Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day & Self Love Tips for Teachers & Moms [episode 59]

Kelsey

You are listening to Episode 59 of wife teacher mommy the podcast, Valentine’s Day, gallon tines day and self love tips for teachers. Today I will be starting off with a self love tip for you. And then sharing some fun ideas from me and teachers and friends about what they love to do to celebrate Valentine’s Day or Valentine’s Day or just go out and have a good time. We all deserve to do that. So stay tuned

Kelsey

I’m so glad you’re here listening to wife teacher mommy the podcast today. I’m your host Kelsey Sorenson, a former elementary teacher turned home school mom. Whether you are a teacher or a homeschool parent, my goal at wife teacher mommy is to provide you with both teaching ideas and mindset tools. To help you live your absolute best teacher. Be sure to hit subscribe on your favorite podcast app so you don’t miss an episode. Now let’s go

Kelsey

Surprise I am here with a Tuesday episode for you. I love when I get to do two episodes a week. I’ve mentioned before that doing this podcast is one of my favorite parts of doing wife, teacher, Mommy. So it’s fun to be with you here today. Because I’m recording today. And I mentioned before I’m in Utah, and it is freezing. I’m like in my office I’ve got my sweater totally bundled up we have had this major cold front and there’s a lot of wind chill there was actually an area of Utah luckily not where I live. But where it was negative 61 With Windchill Can you believe that that is just unbelievable and crazy. I am not a fan of the cold is so the last couple of weeks trying to get out of bed. And you know, we all need to get up and do stuff. And it’s just like oh, can I just stay under my warm blanket for a few more minutes. I’m sure you can relate. But I’m so excited to be here. And I just thought that it would be a fun episode to do to share about Valentine’s because it’s coming up as this episode hits the podcast. Plus my last episode on Friday was about maternity leave. And I know a lot of you are bidding have been really wanting to hear about maternity leave. And then some of you might be like, this doesn’t apply to me, I’m past that stage or I’m not having kids or whatever, or you’re a homeschool parent, you’re like I don’t need to plan on my maternity leave. So for whatever reason I have this episode that should apply to a lot of you today.

And it’s actually a little more off topic than I think I’ve ever gotten on the podcast is a little bit more about just like other areas in your life and not teaching. But the reason being is that wife, teacher, mommy, we want to make sure that you have an awesome life both inside and outside of teaching with all the different roles you play in your lives. Like if you listen to the trailer for the podcast, or even the little intro and outro that you hear each week, we’re all about helping you live your best life, which you know, is also outside of teaching. So if you have to let me know if you’d like these random mini episodes to help you in other areas of your life, too. I probably won’t do them too often. But it sounded like fun today. But if you do want Valentine’s Day tips for in the classroom, or for teaching your children listen to episode 57. Once you’re finished with this one, I gave so many ideas for teaching Valentine’s Day in that episode. And it’s had a bit higher than normal downloads that we get on the podcast so far too. So I think that one is really resonating, lots of ideas that people are liking in there. So be sure to check that one out yet once you’ve finished this one if you haven’t yet. Now the reason I’m doing this episode today is while back, I was preparing for my episode about self care that we aired a few weeks ago, Episode 57. We got all these listener responses. And it was actually for that one. And I think at the same time we were getting the responses for our winter break one that we did too. So we had these different questions that people could answer and I was like, oh on this one about like what you do for date night for Valentine’s Day, I might do an episode about that.

Now like it’s coming up and like oh, I haven’t used these responses, maybe I shouldn’t share them because our listeners have some great ideas. So I’m sharing those today and then I you know always like to share a few quick tips of my own. So today, I want to share a quick tip about self love. So I’ve got a self love tip for you. And then I’m going to talk about my ideas for Valentine’s Day One for like Valentine’s Day or just going out with a friends and then I’ll share what our listeners have for you today too. So first, let’s start with that self love tip. So if you are needing a bit of self love on Valentine’s Day for any reason, whether it’s because it’s just not your favorite holiday or you don’t have a partner and you wish you did or you’re just you know Just not your favorite day for whatever reason, the most important person for us to love is ourselves. And I talked about this a bit on the episode on self care, I just did episode 57. Be sure to check that out. But and it’s really important for us to do this and to have self love. And it’s something that a lot of us, especially women, teachers, moms, a lot of us struggle to do, because we’re always doing things for other people. We’re sharing our love with them. We’re giving love to our students and our children and our significant others or neighbors or other people in our lives, that we’re not necessarily giving that same love to ourselves. So I would love for you to take this challenge to write a Valentine to yourself, I want you to think of 10 things that you love about yourself or more, there are so many things to love about you. Yes, you listening to this, write yourself a Valentine, just like you would write one to anyone else. And an exercise that I mentioned to our club members on a recent call was to actually write a letter to your past self, because your past self has hooked you up in some way now.

