Life on Mosquito Mountain

General Life Update

2012-02-26T20:34:00.003-07:00

So I decided it would be good to post a general update of things.

1. I was very sick the other day and decided that I wanted a comfort book so I started re-reading The Secret Garden. I had a hardback children's edition a long time ago and loved it. So far I'm 148/284 pages into it. Obviously I'm not posting a review of it since I think almost everyone knows what it's about.

2. My days have pretty much been like this lately: Sick. Better. Sick. Sick. Great! Sick! Good. Sick. Good. Good. Sick. Sick. etc. I've thrown up so many times this month I can't remember them all. I'm even at the point where when I threw up day before yesterday I had to set things asides and go to the bucket! Normally I just spew with only a few seconds warning. And lately with the nausea comes exhaustion. I tried to take a nap several times the other day but it just wasn't happening. Isn't this supposed to stop at some point? January was alright, the nausea came and went. But this month... It's hit me hard and some days I spend in a state of constant nausea. Sometimes I can't eat much in one sitting before I feel sick. Sometimes there are no foods that look good. None! Except for things I don't have, like the other day I wanted a blueberry/banana honey vanilla yogurt smoothie. The dinner I wound up with was very distasteful, I don't even remember what it was.

3. I'm disdainful of my stomach and instinctively find it revolting because of how fat it looks. I find it hard to believe any of it is baby. Though surely some of it must be. I googled up pics of women at 12 weeks and I guess I look about average, but that's not entirely helpful seeing as a recent article I read claimed the average size for women is a 14, which I find hard to believe actually. I'm an 8 normally and surely I'm about average. I'm certainly not skinny. Either way, until it looks obviously baby-sized I'll continue to be disdainful.

4. I made potato dumplings tonight. I made a cheesy, chicken broth, and cream sauce for it. The dumplings were undercooked and made me feel sick after a time. Otherwise I think they turned out pretty good.

5. I decided to get on with my organizing of the house today. I had a few boxes upstairs in my food corner that weren't food so I brought them down (well, Victor brought one cause it was heavy) and went through them. One was easy and I went through it quickly, leaving out things we wanted, putting stuff in a crate, and leaving misc stuff behind in the box. The 2nd had two picture frames I put in the crate but otherwise was full of my sewing books! Yay!!! Oh I'd missed them! That one is still packed, it's off to the side till I can get to them. The third was all sorts of stuff that used to be around my computer. ugh. That one's taking a while and I'm still not done yet. After I get that third box done I can organize food into the corner upstairs properly. I'll organize the cans up there. I had been using one of the shelves on my kitchen bookshelf for cans but it's sagging so I'll take those cans upstairs and use that shelf for things like tea and milk powder. Everything else is going upstairs. Then there'll be two more boxes gone from down here. So after that's done I'll be able to get at the bookshelves easier. Then I'll figure out how to arrange things to fit my sewing books in.

6. I've been trying off and on to crochet some baby socks. omg. Ok, apparently they're supposed to be 3 1/2" long. My first attempt was 2". So after some research and signing up on a board that has a stupid "your post will be posted after a moderator has approved it" setup that hasn't let my last two posts go through I think I have finally figured out my problem. First, is tension. But that's worked out now, with the help if a bigger hook than my pattern wanted. Second, was row height. Apparently for a double crochet when you chain 3 to start the row off that is how high you must aim to make all your DC! Mine were coming out 2ch high, not 3. So I'm giving them a little tug and now they're the right height. Last night I don't know what my problem was but all my stitch counts were wrong. I'll try again probably tomorrow since I have other things I want to do tonight.

7.Apparently Daily Dare is coming up on Neopets next month! ooo... Last year there were only 2 games I didn't complete on release day. Anyone who played last year's Daily Dare can probably guess what those were! Kou-Jong and Nova Defender. Oh, yes. Kou-Jong I got the next day (and have since gotten that score 3 or 4 times over), Nova Defender took about two weeks and I squealed like a little girl when I finally beat the score with something like 800,000. It's one of those games where you do a lot of memorization, there's combo bonuses, and you can't beat the 4th level unless you die at least once on the 3rd, though twice isn't a bad idea if you wanna go for easier points. I'm looking forward to this year! Hopefully all the games will run well on my netbook. If not I'll be pulling out my desktop. Though I don't see there being any problems since almost all the games run just fine on medium quality. For the Altador Cup I couldn't play Make Some Noise even on low quality, but eh. We'll see.

8. I made a delicious desert last night. Oatmeal. Honey. Vanilla flavor. Almond flavor. Sugar. Cocoa powder. Milk. Marshmallow whip. I didn't use measurements I just added what felt right.It was really good. Victor didn't like the amount of almond in it. I made it again for lunch this morning and did two things different. I left out the almond and used some of a bag of vanilla pudding.I don't think it was as good as it was last night though.

hm. I guess I just don't have any more updates right now.

Ewok Snowman

2012-02-25T15:42:00.001-07:00

So today I decided I needed fresh air so I went outside in my snowsuit and gloves. After a bit I decided to make a snowman. I had my pieces together and assembled, then I knelt back and said, "All my snowmen are so short, I make midget snowmen!" To which Victor replied, "So make it an Ewok snowman." Therefore I give you.... my Ewok snowman! Right click and open in new tab to enlarge! In case you're curious, yes, the hole between the legs does go all the way through. and I used a stick to help me dig it out. The right arm is supported by a stick and it was a pain to get to stay on right. The ears a tad mis-matched but you try to make matching ears. That is a Smith's grocery bag over his head! Which I thought was brilliant since I was thinking and thinking the whole time what was I going to use for a head-cover. This was perfect. A bit light, so the wind was moving it and nearly blowing it off. I held it down with the scissors while I packed snow around the base of most of it and then cut ear and face holes. I used miniature (baby?) pinecones for the eyes.

Weird book but fun read

2012-02-24T11:02:00.002-07:00

The other day I picked a handful of books at near random and the one I decided to read of the bunch was Shadow Walkers by Nina Romberg, which we'd gotten at the used book sale at some point. It sounded interesting. Run-away children camping out together at an abandoned mental health institute but they start turning on each other and the only one who can help them is the star of the book, a lone 11-year-old girl.

My non-spoiler review is that it was a fast and easy read, I read all 302 pages in 5 hours, which for me is really fast. It was written in easily understood language (almost as though an 11-year-old is the one who wrote it) and moved really fast. However that doesn't necessarily mean it was a good book. It was an interesting read, something you might wanna take with you on a long plane trip or pack to the park or beach on a lazy, bored summer day, or curl up with on a bored, lazy winter day. But it's nothing special. I would never have paid full price for it. (at the used book sale it's 1.50 per inch of stacked books, so I reckon the book cost about 35 cents? I'm bad at math and measurements) The story takes a turn you would have never thought about. You think insane asylum, you think like Silent Hill type stuff (I forget which game it is but one of them is in a hospital or something), but no. No. It was fun but not what I expected.

Now on to the review with spoilers.

So, you're thinking that the mental presence of sick people who were going through so much has filled the halls with images and memories that seep into the kid's minds and slowly destroy them, right? Wrong. It's a safe, regular looking building that you could mistake for a school or something, the only indication about what the building is is that it's got bars on the windows.

And then they, for whatever reason, decide to move aside a flag hanging on the wall while looking for pens and paper. Dunno, maybe it's just me but I don't think I'd look for pens hidden behind a flag. Anyway, the flag hid a door into a room with WWII stuff, both American and Nazi, and the boys go insane over it and start a militia type thing and treat the girls bad and the girls are totally not affected by the war-stuff. The room was a kind-of museum. Cause I guess it made sense at the time to keep a war museum on location of a WWII recovery hospital to remind those soldiers what they're trying to recover from.

Well it gets crazier. Apparently there's a convenient Indian medicine woman nearby who keeps plugging the author's first book (I guess this one is a sequel?) and determines that Hitler had infused the WWII Nazi stuff in that room with bad feelings that prey on the inner greed and evilness. ...apparently said greed and evilness is a testosterone only kinda thing as the girls are completely unaffected, except through how the boys treat them. The only "shadow walkers" reference was when the old woman made a comment in passing about how bad feelings run around without bodies and need to feed on bad parts of the mind to embody a person. Or something. And that they were using the WWII stuff to do it.

So through Indian magic they beat back the evil, and burn down the hospital without any concern or regard for the forest surrounding it that probably caught fire and burnt down a page or two after the book's end, and seeing as it's the middle of summer at the time that wild-fire probably got way out of hand and burnt half of Texas.

btw, anyone else think it's not feasible that an 11-year-old girl on her own walked from Louisiana to Texas? She'd have to have been really lucky.

What I'd call a companion to a book

2012-02-22T14:51:00.004-07:00

So last night while browsing Netflix I caught sight of a title that made me do a double-take. It was a Mandie movie! I don't really know why or how but I'd forgotten all about Mandie! Mandie is a Christian book series for girls. It takes place between 1899 and, like, 1904 or something. I believe I had about 30 of them? I don't actually remember but I looked at cover pictures and I recognize most of them up till about 33-35. But I was certain I hadn't read more than 25 of them. hm. They were really good, but I was starting to lose interest towards the end of where I dropped off. But I had to have been about 15-16 by that time.

Anyway, today I went ahead and watched the movie. It was good. I liked who they got to play Mandie, she looked perfect. Absolutely perfect! I know the guy the got for Uncle Ned is supposed to look like he does in the movie but I always pictured him as looking like a dark-skinned version of my Grandpa. I'm not actually very happy with how he looks in the movie. For some reason the estate manager guy was actually pretty awesome. Was he like that in the book and I just didn't notice? I mean, if you go on just what you see in the movie I think the estate manager guy tops Uncle Ned in my favorite character's list! And that's hard to do. As for Joe? He, well, frankly he's a bit too pretty. Sorry. And his teeth are too perfect. Dunno, that just struck me about him. Hopefully they man him up a bit as he gets older if they keep making these movies. ...and hopefully that kid takes some acting lessons... Sometimes I almost felt like someone was off camera holding up a sign with his lines on it.

Since it has been just so long since I read the first book (something like 13 years?) I didn't remember as much of it as I think was needed to fully understand the movie. If you watch the movie I definitely recommend reading the book first. They tried, they really did, but it just wasn't good enough. Things were a bit incoherent at times. The bit about Mandie's discovery about Elizabeth was particularly stressed. They could have cut out the song earlier to focus more on that. Another thing they didn't really say was exactly why Polly was there, who she is, and stuff. I don't even remember! Best I can come up with, from memory, is that Polly's mom was so busy with the other kids she didn't mind having her out from under foot??? Polly's hair should have been curly. They also should have included the awesome candle trick of that one room (John's study?), where you light one candle and they wind up lighting each other all around the room. Or maybe she finds that out in a later book? I also don't remember the Indian Princess story, but that could just be me not remembering, remember there ARE something like 40 books. The house was not really what I had imagined, but considering the standard architecture of the times I guess I'm not surprised. The shack at the beginning looked just like I imagined anyway.

I went and looked and there's a series that follows her through college, and a "young mandie" series! And a two-book thing that follows a side character I don't remember. I guess I've just been way out of touch with things. Also apparently the author died in 2008. There are three movies, though only two are available on Netflix currently, and they were made in 2009, 2010, and 2011, so it is my assumption that a 4th will be released this year? The 3rd movie is not attached to a book that I am aware of, it is a Christmas special. So I don't really know what their plans are.

Would I go back and re-read the books to follow the movies? Possibly. They're fairly short books (the standard just over 100 pages most tween books are, or were, since I don't know if they still do that). I don't have the books anymore, so unless my mom happens to have them then they must have been left behind one of the times we moved. I don't think I care enough to order them unless I have a girl, then it would be good to have them. On Amazon each individual book can be got for a penny used and the boxed sets of 5 can be had for about 4.00-8.00 used. I'll keep it in the back of my head, but I probably won't order them unless I do happen to have a girl. Or unless we have them laying around somewhere in a crate or box. Anyway, I don't care enough to put a lot of effort into tracking them down, but if they happen to fall into my hands I'd probably go ahead and re-read the first book at least, and probably the 2nd because like I say, there's two book movies out.

All in all? Good try guys. But it's really more of a companion to the book and not something that stands on it's own really well. Too rushed in the wrong places and too drawn out in lesser scenes. Towards the end especially it's like someone told them "Hey, guys, you know we have to fit this into 100 minutes right?" I believe it would appeal more to girls 10-14 who have recently read the books. Strangers to the books, yeah, go ahead and watch it, it might intrigue you enough to make you wanna know more, but if you don't get it don't worry, the movie wasn't as clear on some points as it should have been.

Fried Biscuits

2012-02-17T10:10:00.002-07:00

On Tuesday I made fried biscuits. Here they are in the pan.

And here are the finished ones. They tasted really good at first but quickly got to be too much. I think they soaked up too much oil. I used peanut oil and just flipped them when they started looking done on one side. When they're baked normally they taste really, really good. I've made them a lot, but this is the first time I've ever fried them.

Here's my recipe:

2 Cups Flour
2 tbsp Baking Powder
1 tablespoon Sugar
3/4 tsp Salt
1/4 Cup Butter
1 Cup Milk

Mix flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Cut in butter till it looks like crumbs. Stir in milk until just moist. Knead. Roll. Cut. Place on ungreased sheet and bake at 450 for 10-12 minutes.

