Link up with us for May Sentence-a-Day!

 

 Today a few of us Blended Bloggers are back at it again!!  Hooray for documenting May in Sentences.  I really think it makes the months go fast.  And I'm even more excited that today, you can link up with us below!!

But before you do, here's my recap of May in a sentence a day...

1-Go Me!  Said this to myself after spending the first day of May prepping and scheduling the whole week's worth of blog posts.

2-Wait til you hear Miss Mitchell speak Spanish today!  (Celebrating Cinco de Mayo in the Library and reading aloud one of my favorite books, Manana Iguana!)

3-I broke my own rule!

4-Life....basically!!

5-It's Cinco de Mayo, you have to take the free tequila shots!

6-And we're off...finally!!!

7-C'mon Danzing Candy!!

8-I love Mexican train

9-What?!? I'm no Jennifer Aniston!

10-I can't believe it either. My response when my BIL said, "I can't believe you're doing this all over again on Friday!"

11-I love my tan!

12-I can't believe I'm doing this again (pack to go away...again!)

13-The World Famous Open Kitchen

14- If I get married, I wanna be very married....this is mine!!!  LOL (There were super cute quotes as the centerpieces at my cousins wedding...this was one that totally made me laugh!  I took it home...It's now the centerpiece on my kitchen table!  HA!

15-The pretty girls from New York.

16-Home Sweet Home!

17-Subbing really just means I'm two people! Grrr.....

18-Please don't pick your nose then touch the mouse!

19-Because maybe you're gonna be that one that saves me!And after all, you're my Wonderwall.  This song was in my head all day after seeing a teacher friends Wonder Wall bulletin board!

20-That was really cute!  (The school show)

21-Noooooo.....what do I do?  (Me after realizing I left my phone at home and I was already on the train!)

22- I should really do something today...

23-I'm already tired and it's only Monday!

24-This is like it's 4:35, not 5:35 with the amount of kids still here! #aftercareproblems

25-V.I.P...it's how I roll.

26-Be a pineapple!!  Stand tall, wear a crown and be sweet on the inside!

27-I always take the walk.

28-We're not callous...just honest.

29-Lean and Dabb...

30- I really have to clean this place!

31-At least your getting a tan! (Said this to my favorite mailman!)


Have a great June!  We'll be linking up our next sentences posts on July 7th!  Join us!!

An InLinkz Link-up

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Throwback Thursdays is taking a little break for the summer! 

Me and Maxi! {The Final Style Perspectives}

Hard to believe today is our final Style Perspectives.  Crazy!!  Time has flown right on by!  Today Andrea is up with our final prompt, the summer dress! Last week during nautical week, I rocked this dress, but more often then not, during the summer months my go-to is the maxi!!  Just because it's simple and easy!  If there's anything, you've probably learned about me over these 15 weeks, it's that I like simple and easy!!   So I thought today I'd showcase my summer maxis!  These are a few of my faves.  And I'm not gonna lie, I've had these quite a while...and still plan on wearing them this summer as well!!  Quite simply, because I am trying to scale back the spending.  And I sorta think they're timeless...

I'm fine with having these maxis in heavy rotation once again this summer!!  

Can't wait to see the other TBBer's favorite summer dresses!  What's yours?!  Let us know and link up below!! #theblendedblogstyle

Last week's nautical looks was super fun!!  We clean yup good, huh!?! 

And just because this is our last Style Perspectives, doesn't mean our fun, fashion link-ups are coming to an end!  Join us for Create 28!!!  All through the the month of June...starting today!!! Thanks to Carrie and Whitney for sharing their brainchild with The Blended Blog!  It's going to be a fun month!  Here's week one, to play along!

Check out all my Style Perspectives here!

An InLinkz Link-up

Five Things Friday

Back at it this week for a Friday full of faves!  Last week I took the week off, realizing nothing about the week was my favorite!  How sad!  Now if I could write the list of five things that were my least favorite...that'd be another story!!  But luckily last week is in the rear view mirror, I've turned over a new leaf, and this week was a whole lot better!!

{ONE}
Garth!!!!  So excited to be going to see Garth Brooks at Yankee Stadium this summer.  It's his first show country show ever at the new stadium and his first show in the New York City area in almost 20 years.  My bestie, Mel tried for tickets last Friday and was able to get them, an quick too.  We were so surprised!  Garth was totally on my bucket list, so I can't wait.

via

{TWO}
I literally spent Sunday clearing out hours of shows from my DVR.  And just deleting a bunch too...because ain't nobody got time for that.  But I have to say, it was a pretty fabulous day!  And a much needed day at home after spending two weekends traveling.

