I have no time!

Okay I don't really have time for a real blog post...I'm sorry. :( I've been wanting to blog this week, but I've just been way too busy. Now I'm leaving for Extreme Weekend in about an hour, so I don't have time now either. It looks like it's going to be raining all weekend, so that should be interesting!

So, I leave you with some videos for the weekend and I'll try to blog either Sunday, Monday, or Wednesday. If I don't have time to then I'll see you all on Thursday. :)

Tim Hawkins on Church


Corporate Worship Songs

A little McDonald's and amusement for Monday :)

So McDonald's has these two new commercials out, promoting the fancy coffees that you can get at the McCafe now...basically they're making fun of Starbucks and similar trendy coffee places.

In looking around online for these I found out that apparently people are rather upset by these! I like Starbucks and I doubt I'd actually buy a coffee at McDonald's, but personally I think the ads are pretty funny! But people are complaining that the ads are offensive to hip, trendy people, and the women's ad is demeaning to women...of course they're mainly getting upset about that one.

Being neither a feminist or trendy myself, I say enjoy the commercials! :) They amuse me, although I think the guys' one is funnier...."I can shave this thing off my face!!!"

"Hipsters"-the guys' commercial

"Intellectuals"-the women's commercial

I was going to post the videos on here, but they're too wide and resizing just crops them. So just follow the links.

Two things...

One, I realized that in my post about dancing I wrote, I don't know how many paragraphs, and then said "Suffice to say"...which obviously it didn't!!! So, maybe kind of the wrong use of that phrase. :)

Two, I was looking at the library's online catalog yesterday to see if I could find books or other stuff about contra dancing and searching on "contra" got me lots of things about the Iran-Contra Affair...and I rather got the giggles picturing a bunch of Iranians contra dancing... :p Yes, I know all of you are shaking your heads and sighing. And yes, I know that's not what the Iran-Contra Affair was about. (I found one book and a CD of music, btw.)

Have a good Saturday! I'm taking lots and lots of stitches out my apron I'm sewing...woo-hoo. :(

Banished

Mac vs. PC

Complete and utter randomness and excitement

Sorry, no order to any of these things, just stuff I'm thinking about or doing. I really should be knitting right now actually. :)

• Pobre tomate! :( And she doesn't act like Mrs. Bennet really. I don't think I've ever seen anyone in person actually act like Mrs. Bennet. :p ...but I suppose Jane Austen must have. Scary thought...

• I think I've figured out the inspiration for the Harris brothers' book "Do Hard Things"...since I have a little brother I can see that they were probably told very often growing up that they could (and needed to) do hard things! :p Colin's in first grade this year...
  

• This is the best hair clip ever!

It's the octopus clip. I'd seen lots of ladies wearing these and now I see why these clips are so popular...this is the greatest clip for putting your hair up! I can't usually pin my hair into a bun even though it's long enough, because it has layers. The clip holds all of the hair in place though! Thanks to Colin for the photo. :)

• I have about 10 days to finish up my stuff for the fair...I need to weave the ends in on my afghan and knit the sleeves on my sweater. I gave up on the paper mache pear...more on that some other time.
  

• My apron is giving me problems...I cannot get the trim sewn on properly...I think I'm going to have to hand-sew it. :( Not good.
  

• It's getting cool outside! Hurrah!

• Camp's next weekend?!
  

• My driver's license photo is very scary (sorry, that was really random...my wallet's sitting on the desk next to me).

• Sometime between now and next weekend I need to find time to go to Target.

• And this next item is really too long to be a bullet point, so it will just be a proper paragraph (or several) at the end of this...

I go to work and I miss things. And being an oldest child, I don't do well with not knowing what's going on! Even if it's something as simple as "we're going to Costco tomorrow night"...I miss any discussion of it or anything and it's complete news to me. Which is not a big deal, I don't need to know ahead of time when we're going to Costco, but I feel disoriented when I don't know what's going on.

