I Made It...Finally!!

Welcome to my new blog and my first blog post. It took some teaching this "old dog" some new techie tricks but I think I have started to get the hang of it (slightly). 

My name is Stephanie but most who are close to me or think they are close to me call me Steph. I called my blog The Marvelous Middle because I am in the middle for a variety of reasons. Most days being in the middle is pretty marvelous...but some days "bleh...not so much".

     1. I'm a MIDDLE school ELA teacher and have been for over ten years.
     2. I'm in the MIDDLE of the country (Illinois).
     3. I'm in the MIDDLE of my life...okay it's not that dramatic...I'm in my 40's!

I still love my job, even on the days where I have yelled, given detentions, and swore under my breath. I totally believe that if you can't love your job on those days, you are in the wrong place. 

Many times over the last few years, the "I should start a blog" idea has popped in my head but like many teachers, I didn't think I had much to say. I knew I wanted to share my classroom with the world but...anyway I decided a year or so to begin sharing my classroom creations on Teachers Pay Teachers and that journey has led me here. It's still an experiment of some sort and I am jumping in with both feet. It's easy to do that in the summer because both feet tend to be in the same place recovering from the past school year. 

So here it is and I hope you like it (and come back often). I've never been one to have a filter so this could be interesting. I look forward to sharing my teacher life and my personal life with you all...and I hope you too will see how marvelous the middle really can be.