The Grind Never Stops

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Tell me you are a teacher that is chilling, feet propped up, sun beating down on you as you sip on a cocktail. School is not etched in your mind at all. Is that even possible?  Can we relax without either thinking about school or thinking about what is the next best thing we can do while we have some down time? If you are anything like me, it must be hard to get your brain to slow down after months of constant go, go, go. I find the first week or so of summer to be mentally challenging. My routine is gone. The many quick decisions I make on the daily have come to a sudden halt and here I am alone left to my own devices. Time to myself, now that my kids are gown, leaves room for so much thought that sometimes my brain wants to pop! 

Please tell me I am not alone when it comes to the revolving chamber of ideas that runs through my brain, usually at 2 am, each one firing simultaneously as I decide which brand new thought to grab on to and run with, in hopes that this will be the big one! 




I have to believe that many of my teacher friends are quite similar. I sure hope I am not the odd duck, who has no clue, at the age of 46, who she is supposed to be. Yikes! Don't get me wrong, I am happy and I love my job. But, for some reason, I find myself needing to do more. I feel a sudden sense of urgency to do more, to be more, to leave a greater legacy. I assume this is also normal as we age. 

That being said, I think I know what I have truly been seeking... and that is finding a way to earn an income solely from online work. The reason? Well, I want to be able to work from anywhere so that I can spend more time with my parents, be able to be there for my son his last three years of high school whenever I need to, and also to earn extra income to pay for my two daughters college tuitions and all the extras that go into getting kids to college! Talk about overwhelming. Wow!


I have been trying for years with no luck to work from home. To begin with, I tried teaching online at Sylvan Learning and OMG! Let me just say, if you hear Sylvan Learning and it involves working for them, run away as fast as you can! I was literally getting paid $10 an hour to work with three children at the same time at varying levels and subjects. I would work with a high schooler on math, a kindergartener on reading, and a 3rd-grader on reading. It was insane having to toggle between the different screens and subjects. 

Oh Hell to the No...to the No...No...Nooooo! I am sorry, but having a masters degree and offering me $10 an hour for that hot mess was not worth the time I put in! 

Sylvan didn't work out. I found that out quickly. After my first or second month, I was out! 

But, if Sylvan wasn't going to work, what next? I definitely didn't want to teach children English, which is something I love doing, but I really did not want to always be the cheery, energetic teacher with puppets in her hands. No! That is not me. Kudos to those of you up for that challenge. Don't get me wrong, I am energetic, but not to that degree.

I thought about teaching online at the college level, but most positions that I was interested in required a doctoral degree and while I would love to obtain my PhD, I am not going to put anymore money into my schooling.  Needless to say, that option has been out the window for a while now.

"What else can I try?" I kept asking myself that question. Until a month and a half ago. 

My friend and colleague introduced me to Boom Learning before the pandemic hit last year. Thank goodness she did! It was my life saver. Teaching students with special needs online is not the easiest task, but when you have tools to help, it can really be an amazing experience. This is such a cool website and app that truly has every possible subject you can think of. The activities on boomlearning start at the preschool level and go all the way up to the high school level. If you are teacher and haven't gotten on board, I really encourage you to do so. It is a tool to use for in-person learning and online learning. You really can't go wrong. Best of all, it gives students immediate feedback and stores their data for you, as a teacher to use. #winwin 

Because of my friend, I was able to survive online teaching and my students were engaged! So cool! Not only that, over a month and a half ago, I decided to start making my own decks and now I have over 60 decks on my Boom Learning Store! Wow!


You might be wondering if this is my ticket. Is this is the one thing that is going to help me work solely from home? The short answer for now is no. It has taken a lot of work on my part, many hours and so far I have earned about $105 in a month and a half. Not necessarily an income replacement.  That being said, I am feeling really accomplished because I see my own students using them and that truly makes me happy. Also, it is passive income. I can earn money while I am sitting at a coffee shop. I think that is pretty cool! 

So, what is next? Well, a colleague of mine shared a TikTok video with me about selling books on Amazon through KDP. Hours and hours and hours later, I have created two workbooks for students and some journal/sketchbooks and I have placed them on Amazon to sell. Wow! I never thought I'd do that but here I am selling items on Amazon!

I am focusing on creating more low content material like journals but would love to write some picture books at some point. Is it going to bring in sales? I really don't know. It isn't easy that is for sure and it is something that is not going to come quickly.  I have a lot of learning and growing to do but at least it is keeping my brain occupied and I am feeling like I have a purpose :)



Below you will see one of my journals. Click on the picture to check out pricing. It has 50 lined pages with sketched flowers on each page. 

Thank you for supporting a teacher looking to fund her children's college tuitions and looking for a purpose for her own life. 



Keep grinding my peeps! We can do hard things.



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