Teacher Tuesday: New Year's Resolutions

Yesterday I shared my 5 tips for creating meaningful goals. Today I'm linking up with Aileen Miracle to share my new year's resolutions for 2015! Click on the picture below to go to the linky party and see everyone else's posts.

Personal: Spend at least 2 hours a week with friends
As the girls get older and I adjust to my new town, new home, and new job, I think it is actually feasible for me to achieve this goal. It certainly is something that I need in my life! It may sound strange to plan out "hanging out with friends" time, but I have made a specific action plan to try to make this happen, with a mix of phone calls to old friends, adult time with local/new friends, and play dates together with the girls. I really want to make it a priority to develop and maintain my friendships, old and new, this year!

Professional: Be more involved in district-wide department events and planning
Last year I was "the new girl" in our district's music department, so I tried to listen and follow everyone else's lead when it came to organizing district-wide events and developing the district-wide curriculum (aka I was so swamped with trying to figure everything out in a new job that I used my newbie status to avoid as much extra work as possible). With some experience under my belt in this new job, my goal this year is to pull my weight for the department! We have an all-district honors choir that performs in the spring, so I am going to try to be more involved in the full rehearsals and the logistical planning of the event. I also want to collaborate with my colleagues to work on the district's music curriculum, now that the new national standards are in effect.

Classroom: Implement more "Music In Our Schools Month" advocacy 
I have always made a HUGE deal out of MIOSM in the past- I do lots of events in music class, put up visuals around the school to promote music education, and do some school-wide events as well. But last year, again because I was new to the position, I wasn't able to do everything I wanted. This year I want to pull out all the stops again! There are quite a few homeroom teachers in my building that do not recognize music (or any other subject they don't teach themselves) as an important subject, and I have really been feeling that this year. Increasing emphasis on the new standardized tests certainly doesn't help matters. I really want to focus this year on advocating for the importance of music education through bulletin boards, notices home, and other communication with staff, parents, and other members of the school community. I've already created this bulletin board set that I put up in my hallway to advocate for the importance of music, and I also got these wonderful posters from Lindsay Jervis for the hallway to help people recognize that music is a "serious subject" like any other. The wheels are turning with other ideas to advocate even more during the month of March!

Blog/TpT: Spend at least 1 hour per week on products
I started this blog, and my TpT store, because I needed a creative outlet. And I have enjoyed every minute of the journey so far for that very reason. It has been amazing to connect with other teachers and share ideas, and to see others be able to use ideas in their own classrooms and homes! I really want to make it a goal to set aside a little bit of time each week to working on products- whether that means creating something new or updating an existing product- so that I don't end up with tons of ideas swarming around in my head, begging to get out (which is what has been happening so far!).
P.S. If you've considered starting your own TpT store and/or blog, you may want to check out the teacher entrepreneur planner pages I made to help myself stay organized with all of it- they have been really helpful to me!

Just for me: Get more regular haircuts
I'm a little embarrassed to even admit that this is a goal of mine, but honestly, I really struggle with taking the time to make myself a hair appointment and then go get my hair cut. It's not even like I am getting something really time-consuming, like coloring or a perm, done. I just always think about the 5 other things I could do instead, look at my hair in the mirror, and figure, "one more week won't make that much of a difference...". Except that it does. My hair is so much longer than I want it to be- trust me when I tell you, this is an important goal. My hope is to get it cut at least every 3 months, but I hesitate to commit to that, so I'm just going to say I will get my hair cut more regularly and leave it at that.