Isn't summer supposed to be relaxing?!

Holy moly.

I've been sooo busy this week!

Ok, maybe not THAT busy, but in terms if this teacher's summer vacation, I was running myself ragged.

Monday and Tuesday were spent at school with my 6th grade partner in crime. (I'm relatively certain she is blog stalking me this summer. Hi Teri!) We spent two full days working out details of our brand new Student Ambassador program

What is the Student Ambassador Program, you ask?

Excellent question.

We're still not entirely sure.

It's at least going to be a combination of safety patrol, student council, PBIS training buddies for new students, peer mentoring/tutoring, school store running (Oh, yeah-we're also starting a school store next year. No biggie.), school event assisting, and probably some other stuff that I'm forgetting.

Easy peasie.

Not.

I'm really excited about starting this next year, but I'd be lying if I said that there isn't a teeny tiny part of me that wonders if we've bit off more than we can chew.

But clearly we both have superhuman abilities (I mean, I pried myself out of bed two mornings in a row during the summer-that HAS to be a super power!), so this should be a cake walk.

Please remind me of that if I have a mid-year meltdown. (Not that that would ever happen.)

I was supposed to meet with my kiddos on Wednesday and Thursday. Due to some scheduling conflicts, it didn't work out to meet with either of them this week. Honestly, as much as I love them, it was nice to have a mini-break (I know, I know, it's summer and I really don't have THAT much going on).

So instead of tutoring and whatnot, I did some antiquing with my mom and sister Wednesday afternoon. And then we made a trip to PetSmart because my sister's 200 6 hamsters needed more bedding.

Ummm...we may have left PetSmart with more than just hamster bedding.

Soooo....my sister has been trying to talk me into getting a class pet since I moved into my classroom. And I've been putting it off because I've just had soo many kids in my room with above average volume levels.

But as of right now, our class sizes are looking pretty small for next year. (WOOT!)

And well, there was this gerbil...

Clearly, you can see where this story is headed, so without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to Walter.

Walter, meet my blogging amigos. Blogging amigos, meet Walter.


Ok, come on now, you can't blame me for not wanting to leave that cute little face in the pet store.

And teacher that had my classroom before me had rats. At least I didn't get a rat, right? Those naked tails creep me out. Walter's tail is completely covered in fur. No bald spots.

He just moved out of his temporary home yesterday into his new gerbil condo. No more spare wire hamster cage for him, no sir.

He's living large, now.



By the way, those tubes? Not as easy to put together as you would think. It took Matthew and I at least half an hour to put that bad boy together.

Then my sister looked at it and told me that I put the lid on backward. Oops. And apparently the set up in the picture (which is how I set it up) makes it super top heavy. So she fixed it. Oops again.

I'll get the hang of this gerbil stuff sooner or later. Hopefully sooner.

Thursday afternoon I spent with one of my friends. She lives about half an hour away, but her in-laws have this awesome pool that she gets to use. We decided it would be great to just lounge around the pool. I needed gas before I left town, and wouldn't you know, as soon as I paid for my gas, it started raining. And it rained the whole way there. And for at least an hour after I got there.

Sigh.

But it did finally stop raining, it was about 75 degrees instead of 90, and we finally made it to the pool.

And then it rained again. Urgh.

This pasty girl needs some sun! Especially to help cancel out my bizarre tan lines from our canoe trip.


Please note that my tan vanished from the knee down.

Because that's not weird or anything.

And finally, I had a two part photo shoot to do, plus I had to get my awesome 100 Follower Giveaway up and going (you did enter, right?)!

The weather was MUCH cooler than it was originally supposed to be, which was awesome for my shoot--and from what I've edited so far, I'm quite pleased with the results!

But I'm sure you don't want to see those.

Do you?

Ok, I haven't even edited this one yet, but I LOVE it. Like a lot.


And because I really like the two that I went ahead and edited so that the couple could get a sneak peek at their pictures, I'll just go ahead and share those with you, too.

Cute, right?!

Today I (finally) finished editing some pictures from a concert that I shot toward the end of May so that I wouldn't have to feel guilty about editing yesterday's shoot.

 And quite honestly, other than watering my flowers and blog stalking, that's pretty much all that I've done today.

I know, I know, I'm not REALLY busy.

But compared to last summer when I didn't crawl out of bed or get dressed until 4:00, this is busy.

Don't judge me. You know you're guilty of it, too.

Before I go polish off the last of the chocolate chip cookies I just made (thank you Tollhouse for your break apart cookie dough), have you joined in my 100 Follower Giveaway yet?!

If you haven't you should! SO MANY awesome prizes! (It would be wrong if I entered, right? I thought so.)

Because you were kind enough to read this far into my ramblings, here is a fun font that I finished up this afternoon that you can download for FREE!

Just click HERE to download it! If you make anything with it, can you show it to me? I LOVE seeing all of the cool stuff you guys make!

Since I know you've missed Charlie here are a couple pictures from this afternoon. I've now given you your cute dog fix for the day. You're welcome.


Oh! Quick shout out to all of my new followers! Hi guys!!!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!