Awesome Autumn.

Autumn is my favourite of all the seasons and it is finally here and in full swing already!! It's only one week until half term, which is when I can fully enjoy all the goodness that Autumn has to offer. I thought I'd dedicate this week's blog post to all my favourite things about Autumn. Shhhh, no, of course I didn't do that last year ;)

Cold weather drinks

Coffee shops and cafes are one of my favourite places to stop at all year round; they sell cake, duh! However, Starbucks are one of my favourite because they have such amazing seasonal drinks such as the Pumpkin Spice Latte and Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. I had my very first salted caramel hot chocolate last Sunday and I definitely want to tuck into one again (even if it does take up my entire dairy allowance for the day!)

Leaves

Big crunchy, colourful ones! Whether you are four years old, twenty four or even eighty four, you are still going to love stepping on crunchy leaves. This is coming from a girl who still plays 'don't step on a crack' on a regular day BUT you know I'm right :)

Outdoorsy Fun

The sweltering heat of the Summer has passed but the weather is still mild enough for plenty of explorations and adventures. Put your biggest coat on and maybe even your wellies and go outside to play :) have a look at visitwoods.org.uk to find some interesting woodlands near you.

I got outdoorsy today and helped Ryan transport all his plants to the York St John Uni allotments. He needed to get rid of them as he is moving in with me in a few weeks time, eek! So he decided to make a lovely herb garden to accompany all the salad they are growing at the moment.

Autumn Clothes!

I am most definitely a cosy clothes kind of girl. I love woolly socks, thick jumpers and scarfs. No doubt I'll end up with numerous pairs of new socks and maybe some knitwear in the next few weeks! I've been looking everywhere for a new beanie but I'm set on having a purple one which nobody seems to sell :(

Halloween

After transporting fifteen pumpkins to YSJSU today (as well as the entirety of Ryan's herb garden) I have been really excited for Halloween! I hate it when shops start putting out all of the Christmas things in October because they are missing a vital holiday!!! I'm a lover of scary films, dressing up and all things spooky so I don't like to miss Halloween. I've even been on the look out for spooky crafts to do with my class.

Bonfire Night

My FAVOURITE holiday. Yes, even slightly more than Christmas. I love wrapping up warm, drinking hot drinks, warming my face by the bonfire and sharing the fireworks with people I love. Last year we went to the show in York and had a few glasses of delicious mulled wine. This year I'm thinking of joining everyone on the Stray in Harrogate.

It is almost time for Christmas Lists

I do still LOOOOOVE Christmas, even if bonfire night is my absolute fave. Who can resist all the merriment?!?! Scrooges :P Even though I'm on a lovely teacher's salary now, I'm still keeping the purse strings tight. Which means I've been adding everything to a never-ending Christmas list. Here are two items that I am trying so hard not to buy RIGHT NOW.

Fat Face - £65

Blowfish - £70

AND MINCE PIES!!!!!!!

I feel as if they were handcrafted by God! I'm also pretty sure that if they were available all year round I would be obese. I know I could make my own at any time but that would just be fatal. I'm seriously just TOO EXCITED about eating one of these in a daily after school ritual with a cup of tea.

Warming up mind, body and soul.

Brrrrrr it's October! My boots and coats are now part of my daily attire, hot chocolate and porridge are dietary staples and I have huddled by my classroom radiator a few times while nobody was looking. This past week has been a really tough one, and not just because it's harder to get out of bed when it's cold. It finally hit me this week that being a teacher is HARD. I always knew it was but I'd been doing so well keeping on top of my work that I was starting to think NQT year might actually be a doddle. WRONG! On Monday I got hit in the face (not literally) with more demands, more work and improvements I can make. I have worked so hard this week I have a proper eye bag situation going on! Thorough marking has been my main target since September, so I am now trying my best!

Anyone who watched Educating Yorkshire this week will agree that it was quite a fitting theme for how I was feeling on Monday. It was a difficult watch for any teacher that knows the passion and dedication that we put into our work for every pupil in our class. Thankfully I've not had a situation quite a grim as Mr Steer's and hopefully I never will!!

When you have such a demanding job, it is so important to make sure that you look after yourself too. It's for your own sanity! Last weekend I escaped teacher life and had a little adventure to North Wales. I went camping with Ryan near Betws-y-coed where we spent the weekend walking in the mountains and Ryan taught me some things about outdoor rock climbing. I climbed up the rock in the picture, eek! Ryan said I was pretty good but I think he was just being nice. In hindsight, running away for the weekend definitely didn't decrease my workload this week, but I was so glad to switch off and get plenty of exercise in the fresh air.

I've not had much time this week for myself. I've worked late at school and still ended up bringing things home to do even though I try so hard not to. Carrying 30+ books up the 3 flights of stairs to our flat is exhausting in itself haha :) On Friday night we finally had a bit of chill out time in our flat; we drank wine, had people over and then Tom played a bit of GTA while I relaxed with a magazine. Ironically enough Zest Magazine had a feature about doubling your energy and keeping a work-life balance, pfft! An app advertised in the magazine did catch my eye though. The HeadSpace App is based around meditation techniques and challenges you to take 10 minutes off every day. I thought this would be interesting to try as I am ALWAYS thinking about what I need to do for work. I will let you know thoughts after my first 10 day stretch!

