Just Call Me Super-Teacher! AKA Self-Diagnosed Adult Onset ADD

I've had a couple people call me a super-teacher lately.  But I guess I don't see it that way.  I just have a lot of interests and I am a perfectionist, so I do my very hardest to become the best I can be.

So, yes, a lot of my newer friends got a little surprise this week when I started posting sneak peeks of a photo session from this past weekend.  You see, I had a photography business for a little while. Really.  I was legit and everything!  But teaching truly is my life and that is something I could not leave in the dust.  Plus, I am not a great salesperson, I've just never been able to put myself out there...maybe because I don't like pressuring people or maybe because I feel like things should speak for themselves.  There is WAY too much competition out there and I couldn't do it all alongside teaching.  So, my photography business...aptly and proudly called Carrie Garrison Photography fell to the wayside.  I wish I could lead you to my old site and blog where I had all sorts of awesome looking portfolios and blog posts...but that was taken down over 2 years ago.

But, recently I decided I would love to still be able to shoot photos of my friends who truly wanted me to capture those unique moments I so loved and cared for when I was "doing the business".  In fact, my business tagline that my branding designer and I came up with was, "Unique Moments Captured."  It was what I was known for.  I loved it!  If you also know me well enough, you'll know why my brand and my logo look the way they do.  What's awesome?  I still have all of it (even my old headshots)!  Maybe I'll throw up some blog posts of my old photo sessions here and there just to relive it all and to show it all off to a whole new audience.

Without further ado, I give you my favorite shots from last weekend's engagement session I shot for my friend Darci and her fiance, Patrick.  We headed out to the White Tanks Mountains in the west valley here in Arizona.  It is a seriously beautiful park and area out here with lots of hiking trails and scenery to behold.  Darci and Patrick have a shared love for country music and are from Minnesota.  So, I chose this setting to depict their home here in Arizona (since their friends and family think of them as cactus folk now) and the beautiful couple provided the country feel!  Don't you think Darci has a total Miranda Lambert vibe going on?  These two are getting ready for their big day in March.  Congratulations friends!!!

The bug has bit me again and I'm ready to take some more shots!  Next up is photographing a super cute family that I work with in my district.  

Enjoy!

November Currently

It's November...and I wish I could be more excited!  But the weather here is still hot, hot, hot.  At least I get to do my monthly Currently post to help me sort of feel like I can join the rest of the world (or it seems that way) celebrating the fall's arrival.  Sigh.

Listening:  Let's not talk about the dishwasher.  But I have a bit of a love for the new Saturday Lifetime movies each week.  When they don't have one premiere on Saturday night, I get a little bent out of shape...since I tend to watch them while I lesson plan.  This one that just premiered yesterday is definitely a snoozer, but it really does make great background noise and a visual distraction when I need it.  Anyone else love Lifetime movies?

Loving:  I used to have a natural-light photography business.  It barely got off the ground before I had to give it up. Teaching is my life and that just takes precedence.  But I'm at the point now where I'd love to be able to take photographs for my friends and their families.  I got to shoot an engagement session in a really beautiful area here in Arizona.  I'll be posting my favorite photos here on the blog once I'm done editing.  Actually, I'll put up one or two of them now as a little sneak peek.

So there you have it, a little peek into my photography life.  My bestie, Beth, is pregnant with her first child and I have vowed to take pictures of her little Jeremiah when he is born and every year after!  I am supposed to shoot her maternity session next weekend, so I look forward to that!!

Thinking:  I have my once-a-year formal observation/evaluation tomorrow afternoon.  I don't get super nervous over these because I know I am doing my job well with impacting my students' learning.  Plus, I don't like to put together a fancy lesson just because I am being evaluated.  I go with the flow and do my normal lessons just as they are.  But my new assistant principal is my evaluator this year so this is someone who hasn't necessarily been in my room for more than 5-8 minutes at a time.  It's a little nerve-wracking.  Plus, I am doing a very very very different kind of lesson with that awesome book I blogged about recently, Math Misconceptions! It is very open and exploratory for my students...and really, me.  She is excited to see it and I'm excited to teach it, but definitely feeling the nervous twinges.

Wanting:  Desperately wanting it to cool off here!  At this point, I'd really take the low 70s.  This whole low to high 80s thing is absolutely RIDICULOUS!  I want to be able to pull out my favorite fall boots and sweaters.  Not to mention, I'm ready to retire my sleeveless tired ol' work tops too.  Sigh.

Needing:  Technically, I'd like to say I need the weather to cool off, but I think I made my point. However, I need to do a Sephora shop badly.  Several of my everyday beauty items are on their last legs.  I am pretty sure I need to do it online since going to the mall to shop would be a bad bad idea. Temptations as I walk past all my favorite stores that is.  For one, I'm almost out of my favorite hand lotion, Soap & Glory's Hand Food.  Have you ever used it?  It is the best stuff to use before bed and even in the morning.  I want to get the smaller bottle for my purse, but I never seem to be able to find it in the store.

