Teachers Pay Teachers.

If you are a teacher, you should check out this website.  I have always been told "Teach Smart", "Don't reinvent the wheel" etc...  This website is a place for teachers to share and sell resources they have created!

I am proud to say I have my very first resource "for sale" (it's actually free) at TPT.

Check it out!

Teachers Pay Teachers

These are just some binder pages I created for my binder this year!  Hope you enjoy!

Kristen

Comfort food...my fave.

Sorry my posting has been minimal...or just none at all.  I'm trying to juggle being a wife and teacher and all that entails!  But I do want to share one of my mom's yummiest casserole concoctions.  The first truly cold day of fall I made this.  And I love to make it as often as possible.

Chicken Cobbler

1 stick butter 

1 cup onion chopped

2 cups celery chopped

2 cups baby carrots sliced

3 cups cooked and shredded chicken

1 can cream of celery soup

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of chicken soup

First, cook chicken and shred. 

FYI...shredding in your Kitchen Aid Mixer is WONDERFUL.  It will be shredded in like 2 minutes top.  Just use the paddle insert.

Thank you Pinterest.

Thank you.

Then you'll chop all of the vegetables.

Once chopped, saute onions, celery, and carrots in butter.

You can go ahead and mix up your corn bread.

 Here's the lovely trio of Campbells soups for this casserole.

Don't feel bad...it's comfort food.

Combine veggies, chicken, and soups.

Pour into a greased 9x13 pan.

Top with corn bread mix.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until cornbread is golden brown.

Sorry to leave you hanging, but I don't have a finished product picture.

I mean...when that comes out of the oven...there's no time for pictures.

It's grab a fork and go time.

May you ever enjoy comfort food this winter :)

Kristen

PINTEREST PINTEREST PINTEREST!!

This post is entirely devoted to my love for pinterest.  Don't know what that is?  Don't worry.  By the end of this, you'll be signed up and pinning like a pro.  My friend Whitney sent me an invite email to pinterest a few months ago.  I signed up and looked around...thought "this is kind of cool, I guess" and didn't sign back in for a while.  I didn't really see the point?  That is until I was having issues with my student teaching class and decided to search "classroom management" on pinterest.  HELLO!  Talk about awesome!

All of this showed up!  How amazing.  I spent a few HOURS looking through all of the classroom management ideas!  When you click on one thing it will look like this...

Now there are all kinds of options!  I can click the pinner's name to see all of her boards/pins.  I can click through the thumbnails on the side to see the rest of her pins in this board.  OR, I can click the large picture to link to the original website!  If I want to pin this, I click repin then pick a board like so...

So awesome.  Here's a look at all of my boards...

As you can see, there is a little bit of everything on pinterest.  I don't even come close to having as many boards as many other pinners do!  You can see that I'm following people as well as being followed.  That means when I log in to pinterest, I see what everyone I'm following is pinning!  I'm seriously in love with this website and all that I've found!

To join pinterest, you need to be invited.  If you are not on yet...you need to be!  More addictive than Facebook and also more productive!!!  And if you are a teacher, you need to sign up RIGHT NOW!!!  Leave your email in a comment if you are not signed up and I will send you an invite email!

Happy pinning :)

And I'm back.

Well, as you can see, my last post was the Friday before student teaching started.  For any of you teachers out there, I'm sure you can understand the toll that student teaching can take.  I am a new wife, a new mommy to our kitten, Peanut, and a student teacher.  Those are definitely time consuming roles.  So now that I have a three day weekend where I can breathe a sigh of relief...I thought I would share some of my funniest moments in the kindergarten classroom.

For the privacy rights of the students in my classroom, all names have been shortened to their initials.


H.L. whispers into K.D.'s ear.
"Stop, please.  I just don't like your breath." - K.D.

"Mrs. Strunga.  I really like your outfit today.  You must be a model or something!" - K.W.

A.F. had an accident during lunch.  We gave him a pair of pants and a cutoff t-shirt to change into.  After spending a while in the restroom we decided to check on him.  He had put his legs through the armholes of the shirt and was proceeding to try to put his arms through the pantlegs.