This morning Ryan helped me de-clutter the flat. I have never enjoyed the smell of bleach so much! I'm off to do a bit of work for school before my parents arrive for Sunday Dinner :) I hope you all had a good weekend.

Surviving September

Aaaaaah! I am sorry but I will just HAVE to talk teacher things this week. I have finally cracked and want to talk about it on the blog! BUT it is only because I have made it through the first half term with barely a scratch :) FEELING PROUD!!! I thought I would share what I've learnt so far about surviving as a newly qualified teacher....

Wine.

Only on the weekends of course! Or with dinner on special occasions like Tom's birthday last week. The five course meal luckily soaked up the five, albeit relatively small, glasses of wine that came with it. It is especially good on a Friday as you are so tired anyway, it makes you extra sleepy and you are in the land of nod by 8pm.

and whine.

It is really important to get things off your chest. Touch wood, I've only had one particularly depressing staff meeting so far that I needed to whine about but it really helps to have someone you can talk to. Be honest when you can at work too, I spoke to my mentor about it and she was really understanding. She explained why it was such a big deal to the school and it actually made me feel like less of a depressed failure!

Being organised

I just love being organised me! As I've said before in my blog, I try so hard to keep my work at school. Obviously this won't happen every night, staff meeting night I am talking about you, but keeping most your evenings free will stop you becoming a giant stressy mess. I love finding new ways to organise things in my classroom, I am such a folder and plastic box geek. Ryan had never met anyone quite so excited by hobbycraft! I definitely couldn't live without my diary either, I like to know what is coming up and I try not to leave things till last minute. Which brings me to....

Prioritising

I loooooove making lists. I am sure this isn't just a teacher thing, but it is a job where you are always writing down on post-its or adding things daily to the pile of 'to-do'. I try and do the really important things like planning, marking and preparation for staff meetings or SEN reviews BEFORE I do my displays and quite frankly, the things that can just wait a few days.

Loving the weekend

My previous September postings have mostly been about my weekend adventures so I won't tell you about them again! I try and keep at least a day free on the weekends and I try and plan something to do with that day, not just sit around and watch TV. I'm lucky that on the weekends I only usually have to plan maths and literacy weeklies and do a few odd jobs, so if I get up early enough I can have a day and a half free to do as I please. After my Friday 8pm bedtimes I am usually raring to go at 7am anyway!

Loving my work

Teaching is the best profession, but all teachers would tell you that ;) I planned four weeks of literacy in just over an hour the other day because I was just SO EXCITED about teaching myths and legends. I'm not lying, Tom and Amy will definitely make me put money in my geek jar if they read this. The days at school go SO quickly too, my Monday feeling doesn't last very long because I love being in the classroom and helping my class to learn. Planning my maths is sometimes a different story though! haha

Early bird or Night owl?

If you haven't figured this one out yet then you probably should. The sooner you know what time you work best at, the more productive you will be. At my NQT brief on Thursday, the guy told us it's important to play to your strengths and work when it is best for you. I am ALWAYS the first person in school, and it's not just because I like having the choice of parking spaces. In the morning I am awake, motivated and prepared for the day. After 6 and a half hours on my feet teaching I usually want to go home and have a cuppa. I am pretty much useless after 7pm, so I choose the earlier get up.

Be yourself at work

Once you have figured out your sleeping/working patterns, you can have a little think about what makes you a teacher. Then go into school and own that teaching style! Everyone knows that I am the early bird who gives out raffle tickets and reads stories in increasingly silly voices. The children and the staff will appreciate how genuine and honest you are :)

Breakfast and Tea time

As an early bird, it won't surprise you that I LOVE breakfast. In fact, I just love every meal. It is so important to fuel yourself for the day and then refuel regularly! I set a ridiculously early 6:15am alarm every day just so that I can enjoy a relaxing breakfast before I set off for work at 7:20am. If I ever slept in and missed breakfast, I'm not sure I'd function properly all day. In our flat we also make time to eat our tea together :) it's like a cute family catch up time. We do try to not involve ourselves in teacher talk but with the three of us, it's pretty inevitable.

Sing in the car

I've never been a big listener of the radio, opting for Spotify during my University years. However I now religiously listen to the radio 1 breakfast show every morning and I join in with the going home song as I trundle through Knaresborough. Katy Perry's Roar motivated me on many early September mornings!

Read

The ultimate of the chill out activities and it can be done at any time! Choose whatever you like, books, magazines, blogs or newspapers. I've even enjoyed sharing my children's literacy work at times.

and looky here... you just read my blog :) feeling happier? relaxed? I hope so :P

If you want to do some more blog reading on this fine Sunday then you can click on this NEW BLOG written by Harpreet who I met in Southampton, she is just lovely soooooo check it out! 

