Anyway, I'm joining up with Kacey and her super adorable first grade blog- Doodle Bugs Teaching for a five for Friday Linky party- my first one!
My first of the five things for today's Friday thoughts is about a few of my favorite local businesses in downtown Harrisonburg. (Catch all of that alliteration?!) Now, let me start off by saying that I have grown up surrounded by local businesses. My paw paw owns a well known carpet business in Harrisonburg and my dad worked for himself through his own electrical business for years. I've grown up respecting small, local businesses and continue to do my best to show my support to them as the world becomes more globalized. My Aunt DD has specifically shown me this appreciation and chooses to shop more local than commercial. When we were planning my wedding this past summer, we tried our hardest to support local vendors and businesses. My dress, jewelry, invitations, location, decorations (mostly made by me) and nearly all other details were a product of local businesses. I formed great relationships with many of these small shop owners and am happy to call many of them my friends!
My first favorite store downtown will soon be closing their doors. The store is called "Mint" and specializes in unique and upbeat clothing, accessories, and gifts. Many of my favorite pieces of clothing, mostly dresses, come from this shop. Joel knows that if I have a bad day and need to go retail therapy shopping, that I would probably end up at Mint, snagging a cute new dress :)
About these photos: A top and two dresses from last spring: A VA necklace- a Christmas gift from Joel (he got the hint!) and my latest coral red dress... I paired it with black and tight and black suede cowgirl boots.
The second store is right beside Mint and is called RubyRed Shoe Boutique. Tracy, the store's super bubbly and personable owner, has an adorable store for any girl who possesses a fond taste of great shoes, fun accessories, and a heart for the Wizard of Oz. My super beautiful wedding shoes came from RubyRed as well as many of most beloved accessories... bows, earrings, headbands, scarves, statement necklaces.... Oh, and she even carries Lindsey Philips ballet flats that are seriously known as "the most comfortable shoe for teachers ever." Not kidding. One shall not joke about shoes. (Wedding shoe photo cred to my wonderful wedding photographer, Gayle Driver)
The third store that I adore downtown is right in the same complex as the above two- The Lady Jane. Sara is probably one of the nicest people I've ever met- and she's a former teacher! Her store is perfect for those of us who love romantic, vintage pieces to fill our homes with. I cannot wait until Joel and I upgrade to space a bit larger than our current one so I can fill it with some of her lovely vintage pieces. (Oh, and she has a thing for the colors mint and teal, two of my staple colors in life!) The Lady Jane also has a blog you can follow for all of your DIY, vintagey, lovely projects ;) I snagged those super cute flower wall hooks to use by our front door... his and hers... precious, I know! (Note our wedding invitation...)
And my last favorite local store, Polished, sadly closed just last night. Growing up with my mother and Aunt DD, I have come to love and appreciate great jewelry- especially sterling silver! Melanie had wonderful, beautiful sterling silver jewelry, charming estate pieces, and began to carry freshwater pearls. I bought my flower girls' little peach pearl bracelets from Melanie as well as the pearl bracelets for my mom and mother-in-law as wedding gifts. My sister and I ventured out in the extreme cold (seriously, I'm not exaggerating) to bid the store farewell. While this isn't the best instagram photo, I bought a pair of gray Honora pearls and spoiled my sister with a pair of pink pearls- I love that girl!
Here is my loot from today's snow day adventure: floral/GIRAFFE scarf from RubyRed, Tuscan/Van Gogh inspired scarf from RubyRed, pleated black and white swan patterned skirt from Mint, and a gray/mint knitted infinity scarf from Mint. What can I say, I'm a scarf girl!
Okay, back on track. My second five for Friday is about a super exciting whole school writing project we're about to start next month. My principal asked me to head up a new writing committee to plan more writing activities for our school. What better month to write during than February?! I'm sure your classrooms are overflowing with secret love notes this time of year! (Unless you've had an umpteen amount of snow days!) The committee and I gathered and brainstormed something fun, Valentine's themed, and special to get the kids writing. We came up with "Letters of Encouragement." The idea is simple. Each student will write a letter of encouragement to a student in the below grade level. They can offer advice, give them a few "know-hows" or anything else- as long as they are positive and upbeat! These letters are passed down and then those kids will write a thank you letter response back. I made these super cute letter templates for each grade level to use. You can check out the whole bundle in my store.
I don't know about you, but I can't stand to throw anything away. I don't think I'm a hoarder or anything... yet. But now that I'm on my own and am getting my/our own mail, (that doesn't include those terrible bills) I had no idea what I was supposed to do with all of those cute announcements and stuff that was stuffed in our little mailbox. I didn't want to throw away those cards when I knew my friends had put in time, money, love, and maybe even stress into designing them! Joel's granddad also loves to send us hand written letters, cards, and captured photos so I needed a home for all of those things too! So, I bought a few photo albums and decided to keep one for each year, kinda like a living scrapbook/photo album. (But let's be real, we all know shutterfly is the way to go for photo albums these days!) So I present below, a living collection for all of those mailed items that I couldn't bear to throw away! 
Fourth, whew, I'm writing a book. Well just in case you didn't know... I LOVE Disney. Growing up, I introduced myself to people as "Belle" because, well, I knew in my heart that I really was Belle. I still love princesses, happy endings, fairy dust, and all of the magical splendor that is known as Disney... But what makes loving Disney even more special is sharing all of the magic with my husband! In fact, we even went to Disney World for our honeymoon. We had breakfast with the princesses and dinner in Beast's castle and everything was just so... magical. (Sigh...) We've spent much of this week watching Disney movies on Netflix AND we just came home from seeing Frozen in theaters- awesome movie, I LOVE Idina Menzel. (The movie was very appropriate considering our current temperature is 12 degrees outside- FREEZING!)
Five: the finale. I am finally looking forward to a normal week with my kiddos! Now, of course we will have a few schedule changes but for the most part, a normal week! (If Mother Nature can contain herself... or do I mean Elsa?) Anyway, I'm hoping to finally get back into the swing of things and start a bunch of new units- and document them with photos as well! We will be starting geometry in Math, finishing up inferring in Reading, writing one last five paragraph paper before our local Writing SOL in March, and taking a break from Science while we introduce the American Revolution in Virginia Studies. I have a lot planned, a lot of dust to wipe off my unit plans, and hopefully some smiling kids ready for a new week together! The only thing I need to do before Monday morning is to finish laminating my math center games for the kids to use as review throughout the week.
I think that's it for now! We are off to Joel's parents tomorrow for the weekend. I love spending time with family. I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
xoxo, farren
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