Where Has the Time Gone

I feel like I haven't posted anything in weeks!  It is amazing how busy summer actually gets.  You would think that one of these summers I could just spend every day laying by the pool.  Well, that hasn't happened yet so I thought it was perfect that my post is about everything that I have been working on while I've been gone!   

#1:
This one isn't really work - instead it is what has been filling my time (:     VACATION!!
My husband and I went to the Dominican Republic with some friends and had an absolutely incredible time!

#2:
After five years of teaching, I finally decided to accurately level my classroom library.  Usually I just 'eyeballed' it and guessed the level by flipping through the book.  Turns out that wasn't quite the best system  (:    So I brought home all 558 books from my classroom library.  
I used a few different apps and websites to level the books (I leveled them using the Guided Reading Level and since we use Reading A-Z it matches up perfectly!)  I also used the AR Book Finder and put the AR Quiz # in each book.  Phew!!  That took a week and a half.  Then, I printed out the labels and put them inside the books.

After that, I printed stickers for the cover so the students could easily put the book back in the correct location.  (The sticker color matches the corresponding bin color and then each bin will have the same label that is on the books).

The last thing was to sort all of the books.  Yay!!  Now all I need to do is find label holders for my book bins and I will be done!

#3:
Many times during the summer I become consumed with everything that I am trying to prep for the upcoming school year.  I end up getting burnt out because I don't actually take a break.  So this summer I am trying to limit the amount of time I spend working on things for school.  That is why my husband, two four-legged children and I have been doing lots of hiking!

Here is Nester

This is Sammie -- can you tell she LOVES the water??

I can definitely say that even though this summer has seemed to be one of the busiest summers, it has definitely been fun and relaxing!

#4:
I also finished organizing all of my worksheets into binders this summer.  And I am LOVING how they turned out!

You can check those out here and here.
The next step is building a shelf to hold all of these (so if I am actually being honest, that means that my husband will be building the shelf).
One of my favorite things about having a handy husband is being able to create 'custom' furniture pieces to fit the needs of my classroom.  I can't wait to start working on the shelf next week!

#5:
This one is a little embarrassing...and involves a lot of meltdowns.  In February my husband and I painted the living room.  It was beautiful - a pretty cream color.  Then, the sun went down and the beautiful cream color turned into an ugly pink.  Insert meltdown #1.  Luckily I have a VERY patient husband and he put up with the countless paint samples that covered the wall as I tried to find the perfect color.  I cannot believe how hard picking a wall color can be!  I would love how a color looked during the day but then it turned into a completely different color at night.  Luckily I found the PERFECT color!  Gray Owl by Benjamin Moore.  What do you think?

So then, while we were visiting family in Chicago last week, we went to Ikea to find some furniture.  Here comes meltdown #2.  I could not decide on anything that I loved, but I was feeling pressure (from myself) to pick out some kind of furniture since we don't have an Ikea in Nashville.
Mr. Patient calmed me down and said that we could go back the next day after we took the night to think about it.  So we went to Ikea for the second time.  I still didn't find anything for the living room, but I did end up finding a bedroom set!

Hooray, right?  No!  We put together the first dresser and it was way.too.big for our room.  Insert meltdown #3.  Again, in steps the patient husband who fixes everything *swoon*.   The plan?  We put that dresser in the guest room.  Then, we are going to head up to Cincinnati (Nashville, why can't you get an Ikea???) and make a weekend out of it.  We will go return the other two dressers and get two nightstands from the same set to complete the guest room.  We are even going to go to a baseball game while we are there!  See why this one is a little embarrassing?  I am traveling 4.5 hours to return some dressers from Ikea.  Oh my.

So there are some of the things that have been consuming all of my time this summer!  I will post about the shelf that we my husband builds after we finish it!