All that to say that I missed part of an adventure yesterday while I was at work, so I did actually miss something somewhat important.

I got a text message from Mom mid-morning telling me that I was missing all the fun; that Gracie (one of our two cats) had brought a lizard inside and it was now under the piano and not coming out, while Gracie paced around howling.

Wow! Okay, so Gracie has this thing about lizards...we didn't know we had so many lizards around here until we had her. She plays with them, um, eats them, and she seems fascinated that their tails come off without much harm to them. Most of the lizards we have around here are blue-tailed skinks , but they're generally not-so-tailed when we see them. Anyway, apparently Colin let her in to the kitchen yesterday and she got in and dropped the lizard that she was hiding in her mouth, at which point Colin lost his head and started hopping all over the kitchen squeaking about the lizard while Gracie looked mad that he was scaring her toy. The lizard then apparently decided to get out of there and booked it for the piano (why the piano I don't know...maybe it could tell that was the only place the cat probably couldn't reach him). So anyway, Colin couldn't see the lizard under the piano, so he and Mom just left it until Dad and I could move the piano and look for it. That is, look in the piano and around it and anything but actually move the piano, because I DON'T WANT TO CLEAN UP SQUASHED LIZARD!!! *ahem*

So when Dad and I got home I cleared the books off the piano and got a light and opened the piano and looked under it and in it, and Dad took the front panel off and looked in it...no lizard. Uh-oh. I'm just picturing finding the lizard in my bedroom, or finding it staring at me from the edge of the shower or something. It wouldn't be a big deal, I don't mind lizards, but I'd still not like to be surprised by one.

Then it dawned on me that maybe it was behind the cabinet next to the piano, so I pulled it out from the wall a bit...no lizard. Oh wait, there's a space under the cabinet too! So I pulled it out enough to see under it...oh, hi! The lizard was hiding in the corner farthest from me...unfortunately I couldn't figure out any way to get it out of there. We finally decided to try a yardstick with some duct tape wrapped around it, so Dad and Colin went to look for the duct tape. In the mean time, I lay on my stomach peering under the cabinet and shining the light on the lizard, while it tried to stay in the shadow. Then all the sudden I realized that it was moving away from the light and in the process coming right towards my face! Mom says I said something like "Waaa-ooo, oooh my!" as I got off the floor and out of the way in a split second! :D I somehow managed to quickly flick the lizard onto the rug and roll it up there and then I took it outside. Whew. Lizard disposed of. So I didn't miss the second half of the excitement at least. :)

Dancing!

Okay, I'll just start out by saying that I had tons and tons and TONS of fun last night! :p I went to a contra dance with Amanda and Jessica. It was fun! Oh wait, did I say that already?

Anyway, it didn't take too long to figure it out, Amanda and I went early for the beginners lesson and I had watched some videos on youtube, so those two things helped a lot. The videos helped because I had an idea of what we were going to do, and during the lesson I could learn how to do it. Then when for the first dance, one guy picked me right away and he explained some more and he just talked a whole bunch which helped me relax too! The older guys were really good dancers, so it was easy to dance with them, although they didn't usually swing as fast. :) When I was saying that to my parents last night, my dad rather grumpily asked what I meant by "older"... "Grandpa aged!" I said, "not your age!" :p

So dancing with the older more experienced dancers was fun, but the younger guys were pretty good at it too, and they would swing you fast. Actually one guy ended up picking me up off my feet because he went so fast. He apologized later and told me I was leaning sideways which usually means that you want to go faster, so he obligingly went faster! Okay...I didn't know that, I'll keep that in mind! It was kind of hard to dance with some of the guys because they were too short, including one little kid who was probably about 9 or 10 and only about one half to two-thirds my height! I mean, really, I'm not that terribly tall, I'm 5'7", but it was a lot easier to dance with the taller guys!

I'm very surprised at myself...I usually have a wide personal space and don't stand very close to people even to talk to them, and I'm shy and don't do well meeting new people people, and yet I went and danced with a bunch of people I didn't know...and totally enjoyed it! :p Maybe I'm not as shy anymore as I thought...

