Nearly Famous!

Woo hoo!!  My day was made today when I opened up TpT and found myself (well, my store) as one of the featured stores!!

I'm not one of those 6 digit earning teachers....yet....but I did break $100 this month!  So maybe this is a good sign for 2014.  14 is my lucky number after all!! :) I believe that right now I have 14 items in my store too...there's that number again! I need to increase that to have more earnings.  It's not that I don't have the ideas or the projects to load...but the time to do it would be nice.

Perhaps you could stop by my store {click here} and see if you can find anything useful for your classroom. I teach in Idaho and we are 17th below the national average for teacher salaries (33rd from the top--yes, thank you Mr. Luna and Governor Otter for perpetuating that!).

I'm not even at the Idaho state average yet!  What a goofball I was to leave my salary in California and move $20,000 backwards.  But if you have ever been to North Idaho, you would understand why we did it.  It is a wonderful place to raise your kids.  Everything balances out in the end.

So, I did notice that a lot of teachers who have stores on TpT are from those states that are hanging with us below the national average!  For me, the reason I do it is because my brain is full of ideas.  I have had co-workers tell me for years (before TpT existed) that I should make a book of what I do.  Well this is one way to start.  Also, there is the cost of college....one daughter is starting college next fall and our second daughter is going to dual enroll next year during her junior year in high school.  Now comes the next 4 or 5 years of poverty for us...so anything I can create and load on TpT will help get my kids through school!

Do you have a TpT store?  Do your earnings go to something special?  Do you have a favorite store you go back to over and over?

ok...gotta go finish the comments on my report cards tonight!  Oh, yeah, and make 14 cheer bows for the Mini Hawk performance at the Varsity game tomorrow. Phew....I'm tired already. lol

Lost in Idaho...or parenthood...or work...or life

So intentions, if they were worth money, would make me rich!  I got lost this year.  Strayed away from some of the things I wanted to accomplish.  It wasn't because of a lack of trying and it definitely wasn't because I was being apathetic and not doing anything.

It started with the end of the school year last May, then summer came, and summer stuff that kept me away from my computer. I guess in some respects that is a good thing.  But not what I was hoping for.

We bought a camper this summer...something that my husband has wanted to do for like forever...so we had to use it.  Then the next thing I knew, August cheer practices started, and fundraisers and team bonding and then school began again.

Now add in my daughter being a senior, which means I have been on the Senior Parent Committee planning the grad night party this coming June, filling out FAFSA paperwork and scholarship and college applications, and two varsity competitive cheerleading daughters, which I coach, and of course there are the 21 1st graders I live with Monday through Friday...and the icing on the cake:  Common Core adoption and no math curriculum so we are fudging our way through the next two years until it's in the budget to adopt an actual curriculum.  I feel like I am swimming against the current just to keep up and getting nowhere.

Anyone else out there feel that way??

So 5 hours of sleep in a night is a good night.

I don't want to wish for summer because that means my first baby will graduate...and there is no way I am old enough for that.  But could we please have a few more hours in my day.  26...is that too much to ask?  Really, just one or two.  Just slow the spin of the earth just a tad bit.  Is that too much to ask for??

Here are my two biggest distractions...my girls:

So hopefully I will find more time to post and actual get to the 365 blogs I'm looking for!!  

Happy New Year!

And yes, I haven't sent my Christmas cards out yet either! lol