11.7.2024 I’ve been thinking about tackling a fairly sizable reorganization project in my house for several months. Essentially, I want to move everything from the guest room closet to the hallway closet and everything from the hallway closet to my office closet and everything from my office closet to either the shelves in my office, to the guest room closet, or to the garage. This also means I need to rearrange my office, assemble some furniture, and eliminate some treasures

11.6.2024 I pretty much always have a song in my head. It’s actually kind of fascinating to me that not everyone’s brain works like this. I honestly can’t imagine what it would be like not to have a constant stream of music in my mind, acting as a soundtrack to my day. I spent more than a little time tonight going down a deep rabbit hole trying to find a cute children’s song about Earth Day. Yeah, I do know it’s in April – there was a reason, I promise. But as I hopped from o

11.5.2024 I dropped off my mail-in ballot this morning before work. It was about 6:40 a.m. and there were at least 150 people in line. Thankfully I got to walk right in since my ballot was complete, but it was kind of inspiring to see so many people there waiting for the opportunity to cast their vote. It reminded me that voting is a big deal. I started a new behavior incentive today in my Kindergarten class, and I had the kids vote on what their reward would be. We had ballo

11.4.2024 Tonight I attended an Evening of Prayer for our Country at St. Raphael’s parish in Glendale. It was a beautiful night of taize music, quiet reflection, and the opportunity to just sit, breathe, pray, sing, and be still. There was no preaching, no campaigning, no talk of candidates. Just an evening of prayer. As I sat in the dimly lit church, surrounded by candles and calmness, I was struck by how steadily and deeply I was breathing. It’s probably the slowest my brea

11.3.2024 I’m a grocery pick-up girl. I was actually doing grocery pick-up way before the pandemic made it popular. You could say I’m an OG. I will occasionally go into a grocery store to shop, but more often than not I make my list online, let someone else do the shopping, and I pick up my order at my scheduled time. I will frequently order groceries on Sundays and pick them up on my way home from church Sunday night. That was tonight’s plan. I had a really big order today a

11.2.2024 I took a shower today at approximately 5 p.m. Do you know what a 5 p.m. shower means? It means I had a pretty amazing Saturday. I’ve always considered myself to be an extrovert. I generally like being around people, and I feed off of other people’s energy. I go stir crazy with too much downtime. But after a week of teaching, I often make it to the weekend feeling over-stimulated and desperately in need of a respite. Even we extroverts need to slow our pace and have

11.1.2024 Kindergarteners don’t mince words. They are both brutally honest and incredibly loving, which is the perfect combination for the most genuine, sincere, and sometimes off-the-wall compliments. Kindergarteners call it like they see it. No poker face. No forced niceties. Just raw reactions and unfiltered thoughts. Now sometimes this can hit a little harsh. I once had a student tell me that they couldn’t wait to grow up and have coffee breath like me. And I’ll never for

11.30.2023 Today was a day for the books. My feet are sore, but my heart is oh, so full. Our morning started in Rockefeller Center. If you’re gonna kick off a Christmas in New York tour, this is clearly the way to do it. The tree, the angels, the skating rink – heck, even the crowds – it was all magical. We walked around and took pictures and gazed at the iconic tree. It was perfect. Next up was a short walk to Radio City Music Hall to see the Rockettes in their Christmas Spe

11.29.2023 So, I’m in New York City with my mom. We’re taking a Christmas in New York tour and to say we’re giddy with excitement would be an understatement. The tour officially begins tomorrow, but we arrived today, got settled in, and attended the tour’s welcome dinner tonight. Dinner was at an authentic Italian restaurant in Manhattan. Oh my word! It was, quite probably, the best Italian meal I’ve ever had. The garlic bread was amazing, the salad was perfect, and the wine

11.28.2023 I am a procrastinator through and through. Always have been. Probably always will be. And my last-minute tendencies are never so pronounced as when I’m getting ready for a trip. I was not my best self today. I was frantic and stressed. I had way too much to do and too few hours to accomplish it all. And while I work incredibly well under pressure, it’s not a real enjoyable experience. I had 3 to-do lists going this morning and kept telling myself, “one more thing …

