Friday Favorites

Today I am joining the Friday Favorites link up with some of my favorite bloggers, Andrea at Momfessionals and Erika at The Slaughters. I love joining up with them so I can see all those other favorites!!!

This was fun to do this post today. I wanted to make sure that I was sharing things that I really love. I realized as I was putting this post together that I am all over the place. There is no theme to my favorites today, except I like them all.

#1 Tervis
I love my Tervis cups!!! I love that they don't sweat on my desk at school! I also love that I can get them to fit all my different sides! Here are the ones that I currently own:

I love that I have both the small and the large size! The go every where with me! I am really excited because I just learned that you can totally customize your tumbler. I would love to have one with pictures of my girls in it. How fun would that be?

#2 Scentsy

Fall is my favorite time of the year for so many reasons, but one of the reasons is the the smells of the season. I love apple and cinnamon together! Nothing says fall to me like a good apple smell throughout the house. Because I am pretty forgetful, candles do not work in our house. So, we use Scentsy. My favorite Fall smell, and the smell that I am currently filling my house with is Baked Apple Pie. 

#3 Nail Polish

I am not typically a girly girl but I love this nail polish! It is Essie's For the twill of it. I love how it changes colors! Apparently it is also a cool color because I got a lot of "I like your nails, Mrs. Akey." from my 8th graders!  I got mine at Target!

So those are my favorite for today!! Happy Friday!!!

Clutter Free

I am so excited to be joining this challenge. I am optimistic that this will change a lot of things about our house!! What challenge am I talking about? The 31 Days to a clutter free Life by Living Well Spending Less!!

 

I feel so cluttered and I am hoping that this will give me the focus and accountability that I need to get rid of some of this junk!  I am going to keep yall updated with my progress through pictures and my thoughts on how it is all going! 

The first day of the challenge is to print the ground rules and sign them. I then am supposed to post the picture and give my best tip! Here is the signed ground rules sheet:

 

Here is my best cleaning tip: Get started!!!!!!

Here is to starting a clutter free Life! Wish me luck!

 

MIA

I have been MIA from the blogging world! Why you may ask? I started back to school

I am currently going from a parochial school to a public school. It has been a hard transition for me but we are slowly getting into the flow of things. There are so many things to learn!! I feel like a newbie teacher even though this will be my 11th year! Craziness!! All of that on top of normal school tiredness and I am beat by the time I get home!! Then I switch to mom mode!

Well I finally found time to sit and read some of the blogs that I follow and ran across Mix and Match Mama's fun giveaway. One of the things that I am trying to do more is dress better and not all dumpy. This jewelry from Stella and Dot is super cute!! Check here if you want to know more about the jewelry and giveaway.

It is really sad because I have even been too tired to take any pictures! Here's to hoping it gets better soon!


Happy Monday!

Friday Favorite

So today is Friday again and it is my last free Friday before I have to be in my classroom and then the kids all come! I can't believe it is that close and I am so not ready!!!  I decided that I needed a quite time routine in the morning to keep myself grounded and get ready for the day! You can read about what that routine looks like here. I am tellin' you that routine has made a huge difference in my mornings! SO my Friday favorite is routine! I know that isn't a thing that I can take a picture of but it is what has made a huge impact the last couple of days for me!

I am also going to post some goals for August. L have to give credit to Shay at Mix and Match Mama with wanting to set some goals. I have been so inspired by reading her blog and those of Erika and Narci that they have become part of my morning routine. They have inspired me to focus on the good and delight in my family, friends, and kiddos! Thank you ladies for doing that for me!!

That being said here are my August goals!
1. Do laundry twice a week
2. Set and stick to a budget
3. Decorate the house for fall

None of these are very exciting but they will make my life simpler and make me smile!!! I am off for the weekend!! Have a blessed weekend everyone!

Throwback Thursday

August is tomorrow and that starts a lot of new for us. So ... that got me thinking about where we all started. Here is the start of each of them in a few pics.

Skylar - now 11 She was so tiny when we brought her home. Now she is my super helper.

Lizzy - now 8 She is so loving and thoughtful and is my home body.

Jenna - now 6. Crazy is the best word for her. Can't believe she is getting ready for Kindergarten.

Makes me sad that they are so grown up now but also excited to see where God has them each headed!!

Happy Thursday!!!

Mind, Body, Spirit

I woke this morning and decided that something new needed to be done with my mornings. Usually I get out of bed turn the computer on grab a diet coke and sit and read my bloglovin' feed and write a post for this blog. I decided that I need to take care of me first and then get on with my day. So, this morning I focused on three things: mind, body, and spirit (not in that order). It was not a drastic change but man do I feel ready for the day now!!! Little change can make a huge impact.

Mind - Still going to get up and read my feed. I love reading what others are doing and I always walk away with something from one of the blogs.

Body - I am starting simple because you have to start somewhere, right? 40 jumping jacks, 30 crunches, 20 squats, 10 push ups

Amazingly after I had done this short routine all I wanted was cold water and my Diet Coke doesn't look so great!

Spirit - This is the most important thing I can be doing. I sat down and read Jesus is Calling, like so many of you do.

Then I felt moved to find the verse about your body being a temple of God. So off  I went in search of that verse. And here is it

I am ready for the day and so thankful that I chose to do something different this morning!

Cheap Favorite Things

I love linking up to these things because it allows me to visit so many other blogs that are similar to mine!!! Here is what I am linking to today.

Here goes my short list of favorite things under $10

#1

This is the best things that I was ever given at a teacher conference! I have two of them because after using it once at that conference I went back for another free one. They are only around $2 at Walmart. I like to highlight as I read certain books and this is perfect for that. I am currently ready Smart Money Smart Kids by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruze ($9.99 Kindle edition) and as I read I bend pages back where I want to remember things and reference back. Now I can highlight what I want. I tend to get carried away with the highlighter and highlight things I didn't mean to so now I can erase what I didn't mean to highlight. You can even go back later and erase what was highlighted!

#2

These little black earrings are super cute and go with everything. I am the kind of person who wears one pair of earrings and doesn't change very often. So these are perfect and the price is right. Normally they are $7.99 but they are on sale for $5.59 here. They remind me of the Kate Spade earrings here.

Those are my favorite things, today, under $10. One practical, one pretty, and one bonus item!