BACK TO SCHOOL?!?!? & a little injury update

Hi Friends!  It's been awhile!!!  Blogging has just gotten away from me lately...between a wonderful high school friend's wedding and other festivities, getting ready for summer school, and wasting one billion and one hours on my new favorite site of all time Pinterest, I've been a bit distracted!

^This Girl got married Friday!  

(Yes, that is Friend & Me at Disney Land senior year in high school dressed like 5 year olds, 

complete with princess backpacks...)

In other news, I tried running today for the first time in 3ish weeks!  [Side note: Running at night in summer is all fun and games until someone gets a bug in their nose...GROSS!]  While I was so happy to be out there and moving (my legs have literally been ITCHING to run lately!), unfortunately I still had some aches and pains.  The good news is that nagging shin thing that I thought was a stress fracture was totally fine (phew!).  The bad news is that the ITs are still tight, my hip flexor is hurting again, and my knee's hurting more in the miniscus area in addition to the IT band area (PT doesn't think that's a big deal tho--let's hope not)...soooo that's all fun.  I'm trying not to be bummed out because it could be worse--a stress fracture would for sure be worse--but it's definitely not fun.  Oh well.  I plan to take another week off and try to loosen up these muscles (especially the hip flexor!  what the heck!), and I will give it a shot again next week.

ANYWAYS, enough about my lame attempts at running...

Today was the first day of Summer School!  When my alarm went off this morning, the single thought in my head was, "WHY THE HECK DID I SIGN UP FOR THIS?!?!?" After the first day, I think it's going to be pretty painless.  I'm coteaching with another teacher which is SO nice, plus there are only 12 kids in our class!  Why aren't all classes like this?!  Because summer school is in a different classroom, I've been able to work in my room little by little without worrying about it being functional for the time being.  When I came in a week or so ago for the first time, I was greeted with this...

Desks stacked 8 high!!!  Cut to me climbing on top of other desks and unstacking these babies...let me just say that between this, climbing on cabinets to hang things from the ceiling, and let's not forget when the projector screen fell and HIT ME IN THE SKULL, some of the scariest split seconds of my life have taken place in my classroom...YIKES!

Anyways, the furniture is pretty well arranged now, but there is still SO MUCH work to do.  Today my project was to tackle my cabinets.  Since last year I have been organizing and reorganizing them in hopes of coming up with a system that makes sense and maximizes space.  Well, somehow today this involved me taking EVERYTHING out of cabinets and throwing it all over my room...

Messy Desk :(

It drives me crazy that sometimes cleaning involves making everything hella messy first.  Hopefully it'll be worth it in the long run!  (Hey, I did get to break out the label maker, though, which makes any day a good day!)  The few cabinets that are actually finished:

Neatly labeled math manipulatives 

More math manipulatives plus math and literacy series & materials...

Even if the organizing is still a work in progress, 1 thing I DID accomplish though today was to make this beautiful (if I do say so myself!) clip chart!  I've been seeing the Clip Chart behavior plan on so many blogs lately, and after I read the ebook by the mastermind behind this system, I was sold.  (Special thanks to Mrs. Sunny for explaining the Clip Chart to me!)  I will post more on how I plan to use this in another post, but here she is in all her glory...

After a long day of summer school and cleaning insanity, I told myself I had earned a trip to the teacher store aka HEAVEN aka "Where did my $$$ go?!?"  Teacher Mom and I always say that we are not allowed to go to the teacher store without a LIST and a PLAN.  Today I went with neither...and WANDERED the store, grabbing things right and left.  Oops...between the teacher store and a trip to Staples, I did some damage today, and unfortunately it has only made me want to go buy more classroom goodies...

My favorite purchase (which was totally unnecessary) was a set of cute magnets with the names of subjects on them that I plan to use for my homework board.  They are adorable!  I figured if I was this excited about them, even though I totally don't need them it's worth it. :)

Anyways, I feel like this post was super lame, so I apologize.  I promise I'll be back in the swing of things soon. :)

Have you started setting up your classroom yet?
What impulse buy have you LOVED?  Regretted?
ORGANIZING: Love it or Hate it?  I love it, but HATE the mess that tends to come mid-way through!