Tutorial via Ric-Rac- Teapot Tutorial
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Fabric Teapot
This is adorable. I just picked up a small enamel teapot for Blackbird Jr at the reuse centre, but everyone expect to get one of these as a christmas present.
Tutorial via Ric-Rac- Teapot Tutorial
Tutorial via Ric-Rac- Teapot Tutorial
Odd Ways People Find My Blog
I have a blog tracker (the counter of which keeps resetting, but whatever) and it shows me the keywords people use when they find my website. I laughed at this one:
how to scare yourself
but this one is not exactly my audience:
single women camping sylvan lake s8x alberta
I replaced the e with an 8 lest I encourage even more keywords.
Oh, and the person looking up how to get to Carson Pegasus from Edmonton? Google maps has a really handy directions function, well worth using.
how to scare yourself
but this one is not exactly my audience:
single women camping sylvan lake s8x alberta
I replaced the e with an 8 lest I encourage even more keywords.
Oh, and the person looking up how to get to Carson Pegasus from Edmonton? Google maps has a really handy directions function, well worth using.
For Better or For Worse Ends, and Starts Again
The comic strip For Better or For Worse ended today and I admit I am saddened by that. I will wonder what happened to the Pattersons and the other characters that inhabited their world. The strip was overly sentimental and relied on bad puns, but I've been reading it for as long as I can remember. When I was younger I identified with Michael and Lizardbreath* and when I reread the older comics I identify with Elly as the mother of young children.
The strip will start over again, with Elly as a young mother to baby Elizabeth and young Michael, with new material combined with rerun strips. I'll still read it but will miss knowing what's "really" happening.
Click the image to read the last strip in the story.
*It took me an embarassing number of years to get the joke of Elizabeth's nickname
The strip will start over again, with Elly as a young mother to baby Elizabeth and young Michael, with new material combined with rerun strips. I'll still read it but will miss knowing what's "really" happening.
Click the image to read the last strip in the story.
*It took me an embarassing number of years to get the joke of Elizabeth's nickname
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Crying while Driving
I've been listening to Time Traveler's Wife on audiobook the past week, mostly on longer road trips but also if I have a bunch of errands to do or Blackbird Jr falls asleep in the car. What I remember from the story the first time I read it a couple of years ago was that it was a little exciting, unconventional and very romantic. Now, listening to it, I find tears welling up at the sad parts. It's still a wonderful story.
If you haven't read it, here is the prologue.
CLARE: It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.
I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?
Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?
HENRY: How does it feel? How does it feel? Sometimes it feels as though your attention has wandered for just an instant. Then, with a start, you realize that the book you were holding, the red plaid cotton shirt with white buttons, the favorite black jeans and the maroon socks with an almost-hole in one heel, the living room, the about-to-whistle tea kettle in the kitchen: all of these have vanished. You are standing, naked as a jaybird, up to your ankles in ice water in a ditch along an unidentified rural route. You wait a minute to see if maybe you will just snap right back to your book, your apartment, et cetera. After about five minutes of swearing and shivering and hoping to hell you can just disappear, you start walking in any direction, which will eventually yield a farmhouse, where you have the option of stealing or explaining. Stealing will sometimes land you in jail, but explaining is more tedious and time-consuming and involves lying anyway, and also sometimes results in being hauled off to jail, so what the hell.
Sometimes you feel as though you have stood up too quickly even if you are lying in bed half asleep. You hear blood rushing in your head, feel vertiginous falling sensations. Your hands and feet are tingling and then they aren't there at all. You've mislocated yourself again. It only takes an instant, you have just enough time to try to hold on, to flail around (possibly damaging yourself or valuable possessions) and then you are skidding across the forest-green-carpeted hallway of a Motel 6 in Athens, Ohio, at 4:16 a.m.,Monday, August 6, 1981, and hit your head on someone's door, causing this person, a Ms. Tina Schulman from Philadelphia, to open this door and start screaming because there's a naked, carpet-burned man passed out at her feet. You wake up in the County Hospital concussed with a policeman sitting outside your door listening to the Phillies game on a crackly transistor radio.Mercifully, you lapse back into unconsciousness and wake up again hours later in your own bed with your wife leaning over you looking very worried.