During calendar time, I asked the students what day it was.  One correctly answered "Monday."  K.K. did not think it was Monday and began this conversation:
"No, Mrs. Strunga.  Today is not Monday." - K.K.
"Yes, K.K., today is Monday." -me
While beginning to tear up, "No.  It's not Monday.  My daddy said it wasn't Monday." - K.K.
"Well, remember we just had two days off from school called the weekend.  Those days were Saturday and Sunday.  Now we are back to school.  Remember, our first day of the school week is called Monday." -me
Now bawling, "NO!  It's NOT Monday!!!! It's not.  I know it's not!" - K.K.
At this point, I was awe struck.  Thankfully, my Cooperating Teacher called this little girl over to her desk to show her yet another calendar and talk about the fact that the day was, in fact, Monday.

I was calling students by colors of their shirts to get their book boxes and begin our Daily 5.  One girl, H.E., began to cry and say that I didn't call her.  I told her, yes, I did call several of the colors she was wearing.  To this she said:
"BUT YOU DIDN'T SAY DRESS!!! YOU ONLY SAID SHIRTS!!!" After this, she was full on bawling her eyes out.
"I'm so sorry H.E., I made a mistake.  Did you know teachers can make mistakes sometimes?  Next time I will be sure to call all kinds of clothing.  Can you forgive me?" - me
"NO!" - H.E.
Oh the kindergarten compassion...

The same little girl who did NOT think it was Monday had another funny moment.  I thought I heard my name being called from the bathroom which usually means that a student is stuck in the bathroom and cannot open the door.  I asked another little girl who sits close to the door to help open the door.  She quickly shut it and went back to her seat.  Thinking this was super weird, I headed over to the bathroom to check for myself.  I found K.K. bawling her eyes out sitting on the toilet.  "There's no more toilet paper, Mrs. Strunga!!!!"  I smiled and went and got her some more T.P.--essential to the bathroom.

During our apple unit, I passed out a cracker to each student with some apple butter on it for them to try. When I handed K.D. his he responded, "I'm so scared!"

I'm sure there are even more stories I can't think of right off the top of my head.  As more stories happen or as I remember more, I will definitely come here and post them!

I also have some more recipes to share and will be sharing more pictures of my attempts to decorate!

I LOVE LAMP!

Who can name that movie?  I use that Steve Carell (hint hint) quote for this post because I have to agree with him, I LOVE LAMP!  Not all lamps though.  When Mike first moved in to our house, he had to make do with any lamp with the price tag of "free."  Especially since our main living room has no ceiling light.  Dark much?  So, when we were registering for our wedding, we decided to register for some lamps.  We came across a wonderful lamp that we both loved so we asked for three.  We got them all :)  Here's what they do for our house:

This is the black lamp in our bedroom.  

As you can see, it's bright.

There are three shelves on this lamp (one on the floor).

So here is our unity sand.

And my Bible.

Looks really good next to our bed!

Here is the brown version in our living room.

It was fun to decorate and looks super nice.

Here are all three shelves.

Even when it's off, it looks really nice.

Here is what the majority of our lamps look like.

Ornate. Gold. Two word that definitely do not describe the rest of my house decor.

 Here's the third lamp.  Yep, we got all three.  This one is also brown.

Love the pull down chain to turn on/off the lamp.

We display our three Vintage Library board games on this lamp.

Scrabble.

Risk.

Life.

From the side they look like books! Love.

Since we're talking about lamps, here's another fave.

This was the lamp in my college dorm.  And both apartments.  And now my house.

It gives off SOOOO much light.  And I love lamp light.

Plus, it's just funky and fun.

So, you see, I truly love lamp(s).  By the way, Thursday is almost over.  Happy Friday!!  Next up: dining room :)

Deep Breath.

Well, as you can tell, it has been one week since my last post.  Sad, I know.  But, much has happened in the Strunga household.

First--we didn't catch any mice.  Last Wednesday morning when I posted, I had a brand new outlook on my situation.  I was simply going to bleach everything, catch a mouse, and all would be well.  Minutes after posting that to my blog, I went into the kitchen to begin tackling my to-do list.  I decided to go ahead and check the drawers of things I had cleaned the night before with my mom as a precaution.  I didn't expect to find anything.  I did.  There were more droppings and evidence that a mouse had in fact been in my utensil drawer and crawled all over everything.  I went into the living room, called my mom, and wept. ALL THAT WORK GONE TO WASTE!!!!!  Mom came over.  Because she's my mom.  And she lives 2 minutes away.  And she's amazing.  And she married my dad.  Who came over and helped clean three nights in a row.  And helped set traps.  And fixed things that were broken in my house.  And walked me down the aisle.  Sigh.  I have suuuuuch good parents.