Finished Skyward Sword

2012-02-15T22:01:00.003-07:00

It was sunny today so I was able to finish playing Skyward Sword (finally). Mild spoilers, but nothing big. For those who don't wanna read this (fear of spoilers or just don't care) it was a really good game, not the best, really, but not bad. Link's looks grew on me, and I think he actually changed over the course of the game.

I just want to say that this was one of the easiest end battles I'd had to do. I died only once and that's cause I forgot to drink my potion. I did wind up going through 3 full-heart restore potions. So before you go do battle make sure you have two bottles and buy the heart potion then get the potion-maker's husband to "improve" them to Health Potion++ or whatever it's called.

As for the ending itself it's no spoiler that this is the first game in the series chronologically, so the end made me think it was setting you up for either LTTP or OOT. Turns out in the current "official chronology" OOT comes next. Well, ok, I guess. My own view was that the games go SS, LTTP, LA, OOT, MM, TP, and WW. (not counting the NES games since I never played them through) But apparently the people at Nintendo have this absolutely insane bizarre twisted idea of what time travel is that makes absolutely no sense at all. Apparently OOT splits off into three timelines. One is where you die and lose (bzuh????), one is where you go back in time to be a kid and stay there and go do MM and therefore aren't around to do the events of OOT (seriously!? The people at nintendo have actually PLAYED OOT and MM, right!? I think not! If they had played these games they'd know that MM does indeed take place when Link goes back to be a kid but that this happens during the 7 years Link was in the sacred realm and therefore it's acceptable for Link not to be in Hyrule since, well, he ISN'T at that time anyway, and in the beginning of MM it clearly says he went on a search for Navi which he would only do because at the end of OOT you see Navi flying off saying "bye, see you later" so clearly kid-Link hasn't got anything else he needs to do in OOT since, you know, 7 years later Adult Link will appear to take care of stuff and Adult Link ain't going anywhere since Kid-Link has already gone and sealed himself up, turned Adult, did stuff, won the day, then gone back in time to live his life. There can't possibly be TWO kid-Links running around anyway, right? And if Kid-Link became teenage-Link outside of the sacred realm in Hyrule Adult Link would know about it (and ganondorf too prolly and therefore kill the after-game kid-link) and therefore the sealing himself up part would be pointless, so Kid-Link stays in MM-land until he's a little older than Adult-Link then comes back to resume duty to Zelda and the kingdom.What idiot could possibly think Link wouldn't be able (or wanting) to go back to Hyrule after the events of MM? What do they think he gets lost or something?), and then there's a third timeline where... I forget something like you stay an adult which is stupid since at the end of OOT Zelda sends you back to be a kid. Either way, I expect them to revise it pretty soon here due to sheer stupidity. Probably after someone at Nintendo comes to work one day and goes, "Hey, guys! Guess what! I actually PLAYED OOT and MM, no seriously, and you know that timeline? Yeeeaaah, we might wanna think about fixing that..."

Whew.

So anyway, great game, shield bashes suck, save points aren't so bad as you can find one within like a minute's walk in any direction and usually less time than that. I don't like how they set up Hero Mode. In other Zelda games you keep your original play-through and Hero Mode (or whatever) is set up on an unused saved file. My Skyward Sword only has one save file. ....and now it's on Hero Mode and therefore my saved game is GONE and I either have to start over on a different save file or just play the Hero Mode. I guess I'm glad I didn't go overboard looking for Goddess Cubes and collecting bugs and stuff.

I totally wasn't expecting that about Impa, just btw. Not happy, not upset, just "ha, really? cool".

Oh, and after the sliding puzzle part (you'll know what it is when you get there) get those Health Potion ++ things. Don't go anywhere else, just go back to Skyloft and get you some potions cause it's the time to do so. Even if you don't or you run out don't worry you can still go get more. I was nervous about whether or not I could get more cause I got caught up in things and wound up about to face the main boss with one heart and no potions! gaaah! But I was able to go get the potions I needed, thankfully.

Apparently there is a patch for when you're looking for dragons. I did not have any issues with my dragon search, so it is my assumption that the people who had trouble were the ones who did things in a different order than I did. I went to the forest first, then fire, then desert. But you can do it in any order, just this is the one that worked for me.

Speaking of bugs if you want fun drag the bug net into the ground while you walk with it and you can barely see the net cause it clips into the ground. lol

btw, another OOT comes directly afterwards is the whole Fi = possibly future Navi thing. Fi was REALLY annoying when she beeped and beeped just to tell me my hearts are low. Yeah, thanks, Fi, I think I figured that out when my body started flashing red and the standard "beep beep" of low hearts started playing.

Though a better LTTP comes directly next thing is that Link is a knight in this game (not a spoiler you find that out in the beginning) and LTTP Link's parents were knights and OOT Link's father was a knight (maybe mother? I don't remember!) Though I guess OOT's story could still stand with Link going back to his family's tradition of being knights which would lead to LTTP Link's parents.

This was barely coherent wasn't it? Well I'm tired so it's what you're getting. Oh, watch the credits. I don't know if you can skip them or not but there's more that happens after the credits are done.

Valentine's Nails

2012-02-13T16:14:00.005-07:00

I did my nails for Valentine's Day.

Right click and open in new tab to make them bigger if you want to. I tried to get Victor to take a picture of my hands and feet together but he couldn't figure out how to use the camera or something cause he kept doing it wrong. So I did it myself. Also, yes, I know I didn't paint inside the lines very well. I don't do this very often. I'll pick and scrape it off of the skin around the nails over today and tomorrow. Also, for anyone else out there who's a newbie at details I didn't spend the money on a dot-tool cause I don't think this is something I'll do very often. I saw, in a video on youtube, this girl was using a pin. Like the kind you use in sewing, with a plastic ball on the end. I have two sizes of ball pins so I used one of each at various times, but mainly the smaller one. I know it means I've dedicated those pins to nail art but they weren't in the best shape anyway (a little bent).

The toes. I did them first to test myself and the original thing I wanted to do didn't work out so I started doing the other, mainly on the fingers.You can see what I was trying to do cause it came out great on the big toe of my right foot, but it was awful on the rest. So I started making just plain hearts.

Left hand.

Right hand. The index finger's nail is broken on the right side, if you think it looks a little odd that's why.

Thumb on right hand since I couldn't get it to twist enough to be seen in the first picture.

Jar Jar's Grand Adventure

2012-02-11T11:46:00.003-07:00

I saw TPM in 3D yesterday! It was amazing!

First, though, I want to complain about 3D glasses. I know they have little ledges you can rest on top of your real glasses but it still doesn't work right. They sit too high up on the face and press your real glasses into your nose (giving me a sinus headache yesterday) and are just generally uncomfortable. Plus sitting so far from your face (by being over real glasses) you have a little black line in the middle of your vision where you can see the middle of the 3D glasses. They should make clipons or something, then when you go to buy tickets the clerk would ask if you want regular or clipons. It would save them lots of money by not having to make ear pieces. Our theater did not have the special Anakin-Goggles glasses, but they did have special Darth Maul packaging and were red-rimmed. I have two in mint condition now (we used old glasses from previous movies so we wouldn't have to open these special glasses).

I figured I'd want to cheer when the opening crawl started... but I wound up crying. It was just so magical, so beautiful!!! I thought of the people back in 1977 who saw ANH and what they thought and felt and did any of them imagine we'd be watching these movies in such amazing 3D? You would have never known TPM wasn't shot in 3D originally. It almost looks better than movies that are made today for the purpose of 3D. How far we've come in 35 years. And what's amazing to think about is that TPM is 13-years-old this year. Wow. I remember when TPM was new, I remember the feel of the time. The toys just have this feel to them unlike any other movie's toys do. I can't explain it, really, I guess it's just a happy memories type of feel.

I've never seen TPM in the theater before. So it was a great experience. The surround sound was great, I was able to hear things I have never heard before!

And since I've seen the movie so much I can quote each line before it's said I was able to look at the background and admire the 3D. I saw things I've never seen before. Like on Rune Haako's costume there's cutouts on the upper arm!

It felt good to see the movie again. Happy smiles abounded as I mentally poked fun at Ric Olie: Captain of the Obvious and Panaka the Pessimist. And remembering little backstories such as the reason why Obi-Wan's hair is randomly longer and shorter is cause he was also filming another movie at the same time. I remembered the Darth Maul's Vacation fanfiction that Tristan and I wrote. I really badly wanted to find and play the TPM game for the Playstation. You know, games based on movies usually suck but not this one. This one is such an awesome game. I also wanted to play Podracer again. I smiled as I remembered the backstory for some of the podracers (such as Ben Quadinaros not even being a racer, he's only in the race against someone else (don't remember his name but he's the 3-eyed one, I believe he's a Malastarrian? Ree-Yees is one) in a fight over a woman).

...and I realized how Yoda knows of the Only Two Rule. And, no, it's not as I previously thought and Mace told him cause Mace is a Dark Jedi (which he is, but he wasn't the one who told Yoda). Remember in the last Bane novel when Zannah is trying to find her own apprentice and she finds that Dark Jedi and fails to turn him? He probably takes this info to the Council who decide that since there's only 2 Sith it'd be really hard to track them down and kill them both, and they aren't really causing trouble anyway, so they erase this Dark Jedi's mind or something and keep the knowledge amongst themselves and only the higher-up council members know of it. Just my own speculation, but it does make sense.

It appears as if they added in some deleted scenes. I'm not certain but I think they did most of the extendo podracer introduction scene. I know they put the Shmi's "be safe" scene in.

Also, they have changed Yoda again. I believe this is the 4th time they've done that? I think I prefer the updated dvd version of him. This one was way too Clone Wars-y. He had that extra bounce-jerk in his step that Clone Wars Yoda has. I do like that they stuck with the suspicious glances he kept giving Mace!

I hope they do all the rest this way too. I know the OT will be harder to do since they're so much older and will be harder to transform, but I'm sure he can do it. Even if he releases one every other year or so that still gives him a good 4-6 years to work on the technology.

btw... I love Jar Jar. He's an awesome character. And he's cute. Nyah.

Baby is doctor confirmed

2012-02-09T16:14:00.001-07:00

Went to the health department today and got this. I'll be looking into getting a midwife, I have a high recommendation for one that I'll be calling and setting up an appointment with sometime. This makes it all feel more real.

Review of Revan

2012-01-29T17:30:00.001-07:00

So I finished Revan just now. The best way to describe it is to say that it is just like Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter with a slightly happier ending. I believe I have given my thoughts about Shadow Hunter a time or two. It is the single most depressing book I have ever read next to Ecclesiastes. After Revan I got the same urge to throw the book against a wall as I got after Shadow Hunter only with less tears. Would I recommend you read it? Yes. It is still a very good book. Where I would not recommend Shadow Hunter to anyone I would definitely recommend Revan... with a warning. It wasn't necessarily a bad ending, some might even like it and see it as fitting, it just wasn't the one I had expected. And from a certain point of view, as I said, it's right up there with Shadow Hunter for me. I doubt it's one I'll re-read. I could never stomach Shadow Hunter again.

And now I really badly want to re-read the Bane books. They're set 3,000 years after the events of KOTOR and I believe there is some history in them. But I just checked and as far as I can tell Dromond Kaas not only gets dragged into The Clone Wars *collective sighs of dismay and groans of agony* and even appears in the later books and comics (later as in post-NJO and Legacy eras). But is not seen in any of the Bane books. Apparently it does appear in some of the other Old Republic books. hmm. I only have one other Old Republic book and that's Fatal Alliance, I believe. I wasn't sure on the timeline and I know there's a handful of other Old Republic books out there. So maybe once I have those I can figure out how we go from KOTOR to Bane.

Maybe in a few days I'll start a new game of KOTOR1. We'll see.

Revan

2012-01-24T11:36:00.001-07:00

I started reading the new Revan book yesterday. So far it is very good. It takes place 2 years after KOTOR1 (I believe KOTOR2 is 3 years after the first game). And I have this to say to start: It is so weird to read Revan as being a male. I always played the game as female (and I do the Carth romance). I believe originally Revan was supposed to be female but somewhere along the line official canon shifted and Revan was officially male. Well, whichever, it's still weird. However, I fell in love with Revan on page 2 so next time I play KOTOR1 I'm playing it as the Revan in this book. The book also has spent the last two chapters following a new character, which so far is disconnected from Revan (though if memory serves I believe this new stuff is actually referenced in the Bane novels), but it's fun and I'm excited to find out how it connects to Revan.

Now for a more spoilerific review:

Revan has long black hair. And is angsty. Like one of the angstiest characters in SW and I don't even have to read more into it than there might actually be! Only person as angsty or angstier might be Jacen. Boba's pretty angsty too but a lot of that is in my head.

Revan married Bastilla. Huh. Like I said I always did the Carth romance and Bastilla never really struck me as being very interesting, so it's just kinda weird. Not bad. Not with that description of Revan waking from a nightmare and going to stare at himself in the mirror for a time thinking angsty-emo thoughts before dropping his head and sighing with long black hair cascading over his shoulders. After that I could stomach him being married to anyone.