So whether it’s like, oh, I am a teacher now. And I had to work so hard to even be able to get here and to be a teacher. So for example, me I’m like, hey, thanks past Kelsey, for getting your degree in Elementary Ed. So I could be teaching and I could be doing all these amazing things that I’m doing now. Or for me, I’m like, hey, thanks past sell for buying a house before the prices went crazy. You know, there might be different things for different people, where you’re like, you hooked me up. Thanks for doing that, you know. So like yourself passed off, to do so many things to make sure that you have a good life now. So remember that you are amazing. You have done great things for yourself and for others. And just take some time to practice that self love this Valentine’s Day, take some time to thank yourself for all that you’ve done for you. So just channel that inner like, I don’t know, if you’ve seen that video clip from Snoop Dogg where he’s like, I want to thank me, I want to thank me for all I’ve done for me or something like that. Just kind of channel that and be like, I want to thank me, I’ve done so much for myself and for others and you know, share that love that you have for yourself. So if you want more on that self love how to take care of yourself really getting into self care, please listen to my recent episode 56 all about true self care as a teacher and or a parent, I shared clips from other teachers of moms about what they do for self care to take care of themselves. So you can kind of get some ideas and they shared and went even deeper into this how you can love yourself how you can find true self care for yourself. So I talked all about that and share those ideas, those audio clips from our listeners, just like I’ll be doing here in a few minutes about Valentine’s Day. Okay, now let’s talk about Valentine’s Day date nights and this is not a collab or an affiliate or anything but my favorite website for dates is called the dating divas. I just love them. They have so many fun date night ideas and they have printable so many of them are free.

Like they have different ones you can do just like driving in your car like rolling the dice and like turning this way or that way or they have like ideas for all kinds of stuff. I bet they have like tons of Valentine’s ones right now I’m meaning to look it up here soon. The one thing I also love that they have and these aren’t free, but they’re very inexpensive or their date night packs. Like they have these ones that are like around the world. So you can kind of like learn about like the different foods eaten around the world and do different like activities and they’re just a lot of fun. So those could even make a good Valentine’s Day gift for your significant other to Okay, let’s talk about Valentine’s Day. So if you’re wanting to go out with the girls, I know for so many of us who are women teachers Mom’s having a night out with the girls is sometimes so needed for me it’s usually my mom and sisters. But I also have some friends I like to get together with on occasion to with my mom and the sister specifically. We are addicted to personal development, surprise. But basically any chance we get to sign up for some sort of local conference or seminar that can help us improve ourselves. We do that because it’s fun for us. We just like doing that.

Another fun thing I like doing with some of the girls in my neighborhood is we like to go to $5 Tuesday movies on occasion. I’m not sure if they do that everywhere but around here in Utah, a lot of the theaters that do $5 movies, I think a lot of them are 595 now but totally fine. Go to a movie one time and this was obviously a few years ago but we went to go see the greatest showmen and there were about like 20 of us who went and it was just so fun like how like that is a rare occasion that that many of us are able to go out together and it was a lot of fun. And when we went to that I actually had no idea what the movie was. I was like what is this show? And I ended up loving it is one of my favorites and my husband and I adore the greatest show and some of the songs like this is our song or whatever. Okay, so those are my tips for what you can do for date nights dating divas, such a great website for finding date night ideas, gallon tines day $5 movies all the way find out your local theaters do that and then for self love, just write that letter to yourself. Think about your past self, all the things you’ve done to help yourself now and just incorporate some of that self love into your Valentine’s Day to Okay, so now I’m going to dive into our tips from our listeners. So we’re going to start with Julie and she has a really cool tip for you for a girls night.

Julie

One really cool thing that we like to do for girls night is cookie decorating. We have a couple of businesses around here that do it. And it’s just fun, let everything go be creative, and get together with your friends and maybe a little wine involved.

Kelsey

I just love the idea of cookie decorating. I have not done this before. And now I’m like Julie, I really want to try this. So thank you for sharing that tip. Next we’re going to hear from Chrissy who is our life coach besides me, she was our first life coach at wife, teacher mommy club when I was like I need to add coaching. But I was not certified as a coach yet. I am technically certified, I have to do my final exam, but I passed all the calls. By the time you’re listening, it’s likely done. But anyway, she was our first life coach in the club, she still does lots of coaching in the club. She is incredible. She always has so many great ideas to share. And so she’s going to share her cheap and easy date night ideas. We all need those as teachers,

Chrissy

Cheap and easy date night ideas. I have a few. There’s so much good TV out there. But as a teacher, we know that we don’t always have time to watch the latest show the yellow stones, the White Lotus. So I like to get together with other friends for a cheap night out or a date night. And I like to watch, like have a watch party and watch an episode with other people. Already, I know I’m not going to binge too much because they are not going to want to watch four hours of something. So that keeps my time in check. And then also if we do an easy soup, or a takeout dinner, that’s what I’ll do. That’s when I want one together with friends. But for an easy date night just with my sweetie that’s cheap and easy on the wallet. We like to have dessert out. You don’t have to go out and feel like you have to eat an entire meal. You can just eat dessert. Those are my tricks and tips for date nights.

Kelsey

I love her idea of just going out for dessert like you don’t always have to do the full like three course meal or whatever that can get really spendy if you’re doing that a lot, but it’s like you couldn’t just go and get dessert like that’s so fun, right? Okay, next we’re going to hear from Meghan who is on Team wife, teacher, mommy, she is so smart. And so incredible. She does so much for us and our members here at wife, teacher, Mommy. So let’s see what she has to say.

