Out of Order...

Well, I have been away from my computer for a few days due to an injury to my arm. I pulled something..not sure what, but I was unable to move my finger, wrist and forearm for a few days. It was really weird and quite irritating. I never knew how much I used my right hand until I hurt it. Well, I am back up and working on Business stuff for a few days, but I will be posting some new products soon (-:

Moody Monday's

     Well, I had looked forward to a productive day, but... I opened up my InDesign: Photoshop CS5 program only to find that all of my settings had been reverted and all of my presets I added yesterday (hours of work by the way) had disappeared! Holy-Moly, it's definitely a Moody Monday for me. I guess I will be organizing files and cleaning out my system today...BOO. At least I'll find things I haven't seen for a while. I don't know, maybe a fresh start is a good thing, plus, my program WAS refusing to cooperate last night. Well, my agenda for today...getting my hard-core graphics processor to run like a hard-core processor...Good Ol' HP'ness (I know that sounds raunchy...I a referring to HP as "your Highness").

OMG...is it 2:00 in the afternoon already...AND...am I still wearing my VS, ASU themed sweats? YES...YES I am. I better get moving if I want to be somewhat productive today.

Here is a Freebie: I made it the other day while figuring out some blog theme ideas. The flowers and the cute cabinets were a couple of the freebies I scored from the lovely "scrappincop" blog I recently started stalking. Just right click and save: no copyright on this one...the placement and half the design is my own, but I have to give credit to whom credit is owed. I will be uploading my files onto the web pretty soon here, but I haven't decided if I want to use my "out of service" classroom website for downloads or if I should choose a cloud service. Does anyone have any recommendations for a good file-share service (preferably free)?

Feelin' Crafty...

I really feel like crocheting. I have a blanket that I have been working on for about two years (maybe longer), I seem to always get side-tracked when I pick this one up. I have completed many of them and have never procrastinated so much as I have on this one...I think I get sick of looking at the same colors over and over again and this one is a really big blanket. The kids actually use it half completed when they're cold. I really don't like the colors, but a few years ago I was inspired by a blanket a friend was making and I had her show me the pattern...who knows, I think I just might finish it this year. I will post a picture of it and you might understand why I keep putting it off.

I can never just focus on one thing, my  mind is always multi-tasking - I guess so will my blog. I am thinking of placing tabs for areas I tend to focus on and posting resources separately...I'll dream about it, because my post is turning into a stream of consciousness and I am not really sure what might pop in my head next...scary indeed.

Night,
MT

Well, it is taking a bit longer than I thought to design tabs, partly because I found a blog called, The Scrapping Cop, and I was in Photoshop CS5 heaven today. So much so, I even wore out my computer enough for it fall asleep on me...not kidding. I think it was telling me, "Take a Break Already!" I feel so worn down and tired today...lazy day.

Things have been tough at home and with the business...hope things start looking up soon. I feel like we are barely hanging in there and then I realize that we aren't even hanging....God is just gently pulling us. It has been a tough year, in fact. I no longer have a vehicle; which feels like death, but we are making it each month and the next few weeks look promising. This is the first time my two children have had to feel the pressure of a very cinched budget and it breaks my heart that we have had to pull them from a couple f activities this year. I really pray we can get back on our feet. I am really beginning to miss being in the classroom, but...things always seem to work out - just not at the exact moment that I need them to (-; The stress had run me ragged, but tomorrow is a new day! Happy Monday...even if I have to fake it.

Have a lovely night and calm Monday morning...Looking forward to finishing some projects to post (-:

MT

P.S. Here is the link to that blog, you have to check it out. To get to the freebies, scroll down and look to the right for the "key word" sidebar and click the link labeled, scrapping! Make sure you have a day to waste! If you do not have a graphic design program...no problem, just use the png images that are high resolution a great quality

http://www.scrappincop.com/

Start a Publishing Place in your Classroom...

