Currently January

I'm super excited that Farley, from Oh' Boy 4th Grade, has posted her monthly Currently a day early!  Cheers to a New Year!  Happy 2013!

Listening:  Lately I have been listening, or shall I say watching, a lot of TV.  Oh, how I love Gold Rush.  Actually, I love any of Discovery's shows lately.  But, I especially love Gold Rush.  I love seeing hard working Americans pushing the limit, going to the edge to strike it rich.  My 2 favorites happen to be Dave Turin and Parker Schnabel!  I have days where I wish I could leave it all to spend some time in the Klondike digging for gold.

Loving:  I am currently loving the extreme amounts of snow we have gotten this year for Christmas.  I'm only loving it, however, because I haven't had to drive much in it.  Wednesday we start back to school and I'd love for it to stop snowing so that I can have a safe and relaxing drive!

***Correction, I just checked the Post Standard and we've now had 34 inches of snow this week!  Insane!!!!***

Thinking:  I can't believe tomorrow is the last day of Christmas break.  As I scan my to-do list I see that I still have a lot of things that need to be crossed off.  Too many to check off in one day.  I always over plan when I have time off.

Wanting:  My class size has grown from 21 students to 23.  I am in much need of another Kindle Fire.  I previously received 3 from Donors Choose and purchased a fourth with my own money.  Students love using the Kindles during reading and math rotations.  But, I like to group students in 5 groups and 3 groups now have 5 students (instead of 4) which means someone has to share.  A Kindle is hard to share when you are in fourth grade.

Needing: I've spent quite a bit of time this week relaxing and trying to rebalance my life.  However, January is going to prove to be a stressful month.  Data, lesson plans, meetings, observations, common core, and more.  I need to revisit some of the stress relief strategies I've acquired over the years.  One of my New Year's resolutions is to live a more balanced life and to make more time for family, friends, and myself.  In regards to myself, I need to frequently remind myself to save time to relax and live in the moment rather than always planning, and worrying, about the future.



Ahh, just looking at this picture melts my stress away!  I need to plan a vacation sometime soon!

OWL:  My One Little Word for this month is:  HOPE!  Hope for today, hope for tomorrow, hope for a snow day, hope for an easy observation, hope to start a family, hope to live each day happy.  My mother in-law got me this cute Angel of Hope.  I've placed it by my computer so that I can start each morning with the hope that something wonderful will happen.

That's all for now.  See you next year bloggy buddies!