It is exciting to follow actual Sith, like the species of Sith. It's fun to see their disdain for mere humans. Nyriss is the woman Bane was thinking about right? When he went to some dark, ruined planet to a Sith Lady's house cause she had manuscripts and such and Bane thought she'd have something useful? Well at least I don't have any spoilers for this book cause I really don't remember the history of Nyriss as described in the Bane novels. Bane was 3,000 years after KOTOR so naturally she was long dead by Bane's time but there was a brief history that I don't remember.

:D

2012-01-22T13:31:00.002-07:00

This. Amongst other things. Heartburn, sometimes for no reason. Missing periods (last real one was just before Halloween, then a mini 2 1/2 day one in early December). Growth and sensitivity in the chest area. Overall icky sick feeling, which included me throwing up Friday morning (which was my birthday, btw, I'm 25 now, and I rarely throw up, last time was June 2010) and nausea so bad last Monday (Tuesday?) that I had to lay down for 2 1/2 hours and ended with me crying for no reason. I also appear to be a little bloaty but I could just be fat too, I've been just sitting around a lot this winter. A bit of back and hip pain (just the left hip, it's always been my left hip what bothers me). Apparently dry eyes is another symptom (I just read that today), which I never even thought of, I just thought I had dry eyes due to not sleeping well mixed with it being winter. A bit of discomfort in the tummy area now and again, and sometimes my pants feel a little tight (bloaty? fat?) when I'm leaning forwards, but just sometimes. And I've been feeling hot a lot, the worst was a few nights ago when I woke up sweating and feeling like I was suffocating but Victor was under the blankets and said it was actually kinda chilly and I cooled off after a time.

Boney the Snow Cat

2012-01-20T12:16:00.002-07:00

Bonecrusher out in the snow on the 16th.

This is a plate full of tortillas I made. Victor helped me by cooking them. Recipe here. My only complaint was the amount of tortillas it made and their size. I managed to get 8 out of this recipe but I think I'll go for 6 next time so that they're a tiny bit bigger. They were delicious though! My changes were: I added more water and shortening enough to get it all to stick together properly. I kneaded the dough to make it smoother. I did not cover them with a damp cloth, I used a dry one. In this cold a damp one probably wouldn't have been too good. Also I let it rest for 30 minutes. And one thin Victor did while cooking them was to flip them over, which the instructions did not say to do.

In other news I finished reading A Dance with Dragons last night and today went to read the excerpt from Winds of Winter that GRRM posted on his site. The book was good. I can't wait for book 6! Here-on out will be filled with spoilers so don't finish reading this post if you want to be unspoiled!

I was stunned and upset when Jon was stabbed. He's not dead, is he? Lots of bad things happen to people and they don't die. Like wen Arya took an axe to the head and when Asha got hit in battle and when Theon fell amidst fire (I knew he wasn't dead...) when they said Bran and Rickon were dead, when it was said Davos was dead, and so on. Jon might have just fallen unconscious and the next thing that happened might have been Milisandre swooping in to save him. I mean he has changed, certainly, and fallen down to 4th place on my favorite characters list, but he's still one of my favorites.

While I am enjoying what Arya's doing I wonder how that will progress into the general story. She's sorta out there on her own right now. Not that I'm not enjoying it.

I was strangely enthralled with what Theon was doing. I've never liked him. But for some reason I greatly enjoyed reading about him and even dreamed about him and Jayne the night after I read the chapter where they jumped from Winterfell. And haha to me for being stupid I didn't realize Abel was Mance till my dreams that night.

As for Stannis.... I was going to post this big long thing about why I think he's not actually dead but now that I think about it... I was going to say that the letter to Jon in book 5 says for him to give Arya back. But if Bolton had killed all of Stannis's people he would have found Arya with Stannis. But the excerpt from book 6 says Stannis is sending Arya to Jon. So if Bolton had a survivor and questioned them he'd find out Arya was sent off so it does all fit.

Brienne. o_0 I held out hope all through book 5. Now I'm more confused than before and holding out for book 6. Unless something happens in book 6 to explain things then her last chapter was the most hamfisted awful bit of writing in the entire series. And I'm not just saying that cause she might have died I'm saying it cause it makes no sense! She randomly somehow chanced on Catylen? And Catylen decided to hang her for some reason? bzuh? So what was the word she yelled? Is she dead? Or come back? Unhappy deaths (such as if Jon is dead) at least make sense but this one just leaves me bewildered.

Short Update

2012-01-16T13:04:00.000-07:00

Boney just crawled right in there. I guess if he was comfortable.

He crawled into this box too, but this was as far as he went.

This is the bread I made yesterday. My X didn't come out very well, and I cooked it a tiny bit longer after this picture. But it tastes good!

It's snowing really hard today! I'm excited to be able to go out and make a snowman. Which I'll do sometime later after it's stopped coming down so hard. For now, though, I'm taking advantage of the snow to melt some in my pan for dish water.

More Baking

2012-01-06T13:23:00.000-07:00

On the second I made french bread. This is it before I baked it. Never did rise much.

This is it after baking. Rose some while baking but it was still a small loaf. Filled us up, though!

On the fourth I made bagels. A lot of recipes called for malt but I was able to find one that didn't. Shaping them was difficult. I couldn't seem to get smooth balls. There was always one big crack or seam, or several little ones.

Lexia the Sriped Xweetok

2012-01-01T21:15:00.001-07:00

I think I mentioned before that Lexia, my Xweetok on Neopets, was hit by a random event that turned her into a baby. She used to be painted red. Well, luckily the Dream Pet Competition was just starting so I entered her asking for a pink paintbrush. I didn't win, of course. So after checking around and discovering that pink paint brushes were 2-3 million NP and me only having 1 mil, I decided to look at my options again. I was mostly decided against a red paint brush cause they were 99,000 anyway so if I'm spending that much I might as well see how much some of the fancier paint brushes cost. Something about how the Striped Paint Brush makes Xweetoks look struck me as delightful. And they cost 99,000, same as the Red Paint Brush. So, why not? I got the Striped Paint Brush and painted my Xweetok. Then I set her up with her old background and wand and everything and I am ecstatically happy! I'm deciding whether or not I want clothes for her. She seems fine as she is wearing just a necklace. Anyway, here she is:

Link Ranking

2011-12-31T17:22:00.001-07:00

So for the fun of it I have compiled a list of Links, and I will describe them, which game they're from, and rank them least hottest to hottest. Just cause.

But before we begin, if anyone makes a plushie of this I am so buying one. It is a Remlit, and they change based on if it's day or night. And they make the most adorable noises! Like a cat's meow and it's the sort that makes you melt.

Link from The Wind Waker for Gamecube. It'd really not hard to see why he ranks the lowest. He's a child, and the animation is weird. I love Wind Waker, I really do, it's a very fun game... but the art leaves a lot to be desired. It is the last in the series, chronologically. A lot of people hate it but it really is a great game.

Next comes Link from Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for NES. I really don't know a lot about the NES Links. For me, its his nose that throws me off. I also don't know where this game places in the timeline.

This Link is from Link's Awakening for the Gameboy. This game is a ton of fun and I highly recommend it... but, again, it's the nose. The eyebrows and cheeks aren't so good either. I believe this game comes after Link to the Past. Really, really fun and has one of my favorite Zelda songs in it: The Ballad of the Windfish.

After him comes the Link from Majora's Mask for the N64. I rank him here cause he's a child and this picture makes him look kinda creepy, lol. This game is a sequel to Ocarina of Time and I get the feeling some people just don't like it. Well, I do. It's fun.

This Link and the next actually battled for place cause they were about equal. This one won out due to the seriousness of his expression. This Link is from The Legend of Zelda. Not the series, the game for the NES. Again, I don't know much about this Link. I did play the game a bit but it's hard in that you have no idea where to go next. You can get to a bunch of the temples but can only get into one at a time and you just have to guess which ones to go to in which order. So I quit around the time I was hunting down which temple was supposed to be the second. I suppose I could follow a guide, but, meh.

And this is Link from Link to the Past for the SNES. This was the first Zelda game I played. I found it very difficult and didn't actually beat the game until the year Twilight Princess came out. It was fun, though, and I would definitely play it again. Being my first Zelda it makes me happy to play it again and again. Also, my brother had the comic-book, which was a great read.

Believe it or not this is among the best full-body pictures which contained Link's face that I could find. I didn't want to spoil myself by searching any more in depth, as I did stumble on a very minor spoiler as it is. Anyway, this is Link from Skyward Sword for the Wii. Not the prettiest Link but not bad once you get used to it. So far I am enjoying the game tremendously. Two words make me very excited: Claw beetle. It's all I'm saying. XD

The Links from Ocarina of Time for the N64 (and 3DS now). Child Link would place directly after Majora's Mask Link on his own, but Adult Link is right where he should be. This game is, I believe, the fan favorite. I know it's mine And for good reason. My brother gave me the anime comics for a birthday or christmas one year. Can't get past the reading backwards thing, lol!

And this... this is the Link from Twilight Princess for the Wii and Gamecube. If you want me in bed and ready effortlessly this is the guy to make me play with. I don't know how often I had to pause due to spontaneous giggling. The game was great too. Easily right up there with OOT. Kinda short. But very, very good with very good graphics with a good story and good gameplay. It was fun, for more than watching Link. Plus... we get shirtless Link in this one! And Link who kisses someone! (not a guy, boo to people who say Link is girly) And he smiles and when he smiles his eyes shine. His eyes are so expressive in this game. *swoon*

My First Sour Dough Hamburger Buns

2011-12-29T19:48:00.002-07:00

I used this recipe, and I used the drop-down menu at the top to change the serving size from 8 to 4. Instead of trying to use half an egg I just used a whole one. *shrug* Little extra egginess never hurt anyone. I did not use freshly fed starter as the site I got all my sour dough info from says to use it after it's poofed some, but I realize why it wanted you to use freshly fed starter, it was because you let it sit for two hours. Mine sat for two hours and did nothing. I imagine a freshly fed starter would poof. Honestly I don't think it made much difference as my pictures will show you. I know the recipe talks about kitchen aids and bread makers, but you know what? You don't need all that fancy equipment. I stirred with my hands and I kneeded the dough about 5-7 minutes. Then I broke it into four pieces and shaped into rounds. To be cute for Victor's sake I carved Atari symbols into the tops.

Here they are freshly shaped, topped with peanut oil (cause my butter was hard and I didn't feel like waiting for it to soften up), and sesame seeds.

2 hours later.

I baked them for about 20-22 minutes. The recipe calls for 15-18 but my oven bakes slower than normal ones so I always have to add about 5-8 minutes to any baking time.

Here's one cut open. They rose too tall so next time I'll try making them flatter and shortening their raise time. I actually hadn't meant to let them raise for that long but I was busy playing Skyaward Sword and didn't get to making the hamburger patties till the 1 1/2 hour mark. Otherwise they were perfect.

Christmas

2011-12-29T19:32:00.001-07:00

Here is what we got for Christmas. I got the Snape poster, the mythosaur patch, the mythosaur window cling, the Revan book, and the socks. Victor got the Street Fighter IV 3DS game and the Michael Jackson Circu Du Soil or whatever cd. The candy is mostly mine but I suppose Victor can have the mint truffle kisses and some of the 3 Musketeers.

Me! I wore my hair up in a slightly altered version of Torin's Greek-Inspired hairdo. I forgot to get pictures of it as a whole, but basically it's a side-part with three braids done at the front, a knot bun in back, and the leftover hair put into three twirly buns (I did three cause it worked best for me!) and then the three braids I ran around my head and pinned. I put two sparkly pins in. One to hold things in place and the other to hide a messy spot. Since I'd done it in the mirror I was confused about where my part was and spent the whole day showing off my sparkles to people.... which was funny cause I always pointed to the wrong side of my head! I didn't realize the sparkles were on the other side till much later. Also I did eye makeup! A bit of purple. I never really wear makeup much.

Had a good Christmas. I made pancakes with the sour dough starter, and I think they tasted no better than any regular pancake but Victor really liked them. We watched Black Adder's Christmas Carol, then went to go spend time with just about everyone. Emily's back to her old self and I'm happy for it. Her bubble-headedness rubbed off on me for just about the whole day and we had a lot of fun. We ate a good dinner and watched a movie then had dessert and played Uno. It was snowing pretty bad as I went to go home but it never amounted to anything.

PIctures of Bookcases

2011-12-21T21:02:00.001-07:00

Atton on the bed.

Boney plays with the scratching post.

Boney on the couch.

I decided to clean up today. Here's the movies, wii games, gamecube games, choose your own adventure and such, and magazines. After the picture I moved the garbage can and broom and stuff into that corner.There's wii accessories spread across the top shelf.

Here's the bookshelves. I have them author's last name A-Z across the top two shelves of the tw bookcases here. And then the taller books are A-Z across the bottom shelf of the two cases. My Harry Potter books are at the end there because I have so many other HP style books like Magical Beasts and Where to Find Them and Quidditch Through the Ages and The Great Snape Debate, and I wanted them all together. I couldn't justify putting them all under Rowling. My Indiana Jones books are all under I for Indiana cause I wanted them together as well. The little tv is for things like the Atari 2600. So far the only other gaming stuff set up are the Wii, N64, and the SNES/NES twin. Though we've only used the Atari and Wii so far.

