When all else fails...go to Target

So my fashion sense is a lot about the simple and easy stuff. I wear flip flops almost every day, otherwise I have my Nikes and for special occasions I have black heels. I always wear yoga pants or jeans. Typically my shirt is covered by a Juicy jacket and then hair is either straight or in a bun. Nothing frilly. Nothing out of the box. Just simple and easy. BUT lately colored pants are in and I love them. I don't want the yellow or the red or even the dark blue..I wanted something different. MINT GREEN. 

Mint green pants are all over Pinterest but no where in stores. It took me forever of looking but I found a pair online for $175. Not happening. If it was pants that I wear every day, then yes, but a fashion trend pair of pants that won't be in style next season...not happening. Then I found a pair for $75 but they didn't fit right and just...no. So I kept looking...and looking...and..looking. Finally, I kind of gave up. So the other day, I went to Target for cat litter. Now the number one rule of Target: if you're there, you just have to look around at everything else. So I did. Found a candle. Some nail polish...and MINT GREEN PANTS! For $22 I might add! I was stoked. Not only that, but they were designed for "curvier legs and butts" clearly, we were a match made in heaven. I LOVE them.

I would post a picture of them but I have already worn them so much that they are in the wash, getting ready for our next day together.

Passport to Communication

So, like I said in my last post..Comm Week is upon us. I had my presentation (that I brought cheater treats for). That day everyone walked to the other writing consultants and I with a paper passport to get stamps. It was our way of encouraging them to participate. Well, I have to say that these passports were pretty cool...guess who made them? Me! Well, Monica printed them but with the help of Pinterest, I designed them. See, I have seen people pin "Passport Invitation's" for weddings so I searched for them in Pinterest and found this template.

It was perfect. I downloaded it, changed the picture to our Communications Studies logo and then took out all the marriage stuff.

Unfortunately, I never got a picture of the actual passport once it was done and printed.

But...I'll tell you all about it. It was designed so that you fold the paper in half twice and then everything should be laid out perfectly. So the front page says "PASSPORT"  has the SJSU COMM logo and then under it in a scripted writing it says "SJSU COMM WEEK WRITING CONSULTANTS" because they were all coming to see us.

On the inside it looks very similar to a passport or even a license with a spot for a picture on the left (we used that for their stamps) then above it in lettering similar to the block letters on our paper money it says "UNITED STATES OF COMMUNICATION." Under that it has spaces for students to put their name, year in school, major, and Professor. It also is filled out for them where it says School: San Jose State University, Date: May 2012 and Event: Comm Week

Overall, I loved it. It was nice to see one of my Pinterest projects in action with people that aren't just me!

Cheating, but effective

Ok, so my entire life, if there was a bake sale or anything that required baked goods, my mom would always bake home made chocolate chip cookies. I always thought this was standard and then I started to realize that some parents take the easy way out with buying things or...rice cereal treats. Maybe it is because I really am not a big fan of cereal treats but I always thought that they were getting credit for a baked good when all they did was mix marshmallows with cereal. Well, someone pinned this the other day. It looks amazing huh?

They are cereal treats made with Trix fruity swirl cereal. Now...I am not big on fruity cereal or cereal treats but they just look yummy.

Well this week is COMM Week. I am a Communications Studies major and my class is giving a presentation during it (mine is on this blog!) so I decided that I would make something from Pinterest for the presentation...with my crazy schedule..good idea, huh? Well, that is what cheating is for. Taking the easy way out. That is what I did. I went to the store, bought cereal and marshmallows, used butter from my mom and my dads baking sheet...

Then melted the marshmallows and butter...mixed with cereal...TA-DA

Now, mine isn't nearly as nice as the ones that were pinned but they are effective!