{THREE}
I've been cooking a lot lately thanks to Hello Fresh and I've just really been loving the meals.  I've enjoyed cooking them as well.  Spending time in the kitchen, with videos casting on my tv, dancing around the kitchen and sipping wine while I cook!

This seared steak and rice meal was definitely my fave

#srirachaisbloodyhot!! 

{FOUR}
2 fabulous 80 degree days this week!  Woo hoo!  I'll take it....so ready for summer!!


{FIVE}  
Girls trip booked!  Headed to Punta Cana this summer with my two besties!  So excited the trip was booked and set.  We have never done a trip all together before so it's going to be a blast!! And I've never been to the DR before so I am so looking forward to it!

Also looking forward to a three day weekend this weekend!!  Happy Memorial Day all!!  And if you missed yesterday's Holiday Weekend Throwback, you can check it out here!  Hope you all have a great weekend filled with sunny weather and some time to relax!!


Linking  up today with:

Erika, Andrea and Narci for Friday Favorites/Jennie/ September Farm for Oh Hey Friday/

Tif for H54F

A Holiday Weekend Throwback

When I look back at posts to include in my throwbacks, I often find it hard to believe that time passes so quickly...because in all honesty, the days go by slow!  Is that weird? Or do you know what I mean?
Memorial Day weekend is here!  It's the unofficial kick-off to summer and for me it means that the end of the school year is near!  Woo hoo!  So for today's #TBT, I thought I'd share last year's Memorial Day weekend Recap!  Enjoy!  And enjoy the upcoming three-day weekend!

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Memorial Day Weekend

Who doesn't love a three day weekend!!  

I kicked mine off with a wedding on Friday night!  A woman I used to work with at my old school's daughter got married.  She and I have kept in touch over the years, since I moved to a new school and she retired.  We always try to get together during each day off and once during vacations for lunch.  Her husband joins us often too! I always have fun chatting and catching up with them.  It was a beautiful wedding.  The peeps at my table ALL left after dinner to get home to their kids, so I was pretty much alone.  I went and got a drink at the bar and ended up watching the end of the Rangers game on the bartender's cell phone! #SolitaryLifeProbs (They won that game, but lost last night!...get it together boys!)

Saturday  didn't really have any plans, so I laid out on the postage stamp patio and then sat out in the front with my book until the sun went down.  Oh and I also spent an hour and a half live chatting with my new boyfriend cable tech guy, when my internet went down!  The horror!  (Which is actually also why I'm posting later today!!).  After such a long chat, I still had to make an appointment to have a guy come out to replace my wireless router!

So with no internet I read a bunch then later on that night decided to order American Sniper On Demand.  I don't know if any of you have seen it, but for me, it was difficult to watch. It shows the difficulty and sacrifice that the toll of war takes on our military servicemen and woman and their families. Bradley Cooper totally embodied the role and did an awesome job.  It was certainly not the Bradley Cooper I know and love!! But it was very well done and I'm glad I finally got the chance to see it.

Sunday my sister had everyone over to her house for a Memorial Day BBQ.  It was a lot of fun.  The weather was NOT that great!  My family likes sun...and although it made a few weak appearances throughout the day, for the most part, it was cloudy, windy and cold. Booooo!!!!  (Get me back to Florida...STAT!)  But the company was great, the food was yummy and the drinks were flowing...so all in all a successful party...even though no one left with a tan!  :)

 All the adults (or most anyway!) relaxing by the fire before the chaos that was SMORES began! 

Oh and have you tried THIS???  

It's so YUM!!  Sam Summer has long been MY BEER during the summers but I think I just might have to switch it up this year!! It's a Limited Edition called Porch Rocker and it's like beer and lemonade!  So refreshing!!  Definitely give it a try this summer!!

After a late night last night, I slept in this morning...til 8:15!  Hahahaha.  Cleaned up the house and waited for the Cable Guy. I was luckily enough to get an appointment for today, even though I felt bad that they worked!!  I originally wanted to get to the Memorial Day Parade on Main Street, but my service call window was in the middle on it.  Which also meant I missed a lot of the good sun today!  And today ended up being the best of all three days this weekend!  But I was able to enjoy some of it.  Then I came in a did my usual Sunday things...laundry and school work.  Ugh....

Oh and with my internet back up and running, I may have indulged in some of the Memorial Day Sales online.  I did really great with my "no shopping" goal in January, February and March...I bought absolutely no clothes then.  But April and the Spring Challenge came along, and the wheels began to fall off my wagon.  It's safe to say that after today, the wheels have completely come off!!  Compared to last year at this time, I'm doing well, but I do wish I had made it a little further in the year before I tanked it!!  But I can still say, I never buy anything unless it's on sale, and this weekend, the sales were just too good to pass up!!

Did you go to any barbeques. parades or shop any sales this weekend?  let me know in the comments below!!