It was interesting to see all the different people too, because it was a wide variety. And there was even one guy who was from Illinois originally! ...who didn't know how to waltz anymore. I have no idea how to waltz and he was trying to show me how, but he said he couldn't really remember how to either. Hmm...that might be why this isn't working very well!

It's neat the way everyone all works together to keep the dance going, steering people in the right direction, or telling them where to go, or encouraging them. I was even able to kind of direct some people, or give them a light push in the right direction sometimes...like the one beginner guy who kept going the wrong direction. He also couldn't swing me at all...I understand, especially since it was his first time, but he'd barely put his hand on my back, so we were mostly just walking around in a circle. The older guys were very encouraging, one of the guys was surprised that this was my first time dancing and said I knew how to swing very well. Well, I did think I'd figured out the swings, but then with some people I was tripping over their feet, so I'm not sure if I'm just not dependably good at it, or they were doing something wrong! :) I didn't get dizzy either, except for when I was dancing with one guy who did the swings differently, so I ended up facing out with nothing to focus on.

Some people would talk to you before the dance started, and some wouldn't say anything at all, which was kind of weird. One of the guys who was a beginner too would talk to me if we ended up dancing together, he'd ask if I was figuring it out yet and such. :) And then some of the guys who obviously did know how to dance and were very professional would hardly say anything at all...maybe they don't talk to people they don't know, or just don't talk while they're dancing.

And there was only one guy wearing a skirt... :p My friend Jessica warned me that some of the guys wear skirts, just so I wouldn't be surprised, so that wasn't too bad. Poor Jessica, she's been contra dancing a few times before, but not for a couple years. She told me she kept going the wrong way and then at some point smashed right into some lady! But she was doing pretty good, especially since she got there later and didn't hear the beginners class. I'm glad she was able to come, she'd just gotten her scores back on a test and was disappointed with what she got, so she didn't think she was going to come, but she decided she needed to have fun and not think about the test for a while...and I think the dancing helped her with that.

I think next time I go I would wear my hair up in a bun...I got terribly hot and sweaty, so it would have been more pleasant to have my hair all the way up rather than just in a ponytail. And I also think I'd bring a bigger water bottle and maybe a small towel! And that sounds kind of gross, but everyone was sweating a lot, so it's not really a big deal...unfortunately everyone else was managing to not turn bright red, which is what I do as soon as I get hot. :( And I'd also either put bandaids on my toes ahead of time, or tape them or something, because my outer toes got rubbed and I have a blister on one little toe. Ouch.

Anyway, that's what I did last night and it was lots of fun and now I know how to do an allemande, a ladies chain, a hey, balance (sort of), a swing, a left-hand star, California twirl, promenade, a right and left through, and a circle...and I think that was all? Probably some other things as well...that's the only names I can remember. Oh, and dosido, which is extremely confusing when you're supposed to do it with your "shadow" and you can't remember who that person is! And if you haven't been contra dancing you don't know what I'm talking about, so I'll shut up. :p

Suffice to say, it's very, very fun, and you should try it if there's a dance near you! :)

The one we went to here in Winston is hosted by the Fiddle and Bow Country Dancers, they have a dance every Tuesday at the Vintage Theatre which is a really neat little place. They also have a group on Facebook.

Giveaway Results!!!

And the winner is.... Lauren!













Congratulations Lauren! :) I'll be emailing you with details.

For anyone who's interested, I'll write up the instructions for how to make one of these camera straps, if you sew they're really easy to make. :)

Reminder

Just a reminder that if you want to enter the giveaway for the camera strap, you have until midnight tonight to enter.

I'll be picking a winner using random.org tomorrow and I'll post the winner at 8 AM.

Good luck! :)

Stuff, stuff, stuff.

