Best Books to Read (Depending on Your Mood) Pt. 2
10 months ago
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Validation
My friend from uni sent me this message on Facebook & it almost made me cry (I'm emotional like that). I just thought it summed up the past 3 years so well.
There've been moments when I've had enough and contemplated quitting uni. There've been moments when I've doubted my calling to be a teacher. There've been moments when I wished I'd just gone straight into an Education degree instead of Arts (Psych).
But this just validated all of those experiences...
"Just wanted to say a bit of congrats for finishing your arts degree! So proud of you for getting through the whole 3 years even though you were so anxious to get to something else, and sometimes it felt like the time was just crawling a...long. Well done Miss Parata, we should go out and celebrate.... cheesecake? icecream?"
(She knows me so well! Cheesecake makes my heart smile.)
There've been moments when I've had enough and contemplated quitting uni. There've been moments when I've doubted my calling to be a teacher. There've been moments when I wished I'd just gone straight into an Education degree instead of Arts (Psych).
But this just validated all of those experiences...
"Just wanted to say a bit of congrats for finishing your arts degree! So proud of you for getting through the whole 3 years even though you were so anxious to get to something else, and sometimes it felt like the time was just crawling a...long. Well done Miss Parata, we should go out and celebrate.... cheesecake? icecream?"
(She knows me so well! Cheesecake makes my heart smile.)
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Shout it from the rooftops!
Just felt the need to shout it from the rooftops tonight:
I finished uni today!!!!!!
(Even this doesn't do my excitement justice!)
I finished uni today!!!!!!
(Even this doesn't do my excitement justice!)
No more classes.
Bachelor of Arts (Psych), you will be missed.
Master of Teaching (Primary), let's get acquainted!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Surprise!
Surprise!
I changed (or at least my blog did) on you!
I thought it was time for a bit of a fresher look. I loved the old layout, but it was quite dark and a bit full-on, so I thought I'd go for something lighter with a little bit more of a vintage feel to it.
You'll notice that polka dots still feature though... apparently I'm a polka dots fan and didn't even know it! You all know about my intense love for pink and damask, so of course they also had to feature in my blog header.
On a sidenote, my friend Laura & I went shopping today and somehow we always end up looking at homewares stores, dreaming about the houses we're gonna have and the lives we're gonna live... anyway, there was this amazing huge, comfy couch that came in a damask print that we both loved, but the best part was, you could choose your own colour! I was torn between the cream/hot pink and the chocolate brown/turquoise.
Definitely filing that one away in the "remember for later" part of my brain!
I changed (or at least my blog did) on you!
I thought it was time for a bit of a fresher look. I loved the old layout, but it was quite dark and a bit full-on, so I thought I'd go for something lighter with a little bit more of a vintage feel to it.
You'll notice that polka dots still feature though... apparently I'm a polka dots fan and didn't even know it! You all know about my intense love for pink and damask, so of course they also had to feature in my blog header.
On a sidenote, my friend Laura & I went shopping today and somehow we always end up looking at homewares stores, dreaming about the houses we're gonna have and the lives we're gonna live... anyway, there was this amazing huge, comfy couch that came in a damask print that we both loved, but the best part was, you could choose your own colour! I was torn between the cream/hot pink and the chocolate brown/turquoise.
Definitely filing that one away in the "remember for later" part of my brain!
Monday, October 19, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Rainbow Cake
Today I hosted a birthday party for one of the girls from Youth Group. For a surprise, I made this Rainbow Cake that I first saw on MckMama 's blog.
The cake featured on her blog, was made by Amanda, who first saw it on Meg's blog.
(Is that six degrees of blog separation or what? Okay, maybe it's only 3 degrees of separation, but still!)
I decided to try it out for myself. It's not too hard. You make two bowls of cake batter and then split each bowl into three so that you get six bowls (one for each colour). The hardest part is fitting them in the oven! I had to do 3 at a time.
Then the real fun begins... frosting! I made orange frosting because it's Maddi's (the birthday girl) favourite colour.
The recipe called for powdered sugar, but as I stood in the baking needs section of my supermarket, looking at all the sugar products, I could not for the life of me find "powdered sugar" anyway.
Thank goodness for iPhones, I Googled "substitute for powdered sugar" and found that you could use white sugar that had been put through a blender for a few minutes. So that's what I did. Except I don't think I blended it for long enough, because even though it looked "powdery", when I tasted it I could still feel the sugar granules on my tongue and it was weird.
Anyway, at this point I had that much orange frosting that there was no way I was going to throw it out and start again (plus I didn't have time because the girls were arriving in an hour), so I kept at it.
Amanda recommended freezing the layers in between frosting so the cake wouldn't go slip sliding all over the place. I froze mine for an hour and it was still difficult to frost! Even when I was serving it up, I found I had to keep pushing the layers back into place because they kept sliding off each other.
Maybe my freezer is inadequate.
But like the cake, it looks good.
This was the end result:
The girls loved it! (Even though it turned out pastel coloured instead of bright wow-zer colours like Amanda's and Meg's cakes.) They were so surprised when I cut into it and starting serving it up. It was a real hit! I'd definitely make it again.
And it was so fun! Kind of like a crazy science experiment making all the different colours! I had a thought that it was something I could incorporate into a science lesson once I'm a teacher. The kids would love that.
The cake featured on her blog, was made by Amanda, who first saw it on Meg's blog.
(Is that six degrees of blog separation or what? Okay, maybe it's only 3 degrees of separation, but still!)
I decided to try it out for myself. It's not too hard. You make two bowls of cake batter and then split each bowl into three so that you get six bowls (one for each colour). The hardest part is fitting them in the oven! I had to do 3 at a time.
Then the real fun begins... frosting! I made orange frosting because it's Maddi's (the birthday girl) favourite colour.
The recipe called for powdered sugar, but as I stood in the baking needs section of my supermarket, looking at all the sugar products, I could not for the life of me find "powdered sugar" anyway.
Thank goodness for iPhones, I Googled "substitute for powdered sugar" and found that you could use white sugar that had been put through a blender for a few minutes. So that's what I did. Except I don't think I blended it for long enough, because even though it looked "powdery", when I tasted it I could still feel the sugar granules on my tongue and it was weird.
Anyway, at this point I had that much orange frosting that there was no way I was going to throw it out and start again (plus I didn't have time because the girls were arriving in an hour), so I kept at it.
Amanda recommended freezing the layers in between frosting so the cake wouldn't go slip sliding all over the place. I froze mine for an hour and it was still difficult to frost! Even when I was serving it up, I found I had to keep pushing the layers back into place because they kept sliding off each other.
Maybe my freezer is inadequate.
But like the cake, it looks good.
This was the end result:
The girls loved it! (Even though it turned out pastel coloured instead of bright wow-zer colours like Amanda's and Meg's cakes.) They were so surprised when I cut into it and starting serving it up. It was a real hit! I'd definitely make it again.
And it was so fun! Kind of like a crazy science experiment making all the different colours! I had a thought that it was something I could incorporate into a science lesson once I'm a teacher. The kids would love that.
Friday, October 9, 2009
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