I hope everyone had a great weekend!
Remember and pray today for those who sacrificed so much!

Katie

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This post originally appeared on the blog on Monday, May 25, 2015

Ahoy there, Matey!

Can I just say right here and now how much I just love the nautical trend?! And not just the navy/stripe theme that's the focus of our looks today, but the whole theme.  I have lots of nautical stripes but I also love my anchor sweaters and sweatshirts!  Check out a few of my nautical looks on insta!

Now that I got that outta the way, on with the show.  So excited my Canadian soulmate Nicole chose this week's striped look.

I've  showcased my stripes a bunch of times on the blog, so I thought I'd pick a favorite of those looks for my Style Perspectives today!  This is one of my favorites, and I put it together when I participated in last summer's Create 28 with Whitney and Carrie.  I am so glad that Create 28 has made it's way to The Blended Blog.  We hope you'll join us for Create 28 this June as we once again create looks around super fun summer prompts. I put this outfit together for what I think was the baseball prompt.
This striped dress from last summer is so super easy to just throw on.  It will once again be in heavy rotation this summer.  As will my beloved denim vest.  My trend impulse buy that I totally wore the heck out of!  So glad I hopped on the denim vest train.    I thought this was super fun and sporty and fun for summer and wanted to share it with you all again.  Complete with my red sox cap to help keep the sun away!!

And my cons keep it comfy too!!

I wore this dress from Spring all the way into the fall!  Check out more of how I styled it here!   Now that I'm looking at this I guess it's more sporty than nautical...but stripes, it is! LOL


And here's a round-up of last week's graduation dresses.  I kinda loved seeing us all dressed up and fancy!!

14 bloggers each picked a look that defined their personal style.  

The featured blogger on the Blended Blog showcases her signature style (the prompt for that day) and then the other bloggers (on their personal blogs) show how they interpret it.  

Make sure you stop by the Blended Blog to see the featured lady.  

Please link up on the Blended Blog to show us how you would wear the prompt!

Once Upon a Time & Happily Ever After : Library-Lovin'-Lady

Daily Style Finds: The Personal Stylist

Foxy's Domestic Side: The Crafty Engineer

Simply Shaunacey: Reformed Frumpy Mommy

Two Teens and Their Mama: Stylish Midlife Mama

RSquared: The Not So Nerdy Accountant

Shoes to Shiraz: The Shoe Hoarding French Teacher

Puppies and Pretties: Cube Dwelling Fashionista

Mishaps and Mayhem of Solitary Life:  Single Girl, Simple Style

A Lovely Little Wardrobe: A Casual Petite

Making the Most of Everyday Classic Yet Current Over Forty 

NickandNik: Mama with Curves

Living on Cloud Nine: Blissful Fashionista
Whitney a la Mode: A Book-loving French Teacher

So hard to believe next week is our final Style Perspectives!!

Do you do stripes or enjoy the nautical trend?  Show us how...head to The Blended Blog to link up now!  Can't wait to check out all the looks!

Linking up today with:
The Blended Blog/Sydney Fashion Hunter/The Pleated Poppy

Monday Moments of Gratitude...on a Tuesday!!

It's been a while since I've posted a Monday Moments of Gratitude post, linking up with my blog buddy, Shaunacey!  I had all intentions of getting this up yesterday, but it didn't happen obviously.  I thought about not having this post go live until next Monday, but then I figured that any day's a good day to be grateful!

I've been busy traveling!!  Two weeks of traveling is a lot, but I loved every second of it.  I will recap both trips at length, but today, I'm focusing on the big picture of both those trips!   How grateful I am to have had the opportunity to spend  time with my family!

It was so great that I could spend Mother's Day weekend with my mom in Florida!  It was a really fun time, and I know my mom, too, was thankful to have me, my sister and nieces were there.It was also the first time in five months I had seen my dad, and almost a year had gone by since seeing my Aunt Laurie, so that was great too!  I'm also so happy that there was not a cloud in the sky while we were there and I could enjoy the warmth and get some color!I talked a little bit about the trip {here} and promise to recap it soon!

The very next weekend, I was off to North Carolina to celebrate my cousin's wedding.  It was quite the adventure!  The weather the entire weekend was beautiful.  The wedding was on a huge piece of property at a brewery and in a barn.  Really fun and different. It was filled with wonderful, simple touches of both the bride and groom.  The "original 6" of my family all traveled to be at the wedding.  That time together spent just the 6 of us never happens anymore, so that was pretty special as well.  And a Sunday spent in Charlotte with just my sisters was awesome....filled with more laughter and fun than we've had together in years!