And here's another angle. The shelf on the end goes as such: Top shelf has my Diaries books (Dear America, Dear Canada, and Royal Diaries), then Victor's Naruto books. The middle shelf has a few American Girl history books, and a few medium sized non-fiction books like a boy scouts handbook and a Monopoly book and such, then come some more anime books and various comics such as Peanuts and Far Side. The bottom shelf has all the rest of our non-fiction books. Mainly science and archeology. There's some geology books and historical books (mainly medieval).

Sourdough Starter Update

2011-12-20T11:29:00.003-07:00

Pictures behind cut so as not to take up a lot of room on the main page, so...

9:30AM December 19th. No activity yet.

I figure the jar was too far from the woodstove cause it was fairly cold to the touch. So I moved it to the shelf where the board games are. (I had had it on the top shelf of the bookcase over the tv cabinet)

9:45PM December 19th. Activity! The warmth of the shelf by the woodstove worked. It's all bubbly.

So I fed it 1/4 cup of water, stirred. And it looked like this. Then I added 1/2 cup of wheat flour.

Here it is, fed and marked.

Here it is from the top.

9:45AM December 20th. It had a growth spurt overnight! Yay!!

Here it is from the top. Smells different too, I can't place it. Victor says it smells like fresh pretzels. So I threw out half (waste of flour, I know but you can not use starter in it's early stages) and fed it 1/4 cup water and 1/2 cup wheat flour.

Here is the freshly fed starter.

From the side.

Skyward Sword

2011-12-19T19:50:00.001-07:00

I got to play Zelda Skyward Sword tonight for the first time!!! The non-spoiler review is that I very much like it. There are a few things that are weird. Savepoints, for one. Really? Save-points? Really? *sigh*

I don't like having to point the wiimote at the conversation answer. You know like how someone says "Hey, Link, can you help me with this?" you have to point your wiimote at your answer! I just know I'll mess that up at some point.

Also, any girls hoping for another Twilight Princess-style Link is out of luck cause this Link ranks pretty low in my book. He ranks lower than the OOT Link even. It's his lips. They're just... weird. Squinty-eyes at the corner are weird too but that could be cause they're above the cloud line and the sun glares? Dunno. But he is one ugly Link. Twilight Princess Link is pretty hard to top, though.

On the subject, who gave Zelda bangs? It's weird but not really so horrible. I'm actually kinda used to it now.

I like how they made the bird symbol more relevant and integral. I have the bird + triforce symbol on a tshirt, so that makes me happier cause now it has more meaning.

The wii motion plus is awesome. You know how you can always slice signs? Well when you slice them now they break the way you slice them. If you go diagonally up they break diagonally up then fall apart! Also, the spin attack is sooo much easier than it is in Twilight Princess. In Twilight Princess if I ever did a spin attack it was totally by accident.

I guess I haven't really played long enough to have any real spoilers. I do have one minor one ahead here:

Mia is adorable! The sounds it makes make you want to hug it and love it and give it everything you can! So cute! It was heart wrenching when it turned evil at nighttime (I actually jumped when it turned around and had red eyes and was growling at me) and I had to attack it! I felt horrible as I threw it over the ledge, but it started flying and I felt better.

My new pet

2011-12-18T22:08:00.002-07:00

This is my first sour dough starter! 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup wheat flour, topped with plastic wrap secured with a hair tie (for lack of a rubber band). I started this at 9:30 tonight, so tomorrow at 9:30AM I'll be able to see if there's progress. I read that in colder climates it can take a while to get started so if nothing's happened I can wait till 9:30 tomorrow night and see if there's any activity. There should be bubbling, so we'll see. Right now it smells like bread dough. I read that sometimes it can smell pretty bad at first as the microorganisms fight it out to see if yeast gets started growing or not. I call it my pet cause you have to feed it twice a day. eek! You can put it in the fridge once it's stable, though, and feed it once a month. The masking tape is to mark where the level is right now. I wrote "mixed" on it to show when it was first mixed. When I feed it I'll mark that too, so I can track it's growth.

Suck it up, Katie!

2011-12-16T10:07:00.002-07:00

So today is Star Wars Day, which I'd always been under the impression was May 4th. It was a year or two ago when this started. Apparently some little girl decided to cash in on being "teased" for liking Star Wars. Somehow this every-day story of a child being picked on for their likes (which happens to, well... everyone at some point) got on the official Star Wars site under the title of something along the lines of "Girls like Star Wars too" or some such. And instead of everyone shrugging and saying, "One or two kids at your school said something vaguely discomfiting? Yeah, that happens, it's life, get over it. If you think this is hard wait till you're an adult!" they said, "Gee, golly, really? How horrid! We must rally behind you and label today Star Wars Day forever more! The day when people world-wide wear Star Wars shirts to show their fandom!" Really? I mean, really? How lame. I could see if the kid's friends wore Star Wars shirts for one day to show their support. But all Star Wars fans everywhere? What about all the other kids who have been picked on for Star Wars related reasons? I bet this is a slap in the face to everyone who didn't get this kind of support, you know, the ones who didn't cash in on it, cause they weren't rich or related to someone important. Which, come on, is really the only reason she got any attention. Seeing as Star Wars has been around for 34 years we have a rather long span of time for kids to have picked on each other, so wouldn't that mean that by now we'd have 365 days of "Star Wars Day"?

I refuse to wear a Star Wars shirt today. Some people might even say that by posting this at all I'm bringing attention to it. But I realized I've never posted my extreme irritation at this.

Picture Time

2011-12-14T20:11:00.001-07:00

The cats help us set up the double-stacked bookshelves on December 5th!

The shelf pegs are too big so Victor helped me squeeze them in.

"I can has box now?"

This is the start of the December 6th pictures. The bookcase did not stay like this. At some point I moved the books down to the other shelves and used this one for movies and Wii games, bottom shelf is now for magazines, and the Choose Your Own Adventures there on the second shelf up is still that way.

Christmas tree! The filing cabinet has my sewing patterns in the bottom two drawers and the top one has scissors, needles, fray check, pins, machine feet, and other assorted sewing tools.

Here is how I attached the two bookcases.

And here is how they are attached to the wall. (this is on top)

Here's the corner by the door where we have the board games.

The outlet sticks too far out so I bought a 3.5" picture frame at the dollar store and tore off the backing. Fits great and looks elegant.

Now these ones are from December 7th. I put a bookcase on top of the tv cabinet.

Boney on Victor's truck.

Atton on Victor's truck.

Taken on December 11th. Boney sometimes puts his paw on his face when he sleeps. To block out light?

Bonecrusher on December 12th.

Boney and Atton.

I attempted to make candy canes but I believe I ran them too hot. They were unmanageable and cooled before I could pull them. So after they dried we chipped them out of my cookie sheets and into this bowl. I did get one reasonably longish half-way twisted stick, but the picture is on my mom's camera. The chips taste good!

This is from today, the 14th. My somewhat cluttered kitchen area. It's a little better now than it was earlier. The bucket has flour in it and it's out cause I made peanut butter cookies last night and braided egg bread today. We have the propane for the stove in that cubby next to the stove behind the dish drainer. To use the stove top we set the stove on the floor. I have cleaners in the cabinet under the stove. The cats adore that cubby next to the cabinet so I'm leaving it empty for now. I have two bookshelves next to the sink stand that I have dishes and cookware on, for now. I'll double stack them at some point and get something larger to put between them and the sink stand.

Bit of an update

2011-12-10T18:35:00.003-07:00

I know it's been a while. I wasn't going to post until I had pictures and I keep putting off taking pictures because I want everything to look good first. Well, I'll just post a text update for now and see if I feel like taking progress pictures sometime.

I got bookshelves in and arranged as I did previously post pictures of. But now I've filled them with books, movies, wii games, and cds. I have tall food-stuffs on top of the double-stacked bookshelf (like juice, oils, etc). I have a bookshelf on top of the tv cabinet and has light food in it like Helpers and macaroni and cheese and brownie mix. The stove is now where the water jugs were. I have a little end table in front of the cabinet that has a dish drainer and dish pans on it, as I discovered the sink is too big. I have bookshelves next to that. I think my eventual plan is to get a cabinet thing (not sure what, I don't have anything in mind so I'll have to browse) to put next to the end table so I have a larger counter space and an area to store larger kitchen things. Then I'll double-stack the two bookshelves I have now. I'll have to browse the kitchen space makers and stuff Wal-Mart has to see if anything pops up and says "I'll be usefull!"

After the kitchen is set up I'll bring in my sewing machine and serger and make those curtains I keep saying I'll make

I started repacking things from boxes into crates. So far it's just been misc stuff that was in boxes I unpacked, like shirts and some of my Star Wars vhs sets. And the various Atari 2600s and their controllers. Tomorrow I'll start one of various dishes I won't be needing right now, like these mini-plates I guess are meant for deserts. And the large Halloween cup I have. And a Batman kiddie cup I couldn't pass up a few years ago cause I knew by time I had kids and they were old enough to use it I either wouldn't be able to find it again or it'd be expensive.

I keep meaning to bring in the large tv cause I think I know where to put it but I want to test and see if it fits. Also after the mini-tree we have on the filing cabinet (which is at the end of the line of bookshelves under the window) comes down I'm going to move the bookshelves down and the cabinet over so that it is between the tv cabinet and the bookshelves and we can set the little tv there so Victor can play his Atari.

It is a good feeling to empty out boxes and burn them.

In order to keep the lettuce from freezing we put it in a bag right in front of the door and this is the best I've ever had it keep! I've had it in front of the door since Tuesday and today, Saturday, it doesn't even have a hint of brown on it and it tastes fresh, like we just bought it today! So perhaps when I used to store lettuce in the fridge I was actually killing it? hm.

Also, had a stupid Random Event happen at Neopets and now my Xweetok is a baby! AUGH! Now I have to pay nearly 100,000NP to buy a paintbrush to get her back to normal. I guess if I have to pay a ton of Neopoints for a brush I'll go ahead and see if I want to paint her any other color. She used to be red. Now she's a pink and purple baby, ick. Someone on the Help forums told me I could trade her as baby pets are worth something but I dunno. I don't think I'd really want someone else's pet because they would probably have a stupid name and I don't really have a different kind of pet in mind that would be my "dream pet" that I could trade Lexia away for. I just don't know. It's not like I'd be losing out a lot cause I've been reading books to my Quiggle so it's not like I'd lose a ton of book readings. I just don't know what to do. For now I'm using Bofett (my quiggle) as my main pet and moved Lexia to second. I wonder what people would be willing to trade for her. I don't want to advertise that I would trade her away but I think I am curious about what I'd get for her.

Also, I tried to see the Lunar Eclipse this morning but I guess we were just barely not close enough. I know people in Idaho saw it, but I didn't. Either the moon had passed the horizon or it was too cloudy. I'm guessing it had passed the horizon. It's alright. I tried around 7:50, which was just at the very edge of it anyway.

Walls, Floors, and Furniture.

2011-11-30T12:05:00.002-07:00

This picture is from 11/12. A progress shot of Victor laying down floor tiling.

Here's one from the 13th.

And another.

I got home on the 27th, and the place was trashed. Apparently Victor had decided not to clean or organize at all while I was gone and the house was a total disaster with cans and garbage all over and piles of dirty clothes in random places even though I'd left him laundry soap. I spent all day Monday and some of Tuesday fixing this and yesterday we were able to bring in the book shelves. I still need to find pegs for the shelves, though. While I was gone Victor and Steven brought in the couch which I guess I don't have a picture of. We put it right in front of the stairs. I see I also need a picture of the entrance-way. I put up a coat rack and an end table.

Here is the wall before I put the shelves in.

The shelf on the left is going to be stacked on top of the shelf on the right, I just need to see if I have anything to connect them with to make them stable.Then my sewing cabinet is going to go next to that bit of bookshelf you can see in the very bottom left.

Here are the other shelves.

Here is my old tv cabinet. It will become a part of the kitchen. My plan is to get back three of the brown bookshelves I gave Emily and stack one on top of the tv shelf and put the other two against that wall there in front of the tv cabinet. I'll space them apart a little and hang the sink between them. I will take the top off of one and drop the stove in onto the top shelf. At least this all works out in my mind, I just need to get everything set up and see if it fits.

The hole the tv should sit in is just the perfect size for two water containers! We just need to bring in another one to put next to this one.

Games Master Level 5

2011-11-29T10:30:00.000-07:00

So at Neopets Team Brains won. Yay! I got a top level trophy. And I got the extra bonus for completing all the events on the days they were released.

Yesterday's final challenges were easy. They all counted toward each other. It had Faerie Cloud Racers (tron lightcycle racing basically), Spinnacles (a kind of 3-in-a-row color matching game), and Super Hassee Bounce (two characters on a see saw and you bounce each other up to collect points and stuff). And those were on one challenge together. Spinnacles was hard because you have to point-farm, which takes forever. But those three games counted towards the "send scores in 3 different games with a hardness of 4.0 or higher", so I completed that one just by playing the first challenge!

Then it had three games from Shenkuu you had to play and if you played the puzzle ones you beat the other challenge of playing 3 different puzzle games. So those counted towards each other.

