Pencil Sharpener Giveaway!!!

You guys.

You know I love my pencil sharpener from Classroom Friendly Supplies. (If not, see my previous post)

Well, lucky for you guys, Troy, from Classroom Friendly Supplies is letting me give away a pencil
sharpener to one do my readers! How awesome is that?!

The giveaway will run for two weeks, and at the end a winner will be chosen via Rafflecopter. What's in it for you? If you win, you'll get a sharpener in the color of your choice (green, blue, red, black, or pink). If it were me, I'd totally go with the pink.

Oh, and if you're outside of the U.S., you'll have to sit this one out-maybe I'll do a TpT product giveaway sometime soon that you guys can participate in!

And if you can't wait to win one, because you realize that your classroom is incomplete without it, you can order your very own at www.classroomfriendlysupplies.com!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Best Pencil Sharpener Ever.

Yeah, I know, I completely disappeared again.

Maybe someday I'll become a consistent blogger again. Sigh.

Quick school year update: Things are starting to look up. Minus Friday. Friday wasn't a great day. Here's to hoping it was a fluke.

Overall, my class is starting to finally settle down and it has been incredibly welcome.

In other news, my photography business is really taking off and I have some incredibly exciting stuff headed my way. I'm beyond giddy!

But more on that later.

On to the real point of this post-The Best Pencil Sharpener Ever.



Ok, I'm sure by now you've heard all about the awesome pencil sharpeners over at Classroom Friendly Supplies. And let's be honest, if you're anything like me, you're a little skeptical about it.

I mean, how great can a pencil sharpener be, right? It's a pencil sharpener.

First of all, I just checked out the website, and it now comes in pink. Hello, classroom decor coordination!

So I've had my sharpener for about a year now (and because I'm a terrible blogger, I'm just now getting around to reviewing it), and I love it. No joke, I think our custodian just about fell over when I asked him to take the old, crappy pencil sharpener off of the wall (apparently no one ever asks to get rid of a pencil sharpener...except me).

Things I love most about this sharpener:

-It's quite. Enough said.

-The kids can't stand there and sharpen their pencils until they turn into little nubs because they're stalling and trying to avoid work. You know what I'm talking about.

-If we sharpen 20 pencils in a row, it doesn't smell like melting plastic. I'm talking to you, Mr. Fancy Electric Pencil Sharpener.

No joke. This bad boy is so amazing that one of my coworkers (who thought I was nuts switching to a manual pencil sharpener from an electric one) came to my room to try it and was so amazed that she went to her computer, ordered one for herself, and threw away her electric sharpener the second this one arrived.

It is that good.

Trust me on this one, if you don't have one of these already, go order one. In fact, order two. You won't regret it.

Here's the link: http://www.classroomfriendlysupplies.com/

Well, hello there.

Now that I've had a little "me" time to recuperate from the 2012-2013, I'm a whopping TWO WEEKS from the new school year! Umm, I don't know what your thoughts are on this, but I'm not ok with it. The first day back for teachers is August 12th, our Open House is the 13th (which completely blows my mind!), and the kids start on the 14th.

So I'm sure that if you've been a long time reader of my blog, you're probably thinking that I've already been working on new supplies, and that I've probably already spent hours in my classroom. I mean, come on, who doesn't love getting back in there and setting up for a new year?!

Yeah, not me. I haven't set foot in our building since the last day of school.

Don't get me wrong, I am excited about a new school year. My mind is trying to forget the troubles from last year and is trying to convince me that this year will be the best yet. And, you know, it might be. But after last year...well...let's just say I'm a little guarded.

I did finally start back-to-school shopping today. FYI-Amazon credit cards are pretty much the best thing ever. You see, my hubby and I use our credit card for pretty much everything, and then we simply pay it off at the end of the month. And you get credit on Amazon. So this girl just got $128 worth of supplies for the school year, and I only paid a whopping $19 out of pocket. Bam.

And then, since I was so financially responsible in getting supplies for free, I got to buy fun stuff with my back-to-school budget. Two new bungee chairs from Target, a new fuzzy body pillow, a bean bag, and a 3-piece zebra print rug set. Hello, comfy reading spots.

I am pretty disappointed about our Open House being the day before school starts. On one hand, I love the idea. I think it's pretty great that we'll have the chance to meet parents before school starts. But, on the other hand, I have a lot to get done in addition to planning for an Open House.