Sometimes you feel euphoric. Everything is sublime and has an aura, and suddenly you are intensely nauseated and then you are gone. You are throwing up on some suburban geraniums, or your father's tennis shoes, or your very own bathroom floor three days ago, or a wooden sidewalk in Oak Park, Illinois, circa 1903, or a tennis court on a fine autumn day in the 1950s, or your own naked feet in a wide variety of times and places.
How does it feel?
It feels exactly like one of those dreams in which you suddenly realize that you have to take a test you haven't studied for and you aren't wearing any clothes. And you've left your wallet at home.
When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides. I startle old women and amaze children. I am a trick, an illusion of the highest order, so incredible that I am actually true.
Is there a logic, a rule to all this coming and going, all this dislocation? Is there a way to stay put, to embrace the present with every cell? I don't know. There are clues; as with any disease there are patterns, possibilities. Exhaustion, loud noises, stress, standing up suddenly, flashing light-any of these can trigger an episode. But: I can be reading the Sunday Times, coffee in hand and Clare dozing beside me on our bed and suddenly I'm in 1976 watching my thirteen-year-old self mow my grandparents' lawn. Some of these episodes last only moments; it's like listening to a car radio that's having trouble holding on to a station. I find myself in crowds, audiences, mobs. Just as often I am alone, in a field, house, car, on a beach, in a grammar school in the middle of the night. I fear finding myself in a prison cell, an elevator full of people, the middle of a highway. I appear from nowhere, naked. How can I explain? I have never been able to carry anything with me. No clothes, no money, no ID. I spend most of my sojourns acquiring clothing and trying to hide. Fortunately I don't wear glasses.
It's ironic, really. All my pleasures are homey ones: armchair splendor, the sedate excitements of domesticity. All I ask for are humble delights. A mystery novel in bed, the smell of Clare's long red-gold hair damp from washing, a postcard from a friend on vacation, cream dispersing into coffee, the softness of the skin under Clare's breasts, the symmetry of grocery bags sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be unpacked. I love meandering through the stacks at the library after the patrons have gone home, lightly touching the spines of the books. These are the things that can pierce me with longing when I am displaced from them by Time's whim.
And Clare, always Clare. Clare in the morning, sleepy and crumple-faced. Clare with her arms plunging into the papermaking vat, pulling up the mold and shaking it so, and so, to meld the fibers. Clare reading, with her hair hanging over the back of the chair, massaging balm into her cracked red hands before bed. Clare's low voice is in my ear often.
I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.
If you haven't read it, here is the prologue.
CLARE: It's hard being left behind. I wait for Henry, not knowing where he is, wondering if he's okay. It's hard to be the one who stays. I keep myself busy. Time goes faster that way.
I go to sleep alone, and wake up alone. I take walks. I work until I'm tired. I watch the wind play with the trash that's been under the snow all winter. Everything seems simple until you think about it. Why is love intensified by absence?
Long ago, men went to sea, and women waited for them, standing on the edge of the water, scanning the horizon for the tiny ship. Now I wait for Henry. He vanishes unwillingly, without warning. I wait for him. Each moment that I wait feels like a year, an eternity. Each moment is as slow and transparent as glass. Through each moment I can see infinite moments lined up, waiting. Why has he gone where I cannot follow?
HENRY: How does it feel? How does it feel? Sometimes it feels as though your attention has wandered for just an instant. Then, with a start, you realize that the book you were holding, the red plaid cotton shirt with white buttons, the favorite black jeans and the maroon socks with an almost-hole in one heel, the living room, the about-to-whistle tea kettle in the kitchen: all of these have vanished. You are standing, naked as a jaybird, up to your ankles in ice water in a ditch along an unidentified rural route. You wait a minute to see if maybe you will just snap right back to your book, your apartment, et cetera. After about five minutes of swearing and shivering and hoping to hell you can just disappear, you start walking in any direction, which will eventually yield a farmhouse, where you have the option of stealing or explaining. Stealing will sometimes land you in jail, but explaining is more tedious and time-consuming and involves lying anyway, and also sometimes results in being hauled off to jail, so what the hell.
