June 10

It's finally over! My school year, that is. Finally. And let me tell you, it feels wonderful!

OK.....here is a picture of the money I collected this year by selling pencils. I teach math and really, I want my students to do their work in pencil, not ink. I HATE lending pencils to my students because oftentimes, they don't come back to me. So a couple of years ago, I began selling pencils in my classroom. I sell regular pencils for $.10 and mechanical pencils for $.25. I make about $.05 on each regular pencil and $.10 on each mechanical pencil I sell. Below is pictured $186.57. All of this money is not pure profit, but simply the money I collected this year. I made a conscious effort this year to NOT let myself borrow from the "pencil money jar" for sodas, lunch, etc. That way, I am now able to see just exactly how much I collected. Pretty amazing, huh? I figure that I profited about $80 of this. I am pretty excited! Now what to spend it on???

These are our new textbooks for next year. Hopefully my schedule will not change between now and then. I am scheduled to teach 3 sections of Geometry and 2 sections of Algebra II. I once told Bruce that if I could pick my perfect schedule, it would be 2/3 sections of these classes. I really didn't care which one was 2 and which one was 3. So I got my perfect schedule! Now if I could have 7th hour prep again next year and NOT have anyone in my classroom during my prep and lunch time, that would be a dream come true! We'll see what happens. Today we were given the workbooks, resource manuals, and some of the software that came with these books. I for one really don't want to do anything with this stuff over the summer. I really don't. But I might. But I might not. This summer is short enough. I think I'll enjoy my family and my time and worry about the lesson planning come August.