Then all the games you played for the entire event counted towards the last one of playing 60 games. So you really didn't have too many extras left to play after all this to get that one.

Easier than last year I think! Course they weren't doing a "Play for AAA to get higher score" or "if you don't want hard scores play for Abigale". This year all the scores to beat were the same and the event was centered on Brains vs Brawn and what kind of game you're better at. If I'd chosen Brawn the GMC would have been so difficult for me and I don't know that I would have won.

Well, the next expected event is the Advent Calender, so that's it for Neopets news on this blog for a while cause, unless I get a really awesome prize, I won't be recording my prizes.

Spacerocked is actually very fun

2011-11-27T10:14:00.000-07:00

The GMC was alright. They wanted me to get 1,024 points in Suteks Tomb (offbrand bejewed type game), which is easy as my high score before yesterday was 5,000. Well, yesterday I beat my old high score and got one of 8,000!!! :D

The other games were simple, like Snowmuncher and Piper Panic. But they had Garl's Great Escape on there which was awful. Apparently it's the glitchiest game on Neopets. I struggled but managed. It was very wrist-straining.

Today's games were nice and easy. There was one that wanted me to get 3,000 on a game I'd never gotten more than 600 on. Eek! And today I was only getting scores of, like, 200. But I read a few tips and soon enough I was scoring 9,000. It's actually pretty fun. Spacerocked is what it's called. You shoot a rock out of a slingshot and it can either bounce to a stop, hit a pipe or lava pit and die, hit good guys and green glowing blobs for points, and at the end you can hit a spaceship to pass the level and gain even more points. What I was missing was hitting the boost button when my rocks started to slow down and stop.

Tomorrow is the last day. And so far I'm on the winning team. So yay, I'll probably get a trophy. It depends on what games they throw at us and the scores needed for them.

I'm also glad I didn't join Team Brawn cause they have had some really hard games, and a lot I've never even played before, or only played once.

Been playing games

2011-11-25T14:32:00.002-07:00

I haven't posted in a bit but I've been busy with the Games Master Challenge! So far all the scores I've needed have been easy. One day it was 17,000 in Neopian Battlefield Legends, and I never score lower than 125,000. So that was good. But so slow. That game takes, seriously, 20-30 minutes a game. And I had to send score 5 times! So it got to the point where I ended the game early when I got to about 20,000.

And one day was Crises Courier, which I don't really like but for the Daily Dare I had to get 3,500 so the score they wanted of 700 was beyond easy.

Also, I love that they keep throwing Kookia at us for these challenge events. For the Daily Dare you got the score you needed after two levels, for the GMC now you can get the score in half of the first level. Super easy!

Today looks to be a bit of a challenge cause I'm not very good at any of the games I have to do today (though for the Daily Dare I have gotten 2-3 times the scores required of me today) and I haven't even played one of the games ever. So we'll see!

Also, I've been playing Batman: Arkham City. omg if you think Arkham Asylum is fun this is even better! You get to grapple and fly to your heart's content! There's just so much to do and so much to see and so many side missions! Plus you get to play as Catwoman sometimes which is awesome.

I went shopping today. I had printed up a 25% off your entire order coupon and I went for the sales. I got some yarn, cookie cutters, patterns, buttons, thread, and ribbon and it came up to 38 dollars with a savings of 106 dollars!!! So that made me very happy. I got fatigued and hungry in line though. I hadn't eaten since 4:45 this morning and I was in the store between 11 and 12. Bret let me get off early, and I don't care about the loss in hours cause I get a whole day of holiday pay, I'm pretty sure, cause I didn't work last Thanksgiving I think and I got paid for it anyway. Besides, my coupon expired at noon and the savings were well worth the 2 hours and 15 minutes I lost. Cause, think, 106 dollars in savings compared to about 25 dollars lost.

Anyway. I'm tired. And hungry. So I'm going to have some food, read the comics, then work on the GMC, then play more Batman!

Making fun of a video

2011-11-22T15:42:00.002-07:00

5 Items That Are Better Old Than New.

This video is supposed to be showing what items are better old than new. It starts off with our host using an electric beater. She's "struggling" with one of the beaters and is supposedly having trouble getting it out. She then easily and simply pulls it out, realizes this, and shoves it back into the mixer before moving her hand away and letting it "fall out" into the bowl. Somehow this is her excuse for using a hand beater. The problem with hand beaters is that generally all you can find are egg beaters which aren't very good for mixing up anything thicker than pancakes or cakes in general. The handles are strenuous to hold on to and make your hands ache.

Next on her list are fans. She says older fans with metal blades work better than fans with plastic ones and that you can find metal blade fans for "30-50 dollars" online, which is "half the price of a new fan". Wait, what? Is she for real? On Amazon alone I just found 6,195 Results when I searched for fans under 25 dollars. Huh. Who in their right mind would pay 60-100 dollars for a fan, old or new?

Then she talks about sewing machines. Yeah, older ones do work well. However, it depends on what you're doing. Some people don't like making buttonholes by hand, others like the ease of a machine stitched button hole (and if you're making clothes to sell it's much faster to let your machine do it). What if you want the various stitches new machines come with? Also her claim is that new Singer sewing machines start at 150 and run up to 500 dollars while old machines can be found for 50-150. So I went to the Singer official site and did a search. I found ten machines under 150 dollars. And, really, it's not fair to use just Singer. You can find Brother machines for 60 dollars brand new and they're actually pretty decent looking, with a bunch of stitches and buttonhole makers.

Then she goes on to talk about furniture. If you happen to find a good deal on something at the thrift store, fine. But I see nothing wrong with buying assembly-required newer furniture. She makes fun of people having to put it together as if it's hard to follow directions. I could put together furniture in my sleep and have been putting it together since I was a child. It's really not hard. All it really requires is the ability to read directions. About the only stability and quality issue I've ever had is the backboard on bookshelves. They're flimsy and not pretty and my only consolation is that they're hidden by whatever's on the shelves so it doesn't matter much. But if you're moving and you need to take it apart a bookshelf's backboard won't stand up to too many reconstructions. Some new furniture looks very nice and you might not even know it was something you had to put together. Really all depends on your taste, if you prefer older style furniture. Or if you're rich you can go to a store and buy these things pre-made.

And then she talks about cast iron cookware where older ones work better. It was my understanding that a cast iron pan needs to be seasoned. Thus older pans are very seasoned and cook very well wheras new ones are, well, unseasoned and therefore impatient cooks won't spend the time necessary with them which leads to the belief that they're not as good, when, in 20 years, these pans that are new today will work as well as the 20-year-old pans of today. At least as far as my understand of cast iron goes.

Audio Equipment is next. Well, gee, I sure hope those audio systems from the 50s and 60s can play my cds.... Bet they can't hook up to ipods and mp3 players either. Speakers, if found cheap, maybe, if their sound isn't tinny and staticy. I really don't know much about speakers in general.

In general this woman just really gets on my nerves. Check out her "how to feed a family on 15 dollars a day" video for more annoying but amusing "helpful information".

Brrraaaaaiiinnsss

2011-11-21T17:20:00.002-07:00

So today on Neopets the Games Master Challenge has started. I was a Level 8 Games Master in last year's event. This year they're changing it up a bit. Usually you can get one of two scores, an AAA score which is always much harder to reach than the Abigale score. Well this year you either pick AAA's team or Abigale's team, but the scores needed are the same. AAA's games, however, will focus on puzzles and logic as he's the leader of Team Brains. Abigale's Team Brawn will be full of action and adventure games. I joined Team Brains. The link will show you a picture of my pet but currently my Team Brains sign is broken, everyone's is and they're fixing it.

Anyway, today's challenge for Team Brains was Kiko Match II, which is just a basic timed memory match game. You had to score 100 to qualify. Which I did easily. My high score is nearly 400. For additional points to help your team you can send score 5 times total, with scores of 100. So I did.

The bonus challenge today was to add three games to your favorites list, so I did. And, again, you can do it 5 times to help your team so I did. It was annoying because I didn't realize your favorites list has a limit so I was merrily adding away and then found that I didn't get any prizes so I had to go back and figure out what happened, delete some games, and add others. So now my favorites list is a complete mess and I'll have to resort it at some point. It's alright, I don't really use my favorites list often.

In other news: This is hilarious! Warnings: Language and slight spoiler for Skyward Sword.

Review: 25th Anniversary Zelda CD

2011-11-20T15:46:00.007-07:00

Normal sound will never be enough to satisfy after this heaven for the ears.

Each song is chilling. Each song is hero-worthy. Each song is breath-taking. This is a level of epic beyond words.

The first song is titled simply "Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary". It is mostly unfamiliar to me so I must assume it's music taken from the NES games which I have not played so much, or Skyward Sword which I have not played at all.

Next we come to Kakariko Villiage - Twilight Princess Theme. It is a beautiful rendition of the Kakariko Villiage song and has it's own heroic epicness.

The Wind Waker Symphonic Movement is not the disappointment I fear everyone will anticipate. I happen to like Wind Waker. It is a sort of medley. For anyone who's heard the Legend of the Hero song from another collection don't get your hopes up. I love that song on it's own, and when this one started it starts in the same way and I got all hyped up and was a bit let down when the Outset Island song started. But I was hardly upset for long as this is a very good song and showcases a lot of the good music from this game. The title song made me bouncy.

Afterwards we have Gerudo Valley, which is totally not as boring as it sounds. Either I never paid attention whenever I was in Gerudo Valley or this music is from a game I haven't played cause it was as unrecognizable as it was astounding!

And in case all this adrenaline is tiresome we have the Great Fairy's Fountain Theme thrown into the middle which put me into a state of relaxation and contentment previously only experienced during Michael Jacksons Human Nature.

Twilight Princess Symphonic Movement was next. It was beautiful, it was heroic, it was adventurous, it was... breathtaking.

After that was Legend of Zelda Main Theme Medley, which I heard before on Victor's 3DS. It was even better the second time around. Truly awe-inspiring.

Then... a song I have never heard before and neither have you. Ballad of the Goddess from Skyward Sword. It promises that this game will be everything the other games have been and more. It promises action, adventure, heroism, fate, everything these games are.

Even the parts of these songs I either didn't remember or never heard had a definite Zelda feel to them.

The only thing missing is a "Symphonic Movement" for Ocarina of Time. I am a little surprised they had a 10 minute Wind Waker song and yet Ocarina of Time got nothing. I was under the impression that Ocarina of Time was the fan-picked favorite?

Anyway, excellent job to the orchestra and writer and leader. Well done! Very well done indeed! To think all this effort was put into something they gave away for free! (well, free if you buy the game...)

If it wasn't packaged into the game I would gladly have bought it as a single on it's own for 10-15 dollars. So even if you don't want Skyward Sword I highly recommend seeing if anyone on ebay is selling the cd by itself cause, trust me, if you're a Zelda fan... you want this!

Here's the video of the Main Theme Medley:

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

2011-11-20T13:33:00.002-07:00

eeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!! *bounce bounce* ^_^

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword @ Nintendo.com

I love my golden wiimote! I love the packaging! I love the new cd I have yet to try out! (Saw a preview on Victor's 3ds so I know the cd will be awesome) ....do I love the game? Won't know till Sunday at the soonest!

I got a pleasant surprise when I picked up my pre-order from Best Buy. I guess there was a deal running where you got a 10 dollar gift card. I don't know if it's because I pre-ordered it there or if it's because I bought it there at all. But it made me happy.

Fallout 3 Motion Sickness

2011-11-16T18:30:00.001-07:00

I've been sick since Sunday. I've drank a lot of orange juice and it might be helping? It usually does, and I know it helped my throat. I think my head's less stuffy than it was earlier today or yesterday, so that's good. I felt like throwing up the other morning I was so miserable, my eyes hurt and my sinuses were warm and throbby. But I am much better now.

I believe I have fixed Fallout 3. I never used to be able to play more than a half hour to an hour without getting motion sick. Victor and I were talking about it and he asked me how I feel when playing Bad Company 2. I feel alright with that game, I never really have issues much. Turns out Bad Company uses a FOV (field of vision) of 80, and Fallout uses 75. So all I had to do was open a console (you hit the ~ button, but not on caps, I guess it's called the tilde key but I always called it "squiggle key") on Fallout 3 and type in FOV 80 and it worked! I just played for almost two hours without hardly any motion sickness! XD

I must say this for Fallout 3... I love wandering the wasteland. I hate exploring the city. None of the subways take you where you want to go, and you get lost so easily. I can't find my way anywhere, and once I've been somewhere good luck getting back there! I was trapped at the Mall (the area in front of the washington monument) for the longest time. I even went and explored several subways but they all led me back to the Mall! But now I think I discovered a way out. I stumbled across the congress building and ran around inside for a while and found a way out the other side, but I'm done playing now so I didn't explore that new area. I know, I could warp. But I hate warping. It feels like cheating (though it isn't) and you miss stuff that way.

Currently I'm trying doing the quest about the Rangers, where the leader is in the ghoul city of Underworld. I don't really have an issue with ghouls, so they treat me well. And I was going to go to their camp but I'm having issues navigating the city. I need to go find a detailed map and directions. Cause the map on the wrist-computer (forgive me, I don't remember what it's called. In my mind I call it "tab" cause that's the key you use to bring it up) isn't very helpful.

