Must Have Monday and July Goals

It's July 1st! 46 days until the first day of school, and that's including the weekends.  I can't believe how fast this summer is going and how much of my "To-Do" list I was going to accomplish hasn't even been touched yet. YIKES! I'm stressin' just a little bit, but sometimes I do better under pressure. Let's hope that is the case now.

Now that it's Monday AND July 1st, I'm sitting down and mapping the rest of my summer. I'm tweaking my To-Do list and feeling the crunch of the last few weeks of summer break. I've told myself I'm going to get moving and get things done. (Let's just hope my kids will let me!) To start me off, I'm linking up with Sabra at Teaching with a Touch of Twang for her Must Have Monday linky party.

My Must have this week are my blank calendars that go on the side of my fridge. I have two. One is a "Master" calendar. Each family member has a color designated to them which makes it easy for me to glance at it and see who is doing what for the day. July is pretty wide open now that baseball is coming to an end. I am going to have so much more time now that I won't be at a ball park every day!

The calendar on the bottom is a weekly calendar for each of the boys. Seems a little redundant, but I use this calendar more for their individual practice times, and more importantly their school schedules like bringing treats, test dates, and important assignments. I was able to customize these to my liking and the entire calendar back is magnetic, so it doesn't slip or slide off. I LOVE them! I ordered them through Customized Creations!

With it being July 1st, and me wanting to be more "on top of things" I've decided to also link up with Jess at I {Heart} Recess for my July Goals. I've listed mine below and am REALLY going to try to accomplish them. If you can't tell, I'm on a mission!

PERSONAL:  Grow more in my faith. I need to do a better job of making more time for my faith. A long time ago I ordered a prayer journal and it's really awesome, I just haven't dedicated the time I should to it. With the stresses of life, I realize I need to put more faith in HIM, because with Him I'll be able to do anything!

FAMILY: With 4 boys, it's sometimes hard to give everyone the undivided attention they want. Before school begins, I'd really like to spend some 1 on 1 time with each of the boys. My second, Cooper, always asks to go on "Date Nights" and I truly enjoy them. I get to have conversations with them that I probably wouldn't had we not taken the time to go on our dates. A little 1 on 1 time with the hubby would be great too! :)

HEALTH:  I think I put this as a June goal, but it never went anywhere. Well, now I'm on a mission. I'm going to begin my workouts and do my very best to cut out the pop. The last time I did this, it didn't take me very long to not crave it as much or often, so I know it can be done. Willpower, something I lack more than I'd like to admit.

SCHOOL:  Organize and Prepare. I know that's pretty vague, but I'm still going through my classroom and would really like to be ahead of the game before school actually starts. I have all four in school this year, with one in junior high, which means game nights on the week nights, so we'll be plenty busy. I don't want to feel like I'm barely keeping my head above water, especially since I'm starting out at a new grade level. My goal is to be at least 2-3 weeks ahead in my planning. My new Erin Condren planner should help with that!

BLOG/TPT: I'm not tech savvy enough yet to do anything TPT, but I'd really like to begin planning what to blog and hopefully share some things that others could find useful! Right now I'm struggling to come up with, what I think, are blog-worthy posts. Hopefully as I begin preparing for my class, I'll have lots of ideas to share.

OUTSIDE THE BOX:  This summer I swore I was going to try new recipes so that when the school year hit I'd have plenty of meal plans to fall back on.  Well, that hasn't happened either, and probably because I really don't like to cook. My goal, try at least 1 new recipe each week before school begins. It won't give me a ton of new recipes, but it's a start. 

Now that I've spent some time on the computer, it's time to get off and begin working on all of my goals and To-Do lists! Be sure to link up with Sabra and Jess and good luck with your own goals this July!

Megan

 

Must Have Monday...Ballpark Style

My first Must Have Monday post is nothing glorious. Nothing you are going to want to run out and purchase or get the crafts out to make. In fact, it's probably nothing you would have guessed or thought of when clicking a "teaching" blog post. Well, maybe you did guess it after seeing the title of my blog post, which would give you an "A" for inferring. (There, there's my teaching moment to go along with my teaching blog.)

No, my must have for this Monday is my large bag of sunflower seeds.

Let me explain. I have four boys. Yes four and no, we're not trying for that girl. Anyways, I have three playing baseball. My oldest just had his state tournament where his team began play on Friday and finished Sunday falling in the championship game! They played so hard and it was a real heart breaker, but this was the first time we've ever made it to bracket play. And up to that game, we had only allowed 6 runs in 5 games, so there was a lot to be proud of. IMMEDIATELY after that game, we hopped in the car and drove the 2 hours home to quickly reload the cooler and head to my 2nd's double header.

Right now, I have 30 minutes for the dryer to finish so that my oldest can go play another double header and my 2nd can play in between. We have 3 games tonight, 1 game tomorrow, 2 games on Wednesday, and then (fingers crossed) 1 game on Thursday and a championship game on Friday.

My seeds are sometimes my lunch and my dinner. A few times this summer they've even been my breakfast. They are my distraction when one of my boys is up with bases loaded and 2 outs in the bottom of the 6th, or if they are brought in to pitch with bases loaded in the bottom of the 6th.  Moms of baseball players, you know what I'm saying. :) Yes, some nights I go home not feeling my tongue, and most of the time I'm cleaning out a dryer full of seeds because someone forgot to take them out of their baseball pants, but my seeds are my must have at the ballparks, and for two more weeks I'll be stocking up!


Be sure to link up at Teaching with a Touch of Twang and share your Must Have!  I hope everyone has a wonderful Monday and an even better week! You know where I'll be. :)

Play Ball!
Megan