So--we called in a professional.  Who used "Fast Track" instead of traps you can buy at Big-R.  Like we did.  Dad also caulked some holes and will be fixing a broken grate outside the house.  No sightings of mice.  No new droppings.  Hallelujah.  But I'm still moving things out of my kitchen and cleaning.  Maybe next week I'll be moving back in :)

We also adopted a kitten.  Aka, mouse hunter.  Her name is Peanut.  She is soooo stinking cute.  And tiny.  We brought her home Saturday after having double surgery (spayed & declawed) on Friday.  She had a runny nose.  And sneezed quite a bit.  Took her to the vet on Monday.  She has an upper respiratory infection.  And fleas.  And worms.  Uhhhh....good thing she is stinking cute.  We have to give her .05mL of pain medicine 2x/day until Saturday, .5mL of antibiotic 2x/day for two weeks, and 1.25mL of the deworming medicine 1x/day for 9 days.  Uhhhh....good thing she is stinking cute.  For real.  But here she is...looking adorable!

 Can you find her?  Yep, she's just chilling in a random spot on the carpet.

Don't worry, she has lots of beds/blankets/couches/pillows to choose from.

She is sooooo cute.

Her tag says "Peanut Strunga"

This morning she crawled up on Mike's chest.

Please ignore the fact that he's not wearing a shirt.

Look at that.  So presh.

SOOO CUTE!

I'm sure pictures of Peanut will be popping up in several future posts.  Next up...lamps!

The Woman Cave: Breached.

Well, it's Wednesday.  Let me catch you up on what's been happening.

Monday night, Mike & I came home from small group and needed to head to bed because we were taking some high schoolers to Holiday World the next morning and leaving at 7am.  I went to go to sleep and realized my phone (alarm) was still in my purse.  I didn't really know where I set my purse down but it's usually in the kitchen so that's where I headed.  When I turned on the light, there was a MOUSE that scurried off in between my canisters.  AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

There was a tail right there. 

RIGHT THERE!

I went back into the bedroom seriously ready to cry.  I asked Mike what to do but he was icing his really sore ankle and could barely walk.  I called my mom.  When she picked up I just said "I saw a mouse on my kitchen counter.  I'M FREAKING OUTTTT!!!"  To which she replied, "I'm sending your dad."  BEST PARENTS IN THE WORLD.

They came over and starting setting traps.  We were trying to figure out where they might come from and just had no idea.  Mom asked if we should get their cat, Sugar, and bring her over to find the mouse. I was all for this.  We went and got her and brought her back.  We set her on the counter by the canisters and she immediately moved to the space behind my Kitchen Aid Mixer.

She went right to the corner and starting pawing at/sniffing the space underneath the corner cabinet.  My dad investigated and found that the cabinet is not flush with the wall.  We set more traps.  Before they left, I asked if we could check the other corner cabinet juuuuust in case.  This is the part when my gag reflex was in overdrive.  He moved my bread machine which I rarely do....and the corner of the counter had lots of mouse turds.  AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!  I seriously felt so unclean/grossed out/like I was going to puke.  

So now my kitchen is a war zone.  I'm beyond being frightened and am now just mad that this mouse or mice has disrupted my life.  I am currently taking every single thing from it's home and washing it in bleach/soap water.  Then I'm bleaching out every drawer and cabinet.  I've found more mouse droppings than I'd ever have liked to have seen in a lifetime.  My parents keep reassuring me that this happens to everyone...but I'm disgusted.  Seriously...disgusted.  This is my WOMAN CAVE!  It's supposed to be a happy place.  Here is a bit of how it looks now...

Everything is on the island.  

Bleach.

Bleach.

Trap & poison.

Plug-in repellent.  Recommended by friends on facebook.

So, I'm off to fight in the war against mice again.  My weapon?  Bleach.  And more bleach.  And I'll probably run to the Dollar General in town and get some more bleach.  Ugh.  Mice.

On a lighter and happier note, Mike & I adopted an 8 week old kitten from the local shelter.  It was an agonizing choice because all of the kittens and cats wanted to be petted and looked so unbelievably lonely.  People of Vermilion County...go adopt some pets!  Poor babies... Especially Archie.  We almost brought him home.  I hope his little heart isn't too broken.  But we saved this baby:  http://www.petfinder.com/petdetail/20475954?photo_view=1

Her new name is Peanut.  We love her.  And pray she will hunt the mice right out of our house.  Or at least scare them off.  

That's all for now.  Maybe someday I will attempt to be happy in my kitchen again :(