1996 Emma

2011-11-13T17:22:00.000-07:00

Just got done watching the 1996 version of Emma.

Firstly, let me express concern over what's going on with Ewan McGregor's hair. It was awkward and ill-fitting for him. Ewan McGregor usually looks good no matter what he's in but he just didn't fit in well in this movie at all. A lot of his non-Star Wars movies are actually pretty bad, and while this movie was good he was bad! lol

Secondly... I think I need to read the book again. I don't remember it nearly so well as I should. Emma was a very, very good book. It has what I think is the most romantic scene I have ever read, and the two characters were doing nothing more than walking side by side and talking. I think this version did a fairly good job of conveying that. I honestly can't review this version because I don't remember the book so well. I think it was a bit like the Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice; you need to have read the book to really get it.

Mr. Knightly had eyes you could fall into, but I think he looked younger than he should have. Remember, he is supposed to be 37. I also think they made Harriet stupider than she should have been, too. Did they purposefully choose an actress with such a large body frame as compared to Gweneth Paltrow so as to show her as being of lesser station? Because a bigger frame means more oafish which equals simplicity of mind?

Of the 4 available versions this is supposed to be the best, or second best. There is a BBC variation I want to watch that is supposed to be good, better than the 1996 one. I have high hopes for it cause the BBC variation of Pride and Prejudice was so good, but we'll see. The hair in this one was pretty, if a bit lopsided at times. Costumes were good. They seem to have lost one of Mr. Martin's sisters, I was certain he had two of them.

One of my complaints is that they kept jumping, like, they had Emma say, "So I guess I'll say...." then it jumps to her when she's saying it for real. I also didn't like the commercial break cuts. I get it, they wanted to show when she jumps from idea to idea about men, but it didn't really work too well, I think. I also didn't like how Mrs. Elton talked directly to the camera as if to shove her character at us to make sure we got it.

1408

2011-11-13T14:29:00.002-07:00

I just watched the Directors Cut of 1408. I didn't watch it in it's entirety because I do not do bathrooms or mirrors. I covered my eyes whenever we were taken anywhere near a bathroom or mirror.

It's only been in the last year or two that I have been capable of going into a bathroom at night without either a curtain covering the mirror or the light on, door open in both cases, and regardless of curtains light on if door is shut. I am not about to go back to how I was just because horror films like to use bathrooms and mirrors. Anyway, my fear of mirrors and bathrooms asides this movie only had one bad bathroom scene (that I didn't watch but I heard, and from the sound of things it wasn't actually too horrible). It had a scene that was sort of like a mirror scene, only it kinda wasn't (person across the street, mimicking movements, attacker behind other person becomes real person behind character) and that made me cover my eyes as well. It did, however, have a mirror scene that I actually shrieked at. It was totally out of nowhere and I shrieked and then laughed and then cried. I hate mirrors. I really hate mirrors. I only have two mirrors at home, my little hand mirror for seeing the back of my head when I do my hair (which I keep in my hair toys crate), and my wall mirror which I do not hang but leave down and either facing the floor or the wall when I'm not using it. I hate mirrors. Also, while they make mention of a maid who stabbed her own eyes out while trapped in the bathroom (lovely! Two of the top three things I'm most scared of! Mirrors are 1st, then bathrooms, then eyes being gouged out), we never see her ghost or images of her or pictures or anything.

The movie was alright, I haven't read the book. I think the scariest part of the movie (other than the mirror) was the buildup. It was all about buildup, and while things did happen, the tension was worse than just about anything that did happen. Also, apparently there are two endings, which I didn't know till later, but that's why I specified that I watched the directors cut, to show which ending I got. I'm still a little creeped out and teary, but I'm alright. I also got the 1996 Emma to watch so I might do that in a bit here to help me calm down and relax. Today's hair washing day so I will have need to be alone in the bathroom later. Yes, I know nothing happened in the bathroom in this movie but I'm still going to be scared and probably try to go as fast as I can. I'm waiting till Timmy comes home before going in to do it.

Welcome Back

2011-11-12T15:14:00.001-07:00

Working for Bonnie next two weeks, and some this week. They're making me remember why I left. So today it's like, "Hey, the night guy in dairy who hurt his back earlier this week isn't working today and we've known that for the last four days and didn't get anyone to cover for him and we had no one in dairy last night so can you close receiving early and work a 10-hour shift today to do help out in dairy?" -_- I wound up doing 9 1/2, 5-6 of which were in dairy. I'll just have to catch up receiving next week. So this plus my 9 hours yesterday and then working regular 8 hour-shifts the rest of the week (and a little over on some days) I probably have 43 hours this week. But it is so nice not to have to worry about dairy. None of it is my concern anymore. Night guy out with a bad back and it looking like he isn't coming back... in November? If I was still in dairy I'd be working 10-hour shifts every day and coming home to curl up and cry till bedtime and I'd be going through each day on the edge of tears. Soooo glad this isn't my problem. November is the most horrid month of the year as it is.

Victor has painted the downstairs of the house and it looks beautiful. He started laying the floor tiling yesterday. So far I don't have pictures of these things. He's not a camera person. He took one of the priming and that's it. I reminded him last night that I want pictures of the painting and tiling.

Comparing Movie Posters

2011-11-04T20:59:00.001-06:00

We all know what these two movies are about...

..so, dear Lord, do I even want to know what this one is about?

Four or five days worth of mudding and taping.

2011-11-03T08:28:00.000-06:00

Here are two walls after taping and three coats of mud. I have also sanded here.

Here's another corner shot.

Today Victor is going to start priming the walls and then over the next few days he'll paint them.

Arm Pain

2011-10-28T21:09:00.001-06:00

I mud and taped the ceiling downstairs today. It was horrid. My shoulder quickly cramped up and I had to take several breaks. The cut on my left hand (I sliced it on my desktop computer last Friday) hurts again. I got mud under my fingernails. My neck hurts. And I was so mind numbed and achy that I actually took a nap around 4:00! I never take naps. Even when I lay down to do so I can't. I don't really care that I did a really bad job of smoothing the mud because we are wallpapering the ceiling. Yes, that's right. We are buying pre-pasted wallpaper and sticking it to the ceiling. We already have a pattern picked out:

Finished Drywalling!

2011-10-27T21:33:00.002-06:00

Atton in front of the dresser, which we've got at the foot of the bed.

I did the drywall next to the door. Still need to do the small bit at the top there, which I forgot about till now.

Then I did this wall.

Here's the corner.

Poor measuring. At least it'll be covered!

This is the last piece. Except for that small piece above the door we're done with drywall!

Victor and I mounted the panels up on the frame. Taken from the window.

You can see the wood shed back there, Victor put the tarp over it. Taken from the door.

This is how I wore my hair today. I see one of my sticks was too far down but that's ok. Basically it's a sock bun, then I tied a hair scarf around it under all the loose hair then I made a braid using the rest of my hair as one piece and the two pieces of scarf as the other two strands. At the bottom I tied the scarf off and wrapped around the bun. I finished it off with hair sticks. This is after I'd worn it all day.

Finished Wall

2011-10-26T20:10:00.001-06:00

Here's the corner where I finished off this wall.

This is looking up at the frame.

This is showing where I need to put a sill or plate or something on there.

10/26/2011

2011-10-26T14:00:00.001-06:00

Here is what I did yesterday. I put those three panels up.

Victor and Steven set up a place nearby to watch for deer.

Here's the front.

And here's what I've done so far today. It took a lot of researching but I finally found a few sites that agree with each other on how to do window frames. You drywall the sides and top and then put a sill or whatever the proper name is on the bottom. I haven't screwed this in yet, but I will. A lot of the sites talk about corner beads but I don't have any. I'll think about what I want to do.

First Snow

2011-10-24T21:22:00.003-06:00

It started snowing in a near-cartoonish manner. One moment all's overcast but otherwise clear, next moment it's dumping snow on us. It's all melted, though. They're predicting snow for tomorrow too. Boney got excited and ran up a tree (he likes doing that). Atton ran under Victor's truck and gave us the saddest most pathetic look then ran for the house. I know the picture looks blurry but it's not it's snow.

We got these two panels on the ceiling in the downstairs. We also managed to break the light cover, but getting a new cover should be cheap. Steven came down and helped us hold the panels up.

Also, today I finished my book, Song of Ice and Fire book 3. I was sure wrong about some of the stuff I'd thought would happen. I wound up crying at one point, actually, but I won't spoil as to about what. I can't wait to start book 4. I'll probably do that tomorrow. Or maybe I'll read the prologue tonight. We'll see.

Carpeting

2011-10-17T20:11:00.000-06:00

First two pictures were taken yesterday.

Here's a picture that's sorta got the nail strips in it. We had to do some patchwork stuff at this edge.

And here.

We were going to use the carpet from the old bedroom but it was too small, so we used the living room piece. It was cut into a trapezoid for some reason so I had to do some trimming. Not on this wall, this is the corner of the left wall and the window wall. Victor and I hauled it up there yesterday and I spent most of today smoothing it out and trimming it and stuff. Then my mom came down with the carpet cleaner and cleaned it for me. This is after we cleaned it.

Around the stove pipe. I'm putting stair edging or something around it, unless I can think of something better. I had to patch that corner. You can hardly tell I did, too. I used duct tape. It's also what I used on the other side of the pipe, too.

Here's one side of the stair opening.

Here's at the top of the stairs. We might carpet the stairs too, we'll have to play with scraps and see how it looks.

10/15/2011

2011-10-16T09:05:00.002-06:00

I saw this leaf on the ground yesterday and had to take a picture as it reminded me so much of...

...the Koroks from Wind Waker.

Here are a series of shots showing the upstairs.

This panel will be put on later after we get the box spring upstairs.

The area around the stove pipe I'm still deciding on what to do with it.

The blackish dot on the wall is where the outlet is.

"You didn't need to lay the carpet today, did you?"

This is as far as we got yesterday. It's cut away from the pipe more than it looks in this picture. We still need to cut the pad around the other pad and then lay another. These pads came from the old house. Since there was going to be hard flooring put down and the carpet was going to be torn up anyway we took it with us. The pads seem to come in 10x6 pieces poorly cut, so we need to trim it down around the tack strip in places. You can't see it in this picture but we have tack strips nailed around the room at about 1/2" away from the walls. We did not put them down around the stair opening, though, because we're putting down stair edging and that should hold it in place. We're not using a knee kicker because they are too expensive to buy as a one-use item. But I'm confident it'll turn out good.

10/11/2011

2011-10-12T11:28:00.000-06:00

This is a rope crown braid. Normally I have trouble doing regular crown braids and they wind up very messy. Rope crown braiding seems very easy, actually. It was a little messy coming up the other side (on the left there, you an see lumps at the bottom left) because I had to undo it to a point and redo it and I think I got lost. A crown braid is where you start on one side of your head and do a lace braid (like a french braid but you only add hair to one side) and the process of lace braiding brings the braid around your entire head in a circle. I honestly didn't rope braid to get this, though. I took two strands of hair, twisted, added to one side, twisted, added to one side, twisted, added to one side, etc. And when I ran out of hair to add I turned it into a rope braid. It was too messy on the left to keep it, though, (it was worse on the front) so I took it out. But at least now I know I can do this variation of a crown braid well enough that in a few tries I could be wearing it for real!

I finished putting up drywall on this wall. Picture is crooked because I wanted to get as much of the wall in as possible so I put the camera up against the opposite wall so I was actually standing next to my camera.

Then I started putting these down under the angled pieces. They're just leaning there for now till I figure out how to attach them. There's 4" Between them and the boards so there's nothing to screw them into. I have a few ideas, though.

And I put one on the other side.

Itches

2011-10-10T21:49:00.003-06:00

I keep getting itches to sew something. I'm going to make a To-Do list of projects. First and foremost will be curtains, but after that the rest of the list can come in whichever order. The curtains are in a silky kinda fabric that's a swirl of greens, grays, blues. And it's got sparkles on it. The backing is a darkish kind of green lining fabric.

Here's some of the things on my to-do list...

There are some, like a sweat pants and jacket pattern I have but cannot remember the number for. And there's some shirts and pants I want to make too, but I don't remember the pattern numbers for them either. Some of them I got on clearance so even if I looked on the pattern sites I wouldn't find out which ones they are cause they're out of print now!

I have other non-sewing things to do. Like some crochet filet mesh pants I saw in a 1970s advertisement in an old crochet magazine thing my mom found for me that I fell in love with. A crochet toilet seat cover in shell pattern. And I got some little tiny hooks and thread to make coasters with. And there's some bookends I want to make, too.

And at some point I do intend to get back to making that chainmail I had started last year or the year before. I actually find doing chainmail to be rather relaxing. I hate cutting it, though, and that's why I stopped. I know you can buy rings but it feels like cheating. But once I have my thing done (I believe I'm just doing a vest... whatever the proper word is for that) I have to make a costume for it to go with. Also not sure if the vest will be for me or Victor. Or if it's going to stay a vest or if I'll put arms on it.

At some point I am going to make Mandalorian armor for Victor out of rubbermaid. I have no picture because his is going to be original. The Dented Helmet has a good tutorial on how to use rubbermaid to make armor.

