Five for Friday - July 17th

This week has been very up and down when it comes to Dollar Tree.  I stopped in to see what kind of storage containers they had and immediately fell in love.  I knew the long ones would be perfect to redo my classroom library with!  My parents live about an hour away and close to 5 other Dollar Trees.  My father calls himself "hunter gatherer" so I knew he would be up to the challenge of finding the extras I would need.  Two days later he drops of his finds while in town....they're completely different.  Turns out the other stores don't carry the adorableness I found...at least not in pink...or the right sizes...  After much frustration and a few other trips to my Dollar Tree (hoping there would magically be more) I bought other styles and made it work!  I do love the results!  It just turned into a much bigger project than I had originally planned.  I suppose that's the life of a teacher.

 In my "family room" (what I call the area of our classroom where I read to the kids and we have meetings) I have had a dark blue rug for a few years to help identify the area better.  Slowly with little fingers picking and picking the rug has started to fall apart.  Of course, so has parts of the shelving and other things kids find to pick at, but that's for another project.  Well, back to the "hunter gatherer" that is my father.  He calls me one day to tell me he found some cheap rugs.  I wasn't a fan of the patterns and mentioned that if I got a new one I'd really like a cute chevron rug.  Next thing I know he is ordering a rug from Target and it is showing up on my doorstep.  (Addressed to my maiden name might I add)  It is chevron!  It is enormous!  It is perfect!  :)

My husband and I took Liam with us to meet his babysitter for the school year.  She is a former coworker of mine who decided to stay home for awhile to be with her children.  I couldn't be happier knowing that he will be in good hands.  At the same time going to her house, discussing details, and seeing him interact with her little one started making the reality that I am going to have to leave him for the bulk of the day soon very real.  It overwhelms me just to think about it.  I don't know how all of the moms out there do it! 

 I had someone randomly stop me in the school parking lot today to ask me when the office staff would be back to work at the school.  Being that it is summer, I of course had to pull out my phone to look at the calendar.  Checking for him, it hit me that I am down to about 2 weeks this coming Tuesday!  2 weeks?!?!  Where did the summer go?  I have spent the bulk of my summer at school and I know I have accomplished a lot, but I still feel there is so much left to do!  I know we've come so far, but we've got so far to go...  Hairspray anyone???  No?  Yeah...just me.  

One thing I did finish up this week is my homework folders.  Last year my teammates and I changed up the way we do take home folders and homework in general.  This led to us purchasing our own folders (with prongs) and supplies to fill them followed by many hours in assembly line form putting them together.  It is a long/pricey process but completely worth it!  I will go through one of my folders more in depth next week so you can see what all goes inside!