Finding the inspiration around you.

I set a goal of posting another item to my Teachers pay Teachers store, proud to say I accomplished that yesterday. I created an editable lesson planner packet.
Part of my inspiration was my friend, Lisa. While doing some shopping for her very first teaching assignment we talked about planners and I decided to use her school colors as my theme. I am in the process of altering it for me, with some of my favorite colors and plan to post that too. 
I want to be more organized this year and spending time creating a binder to keep track of plans, common core standards, and meetings is my first step. After all, wouldn't want my time spent on creating planning pages to go to waste, right?
So what else have I tackled? I started working on my latest sewing project, a skirt with some fabric I fell in love with while shopping for fabric for Lisa's bulletin boards. I took on a new venture too, sewing from a pattern for myself. It is intimidating and many times I wanted to jump ship, but I am not going to give up. After all, my goal is to grow and create myself into who I want to be. It is easy to be lazy and revert to what is comfortable, there is no room for being lazy in my life!
In addition, my kids are my daily inspirations. They teach me lessons and lots about life. People say, they are better teachers after having their own kids, I would say that is true for me too.
You would think that being kids of a teacher they would be great students, ha ha, not the case. Getting them to read and do homework is a heck of a challenge, well at least for my oldest. My middle son loves homework (sometimes). He also loves to read, he loves nonfiction books, mostly about reptiles and amphibians. My youngest loves to be read to. But my oldest spews many ugly words about reading and his favorite subject at school is recess.
Why does he hate to read? Well, reading is hard for him. We suspect a learning disability, but bigger than that, he believes he can't read. He is super competitive and hates to feel like he is going to fail, so instead he will avoid it like the plague. This bothers me immensely! As a teacher I know what happens to kids who can't or won't read, they fail and school fails them. This dilemma has become my biggest motivation, I want to help him tackle his reading issues and help the kids like him at school.
This summer we have been working on school related activities, fluency sheets, and I have been encouraging (begging) him to read daily. Last night though I started reading The Book Whisperer and have found the inspiration I needed. So before school starts I will devour the book, rethink how I teach reading (which I really have been wanting to do anyway), and hopefully inspire my non-reader that reading isn't boring, stupid, nor pointless.
Tonight, with a little (OK, a lot) of coercion I got him to pick a book, his own choice, and read a chapter by himself. After page 1 I hugged him so tightly and at the end of Chapter 1 I was praising left and right. But you know what? He actually was proud of himself, woohoo! Hooked on reading? Well, not yet, because he did put the book down and ask to watch TV, but this was huge progress. No fake reading, no tantrums, no  begging me to read it, and best of all, no giving up before finishing the chapter!  
I would say that isn't bad for a few days of actively working on my goals. Of course, stating them is easy, now I have to really put my nose to the grindstone and keep with it. As life has already taught me, the lessons are always there, just have to stop and look for the inspirations and be ready to learn.