First Post!

Wow! So here it is! I am trying my hand at blogging. I intend to still maintain my website, but will also use this blog to post new items and ideas I have found online or created. To be honest, my website has become really big (behind the scenes big- too many pages) and I HATE the new software I have to use to update it! My goal is to eventually transfer any information that I publish on my blog to the website so that the site will still be a reflection of my current or past practices in the classroom.

Let’s see…for this post I think I will share ten things about me! So much has changed since I started my website!

1. I gave birth to a BEAUTIFUL baby girl in October. I cannot believe she is already nine and a half months! Her name is Kinley and she is literally the light of my life. My pregnancy was HORRIBLE (I actually got sick on a colleague. It was not pretty), but she was worth every bit of misery!

2. My husband and I just shared our seven year anniversary. He is still my best friend. He is still funny. And he is still HOT! I totally married up! 🙂

3. I am teaching third grade again for the third year in a row. I think out of all the grades I have taught (second, third, fourth); I love second the most but third comes in a close second. The kids are still young enough to actually think I am cool, but old enough to be independent and not hormonal.

4. For the second year in a row I will be a general education teacher in a special education inclusion class. I teach with a special education teacher all day. We were placed together and neither was given a choice. It was one of the best things that has happened to me! She has become a close friend and we call ourselves a professional marriage. To “divorce” would be very traumatizing for us!

5. I have two cats. I love them, but they are kinda strange and gross. One is fat and loves food. He picks up individual pieces of his star shaped cat food and only eats the arms of the stars leaving the centers to be stepped on all over the kitchen and living room. Why can’t he just eat the whole piece?! The other is a sweet little girl kitty and would follow me around to snuggle all day if I would let her. They both are wonderful with my daughter, Kinley.

6. I love to read. I caved in and requested a Kindle from my techie husband for Mother’s Day. I think it was actually more for his sake than mine (he loves to play with new toys) but I LOVE IT. Seriously, one click and I have a new book? I am totally going to go broke!

7. Speaking of reading my favorite books are the Twilight series (yes, my inner tween is not so inner sometimes), The Mortal Instruments Series (so good!), and anything by James Rollins. I have read all of his books and they are so drenched in “what-ifs” and science.

8. I am running out of things to write…maybe I should have made this list the top five things about me! My mom is my best friend. When I was 8 I thought she knew everything, when I was 17 I thought she was fun, but naive, and now at thirty- three I KNOW she is brilliant! She knows everything. If I would just listen to her and my husband’s advice, I would never go wrong (blast it, he is always right too!).

9. I have a talent for tripping. Really, it is quite remarkable. My freshman year of college I tripped up AND down every set of stairs on my very hilly campus. And now as an adult, I have my “trippy”” shoes. They are not named because they have a wildly hippy aesthetic, but I trip EVERYTIME I walk in them. But I love them. They are the Crocs Malindi style. They were all I could wear when I bloated up like a whale my last few months of pregnancy.

10. I have two best friends that I have known for almost twenty years. We don’t even have to speak to know what the others are thinking and most the trouble I got into as a teenager can be attributed to some grand idea we schemed up. I wouldn’t trade them for the world. But I swear, every time we travel, disaster strikes. We have: managed to blow up an engine of a car, gotten caught in a wild fire on a road trip, hitched rides from a man driving a tow truck and the list continues. Really, how did we survive?

Mandy Gregory

Mandy Gregory is a 2007 and 2012 Teacher of the Year. She has taught Kindergarten- 4th grades in both the general education and inclusion settings. She is currently a 1st grade Special Education teacher.  She is the owner and creator of Mandy’s Tips for Teachers website (www.mandystipsforteachers.com) and has over 13 years of teaching experience. She is married with two beautiful children.