This past week has meant lots and lots of driving. I don’t necessarily love being in a car in the first place but being the only one who can drive kinda sucks… especially for 9 hour trips. We made it though! This summer has been full of driving – first a 6-hour drive to see my parents, then 2-hours to see a friend in Montreal, 6 hours back to the North then a couple days later a 9-hour trip to Barrie, ON to see his dad and then back home a week later. Unfortunately it’s not over either :S I’ll be heading back down to Barrie again this week for a wedding. Thank goodness I finally have a vehicle of my own (woohoo no more rentals) or else this would be very hard on the wallet!

It’s that time of year again! Time for me to fill my freezer with delicious wild blueberries 🙂 Not only are they a treat to my tastebuds, but they are also light on the wallet. How? We pick them ourselves in a field! It takes a bit of time (and a toll on your back) but it is SO worth it! Yesterday we picked about $100 worth in about 2 hours. Can’t wait to eat some of these delectable little berries – YUM!

This week, once again has been very non-teacher related as we were traveling and visiting with family members. On our way back home from Barrie, some of Mike’s family decided to convoy up with us to visit the great white North (ok, not white yet but it will be sooner than i’d like). They stayed with us for a couple days but unfortunately it rained the whole time they were here. This meant we didn’t have much to do but I tried my best to entertain the 11 year olds 🙂 (which wasn’t too hard since I teach their age level.

I have to admit, every time I visit either of our homes, I stop in at Value Village. It is a bit of an addiction really… Not only for the awesome teacher clothing finds that I come across regularly, but also for the cheap books! I swear half of my classroom library has been supplied by Value Village. I try to wait for their 50% off sales but there is very little notice and the closest one to me is about 6 hours away :S So I make do with the opportunities that I do have and pick up what I can when i’m down. What fab finds did I come across this time? Hard cover copies of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” collection! I got 5 books for $6 CAD, as they have a “buy 4 get the 5th free” and each book was only a $1.50! As a teacher, you gotta love second hand stores!

Now for something teacher-related lol. So I guess with only three weeks until I go back to school, planning is a must! Since i’ll be teaching a new grade again this year (6th grade) I started out by deconstructing the QEP again. I am currently in the process of doing my long-term planning so that I can at least have something to put in my teacher planner other than “important dates” and when i’m finished i’ll share in on my blog for you all. I’ve also finished my classroom design plan. I decided rather than trying to be all fancy this time around, I just did a quick mock-up in Pic Monkey and it worked out fine. I’ll be going in a week early to try and set up my new classroom because I had to pack up everything for the move to my new classroom. I’m just hoping i’ll be done everything before the kiddos come back because boy… do I have a lot of stuff for such a small space :S

P.S. Any suggestions for small space organization is greatly appreciated 😉