Plus, I had this brilliant idea at the end of the school year. You see, last year's class was...a handful. There was very little that they responded to in terms of rewards or consequences and it made my job super difficult. I even went as far as to tear down my classroom. Twice. They lost all of the fun stuff. Not that it mattered to them.

So my plan for this year was to start with a bare-bones classroom and then let them earn all of the fun extras. The chairs, the pillows, the lamps, etc. You know, thinking that if they had to earn it, maybe they would take more ownership.

But come on. There is no way that I'm going to have parents attending an Open House and not have my room set up. So there goes that brilliant idea. Drat.

I'll keep you posted(ish) on that whole "classroom setup" thing. Fingers crossed.

Other life updates:

-My photography business has really been picking up speed. It has been super exciting this summer, and I feel like I've learned more in the last 2 months than I did in the first 4 years.

-I've discovered maxi dresses. Where have you been all my life?!

-The Mr. and I went to Gatlinburg over the 4th of July for vacation. I was an idiot and wore flip flops in the rain. And fell on a sidewalk in front of a bunch of people. And then I fell again about an hour later. Down a flight of stairs. And broke my elbow. And spent most of the 4th of July in the emergency room. Oops.

-In case you missed my last post, I'm teaching 5th grade this year. I was holding out hope that our 6th grade numbers would increase over the summer, but no such luck. On the upside, it looks like I'm going to have a pretty small class.

-I found out over the summer that our amazing technology coach managed to pull a few strings for the coming year. My (now former) grade level partner and I will each have a set of 20 1st-generation iPads to use in our classrooms. I must say that I'm pretty excited about that.

-Probably one of the most important moments of the summer was when we found this bad boy. We finally have a trash can that Charlie can't get into. I can't tell you how awesome it is to not have to hide our trash can in the bathroom every time we leave the house. The refrigerator is another story. We're still resorting to a bungee cord and baby gate for that one.

And lastly, thank you to all of you who left encouraging comments on my last post. I may not have replied, but know that I truly appreciated the support and words of encouragement. I still stand by the fact that I have learned so much more from the blogging community and my own teaching experience than I ever learned in college. I am amazed at the fact that despite my completely sporadic posts over the course of the last year, that my list of followers has continued to grow.

You guys are awesome.

An update...

Ok, so here's the deal.

I haven't blogged in forever.

And to be honest, that's kind of been the trend this school year.

I'll be the first to admit, this school year has been a tough one. There have been countless rough days, nights when I've come home in tears-wondering if I can keep doing this, and some unexpected changes along the way. Blogging was something that I loved doing-and I'm sure that part of me still does, but this year has been different. I've really struggled with this class. I've had a ton of behavior issues this year and unfortunately, my class doesn't respond to much of anything, let alone appreciate anything extra that I do for them. Needless to say, it's been an incredibly trying year for me. It used to be that I found myself so inspired to try new things with my kids partly just because I was dying to share new ideas with you. But honestly, I have been so uninspired this year, that it just hasn't been something that I've been able to make myself do.

Throughout all of this craziness, the one thing that I have been really able to get excited about is my photography, so I've kind of clung to it lately. Don't get me wrong, it's not like this will be my last year teaching, but I've been really inspired to work on building my photography business lately. As some of you know, I've been doing photography for several years, but it's been more of a 'couple sessions a year' kind of thing. As of right now, I've shot three sessions this year, have 3 more scheduled for this month, one confirmed for next month, and one that's still tentative. This is huge in my book. My hubby upgraded my camera for Christmas, and ever since, I've been devouring anything I can get my hands on regarding marketing, sales strategies, technical skills, editing skills, you name it. And I love it.

So, I wish that I was providing you with all of these awesome ideas-I really do.

But for the time being, I've just really needed to take a few steps back and focus on separating myself from school when I get home.

That's not to say that I won't blog anymore this year, it's quite possible that I will. Heck, I just went to the Daily 5 conference yesterday, and it was amazing! And that pencil sharpener that everyone and their cat is talking about--I've been using it since the beginning of the year, and let me tell you, it lives up to the hype.

Oh-and did I mention that I'll be teaching 5th grade next year. Yup. That's happening.

So.

Don't completely count me out yet.

I'll be back...eventually.