So going back to my original theory. Cereal treats are cheating..yes..because they are wayyyyy too easy BUT they are effective.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

Ok, now, honestly, who doesn't love Harry Potter? I remember being in the 4th grade when I first heard of it. This is when the books started to be banned from schools because parents didn't approve of the magic in it. Stupid. Anyways, for that reason, I wanted to read it. I became obsessed. I went to midnight book releases and read them all in a matter of days when it took my friends weeks. Well..then the movies started to come out. I remember rushing home from school and to the theater on opening day thinking, oh lets be like..20 minutes early. Yeah..that put us at like 60th in line. Now days, it would have put you at like 200th in line depending on the theater. Anyways, movies were as good as the books.

Harry Potter Series = Obsession at its finest.

Now there are no more books and no more movies. I literately had been obsessing over this for a little over a decade..that is almost half my life. Soooo...now what?

Well this is where Pinterest comes in. Now I have the idea of not only watching the movies but making a point out of them. Harry Potter movie time is now workout time. Don't think I watch these all the time, I am not that obsessed. But they are on ABC Family like once a month and they are kind of my go to movies when there is nothing else to watch.

Anyways here is the Harry Potter workout. One of my friends created this and then pinned it. I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I have seen drinking games made from movie watching but never have I seen workout games. So my friend Jenna (who is equally obsessed) came over and we decided to do the Harry Potter workout to the first movie.

It was NOT easy.

You don't really realize when watching it how many times some of these things occur..like casting spells or or someone is awarded house points...or even when a ghost talks...it happens a lot.
Needless to say, I got a good workout out of it!

Clothes

Let me start by saying that as I write this my situation is something like this:

Now, my cat is MUCH larger and while he is adorable...he is not nearly this cute, therefore it's more obnoxious than it is cute. 

If for some reason there is a few extra letters anywhere..I blame the cat.

Moving on. Today, I woke up and decided to not wear my typical yoga pants. The weather is warm and I can get by without a jacket or sweatshirt. Soooo...why not wear a pinned outfit!?! Here is my outfit goal:

Now, I chose this because it was simple, cute and easy. I made a few substitutes but who cares. Instead of capri jeans, I wore my full length jeans with a brown belt. Then I found my white t-shirt and my leopard scarf. I LOVE this scarf but my boyfriend tends to call it a "grandma scarf" when I asked why he replied "because it fringes at the end..and its brown like a grandma's color." Clearly, this has not deterred me from wearing this amazing scarf. Moving on, I am not a big bracelet person so I nixed that. My navy Dooney & Bourke purse is my obsession so I didn't change it. My shoes? That's easy, I wear flipflops every day anyways. The hair was last. I am well known for always wearing a messy bun just like the one in the picture. So I pulled it up and done!

Please ignore my sour face. I was concentrating on getting as much of the outfit in the picture.

Simple but perfect

Ok, so let's flash back a decade or so. My parents have been divorced for forever basically and my dad is well...messy. He owns his own car dealership/shop so he is always covered in grease, working long hours, and his home isn't exactly his priority. Because of all this I have never been as comfortable at my dads as I am at my moms, which is decorated nicely, ALWAYS clean and is just generally nicer. Now don't get me wrong, I love my dad and I love spending time with him, his place was just never as nice.

Fast forward to Summer 2009. My dad had a stroke. A big one. Sad, but he came out ok. Actually, the doctors said he made a miraculous recovery; the only downfall is that he lost too much eyesight to be comfortable driving. So we moved him to a extremely nice apartment near his business so he can walk there and I do all of his shopping (grocery, Costco, etc) since his vision makes crowded places overwhelming. Recently, we moved him from a one bedroom to a two bedroom apartment so that I have a place to stay. This new apartment has been my new project. I have been cleaning it, decorating it, cleaning it, organizing it and making it nice. Have I mentioned cleaning it?

Anyways, this is where the Pin that I used comes in. Finally, huh?
I needed a way to keep all of the receipts that I bring back organized. He normally pays me ahead of time and then I put the change and receipt in a bowl that he left on the counter. In the revamp of his apartment, I have tried to get around this stupid bowl. I rather there be fruit or something in it so it looks pretty but how could I make receipts look pretty? This is how!

