The One Where my VA Services Blossomed

I come to you today with a truly excited heart! I have been working on the side for years as a TpT seller as well as a virtual assistant helping other teacher-preneuers out there, but this summer my Virtual Assistant Shin-Dig has blossomed! It has truly grown and I am happy to say that this is the entrepreneur side whom my heart loves. 

Completing these tasks for all kinds of ladies and gents is where my heart is. I absolutely love anything to do with graphic design and working along side of others. I want your shops to flourish. I want your lives as little entrepreneurs to grow. I hope all of your dreams come true in the realm of TpT ladies and gents. You all deserve nothing but that! 

I want to take a step back. Just a moment to breathe and take all of these blessing in. I am truly blessed. I have two beautiful children, a great job as an educator and I have been able to pursue my passion all during this pandemic. I want to thank all of you out there that has allowed me to assist you in working on your masterpieces this summer or even in taking your shop to the next level. I am full of happiness and all kinds of emotions. 

XOXO,

Casey

Barnett's School House 

The One Where COVID 19 Happened

School is coming back in session for me as well as many others come August. I’m excited, little nervous, as well as anxious. I’m not really sure what to expect. How about you ladies and gents? I find that holding a zoom meeting to discuss our opening up plans is coming soon. I also feel that doing this means it isn't really that safe to return to school, but honestly, what are we to do? What is the system supposed to do? 

We can't legit shut down our lives and stay isolated. My own children are suffering, mentally and emotionally being on quarantine. I cannot imagine how many children have suffered as well as adults. This has been one trying year. I have never seen anything like it. 

I do know I’m ready to get back into the swing of actually not wearing lounge pants haha, but in all seriousness, I'm a little scared of the idea of going back to work. I don't know what the outcome will be. I don't know if we will have to shut down ASAP. 

All of the unknown's scare me like crazy, more so then I let show. Hopefully, we as educators can return to work without showing our fear and also be able to be there for our students. It's going to be an anxious time come early August for this gal as well as many others. Good luck everyone!!

In the meantime, me and my girl love to play dress up. I have to admit, I'm a little excited about this part of returning to work, minus the whole mask thing. Dread that to be honest. The adorable earrings me and my girl are wearing are from @poppyandjunejewelry and my dress is from @emmaksclo

Life's a Dance

I took a moment today to breathe a little. Life gets too fast and we just don’t slow down. I have littles to chase and dreams to turn into reality for them, and for me. What is your dream in life? I'm a teacher and I absolutely plan to teach until I am retirement age, but I also have other dreams in life.

I find so many times I have worried in my life about what other's think of me. Those days are behind me. Sometimes you realize all too quickly that you are stuck in a vortex, that the people that surround you are not who you need to be with. Some of you may laugh, some of you may just roll your eyes. I don't know. I will say this. Life’s too short to worry about stupid things so live it!!! 

In this shot I'm wearing an amazing find from TJ Max and some J. Crew shorts.

XOXO,

Casey

My Everyday Make-Up Routine

Read on to get the make-up look above. Okay...so I say my "everyday" make-up routine, but honestly I haven't worn a lot of makeup since they shut school's down due to COVID. So when I do wear make-up this is my routine. It's pretty straightforward and is pretty natural looking for the most part. 

In the image you can see that I have a Becca palette. OMG this thing is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!! I will purchase another one when it runs out. No, it's not cheap, but Lawd it is so worth it. The blush and highlighting inside the palette are so very pigmented. They are absolutely amazing! 

I also use the Becca line which includes the full coverage foundation in the bigger bottle and I buy the under eye cream as well just because it's amazing and it doesn't crease into my wrinkles at all. We all know about those under eye creams that make our wrinkles look even worse. All of that goes on super smooth and I love it! I seriously should make a video on how I do this, but it'll take a lot. I'm not much on the live feeds thingy. I'll sure try!

I use the Mac blush, it's also amazing to outline my Becca blush. It's the best as well! I also use the highlighter palette from Macy's. It is so beautiful and gives the right amount of highlighting. It's very very easy to get to much of this so go easy. The first few times I used it and went to work, I had it all over me. Story of my life haha.

My mascara is simple. It's Mary Kay and I know the sweetest lady that sales it to me. It's awesome!!! I also love a sample I received from Lancome. It's pretty good stuff and neither mascara brands rub off on my face.

The last two things I use are NYX spray to set my makeup which I get off of Amazon. I also use LimeLight Macaroon lipstick that I purchase from a consultant. It stays on forever, but sometimes it'll dry my lips out so look out for that. I just rub it off and reapply if I get that feeling.

I hope my everyday routine will help you ladies out there!! It takes me about 12 minutes to do this. Yes, I timed myself. I'll likely make a video for show and tell one of these days!! 

