Pinterest Project 4-6 = Epic Fail?

Um. . . the final Pinterest Projects didn't quite turn out the way I wanted to.

First of all, I am surprised I even completed three (and let's not forget the small side projects I did in addition to the larger ones--they have to count for something right?), I mean I was deprived of chocolate and full of hope and inspiration and pretty, pretty pins.

Pinterest Project 4: Glitter Eggs = Fail

The Lady did make one glitter egg. We squeezed a little glue on it and rolled it around in a plastic baggy. Pretty creative huh? Also, half the bag ended up on the Little Lady's lap and the rest on the floor.

Pinterest Project 5: I got nothing here. Would you settle for a photo of goldfish crackers poured into a carrot shaped baggie and placed gently in an Easter basket? No? No worries, I didn't even take a pic of it. Ugh. Big Fail.

Pinterest Project 6: Easter Egg Cake Pops
This was to be the pinnacle of the Pinterest Project. I have seen a lot of cake pop pins out there. The only time I ever had them were at a birthday party of a friend's daughter last summer. They were super cute and very yummy, but they seemed kind of complicated and I had yet to be bit by the Pinterest bug. Little did I know that all you had to do was bake a cake, let it cool, mix in some frosting, shape into little balls or in this case eggs, dip in candy coating and voila. . .

Original Pin

Source: modernfoodie.blogspot.ca via Aileen on Pinterest

So, I bought three bags of pastel colored candy disks, some lollipop sticks and entirely too much yellow cake.

I should have known that I might be in over my head when the spoon I was using to mix in the frosting broke off in the bowl.

The Lady and I decided to take things into our own hands. Don't worry, I made sure she didn't put her hands back in the bowl after she started to lick her fingers.

We rolled the cake/frosting mixture out into egg shapes and placed on parchment. In hindsight these were probably too big.

Also, not long after this photo was taken, the Lady fell asleep on the couch. She joined her already sleeping siblings. Usually, this would be a wonderful time of the day for me, but not only was it 4:30 in the afternoon--so bedtime was going to be a huge ordeal, but I was stuck microwaving candy disks on the defrost setting at 30 seconds a clip.

Close up of the cake pop pre-dip

So the first couple of cake pops actually turned out ok. I made special care to pre-dip the lollipop sticks so that they would stay in the cake.

I got through the yellow candy coating pretty well and a few of my eggs even came out looking like the original pin.

Things started falling apart after that. I am not sure if the cake balls were too big or I didn't put enough candy on the stick, or if I didn't dip them deep enough into the coating. (Does this sentence seem like it is drifting into "mommy porn" territory or am I not understanding the full definition of that? I haven't yet read "Fifty Shades of Grey")

Anyway, things literally started to fall apart. . .

By the time I got to the pink candy coating, things seemed a bit desperate. It seems that even though the lollipop stick wasn't able to stay in the pop, anything else that came in contact with it was affixed with super glue like strength. I am pretty sure I could have scooped this stuff on top of a construction helmet and hung myself from the closest I-beam.

Also, it wasn't easy to clean.

Well, I had come this far. I had a few salvageable cake pops, a sink full of caked on candy and enough nonpareil sprinkles under foot to give me the confidence to finish this Pinterest Project

So, I grabbed the flower pot I found at Michael's for about $4. Stuffed it with the foamy thing (yes, it's technical name is Foam Mousse--but foamy thing works for me) and proceeded to make the best damn cake pop Easter Egg flower arrangement ever!

The final product!

I bypassed the fake grass and shoved in the only available thing I could find that was green. I guess I should be more upset that only two people actually ate the cake pops, but I am pretty proud of some of my Pinterest Projects and am feeling much better now that I have ripped through a bag and a half of peanut M&Ms.

Button Bursting Black Pants or How I was Saved by my Own Laziness

The button on my pants broke off mid-morning as I was sitting at my desk. I would like to be clear, that the button itself was actually broken, as in cracked, and that it was not entirely due to the fact that perhaps my body still retains a bit of the baby weight.

Also, the zipper had kind of been busted on these pants for a while, so every time I wore them (like every other day) I was devoting a lot of time and energy to spot checking my fly in order to make sure I was securely zipped up.

So, what do you do when a button breaks off your pants and the zipper that might actually be able to keep your pants up is damaged?

Two words. Binder clip.

These things seem pretty strong, and I have like a hundred in various shapes and sizes on my desk. But alas, even the big guy didn't end up working to keep these pants together.

If I actually just sat at my desk all day this probably wouldn't be a problem. Would it be inconvenient? Yes. Would it be super comfortable? Also yes.

However, I actually have to get up and move around pretty frequently, so the half-assed binder clip solution wasn't going to work.

Luckily, I was saved by my own laziness.

