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Larger sticks than the usual small lollipop stick are not excessive once you have the weight of the coating on it.

It’s ok to just bake them in the molds.

When they come out of the molds looking like planets, trim the excess with a kitchen scissors. ?

If it doesn’t say it’s almond bark on the package, forget about it. I’m looking at you, Candiquik. ? Related, Safeway does not carry almond bark.

Start with a small amount of almond bark without any shortening. Dip the sticks and insert into the cake ball. Chill in refrigerator.

Add shortening to the almond bark or the coating will be way too thick. The package we had (Walmart brand) said 1 tablespoon per package.

Don’t dip the pops. Spoon the coating over them. Twist and tap lightly to remove excess.

Gel food coloring will seize almond bark before you get it to anything deeper colored than pastel.

Sprinkles make great simple decorations but make sure they’re age appropriate. Some of them can be too hard for little ones, like the round discs.

If you want to drizzle for decoration, use a piping bag with a smaller tip than you would think. I ended up using the smallest one I had for the yellow, which was slightly thinned candy melts.

Last night we got a new kitten. Rue hates it. He’s super sweet and chill and into everything – everything Rue is not. 🙂 His name is still pending full personality assessment!

 

The last two months has been absolutely insane. I put in my notice for May 25th to start a new job a little over 1,600 miles away on June 25th – so tomorrow!

Continue reading “A new chapter begins :)”

This is pretty much how both of us felt about today. ? I did get some cleaning done though!

Once a math nerd, always a math nerd. 🙂 Today I am grateful for my cousin for making this pie for Thanksgiving a couple years ago – and sharing the recipe. It’s been supporting my bad habit of making my pi day pie after I get home from work for two years running. I decided to make it with graham cracker crust too for added simplicity and I think I almost prefer it that way!

http://www.confessionsofacookbookqueen.com/sugar-cream-pie-recipe/

Of course pi day isn’t just about pie! I used to show this clip to my students, although way back then I had to cut down my own since it wasn’t popular enough yet. 🙂

This was shared by a friend on Slack this morning and it had been far too long since I’d last read it.

 

 

 

I decided a little over a year ago that I’d finally found the Android phone I’d been waiting for when the Pixel came out but I was trying to be frugal. It’s hard to beat the continued edge discount after the phone has been paid off. 😀 However, after 3 years and 1 month my time with iPhone 6 is done. I caved. I don’t need that stress in my life haha.

I’d say I’ll miss you, but so far the only thing I’ve missed are appropriately scaled slackmojis. Suddenly everything just integrates.

Much to my consternation I agreed to participate in a hackathon this weekend. Why give up my last free weekend before school? I’m not really sure, but I’d gotten a bug about learning some new things and trying them out. Since I’d been flying through some udemy courses I figured I’d force myself to apply some of that. Several times at points of extreme frustration I thought, “I’d so much rather be watching netflix or making myself a fun hoodie.” I don’t like waiting to do things, certainly not for several hours under tight deadlines for reasons that should be under the team’s control. But I digress. My objective here is not to talk about my hackathon experience. Instead, I’ll talk about something that is crucial for a great team project as a reflection on all of my group projects for work and school.

At the core of everything, having a good leader for a project can make or break your success.

Continue reading “Team Leadership”