I don't have to work next Tuesday! That's nice...I have a whole uninterrupted week to get some stuff done. I've been able to get knitting and crocheting done at work while the baby's sleeping, but I can't do any sewing and for some reason I don't do well being interrupted in the middle of my sewing...so even if I sew on a day I'm not working, then I'll be working the next day and it throws me off. So anyway, hopefully I'll be able to get my apron sewn and the paper Mache pear finished.

I'm almost done with my sweater, I just need to knit the sleeves, weave the ends of yarn in and then wash and dry and block it. I'm hoping it shrinks some when I wash and dry it because it's a bit large now. :(












I've only got 6 more rows to go on my afghan!! I've been getting a lot of it done at work and in the car.









One other thing I did at work yesterday though, was I pulled out my notebook and started writing down a packing list for camp. Yes, that's still two weeks away, but I've got to use the time when I have it! :) So I wrote down most of a packing list and then groaned at the size of it...I'm a terrible over-packer even for a weekend. :(
So before I actually pack, I'm going to have to ruthlessly go through that list and take a bunch of stuff off of it. Shoes are one of the things that's giving me trouble. I need a pair of shoes for hiking, but whatever shoes I wear for the canoe trip are going to get wet, so I won't be able to wear them the rest of the weekend, and I was also planning on bringing a pair of flip-flops and one of my pairs of Converse sneakers...that's four pairs of shoes for one weekend! That's crazy! I need to see if I can find out how cold it's going to be up there, because that would settle the flip-flop issue if it's cold up there. *sigh* This would be why I can't get by with a tiny little purse either...over-packing.

Well, with all this time, I should get to work and accomplish a lot! :)

Seven years...really?

I don't really have a whole lot to say about September 11th, but I was just thinking about how long ago it seems, and yet it also doesn't seem like it could possibly be seven years ago.

Colin had just been born the end of July and was a very tiny baby just recently home from the hospital, I had just turned twelve a week before, and it's strange to look back on it all now.

What is most interesting is looking back on the reaction of twelve years from the viewpoint of nineteen. How I think sometimes I didn't quite get the enormity of it all, and yet I also remember crying bitterly and wondering how people could do something like this and feeling so terribly sorry for all those poor people. I remember my mom telling me about it and turning on the TV and calling Dad to tell him about it...and simply thinking "what? why?" and then seeing another plane crash into the WTC. And I remembering hearing about the plane crashing into the Pentagon, and then when I was outside riding bikes with my friend, my reaction when she asked if I'd heard that someone had bombed the Pentagon was, "Yeah, they crashed a whole plane into it!!" As I said, I don't think I really understood sometimes...but at the time that's just how I saw it.

I also remember cutting out the pictures from the newspaper and making a sort of scrapbook with them (I don't have it anymore)...and drawing a picture of the burning towers...I don't know if I still have that. And I started crying every time I heard Alan Jackson's song "Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)". In fact, I need a kleenex now...it is a good song.

Also, true to sinful human nature, as soon as everyone stopped crying, they started blaming and hating. Terrorists, whoever was sending Anthrax, even God for allowing this.

Anyway, seven years...so much has happened since then. I don't think being depressed and dwelling on this tragedy is the proper thing for Christians to do, but it was terrible, and I know the people who lost relatives haven't forgotten...but I do know that those who are Christians have comfort.

Extremes

Um...just a bit overkill, wouldn't you say?













And then the house next to that...I'm not sure if you can really tell from the picture, but from about three feet from the garage door, the driveway slopes very sharply. So if you parked, say a tricycle, past that three feet it would be down in the street in probably 5 seconds or so! :)














And this is...a spider. Obviously.

Giveaway!

Okay, I meant to get this up earlier today (like this morning!) but I slept in and have been running behind all day. :(

Anyway, I mentioned sometime last month that I would do a giveaway in September. So, would anyone like a camera strap? Like this one:

• It will only work with small point-and-shoot type cameras, as it only attaches on one side. So if your camera requires a strap that clips onto either side of the camera, this won't work.
• This strap is 30 inches long, and the loop you attach it to the camera with is 5 inches. I can make the strap longer or shorter...and it is an inch wide.
  