Here's the things I can find pictures for:

McCalls 6097. I think it's gorgeous! I'll have to do some of the under clothes myself, such as corset and petticoat or hoop-skirt. Not sure which kind of skirt is appropriate. I already have a corset pattern.

New Cheetara. *shrug* This one is at the husband's request and while I don't have any particular liking of the character I have no complaints about doing the costume. This one will have to wait till I get skinnier. But I've already been researching and have found an awesome cat ear tutorial at cosplay.com. I love her bangs, I want her bangs. But most like I'll go with a wig or extensions for some of her hair.

Of course the Mara Jade catsuit, which has been on my to-do list for about 6 years now. I was not thin enough and felt that at the time my sewing skill was not ready for this project. I believe that, while not quite thin enough, I could do this one now. I have a pattern for it and a good tutorial bookmarked as well as proper fabric bookmarked. I really, really want to do this one. Mara is awesome. Plus there's variations. I could make the goggles and head covering. Or the jacket. Or the backpack thing. Or I could do it in blue like she's wearing in the New Essential Guide to Characters. But I'm doing the standard black 4-way pvc, and maybe the headwrap.

Admiral Natasi Daala. This one's been on my to-do list for about 5 -7 years. At one point I bought fabric and made a jumpsuit... then hated it and started over. I don't remember how I feel about this one, I think it was acceptable. The issue with this costume is that this is the only picture we have of it! All the other pictures of Daala have the standard Imperial Officer's clothes. So it's up to me to guess what's on the other shoulder. I believe someone else has done this costume, but I don't know who or how it turned out. I bought the Green Pepper jumpsuit pattern a lot of the Rebel and Imperial pilot people use and my issue is how loose it is. But then I was still a newbie back then. I'm sure I can do it now. I have the boots already at least. And I have the hair style if not the color.

Darth Talon. I don't know anything about her but she looks awesome. Would I ever actually make this? I have no idea. If I do I might go the skin-tight red fabric route some people do with things like this. I read about a fattie who made this and had a look of horror imagining it till I saw she used red fabric instead of air brushing her skin. Besides, the red fabric route would mean no air brushing or makeup, yay! I have read few tutorials on lekku construction. I believe there are probably better tutorials out there since the Rose Parade thing where they had a bunch of Twi'leks marching in it. But I haven't looked. This costume is waiting until I read the Legacy comics, and seeing as I'm at the Force Heretic Trilogy in the NJO and insist on going chronologically, it's going to be a while. Cause next comes two or three more NJO, then the Dark Nest Trilogy, then the Legacy books, and I believe there's a Millennium Falcon book at some point in there, then I can move on to the Legacy comics.

Yes. You saw that right. Rainbow Brite. (heehee, I rhymed!) What's wrong with me? No clue. Call it a lark. It seems pretty easy to make, actually. Snowboots or something, blue dress, white trim, poofy sleeves. Hardest part is the hair. While I have hair I dunno how to pouf. And I am not doing the bangs, that'll have to be extensions or something.

Butterick 4570. I imagine it in a sort of flannelish soft blue with flowers on it. Not a whole lot else to say about this one. I might make underclothes for it to give the skirt some lift. Need to research to see if they did that back then or not.

For Victor. In denim. He's talked of wanting one a lot. I have no pattern, so I need to figure out what I'm doing. Maybe draping. I think it'll be fun.

How did I not remember Princess Zelda till now?? Basically the only part of this I have right now is the hair. And I actually do know how to do her hair, I saw a tutorial on YouTube (loepsie, I think, has it) and I wore it on mine and Victor's last anniversary. This one will be kinda hard but I don't care. Some of these I might never actually make (talon, rainbow brite...) but this one I am totally making. If I do it right I could maybe reuse the corset I'm making for the first costume I listed on here. Also, it has to be the Twilight Princess version of Zelda because I like that one best.

For Victor. I don't care how much he protests. He's getting one.

Another one Victor's getting whether or not he wants it. Gabriel Belmont. mmm, makes me wanna go play that game just looking at this picture!

And another one for Victor. Quinlan Vos. I want to read the comics about him before I do the costume, though. The guys who do Galen Marik or whatever from Force Unleashed should know how to do the harder parts of this one.

Well, I'm sure I can come up with so many more I want to do, but it's bedtime now.

10/10/2011

2011-10-10T20:07:00.000-06:00

We put the bed frame together and brought in the box spring, so now the bed is up off the floor and in the corner, as you can kinda see in this picture.

Me, my mom, and Victor put up the last piece of ceiling drywall upstairs.

I measured and cut this and put it up. I didn't get the angle right at the top so I had to scrape at it a bit. I think the issue was either that I didn't measure the top right or I had drawn the cutting line wrong. Either way, it's up now. And it's really starting to echo up there!

10/06/2011

2011-10-06T18:11:00.000-06:00

We hung these two panels today.

As well as the last one on the first wall.

Arwen's Helms Deep Braid

2011-10-05T21:44:00.002-06:00

Before today I thought it was a typo that the tutorial for this braid was titled Arwen's Helms Deep braid because she was never there. But I found out it's from a deleted scene from the LOTR movies. So I tried the braid out and here it is freshly done. Basically it's eight braids, two of which are lace braids. Then you group them into twos and do a four-strand braid. I used two pins on the lace braids to keep them in place.

Detail of the lace braiding.

Here it is after I've worn it all day.

From the side.

Attempt at New Hair Do

2011-10-04T21:06:00.008-06:00

Yesterday we went to the dump and found some nice things. I found a stove burner thingie like what's on propane stoves, so I took it to use on the woodstove. There were also some metal wire shelf things and one wasn't bent up so I took it. I also found an antique looking tv tray, so I took that too. Victor got a leathery-ish footstool that looks like you can store magazines under it. We didn't notice at the time but once we got it home we saw that it was missing a screw or something, but we can fix that no problem. He also found a child's soccer net, and it's really nice. It's got a metal frame and only a few holes.

I got some things done today. We tried to mount the solar panels on that lawn swing frame but the holes from where my mom and Steven had their panels are in different places than where ours should go and our panel's holes don't even line up with the boards so we'll have to figure out how to add onto it or something. We'll see.

I got two drywall sections laid out and ready to put up. Might hang those tomorrow.

This is how I did my hair today. It's what Arya wears in the first part of the Game of Thrones tv show. It's my first attempt, somewhat based on a tutorial I saw on youtube. I might do it different next time, try to make the hanging braids seem to come from under the bun instead of from over it. Overall I think it came out rather nice, though.

Here's a close-up. I made ponytail, then four braids. I took the two in the middle and crossed them over each other up and down, securing with a pin at every cross. Then I took the two on the outside and did the same until I had so much left and then put a pin on each side to keep them on the side of the bun. It's very secure, but the hanging ends kinda rub at my neck and are a bit irritating.

So far this book 3 has a lot of really awesome quotes. Here's a few that I particularly like:

"He giggled. He cried. He leaned over and heaved his courage onto the snow."

"You were made to be kissed, often and well." (Something Victor said to me without even knowing it was a line from this book as he's never read it, the entirety of this line in the book has spoilers so I won't say it, but it's very romantic)

"She might slap him again. Or cry. Or kiss him. And never know which was right and which was wrong and which was madness."

Here's a few thoughts I have after about 400 pages. If you haven't read the books this won't mean much of anything to you. There will be spoilers from here to the end of this entry.

I'm really enjoying what's going on with Jon at the same time I'm sad for him because I know his life is messed up beyond repair now. If he stays with the Wildlings he forfeits his life should he ever be caught; he cannot see his family ever again. If he leaves the Wildlings Ygritte will be heartbroken, and it will be worse if a month later she finds she's pregnant. He wouldn't be able to do that to her.

And I'm really happy Gendry's still hanging out around Arya. I had hoped his character wouldn't go to waste, and I have suspicions about him that were raised from the tv show but as yet I'm not sure. In the show Cersei talks of a firstborn with black hair that died as a very young child, but what if he was actually secreted away and is Gendry? He'd be the proper heir, though he'd have no clue how to run a country. I think he and Arya are cute, though Arya's really kinda too young to get it.

I also think that Melisandre has the wrong hero, I think she's actually looking for Daenarys.

And I finally get why the books are called what they're called.

Also, I think they should have married Tyrion off to a Frey. Now would have been the time to do it. Then give Sansa to Lancel. Course she's actually safest right where she's at now.

At the same time that I'm enjoying Danarys/Jorah I'm not.

I'm also enjoying reading things from Jamie's pov, warped though it is. It's kinda like Jamie got the brawn and Tyrion got the wits.

I am also really enjoying Catelyn's emo thoughts. She's certainly justified in it.

...also waiting on another Jamie chapter! Last I read he had a sword slicing down near his head and he's screaming. And since no one is safe I wonder what part got chopped off?

10/02/2011

2011-10-04T20:29:00.000-06:00

It's blurry cause I took it myself. This is the best french braid that I've done.

Atton explores the wood pile.

At first I thought he was just going to scratch...

...but instead he climbed...

...all the way to the top.

Spoiler-Free Book Review and More

2011-10-01T09:23:00.002-06:00

And now a post just for "stuff"!

I've been taking walks the last two mornings out on the road in front of the house. I walk down to the corner and then back and up the hill a ways and then back and forth. It's been nice and I really hope I keep up with it. I haven't been out to do it today, yet, but I will after I post this. Yesterday I met with Boney as I was going up the hill and he flopped for me so I pet him for a few minutes and then kept walking. He was struggling to keep up, poor thing. When I turned and came back he flopped again so I picked him up and carried him all the way to the corner and then back and to the house. He was happy about that, purring merrily away the whole time and looking all around.

Yesterday before my walk one of the nose pieces on my glasses fell off. I was so lucky to find the screw, it's such a tiny little thing. I had to go borrow a screwdriver from Steven to fix it.

It's raining today, so today's general plan is to put up more drywall. I've been going so slow at it I'm beginning to wonder if I'll get it done before it starts snowing. At least if I don't the outside of the house is done and the woodstove is in and that was all that was really very important.

I also brought my vitamins over from the camper, finally, and have been taking those again too. A multivitamin, which I'm almost out of. Vitamin B to keep me sane. And Vitamin D cause it's said to help prevent the cancer our family tends to get.

I finished book 2 of A Song of Ice and Fire yesterday and started on book 3. I don't believe I've talked of this series before. I started reading it in the end of August. Wonderful series, very wonderful. Very engrossing. Very sad and depressing at times. At first I wondered if anything good ever happened to the good guys. Sometimes I still wonder that. It's very angsty. Very detailed. Bret, the boss at work, saw me reading it when I was covering for Zhaun in August and, at first he was excited cause he likes the series too, then he looked at me as though he wasn't sure I was old enough to be reading it. Melissa, you'll want to stay away from it, that's for sure. There's a lot of swearing, though tastefully done. There's bloody violence, very gory. It's said to have very realistic violence (at least IMDB says so about the tv show) and one scene made me taste bile it was so bad! (for those who've read/seen it and are curious, it was in the tv show when whatshisname gets a lance in the throat at the Hand's Tourney and you see blood pulsing out through his neck) There's also a lot of sex and nudity of all sorts. Everyone is backstabbing everyone else. So many bad things happen to everyone and no character is safe. Anyone can die (or be maimed), and it just happens. Bret says so too, he said I shouldn't get attached to anyone cause they all go at some point. eek! Despite that I have grown attached to a handful of characters. Dead, dying, going to die, or no, here they are, my favorite characters, after having read two of the books, are: Arya, Jon, Daenayres (sp?), and Tyrion. Yes, Tyrion! Who would have thunk. There's magic (pyromancers and wizards), mythical creatures (dragons, direwolves), and zombies. Each chapter is from the viewpoint of a different character and it's very well-written, you would almost think each chapter was actually written by a different person in order to get so many viewpoints. It's all very believable. And, as I said, it's just very engrossing, I wouldn't mind just curling up and doing nothing but reading till I was done. Overall, I do highly recommend this series to anyone who doesn't mind swearing, sex, violence, and drama. And maybe it seems I'm being a bit of a baby about it but I don't usually read things like this.

Well, anyway, it's October 1st, and I still don't quite know what to wear for Halloween. Either my pirate or my Jedi. My Jedi costume needs some work, as I broke my lightsaber last year. Don't think I'll be fixing it this year, so I'm probably going to wear my pirate costume. I just don't really want to go back to my old lightsaber. I might, though. We'll see.

I'm also a little distraught that the house isn't done yet. It could start snowing at any point in the next few weeks. I need to really get on the interior and get it done. It's going to take the next few days at least to get the upstairs drywall hung. Especially for the two triangular shaped walls. I'll have to measure them and plan and draw it out on paper, to figure out the best way to cut to prevent waste. I can't just go in cutting random sheets down and hoping I can use the leftovers somewhere.

Then after that's all done upstairs we can mud and tape, which will take another few days. After that it will be time to paint. And we'll have to let it dry a day and then paint a second coat. After that we have to do something about the floor. We have carpeting from the old house and we were going to use that but we've been talking and being iffy about if we really wanted to use it or not. I never really wanted carpeting but it was free so... I don't know. I don't even know what I'd do with it if I decided not to use it.

