TPT.

Well, guys. I finally took the plunge and opened a TPT Store. It's something I've wanted to do for quite awhile, so I bit the bullet and just did it. And it was a way to distract me from the huge project I should be working on for my grad class...yeah.

I'm a little bit intimidated by all of this. I've always been the TPT buyer. I've bought so, so, so, much. I've never been a creator. This is scary. I'm still very much a newbie and I feel like my items appear as such, but I'm trying and learning as I go. We'll see. I've been pleasantly surprised that it's geekily fun.

Anyway, I've uploaded two free Christmas-y items to my store tonight. Go by and check her out if you so desire. And maybe follow my store so I won't feel like a complete loser. And give honest feedback if you download something. For real. Except lie and rate it as 4.0 on TPT so I won't look lame, but then come back here and be truthful and break it down to me and tell me it's fugly if it really is. Friends tell friends their items are fugly if they are. Okay. Thanks.

Happy Cyber Monday, friends!

It's Thanksgiving.

I hope all of you had a fantastic Thanksgiving. I sure did. Good foods and good moods. That's the way I like it.

I had my last Thanksgiving family dinner tonight, so my belly is still really full and happy. I made a few dishes for the event. I figured I'm a big girl so I need to start acting like the almost 30-year-old that I am (Lord that was hard to type) and start contributing to family dinners. The crowd favorite was another recipe from Cara, her Rotel Cups. I think I've found my new favorite appetizer. They were so good and so easy. I don't do complicated recipes, guys. If it's got more than 5 ingredients, I'm usually out. Scared of that mess. Nothing in this life scares me more than a long list of ingredients.

 I made 45 of these little things and they were all gone within 10 minutes.

Stupid good. Make them.

Did any of you go Black Friday shopping? I did. I usually go out every year for some portion of the day. This year I left my house around 3:30 in the a.m. I had to get my belly full, so I hit up Chick-fil-A for a chicken biscuit and Coke. I had to start my day off right and be ready to fight the crowds. Now I don't do the whole stand in line for hours to get the Door busters deals. No. I don't need a TV that bad. That's doing too much. There have been years that I've gone out and turned around to go back home because it's too crazy. There is nothing I want bad enough and I'm just not patient for that.

This year I went to the mall and stayed there for four hours loving every minute of it. I saw it all. Ladies cheering and clapping. People getting pedicures at 5 in the morning. Long lines. Guys sitting in folding chairs for hours waiting for the 8 a.m. release of the new Michael Jordan shoes.Women tearing shoe departments apart. It was great. So great.

I find so much humor in just being out amongst the people on Black Friday. The whole idea of that day is really just comical and crazy. I love being out and watching people. You really see animalistic and survivor instincts kick in...and not over a basic need like the last bottle of water on Earth. It's over silly things like bath towels.
I also love the whole thing of stopping and thinking, "Wow. It's 5:00 in the morning and I'm eating an Auntie Anne's pretzel and buying clothes at the mall". I mean, that's crazy guys. It's also crazy that I had Chick-fil-A and then had a pretzel not long after. Oh well. It's the holidays. The season of eating all you want.
Probably my favorite thing is that I love making small talk and chatting to strangers while in line. I love getting their scoop on where they've been and what deals they've scored. It's so fun to make BFFN's (Best Friends For Now). One of my BFFN's was a woman I was in line with at Old Navy. We talked about all kinds of stuff. First about how hot the store was. She told me the mall needs to do what the casinos do and pump oxygen into the stores. She said it would really make us all a lot happier and not as sleepy. Then she told me all about how her daughter slept in her car in Kohl's parking lot on Thanksgiving night so she'd be there for the midnight opening. I love talking to strangers. So fun.

I really think I picked the best time to go out to shop. The crowds were apparently horrible earlier in the evening and then the afternoon of Black Friday was horrendous. I didn't have to wait in any crazy long lines and was able to buy myself a lot of things. Yes. I only bought for myself. No one else. I bought 3 sweaters, a cardigan, two tops, a pair of boots, a pair of earrings, and a scarf. All for around $120. Girl did good. Real good.

I also got a $10 mall gift card. Free money! Yessssssssssss.

Have you all seen the It's Thanksgiving video? It's produced by the same guy who made Rebecca Black a household name. You'll see the similarity if you watch. Enjoy. It's another hit.

"It's Thanksgiving. We, we, we, we gonna have a good time."

My favorite part is her singing into a turkey drumstick.

Thanksgiving break is almost over. This makes me the saddest of the sad. I will be trying to cherish Sunday so hard. I hope you all do the same. 

Hunting for Beer, Bruce Bogtrotter, and Toilet Tattoos. Another Winning Blog Title.

So I'm popping in for a hot minute. Two days in a row? Give this girl a prize! This never happens.