Megan

I haven’t tried this one yet. But I heard you do five favorite things. You go to a store, and you pick out like favorite treats favorite color, something they love. And one more thing, something, they might want something like that and you pick out five things for each other, you can set a price limit. And then you just compare and see what you picked out for each other. And it’s fun way to fun, get to know you activity, and, you know, connection with each other and checking in.

Kelsey

And I have actually done this before this favorite things, activity and it is really fun. It’s a great way to kind of learn some more about the people who you’re doing it with. I feel like you could do this with like your teacher team, or with some of your mom friends. It could it’s just a really good time. Okay, next we’re going to hear from Rachel who is also on Team wife, teacher, Mommy. And she always has amazing ideas. So I can’t wait to hear what she has to say.

Rachel

A fun one we’ve done for a friend’s Night Out is like a movie slash craft night. So you turn on a Christmas in a Hallmark movie and do a craft while you’re watching. Fun one is like to make a wreath he gets a loopy yarn, and you just wrap it around a reform and it makes a darling wreath and you’ve created something for your home. But also it’s something that you can do while visiting and watching a movie with friends and just having a fun night out and doesn’t cost a lot of money. And you can get a group together to participate in.

Kelsey

I love that idea of watching a movie while doing a craft and Rachael is so good at craft. She’s also my sister in law’s like at Thanksgiving, we had this like craft table where we were making race. So I’m like, Oh, my goodness, I love this. Thank you for sharing that Rachel. And next we’re going to hear from Lindsey who is an incredible teacher in our community. So let’s hear what she has to say.

Lindsey

Ever since the pandemic, my family has gotten really into virtual game nights so that we can communicate and play with people in our family and friends that are far away. So we have a lot of family members out of state or out of the country. And it’s been a great way to incorporate that closeness, but still using the technology to bridge that gap. I love

Kelsey

the idea of virtual game next to and thank you so much Lindsay for bringing this up because I have not thought of it but I like to use these two and one that we do a lot is called Jackbox is a really great one because if one of you has the game you couldn’t like screenshare or whatever, you can do it on Zoom. And then you all just need your phone and you can play these interactive games together. So much fun. Okay, last but certainly not least, we’re going to hear from Jennifer and she is from Smith curriculum and consulting. We quoted her in a couple past episodes too. So she also shared a recording on what to do for fun date night with her husband.

Jennifer

We have a new bingo hall in our little town and my husband and I can go and play about 10 rounds of bingo, and have dinner any night of the week because I play all that play seven days a week. And it’s a cheap and easy date. And best part of time is that there are times we win. And so it’s paid for itself

Kelsey

back. So fun doing those bingo nights and game nights. I love it. So many great ideas here. Let us know if you end up trying any of these ideas to celebrate your Valentine’s Day or just any other time. Let us know in our free wife, teacher mommy zoo night Facebook group or send us a DM on Instagram or Tiktok. We’d love to hear from you. And if you still need any help preparing for Valentine’s Day in the classroom, specifically if you’re like, Okay, I have some ideas for my date night. But I need some ideas for what to do with my students or with my children. Be sure to listen to episode 57 of the podcast where I talk about activities that you can do with your teaching so that this episode you have your ideas for you know after school and then you’ll get activities for during the day, so your full Valentine’s can be ready in all areas. And if you want to make that preparation even easier, be sure to check out our Valentine’s Day bundle. As I’m recording this, we just released the bundle. And our Valentine’s Day bundle includes all of our February resources. So the name is actually a little bit deceiving because we even have like February theme to sub plans and homeschool lessons that also incorporate other holidays.

And we even included our black history unit as a bonus in there. So you have that to teach and everything. So you’ll have basically so many resources that you can use all throughout the month. And it is only $27 it is over $250 worth of teaching resources. And we just released it. But we’ve already had some comments on Instagram of those who have grabbed the bundle. And they’re saying that they love it and they’re having so much fun digging into the resources. Now let me share what one of them had to say. So Nicolette said it’s a great sale and she loves the resources are H Pickett on Instagram said I just downloaded this earlier, looking forward to using it with my class. So we’re just getting started. But teachers and parents everywhere already loving this bundle. And by the time you’re listening, I bet even more we’ll be diving right into all these great resources. So be sure to check out the bundle at wife teacher mommy.com/ Valentine’s Day bundle.

But you can also check the link in the show notes. And you’ll be able to grab it there. And we created a podcast only coupon code because we know that you’re spending a lot of time listening to these episodes, it means a lot to me. So I can continue doing this podcast and we want to give it a little to you back. So use code pod 10 to save an additional 10% off your purchase. Now I will see you on Friday, because we did bonus episode this week. So I’m Friday I’m going to be talking all about how to calm the teacher Sunday scaries. Now that you hear that, and you already can kind of start feeling that feeling in your body like oh yeah, I know what that feels like every Sunday night. I’ve got you so make sure to listen to this episode on Friday. So maybe you can keep all those tips in mind come this coming Sunday. I will talk to you then.

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