Feeling Thrifty and oh so Vintage

 Last weekend I was blabbering on about all my exciting plans to visit the York Vintage Fair and the Thrift Festival in Darlington. Well I have had a fabulous time at both of them so my weekends were very enjoyable!

I spent the day in York with Ryan last Sunday and we popped along to the Vintage fair to check out what they had to offer. There were all sorts of retro clothing but I spent most of my time eyeing up Levis shorts and some jumpers for Sam's birthday. I did get myself some lovely new shorts and chose a cute knitted jumper for Sam that she seemed to be happy with this morning. We spent the rest of the afternoon casually strolling through York and had lunch at Pitcher and Piano. I was very cheeky on Sunday and also went out for a carvery with Sofia, but shhhh it's the weekend!

This weekend I spent time in Yarm as it was Sam's birthday today. We went out for a lovely meal where I had a cauldron of Thai Green curry (which everyone at the table stared at) before heading to Yarm High Street for a few drinks. Yarm is always an experience, lets just put it that way!! Then this morning, after re-fuelling with tea and croissants, we drove to Darlington for the Thrift Festival. It was free entry and sooooo worth it! We spent ages walking around and looking at all the cute things the stalls had to offer.

There were loads of different crafty type stalls selling their goods; even a woman who made jewellery out of spoons! I learnt all about brownie box cameras from the guy on the camera stall, might have got caught by the Look North camera man, drooled over fresh bread and yummy cakes, got all geeky about Harry Potter quote necklaces and was very excited about all the hula-hooping and hippy vans.

 

For lunch there was a lot of choice. You could book a table to dine in a themed hippy van (bizarre but really cool) or grab something from the street food stalls or cafe. We opted for a Moroccan style falafel flatbread with chopped salad and hummus, YUM!

It's a shame that Ryan couldn't come with us as he would have enjoyed all of the upcycling goodness and would have definitely stuck around for the talks. I also spied a veg box scheme and some 'help yourself' veg plots that would have made him really happy :) I know he had a nice day at the York Food Festival though so I don't feel too guilty.

 I have really enjoyed spending my time shopping in these alternative places. It was so refreshing to experience something different to High Street shops. Please let me know if you hear of future events that are similar because I will definitely want to go! :)

Life outside the classroom.

At University my lecturers would always go on about how important it was to keep a 'work-life' balance as a teacher. As a fresher I obviously sat in lectures thinking, well I've been out three times this week and still managed to be here today, how hard can it be? Three years of teaching placement later and now living life as an  actual teacher, I finally understand what they were on about. When you have had a long day, the last thing you want to do is sit in the classroom and get things sorted for the next. However I always feel worse when I take massive bags of work home and I know I'd rather be doing other things. I am trying so hard to keep my work at school on most nights so that I can spend my evenings and most of the weekend relaxing. That is what they are for right?!

I haven't done much on the evenings this week apart from put my feet up and get some well deserved R&R. Monday night I did actually go to Slug and Lettuce in York with Ryan. As students we used to go most Mondays to make the most of their 50% off so it was really strange but nice to be back! My weekend also started off well, Friday night wine and film with Tom and Amy and then Saturday morning bliss...

I was up about about at 7am, thanks a lot body clock, so I thought I'd have an easy morning reading magazines and drinking tea. Ryan bought this magazine called The Simple Things last week and I've been pestering him to borrow it. It's a mix of foody stuff, interior design, gardening, travel and crafty things. I really enjoyed reading it, there are some interesting articles and lovely pictures! One article I particularly liked was about Masala Chai which is apparently good if you are a tea and coffee lover with it's mixed spice flavour. I really want to try some so I will probably spend some time in the supermarket tea aisle soon.

I also liked reading about the Moroccan feast, camping escapes and bike rides. The October issue is out on September 17th so I might have to convince Ryan to buy that one too. So that I can borrow it of course!

After a nice chilled day at home yesterday, doing a little bit of work too, today I am going to the vintage fair in York with Ryan. I am really excited as I always used to miss it when I volunteered at Oxfam. Obviously my volunteering was much more important to me but it's still nice to finally go :) If you fancy it, come to York Guildhall between 12pm and 5pm. There is apparently a vintage tea party and hair salon as well as lots of fabulous clothing and homeware to look at.

Next weekend is already looking pretty busy too. I am going to stay in Yarm for Sam's birthday which is super exciting because I haven't seen her in ages; I've almost forgotten what a parmo is! We are off out for a fancy meal and I'm being the usual 'hippy friend' ordering a Thai curry when everyone else wants a pie. Pfft :)

It's always strange how life works out but while I was flicking through The Simple Life, I noticed an interesting looking festival in Darlington. So now we are going out on Sunday to take a  looky at the Festival of Thrift.

"The first national Festival of Thrift is a FREE fun celebration of everyday living with upcycling, recycling and finding the sassiness in sustainable living!"

I love how creative people are with their upcycling; I'm forever looking at them on Pinterest!  I'm excited to spend a few hours looking around what the festival has to offer. There are workshops on as well but I don't know if my pennies will stretch that far after paying the drink prices in Yarm!!!

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend 

xx