It's Thanksgiving week and I am so excited. Only one more work day and then it's time for jubilation. My favorite holiday of all holidays.

My kids made some adorable little Native American children. Templates found HERE.
 I felt they needed feathers for some extra pizazz. I just really wanted an excuse to use the word pizazz in my blog post. And now I've used it twice. Success. I could end the post here and be completely satisfied, but I'll keep writing.

We've read many books about the Thanksgiving story and we've talked about how the Native Americans helped the pilgrims. They "Synergize: together is better" as my kids would say. They're all about The Leader in Me.

This is what I got from one of my kids:

The Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to hunt for beer.

I didn't realize they went beer hunting, but I learn something new from my kids every day. 

I guess I need to work more on b and d reversals with my students. 

I didn't make him change it. I cracked up and shared it with my assistant. She cracked up. Then we laughed and laughed and texted it around so that others could laugh with us. Then we knew these had to go in the hallway for everyone to enjoy.

I can't make a work display without making it a rainbow production. It's beautiful. Once I finished hanging all of the work up, I stood in the hallway for no less than five minutes just marveling at the majesty of the board. Behold!

I love kid artwork. Just look at the sets of lips on these kids. 

I survived the potluck today. The food I ate seemed safe and was tasty. I'm not sick from it, so it was all made in clean homes from people that didn't lick all of their fingers as they prepared it. Hopefully.

At the end of the day, I went to pick up my dessert dish in the library. 

This is what I like to see.

Seeing the plate reminded me of Matilda, which was one of my favorite childhood books and favorite movies. Please tell me you've seen it. My favorite scene is when Ms. Trunchbull makes Bruce Bogtrotter eat the chocolate cake, the "entire confection". 

I tried to upload that segment of the movie to give you all a delightful "brain break" from reading, but the only video I found that was decent had Spanish subtitles and it ended before Ms. Trunchbull smashed the cake plate over Bruce's head, which, in my opinion, is the best part. I've always found that part sickly hilarious. It's the combination of the uplifting music, the crowd cheering, and the insane glutinous eating, and, well, the glass breaking.

I was just wishing I had a head to break my plate over today. I'm kidding. Totally kidding...except I'm not.

So anyway, the Library Assistant told me that my dessert was the "hit of the potluck".
Well, well, well. Way to go, Sarah.

I made one of Mrs. Cara Carroll's recipes--Sopapilla Cheesecake. You can't go wrong with anything made with cream cheese. It's a crowd-pleaser alright.

I've made so many of her recipes from her cooking blog. They are ALL good. Cara and I could be good friends because this girl knows good food. 

Before I go, I just want to give you all a heads up on some HOT items before you hit up the Black Friday sales. If you go to Wal-Mart, which you probably won't be able to resist, you probably need to add these items to your shopping list.

First up: 

Toilet Tattoos.

Yes. I know. Too good to be true. Yes! Same here! I know! I've been waiting for these all my life too!

And, they just happen to be on clearance. For $3.96, I believe. Bargain. Go get several. Give them to all your friends. You'll quickly become their favorite.

Or at least buy one for a great Dirty Santa gift. This would be a gem among gems.

And last, but definitely not least:

Men's Clothing.

Dang Wal-Mart. I don't know if I can handle you right now. If I saw a man dressed in either of these shirts, it would just be too much to handle. I'd be howling...or perhaps...growling for that man.

So fierce. Rawr.

See you guys soon. Real soon.

Gobbling Up Some Randoms.

The other day I was thinking about how we all used to have a flair board on Facebook. Do you all remember that? Facebook has had so many different fads. So weird.
Hmm. I wonder if the flair board app provided inspiration to the creator of Pinterest. I feel like he must have been a huge fan of pinning flair on his Facebook. Bam. Pinterest was born. So now we all know that creation story.

Have you all had the new Churros at Taco Bell? The wrapper holding the cinnamon-sugar stick of pure fried, golden goodness tells no lies.

Speaking of food, I was having a conversation about McDonald's with one of my students.

Student: "McDonald's isn't healthy. Not even the apples. If you eat there 50 times, you will die. I saw the movie."
Me: "Why aren't the apples healthy?"
Student: "Because they don't even keep them in the refrigerator."

This is the kind of stuff we talk about in my classroom.

Last week our reading series story of the week was Jack and the Beanstalk. My kids are obsessed. It was all about ogres and Englishmen in my room. All week long. All I heard from the kids were things like, "Fee Fi Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman" or "I'll grind your bones to make my bread". If you didn't know that was our focus of the week, you might think we're an extremely violent bunch.

Last Saturday I had to fulfill my teacher auction duty. We had an auction at school several weeks ago and the kid that "won me" went with me to an indoor play place for a couple hours. There was a clown there. I don't like clowns. So this clown walks up to me and tells me to pet his dog. It was an imaginary dog on one of those stupid clown dog leash things. I really wanted to slap the clown and tell him he was inappropriate, but kids were present, so I very unhappily played along. He told me his dogs name was "Imagina-bull". I wasn't amused. That situation was definitely one of the most terrifying and lowest points in my life to date.