Still waiting for my mom to put all her photos on Shutterfly but this is the photo we all got with Kev before the ceremony,  The photos I took of the happy couple dancing all came out blurry!!  Maybe because I was bawling...but that's a blog post for another time... lol

There was a time when I thought my family was one of those who spent way to much time together!  But now that's not really the case, so I enjoy any time we have together.  I know not everyone is as fortunate as me to have all their family, for a variety of reasons, so I am grateful!

Hope your Tuesday's been terrific and hope to see you back here tomorrow for another edition of Style Perspectives!

A Teacher's #TBT

For many reasons this week has been a tough one as a teacher. After traveling and being off a few days these last two weeks and having to make sub plans (*seriously...it's harder to be out then it is to just be here!), being thrown into being a sub my first day back, and numerous schedule changes this week, it's sometimes easy to lose sight of the reasons why I'm still doing this all...and it's easier still to drown my sorrows in a glass of wine at night!  So after all this, I thought I's throw it back to one of my favorite posts!  I wrote it last year in June as the end of the school year was nearing, but it was over a year in the making!  It reminds me of why I became a teacher and why I still am!  Even when everything but teaching gets in the way of that!!

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I am a Teacher...

The school year is coming to an end. I'm not going to lie...I'm excited about this!! This year was was really rough for a variety of reasons, none of which I will go into! 

But that's teaching...some great years, some good years, and some not so good years! I won't say bad...because no year is ever truly bad. There are always those silver linings in a bad day! At least for me! I might be having THE WORST DAY EVER (usually those days are middle school related! HA!) and then all of a sudden, one student can turn it all around! Be it with a click of a mouse, getting on Google Chrome on their own! Or with a silly comment, kind word or just a compliment that that was the best story they've ever heard! Even those littles who show up at my door with a birthday cupcake will do the trick!! So everyday might not be a great one but at least I can smile about it.

And with the end of the school year, comes a whole new set of issues! End of year “business” needs to be attended to, and for me, report cards for the whole school have to be printed. And there is inevitably always something that goes wrong!

Last year around this time, I stumbled upon an awesome blog post at Scholastic.com by one of their top teacher bloggers, Brian Smith. He wrote a post, entitled I am a Teacher. It was so true and funny and talked about how sometimes teaching gets so crazy at this time of year, that it's really important to take the time to reflect on all the reasons we do this job! I commented on Brian's post (and have been following him ever since) and said I wanted to write a similar list on my own blog. Well a year later, Brian, here's my list!

Found this on Insta a few weeks ago!  

#truth

Before I was the Librarian and Tech teacher I was a classroom teacher for 10 years, so I'm combining the list to include all my 13 years in teaching!

I am a teacher...

I am a teacher because I love learning...and in teaching you learn something new everyday!

I love sharing my love of reading with the children...and according to one of my littles I "read books really good!"

Laminating things is my favorite.

New books in my library make me smile.

There is nothing like hearing a student say “Technology is my favorite class!”

And I love when they tell me that they went on my Library/Tech website AT HOME...ON THE WEEKEND!!

Three Words: School Supply Shopping!

I am a technology teacher...on any given Wednesday you might hear me say the words "mouse control" 87 times!

I am a teacher...

I've been called mom, dad, grandma and every other teacher's name...and am totally ok with it!

That Teacher Appreciation luncheon every year.

I enjoy days off as much as the kids do.

Completing a bulletin board is a huge accomplishment.

I am a teacher thanks to Mrs. Grosskurth, Miss Puileo, Miss McCartin...and the few who got it wrong, because thanks to them, I knew what NOT to do!!

I love dress down days (and PJ Day!), too!

I proudly rock my spirit wear beyond the four walls of the school building.  :)

I am a teacher because seeing a child's “A HA! Moment" is just awesome...and the fact that I might have had a little something to do with it, that's just icing on the cake!

Where else do you get to feel like a rockstar everyday?!?

I know Summer's Off are not totally Summer's Off...

I am a Catholic School teacher, I make very little money but I'm rich in other ways!

I am a teacher because I've never wanted to do anything else with my life!! 

When I was a little girl I used to play "school" for HOURS on the weekends and during the summer with my sisters and friends.  Thankfully these days though, I don't yell at my students and throw them across the room for their bad behavior like I allegedly did to my Cabbage Patch dolls!! Poor Humphrey Peter!! LOL

I realize that right now in our country, it's very difficult to be a teacher but every job has it's ups and downs!   I really can't see myself doing anything else.  Even though I joke about retiring, I'll be doing this and only this (if I'm lucky), for the next 30 years and beyond!!

But first....bring on SUMMER!!!!

Check out some of my plans for summer here and here!  What are yours?

I'm linking up today with Vanessa and Penny for Thinking Out Loud Thursday!  

Have a great day!
Katie

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This post was originally published on Thursday June 18th, 2015