome family..

Pin this to remind yourself later. :-)

Confessions of a Border Hoarder

The first step is to admit that I have a problem.  Seriously....how can having so many beautiful borders be a problem?  It is definitely NOT a problem.  The real problem here isn't my huge collection of borders, but how I'm storing them.

I am about to share something very personal with you.  Something that I just don't show anyone.  It's dark.  It's messy.  It might even make you think less of me.  This is how I store my borders.  Don't scroll down unless you really think you can handle it.

It was a really long box that some specialty paper I ordered came in.  When it was barely full, this was a great and inexpensive solution.  Well...it was great for about 2 weeks.   I just kind of laid the borders in after I pulled them down and dug through them to find what I needed.  It created a beautiful mess.

Look at that!  Isn't it beautiful?  Can you see the bright colors, the brilliant designs, the clever, realistic images, the wavy scrolls of happiness?

It was pretty and it was fun to dig through but it really took an enormous amount of time to find what I wanted.  More importantly, it was quite a distraction.  As I started digging for the border I was looking for I would find a couple of packs of border that I bought with a specific bulletin board in mind and would start dreaming of that instead of searching for whatever I was in there for.  It is like going into Target for just one thing.  *laughing*  I can't even type that without laughing!

Recently I decided to organize my bulletin boards.  I would love to say that I researched it for hours, but nope.  I had a few great blog posts about this topic pinned.  You might enjoy reading about David Row's tidy organization tips or this cute container idea from the Primary Peach.  I didn't use those ideas.  I knew what I wanted.

I wanted a way to organize my borders by theme.  I considered a large under the bed plastic container, but the ones that I found wouldn't accommodate my longest borders and they did not have a flat bottom. This meant that if I used it, the borders would still be a little messy.

My local teacher had a solution that worked with how I wanted to organize them.  I bought 4 long border boxes and one set of dividers for these boxes.  Then the real work started.  In the picture about you can see some of my sorting.  I decided to put the borders in four different categories: Music (because I teach music), Rainbows/Patterns, Seasonal and Solids, Everything Else

This worked for my collection and worked with how I think about bulletin board displays.  You may need to choose a different way to organize based on your classroom needs.  For example your categories might be: Reading, Math, Nature, Solid and Patterns 

I must admit.  It is a little weird to see my wild, curly, colorful borders all lined up and standing at attention.  It is also wonderful!  I can flip through my categories and find what I need or just be inspired.  Yep.  That's right I let the borders inspire me!

Another confession:  I threw away old, yucky borders.  I threw away those little plastic sleeves that held one bulletin board border from ten years ago.  I threw away pieces of borders that had been cut to size, because seriously...what size was that board?  I'll never remember.  I threw away my old, beloved box.  I actually found fifty cents at the bottom of the box, so I bought myself a soda when I was finished.  That was nice.

Look at the pretty home my borders live in now!  Now that they are organized I have room to buy MORE borders.  That makes me happy.

Now that my borders are organized I have to do something with all of my other bulletin board goodies.  How do I store tablecloths, paper plates in lovely designs, notepads, recorders, posters...I think I've even got a pair of overalls in there.  I think this will have to be a project for another school year.

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