I had to strongly resist to make this entire post about Breaking Amish. I've held off as long as I can. We need to talk about it. Do you all watch this show? It is so good and I'm so sad it's over. Last week was the season finale and Part I of The Shunning Truth after show. Tonight Part II of Breaking Amish: The Shunning Truth comes on. I can't wait to hear about the rest of their dirty secrets.

A couple of my favorite quotes from the season:
Abe referring to guys that wear Affliction type clothing: "Those are kids that need an ass kickin'." I agree, Abe. I couldn't agree more, actually.

"The building was big enough to fit 300 elephants in there without even trying."  -Abe in reference to the casino where they had their Bachelor/Bachelorette weekend.

"The stripper had a pimple on her ass."  -Sabrina

One other observation: HDTV is not friendly. Jeremiah's teeth...yikes.

On a related note, my parents are having some renovation work done at their house. Three Amish men came with the construction crew to do some of the work. Mom texted me and wrote, "Breaking Amish on S********* Drive". Hilarious. She was dying to snap a picture of them working and send it to me, but she didn't want to freak them out.

We're having a potluck at school tomorrow. I kind of have a raging fear of potlucks. So much stress. What if my dish remains untouched? What if it makes people sick? What's safe to eat? Was this casserole made in a clean home? Did someone lick all of their fingers the entire time they were making these brownies?

See? Stressful.

I thought about making this meat and cheese stadium, but I'm a little short on time today. Maybe next time.

What's your go-to potluck dish?

And because we I can't get enough of Daisy, here's her latest pictures. She's enjoying a caramel apple sucker.

Check out that tongue!

I'll be back soon. Promise. Because I only have a two day work week, so I'll have extra time for fun blog games. Later.

Voting, Tricking out the Tree, Toilets and Such.

I bet that title made you curious. You can't pass up reading a blog with a title like that.

Happy Election Day! I had the day off school, so it's been a pretty great day. I woke up when I wanted to. Not when my alarm told me to. That always makes for a fantastic day.

I rocked the vote and rocked the 'I Voted' sticker even harder.

Daisy learned how to wink tonight while we were watching the election coverage. Luckily she did it for the camera so I could share for all the world to see. 

I probably shouldn't even go where I'm about to go. I'm not making the following comments to start debate or discussion, and honestly, I don't want debate. Any and all hateful comments will be deleted, so don't waste your time. This is MY blog and I'm just going to share for a minute. I'm not going to get all hateful and do any candidate bashing. That's not me. I'm a private person when it comes to politics. I am usually very tight-lipped in this area of my life. My policy is to not really discuss it with others. I keep it in the family. It keeps the peace among friends and it's just safer, but since it's Election Day, I'll break my own rule because I am the President of my blog! I vote, 'Do what you want to do, Sarah'. 

I am disappointed with the outcome of the election. There, I said it. I just wanted to get that out of the way. In case you missed the elephants on my shirt in the picture above, now you know. 

Now, with that being said, Obama is our re-elected President and I will keep him and his administration in my prayers during this second term as they lead our country. As a Christian, it is my duty to show respect and honor and to pray for all elected officials. Regardless of who is in office in Washington, I have faith because I know the ONE who holds this world together and who appoints our leaders. The things of this world are only temporary. For that, I am thankful.

I'm proud that I have freedom and a right to vote. 

I'm proud to be an American. And I'm proud of Kentucky. And I'm proud of the South and all that RED!  :)

 Regardless of our beliefs, moral stances, and viewpoints, it's important that we are kind to one another. I've seen some ugly comments on Facebook and Twitter from members of both parties. We can all have different viewpoints and still be friends and still be a UNITED nation. 

Like High School Musical, we're all in this together.

:End of political rant:

Now let's all join hands and sing.

 "Kumbaya, my Lord..."

And just for election fun and giggles, I wrote my brother's name in on the line for Mayor. The news reported tonight that the one and only running candidate for mayor received 100% of the vote. I know that's a lie.

And now...

On to thinking about joyous things like twinkling lights and hanging ornaments...

So. I tricked out my tree. No. Your eyes are not deceiving you. My Christmas tree is up in all of its black glory. The tree went up on November 5th. A full 50 days before Christmas. Not a day too soon, if you ask me. I decked the halls and sang my fa-la-las.

Glory.

Just a random story for you all: 

My dad got a recall notice in the mail for their TOILET!?. Yes. One of the toilets in their house is being recalled. For risk of exploding. EXPLODING! I know. I can't believe it either. All I know is I'm not sitting my butt on that toilet until the problem is resolved. I don't want to be blown sky high. I'm scared for them. Having a deadly hunk of porcelain in their house that could blow to smithereens at any moment is scary.

