Lately

      This school year has been busy- a mix of feeling a bit overscheduled and personally doing a lot of things.  I anticipate my schedule getting  a lot crazier over the next few weeks, but it should be fine if I'm conscientious about my scheduling (and if everybody allows me to be a control freak regarding time. lol Sorry in advance.). At least there are some holidays in the mix so there is some planned relaxation too.
      Here are some recent endeavors of mine.
School:
    On the negative side, I usually see all of the students for the same amount of days per rotation. This year has made 5th/6th end together, 7th ends a different day and 8th grade ends yet another time. I have found that this change is throwing me off a lot it's taking a lot of adjustment.  Hopefully, after a bunch of correcting tonight, I will be caught up and be able to keep up from there.
     On a positive note, I have started my Thanksgiving tree project. These are some  background pages that I made from watercolor paints that will eventually be cut into leaf shapes that I will write my notes on. I really like the bottom one.  My sister-in-law, Sarah, graciously offered to use her Cricut to help me with a making leaves out of some gelli-printed paper. Thanks again, Sarah!

Personally:
     This past week was full of some fun events. I got to remind my kids that we are blessed enough to help others by donating to a local toy drive. While we were there, we were given tickets to go see The Pentatonix! (For those near Boston, this was Karson, Kennedy and Salt from Mix 104.1)

We saw Abi, who was not our taste in music, but she seemed like a nice girl. Then we got to see Us the Duo, who we loved. I had never seen or heard them before. Here is a song they wrote for their wedding. They performed it live and I really enjoyed it. Both of them are extremely talented musicians and I was impressed with the different styles that they performed.

   If you don't know the Pentatonix, shame on you... here is a link to their music too! Here is a cover of an Imogen Heap song they did. Again, incredible musicians.

Oh, and while I'm spreading incredible musicianship around, did I mention Kevin, known as the beatboxer of Pentatonix? Woah..

   Then, we had Veteran's Day off. (Thanks if you are a veteran who is reading this!) I brought the kids up to Maine to visit my parents.  It was a nice time, relaxing.

   When we came home on Saturday, Tim's team won their flag football championship:

     Then we went to Boston to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday! I also got to meet my newest niece, Naomi.


Penpalling:
    I received quite a few letters over the past few weeks, including a few secret letters from the Penpalling & Letters Secret Letter Event. I am sending this one out tomorrow. Then I have a lot of writing to do!!!

Now what?
     Next week I will start working on the musical. I am also auditioning kids for a few opportunities. It is a lot of work. I'm hoping for a week free of negative parent e-mails. 
      If you celebrate Thanksgiving, do you have any special plans or traditions? The week of Thanksgiving we do a really fun volleyball tournament with the students. It's a blast!

More outgoing mail

As February school vacation finished up, I will frantically try to get a few more letters done before becoming buried in music festivals, homework, projects, prep work and life in general. The top envelope I received in an envelope swap. It is on it's way to Georgia to a Lettermo friend. The bottom envelopes are for 2 friends who need some encouragement and a birthday card for my mom. (That's the really colorful one. She's going to think I'm weird since she is "not into" the whole mail thing.. lol) I'm usually horrible about birthday cards so I'm glad that I am getting this out.  Hopefully each letter or card will brighten the day of the people who get them.

366 again?

    For the past 2 years I have tried to send and receive 366 pieces of mail in one year. The first year I just cared about quantity and sent out as many letters as possible, yet felt guilty that I was getting behind in catching up with my mail. I decided that I would rather have quality correspondences with people and that maybe I could help my project by including my postcards and cards that I receive. Last year I attempted it again. I sent better quality mail but struggled with organization and logging everything. So, I got discouraged and gave up again. With a new year comes a new attempt. I think this is my year. I hope it is.

Outgoing mail today:

 Headed to Donna in Canada. Sorry about my finger. I still haven't figured out how to blur my address.

 Art card headed to Elena in Russia. You may notice that I have many art cards that I send. One day at school, a colleague approached me with a HUGE pile of postcards and asked me if I knew anybody who could use these postcards. Oh, the irony. She explained that her sister works at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and that they were going to throw the cards out.  Her sister rescued them, but now they had a ton of postcards. Now I have a ton of postcards!

   I made this card from some of my favorite washi tapes. It is headed to Katrin in Germany. I hope she likes it. I enjoyed making it.

Incoming- We didn't have mail delivery today so I don't have any mail from the new year yet. If you'd like to send me mail during the year, please do. I would love being surprised by people I don't normally correspond with through postal mail. Who doesn't like a nice surprise in their mailbox every once in a while? I look forward to catching up with my penpals. I would also love to create some new friendships this year. If you'd like to send me a card, letter, postcard, package- whatever and need my address, let me know.

366 Project:
Sent: 3
Received: 0