 

Simple but perfect, huh!? I like to think so.

So I went to Target and spent something like...$7 or so on a jar. Filled it with all of the receipts. And TA-DA!

Now in this picture there are clearly not enough receipts but it's a start!

Like this post is titled this pin was "Simple but perfect"

Braids..Kid approved.

Braids. Such a classic idea, right? But they are so popular right now and are taking up a whole new trend. Side braids, waterfall braids, Dutch braids, but I am not a terrific braid-er, so all these trends are kind of hard for me. I like them but I have SO MUCH hair. It is long and thick which makes it ridiculously hard to work with. 

Normally, I would see maybe one person wear a cute braid, think about it and then never try it. Now days, there is Pinterest. Like I've said before, I love Pinterest but it really does tend to make you feel inadequate about yourself. How do all these people do all these things!? It isn't fair. Every time I update my page, there are new braids that are even harder than before.

I have tried all of these trends but I will get halfway through my braid and my arms are so tired that they feel like they are going to fall off. Then I found this pin. It was easyyyyy and I love easy! It had a step-by-step guide that I could follow and BAM! Success!

Instead of teasing my hair and leaving it down, I put my hair up in a ponytail and went to work. Instantly, my gymnasts were impressed. You might be thinking, “Ok, so a bunch of little girls think it’s cool, who cares?” well, you don’t know how judgmental these girls can be. I have been told many things that if adults said, they would be offensive but the closest thing I got to a negative comment was, “Coach Bianca, you are only braiding your hair because of The Hunger Games. No one cared about braids until that movie came out.” Now, this girl, was in middle school so she was old enough to know how to push my buttons. Let me state here and now, if I wanted a “Katnis braid” I would have done one, this is a braided headband. Overall, the girls liked it, so it was approved and I felt good. Braid = Accomplished.

No more catching up! This is my first "real" post for this blog

You read the title! That's right! I do not have any more stories to catch up on. Nothing else has been eaten by that stupid blog website. Now I can start doing some of my Pinterest projects again and start writing about them! Yayyyy.



Well, I started off easy. Nails. I have never been great at doing my nails and constantly all I can think of is:




I hate it! Like, one of my friends pins nail designs all the time, I actually repinned all these pictures from her board. She thinks that she is terrible doing her nails but honestly, her being terrible looks like the best self manicure that I have ever seen. Because ...

Anyways, I chose this design to try because it seemed simple enough. Grey with sparkles at the tips.

I didn't have the exact color/brand in the picture (OPI) but I did have my own shade of grey and my own sparkles. I think that it gave me a little of my own flare.

Ok, so here was my process.


I started with my bare nails. They were hideous. Jagged. Uneven. Dirty. Just ick. 

 So I filed them, cleaned them, and made them look uniform.

Then I chose my colors...As you can see, organization in nail polish is not something that I am strong in. Hey! Maybe I can find a nail polish organization pin and then do it!!! So I dug through my bucket for a while before I found the colors that I liked..

 This is what I resulted with. A buffer to even out the uneven surface of my nail. A base coat to fill in the roughness. My clear coat to seal it. My color and my sparkle.

 My color was a purpley grey and then I had rainbow sparkles. It is not as sophisticated as the light grey and silver sparkles from my inspiration, but this was more fun..and more me!

 My first few steps the cleaning and filing started to show once I buffed my nails and put the base coat on!

Here is my final product. This is a terrible picture but it was the best one that I was able to take. 

Overall, I was satisfied. I got great comments from co-workers and the gymnasts that I coach. I think that it was fun and definitely gave me something to do. BUT I don't know how people do this all the time. Every time I see someone with extravagant nail designs that they did themselves, it just makes me wonder how much time they spent? Because this took me over an hour and mine was a simple design.

