Friday Favorites

Every week I share things from around the internet that put a smile on my face in the hopes that they will put a smile on your face too. So, without further ado...

my (period) week in Harry Potter gifs

wrecking ball costume for dogs

this girl's first attempt at an eHarmony video
(and if you liked that, someone turned it into a song)

these awesome hay bales Layla shared on her blog yesterday

creating art work from spray paint

this adorable little girl singing along to Elvis

this site about what its like to follow Dave Ramsey's plan

if you loved yesterday's Halloween video, then you'll love this follow up video

Haunted Halloween

Since we don't have children yet, I don't have any photos of cute kids in even cuter costumes to share. Since our cats can't stand for anything to be on their bodies, I don't have photos of them in cute outfits either. Since we live in an apartment complex that doesn't allow traditional trick-or-treating, I didn't bother to decorate our front door or make any sort of effort to get into the spirit of Halloween. 

So what do I have? I have this hilariously funny video that I wanted to share with you. If you haven't seen this yet, it's a must watch. Seriously. It will make your cheeks hurt from laughing so hard.

Happy Halloween!

A Bewitching Pinterest Challenge

So, when I originally read that the Fall Edition of the Pinterest Challenge was upon us, I was a little sad. With everything that has been going on lately and the fact that I haven't been posting much, I didn't think there'd be any chance of my finding something on Pinterest to complete, snap pictures of, and then write up a post about. But, thanks to a school-related project, I was able to kill two birds with one stone.

A few weeks ago, my FFEA girls asked if we would be doing a Halloween project like they've done in years past. First, I should probably explain that FFEA stands for Future Florida Educators of America. I help co-sponsor the club with a colleague of mine, and we inherited the club this year from the Childhood Education teacher. The CE teacher is amazing at crafting things. My co-sponsor and I, not so much. But, we agreed that if the girls wanted to make something, then we should give it a shot. The idea was to create a little gift for the teachers on campus to show our appreciation of their hard work  which is one of the staples of our club.

Last week we had a quick meeting of the minds to figure out what kind of craft they wanted to do. You could hear crickets in the room. No, seriously, real crickets - I've told you I work in the country, right? Anyways, the girls had no idea what to do. So, I pulled up my Pinterest account and showed them some stuff I had pinned relating to Halloween. A lot of it wasn't practical for us to do. But, they eventually decided that they wanted to make these witches hats (originally from here). My co-sponsor ran out and grabbed the supplies from Wally World and made an executive decision that we would also make these broom sticks (pinned from here, but original project found here) to go along with the hats. Sold!

Before we go any further, I should probably add the disclaimer that all of the photos in this post were taken with my cell phone. I don't have one of those fancy cameras. Plus, if I did, I don't think I'd risk taking it to school anyhow.

Anyhoo, so we met up yesterday after school and made a little assembly line of sorts to create the hats & broomsticks and place them into little goodie bags.

Our amazing janitor let us use some of her gloves so that the girls didn't get any of their germs on the food. And yes, I made sure to clean all of the desks with a Lysol wipe before any food touched the surface.

Here's the finished goodies:

Some of the things we learned: (1) Make sure you have a toothpick to do the broomsticks. I didn't read that part of the directions until way too late. We used the end of a skinny paint brush. It did the job, but now I'm afraid that all of the peanut butter cups are falling apart on the inside. (2) Don't use the orange/black swirled icing. It comes out as nothing but black after the first two cookies. Basically all the squeezing mixes the two colors together. Icing is icing, and it did the job, but if you're looking for prettier witches hats, go for all orange. (3) To make 80 goodie bags with 5 students and 1 teacher will take about 45-60 minutes. I was hoping it would only take 30 minutes or so, but then again I was also hoping more girls would show up.

We were in search of some cute sayings to put in the goodie bags. After a quick Google search, I came across this website offering a free printable with a tons of cute Halloween related gift tags. Again, sold! We asked the girls which one they liked, and they all agreed that we should just print them all and each bag would have a different tag. Our school printers don't have color ink, so the tags didn't turn out as cute as the originals, but we did print them out on orange paper for the Halloween theme. Also, if we had thought ahead, we could have found some cute Halloween ribbon to tie them with, but the twist tie was what we had to work with.

Hopefully the teachers and office staff like the treat. Who am I kidding? What teacher doesn't like free food? Especially when it involves candy & cookies?!


Have you made any fun Halloween treats this year? For my teachers out there, what has been your favorite treat from student clubs/organizations (would love ideas for our next project)?

Don't forget to head over to Sherry, Katie, Sarah & Carmel's blogs and see what Pinterest creations they decided to recreate. Also, there are TONS of other projects that have been linked on their blogs, so go check them out! Oh, and happy pinning everyone!

Halloween Party Pooper

Photo source

I guess now is the time where I say the obligatory "Happy Halloween" to everyone out there. But honestly, the title of the post could very easily describe me. I didn't go to a Halloween Party this year - though the fiance and I were both invited to one. I think we've been invited to this party for the last few years, but something always comes up. The fiance has a "go to" costume that he uses every year, but I didn't have a costume, and I didn't think I could make one out of the stuff that's already hanging in my closet. Plus, we got an invite to a birthday dinner, which we both decided we wanted to go to more.

Our school has an early childhood program, and thus a daycare center. The Tiny Tots (what we called them) went trick-or-treating around the campus today. Teachers were suppose to sign up for the little ones to come to their room for candy. For the second year, I chose not to sign up. Both times it was for the same reason - I didn't exactly have the money in the budget to buy candy. But then I beat myself up over it because I could have easily gone to the dollar store and bought some cheap candy. But, I didn't feel like going to the store. Does that make me a bad person?

And then, tonight... Tonight there are going to be dozens of kids running around our apartment complex dressed up in their costumes, knocking on doors with pumpkins on them. See, our complex has this pumpkin rule. Since we don't have porch lights, we are suppose to hang a designated pumpkin on our door if we have candy for treat-or-treaters. But alas, no pumpkin will be hanging on our door. Why? Well, the same reason I didn't sign up for the Tiny Tots. I don't feel like I have the money to spend on candy, nor did I want to make a special trip to the store.

Our budget is tight with the wedding only 2 weeks away. And I just can't talk myself into purchasing a large bag of sweets for the purpose of handing it out to strangers. Besides, last year I bought 2 small bags of candy last year for the complex treat-or-treaters, and only 3 kids showed up. The fiance and I ended up eating the rest of the candy ourselves. Although some might say that's not necessarily a bad thing - when we're both trying to lose weight, it sorta is. The more temptations we have in front of us, the less poundage we see disappearing on the scales.

But does this make me a bad person? Not giving into the hype that is Halloween? I mean, really, what is the point?? Sure, it's fun to get dressed up and get free candy....if you're 5 years old! But as an adult, is there really a point? I'm sure once I have kids of my own, I'll feel differently about the holiday. Or maybe not - at that point it will cost even more to participate!

Reading these articles (here and here) on Dave Ramsey's website has helped me lose some of the party-pooper guilt. I've set my priorities, and Halloween candy and costumes simply aren't one of them. And I don't think there is anything wrong with that.

Disclaimer: Dave Ramsey doesn't know me or anything about this little blog, so he in no way endorsed my inclusion of articles from his website. I went through one of his Financial Peace University courses a few years ago, and I have officially jumped on the "Ramsey Bandwagon."