Reading Wednesday

It's Reading Wednesday! Which means it's time to share a book with you.

You Are Special by Max Lucado

This is an awesome children’s book. This book is about a society of puppets where each puppet shows if they like or dislike another puppet using a gray dot/gold star sticker system. One sad puppet is upset by his large amount of gray dots until he meets a puppet with no stickers at all – by her advice he goes to visit his creator. I used this book to teach my first grade class that “God Made You”. This is a great book for sparking discussion amongst younger children about what a creator is in general, and then who the creator is in real life. It’s also great to emphasize that everyone is special. For older kids, you can emphasize that you should never let anyone put you down and you should never let labels stick, nor should you label other people. At my age (college/ young adult) this is a analogy to God, and how we should have faith in him above all.

I was read this book as a child and then discovered it in Bookman’s and had to buy it. =) I hope you enjoy it as well!

Here’s a link to the book on amazon.com.

Sippin' Saturday

Starbucks Iced French Vanilla Latte (or Vanilla Latte with Hazelnut)

I first had a similar drink at McDonalds – their iced hazelnut latte brings back memories of road trips. This drink is the closest Starbucks equivalent I could find to it. Perfectly sweet, perfectly refreshing, great flavoring. While ordering this at Starbucks I discovered that vanilla+hazelnut=French vanilla, which is something I definitely didn’t know before. Anyways, this drink is a great mix of sweet vanilla and rich hazelnut.

Banana Colada Fuze

I’m not usually a fan of Fuze drinks, but I really like this one. It has a pina-colada flavor and a banana flavor combined. It’s a great tropical drink, with a little bit of a pineapple afterbite.

Snapple Tea Will Be Loved (Pomegranate Berry Tea)

This drink is the “Maroon 5” picked drink. While refreshing, it doesn’t have an extra-special flavor that would make me buy it again. It tastes like a slightly sweetened lemon tea.

Pic from bevreview.com

Crochet Flower Earwarmer

So a couple of days ago it was really cold outside, and my ears were not too happy. And, everyone else has these super cute earwarmers – so I found a pattern to make one on the internet. Actually, I had wanted to make one of these for a while, but I wasn’t really motivated to until the weather suddenly changed. You can find the pattern here. Here are a couple of things I did different from the pattern.


1. I didn’t notice the “Use size H hook” thing on the side, so I used a size J hook instead. It may have made the earwarmer a little bit bigger, but it seems fine to me.
2. It never clarifies if you should chain three before turning - I did, and counted it as my first stitch in that row. For most of the pattern, you need 9 stitches per row.
3. I made the flower in my school colors, because I’m a big fan of school spirit.
4. Also, the flower directions are hard to understand. When it says “sc around the first spoke”, it means the first spoke of the original flower – your original 4 chain loop. For some reason, I felt it would be a good idea to single crochet around each spoke in the bigger flower – it didn’t work out so well the first time.
5. Instead of sizing it and then single crocheting the two ends together, I just sewed a large button on one side, so that it would be easily adjustable.

Here are some pictures. I love this project! I think I might make another one, only in black/gray and with the right hook size next time.

What it looks like all spread out

Flower close-up!

Me, sporting my new, awesome, earwarmer!

Personal Pizookies!

Happy All-Saints Day! This week's "Tasty Tuesday" share isn't a recipe, but rather, a really cool idea that my friend shared with me.

What you basically do is put a ball of cookie dough on the top of each indent in an upside-down cupcake tin. Cook these (we used a low temperature, but I think it would work out fine if you used a higher temperature and a lower cooking time). And voila! Little cookie bowls.

Taking the cookie-bowls off the cupcake-tin

Perfect size for a scoop of ice cream!

My friend Donovan showing off our creations

Happy Halloween!

I hope you had a fantastic Halloween! For Miscellaneous Monday, I just wanted to share with you my candy corn nails. I got the idea from one of my friends, and I think it's super cute. And a great way to show your Halloween spirit. Just paint a layer of yellow, a 2/3 layer of orange, and then the tips white. All it takes is a bit of patience.

NAU Newman Center

So it's not the prettiest church, but what it lacks for in looks, it makes up for in community. This is where I go to mass every week - it's sort of like a re-fashioned house that's situated on the edge of Northern Arizona University's campus. There are three masses (at college kid times - 10:30 am, 5:30 pm and 9:00 pm). There are also plenty of other ways to get involved here - leading or attending retreats, praying the rosary, Exalt! (praise/worship and adoration), Newman Night (free food and guest speakers) and more. So while it's not the prettiest or biggest church I've been to, it's definitely special.

Here's a picture of it from their website www.naunewman.org.



Sippin' Saturday

Mmm. Lot’s of wonderful new sips this week.

Earlier on this month, I decided to try Starbuck’s pumpkin spice latte. It was okay, but I will probably not buy it again. It was a nice, slightly sweetened and spiced coffee, but the pumpkin aftertaste was just a bit weird to me.

Here’s one of my favorites, which I caved in a bought again this week: Snapple’s Peach Mangosteen. It’s the perfect balance of sweet and fruity and refreshing. It always makes me feel happy when I’m a little bit down. This peachy drink was my first Snapple ever. Yum.

So this week, my friend went to get a soda from the vending machine, and along with her soda came a Cool Blue Gatorade. I never would have gone out and bought this for myself, but it is probably the best Gatorade I’ve had yet. It is a very sweet drink, but still has that refreshing “I’m drinking Gatorade” aftertaste. It was very flavorful.

Picture from Google Images