February Favorite 5

Here were your favorite posts from February! It's hard to believe that this month has already flown by!

1.  Student Valentine's - I just loved these! The kids thought they were so tasty too which surprised me since I wasn't sure how vanilla cupcake popcorn was going to go over.

2.  Birthday Board Revisited - We have all seen this idea floating around Pinterest. This was my take on a grade level board for classes that switch. I still love this even though it has been in our hallway for months; it makes me smile as a hustle past it towards the bathroom or xerox machine!

3.  Cheapest Wedding Bouquets Ever - Thrify goodness in the form of grocery store flowers. <3

4.  DIY Cacti Centerpieces - These are a little painful to plant, but oh so adorable. Mine are still alive and my wedding was almost 4 months ago. The trick is to never water them, EVER.  Click the link to find out more in case you missed it the first time around!

5.  A Year of Sundays Sneak Peek - My collaboration project with Chelsea from 5th Grade Wit and Whimsy.  There's more where that came from; like a whole year's worth!  Get ready!

Sick Day

Soooo, this morning I woke up feeling horrible.

So I sat around in my pajamas and George's t-shirt all day, no make-up, no shower, and no shame.

I woke up at 4:00 AM (after going to bed at 7:00 the night before mind you) and sat downstairs for like 30 minutes staring off into space with the never-ending debate that always goes through a teacher's head: "Sure you feel like crap, but is it bad enough to make sub plans?" You know we have all been there.

Finally at 4:30, I realized yes, this sucks, I need to make sub plans. An hour later, I was all typed up, put in a request for a sub on our online system, and was ready to roll.

And then I waited. Tried to go back to sleep; was able to sleep in 15 minute increments and then I would wake up to check the online system again and again and again. Still no sub assigned????! The arrival of the morning bell was imminent, my students would have no sub! Were ALL the subs abducted over night??

Finally I get a text from my teacher partner that they got a sub hours after the bell had rung, but that the internet was down so my sub plans were now null and void.  I felt like doing this.

I am not sure how it turned out, I think I suggested a Planet Earth, but my mind is fuzzy on the details in the middle of my sick haze. Oh, then the guilt rolled through me like a tsunami; maybe I should've dragged myself into the car this morning, but then I remembered that, no, I really do feel like crap. I always try to convince myself that I am not. Thank goodness I have a supportive teaching partner!

So the day continued, I slept, ate, watched TV, and now the day is coming to a close. I wish I would've been a little bit more productive, but I guess not all sick days are diamonds, some are stones. John Denver, anyone?

Have any of you experienced the inner monologue of to call in sick or not to? Have any of you all experienced the guilt of calling in sick? I am starting to think I have a seriously bad guilt complex! 

Sweetest Gift You Can Give

Happy Saturday! A friend emailed this out at work yesterday and I just couldn't help but share it first before I started my blog post. Haha, I busted a gut because this is so true. 

Moving on from my little random side moment there.  One of my friends just had a baby on Valentine's Day.  A baby girl born on Valentine's Day; isn't that the cutest thing?! I wanted to do something for them, but wasn't sure what would make the most impact for them. Enter: Food Tidings.

On this website you can schedule meals to be delivered to the families who are in a position that food should be the last thing they are thinking about (newborn babies, loss of a loved one, etc.) It's so easy! You just create a free account and then start setting up the family's information.

I did contact the family that I was wanting to do this for and we decided that instead of people delivering a certain time every day, they could text the new mama and double check to see what time would be best for dropping off the meals.

When you are all done, they ask you to invite people via email to the page. I unfortunately didn't have too many people's email addresses, so I put it on Facebook and tagged the new parents on it so their friends who I don't know very well could participate in it as well.

When they click on the link, a calendar will pop up which makes it really easy to see what days have already been taken. It also has you type in what you are bringing to them so that the gifters and receivers are aware. I still need to get way more people to sign up! Come on people! I guess I am going to have to start getting persistent... :)

Have any of your ever used this website or had a friend or family member set up some kind meal delivery system for you?  

Right Now

Right now, I am wanting to...

BUY

This hanging planter is soooo pretty... Kelly Lamb is a ceramic genius.

MAKE

Heck yes! A light and a unnecessarily large letter? This will be happening. But probably in 2018 when I finally get to it.

COOK

This is so wonderful and happy looking. There is something about sprinkles that brings a smile to my face. My school is going through some hard changes right now and this cake just might be the thing that I need to bring in on a particularly long week sometime soon. 

READ

This looks like a good read! You can read about the summary here. Have any of you all read this?

WATCH

The Oscars are coming soon and I have a lot of movie watching to do! I made a "30 Before 30" list and on it is watching all of the movies up for Best Picture on the Oscars. I have seen Gravity and Nebraska, but I will need to see American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Philomena, 12 Years of Slave, Her, AND Wolf of Wall Street. Holy cow! That's a lot of movies in not a very long time. 

DO

I've been trying to differentiate much more in my classroom since my district did away with gifted services last year. Since I teach science and social studies this book caught my eye and has some menus that students can complete if they finish work early. They have all sorts of different books with different subjects! I haven't decided yet if I want to buy this book, but look for some menus on the blog later.

A Year of Sundays Sneak Peek

I am so excited to be working with Chelsea from 5th Grade Wit and Whimsy for a year long project! We both are fans of photography and decided that we would take a picture on every Sunday for a year. She is such a talented photographer! Check out her blog post on our project here.