Dear Pinterest,

Once again, please let me say, I wrote this a while ago...attempted to post it to the original blog..that clearly didn't work.. and am now posting it to this one. Enjoy.

"Dear Pinterest, Please change your terms or I'm leaving."

I came across this pin and was instantly intrigued. Before I read it, I had to think: what are Pinterest's terms and conditions. And honestly, who actually reads anyone's terms and conditions?! Terms and conditions tend to be annoying and irrelevant..at least to me. Then, it made me think of this terrible South Park episode that I saw about how people never read terms and conditions (I won't go into detail, it was kind of gross. Check it out if you want)...but that reminded me..WHO READS THIS!? Eventually, I calmed down and assumed, this is someone's job. They make these terms and conditions for someone to read, so therefore I guess someone must be reading them.

After my mental tangent, I realized, I was still interested in this. Why should Pinterest change their terms and conditions? Well, let me say, if this article is true, they should!

The "article" turned out to be somone's blog who was blogging about this..I am dying to know where this person found the information or if they actually read the terms and conditions...anyways. In all, Pinterest accepts no responsibility for anything. This website encourages you to pin anything from any website but they do not want you to pin things to self promote. Therefore, you shouldn't pin your own accomplishments or your own blog.

This is fine. Whatever. But then you read on. Pinterest does not protect you from any copy write issues regarding what you pin. The way this blogger laid it out is basically:

"

1. You pin a picture of a cat without permission.
2. Pinterest sells it to ABC Marketing.
3. ABC Marketing prints it on kitty litter boxes.
4. Cat picture owner sees kitty litter box in store and calls lawyer.
5. Lawyer calls Pinterest.
6. Pinterest calls you.
7. Bad things happen. "

Now, the blogger admits to not being a lawyer and not really knowing how this will work, but I read what she researched and I am kind of on the same page. I mean in all truths, the likeliness of this happening is slim to none but it is still kind of risky. So by everyone repinning this picture and the link to this story, hopefully Pinterest will fix the problem or provide an explanation.  I hope to hear an update sometimes soon!



 Check it out for yourself!

http://www.knoed.com/thewindowseat/pinterest-change-your-terms-or-were-leaving/ 

The "Lean Leg Pyramid"

Ok. This week, I did an exercise that I found on Pinterest. There are tons of people who repin exercises. These exercises are all from different websites and tend to be a little all over the place. Personally, I would never replace an entire workout with one of these “daily workouts” because most of them only focus on one body part or are WAY to simple to make a difference. The one that I chose to do is a pyramid; I chose this because it gives you two sets because once you do the pyramid from top to bottom, you do it again from bottom to top. I chose to do a legs only pyramid (which I did in conjunction with my abs and arm workout).

So it starts with 20 squats and ends with 100 jumping jacks. I did this workout at the beginning of my entire workout so my body was not as warm as I would have wanted it to be. Looking back, I definitely should have gone from the bottom to the top and then from the top to the bottom. This would have allowed my body to warm up more before I got started.  When it came to the lunges, I wish it would have specified whether it was 30 total or 30 on each leg. I guess that is up to each individual person. The toe touches threw me off just a little bit. I am a cheerleader and a toe touch is a type of jump; then in my exercise world, a toe touch is a workout for your abs. I eventually figured that I would bend down, touch my toes, and jump. I know that this was definitely not what they meant, but it was hard and was a good workout.

Overall, this is a pretty good leg routine. I enjoyed adding it to my routine and definitely will again. I think that the numbers were kind of just put together and were not really what I would normally do. If I had any complaint about it, it would be that it only worked a few muscles when I really like a workout to work a large range of muscles.

So, luckily the post above was one of the ones that was lost when on my other blog BUT I found that I had typed a few of them on Word and saved them before I attempted to post them. I did this exercise on the second week of my blog and I really am dying to do it again, but I recently found out that I have a stress fracture and am not allowed to do jumping jacks or lunges, etc. I currently am looking for another leg workout on Pinterest that I am able to do.

