Happy Halloween!

I just realized two months have gone by since my last post. I can't even begin to put into words how BUSY life is now. There is SO much work each week. I'm writing lesson plans 1-2 weeks in advance, grading mountains of schoolwork and somewhere in there also hacking away at TPA #4. The 3rd one is turned in and hopefully being adjudicated as worthy of passing.


Halloween is on Monday. This is one of my hated/loved holidays. I love fall and all the festivities that are attached to it. Changing leaves, warm clothes, pumpkin pie, baking. I could go on and on. I love this time of year. Halloween gets roped into that and I do love pumpkins. I don't always love the actual holiday though because I'm so bad at creating good costumes. I just don't have that creative edge. My Halloween costumes are often recycled uniforms, pajamas or last minute (throw on a headband with felt cat ears...hey I'm a cat!) Last night I went to Mickey's Halloween Party (at Disneyland) and was blown away by the commitment and creativity that people put towards their uniforms. Half of them probably just went to the Disney store, but a lot of people went ALL out. My fav by far was a group that dressed up as Kevin, Russell, and Mr. Fredricksen.


Normally I avoid all the parties and stay at home. I usually have grading or work to do anyways. I couple of times I venture out and wear black and orange. This year, however, I will be at school on Halloween for the first time in 6 years. I'm seriously considering pulling off the Harry Potter character look although I'm vacillating between Luna (I have the hair) and Hermione (I have the scarf). To pull off Luna, I need a new HP scarf...which means my hooks may come out this weekend (TALK ABOUT LAST MINUTE!) To be Hermione, I just have to ignore the fact that I'm not brunette. It's a bit lame, I admit, but I don't have time to dye and/or find a wig. I don't know what it says about me that I DO think there's time to crochet a scarf.


Well my student's papers are giving me the evil eye ("grade me!") so I shall bid you adieu. Perhaps by Christmas I'll update as to which HP persona I went for :)

A Fresh Start

I love a new school year. This is the time of year that most means renewal to me. Perhaps it is the change in the weather: sharp, crisp air; autumn leaves; the scent of chimney fires. I love the squeak of new shoes. I love when Joe Fox (Tom Hanks/You’ve Got Mail) says this about the fall, “It makes me wanna buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” A new school year means new beginnings and chance to achieve once more. New teachers, new students, new subjects, new clothes and new school supplies, it all makes me giddy with anticipation :)

This weekend I reorganized my closet (slacks & skirts on one side, dresses and tops on the other). I vacuumed. I cleared off my desk and set my 7th & 8th grade sections. I washed my sheets and made my bed. My books are alphabetized and my calendar is color-coordinated. It all screams clean and ready to go!

Today I worked on prepping for new school year. I read The First Days of School (well most of it—I’ll read a bit more tomorrow). I started making a list of all my to-do’s before next Wednesday. It keeps growing no matter how much I get done! I have my classroom management/discipline plan mostly done. Honestly I am really anxious for the school year to start. I can’t wait to meet my kids and getting started teaching. I don’t want January to come even though that means I’ll be getting my credential because it also means I won’t be teaching anymore unless I get a job right away.

Until then, I shall enjoy this fresh start of new beginnings :)

Summer may be ending, but my enthusiasm and joy is increasing!

Time for some updating madness!! So I survived my bout of unexplained-insomnia (okay okay I really need to cut off the coffee after 2pm). I worked at my scheduling concern. Apparently my professor is just a bit lazy and is also a fan of the “send to all” button, but whateves school starts in like 4 days!! Yes, I’m the nerd that gets excited about the first day of school. :)
Yesterday I met with my MT to discuss the fall semester—now that starts in a little less than two weeks (Aug 31) and to be honest I am WAY more excited about that than my university classes. I’M GOING TO BE A TEACHER!!! And my MT is so awesome, she doesn’t want to be in the classroom. She wants me to feel like this is MY job. I LOVE it!!! Now here’s for the crazy part…I will be teaching TWO prep’s next semester: 7^th AND 8^th grade language arts!!! She had to make some scheduling changes and the 8^th grade department head agreed to take me on as a student teacher. Which is awesome and scary all at the same time :D I have my pile of textbooks to start going through and prepping and omg this is actually happening!
To top off the awesomeness, last week I went to my first FYA book club! We met at this awesome hotel lobby bar that had delicious drinks and yummy snacks (garlic fries!). We chatted for a good TWO hours about Young Adult literature and why it is changing the world. Haha. I think we spent about 20 minutes on the actually book of choice (Beauty Queens by Libba Bray) and the rest of the time on, “have you read this book?” “You HAVE to read this one—it will change your life.” AND, AND one of the ladies brought FREE BOOKS!!! Yes you heard me right!! I believe they were all from BEA, but she is also blessed to have a lot of literature come through her home on a daily basis and she felt like sharing with us. How awesome is that???
Today I shall be gleeking out with a good friend. Did you know there is a Glee movie? In 3D? !!!!!!!! I shall give a recap when I get home :D

Glee 3D Movie Trailer!!!