Sometimes you feel as though you have stood up too quickly even if you are lying in bed half asleep. You hear blood rushing in your head, feel vertiginous falling sensations. Your hands and feet are tingling and then they aren't there at all. You've mislocated yourself again. It only takes an instant, you have just enough time to try to hold on, to flail around (possibly damaging yourself or valuable possessions) and then you are skidding across the forest-green-carpeted hallway of a Motel 6 in Athens, Ohio, at 4:16 a.m.,Monday, August 6, 1981, and hit your head on someone's door, causing this person, a Ms. Tina Schulman from Philadelphia, to open this door and start screaming because there's a naked, carpet-burned man passed out at her feet. You wake up in the County Hospital concussed with a policeman sitting outside your door listening to the Phillies game on a crackly transistor radio.Mercifully, you lapse back into unconsciousness and wake up again hours later in your own bed with your wife leaning over you looking very worried.
Sometimes you feel euphoric. Everything is sublime and has an aura, and suddenly you are intensely nauseated and then you are gone. You are throwing up on some suburban geraniums, or your father's tennis shoes, or your very own bathroom floor three days ago, or a wooden sidewalk in Oak Park, Illinois, circa 1903, or a tennis court on a fine autumn day in the 1950s, or your own naked feet in a wide variety of times and places.
How does it feel?
It feels exactly like one of those dreams in which you suddenly realize that you have to take a test you haven't studied for and you aren't wearing any clothes. And you've left your wallet at home.
When I am out there, in time, I am inverted, changed into a desperate version of myself. I become a thief, a vagrant, an animal who runs and hides. I startle old women and amaze children. I am a trick, an illusion of the highest order, so incredible that I am actually true.
Is there a logic, a rule to all this coming and going, all this dislocation? Is there a way to stay put, to embrace the present with every cell? I don't know. There are clues; as with any disease there are patterns, possibilities. Exhaustion, loud noises, stress, standing up suddenly, flashing light-any of these can trigger an episode. But: I can be reading the Sunday Times, coffee in hand and Clare dozing beside me on our bed and suddenly I'm in 1976 watching my thirteen-year-old self mow my grandparents' lawn. Some of these episodes last only moments; it's like listening to a car radio that's having trouble holding on to a station. I find myself in crowds, audiences, mobs. Just as often I am alone, in a field, house, car, on a beach, in a grammar school in the middle of the night. I fear finding myself in a prison cell, an elevator full of people, the middle of a highway. I appear from nowhere, naked. How can I explain? I have never been able to carry anything with me. No clothes, no money, no ID. I spend most of my sojourns acquiring clothing and trying to hide. Fortunately I don't wear glasses.
It's ironic, really. All my pleasures are homey ones: armchair splendor, the sedate excitements of domesticity. All I ask for are humble delights. A mystery novel in bed, the smell of Clare's long red-gold hair damp from washing, a postcard from a friend on vacation, cream dispersing into coffee, the softness of the skin under Clare's breasts, the symmetry of grocery bags sitting on the kitchen counter waiting to be unpacked. I love meandering through the stacks at the library after the patrons have gone home, lightly touching the spines of the books. These are the things that can pierce me with longing when I am displaced from them by Time's whim.
And Clare, always Clare. Clare in the morning, sleepy and crumple-faced. Clare with her arms plunging into the papermaking vat, pulling up the mold and shaking it so, and so, to meld the fibers. Clare reading, with her hair hanging over the back of the chair, massaging balm into her cracked red hands before bed. Clare's low voice is in my ear often.
