Escape Room The Game

Okay so like I said before we have been on a snow break all week. (I still have slots left on my pay it forward post from earlier today!) My dog has been going stir crazy so I took her out for some fun and pictures today. While we were playing one of my Christmas presents got delivered. A stuffed animal version of my Rory! Enjoy my animal indulgence for a bit! Rory is not amused.  Someone got a sour bite of snow My favorite picture of Rory to date! I stopped her mid sentence I guess.  Dog Snow Angels!

So while I took a break from blogging and creating products I had a lot of extra time on my hands to enjoy reading and relaxing. I thought I would share some of my favorites from the last few months! BOOKS! I am super excited for the Divergent movie to come out in March. I LOVED the first book….we won't discuss the last book of that series! The Selection books have been really interesting so far. Kind of an old fashioned yet futuristic version of The Bachelor . Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls was not my favorite David Sedaris book. This one bordered on mean and a little preachy, but it had some high points. Monument 14  was a fun book about a group of school kids trapped in a Wal Mart like store during an apocalypse. I stopped reading after the second book because the fun of the book was them being in the store. Variant  is a little bit older, but it is really intriguing. A group of students is placed inside of a school and they have to run it themselves. They end up formin...

So I have not been to school this ENTIRE week.  We had MLK day off and then a small snowstorm on Tuesday that knocked us out for the rest of the week.  It's been a nice little break.  Lemme tell you though….It will be hard to go back to reality on Monday! One of my childhood friends that I follow on Facebook posted this last night: I'm participating in this Pay-It-Forward initiative : The first 5 people who comment on this status with "I'm in" will receive a surprise from me a some point in this calendar year - anything from a book, a ticket, a visit, something homegrown or made, a postcard, absolutely anything chosen for each specific person.  There will be no warning and it will happen when the mood comes over me and I find something that I believe would suit you and make you happy. These 5 people must make the same offer in their FB status. Copy this text on your profile (don't share) so we can form a web of connection and kindness. Lets do more nice and lo...

I am almost through my first week with my student teacher. So far so good... I think! I am the type of person who craves control and the peace that it gives me. When I found out on Friday night that I was getting a student teacher for the first time on Monday….that sent my stress level into overdrive! I spent Saturday to Tuesday night waking up in the middle of the night with crazy heart palpitations and thinking in my head, "This is the end. I'm having a heart attack at 30 years old." The thudding would eventually subside and I would be able to drift back into a restless sleep, but that didn't help my state of mind when going into work. When I walked into school on Monday I had so many things to accomplish and a few meetings that I was very frenzied when I first met her. This is out of character for me because I am rarely frenzied (Sarcastic, bitter, and distraught, but frenzied?….NO).  I had to race around my room and the school that I was barely about to mutter 3 s...

So I took quite the extended hiatus! Last year was such a rough year that I think I went into this year with a defeated attitude. I couldn't get inspired to create new products for TPT or Teachersnotebook and anything I tried to write for this blog seemed more bitter than humorous. I also have the type of personality that once I start working on something I CANNOT stop. It remains on my brain until I finish it. I can't do anything else, including sleep, until my projects are completed. Also, in November TPT sent me an email saying that they were no longer allowing sellers to use Google Drive for delivering products. This was not part of the terms of service when I started. On top of that I had also had 4 separate conversations with TPT support staff over the summer about that very product housed on Google Drive in which they asked ME to use it as an alternative to a buyer.  Then they deactivated my English Curriculum.  They didn't give any warning on this, just a snippy ema...