There's a story behind my first Monday Made It item. I have been craving an Erin Condren lesson planner. But I haven't ordered one, for two reasons.
1. Money
I don't mind a splurge, but remember this makeover?
Well, it wasn't free. Also, I have spent a ton of money shopping lately. The short version is, we moved to Texas three years against my will (job transfer for my husband, great for our family, me, not so much) and I was sad. And I gained 20 sad pounds. So this summer I lost ten of those pounds. And I've been having waaaay too much fun buying 10 pounds lighter clothes.
2. I'm lazy
Yes, Erin Condren planner I love you sooooooo much. But, I'd have to write each subject in and my duties and all the other stuff I put in my own lesson planner template. Sigh.
So, I made my own inspired lesson planner pages, and I love them.
I also made a year at a glance set of pages.
I'm really happy with how they turned out. I was able to give myself the space I needed for each subject and have it exactly how I wanted. Erin Condren fabulous? No, but I'm happy with it.
Not just my lesson plans got prettied up. I made these curtains for my shelves. All sorts of junk that I don't want to look at is hiding back there. They look black, but their really brown and white polka dots. Happy!
I also made a class blog to replace my class website. Why, you ask? Well, several reasons. I have always done a class newsletter to e-mail out because most people don't check the website. Then e-mail addresses change, one parent is on, one isn't, sometimes I forget to attach the newsletter to the e-mail, blah, blah, blah. Then I'd have to update the same information on my website. No more!
See that follow by e-mail spot? Parents can sign up to receive the updates, and I don't have to worry about it. Yea! I did consider a Wordpress blog because it can be password protected, but in the end, I didn't want to learn a new platform. I did find a way to password protect in Blogger, but it takes extra steps for every single post. I'm going to password protect the class pictures page and call it good.
These two bulletin boards were almost the death of me. At the very least, they were the death of my Sunday.
See, lovely Kristen at Ladybug's Teacher Files made these incredible CRAFT and VOICES bulletin boards. And because she's awesome, she gave them away for free. Yea! So I downloaded them, printed them, cut them out, and started putting them up. Only, MY BOARD WAS TOO SMALL. Yes, I'm yelling. I almost cried when I realized that. But I really loved the idea of having them, so I remade them on my own. It took forever, but it's done. And now that they're up I think I'm going to be able to move the VOICES board to a larger bulletin board, defeating the entire purpose of one remake. Yea me.
I'm usually all about the sharing, but since this is not even close to my own idea and an almost total copycat, I don't feel good about it. You should just go visit Kristen and download her fabulousness.
On the home front, um, I made some clean laundry? I'm in full on school mode, so nothing pretty is happening around my house. I bathe. The kids are clean. That's about all.
Go visit Tara at Fourth Grade Frolics to see what she and everyone else has been up to for this week's Made it Monday.
I realize my post is way too wordy, but that's me in a nutshell. Deepest sympathies to my husband. Seriously, y'all. My husband uses 5 words when 10 would do. I use 100 when 10 would do. But we must always remember:
Hope you had a productive day!