Day 31: Last Day of Doing a Pinterest Project Everyday

I made it!
31 days of doing something I learned on Pinterest!!  Now I just have to do something once a week.  It will be harder for work to get in my way!
It's be a long month, lots of food, random crafts and good times with friends.  I'll probably never make another headband out of old tee shirts again, but will hopefully be able to maintain my ridiculously organized dresser!
The last project is filed under "gifts to buy."  The website allows you to type in a city and then you can zoom in or out accordingly.  The image starts in water colors which is pretty darn cool, but then to can switch to terrain or toner (black and white).  I checked out a few cities and towns and it's pretty cool and would definitely make a pretty unique gift!
Here's the link:
http://maps.stamen.com/#watercolor/12/40.4336/-79.9951
Pittsburgh is the city that conveniently shows up...
Well, time to enjoy the rest of Labor Day Weekend and start thinking on the ONE project I will do this week!

Day 29/30: Chocolate Chip Cookie Balls

Work is seriously interfering with my Pinterest activities.   Yet I have managed to get some stuff done.  

Day 29: magnets.
I bought tons of magnets from Micheal's because according to Pinterest there are a lot of things to do with magnets!  I have a dry erase board in the front of my classroom and each day (along with the date and what to do) I write the topic for the day and the skills we'll be focusing on.  Now, while it's not exactly challenging to write "skills" and "topic" on the board, I decided I needed magnets that have these words on them.... So, I made magnets (I know, super exciting, try to control yourself).

Day 30: cooking.
I haven't made any Pinterest recipes lately so I decided to do one today, but I had two requirements 1) no oven/stove. 2) I need to have all of the ingredients.   Then I found this:
http://aspottedpony.com/recipies/no-bake-chocolate-chip-cookie-dough-balls/5782/
The woman who blogged this recipe doubled it.  I cut it in half because I'm pretty sure I don't need that much crap in my system (and half the recipe is still too much).  They were pretty easy to make and I added a tablespoon of peanut butter, because peanut butter with chocolate is delicious.
The result?  They're not bad, but really not worth it.  There is about 90 calories in each one and they're pretty tiny.  I won't be making them again and may consider never eating cookies because of the amount of crap in them... Ha!  That's not true.  I have 15 boxes of Girl Scout cookies in the freezer!

Day 27/28: Teaching, Teaching, Teaching

So, the past couple of days have been spent doing three things:
1) trying not to hit snooze too many times before I wake up for work .
2) going to work and planning.
3) trying to convince my body that summer is indeed over and that bedtime needs to be before midnight (this is always a tough one).
As far as the snooze button goes I have three "settings." I hit it once or twice and I can still walk to work.  Three times I should probably take a bus.  Four or more and I need to take a cab.   It's been a mix of walking and bus thus far...

So, what have I been doing as far as Pinterest goes?  Pretty much sorting through teaching ideas on my "school ideas" board.
First up?  Where the hell did all the erasers go for my Expo markers?!  Problem solved:

http://prayersandpurpleelephants.blogspot.com/2012/07/pom-pom-erasers.html

Pom Poms hot glued onto the end of dry erase markers!  No more lost erasers (at least until the dry erase marker also disappears....).

Today's activity?
Trying to develop strategies to help improve the students reading skills and comprehension.  I teach high school, but the entire school is for students with learning disabilities, so many strategies need to be taught, re-taught and other strategies need to be tried:
http://middleschoolteachertoliteracycoach.blogspot.com/2013/01/some-more-anchor-charts.html
Luckily our school has a web page where we keep resources the students can access, so that way they can pull these strategies up at home when they're reading and hopefully get them stuck in their head!

Day 26: Things I've Learned From Miley Cyrus

Nothing.  I've learned nothing from Miley Cyrus.  I just happened to be lucky that my parents didn't decide to make me a child star (especially with my killer Cookie Monster impressions and my desire to constantly be the center of attention).

Today's activity?  Well, now that I'm back at work I had a friend ask if I was going to be able to maintain all the organizing and cleaning that I've done.  The answer?  Probably not, until I found this on Pinterest:
http://kidtokid.com/cleaning-calendar/

I feel like with cleaning I (like many people) tend to try and do it all at once and then end up freaked out over the hours of cleaning that need to take place.   Half the time I think "oh, wait, I need to clean __________  out," I'm at work at not near anything that needs to be done (same thing happens in reverse when I'm at home... I constantly remember work things that need to be done.).  This calendar seems pretty doable and today I would say I spent about 30 minutes total following The plan.  Clearly there are a couple tweaks that need to be made since I live in an apartment, but I'm excited for the plan!   I'm thinking "clean/sweep garage" should be changed to "book a spa day."

Day 25: Cupcakes and Splits Update

1) I may actually be able to do the splits in one week vs. two.... I'll keep you posted, but the first day was torment and today, well, I'm getting pretty good!
2) today is a quote day:
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/944669_10151645544798945_808726249_n.jpg
I helped at Kicky's Kitchen again and sold a record number of cupcakes!  While I know Christie has been working her butt off (baking in a kitchen in the middle of no where in the middle of the night), it's fun to get out there and help her sell her delicious cupcakes! Today we discovered (a secret that I've known for awhile) that people will indeed buy a cupcake frosted with something that has "avocado" in its name.  We also discovered that banana cake topped with strawberry frosting is AMAZING!!!
She has so many exciting things come up and I'm looking forward to watching my friends business grow!
Work starts tomorrow, so I'm running out of hours to do random Pinterest activities, but I will keep going!!

Day 24: Mini Apple Pies!!

I started the day by stretching to help me be able to do the splits based on yesterday's post... This stuff is painful, painful!

I decided to cook today and went with this recipe:
http://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/628903842/mini-apple-pies/
I love the fall, I love apples and I love pie!  My big problem with pie is the mess it can sometimes create when trying to cut slices and get them out of the pie plate.  This clearly solves these problems as it creates a cupcake size mini pie.  I only made 4 mini pies (because I learned a valuable lesson after making 24 crab rangoons!) and it just took one large apple.  Once I put the cross cross on the top of the pie I sprinkled on a little more sugar and cinnamon.
The outcome was delicious!!!!  They were very easy to make and I bringing one to go for a picnic dinner tonight!
I may have to make these again for my students/co-workers in the fall!
Also, there's a great shop in Georgetown, Washington, DC that makes mini pies: http://piesisters.com/

Pre-oven

YUMMY!

Day 23: Wonder if This Will Work?

So, I was wondering what activity to do today.  I've had a lot to eat the past few days and I've spent a lot of money on arts and crafts so I was looking for something for free and I found this:

http://followpics.net/how-to-learn-to-do-the-splits-in-2-weeks/

I keep saying I'm going to be able to do the splits, but then I never follow through... Never again!!  Why do I want to be able to do the splits?  Well.... I use to be able to do the splits and stretching is good for you, but I'm mainly doing it to say "I can do the splits."  After going to so many America's Got Talent tapings I'm annoyed that I have no talent and after looking into "juggling fire knives while    on a tightrope," I realized the splits were much safer.
I'll update you in two weeks.  However, I easily ditch plans if I get bored, but hopefully that won't happen!