Friday, November 24, 2017

The Joys of Spirit Weeks

It's Thanksgiving break! This is my favorite break of the year. The first 3 months of school are the most stressful for me. Between setting up your classroom, getting your students settled into your routines and expectations, and surviving Back-to-School night and parent conferences, there's just a lot crammed into those first months of school. And if you think about it, there really is always another day off or break in sight after Thanksgiving break.

I thought I would take a second to write about one of my favorite fall weeks: spirit week! I typically use spirit week as an excuse to wear jeans for 5 days in a row, but, unfortunately, this year's theme was Hollywood (or something like that), so it required me to dress up for a few of the days.

Before I give you a rundown of the week's outfits, I thought I would give you a brief soapbox speech about spirit week. I guess it's really brief, because it's basically this: do what you want! If going all in and putting together awesome outfits makes you happy, do it. If the thought of having to put together really cute themed outfits makes you want to run away from home because it's one more thing to manage, don't do it. While I think there are plenty of non-negotiable issues when it comes to teaching, spirit week isn't one of them. Teachers have plenty of situations that force them to fight the temptation to feel guilty or inadequate. Spirit week shouldn't be one of them, Pinterest be damned. Okay--with that speech finished, I'll show you how most of the week went for me.

At our school, Mondays are always pajama day. They tried to mix it up one year, and the people (I'm betting mostly the teachers) rebelled. So, now they don't mess with tradition! I was even more excited about this day because I flew back in from my mom's birthday on Sunday and didn't have to get ready on Monday morning. :)

This is what it looks like when you have to walk to school on pajama day because you forgot that you had called the Uber from school to take you to the airport...I have a few pairs of what I like to call old man pajamas that I usually wear on these days, but it was too warn for flannel PJ's. 

Here are a few options for PJ day. 



I have two or three pairs of these PJ's. I love them because they're perfect for PJ day, and they're also really great for wearing in an older apartment on cold nights...or when your roomie's sister is visiting and you want to look presentable while walking around avoiding getting ready in the morning...or so I hear. 
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Tuesday was TV/Movie character day. I was discussing this day with my family over the weekend, and I mentioned that I thought I should be a teacher from a TV show. My niece and nephew both insisted that I should be Ms. Frizzle. 

I took a look online, and found that I needed to look like this:
 Image result for ms frizzle planet dress

So...I remembered a blue dress I had that I thought would work. I printed out some pictures of planets and stars, parted my hair in the middle, and here you have it. My best Ms. Frizzle:

It was kind of funny to watch kids realize who I was.

I only have pictures from one other day--Red Carpet Day (or something similar). I decided that I didn't really want to wear my little black dress and heels all day, so I decided to go for the assistant to the important person on the red carpet. Something like this:
Image result for assistants on the red carpet

So I put on my black pants, black jacket, and heels. And then I found every sparkly thing I owned. It turned out like this:

I actually was just discussing the wonder of these pants with a new friend at Thanksgiving yesterday. I own them in multiple colors, and she mentioned that she had them in three colors. The jacket is actually a suit jacket from 10 years ago. The pants that go with the jacket went out of style a while ago, but I kept the jacket for a reason I couldn't explain.

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And here are the magic pants.

I can't explain how comfortable these are! And they hold their shape well.

I'm wearing my Dak Prescott shoes, and I'm going to link a few sparkly pieces here that are similar to the ones I wore.

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This one is crazy expensive, but when it goes on sale, it might be fun for holiday dresses.

Here's another cute option.

Brass-plated crystal necklace

Here's another cute option.
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Here are a few options for bracelets.
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Here's another option.

I love jewelry from Banana and J. Crew because it seems to hold up a bit better than the stuff I purchase elsewhere. I am way too cheap to buy it at full price, so I always just wait for a sale and stock up then.

Okay--I'm off to tackle more of my Thanksgiving break to-do list. Wish me luck...because I might just end up watching another cheesy movie about a woman who finds true love in a small town at Christmas time.

1 comment:

  1. And I just bought three pair of the magic pants - because the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales has them at 50% off. SCORE! Thanks for the awesome recommendation!! (This is Ann Marie btw...)

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