kitty cam

My best friend Jodi got me a kitty cam for christmas. (Plus a spa bundle!) I did a trial run today to see if it works, for about 3 hours. I had it set to take a picture every fifteen minutes and these are the results.

Blurry view of something.

my closet (she was on my bed pretty much the whole time)
my curtains


closet?
her own bum?
Not sure

clear view of my clock

My room door

Pretty nice, huh? HA! I am going to charge it up and put it on her before bed. :)

Thanks Jodi!
Next step- try it on kids! HA!

Anne

gifts

I can't believe it- I didn't take any close up pics of Sen's doll. No one guessed what it was anyways, so that is okay. Basically it is a doll with two heads- one is tucked under the skirt, which you can flip over to expose the other doll. It is kinda creepy looking, but that was okay cuz Loy likes stuff a bit "off".

This is Sen's name frame. I made it for her because she shares a room with her brother- and it is basically decorated in hunting/hockey/toy explosion. I wanted a bit of girly in there for her.
The letters are sparkle glitter chipboard. I liked it so much I purchased a pile of chipboard letters and might make them for all the niblings birthday gifts. What kid doesn't like their own name? Julie loved it and made one for her sister. Hers came out really elegant- I would love a picture if you took one Julie!

Have a great week,
Anne

gift card holder

Loy called me yesterday and said she needed three gift card holders by today. I remembered I had seen a cute tutorial that make holders that looked like purses, and they were for girls, so I figured it would work. I did have to modify the tutorial tho- it was much wider, to hold up to four cards, and I only wanted to hold one, so I did it only 1/4 inch wide. Very easy to make, and could be fancied up if you had more warning and didn't have a sinus infection. :)

Mom thought Loy should actually pay for these, but, of course, she never does! HA!

The gift card tucks into the holder like so.

Open with no card. I used velcro dots on the back of the ornament to hold it closed.
Two had patterned paper inside.

Click here to see the site I got this from.

Have a great week,

Anne

Book of the Month and also DVD

The book of the month is:

mennonite in a little black dress
by Rhoda Janzen

I just liked this book. I enjoy books about peoples' lives, especially their upbringing, and especially when they were raised in a cultish church. Rhoda has left home, left the church, married a bipolar man who eventually leaves her for Bob, whom he met on gay.com. Nope, these are not spoilers, the info is given right up front. So she goes home for a while- back to her parents. I enjoyed reading about their relationship, the memories of her childhood, and about how her siblings all grew up to be such different people from each other.

DVD of the month:

Letting Go of God
by Julia Sweeney

I actually saw this on (free for 3 months) Showtime, but when I looked up her name on the lib website, it is available on DVD. Julia was raised Catholic (see, fitting all my likes as written above!) and she talks a lot about her childhood and her drawing away from the church. She had a lot of the same questions I have had, so I really enjoyed watching. Plus she is funny.

One story that I liked was after she was taking a Bible study at her church, which raised a lot of questions. (Like me, she was raised in a church were actually reading the Bible wasn't encouraged.) She asked her mom what she did about the things in the Bible that didn't make sense and her mom said "oh, I just don't think about those things." I laughed and laughed, mostly because it rang so true to so many people I have known....

Have a great week,
Anne

Mom's double knit hat

Julie wanted to see the process for double knit hats, so I took some pics as I did Mom's. I pry should take them as I do Julie's too, her colors have greater contrast and might show up better. :)

First you crochet a long chain, then cast on the stitches using the chain as a base. This is so you can pick them out later and use them as "live" stitches for the inside layer. You do 3 rows of the inside color, then 3 rows outside, then undo the chain to get the starting stitches, fold it inside of the other live stitches, and stitch a row that puts both layers on one needle. (this is the point where I ended up twisted on Julie's hat- took an hour and a half to get to that point, had to rip it all out, so I am taking a break and blogging instead of knitting!)

Edited to add: I did finally (after 3 tries) get Julie's hat started so the first pictures are of her hat.

This is picking up the gray stitches from the red crochet chain.

Finished picking up stitches.

After finishing 3 rows of gray (inside) and 3 rows of white (outside), ready to take the red crochet off and free the other end of the gray stitches so I can fold it up to join the white on the needles.

Close up of rows.

Undoing the red crochet and collecting the gray stitches.

All stitches off of crochet chain, still on separate needles:

close up of working with FOUR needles at a time to join on one set of needles.
The arrow shows where the two layers are on one needle. The dark is the outside layer, the light is the inside layer.
Now half the stitches are joined on one needle. I flipped the layer so you can see the inside is all solid light blue.

When the stitches are all on one needle, you knit the front layer stitch, then purl the back layer stitch. You hold both colors of yarn together, and follow a chart to work the pattern.

Close up view:
After one repeat. The dark blue majority is the outside layer, the light is the inside, I flipped it so you could see.

After you get to the end of the chart, you need to divide the layers again so you can decrease them quickly and tie off the hat. So as you knit the outside layer, you slip the inside layer to a separate set of needles, tucking them inside the hat.

All the inside layer stitches, getting tucked inside so I can close the outside layer.

After the outside layer is done, flipped inside out, ready to finish the inside layer. The center is all dark blue because it is the underside of the outside layer and is finished.
Finished decreasing, ready to tie off inside layer.

Hopes this helps explain the process. Basically, you are knitting two hats, that are joined at the very bottom edge, at the same time. Makes following the chart a bit difficult.

Note: I do NOT go back and look for mistakes in the finished hats. HA!

Have a good week,

Anne

Dr. Phil

I was thinking maybe I should use this blog to vent about things. Barely anyone reads it anyways, so why not amuse myself? HA!

I watch Dr. Phil about every day, even tho I usually end up crabby about something. Here are my top three complaints about his show.

1. There are MORE commercials, or at least they play more often. Plus he says "After the break, we will have..." and whatever it is is NOT after the break but usually a half hour later. So if you don't switch channels cuz you want to see it, you end up wasting a bunch of time.

2. He never actually tells anyone anything. He says he is going to "put verbs in his sentences" (after the break!) but never actually does.

3. (This is today's complaint.) He NEVER asks the questions I want the answer to. Usually I am hollering "where is the baby's father???" or something, and he never ever addresses that point. Today he was doing frivolous lawsuits, a topic I usually enjoy. He wanted to know how well breathalyzers work, so he had someone (actually, a lawyer) swill alcohol based mouthwash and then do the test. It was like five times the limit. Then a lady sprayed breathe spray, and was way over the limit. BUT he never went back and tested them 5 or 10 minutes later. If you are swilling mouthwash as you drive, you deserve to be pulled over. And the only reason I know of for you to be spraying breathe spray as you get pulled over is... you have been drinking and want to cover it up. What if you do the mouthwash at home, get pulled over ten minutes later?? Do you come up drunk?
HUH???? This is the info that would actually help. :)

Those are my Dr. Phil complaints. :)

Have a great week,
Anne