Happy Monday, and Happy Labor Day, friends! Did you know this is the first three-day weekend I've really had since leaving the TV station? I mean, logically, I've still gotten all the same holidays over the last four years or so, but when you work at home and make your own hours, it doesn't really feel the same. After a month of working set hours five days a week, I was ready for this three-day break!

That doesn't mean that this first month of teaching has been bad. Quite the opposite really. I'm enjoying it a lot, even with all the meetings and trainings I've had to attend during my planning period. I think I've finally found a rhythm with each class, and I've rearranged my classroom (hopefully for the last time) to better fit that rhythm.

We've made it halfway through our novel, The Westing Game, and have read two short stories - Seventh Grade by Gary Soto and The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen. We've been focusing on plot and just started conflict, and we've finished our first grammar unit on the parts of speech (we're doing an escape room activity with that this week that I'm pretty excited about).

We have covered the writing process, but we have not started any in-depth writing yet, but that's coming in the next couple of weeks. There's a specific program the school uses that I needed to get up to speed with before we can dive into that process. We'll be starting with narrative writing before turning our focus onto expository (explanatory) writing, which is where I excel at thanks to my background in the news industry.

In other news, my husband's building for his shop has finally come in. Once he's got it all put together, we'll get a lot of extraneous stuff out of the house, which is pretty exciting. That'll mean the laundry room will be more functional, and we'll be able to finish the guest bedroom. I'm also hopeful that we'll be able to get the shoe shelves installed in my office so I can stop digging through the bins I've been storing them in every morning!

We've been fighting some sinus and allergy issues over the last couple of weeks. Chris ended up getting bronchitis, so it's been kind of rough. The worst night, I ended up not sleeping at all and missed my first day of work. Alexis has avoided it, thankfully. There's a pretty bad stomach bug making the rounds right now, too, and I've been keeping my fingers crossed we all avoid it, as well.

I'm finally starting to feel more balanced with my sleep schedule, so I think this month will look a little more like what you're used to from me with the blog. I've got several things in the works already, so I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things of regular posting. I'll have my monthly reading roundup for y'all this week as well as another real outfit roundup. I'm also putting together a list of favorites from the past month and starting to look at fall trends (even though here in the south we've got another month of summer to get through at least).

Well, that's going to do it for me. I hope everyone has a wonderful short week!