I'm currently sitting in a cabin in the middle of the woods in Potosi, Missouri right now with 110 sixth graders and have been since Monday.

And I'll be here til Friday.

So I haven't been able to keep up with my daily posts but while here I've thought about all the things I'm thankful for:

1. 6th grade camp is only once a year.
2. Under Armor because it is freaking cold.
3. Space heaters because it is freaking cold.
4. Thermal socks because it is freaking cold.
5. Wi-Fi.

Noticing a trend there? There is nothing like home however it is particularly beautiful this week despite the frigid temperatures.

I spent Friday preparing the house for holiday decorations. Putting up the Christmas tree in our rather small house requires furniture to be moved and I always like to dust real well before putting everything out. It was such a happy day, just bouncing around the house with the Christmas music playing.

While I'm not Buddy the Elf, I am thankful that the holiday season is one of excitement and cheerfulness. And I'm glad that I get spend extra time with my family.

I spent the whole day by myself, all alone at my house. This isn't a normal occurrence but the boyfriend had to work from 6am - 4pm, then went straight to the gym, so he didn't get home til about 6ish.

Leaving me all by my lonesome for the entire day.

I am thankful that I am the type of person who is absolutely fine spending time on my own. I can definitely entertain myself. For example, I practiced curling my hair using a tutorial from The Small Things Blog and practiced highlighting and contouring my face using a tutorial from Maskcara.
Side note: Do any of you highlight and contour? Any tips you can give me? I can't quite tell if I'm making a difference in the way I look. I kind of think my nose looks slightly narrower but I might be imagining it. Now if only there were a makeup fix for my lazy left eye...

Spent a little time browsing FB and entering every damn Silhouette Cameo/Portrait giveaway on the blogs I follow...I want to win one soooo bad!

I also made my Christmas budget and created a "manfriend" board on Pinterest for gift ideas for Chris.

I'm really trying to stick to my budget this year. Absolutely no gifts on credit which I've previously done because I've bought some big ticket items and utilized the 0% financing deals to pay them off same as cash. I am just not interested in making another payment on something...so cash it is!

I got out of the house for a little while to run to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to pick up a gift off my cousin's registry...I figured it would be too crazy to do it Friday or Saturday. Then I got home in time to make a delicious Swiss Chicken dinner.

Even though I am ok with spending the day on my own I am more thankful that I share my life and home with Chris. Eventually I think I would go stir crazy if I was by myself all the time!

What about you? Do you like being alone or do you prefer to be around people? What's your favorite thing to do when you're all by yourself? I sometimes will YouTube Zumba videos and have a mini dance party in the living room...living on the edge I tell ya!

Guess who's weekend started today?

This girl's...HOLLAAAA!

Three days off is just what the doctor ordered. I'm so excited to eat myself into a food coma, put up Christmas decorations, get crafty, workout, and celebrate my cousin's wedding. All before packing up and heading to camp on Monday. I'm pretty sure that spending five days in the great outdoors with 100 6th graders is not part of the doctor's orders but at least I get a couple days of work to mentally prepare.

What is on your holiday vacation agenda?

My sisters, Emily and Lindsey are two of the funniest people in the world. I'm so thankful my family has a good sense of humor. We often can laugh for hours just saying silly quotes from movies. Oft quoted movies when we're around each other: Mrs. Doubtfire, ("Hot jambalaya!" and "It was a run by fruiting!") Emperor's New Groove ("Llama face!"), just about anything with Rob Schneider in it, Road Trip, and countless others.(Yes, we have fantastic taste in movies).




When we were younger we were like any normal set of siblings, squabbling over clothes, arguing who got to use the computer next (ohmygod, the days of only having one computer...now we practically carry one everywhere we go with our phones) we really weren't super close.

We all had our own things - me, the family dork who loves school and following the rules. Emily is the exact opposite of me, drop dead gorgeous, athletic, and stubborn as all get out. Lindsey is a mixture of the two of us. I always say she got all the good qualities in the family, smart, athletic, pretty, and funny.

 And I still don't think we are the type of sisters who are BFF but we definitely love one another and are growing closer everyday. It took growing up and moving out of the same house for us to begin appreciating the unique qualities of each other.

Through all the laughs and the tears, I'm so thankful that I've grown up with these two knuckleheads.

Even as I typed the title of this post I was like, "Really Sara? You're thankful for the gym? Seriously?"

But really I am thankful that I have the will to want to go to the gym even when I feel my worst. I ultimately know that I will feel better once I get out the door.



More and more I realize how working out has to be a part of my life these days and probably will need to be for the rest of my life. While my ultimately goal is not to see any particular number on the scale, it is just to simply feel good and have my clothes fit.

