Hurray for the weekend!

It's almost here... you can smell it! I'm not sure what I even did this week but I'm done with it. I worked school registration yesterday, taking people's money and helping those that don't have any get state money. It was a long day, though registration was only 11-7, someone didn't tell me she had to be there at 7 to do other things. I haven't had to wake up before 7 in a long time, but yesterday, I shot right up at 530. It's a big step haha. Only a few weeks until I'll have to do that 5 days a week.

I got to see my classroom yesterday... it smells horrible! Like old mold. Gross. The music teacher has an old piano and old rotting away instrument boxes and books in there and won't take them out. I will be stocking up on Febreeze soon!! It's not the smallest classroom I've ever been in, but without that music stuff I would again at least 70 sq. feet that could be used for a reading corner. AGH. I secretly brought all of my books and a lot of my posters and what not in through the side door so they would stop taking up room in the garage.  I didn't realize how much space is just blank/empty, I'm definitely going to need to get more posters. I'm going to go to a home improvement store this weekend and see about getting a big piece of shower board to use as a white board in my room. I just have to figure out a way to make sure it doesn't fall and doesn't damage the chalkboard behind it. I'm thinking industrial strength magnets.... Any suggestions?

And I did add more books to my library.... check out the LibraryThing link on the side... it's outta control!
*Even as I am writing this, I have eBay open looking for the Dear America books!*

I also bought the first two Twilight books in Spanish! I'm excited to read them, I hope my Spanish isn't too rusty that I have to look up all the words.

Noodles (my hedgehog) has been sleeping when I'm home and awake when I'm at work or sleeping so no photos of her today. Instead here's a photo of Peabody and Penelope. Peabody I got from a local petshop and Penelope I got from a local cat shelter (odd, I know). Peas is about a year and a quarter, and Penelope is a year, but they are absolutely the best pair of hamsters I've ever had. Here's a photo of them singing.... errr, begging for a treat!

On to today's template! Here's template number 44.... Click the preview to download.

Welp, that's all for now. I've got a lot of work next week... (retail 4 nights and then heading to the school to help with inventory during the day most likely) so whatever time I have left will probably be reading teacher resource books or making Snugglie Bags, the bank account needs it.

Thanks for stopping by everyone and have a great weekend!

*If you'd like to share your creations with my templates, please email me at sweetteascraps AT comcast DOT net. (Trying to avoid spammers!)*

Enough with the books already!

I've bought so many books, it's ridiculous. They're not even for me, they're for my classroom library.. and I don't get reimbursed for them. Total right now: 343 books. That includes a few teacher resource books as well, but it's a lot for a new teacher anyway. Check it out here:  and be sure to change it from "My Library" to "All collections" so you can see everything. 


Now I have to group them in a logical to a child way. I plan on using small plastic crates with labels on them and a colored sticked (circle) and putting the same sticker on the binding of all the books that go in that crate. This way when I have my class librarian checking books back in, they will know where the books go. I want the students to run the whole thing, less of a pain for me! I need to make return date cards, and an instruction sheet for it still.... but I have 3 weeks to do that. 


This weekend there was a lot of driving and a lot of spending. It was my babe's birthday so we had a nice little dinner but spent the rest of the weekend going to book stores and flea markets. I also found a teacher store I never heard of called Lakeshore Learning who was one-upping the popular Blackboard store with a 20% sale on the entire store. I tried my very best to limit myself, which I did :o) We were at a Goodwill store at one point where I found this IKEA end table that matches the rest of our living/bedroom set. I decided I was going carry it around the store. Welp, I didn't realize that the shelf inside of it wasn't attached, it just sat there, so half way through the store it fell, and landed smack on my foot and then with a loud thud on the floor. People were running outta nowhere and asking if I was okay, all customers, not any of the people who worked there. A man tried taking the stand out of my hands but I told him no, it's not heavy, part of it just fell on my foot! Miles away from home the closest thing I had to ice was the end of a Slurpee from 7-11. My foot gets all sorts of stiff now, and it has an oddly small green/purple bruise errr lump.

But it's okay because we found an apartment that is everything we are looking for! We were super worried that no one would allow all of our pets. We have a cat, a tank-o-fish, 3 hamsters, a hedgehog, a skink, and 4 geckoes. It's a lot, I know, but they were okay with it and we only have to pay a deposit for the cat. They have storage lockers and garages available so we don't have to have our unit out in the cornfields anymore. They are ideally located in between both of our families near a cute suburban downtown near everything. And of course, the price is right! They even pay heat and water! The only thing is... we haven't seen in the inside yet. The floorplans are great, but I hope everything is not horribly dated or dirty. It looks nice from the outside and we scoped out the area and it seemed pretty decent. We might go see it this weekend or next weekend... we'll see! But I am VERY excited to move back in with my babe!


For those of you that have small animals (Sugar Gliders, Hedgehogs, Guinea Pigs, Rats, etc.), be sure to watch my Etsy store, as I just ordered some Zorb to start making cage liners. I stopped using litter myself and I'm using these cat mats made for the litter box and food areas, but they don't soak up the smell at all. My little princess lays it down with the best, so it can get a little smelly, despite cleaning her wheel everyday.  I am going to make a liner for myself first, and if all goes well, there will be more!


**For SNUGGLIE BAGS on ETSY** This is for my blog readers only! If you buy any 4 or more Snugglie Bags, shipping is on me!! That's right, FREE SHIPPING! All you have to do is commit to buy and then wait for an invoice from me before you pay. 


Alrighty, here's for my digi-scrapping readers: another freebie template! Today, I have template 43. It's nothing crazy and rather simple. The colored strips are linked together so you can easily attached a paper pattern to them. Click the preview below to download it!

I hope everyone is having a great week! Thanks for stopping by!