Sleep is for the weak…or the sleepy. I would like to be either right now!

Every now and then I am plagued with “insomnia.” I’m not sure if it’s a legit kind or just a I-drank-my-coffee-too-late-in-the-day kind. Probably the latter. But I spent the weekend without my coffee and now I’m a little obsessed and experiencing a need to consume as much of it as possible in case I’m separated from it again.

I’m not really stressing out about anything—aside from potential class registration mishaps. Really that’s more of an irritation. I know nothing’s wrong aside from the fact that someone else thinks that something is wrong so now I have to deal with it. Confusing? Welcome to state schools. Since it’s 2 in the morning and I have nothing better to do, let’s tell the tale shall we?

My university sent a snarky email to my professor who in turn sent a snarky email to me about my class registration for the fall semester. I don’t know if she blind copied my class or just sent it me. Her message was this: register for your fall classes. As if I haven’t already taken care of this. I would like to call SHENANIGANS on my university for their poor attention to me as a student.

I LOVE registering for classes. In the past, as soon as I got my registration date, I inked it into my calendar. I looked forward to the day with joy. I poured over the class schedule (when they still printed it). I made spreadsheets (and I hate excel) about potential schedules. If professors were listed, I would scan professor rating sites to help guide my decisions. When the date and time FINALLY arrived, I sat at my computer hitting refresh until my portal finally opened. Then I gleefully searched and added classes like a kid in a candy store.

This semester was a no different—at least in my attitude. I didn’t get to pick my schedule. It’s determined by the university for all cred students. Our classes are offered at one time with one section. Since there are only 12 students in the English program, it makes complete sense. This time I was also unable to register as soon as my portal opened. I was flying on an airplane. But you can bet your bottom dollar that as soon as I touched down (really once I got home) I was logging on to take care of that shizz (and loving it).

This all happened one MONTH ago. It’s on my damn portal that everything is taken care of. And yet I’m still getting emails about my lack of responsibility. Awesome, right?

In other news, I started a new crochet project! I’ve basically been working on it all summer but I recently ripped it out (did I mention I’m a perfectionist?) and started over. I’m making a beautiful shrug (I think that’s the worst name on the planet for an article of clothing) with Homespun Lagoon (also not the best name for a yarn hue). But vocabulary aside, the yarn is a gorgeous shade of blue with hints of purple & brown. The “shrug” will make a great jacket to add to outfits in the fall. Honestly though, once this shrug and my mittens are done, it’s off to Harry Potter land. I REALLY want to make something HP and soon!!!

Decorating…disaster or delight?

After all my cookies were baked, it was time to make them look cute :) Since youtube is a highly reliable source, I watched a few videos on cookie icing technique. Although I could tell it was difficult, I figured it wasn’t impossible. To be fair, I’m cheap and I don’t plan on doing this again. Well at least not anytime soon. Anyway, it didn’t make sense to go all out and purchase any tips or fancy bags or things like that. I honestly whipped up some royal icing, dumped it in a ziplock bag, cut the edge off and voila: icing bag.

Due to my lack of experience, limit on product, and amateur tools, I was met with a few issues. I had planned to ice the square part of the cookie in white and then do the “1” in blue (per my neighbor’s request). The first batch of icing was REALLY watery mostly cause I just poured the suggested amount from the recipe. LESSON LEARNED: add water slowly to powdered sugar/merengue until desired consistency is reached!!  Anyway, here are my cookies after the first round of icing:

Kind of messy…I know.

Next I outlined the “1:”

After I filled them in, I was…dissatisfied. They were “okay” but just looked a little haphazard; as though I’d let my *10-year-old niece do the decorating.

So I got a little creative and made them more “me.” When it comes to my “art,” I don’t like to follow the rules or be very detail oriented. I’m more a free-spirit if you will. I like to create impressions instead of specific images. I used the extra icing to do this:

Here’s a close-up

 
Just a nice personalizing touch I like to do when I seal the bags (also tip #3 from ms.-baker-extraordinaire). I used the font “Jokerman” and printed these on address labels.