• I can make this a wrist strap instead, if you'd rather have that. My camera came with a wrist strap and I didn't ever use it, so a strap long enough to go around my neck is what I needed.

I was looking through my fabrics and I really have quite a few different left-overs you can pick from!












(Click to enlarge)
Left to right:
1: Black w/silvery-gray swirls
2: Light sky-blue with white flowers
3: Navy with white flowers (that really is navy, even though the picture looks black)
4: Light brown with vines
5: Off-white with cherries
6: Burgundy with dark splotches (it's not quite so red, more purple toned)
7: Black fuzzy (I couldn't really photograph this well, so I lightened the picture to show the slight fuzziness)
8: Blue denim (I just realized that this might be rather rough for a strap that's going to be around your neck, but that's up to you)
9: Blue and black plaid
10: Dark red with pattern
11: Purple with black pattern
12: Off-white with black floral pattern
13: Daisies
14: Balls of yarn
15: Pink floral and paisleys crinkle fabric
16: ...you can also get it in the same fabric I made mine out of.

To enter, leave a comment on this post and let me know which fabric you would like the camera strap made from...you can change your mind later if you want. :)

You can enter through September 15th, and I'll draw a winner on the 16th. It may be a while until you get your camera strap if you win, because I'm going to be busy, but I'll make it as soon as I can and it doesn't really take long to sew! :)

My birthday...and a review

Well, I had a very nice birthday! :) I was working on Thursday, so we celebrated yesterday instead...which was good, because I was exhausted when I got home Thursday. I went for a walk with the baby and there are lots of hills in the neighborhood, so I got a good workout and my legs and feet were tired. I couldn't get the baby to go down for her nap at one point, so I finally put her in the carrier and walked around the house with her until my feet couldn't take it, at which point I sat down and when she fussed about that, I told her I simply couldn't walk around and she'd have to deal with it. Funny thing is, she seemed to understand! :p

So anyway, Dad took yesterday off and we had pizza for supper and Grandma and Grandpa came over, and Mom made me a cake...an un-conventional cake. It's a gooey butter cake (I think that's what it's called), and it was really good. I didn't really want a whole cake with icing and all, so I asked her to make this instead.









I got some neat presents and five gift cards! :)






Opening one of the green presents Colin gave me...he and Dad went to Dollar Tree and I think he must have gone through the store and gotten everything green that he saw! :) I got a water bottle, clip-on book light, and a note pad:












About to blow out the candles:












We had a big political discussion with my grandparents, and I opened presents, and Colin thought I was opening them all too slowly, and I tried on the clothes that Grandma gave me. Some of the stuff didn't fit quite the way I like usually, although I wasn't trying to complain, so Grandma was sighing about that. Why do grandmas 80% of the time get the wrong size? I'm just wondering. I figured out finally that the two things she got me just won't work together, she got me a green t-shirt with a green plaid woven shirt to wear over it, and the two just don't work together, which is why it felt funny. And she also got me a cute tan jacket that I really like, but is the sort of thing that I wouldn't have thought of buying. When they were leaving Grandpa said, "Well... I just have to say that I think you're a pretty cute nineteen-year-old" and I believe I said, "oh!" because I thought for sure he was going to say he thought I was picky! :p

Then after they left and Mom and I got the kitchen all cleaned up and everything, we watched "Sense and Sensibility". We didn't get started on it until about 10:30 though, so we were up really, really late last night!

It was the new version that we watched. We got it at Costco on DVD in a set along with "Persuasion", and "Miss Austen Regrets" (which Mom and I watched last week sometime). I really, really liked the new "Sense and Sensibility"!! I think it's much better than the older one, although that one is good too. I think in this one, the characters were much better portrayed, except for Willoughby. In general, all the characters in the '95 version seemed too old.

Good:
Mrs. Dashwood: in the old one, she mostly seems old and tired, not terribly emotional, in this one she seems more romantic like Marianne (which she's supposed to be).