11.27.2023 I left my house really early this morning and got a glimpse of the beautiful full moon, sitting just above the peak of my roof. It was fairly cloudy out, but the moon had found the perfect spot to settle in the sky. My view of the full, bright, round moon was unobstructed and the light reflecting off of it shone brighter than even the brightest Christmas lights on my block. Although I was struck with its beauty, my thoughts immediately turned to school. I hadn’t re

11.26.2023 Today was an exhausting day. After several slow-paced, relaxing, stress-free days, I kicked it into high gear today. I have a ton to do in the next couple days and because I spent the last several days relaxing, today had a heavy cloud of responsibility and stress hanging over it. In addition to a whole bunch of school to-dos, high on today’s priority list was hanging my outdoor Christmas lights. I’ve been wanting to decorate for Christmas since September and it’s

11.25.2023 I pulled out of my driveway at 9:51 a.m. I’m usually a pretty prompt person, but this morning I was totally running late. I had a 10:00 hair appointment about 15 minutes away from home. As I straightened my car to head down the street, I noticed two things. I had a package sitting on my doormat, and my garbage can was still out on the curb after yesterday’s trash pick-up. Ooops. I was already running late, so I didn’t stop to take care of either of these things. I’

11.24.2023 My aunt and I ventured out to a craft fair this morning for a little Black Friday shopping. When we arrived to the high school where the craft fair was being held, the parking lot was full. My aunt was driving, and I was riding shotgun. As she drove up and down the aisles looking for a spot, I tried to scan the rows to the left and right in hopes of spying an open parking space. No luck. As we headed back up an aisle toward the entrance, we saw a man and woman who

11.22.2023 I’m in charge of potatoes and a fruit salad for Thanksgiving at my aunt and uncle's house tomorrow, so I spent this afternoon grocery shopping and prepping for tomorrow’s festivities. I decided to make my family’s famous orange salad and my grandma’s holiday potato dish. The orange salad was a no brainer. It is a staple at family functions – both on my mom’s side of the family as well as my dad’s. It’s my mom’s recipe and has been made for holidays, graduations, sh

11.21.2023 There was a ‘to Ms. W.’ envelope in one of my student’s homework folders today. When I opened it, I found a sweet note from this student’s family along with a Chipotle gift card. I’m a big Chipotle fan, so I was certainly excited about the gift card. The best part of the gift, though, was the note inside the card. The sounds cliché, but it’s totally true. My student’s mom had taken a few minutes to share with me in this note, a few of the ways that she’s seen her d

11.20.2023 After years and years of being a loyal Android user, I jumped ship tonight. I am now officially an iPhone girl. I’ve considered switching for quite some time. Each time I’ve gotten a new phone I think about it. I’ve researched and compared and researched and compared and researched and compared for years. Honestly the thing that’s kept me going back to Android time and time again is the fact that everyone always told me that it’s really hard to get used to an iPhon

11.19.2023 I called my mom tonight. We’d texted a few times over the past couple of days, and I knew she was wondering if my cough was gone and if I was feeling better heading into a new week. I intended to talk for just a minute or two – just to assure her that my cold was almost gone and that all was well. But, before I knew it, almost an hour had passed. This is not surprising. It happens all the time. Tonight as we talked we got caught up on all the things – big and small

11.17.2023 When I took my students through the lunch line today, they had several options from which to choose. I’m not usually tempted by or envious of their cafeteria choices, but today I found myself really wanting one of the grilled cheese sandwiches they were serving. I’m not sure what it was about that sandwich, but it looked delicious. Our APT had arranged a food truck for our staff for lunch today, so there was no way I was passing that up in exchange for a pre-packag

11.16.2023 Today was a day. It was not necessarily a bad day – in fact, it was quite good. But we had a big event at school today, so our routine was off and emotions were high. By 2:30 this afternoon I was exhausted and overstimulated, and the kids were too. We needed a low-key, stress-free ending to our day, so I had the kids do a turkey directed drawing for the last 20 minutes before we packed up. They did great, and a sense of calm came over the classroom as everyone desi