Since, I don't have a ton of time to get to the dry cleaners near my house, I decided to use a dry cleaner closer to the office so that I could drop off and pick up things at lunch. I dropped off some clothes last Monday. They were ready last Wednesday. Now, had I not decided to skip over this errand for over a week, perhaps this button incident would have found me at my old friend Old Navy, picking up a pair of stop-gap black pants, but instead it found me picking up a pair of newly cleaned and newly tailored, perfectly fitting black pants while trying to hid the fact that my fly was so far open that it looked like I was channeling some background dancer in a rap video, with my short short button fly jean shorts turned down over my belly.

Broken buttons . . . one more reason to quit my job and go back to wearing yoga pants. 

Egg Head: Why Yes, That is My Profile Pic

So, as some of you may have noticed, there have been a few changes on the Three Bean. I have created a fb page specific to my blog. Go ahead, click right on the "like it" button over on the left, or click on the fb button to bring you to my page. Come on, I know you want to. . .

I have also joined Twitter. Now, I am still not 100% sure what I am supposed to be tweeting, but I am hoping it will increase readership and draw some traffic to the site. However, I do have a two issues with it.

1. Beyond linking to a new post and unintentionally retweeting something from the Yankees about my boyfriend, Andy Pettite, I haven't really posted anything.

2. I have no profile photo. Apparently on Twitter, it is like the kiss of death if you just have the default "egg" photo as your profile picture.

Basically, it is lazy. And it is kind of anti-social networking. It is hard to promote yourself if people can't get a visual. 

I want to put a profile pic up, I just haven't done it yet. Initially, I was hoping to put up a logo for the blog, but since I haven't gotten around to getting it created yet that isn't going to happen (but it is on the to-do list). So, partially it does come down to laziness, the other issue, and perhaps the one most responsible for my still-egg-persona is that I have no photos of myself that are even remotely usable.

I think it is a cop-out to post a pic of my kids. Are they cute? I think so. Do I have thousands, upon thousands of photos of them at my disposal? Yes. But I am the driving force behind this blog and the "face" of this brand, so I do think the photo should be a shot of my mug.

The problem is twofold.

1. I don't have a ton of photos of myself because I am usually the one taking them. Any photo I actually like is more than two years old and even though people misrepresent themselves on the Web all the time, I think a more recent photo would be a better representation of me at this point in my life. 

2. Any recent photos of me have been taken by my kids on my phone. 

Please see below for those lovely gems.

This one was taken by the Lady. Note the breast pump in the background and the sheer look of exhaustion on my face. This was when QT was about three months old and there was no sleep to be had. I don't even think Instagram could save this one.

Here is another photo. This one was taken by the Little Lady. There I am in the background, behind QT and his incredibly red cheeks. Not sure this one will make the cut.

 

Finally, there is this one. I can't remember if this was also taken by the Little Lady or if I just took it myself. Obviously, I would have to crop out the Lady. I did consider this photo for about 10 seconds and then I became distracted by my front tooth, which looks really snaggled. In real life there is a bit of a tilt to it, but nothing that extreme. I dare you, try to look away now. Also, I feel like my nose looks weird. The one saving grace is that it is blurry enough to hide small wrinkles and I don't have a double chin.

I am not kidding that these are the only photos I have. I can get my husband to take some pictures when he gets back from his trip, but the whole process of that is too much for me to think about. He will tell me that he can't take a good picture, then I will say that anything is fine, when in reality it isn't. . . you get the (for lack of a better word) picture.

I guess I will have to spend some quality time with the self-photo feature on my phone and hope for the best. I mean I can't spend the rest of my life as an egg.

If you are at all interested in following me on Twitter, I can be found @the3bean.

Lottery Loser

Well not only did I not win the largest Mega Millions lottery jackpot ever, I also lost the kindergarten lottery.

You would have thought that the universe could have evened things out for me. I mean, if I wasn't going to rake in millions upon millions of dollars for plunking down five bucks at a Shell station and letting the Quick Pick machine spit out a ticket for me, at least I could have gotten the Lady into the school I was hoping for.

No such luck.

The Lady and I will be going to orientation at her districted school on Monday morning, we will see how it goes.

I will say that after I told the Lady the names of the two possible schools she might be attending next year, she told me she wanted to go to the districted school--apparently it is the last name of one of the boys in her class who she always talks about and who had a kick-ass gymnastics party that the Lady would like to recreate for her own birthday along with incorporating both an Angry Birds and Barbie theme.

This was the deciding factor for her, so I guess I should be happy that she at least got what she wanted.

Posts about how I am going crazy over the thought of the Lady's bus ride, the transition to full-day kindergarten, and all other things associated with sending your first born off to "real" school--to follow sometime late summer/early fall.

Until then, I have to pick up some last minute Easter items and figure out how I am going to cram three Pinterest Projects into the next couple of days.