Eleanor: Much better as well...in the book she's only 19 or 20, and she comes across more as that age in this version. She has sense, but she doesn't seem like she knows everything and like she's carrying the burden of the whole family. She's acting as advisor to her mother.

Marianne: I don't know, she seemed a bit more believable I'd say.

Colonel Brandon: Also much better, in the other one he seems way too old, older than 35 and just gloomy. In the new one, you see him as actually having some feelings, and find it more likely that Marianne could love him and he love her. And he didn't mumble! Alan Rickman sounded like his mouth was numb.

Edward: good...in the book he's not supposed to be terribly good-looking, but at least he doesn't seem to wimpy in this version. Hugh Grant was not a good Edward in the other one.

Ann Steele: well, she wasn't even in the other movie...in this one, she's hilarious! :p

Sir John, Lady Middleton, and Mrs. Jennings: all true to the book...which is very good. :)

Bad:
Willoughby: On this one, I'd have to say the older version was better. Dominic Cooper as Willoughby in this one was too solemn, too obviously sneaky, and not really romantic enough for Marianne to have liked him...he didn't look romantic, he looked like a spoiled brat. He also looked ill. Actually, as far as looks, it was rather like, "Frodo Baggins plays John Willoughby"...which is just weird. Nope, not the right look.

Lucy Steele:Mmm...not very good. She wasn't portrayed as, I don't know, the sort that would get engaged secretly, or that would confide in Eleanor. It was all rather cold. She was much better in the old version.

Oh and Mr. Palmer wasn't right either! I mean, he was okay, but Hugh Laurie as Mr. Palmer is great! :)

So anyway, that's what I noticed as being good or bad in some of the characters. I think the film was very well-shot, the camera angles, and the way it switched back and forth between scenes, and previous events and such. I also think the duel was a great touch! It's mentioned briefly in the book, but without details and it's not in the other movie. I think it helps show Brandon as truly having emotions, and being gallant and manly enough to track Willoughby down and fight him. In the other movie he just seems to mope about...goes and carries Marianne in when she's out in the rain, rather like it's just another thing he has to do.

The only strange switch in camera shots is when they switch back and forth between Marianne writing her letter and the guys dueling...it shows Brandon defeating Willoughby, and then it shows the red sealing wax dripping onto Marianne's letter. I think it was supposed to give the impression of blood, but the sealing wax looks like ketchup, so it looks like Willoughby bleeds ketchup. No wonder he looks ill! :p

So, both movies are good, but I like the new one better...it's longer for one thing, so they can show more of the story.

Um, anyway, I got off on a review of the movie there...my birthday was very nice!!

And my new insurance information came today, so I can sign up for camp now...I was worried it wasn't going to get here in time. So that's good!

Exciting!

I didn't know this! Jennifer Ehle (the actress who played Elizabeth Bennet in the '95 version of Pride and Prejudice) was born here in Winston-Salem and lived here for eighteen years!!! I was just looking at the Wikipedia article about Winston-Salem and saw her name in the list of famous residents. There are other famous people whose names I recognize, but the actress who was in one of my favorite movies? That's neat!

Also exciting, I've mentioned the Extreme Weekend at camp before (2nd paragraph under the video); the brochure is up for 2008! September 26-28. It's $35 for singles and only $25 if you get your registration in before the 15th. (There's an extra $18 charge if you go canoeing...I'm not sure yet if I want to do that or not.) If any of my readers (18 and up anyway) are interested the brochure can be downloaded off of this page. It would be really cool if anyone was able to go, because I'm not sure that I'm going to know anyone at camp! Not that that'll stop me from going. :)

On a lighter note

How about one of these? :)
























And here's a funny political video: The Hollywood Endorsement Song

It's September! It's getting closer to fall...although it doesn't feel like it yet. :( 21 days until Fall officially starts, 31 days until the fair, and probably about 42 days until it actually gets cool.