This year more than I ever, I am so thankful for Fridays. I can't believe how much I look forward to them. The love affair probably started right around the time I found Lauren at From My Grey Desk's weekly link party appropriately called High Five for Friday. It's hard not to associate Friday with great things.

High Five for this Friday because:

1. Two more school days until Thanksgiving Break.
2. Staying up late with the boyfriend watching a tribute to Eddie Murphy. We could quote "Coming to America" for days!

"A-ha"

 3. Made my Christmas list  on Pinterest.


4. I spent more time crocheting with my Grandma this week and let's just say my boot toppers got WAY cuter with the help of a seasoned crochet veteran.

#chickenlegs

5. Recalling one of my favorite Christmas memories. I'm still laughing.

Go check out High Five for Friday and have a great weekend!

I saw this Clorox contest over at Tatertots & Jello and instantly started cracking up as I remembered one of the messiest Christmases my family has ever had.


Every Christmas Eve my mom and dad make this awesome buffet of appetizers and invite my grandma, aunt, and cousins over. About 5 years ago my mom bought a chocolate fountain to add to the spread, along with all sorts of great things to dip in it - marshmallows, strawberries, the works.

After preparing the entire buffet which covered our entire kitchen peninsula, dressed in our Christmas finest, it was time to get out the chocolate fountain.

I don't know how many chocolate fountains you've been around but the way they work is you pour melted chocolate into the base of the fountain, it gets sucked in through an opening that brings it up the inside of the fountain and out to the top where it cascades majestically down in all of its chocolate-y glory.

The key to a successful chocolate fountain is to make sure all the chocolate poured into the fountain is completely melted.

My dad failed to read this part of the directions.

He poured in partially melted chocolate chips. Immediately the fountain went to work sucking the chocolate in through the opening and out through the top. It didn't exactly pour over very smoothly, it was kind of gloppy but with a little bit more chocolate it would work perfectly.

Picture my dad shoving chocolate into the opening when all of a sudden a partially melted chocolate chip got sucked into the opening.

At that very moment, everything went into slow motion. The chocolate chip got wedged inside the motor that carried the chocolate up through the fountain. The top part of the fountain started rocking back and forth (a key detail I have forgotten to mention is that the fountain is in 2 parts, the base and the actual 3 tier fountain just set onto the middle of the base).

Within about 3 seconds the top section of the fountain lifted off of the base, spinning into the air, splattering chocolate over everything in a 10 foot radius.

Did I mention my parents have an open concept living space? The kitchen peninsula divides the kitchen from the living room. So when the chocolate splattered it went all over the buffet of appetizers, my whole family who was standing around spectating the new chocolate fountain, our Christmas tree, the walls, the carpet, everything.

Our first instinct was to scream because what else do you do when chocolate is flying everywhere? After my dad threw himself on top of the fountain and yanked the plug from the wall we all just kind of stood there...staring at one another.

I looked over my mom, who in a panic fled to the adjacent dining room to take cover from the flying chocolate, and started to chuckle.

I mean this was funny.

For a brief moment, my mom wanted to laugh with me. She tried to smile but she had just spent 6 hours preparing a feast for 15 people and it was now covered in chocolate. The tears started to fall.

It couldn't get much worse.

Bing bong!

The doorbell rang no sooner than the chocolate had landed. My aunt and cousins were at the door ready to celebrate. Imagine trying to tell your guests that they couldn't come in because we were trying to contain a chocolate explosion.

Thankfully they joined in and helped us clean up. After we calmed down and saw how absolutely hilarious this all was, it didn't take long for us to get on with the merrymaking.


To this day we still find small, stray pieces of hardened chocolate on our artificial Christmas tree.

It's stories like these that make me love my family and I'm so thankful for that darn chocolate fountain.

I just don't know where I would be without my mother.

Today was one of those days where an hour long conversation just wasn't long enough. She is always there to comfort me when I'm worked up about something or laugh about silly things. I sometimes miss living at home so much but living on my own has made us closer.

I'm so thankful to have the greatest mom ever. She has taught me so much and continues to teach me every single day. Even though I sometimes resist the fact that I am so much like her, I secretly love that.

Ah, I'm a day late but luckily I can be doubly thankful today :)

Last night I froze my buns off because my furnace was blowing out cold air. No bueno.

And it also just happened to be one of the coldest night in St. Louis so far this season. My favorite.

So with a quick click of the mouse I reported a claim to my home warranty company and they were at my door at 7:30am this morning. I am so thankful that I have a home warranty because neither Chris or I are very handy when it comes to things not working. Even when it is something as simple as your damn fan being on. Somehow our fan got turned on and was blowing out the cold air and we just assumed something was broken after pressing every button on the thermostat. So while I am thankful I have my home warranty, I am not thankful for paying $100 for someone else to come press a button to "fix" it.