While teaching Kindergarten at a private school, I fully funded my own teacher site in order to provide parents and students with resources. Every year, I organized a writer's workshop in my classroom and I used one of the pages on my classroom website to post student publishing and pictures. Doing so proved to be a great motivator to get students to reach maximum potential. They were so excited to get to see their work online and to be able to show family members who were out of state. I always encourage students to take pride in their work and turn in work that they could be proud of. This was a great opportunity to allow struggling students to say they did their best and that they were proud of their work. I really loved doing the writer's workshop at this grade level. Here is the page I created that I had embedded in my classroom website.


... I embedded the site into the blog and all was well, but my object parameters caused my layout to get funky on me. I have added a link to the right. Just click on "Mrs. T's Student Publishing" to bring up the site. I created all of the homework pages over the summer and had a weekly link with printable pages and help tips for parents. I will be putting together some homework printables on TPT soon. I chose to design my own homework because I wanted the work to reflect what students were learning in class and not to just assign "busy work."

     I really wanted to give parents a chance to see what their children were doing in the classroom as well as to monitor their work at home. This was very helpful in directing my assessments because there were times that a parent picked up on something the student did not fully grasp or found it not challenging enough. I love the blessing of watching students grow, blossom and mature. I love bragging about my students - they are truly amazing little people and I can't wait to see where their lives lead them as adults!

A Little bit of this & a little bit of that - for teaching, of course.

  Good Morning! Okay, well maybe 1am is not technically morning for all of you, but I love this stuff. Here is a peak at some November calendar pieces. If you don't already know, I own a Heating & Air Conditioning Company with my husband & my cute little header was my cute teacher-spin-off of our Trane Comfort Specialist Dealer logo...LOVE IT! I may just have to rename my blog (hehe).  I showed it to my husband after I finished it before submitting it on my TPT site for approval (we finally get to add some color to our product pages) and he giggled right with me...nice to hear him laugh - without an English accent.

 For those who visit my blog...

 I am also going to post some free stuff as well - just in time for the last week of October. The images and clip art are completed in my own graphic designing program (that ( can't seem to pry myself away from) and I am giving full permission to use the images as you like - so long as they are not re-posted for sale or used for commercial purposes (since I already use these ones). Let me know if you are interested in custom design clip art or web/blog design. For the Freebies, just right-click the image and save it to your computer...Enjoy!

Free for the taking! Remember, many of my designs have a transparent background & high resolution. When you click on them to enlarge when saving from the blog, many will appear as a black outline because I prefer not to add a white background. This way, the images are easily edited and can be used on websites or printouts without the ugly invasive background taking up much of the space. Let me know if you have any problems & I can email the files straight your way (-:  As a teacher myself...I jump at the sound of the word, FREE!

Next on my agenda...I have been working for several weeks on U.S. states teaching resources and clip art, complete with games, puzzles, and hands-on mini activities and lessons. It should be up and ready for purchase by next week.  

Here is a "sparkly" sneak peak at my January themed calendar pieces..

To Blog the Abyss

    I was sitting at my desk thinking of what profound thing I could come up with to write for my first blog post, and it suddenly dawned on me, that my life is just not that profound. I spent most of my day designing and uploading the background and header for my newbie blog and I am just getting to my first post with a loss for words. And every time a thought comes to mind, I am completely distracted by my husband, who is on the floor of my office playing Zynga games on FB at the moment.

     He recently acquired an English accent (I have no idea from what) and every few minutes he'll say something to me and sound completely normal, but then something happens at the end of each sentence (particularly the last word) and a muddled English accent appears. I am not really sure how to feel about it at the moment. I find myself completely annoyed at the onset, but when I think about it in all actuality, the accent becomes quite hilarious. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he weren't wearing Hawaiian swim shorts and raising his arm in the air, as if he is about to quote Shakespeare, every time the accent comes out. At best, the topic gave me a good beginning to a new hopeful relationship to blogging.

Well, have a lovely evening and come back. I will be posting products from TPT as well as sharing free teaching resources in the next few days.

MT