Pinners Conference California (March 8-9, 2019)

Big news! I'm going to be speaking at Pinners Conference!

If you're not familiar with Pinners Conference, it is a creative person's dream come true. The two-day conference features 108 classes, exhibits, and shopping, all focused on the kinds of things you see (and drool over) on Pinterest. The classes are divided into the following categories:

• DIY and Craft: "DIY to Make You Sigh"

• Food Arts: "Yum Yum Give Me Some"

• Party Planning: "It's My Party"

• Home and Home Decor: "Let's Play House"

• Lifestyle and Learning: "My Wonderful Life"

• Quilting and Sewing: "Sew Awesome"

• Photography: "Let's Get a Snapshot"

• Beauty and Fashion: "Hey Good Lookin"

• Health and Fitness: "Let's Get Physical"

So what will I be teaching? My class is part of the Lifestyle and Learning track and is all about educational travel.

I'll be sharing all my best my tips, tricks, and hints for incorporating learning into family travel in a way that is easy, affordable, and FUN. I am creating a bunch of printable resources for the class, which is keeping me very busy.

Pinners California takes place March 8-9, 2019 at the Ontario Convention Center in Ontario, California! When you get your tickets, enter the coupon code DEROSIER to save 10% on your purchase. I hope to see you there!

Punched Circle Christmas Tree

This was supposed to be a post about Oreos. But as you can see, this Christmas tree is made of construction paper, not Oreos.

Backing up a bit... we need to bring 2 dozen cookies to an upcoming Scout cookie exchange. Trevor asked if we could bring Oreos. I told him that no, it would not be in the spirit of the cookie exchange to just bring a package of Oreos, but if we did something with them, then sure. We did some brainstorming and I remembered seeing this advertisement for Ritz Crackers in the latest issue of Food Network Magazine. (This is an affiliate link, as are other links in this post.)

Wouldn't it be cute to dip Oreos in green Candy Melts (and one in chocolate for the stem), arrange them like a tree, then add mini M&M's for Christmas lights? Yes, it would be adorable! How fun!

Fortunately, it crossed my mind to actually check how much room it would take to display a Christmas tree made of 24 Oreos. I got out my circle punch and some green construction paper and started punching. I tried several ways to arrange 2 dozen circles, but the tree looked really weird unless I used just 22 circles. Not only that, but the tree was larger than I'd expected.  

We scratched the Oreo Christmas tree idea and will be doing something else creative with our Oreos. I'll share that soon. Never one to let a craft opportunity go to waste, I glued a piece of blue construction paper onto a sheet of white, then glued 15 of my green punched circles on that (it fit better with 5 rows than with the 6th row) and the brown trunk circle. I added a yellow star, then started punching out a bunch of little circles. 

I glued those in diagonal lines across the green circles to mimic the look of lights. 

It's pretty cool to see what you can make using nothing but circles. (OK, and a single star!)

'The Workday of My Dreams' Exercise

I recently took a class on CreativeLive by Jasmine Star and one of the assignments was to think about the workday of our dreams.

It's harder than it sounds. At least, it is for me.

Part of my difficulty is that I work from home and my day is built around other responsibilities besides work. Ideally, I'd get up and start working right away, as the first thing in the morning is often my most productive time of day. But that is not my reality. I need to get Trevor off to school before I can think about my own workday. I need to stop working in time for the afternoon carpool, no matter how well my work is flowing or what I'm in the middle of doing. There are countless interruptions during the day, some welcome* and others not. I'm sure everyone has their own version of this whether they work from home or elsewhere. 

(*I mean, could you say no to a nose scritch if he asked?)

Back in my teaching days, it would have been much easier to define the perfect workday: all kids 100% on task, learning, and happy with my dynamic, engaging, hands-on lessons that each finished seconds before the bell, with no whining, excuses, tattling, arguing, injuries, parent phone calls, or rain. I never had a perfect day as a teacher (and I find it hard to believe that anyone possibly could!) but it is a worthwhile exercise to figure out what that perfect day would actually entail.

This is the template that Jasmine provided:

I wake up at ___ in the morning and the first thing I do is _. Then I ___ to ensure I'm feeling ____. I start the work day of my dreams at _____ in the morning, but not before taking time for myself to _____. I leave space in my day for ____, and my favorite part of running my business today is ____. Today I made/wrote/produced ____ but I'm most proud of ____. After work I ____ and I have dinner with ____. Before going to bed, I will _____.