I hate to be where she is not, when she is not. And yet, I am always going, and she cannot follow.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Here Come the 123's
I bought Blackbird Jr this CD/DVD set from They Might be Giants and we have been loving it! Here are some of the videos via youtube:
Pirate Girls Nine (music video starts at 0:35 min)
Nine Bowls of Soup
and my favourite, One Dozen Monkeys (music video starts at 1:45 min)
Pirate Girls Nine (music video starts at 0:35 min)
Nine Bowls of Soup
and my favourite, One Dozen Monkeys (music video starts at 1:45 min)
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Teaching Tolerance Website
Teaching Tolerance has some great ideas for what they refer to as Responding to Everyday Bigotry.
This selection refers to dealing with racist comments from your parents:
What can I do about parental attitudes?
A woman writes: "My mother uses racial and ethnic terminology — the Mexican checkout clerk, the black saleslady — in casual stories in which race and ethnicity are not factors. Of course, if the person is white, she never bothers to mention it."
A man continually refers to the largest nuts in cans of mixed nuts as "nigger toes." His grown children speak up whenever they hear him use the term, but he persists.
A man writes, "My father says he has nothing against homosexuals, but they shouldn't allow them to lead in a church. I didn't know what to say."
Speaking Up...
Learning how to have adult-to-adult dialogue is part of the maturation process for any child-parent relationship. As we grow older, we sometimes develop different views than those of our parents, guardians or childhood caregivers. Navigating such conflicts often is complicated by a common cultural norm: respect your elders. How, then, can we cross these divides?
Speak up without 'talking back.' Repeat information, removing unnecessary racial or ethnic descriptions: "What did the checkout clerk do next, Mom?" Or, "Yes, I like these mixed nuts, too." Subtly model bias-free language.
Appeal to parental values. Call upon the principles that guided your childhood home. "Dad, when I was growing up, you taught me to treat others the way I wanted to be treated. And I just don't think that term is very nice."
Discuss actively. Ask clarifying questions: "Why do you feel that way?" "Are you saying everyone should feel this way?" Articulate your view: "You know, Dad, I see this differently. Here's why." Strive for common ground: "What can we agree on here?"
Anticipate and rehearse. When you know bias is likely to arise, practice possible responses in front of a mirror beforehand. Figure out what works best for you, what feels the most comfortable. Become confident in your responses, and use them.
Found via the comments on Anti-Racist Parent
This selection refers to dealing with racist comments from your parents:
What can I do about parental attitudes?
A woman writes: "My mother uses racial and ethnic terminology — the Mexican checkout clerk, the black saleslady — in casual stories in which race and ethnicity are not factors. Of course, if the person is white, she never bothers to mention it."
A man continually refers to the largest nuts in cans of mixed nuts as "nigger toes." His grown children speak up whenever they hear him use the term, but he persists.
A man writes, "My father says he has nothing against homosexuals, but they shouldn't allow them to lead in a church. I didn't know what to say."
Speaking Up...
Learning how to have adult-to-adult dialogue is part of the maturation process for any child-parent relationship. As we grow older, we sometimes develop different views than those of our parents, guardians or childhood caregivers. Navigating such conflicts often is complicated by a common cultural norm: respect your elders. How, then, can we cross these divides?
Speak up without 'talking back.' Repeat information, removing unnecessary racial or ethnic descriptions: "What did the checkout clerk do next, Mom?" Or, "Yes, I like these mixed nuts, too." Subtly model bias-free language.
Appeal to parental values. Call upon the principles that guided your childhood home. "Dad, when I was growing up, you taught me to treat others the way I wanted to be treated. And I just don't think that term is very nice."
Discuss actively. Ask clarifying questions: "Why do you feel that way?" "Are you saying everyone should feel this way?" Articulate your view: "You know, Dad, I see this differently. Here's why." Strive for common ground: "What can we agree on here?"
Anticipate and rehearse. When you know bias is likely to arise, practice possible responses in front of a mirror beforehand. Figure out what works best for you, what feels the most comfortable. Become confident in your responses, and use them.