And, hmm. What else have I been up to? Let's see. Just taking pictures of my dog. Wearing glasses. Because it's fun.

It's been a long night. I'm taking myself to bed. 

Happy Wednesday, friends!

Boo To You.

I said I would be back on Wednesday, and a promise is a promise. So here I am. Rock you like a hurricane. Speaking of, to the East Coast readers out there, I hope you are safe. I've been glued to the TV the past two mornings. So sad.

So today was this day called Halloween, you know. As I was walking my kids into the cafeteria for lunch today, one of my boys ran up to me all wide-eyed, like he just found out he won a monster truck. "Ms. Marcum, is today Halloween!?!?" Okay, dear child. How is seeing the cafeteria line decked out in Halloween decorations making it all finally come together? I feel like if I vomited, it would be bats and spiders and pumpkins and candy because that's all that I've talked about and seen these past three weeks. Plus we spent all morning talking about the fact that it's Halloween/party day and making spider hats and doing Halloween activities. I guess it didn't register. Any of it. Oh my.

Surprisingly, today wasn't that crazy of a school day. The kids held it together pretty well. We were loud, but we're always loud. Just like Wal-Mart has the "Low-price guarantee. Always.", we have the screaming-voice level guarantee. Always.
We partied this afternoon. Our party involved a lot of laughter and screaming due to the fun party games. As kindergarten kids say about every day of school, it was their "best day ever".

Today I realized that I only have 20 more Halloween parties until I retire. So that's neat.

I got the heck out of school and made it home close to 3:30. That never happens. This has been the longest night ever because I've had so much time at home. It's strange and pleasant and I like it. I made some delectable potato soup and got ready for the trick-or-treating action that started at 4:30! So early!

Every year I invite my students to come hit me up at my house for candy. I love seeing my kids dressed up and they are always so excited to see that I live in a real house and not in my classroom. And they love seeing my dog. I even had some of my former students come back to visit my house tonight. I just love that.

And now I guess I'm going to get ready for bed because this has been the longest night in my existence and I could use the extra sleep anyway. Before I go to sleep, I'm going to leave you all with a little gem from the picture vault of Sarah's past.

The picture below is of me one Halloween many moons ago.

Presenting: Rainbow Brite.

And to make it extra snazzy, we add the wig.

What was your favorite Halloween costume of all time?

Happy Halloween, you little pumpkins, you.

As of Late.

Well, well, well. Here I am, right on schedule for my monthly blog post. How is everyone?

Me? I feel loony. The past few weeks have been SO busy. I might have had a mini-nervous breakdown the Friday before last, but I'm better now. Parent-teacher conferences and all that mess have left this girl feeling tired and uninspired about everything. I'm alive, but I've been too busy to live, you know what I mean? Just going through the motions at a crawling, barely-making-it speed. Sadly, things aren't going to be much better this week. It's party week. Sigh. And it's a full dang moon. The kids are going to be bonkers.

I can't complain too much, though, because I did just have a vacation a few weeks ago. I had a week off school for fall break at the beginning of October and I was lucky enough to sneak away to Sandestin, Florida with some of my teacher pals. It was such a great trip and was much-needed. You put four starved-for-vacation teachers loose on the beach and you get a fun time, that's what you get. I don't think I've ever laughed as much in my whole life as I did while on this trip. So fun. I'm convinced teachers are some of the craziest and funnest (it's a word if you work with elementary kids) people on the planet.

We never got a picture of the four of us together, so I had to put two pictures up so that we were all represented.

The three lovely ladies I vacationed with teach at the school I used to be at. I miss them all so very much. Big sad face. It was so great to spend time with them on vacation.

Last weekend, I also took a timeout from life to just kick it. I hung out at my aunt and uncle's house/farm for a day. The house and farm used to be my grandparent's and it's where I spent a huge portion of my childhood. Going back brings so many good memories...like scrubbing cow poop off my tennis shoes with an old toothbrush. Just one memory of many. This place is truly one of my favorite places on this earth. I love a farm and wide-open spaces. I'd love to live on a farm if I could have a Target really close by, but then it probably wouldn't be a farm because it would be developed by a Target, so...guess that won't work.

I love cows. My smile is so huge because I'm so happy from these animal friends.

Look at this sweet baby.

Moo.

And, yes, I have a different blog look. And, no, I'm not in love with it, but I was growing tired of my old template. This one was free and free is my favorite, so it will do for now.

It's almost time for something else that's my favorite...BREAKING AMISH! Do you all love this show like I do? I can't wait to see what happens tonight when they all go back home. So much drama. So much scandal. So much Amish.

My goal is to be back with another post by Wednesday, so that I can say 'Boo' to you. That's my goal. We'll see. Later gators.