Ah, we live and learn.

I'm lucky to work with people I really like. Everyday is a hoot! (Haha, our team name is the owls, get it? Hoot?) Whether it's sharing pictures of their kids or laughing over something silly one of our students said, I'm glad to go to work everyday, even though I've been counting down to thanksgiving break since oh, about September. I'm thankful that I get to do a job that I love with people who feel the same. They push me to be a better teacher even when I'm unsure of myself. And not just my team but so many people I work with at my school are amazing. I'm proud to tell people where I work.

This week I offered extra credit to my students to watched the election results but instead of breaking out the paper map to keep track of the electoral votes I turned to social media. Over 30 of my students live tweeted or instagrammed results. All. Night. Long. Even after I signed off and went to bed. The next day at school, the students were so excited to continue the conversations we were having online. It is times like this where I love how technology has impacted education. Although my activity wasn't without some hiccups, there was some very inappropriate language used not by my students but their friends which made me nervous but I just kept reporting everything to Instagram so it would disappear.

I'm so thankful that I can use not just social media but so many awesome technology tools in my classroom to help my students learn and explore the world.

Oh Christopher. I don't know what I would do without him. I'm so thankful I have him in my life, to laugh with, to cry with, (ok I'm the one that cries at everything) and to just be silly with. From our endless inside jokes to our sometimes ridiculous arguments, I love that he loves me for me.

I love voting. It makes me excited to help decide who will lead our country and to take part in a system that was developed over 200 years ago. I'm thankful that all women have the right to vote today.

This election is going to be a nail biter. Here's hoping to another four years #Obama.

There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about how crazy it is that I have my own home. I'm so thankful that I have a place to share with Chris, to start our own traditions, and to make all ours. Sometimes this house can be quite a challenge but it is one I'm glad to "deal" with anytime.

I'm not the richest lady but I'm thankful that I am able to buy what I need and sometimes the things I want. While I often feel like I'm pinching pennies and worrying over how much I don't make on my teacher salary - I have more than enough.

I've grown up only having one grandparent on both my mom and dad's side of the family. My mom's mom, Grandma Bonnie to me, has always been a special lady in my life. I lived with her for six years and in that time she taught me so much and I know her lessons have helped shape me in to the woman I am today.

A little bit about Grandma. Grandma is the crafty one in our family - she used to make our clothes, hair bows, and dolls when were little. As time went on she learned to quilt and create other home furnishings - I currently have two quilts and my living room curtains were sewn by Grandma. Almost all of my Christmas ornaments were hand crafted by her as well as two of my "teacher" bags (which seriously look like Vera Bradley, they're that good). She is also one of the best cooks around and an amazing gardener. I'm pretty sure she is good at everything.



I love my grandma and I'm so thankful she is in my life.

As much as I hate taking medicine, I pretty much depend on it these days. Between the arthritis, psoriasis, and this week's bout of sinusitis - I sure am thankful there is something out there that can make me feel just a tiny bit better even on my worst days (when I'm probably cursing because it isn't working miracles).

Oh, my 6th graders. You test me on a daily basis. This year has been especially challenging...many of you all full of personality but aren't interested in giving your full efforts. I sometimes spend hours on a week's worth of lesson plans all but to completely change them after teaching 1st hour. I got my first gray hair his year to which I totally attribute to you all.

Despite the challenges you present to me I'm thankful for all 99 of you because you make me love my career choice. Without you there is no me. When you struggle, I struggle. When you experience success because we've worked together my day is made.

Plus you make me laugh. The assignment below was to pack appropriate clothes for a trip to a Latin American city based on the latitude/elevation of the city.

Why yes, your dockers will make you the best dressed in Mexico City.

Pinterest and the blogosphere are rife with Thanksgiving ideas as we approach November. Beyond the turkey, pumpkin pie, and pilgrims, Thanksgiving is a holiday in which we should celebrate all that we are thankful for.

During the month of November I am challenging myself to focus on at least one thing I am thankful for each and every day. While I would love to make some kind of physical scrapbook (Cathy Zielske's printables would look faboosh), I think I have to keep this manageable so I'm going to post a short blurb each day along with a pic. And then link up each Friday over on Cathy's page. (I think eighteen25 is going to do a Blurb book along the same theme if Instagram is more up your alley).

Source

Now remember I have no cute pets or kids, so some of my gratitude may be outside the traditional "what-I'm-thankful-for" box like no chip nail polish and new episodes of Gossip Girl (don't hate!)

Anyone want to join in the fun?