Found via the comments on Anti-Racist Parent
Day of Minor Miracles
Yesterday was a day of minor miracles in the Blackbird household. First, plumbers came and removed our old bathtub. We've been half-assed renovating our upstairs bathroom for a couple of years now. Okay, maybe 3 years. We stalled out at the tub and floor for over a year. This Spring we got a decent tax return and decided to use it for a new tub, which was promptly purchased. Then began a months-long search for a plumber. DH had credits for a service which does errands and they called about 30 people, none of whom returned calls. I called another couple dozen myself. We had 3 people come out to do quotes, one which was really expensive, one didn't know what they were doing and one very competent worker who never got back to us with the quote and later ignored our attempts to contact him. Wow, is this blog getting boring. Okay- to the point- bathroom in progress!
Second minor miracle- I found my mp3 player. It's been missing since oh, February. I have searched and searched for it, knowing it was in the house somewhere. I gave up on it as lost and used credit card points to order a gift card for an electronics store to replace it. Thankfully I haven't yet spent the card, because I found the player yesterday. I was cleaning a shelf adjacent to the bathroom wall where stuff was getting knocked off and found it. I had searched that shelf before, but it's very small and must have gotten stuck behind or under something else.
Last minor miracle- the return of my vintage sewing machine. I took it in for servicing in early June and they told me it would be done in a week. I went in on the pickup day and they said "well, I don't know what's going on because the technician hasn't done any work on it. I'll get him to call you". No one called. This repeated itself every week for another month until I got fed up and went in and asked to either get an update or I was taking it home. Can I mention that I suck at confrontation? I had thought out what I wanted to say and the salesperson was really nice, but something about demanding to know what was going on or I was taking my machine home made me start to fight back tears, which was probably somewhat alarming for the salesperson. The salesguy did call back and told me that they needed parts, which was what the delay was about. When I asked why they couldn't have told me that sooner I got a big fat "I don't know". Okay, long boring post intervention needed again- I took the machine to a different store and they were done it in a few days and I have it back!
Second minor miracle- I found my mp3 player. It's been missing since oh, February. I have searched and searched for it, knowing it was in the house somewhere. I gave up on it as lost and used credit card points to order a gift card for an electronics store to replace it. Thankfully I haven't yet spent the card, because I found the player yesterday. I was cleaning a shelf adjacent to the bathroom wall where stuff was getting knocked off and found it. I had searched that shelf before, but it's very small and must have gotten stuck behind or under something else.
Last minor miracle- the return of my vintage sewing machine. I took it in for servicing in early June and they told me it would be done in a week. I went in on the pickup day and they said "well, I don't know what's going on because the technician hasn't done any work on it. I'll get him to call you". No one called. This repeated itself every week for another month until I got fed up and went in and asked to either get an update or I was taking it home. Can I mention that I suck at confrontation? I had thought out what I wanted to say and the salesperson was really nice, but something about demanding to know what was going on or I was taking my machine home made me start to fight back tears, which was probably somewhat alarming for the salesperson. The salesguy did call back and told me that they needed parts, which was what the delay was about. When I asked why they couldn't have told me that sooner I got a big fat "I don't know". Okay, long boring post intervention needed again- I took the machine to a different store and they were done it in a few days and I have it back!
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
New Favourite Meal on New Placemats
My new favourite thing to eat:
Mix cream cheese with dried ranch spices. You can add sour cream and mayo to the mix if you like, but I just use light cream cheese and don't add the sour cream or mayo.
Spread on a greek style pita bread (they are thicker and fluffier than the thin pita pockets)
Top with veggies- here I used red, green and yellow pepper, broccoli and cauliflower
Optional- lightly sprinkly grated mozzarella cheese on top
Delicious!
I made new placemats over the weekend as well for Blackbird Jr and myself. Blackbird Jr doesn't like his and asked me to make him a different one. Hmph.
