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Saturday, March 23, 2013

Thank goodness for the weekend

To say that going to work has been difficult this week would be an understatement, which is why I am so glad that it is the weekend. At least on the weekend I can pretend that nothing has changed, I can still be myself and do what I enjoy. And thank goodness, I can revel in doing nothing at all if I want.

I did get a couple of things done today. I finally got the rest of my Easter decorations out, and I dyed eggs. I came up with a bit of a brainstorm this year, if I may say so myself. See, I haven't dyed eggs since I moved out of my parents house because no one in my house eats hard boiled eggs, and I just couldn't see buying them, dying them, and then never eating them. This year I decided to go ahead and dye my eggs without hard boiling them first. I figure, I have a ton of baking to do this week, so at least I can enjoy the pretty eggs when I crack them into a bowl.

That said, I wanted to make sure that I used dye that was food safe, because I wasn't sure how much of the dye would actually touch the egg inside of the shell. I had considered dying them with coffee, but I really wanted fun, bright colors. I found a ton of different spices and berries that I could use, but I really didn't want to buy all of this stuff, so I used something that I already had plenty of in my cupboard - food coloring.

Genius, right?! It was so simple, I put a blob (really technical and precise) of gel food coloring in a bowl, added a half of a teaspoon of vinegar, so that the color would adhere to the egg a little better, then I filled the bowl with water and whisked until the gel was dissolved. I added a couple of eggs to each bow and then put the bowls all in the fridge for at leas two hours. When I rinsed them off I was pleasantly surprised. Some colors definitely worked better than others, the pink and purple were super bright while the yellow barely showed up at all. That said . I would definitely do it this way again! Now I can't wait to bake!

Sunday, March 17, 2013

A little bit of control

Last week didn't go quite as I had planned. On Thursday I found out that the school I had planned on teaching at for the next 30 years will only be open for 3 more months, needless to say I've been a bit of a wreck.

Today I was ready to be in control of something again, so luckily I had a job to do that I knew I could accomplish - frosting cookies. Here are my St. Patrick's day cookies, I had to get a little creative with my cookie cutters, and I'm really impressed with how well they turned out. It's just what I needed today.

I also decided to dress up my nails a little, so I went for some light-hearted polka dots, maybe they'll be enough to make me smile a bit.

Hope you had a great St. Patrick's day!



Wednesday, March 13, 2013

My new favorite gift to give (and get!)

I have a pinboard on Pinterest called "I want one!" It's full of random things that I would love to have - I know, the name is soooooo original. At Christmas time my sister was smart enough to check my pinboard before she started shopping, so I received the best gifts that I had forgotten I wanted. Of course now I pin things to that board hopping that she'll look there, so who's the smart one?!

She recently bought me another gift that I had pinned, a Diamond Candle. If you haven't heard of these then you may be living under a rock, but I'll tell you about them because I'm usually the last to know. This company makes incredible candles, the scents are so strong that you don even have to burn them for the candle to make your home smell amazing, but you'll want to burn them every single day because inside of each candle there is a ring, and you have to burn the candle and melt the wax to get to the ring.

Here's the best part, you never know what kind of ring you'll get, it could be worth $10 or $10,000. This is the kind of gamble that I'm wiling to take!

So thank you to my sis, and for all of you that get these from me for Christmas, just act surprised.




Give and take

Today I am thankful for Internet service after a weeks without it, however I am not thankful for the idiot who put a giant pole with a giant satellite in the middle of my yard, so you could say that I have mixed emotions...

Laziness

I was so super efficient and productive last weekend, and all week I've felt like I have been recovering from all that hard work. I'm exhausted and feeling really lazy, but I'm hoping that I'm finally turning the corner, just in time for the weekend again.

So here are some pictures from last weekend; the bandanas that I bought on a spontaneous trip to the discount craft store (something that I try not to do more than twice a yer because it has proven quite dangerous to my wallet), and the super cute rainbow St. Patrick's day treats that I made for the kiddos in my class.



Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Yum!

Today I am thankful for an amazing breakfast on the go. Let me tell you, this one was all about being prepared the night before. I started by pulling a bag of banana chocolate chip muffins out of the freezer - I know, super hard. But they were ready for me this morning, and I needed that!

I also tried a new iced coffee idea, and it is amazing, probably my favorite homemade version yet, and I finally got to use the adorable travel cup that I got for Christmas from a very crafty friend! It definitely made my day!

So here's the easiest iced coffee recipe ever, thanks to my Keurig; I made two mugs of vanilla cafe expressions and poured them in a pitcher, I topped that off with a cup of coffee, stirred it all up and let it sit in the fridge overnight. In the morning I stirred it again and it was ready to go! Love it!

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Looking for inspiration

I finally finished one quilting project this year, and now it's time to think about my next one, but I've decided to really challenge myself this time. I'm not letting myself buy any new material.

This is crazy for me, because I have a process. I go to the fabric store with a reason to pick out fabric, and I let myself go in therefor hours, putting together combinations and mixing and matching, and usually spending way more than I had planned. But picking out the fabric is my favorite part, and it usually gives me the momentum to get through the rest of the project, because I am so inspired by the fabrics that I have to work with.

Now that I've been doing this for a while, I've accumulated quite a fabric collection, of mostly scraps. I really want to use these little bits and pieces to creat something amazing, but I have a few fears that I'm going to have to tackle first. For example, I am terrified of working with tiny little squares because I'm not patient enough to get the corners on my bigger squared to line up.

I've rummaged through my fabric stash, and I've got a pretty nice color combination, but that's about as far as I can get. I think it might be time to turn to Pinterest for a little inspiration, and then sit down and really work this out on paper before I start cutting.

I can't believe I just said that... I'm usually a measure once, cut once, and it something isn't right ill work it out later kind of girl...
Clearly it's time to switch up my process just a bit.

Just a book

Amazon just had a great clearance on their kindle books (which is a bit weird to me because clearance is usually what you do when you wan to move product off your shelves, and these books are clearly not taking up space on anyone's shelves...), I LOVE cheap kindle books because I have such a hard time picking out a new book. When the book only costs a couple of bucks I don't mind if I don't end up loving it. Anyway, long story short I picked out a couple, and yesterday I completely indulged.

I slept in and then stayed in bed for another hour reading, I ran errands and grabbed lunch, and read while I ate, and when I got home I stole a couple of hours on the couch reading. We went to our favorite annual fundraiser last night, and got home late, but I wasn't tired, so I stayed up reading, until 2:30 in the morning!

I haven't done that since I was in college, and I loved every minute of it. The book was great, but the best part f the entire experience was having to time to really enjoy a book, in a way that I haven't done in year. Yes, I still read often, but not like that, where I lose entire hours to the story, I love it, and if that makes me a complete nerd, then I guess I don't care, but I also know that there are more than a few people out there who know what I'm talking about!

Friday, March 1, 2013

Being treated like a professional

I'm a preschool teacher. I spend most of my day making messes, refereeing arguments, modeling appropriate behaviors, and cleaning up messes. I live in the land of boogers and milk mustaches, smeared marker and broken crayons, and the adults that I talk to are parents who privately think that I am nothing more than a glorified babysitter, even though I have a bachelors degree and routinely speak at education conferences.

So today I am thankful for professional development opportunities. Today I got to spend the day with other professional adults who understand my language, who are fluent in developmentally appropriate practice, literacy domains, and project work. These are women who not only understand what I REALLY do every day, but who value what I do everyday, and who inspire me to continue doing the work that I am doing even though it is not glamorous and prestigious.

I need this, I thrive on this, and I will go back to my classroom on Monday with more energy than I usually have on a Monday, and for that, it is worth it!