Follow me on Bloglovin' & win!

Hi fabulous followers!!

You have probably heard by now that Google Reader is going away on July 1st, which is LESS THAN 24 HOURS AWAY!!!

I don't want YOU to go away, so I hope that you will consider following my blog through Bloglovin'!! I know that change is hard...so I thought I might sweeten it up for you a little bit!

Several bloggers have gotten together to create a giveaway linky for all of our fabulous followers that take the leap and switch over to Bloglovin'. You may have already switched over! In that case, this will be an easy entry!

If you have not switched over or are not following my blog through Bloglovin', then there are a few easy steps to follow. You can go to the sidebar (the column to the right of this) and click the button that says Follow this Blog with Bloglovin'. Or, you can go to the Rafflecopter below and click the link in the first entry, and that will take you to my blog on Bloglovin'. 

You need to have an account set up with Bloglovin' so you can follow me. Please be sure to leave your Bloglovin' username in the Raffllecopter entry. 

If you want to go ahead and move all of the blogs you follow from Google over, you can go to this link and it will take through the super easy steps. BUT, please go to my Bloglovin' link and make sure you are following ME through Bloglovin'. 

To be sure, make sure that the blue button at the top of my Bloglovin' page has been clicked (it should be gray with the word following- if it's blue, please click it to follow!) 

So if you follow me by Bloglovin', please enter my giveaway!! I will be choosing TWO winners to pick out one product from my TpT store. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

You can also see my previous post about this as part of my "Five for Friday" linky party post!

July Currently...

First time linking up with "Oh' Boy 4th Grade"'s CURRENTLY! Pretty exciting for me :)

Check out what other bloggers are currently doing:

Don't forget Farley's rule of 3!! I think it's a pretty sweet rule actually. I'm going to follow her rule of 3, shower, and go to bed! Maybe I will wake up feeling 100% tomorrow?? *fingers crossed*

I'd go into more detail about my tip...or about my niece, brother & sister in law, but as you can tell from above I feel like crap :(

Five for Friday!

Hopefully I linked the graphic up properly...I had issues with my post Wednesday...

1. I am fighting a cough...it's horrible. I wouldn't have gone to the doctor and just tried to sleep and self medicate but my beautiful niece is coming into town tomorrow and I don't want to chance getting her sick...or anyone else in the family (but mostly Penelope!) 

Here is Penelope & me (and her Uncle Bill, my brother's BFF) on her 6 month birthday, which was celebrated on June 24th:

I made  her a half birthday cake for her half birthday (thanks Pinterest for the idea..) Hopefully every year Bill & I can make it to Boise to spend her half birthday with her. You may think I'm weird for putting such emphasis on her HALF birthday...but she was born on Christmas Eve, and I know I won't be able to make it to her real birthday every year...so I figured her half birthday was the next best thing! 

2. I have set more goals for myself...I plan to meet them all within one week (fingers crossed!) I want to set up a store on Teacher's Notebook so I can expand my reach in the teaching world. I want to update my graphic that I include in my products with the web address to this blog. Then I want to go back and update all 97 of my products with said new graphic. I may not meet the last thing in a week because that's a lot of products to update. 

3. I created my first ever background- the orange chevron background you can see in my post from Wednesday...I am quite proud of myself! I want to create other colors and put them out there for free sometime soon.  Eventually, I'd like to create more backgrounds with different designs, etc. but one step at a time. 

4. I am almost finished reading my latest book: 

If I could go back in time and meet any woman it would be Jacqueline Kennedy. This is my third? book to read about her. I don't know why I like her so much, but I just find her life fascinating. Since I'm almost done I'm debating what to read next...probably something on Ronald Reagan. If I could go back in time and meet any man, I'd want to meet him while he was in office, or just after he left the White House. I've already two? biographies on him, and recently found an autobiography originally published in 1991, but republished in 2011. I have "The Reagan Diaries" but since I was born in 1984 it doesn't make a lot of since to me because I was just a baby when that stuff was happening. 

5. 

I want to figure out this buzz about Bloglovin...I've read some posts about it, and signed up this morning, but still not really sure how it affects this blog and myself...My talented friend Jessica over at Literacy Spark explains this pretty well so check out her post about Bloglovin' here!

I know a lot of people are doing a giveaway for you to follow their blogs on Bloglovin' so I am attempting to join the fun! I will pick TWO winners to each pick one product from my TpT store!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Anyway...on to the weekend!!! I have a wedding to attend tonight, then lots of cleaning & organizing in preparation for Penelope to come visit Houston for the first time in her life!!!

Learning Photoshop Elements...and other summer goals!

I am still learning how to use my MacBook...and I'm still attempting to learn how to use Photoshop. I decided to go with a trial of Elements, it it more user friendly for a beginner such as myself. I just updated my header and blog button today! I think it looks WAY better than before...but I'm still not satisfied.

http://customblogdesigns.blogspot.com/

So I'm enlisting help to make over my blog. Diana just got back from vacation (as did I) so I'm ready for our collaboration to begin! I hope to keep my color scheme the same...we'll see what happens! (Side note- I'm obviously having issues with linking Diana's button to her website above. I feel like I've accomplished so much today that that will just have to wait :)

I also figured out how to make a chevron background...I am aspiring to make graphics as well as products for teachers. I got the product thing down...I have a ways to go for the graphics thing though. I had lots of airplane time to figure this chevron thing out...I've seen better, but I'm still proud!

I am currently making some writing process posters/ writers' notebook stuff so I can use my new background. I think another big challenge I will face is putting a bunch of different graphics into a zip file...I don't want to even think about that yet! Thank God for other awesome bloggers who post tutorials...I'm hoping someone will come through with me when it comes time to zip files (is that even the right terminology??!!) 

So while last week I wasn't feeling like I've accomplished a whole lot this summer, today I feel more positive! I finished some Back to School stuff and uploaded it to my TpT store so go ahead and check it out and let me know what you think. 

There's exciting things happening over here!!! 

Congratulations are in order!!!

My wonderfully driven friend Jessica reached 200 followers on her awesome blog- Literacy Spark!!!

I have donated your choice of any product from my TpT store in order to support her giveaway. Please take the time to enter her giveaway- she's giving away LOTS of cool stuff inaddition to TpT products! 

Optimum Organization Linky Party

So this is my first Linky Party and I can't figure out how to post the Graphic showing the Linky Party...So just do me a favor and pretend like I posted the cool graphic, and then go here to see the linky party:

 http://www.ladybugsteacherfiles.com/2013/06/optimum-organization-i-feel-like-new.html

***UPDATE*** I figured out how to get the graphic....

 Ok so it's all about getting organized! I am addicted to clear tubs or clear shoe boxes for all of my organizing needs. In a previous post you will see a photo of how I organized all of my activities/games/task cards/etc. this year. I got the idea from Pinterest, you print out labels on pretty paper and put it at the front of the clear box and then the label looks all cute and you look all organized! I organized everything by objective, and then once you open the box the sets are in their own plastic baggie.

 I don't save physical copies of the original game, I only save electronic copies (in multiple places such as my work laptop, personal laptop, and flash drive) just in case something crashes I still have back up.

Once I figure out how, I will post my file with the labels I made that y'all can download if you want to use it!

If you know how to link up the graphic for the Linky Party feel free to let me know! I'd really appreciate it!