I used this patchwork placemat tutorial.
Mix cream cheese with dried ranch spices. You can add sour cream and mayo to the mix if you like, but I just use light cream cheese and don't add the sour cream or mayo.
Spread on a greek style pita bread (they are thicker and fluffier than the thin pita pockets)
Top with veggies- here I used red, green and yellow pepper, broccoli and cauliflower
Optional- lightly sprinkly grated mozzarella cheese on top
Delicious!
I made new placemats over the weekend as well for Blackbird Jr and myself. Blackbird Jr doesn't like his and asked me to make him a different one. Hmph.
I used this patchwork placemat tutorial.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
Crafty Sunday
Sometimes projects just do not work out the way you had envisioned them. A few weeks ago I eyed up a new coffee mug in a Second Cup coffee shop as it had a built in coffee press. I have a coffee maker that I really like, but since I gave up drinking coffee daily (sob) I usually only have a cup of decaf on the days I
Friday, August 1, 2008
Fairy Berry Festival
Blackbird Jr and I went to the Fairy Berry festival today. I'll admit that I went along rather reluctantly, feeling very cranky and tired this morning. However, we had a really good time. The overcast weather meant that it wasn't very busy and I had forgotten how good Prairie Gardens is about having lots and lots of activities to do. There was a bale maze, u-pick gardens, the haunted house (remnants of the pumpkin festival were about), a rubber ducky run where you pumped old-fashioned water pumps to make the ducks go down little trails, gem mining (digging for shiny beads in sand), old playground equipment and lots more stuff. They also have a very large corn maze, but we stuck with the kid corn maze this visit. Everything is pretty low budget but I don't mind. The assortment of activities made up for it and anyway, I'd rather have the down-home country style.
Blackbird Jr heading off into the corn maze. The picture makes the corn look shorter, it's actually about 6 ft tall. Older kids can go into the larger maze in the dark with flashlights- fun!
This goat was very determined to eat some tree leaves.
Baby goats are stinking cute.
So are little bunnies. They had a whole petting zoo there but I think I wanted to go see the baby animals more than Jr.
A costumed dragon. I thought it was pretty neat, but Blackbird Jr was a little scared. Probably because it pretended to bite the princess' head.
The odd but fun enchanted forest. There is a mattress buried under those wood chips and I yelped when I stepped on it, even though I knew it was there from last time.
Tractor rides to the big maze. We just went for the ride.
Picking berries.
Our haul. I could eat my weight in fresh raw peas, I think I will go to a u-pick again sometime this summer and get more. In the bottom left corner are the supplies for the "craft" Blackbird Jr chose to do- putting candy on a skewer stick.
We hadn't been to this festival before but I'd definitely go again next year. The fun activities for Blackbird Jr plus the u-pick yummies for me were well worth it. Plus, where else in Alberta can you see a singing skeleton band in August?
Blackbird Jr heading off into the corn maze. The picture makes the corn look shorter, it's actually about 6 ft tall. Older kids can go into the larger maze in the dark with flashlights- fun!
This goat was very determined to eat some tree leaves.
Baby goats are stinking cute.
So are little bunnies. They had a whole petting zoo there but I think I wanted to go see the baby animals more than Jr.
A costumed dragon. I thought it was pretty neat, but Blackbird Jr was a little scared. Probably because it pretended to bite the princess' head.
The odd but fun enchanted forest. There is a mattress buried under those wood chips and I yelped when I stepped on it, even though I knew it was there from last time.
Tractor rides to the big maze. We just went for the ride.
Picking berries.
Our haul. I could eat my weight in fresh raw peas, I think I will go to a u-pick again sometime this summer and get more. In the bottom left corner are the supplies for the "craft" Blackbird Jr chose to do- putting candy on a skewer stick.
We hadn't been to this festival before but I'd definitely go again next year. The fun activities for Blackbird Jr plus the u-pick yummies for me were well worth it. Plus, where else in Alberta can you see a singing skeleton band in August?
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