Ready to be delivered!

And the final verdict? The family loved them! They were very pleased and my sister, boyfriend and mother all approved. My dad just wanted to eat them. I made about a dozen extra so he did get to taste them and I got a thumbs up for that!

In conclusion, cookie decorating is very fun albeit very stressful. A lot depends on timing and just doing it right the first time. I think I prefer to eat them instead :) My sister can be the pastry chef and I’ll stick to teaching!

On a side note, I cut my hair today and donated 10” to Pantene Beautiful Lengths. My hair feels sooo short right now—it stops right above my shoulders, but I LOVE it. Another bonus is the ease of styling it which will come in handy this fall. One less thing to worry about in the midst of student teaching!

*disclaimer: I do not have a niece.

Cookie Completion!

I am so proud of myself! I actually baked, decorated, and delivered two dozen cookies AND they weren’t too terrible looking!! My sis even called them “cute.” YES!!! Here’s the rest of the story…

After rolling out the dough (between parchment paper) I put all of it in the fridge overnight. This is tip #2 from ms.-baker-extraordinaire. It’s easiest to work with sugar cookie dough when it is cold. The best way to achieve this is to roll it out and THEN put it in the fridge. This hardens the dough and makes it easier to work with, PLUS you don’t need to use flour to keep it from sticking. Bonus for me as that means I won’t make more of a mess :)

I purchased a cookie cutter in the shape of a “1” earlier in the week, but it was kind of small and I felt like I was jipping the family. The sister suggested I make a square cookie and put the “1” on top of that. perfect! I used a index card (that I cut down to 3 x 3) to make my square. Now for the fun part. Most people would probably bake them separately and then “glue” the pieces together with frosting. Not me! I learned this nifty little trick from high school ceramics. If you score the cookies and add a dab of water where you want them to connect, they fuse together and become one cookie! Confused? Here’s my process:

 
 Make notches on the cookies where you want them to be fused. In my case on the back of the “1” and the front of the square. Using your fingers, dab some water on top of the notches. They don’t need to be soaked- just a little wet.

Set the top cookie where the notches are. Press down lightly- you don’t want to squish it, just make sure they are connected.

That’s it! Just bake and…

  TAH-DA!

After I made a dozen cookies I realized I did not have enough dough to complete my project. And as I was housesitting, I’d brought the exact amount of ingredients I needed with me. And they didn’t have flour or baking powder. Sigh. Back to the store and home again. Finally at about 8:30pm I had the last batch in the oven. I was wiped. Thank goodness for the Project Runway marathon!

last batches!

I made a smiley face with the leftover dough :)

At that point, I felt it was acceptable to take a break and go see Cars 2 with the boy. I absolutely LOVED Cars 1 so it’s safe to say that I went bonkers with the sequel. Like literally bouncing in my seat. clapping. gasping. it was ridiculous.

I’ll follow up with the decorating details!

A little divergence…

So I’m not posting about my latest crafting project. This weekend (I’m starting early) I’m tackling a baking project! So before my sister abandoned me to move to Oregon, she had a baking business which means a few things. 1) There were cookies and cupcakes at my house ALL the time. 2) I learned a thing or two about baking although I’m no where near as talented as she is. 3) Six months later and people still try to place orders. For the most part she pulls the “I moved-sorry” card, but this request came from our super sweet neighbors and, well, we couldn’t say no.

So I have been recruited as the baker and I am going to make 2 dozen cookies for a one-year-old birthday party! Luckily, my sister is only a phone call away and she gave me a few tips to make this project a success. The recipe I’m using is called "No Fail Sugar Cookies" which gives me some hope. I can’t mess these up, right?

First tip from ms.-baker-extraordinaire is to make your cookies in “steps” with plenty of time between each one. That’s why I’m starting today and planning to be finished by Saturday evening. Today’s “step” was to make and roll out the dough. I’m housesitting right now and of all the things this house does have—they don’t have a rolling pin. Never fear though! A wine bottle is a quick substitute. Beer bottles work too, but they are shorter and tend to have weird impressions in the glass. I prefer wine.

Tomorrow I will cut out the shapes and bake them and on Saturday I will decorate!  Good luck to me!!!

p.s. This is the shortest time-span between blog posts I’ve ever had :)

Wait, wait, wait. It’s summer already???