Zoku

 Now, remember that everything that I have done over the past few weeks was deleted, so I am trying to backtrack a little and fill you in on what I have done that was lost. So here was one of my other weeks:

Christmas time, I bought my parents a Zoku. Zoku is a frozen pop maker that is fun, quick and easy. You can have your own popsicle in 6-8 minutes. When I bought it at William and Sonoma in Los Gatos, the lady at the register said it was their number one selling item at the time and that everyone seemed to love it. I was really excited to give it to my parents and my mom loved it. Then, she never used it. She put the tub in the freezer to get it ready and then forgot about it. Eventually, I dabbled with it and tried a few simple fruit juice pops but recently I have come across an abundance of recipes for Zoku pops on Pinterst ranging from simple to extremely intricate and thought that I would try one. At least one of the more simple ones.

So here it goes, an Orange Cream-sicle. It is a super simple recipe with just two ingredients: orange juice and vanilla yogurt.

Step 1.

Make sure you tub is frozen.

The way that Zoku works is they give you a tub that has the shape of the popsicles and you freeze the entire tub (make sure it gets to 0 degrees) and that is what freezes the pops so quickly.

Step 2.

Make your mix.

I used Odwala orange juice and Brown Cow vanilla yogurt. And stirred them together in a measuring cup for easy pouring.

Step 3.

Pour your mix into the tub.

Self explanatory…I hope.

Step 4.           

Wait.

Ugggggghhhhhh. Patience is not my strong suit, especially when it is not a super long period of time. 6-8 minutes is an awkward length of time, not long enough to go actually do and accomplish anything but too long to sit and stare at it..

Step 5.            

Twist out and enjoy.

I liked this part.

Overall, it went really well. They were amazing and so easy to make. I honestly wish that I got my parents the large size (I got them the 2 pop maker, but they come in 1 and 3 pop makers as well).  Luckily, the way the tub works, you can make up to 3 batches…and I did. 6 pops total. Not all for me, I promise.

Hi, my name is Bianca and I'm a pinoholic.

Pinterest. What is it? There are so many people who are obsessed with this website but there are just as many who don’t even know what it is. 

 

  defines itself as:

"Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.

Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes."

One happy Pinner found a cute picture to describe Pinterest:

In my world, Pinterest is an addiction. It allows me to find all these great pictures, ideas and recipes. I am an avid pinner of clothing, wedding finds, crafts, exercises, inspiration, and home decorating ideas. The problem with Pinterest is it’s increasing ability to make me feel inadequate about my own clothing, lack of wedding, inability to create crafts, inability to exercise, lack of inspiration, and no home to decorate. In all,  I am writing this blog to force myself to complete at least a few of the projects that I have pinned.

So, how does it work? When joining Pinterest, you first have to be “invited” to join. You can tell them that you wanted to be invited or have a friend invite you. To me this seems like they are trying to make it feel exclusive but really it is pretty inconvenient. After you have an account, you can follow all of your friends from Facebook and see what they are pinning. Pinning means that you like something, so you “pin” it to one of your boards (which you can title whatever you want) and it is basically like a bulletin board where you pin pictures up. But since it is online, these pictures can link you to recipes or directions or whatever. Now, you can also add a Pin It button to your internet toolbar. This way you can pin whatever you want from any website rather than just repining what your friends have pinned.

Hyperbole and a Half, the blog, created this cute picture to describe the way you start pinning:

 

This is why I moved to this website from my old blog

I am so frustrated. So let me say, I have written 3 weeks worth of blogs plus 1 week of an intro blog and never really bothered to click “view post” and today I did…Nothing I wrote exists. Nothing. It just isn’t there.  Everyone always says that everything you put online will stay there forever, apparently not when you want it to.

Now, I must start over. Completely. In this new blog, on a new site, that I am more comfortable with.