Here is my attempt to outline my perfect workday as it fits into my current life:

I wake up at 6:00 in the morning, get myself ready for the day, and greet Trouble, who is ready to play. Then I answer emails, get Trevor off to school, and eat my breakfast to ensure I'm feeling free from distractions. I start the workday of my dreams at 8:00 in the morning, but not before taking time for myself to read blogs and check my personal social media. I leave space in my day for lunch with Steve and at least a half-hour of scrapbooking. My favorite part of running my business is writing blog posts and working on new craft ideas. I work on Fun Family Crafts, post to my business social media accounts, check in with other bloggers, and firm up details for future educational travel. I have the perfect lighting to take photos of my crafts and am most proud that I barely need to edit them before they're ready for blogging. After work, I pick up Trevor, supervise homework while reading the newspaper, and make dinner. We eat together as a family and then play board games together. Before going to bed, we watch Project Runway or another show based on creativity/crafting, then I read an interesting and inspirational memoir. 

Even though the exercise was difficult, I'm glad I did it. I got a lot out of Jasmine's class, as I have with every CreativeLive class I've done. If you are interested, you can purchase their classes to watch at your convenience, or watch them for FREE when they're live on the air or during rebroadcasts. Either way, they are great. And there's definitely something for everyone.

So tell me... what does the workday of your dreams look like?

Ramekins Culinary School:

Awhile back, Steve's parents gave us a gift certificate for a class at Ramekins Culinary School in Sonoma. We redeemed it last Sunday. 

Our class was called From the Kitchens of Puglia: Focaccia, Pasta and Panzerotti. Puglia is a region in southern Italy that borders the Adriatic Sea. It makes up the heel of the boot of Italy.

Steve and I were so excited; we both love Italian food (who doesn't?) and were eager to learn to make these dishes from a region we don't know much about. We have attempted several Italian recipes together (most memorably, the Valentine's Day ravioli), but knew we'd learn so much more from a hands-on class than trying it on our own. We totally did and we had a great time. 

I am in love with the door handles at Ramekins. 

They have a beautiful facility. In addition to the culinary school, Ramekins hosts weddings and other events and is an inn. The courtyard area is gorgeous and the perfect place to wait for our class to start. 

Our class started at 3:00 pm. There were 18 students, one main chef-instructor, Linda Carucci (affiliate link), and three assistant chef-instructors. When we came in, the room was set with 18 chairs along one wall. Raised tables were pushed together in the center of the room, with 18 cutting boards set on them. There was a large mirror over the demonstration workspace, and cameras over the stovetop connected to monitors. 

I sat dead-center, but all of the seats had a good view of everything. After introductions, Linda did some demonstrations, including how to make focaccia. Not only could we watch directly and via the mirror, but the assistants brought everything around for a closer look.

They also passed around flours and doughs so we could feel the textures, and a commercial version of something we'd be making so we could taste it.

After the demonstrations were over, we each took a spot at one of the cutting boards. At our first station, Steve and I made ring-shaped taralli, which would become a crispy snack after they were boiled and baked.   

This is what they looked like after boiling and before baking.

At our second station, we made panzerotti, which are fried triangular pockets of pizza dough with mozzarella and tomato sauce inside. Think calzone, but smaller and deep-fried. 

At our final station, we made two pasta shapes: cavatelli ("little hollows") and orecchiette ("little ears"). It was a lot of fun.

Finally, when everything was done, we dropped the work tables down and rearranged them to make a large banquet table. Soon, the wine was flowing and we got to enjoy everything we'd cooked.

Everything was absolutely delicious. 

We had such a great time at Ramekins! If you're local (or will be visiting the Sonoma area), I'd definitely recommend looking into a taking a class there. Thanks to my inlaws for the chance to do this! I have a feeling we'll be back. 

First Day of 7th Grade

Oh, how the time flies! How can we be halfway through 7th grade already?!

First Day of 7th Grade (affiliate link)

In the journaling, I wrote out Trevor's schedule, including the starting and ending bell times. I  wish I'd done on the page about the first day of 6th grade. Fortunately, I haven't done the page about his 6th grade year (just the one for the first day), so I'll include it there. I think it's something Trevor will enjoy looking back on years from now.