Oh my I have not posted in FOREVER. I kind of forgot about the whole blog thing. Does that make me a bad blog poster? I dunno. Anyway, I’ve kind of being crazy busy lately. I was right to say that student teaching would keep me from posting. I didn’t really have all that demanding of a schedule. I taught 3 periods at my junior high and I attended ONE class at CSUF. I know, pretty simple right? You would be amazed by how exhausting that schedule can be! I would come home from class and sometimes I would just pass out for a few hours before rushing off to the next thing. I had other work to keep on top of as well (lesson planning, university homework, TPA’s, etc.) plus other commitments (mostly church) and well suddenly it was summer.

And I still didn’t post! It has actually been an incredibly busy summer. One of my best friends got married- and I got to be in the wedding! It was absolutely beautiful and I loved every second of it. Then I went to Oregon TWICE. I helped out at my church’s VBS and with our summer youth group. I’ve been making dinner for my family once a week and I decided to completely clean out my bedroom (no worries, the yarn stash is safe!)

I think I’ve finally reached a point where I can slow down and enjoy the rest of my summer. I have about five weeks to go before I’m back in the classroom!! Oh I can’t wait.

As for the actual reason I have this blog…my yarn has not seen much TLC from me :( I’ve worked on my gloves. One is done and now I’m starting on the second. I worked on a shawl while I was traveling, but so far I can’t cross anything off my project list yet. And then I went and saw the Harry Potter movie and all I could think about (aside from NO DON’T END YET!!!!!) was ooo can I make that???

I think someone should start a blog/website devoted to all yarn projects that are Harry Potter. Found one! http://hp-knitting.livejournal.com/
I’ve also seen a lot of patterns on ravelry and lionbrand.com that support the HP series. I am a terrible fan and have never made a HP themed project. How sad is that? And my life is going to get terribly busy in the next few weeks, so I need to power through my gloves so I can get started on a HP project. LOL.

First day of Spring…or?

I feel silly after my last post commenting about the change in weather. It’s pouring down rain and I have the heater on. And it is supposed to be the vernal equinox. hah. I guess this is the “April” showers we need for flowers? Too bad it’s not April yet!

I’m enjoying the rainy Sunday knitting of course! I’ve finished the thumb on my first glove…moving on to the fingers! I’m also grateful for an ABC family Harry Potter marathon—did I mention I’m a nerd?? It makes for a very relaxing evening.

This past week has been intense—I’ve actually been teaching in my classroom! I LOVE it!!! But trust me, it is so much harder than it looks, even doing something as simple as reading a chapter to the class. You would be amazed as to how many other things you are doing and thinking at the same time. It’s a bit overwhelming, but my master teacher is really great and supportive. I am learning so much from her.

I realized that I didn’t mention this in my last post, but I wanted to comment on the tragedy in Japan. It is heartbreaking to think about. I have many friends that live there but thankfully they are all okay and so are their families.

Sigh No More

I have recently become obsessed with the band Mumford and Sons. There is just something about the haunting lyrics and “rock folk” (whatever that means) sound. I also don’t mind that they are inspired by literature like Shakespeare and Steinbeck (did I mention I was an English major?) Anyway, I’ve been listening to them non-stop for the past few days. <3

I also celebrated my birthday last weekend. It was a great day with family and friends (even my best friend was able to fly in from out of state!) She was actually here for family reasons, and not the good kind :( but if there can be a silver lining to the cloud then it is that we got to spend time together. I received some cash which hopefully means more yarn for me :) Not that I need anymore! A highlight gift for me was Seasons 1 & 2 (the first half) of Glee. Let the nerd points increase.

Anyway, I finished my gloves!! That was a proud moment for me. But even as I was celebrating my accomplishment, I was wanting to rip them apart and start over. They aren’t bad, but I just wanted to make them better, you know? My sister was happy to receive them (although she may have just been being nice).

with the mitten flap on:

mitten flap down:

Even though I’m not 100% satisfied with them (especially with the fingers), I think they look really good for my first attempt.

What’s on my hooks and needles?
Well, I broke my new years resolution and started a new project. Sigh. So hard not too! I’m making another pair of gloves, from the same book as the last ones, but they don’t have a mitten flap, just regular fingers. Here’s what I have so far, taken with my camera phone, so the quality’s not too great, but you get the idea.

The weather is finally warming up (I love summer) which means my current project probably won’t get used till next season, haha. But It also means I can spend time outside knitting which is my favorite :) especially with a glass of iced peach tea.