I love this project because you can see the similarities and differences between our lifestyles and locations (Chelsea lives in California and I live in Arizona). We never tell each other what to photograph, but we both ended up doing outdoor shots a few days ago.  Mine will always be on the left and Chelsea's will always be on the right. Here's what we've done so far...

February 9th, 2014:

February 16th, 2014:

Would this be something you would be interested in doing? Have you ever done a project like this?

Oh Hello There

The 365 Project continues... :)

31 / 365 - Embarking on an exciting project with Chelsea from 5th Grade Wit and Whimsy

32/365 - Birds of a feather flock together

33/365 - One of my favorite photography models

34/365 - The best smelling lily I have ever laid my nose upon

35/365 - Baby shower for little baby Seve 

36/365 - Phoenix, you sure are purty

37/365 - Breakfast with my husband (my favorite meal with my favorite person)

38/365 - She's a full-on Monet; From far away, it's okay, but up close it's a big old mess.

39/365 - Vintage blanket score from garage sale

40/365 - You are so pretty now, but you will probably die within a few weeks. Plant life is fleeting in our household.

DIY Cacti Wedding Centerpieces

I absolutely love that cacti and succulents are "in" right now. I live in Phoenix so cacti and succulents come a plenty and, the best part, they are so hard to kill! You literally do not water it for weeks and they will thrive. These are pretty much the only plants that I can keep alive I am ashamed to admit.

Since my wedding was in Phoenix, I thought it would be cute to use these in my centerpieces. You have to remember that my wedding was very DIY, so doing the centerpieces was something I was really excited about. I wasn't nervous or scared about doing them because I knew the cacti would be hearty and I could make them weeks ahead of time.

This was my inspiration from Pinterest.

I knew that I wanted it to be a little more vintage than the picture above. My friend (and bridesmaid!) Cindy suggested that we buy princess bowls to make them somewhat consistent from table to table.  I ran all across the valley searching antique and thrift stores buying a huge variety of princess bowls; I think I ended up buying 15 in the end. It's funny, I still catch myself searching for these bowls when I go antique shopping; I can't break the habit!

My mother in law and I went to Lowe's (my favorite!) to buy all of the cacti and succulents. They cut me an awesome deal since I was buying so many; it never hurts to ask!

We tried to buy them so that they would be really packed into the bowls and there would be a good variety of height and color in each centerpiece.  My bridesmaids, mother in law, and I got together and had a "potting" party. We brought food and gloves ready to tackle some prickly cacti!  We lined each princess bowl with a circle of paper and used special cacti soil. We then topped each mini garden with small river rocks.  

I loved that each and every centerpiece was different, but they all tied in together. Haha, I think that was the theme of my wedding; mismatching yet coordinated. I anchored all of the mini gardens with vintage crocheted doilies to add some more color and oooomph (technical term).

The best part is that my guests were able to take them home after the wedding. I reserved two of my favorite bowls (I have a picture of one of them here), but the rest were up for grabs. I hope you all enjoyed my lovelies!

Help!

I am feeling like a total idiot...

I keep trying to make it so that I can enter my link into comments that I leave and I have the code to do it and I can not for the life of me make it work!

Disclaimer: I consider myself to be a somewhat tech savvy person so I just need some help...

<a href=“http://looseshoelaces.blogspot.com/“>Loose Shoelaces</a>

OK, so this is what I am supposed to be using if I want to enter it, right? But here's the deal... every time I try to put that in my comments the blog says something like:

Your HTML cannot be accepted: Reference "“http:" is not allowed: A

Ummm ok, so I tried it without http:// in the link and that just reroutes me back to the blogger's post who I am trying to comment on. 

What am I doing wrong? 

Cheapest Wedding Bouquets EVER

I was on a budget bonanza for my wedding! When I got bids for the flowers I swear I almost peed my pants out of sheer shock.
Ummm, $300 for my bouquet alone?! Are the flowers plated in gold? That was the cheapest quote that I got from recommended florists.

No offense to any one who does or has had professional florists prepare flowers at their wedding; they are absolutely beautiful and mine at the wedding were no where near the quality or caliber that a professional florist would be able to produce. Florals just weren't where I wanted my money going to... Food, yes. Photography, yes. Florals, eh.

I had been on Pinterest researching how to make your own bouquets and found that I was not alone in this search for a cheaper alternative. There were a ton of tutorials on how to turn grocery store flowers into flower arrangements so I figured, well, couldn't you do that for a bouquet?

And then my $30ish flower bouquets were born.

My flowers all came from Trader Joe's. They are such a good deal and so beautiful!

Since one of my colors was mustard yellow I knew that I wanted sunflowers in my bridal bouquet. My bridesmaid and friend Stephanie was able to combine a perfect combination of white and yellow. Both my sister and I used part of our mother's wedding dress for our wedding bouquets. My sister wrapped the lace around her bouquet tightly, but I chose to keep the ends long and free on mine for a more bohemian look.

My bridesmaids and I made our bouquets the night before the wedding. It was such a fun way to bond and relax before the big day. Each girl made their own bouquet so it was unique to them. They wrapped their bouquets with green floral tape and then with white crocheted ribbon from Hobby Lobby. We secured them with pins and hot glue. 

I love the way that they turned out. The bouquets look great with the girls' yellow dresses but also tie into my bouquet so beautifully.

Would you ever or did you make your own bouquets for your wedding? I ended up saving over $1000 on flowers! Trader Joe's is the way to go! (Rhyming seemed necessary to send my point home...)