A Yummy Pin:  Seeing as how I have an obsession with peanut butter and then even more so when it is combined with chocolate, this one is definitely calling my name.  I have a feeling I might attempt to make this for Thanksgiving!  It would be a great contribution to the feast my husband and friend are going to slave over.

Join in the Currently fun and make your own for your blog.  Link up with Oh' Boy Fourth Grade!

A Day in the Life...of a Teacher {9.24.13}

It was seriously hard to take pictures of my day all day!  Things started to get so insane during certain parts of the day and I realized way too late that I hadn't documented them...so that's truly how a day in the life of a teacher is.  heh heh...in fact, I totally forgot to take a picture of my lunch time with my team.  Whoops!  And to think that is one of the only times I get such a large chunk of time (truly about 20 minutes) to sit and "relax".

I took all of my photos with my iPhone and filtered them through Instagram to do a sort of fun and matchy matchy black and white series of pictures...except for my outfit picture, because it was a bright blue and needed to be seen!

I am joining up with a few other teachers over on Second Grade Nest to give you a view into my day.

5:40 am | So, I get up at 5 am.  I get a lot of slack from others for this, but I put on a full, and I mean, full face.  I don't mean I plaster or cake it on, I just enjoy putting on makeup (foundation, brows, eyeshadow, liner, mascara, bronzer, blush, and lipstick).  It's a total accessory for me and it's possibly my favorite part of my morning routine.  I actually turn on YouTube and watch my favorite vloggers ever!...the SacconeJolys.  I wasn't about to take a picture of myself before 5:40.  LOL

6:25 am || Once I'm finally done with my makeup, I jump up to make my morning Shakeology (healthiest meal of the day).  It was Butterfinger this morning.  Then I sit back down at the computer to tinker around in my email inbox, Facebook, Bloglovin', Goodreads, and Twitter.  Does anyone else include this as part of their morning routine?

7:00 am | Quick check in the mirror to make sure I don't look a mess.  My top is from The Limited (and I wish you could see the texture here) and necklace is from Forever 21.  

7:34 am | Stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic as I drive into Phoenix...and this was AFTER I got off the freeway to avoid the bumper-to-bumper traffic that was on it.  Look in my rearview mirror and you can see the school bus...it was catching up to me while I was parked on the road.  Notice the sun flare?  The sun is always blasting in my windshield this early in the morning.  It normally takes me about 25-35 minutes to get to work.

7:45 am | Any teacher will see this and nod their head.  The mailboxes are one of those things that are part of every morning or day.  It's one of the first places I stop each morning and I thankfully had an empty box greeting me that morning.  Not that I am complaining.

8:10 am | My school day officially begins when I head outside to pick up my students.  Welcome to a way too bright and sunny day in the desert I call home, Arizona.

8:15 am | This is what a true multi-tasker looks like right here.  While my students are trickling in, grabbing breakfast, turning in their homework, and taking attendance...I am trying to finish up any loose ends I didn't get to finish before the bell rang.  My students take attendance on our ActivBoard (behind me) and read the morning message that scrolls across the screen via Tickertape.  

8:45 am | The real work begins as my students work on their calendar math...this of course was after they enjoyed about 15 minutes of relax and read time with books of their choice.  This is when I stopped taking pictures consistently.  Whoopsies.

9:10 am | Have you seen or read this book before?  It is one of my favorite picture books back from my college and student teaching days, called "The Gardener."  We were working on making inferences and drawing conclusions (for the 3rd day), so we were warming up with this book as a whole class.  They did pretty good actually!  This page right here is my favorite because it is a wordless 2-page spread showing the climax of the story.  Too bad this isn't in color!

10:35 am | Don't be jealous, but this is me and my team sitting in our first PLC meeting of the week.  But we also had my administrators and a PLC official in attendance watching and listening to us.  I am the team leader, so I was sitting behind the computer leading away.  I think we made quite the impression, as we are a pretty dang fantastic team who works super well together...and we get along very well too.  

12:20 pm | My absolute favorite part of each day is our read-aloud time right after lunch.  We all sit in the dark, with my Victorian lamp turned on.  Right now, we are enjoying The Lightning Thief.  This is the 4th time I've read this to a class and it is just as fun as each time before because the kids get so into it!

1:30 pm | Math notebooking as my kids learn how to use greatest common factors to simplify fractions.  They're doing better than I expected...yeah!

4:15 pm | My day continues outside of the classroom at a gifted training I am taking to finish up my hours for my full gifted endorsement and to continue learning how to best help my students.  I was there till 7:15...talk about a long day.

7:41 pm | Finally on my way home after a long day for a much needed dinner and rest before heading out to do it all over again the next day.  In this case, the next day happened to hold our first field trip of the year in it...it was going to be another long day.  

7:45 pm | Thankfully, I have an awesome hubby who had dinner ready for me when I walked through the door.  Yum!

8:00 pm | There was just enough time left to watch some of my guilty pleasure shows and get in some reading from this really good book I am reading.  Then, it's off to bed at 9pm, since I'm an old lady who gets up at 5 am.

Now it's your turn!  Even if you don't participate in the teacher linky...I'd love to get a perspective into your day in the life.  If you blog about it, definitely come back here and let me know.