XOXO,

Casey

How to Survive as a Homeschool Parent

Wow!! That’s all I can say at this point in my life. We have been tossed from our mundane daily lives that we used to complain about into social isolation. I will never ever say that I dread going to work ever again! I can’t express how much I miss my work family as well as my students.

For now, I am home with my kiddos. I am working hard to insure they don’t fall behind during this time. Mostly, we must all pray that during this time we all stay healthy and sane!

Becoming a homeschool momma has been epic for me. Yes, I am a teacher, but it’s always been in the classroom for the last eleven years. I’ve been gathering resources that I feel will be helpful in working with my babies from home.

My first bit of resource that I’ve ventured into is Adventure Academy. I’m not so sure that I’m in love with this yet, but I feel that it’s worth a shot with the free trial. I’ve also tried ABC mouse, but didn’t have much luck with it due to my iPads being older models. They struggled to upload the app.

Spelling City  is another one of those resources I am planning to try out. I used to use it when I was a regular education teacher. My kiddos could get on there and work through spelling actives with the lists that I chose.

Another thing I am working on is creating a classroom space for me and my kids. I am on the hunt for a couple of desks and even a desk for myself as I am working some from home as well as homeschooling. I absolutely love some different ones I’ve found on amazon so I’ll have to let you know what I come up with.

Being organized is a critical thing for me as well as for my kids. If I’m not organized then I feel like I never will get anything accomplished. So that’s where my desks will come into play and I’m currently getting their NTI packets in binders so I can keep up with where we stopped last.

I hope this bit of information will help all of you feel a little more sane in your upcoming days of social distancing. Take care and stay safe my friends.

Life

I'm sitting here thinking is it fast when I can jog at a steady pace and get a mile in about 10 and a half minutes? All of us try to do something to keep ourselves in shape at one point or another in our lives. For me, after having my second baby I had a little more trouble getting back to my old self. I began using an app to build my stamina up for running a 5k. I worked really hard and it took a lot of effort, but once I got there almost four years ago I never looked back.

I just want to say that never giving up no matter where you are in your life is one of the most important things we can do for ourselves! We can all be going through what we believe is the most horrific thing that's ever happened in our lives, but all bad things must come to an end. They usually, almost always do. We think we aren't going to make it and then we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Life is very short. We need to be certain that we live, we laugh, we kiss slowly, we love, and soak up every moment, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Living our best life and giving our best is what we should seek. I don't know about you, but when I get to Heaven I wanna know that I left a beautiful trail behind. You see, in life we gotta take our memories and wrap ourselves up with those memories. Almost like a blanket because that's all we've got in this life and those memories are what make us us.

Words of Wisdom

I’m laying here with my baby boy thinking to myself what a wonderful world. If everyone could be as innocent as an eight year old child we would all have it made. There might actually be world peace.

I don't have much words of interest tonight or maybe I do. I don't know. All I know is today we got another flood day. Although, it's great to have these extra days, we have had a lot of loss in our community over these floods and it's such a sad time. This weather system is the weirdest.

So I did bump into an old friend this evening and she gave me a good little piece of advice. She told me we didn't need to worry about what other people think or say. If they're not in my bubble then they don't know me, the real me. Basically, those people do not matter. She couldn't have been any more right. Do you ever have those friends that come and go in your life? This is one of those and now she's back. There are times in our lives when we go through tremendous changes and you actually do figure out who your friends are in the end. The friends that will stand by your side, check on you and not pass those rumors around. Those are the friends that are needed most.

I am guilty of this, but sometimes we isolate ourselves when something happens in our lives that we either find humiliating or devastating. We don't know how to handle situations and sometimes we run and hide. Trust me people, that's not what you should be doing if you are going through some hard times.

Hold your head high, look up and trudge on through. Remember, some of us are in one of three places in our lives. We're either going into a storm, right in the middle of one, or coming out of one. Most importantly, don't forget to live your life to its fullest and never ever give up. Never ever stop believing in yourself.

Which Webhost should you Choose?

I've came across two different web hosting services in my life as a TpT seller and I've gotta say I'm not for sure which is better. I'll be honest, I use Bluehost to host my sign shop and it was a real struggle at first because I carried that sucker through Wordpress. I had two different logins and Wordpress would sometimes think I was logging in under something else. Let's just say it got messy.

I have been doing a lot of research on this Siteground Web hosting service and I'm really liking what I'm seeing. Yes, Bluehost is going to offer it for a dollar cheaper on occasion, but it won't matter in the end. Normally, you pay for the full year upfront with Bluehost. The Siteground is looking pretty spectacular and their website is easy to navigate. I will say Bluehost is super popular and has never let me down.

I just want to say that both of these hosting sites are going to give you what you need and they both offer Wordpress theme hosting which is awesome if you're a teacher looking to turn your blog into more.

Click here if you're interested in learning more about Bluehost

OR

Click here if you're interested in learning more about Siteground