What’s your favorite environment to knit or crochet in?

There’s a little flame inside every soul

What’s new…

I have completed three weeks of my teaching program although honestly it feels like it has been three months. But I absolutely love it. I am a self proclaimed nerd, but I am in the company of friends right now :) The English majors joke about prepositions and Shakespeare and in my mixed classes we share stories about all the crazy things that kids try to get away with these days. And then we talk about planning lessons  and our brains go crazy in another realm that totally makes sense to us. It’s great—I feel like I belong :) In even better news, I got my placement for student teaching! I was a little late in getting placed (took an extra week), but I really love my classes (7th grade) and my master teacher—I am going to learn a TON from her. I guess I should add a quick note because in my previous post I said I wanted to teach high school and now I’m teaching junior high. It’s a funny chain of events, but something I think God always had planned for me and now I’m actually looking forward to the change :)

On my hooks and needles…

I haven’t started any new projects, probably mostly cause I’m so busy with school. But I have looked at a lot of patterns and salivated over yarn and fantasized about what I’m making “next.” I have another pregnant friend due this summer so I may be making another baby blanket. I’ve always wanted to tackle a sweater- and I have several patterns in mind. But one of the most popular resolutions for most yarn crafters is of course don’t start any new projects until the old ones are done. It’s not practical, but we all try to do that! So far I’ve stayed true, but we’ll see…

What’s off?

My baby blanket! It turned out so cute!!

They don’t know what they are having yet, but I think the green and yellow are a great color combination and the mom-to-be loved it :)

I had to pull an all-nighter to finish it! Usually that’s reserved for school projects, such as my papers haha. Any English major who tells you they don’t write their papers the night before they are due is lying. We all write them the night before and that’s usually when they are the best. Now I’m going to go into teaching and teach my students to have rough drafts and timelines but in reality, nobody does that ;)

That’s all for now! I guess it will be a good goal for me to update once a month. No I think a better goal will be twice a month, but realistically I think it will be closer to one. I just like to give myself high expectations :)

p.s. blog title comes from a song by Addison Road: “This Little Light of Mine”

It’s a new year so here’s a new post!

Well I’m not a product of my generation- I don’t blog on a daily basis! I would like to say that my new years resolutions is to blog more but as it’s 22 days into the new year, I don’t think I’m going to be doing that much either! Since no one follows me yet though, I think that’s okay :)

A quick update on my personal life…I’ll be starting school on Monday. I’ve already graduated from college but I’m heading back to earn my teaching credentials. And because everyone always asks, age level: high school. Subject: English (literature OR grammar- whatever I can get a job doing!) This means one of two things for my blog posting. Either I will be way too busy writing lesson plans that I will stop blogging…or I will be on a regular schedule and will somehow find a time to blog. I’d like to say the latter but may be the former :/

Now for the yarn update…what’s on my hooks and needles? :) Well I always have several projects going on, but I do have two current ones that I’m working on and trying to finish.

Knitting: I’m making my first pair of gloves! I went kind of ambitious but it’s been really fun :) The pattern I’m following is from this book: Knitters Bible Knitted Accessories. I’m making the gloves on the cover except I’m using a variegated Red Heart yarn (Earth & Sky) and they are turning out really cute. Once I’m done I’ll mail them to my sister living in Oregon :)

Crochet: I’m working on a baby blanket for a friend due in March. I got the pattern from a friend and I don’t know where she got it from so I can’t link to it :( But basically it is striped and wavy. I know, lame description, but once I’m done I’ll post a picture.

As for what’s OFF my hooks and needles? (what I’ve completed)

Well with the holidays, I made several Christmas presents.

For the boyfriend, I made an afghan replicating the flag of South Africa (he has done mission work there)

. 

This was the blanket that I was working on without a pattern :) It took FOREVER but I’m really satisfied with it and he liked it so that’s good :) As I said before, I followed a graph that I made from knitpro.com. I did about 4 stitches per block (to make the size I wanted…I can’t say that that is rule to follow). Then I made a simple border of single crochet to finish it off.

For my parents, I made a wine bottle cover. I found the pattern on http://www.michaels.com/ but it seems to have been removed from the site. :(
The yarn I used is called Patons, Classic Wool (Rosewood). Here’s what it looked like:
(in process…blocking)

and complete!

Well that’s all that’s going on in this yarn lovers life…hope to update soon!