Then after the walls and floor are done we can move the bedframe and boxspring in from outside and move the mattress upstairs. And bring in the dressers and nightstand. Then we can continue drywalling the downstairs, which is about half-done already. At my current speed of work it might be done by the end of October. Might.

We're also considering putting the toilet upstairs and keeping the bathtub downstairs. We were going to just haul the tub in every shower day. But this might be nicer. We'll see.

Well, it's 9:10 now and I'm still in my jamies! So I'm going to get dressed, put a pan of water on the stove for a shower (the stove-stove, it's too hot in here to light a fire in the woodstove) and while it's warming up I'll take my walk and when I get back it should be ready. Then after my shower I'll sit and read, maybe have some tea, while my hair dries and then get to work.

09/30/2011

2011-10-01T08:24:00.000-06:00

Now these two sides of the house have their second coat of paint on them.

My mom and Steven gave us an old lawn swing frame that they had been using for some solar panels.

We need to get them mounted but for now they're on the ground. It's so nice to have all four of them set up now!

I over-estimated how much paint I was going to need for the house so with some of the leftovers I painted three sides of the shed and most of the wood shed.

Here's the wood shed.

And here's the back. It's raining today so I'll be painting the other side of the shed tomorrow probably, as well as that last bit of wood shed and the frame on Victor's truck.

09/28/2011

2011-10-01T08:13:00.000-06:00

Victor cut poles and we used some scrap plywood to make a woodshed. Here's Victor working on it. The one skinny pole in the back, middle was brought home from the sawmill scraps place.

These two walls now have a second coat of paint on them.

And here's the completed shed.

09/27/2011

2011-09-27T20:10:00.000-06:00

Here is what the woodstove pipe looks like upstairs. I still need to insulate around it.

Talk about tying yourself in knots!

I painted the other two sides over the last two days.

Yesterday I put a second coat on the upstairs of this wall. You can see the difference. While doing this I was up on the big ladder and I had just got up there, and suddenly I was going down. The ladder had slid and I dropped about 8" before the bottom of the ladder caught in the ground and stopped me. It left skid marks in the grass that I should have taken a picture of but I didn't. I they're still there tomorrow maybe I will.

Me, my mom, and Victor put these two panels up today.

09/21/2011

2011-09-27T19:33:00.001-06:00

I know it's been a while, and I have no real excuse. So here's some pictures from a week ago or so:

Boney enjoyed playing in the bathtub while it was out in the yard.

Now both cats do it. They liked batting at grass and stuff through the drain but I couldn't get a good picture of it.

We took the topper off of Victor's truck and made a wood frame for wood-cutting purposes.

I painted the house some. It's barn finish.

These are the two side I painted.

09/20/2011

2011-09-20T22:04:00.000-06:00

Victor cut a hole in the ceiling for the stove pipe to go through. He cut it pretty bad, but we can trim it, I guess.

Here's my finished rock thing.

The stove is on the rock thing now, with cement board leaned up behind it for now.

Boney investigates the un-lit stove.

We had to get another 3-wall pipe to go through the second floor. Then the guys hooked it all up and here it is!

And here's the pipe with stove.

09/18/2011

2011-09-19T09:31:00.000-06:00

I took Boney up on the roof and he was happy about it at first, bounded right up one side and down the other. But once he got to the other side he got a little scared. He's fine now, though.

I went up on the roof and took a picture of the guys.

Me and my mom.

After the roof was done we took down the two top-most boards and I got Victor to cut them for me and then I nailed them together into a square. Then I went out to gather some little rocks to use as an under-layer to stretch the mortar mix we'd bought.

While out looking for the rocks I found this. No one seems to know what it'll become. I set it free by some trees.

Here's my frame with the little rocks. There's a layer of plastic under it.

I used the marl clay you can get around here as a base. Then we mixed half the bag of mortar and I spread it across the top of the clay. Then I put my rocks in, using a level to get them all about even. Today I need to mix up the other half of the bag and use it in between the rocks, and if I get it built up high enough I can put more rocks in there. I apparently got a lot of really flat rocks and since I'm leveling them all to one of the taller ones I kept having to scrape up mortar to set the flat ones on. I also stacked some of the flat ones on top of each other to build it up a little. This is where the woodstove will sit. We had a mark on the ceiling for where the pipe will be so I used a tape measure and put one end on the mark and let the other end fall and where it hit the floor I drew an X on the plastic and then made the square equal lengths away from the X. The square is 44"x42". The rocks were gathered from the yard.

09/17/2011

2011-09-17T19:17:00.000-06:00

My mom and Steven finished up the one side of shingling.

My mom relaxes for a moment.

Now she sits perched on the peak.

They went to the other side, and there Steven relaxes for a moment.

09/14/2011

2011-09-17T19:10:00.000-06:00

We dry-walled this portion of the upstairs.

We went to the farmers market where I sold one bar of soap. It was really dead there.

09/13/2011

2011-09-17T19:06:00.000-06:00

Steven started on the shingles the day before.

My mom sizing the flashing. They had a piece of pipe that they had found at the dump that my mom gave us. And the flashing is also a dump find, but it was too big so we had to cut it and bring it in. I apologize for my camera strap getting in the way!

Steven riveted the cut and they hammered it down.

But it turns out that the old pipe had a hole in it, but the pipe we'd bought was the wrong brand. I didn't think brand would be an issue. If both brands claim they sell 6" pipe I would think they would actually be 6". Apparently it's different heat ratings or something. So we had to return the one piece and buy a new one.

09/12/2011

2011-09-17T18:59:00.000-06:00

Here is our woodstove roof support kit.

Steven starts drilling a hole for it.

First it was a triangle to get our spacing right. I think he actually started the triangle inside?

I put the camera on panning shot, which is supposed to express speed. This is sawdust falling.

Here's the first bit being put in. We had to level it and center it.

09/11/2011

2011-09-11T21:44:00.000-06:00

We put in the stairs today. First we took the 2x10s and brought one inside and held it up to measure, then we cut 45 degree angles on each corner and refitted, but they didn't fit exactly so we took a pencil and marked off where they should go and then re-cut. One board had a lot of twist to it so that's the one that got nailed and screwed up against the wall. In this picture the guys are putting the sides up. Yes, Victor is wearing suspenders, he says he loves them.

We took 2x4s to make the things the stairs sit on. The ones against the wall are nailed on and the ones against the other side are screwed on. The stairs are 2x6s.

The cats are very enthusiastic about the stairs. They're so happy they have a whole nother room to explore. We still need to put in the top two stairs. We'll do that in the morning.

09/10/2011

2011-09-10T20:08:00.000-06:00

Bonecrusher found his way on top of the camper by climbing up a tree and then walking across the tarp that we still have hung up like a porch roof. He needed help getting down, though.

This is what I did today, I did the two sheets in the corners and that strip that connects them.

09/09/2011

2011-09-09T22:02:00.003-06:00

After spending the last 4 years that I've known him wanting to braid his hair he finally let me for real, not just messing around. Here is Victor with a fish tail braid. He has curly hair so the lumps hide easily, but there are lumps because he squirmed like a child. I am surprised his hair condensed down so small. A normal braid looks almost silly on him but this braid... it works. He looks very handsome with it and he likes how it feels. He's asked me to do it for him often.

We started drywalling the ceiling today because I read that you're supposed to start with the ceiling, not the walls.Oops, oh, well. The other reason is because we got the roof support kit for the woodstove yesterday and we want to get that in so we're finishing the ceiling on that side of the house so we can do that.

Steven swapped out the door of our house (which was more place-holder than anything) with the one we originally wanted. My mom had this in a pile of stuff and said I could have it. I have since cleaned it up. I'll probably repaint it as well. I really, really love my new door. It makes everything so much homier, lighter, more open. I feel really good about it. I'll some day make a curtain for when we're watching movies and stuff.

After cleaning the door I gave it some Halloween decoration. Yay!

A few good tips, but mostly no

2011-09-08T22:34:00.002-06:00

I was reading an article on the 11 Kitchen Tools You Don't Really Need and would like to make a few comments about some of the things mentioned:

Funnel
It only takes one mess to learn that, if a recipe calls for a funnel, you should use it. The trouble is, you never know exactly what size you’ll need and storing larger diameter funnels is a pain. Fortunately, it’s a breeze to construct a makeshift one. For wet ingredients, trim off the bottom section of an empty plastic soda bottle (about 3 inches down from where the neck slopes) and turn it upside down. This will work for practically anything except when you’re home canning jellies or jams, as the high temperature can cause the plastic to warm and become misshapen. For dry ingredients, create a simple cone shape from parchment or wax paper, holding it in place or taping the sides.

This is assuming you keep empty soda bottles stock piled in your cupboards, which would take up more room than simply owning a few funnels. The time spent cutting said soda bottles is wasteful at best because first you'd have to wash the bottle out to prevent it from being sticky and drippy, and you'd have to let it air out and wash it multiple times to rid it of the soda taste. Then you have to find scissors and cut, making sure not to make the edges jagged so as not to cut yourself. All this trouble to avoid using a funnel?

And it is certainly not "green" to make a one-use funnel out of parchment or wax paper. It is also much messier due to the seam; even with dry ingredients you'd have some go through the seam. It is that much more wasteful to tape the seam shut, just for a one-use item. Instead of going to all the trouble of getting out scissors and paper and cutting and taping, why not simply grab your handy funnel?

Juice Reamer
When a recipe calls for fresh-squeezed juice, forget a reamer or handheld juicer—simply use a large pair of tongs (about 6- to 8-in long). Place a halved citrus fruit into the V-shape near the hinge along the top of the tongs and squeeze the handles together.

You'd have to have some amazingly expensive tongs to get more than one squeeze out of them. They'd bend the first time you tried this and then you'd have to go out and buy new tongs and a juicer. You'd have more success just using your hands if you really don't want to buy a juicer.

Mandoline
A mandoline will give you precision when slicing fruits and vegetables—but it’s expensive and can be dangerous if you don’t know how to handle it properly. Instead, use a vegetable peeler. It may not be as quick or uniform in slicing, but you can still achieve paper-thin slices and long curls of vegetables or fruit peels. For maximum efficacy and control, find one with a handle that comfortably fits your hand, and (carefully) slice towards the body.

Wait, since when do vegetable peelers slice? I thought that's what paring knives were for. Or for that matter... any knife can be used to cut vegetables, I've even used plastic butter knives. Sure, get a mandoline if you want, but don't use a vegetable peeler for your cutting.

Meat Mallet
If you like chicken rollups and veal scaloppini, a mallet is a must—but instead of keeping this Medieval-looking device around just to occasionally pound out some meat, go for a small sauté pan instead. Sandwich the meat between two layers of plastic cling wrap and have at it with your makeshift mallet. Keller likes to use an 8- or 9-in pan, because it has “a nice, broad flat surface and hits the meat evenly.” You could also use the sides of a heavy can wrapped in plastic, but a sauté pan will be easier to handle.

I thought the point of a meat mallet was that it has points and ridges on it to promote tenderizing. Hitting it with a flat frying pan only flattens the meat, making it harder, which is the opposite of what the mallet is for.

Panini Press
A sauté pan won’t give you those signature grill lines, but it will provide all the toasty, gooey sandwiches you can handle—without spending $40+ on a bulky, one-use gadget. Start with a sauté pan that's clean and not made of copper (which oxidizes). Put your panini in it and place a heavy cast iron skillet on top in order to press the sandwich down; flip your sandwich over once the bread is toasted. If you don't have a cast iron skillet, place a sauté pan on top, weighing it down with three or four large cans (around 28 oz) of soup or vegetables. Another option is to place an aluminum foil-covered brick on top of the panini in lieu of another pan.

...because Lord knows I certainly keep foil covered bricks in my kitchen. What a lovely conversation piece that would make. mm, brick... so appetizing...

If it was a one-time project, just a recipe I tried out to see how I like it, I can see using cans or another pan. But if it was something I made a lot of I would buy one of the presses. It's no different than people who prefer the fancy coffee machines over the basic machines, if it's something you consume large amounts of I see no issue with owning appliances specifically for it.

Roasting Rack
Great as it may be for cooking fowl, the roasting rack doesn’t get much play beyond Thanksgiving. Skip the hassle (and cost) by creating a small ring or S-shape “snake” out of rolled foil that’s about 1/2-in thick. Place it in an aluminum roaster pan and then set your bird on top of it. For an even easier option, layer chopped onions, carrots and celery on the bottom of a pan, about 1/2- to 1-in deep, and set your bird on top. It’s just enough room to let the air circulate—with the added benefit of roasted vegetables for later.

I suppose it's less hassle and cost to use up all your foil rolling it into some monstrous S/ring shape and grabbing the ruler to check the depth and then worrying the entire time that the bird will roll off the S/ring or that it's weight will crush or tear the S/ring apart than it is to simply buy the tool for the job.

Rolling Pin
Unlike some other items on the list, a rolling pin isn’t usually pricey. But it does take up space and, unless you love to bake, it’s seldom used. In its place, wrap a wine bottle (full or empty) with plastic cling wrap and work away as you would with a pin. The wrap will keep it from sticking and prevents a full-bottle from getting messy. If you’re working with dough for pie or shortbread cookies, ensure it stays cool by using a full bottle that’s been chilling in the fridge for a bit.

Maybe I do it wrong but when I use my rolling pin I tend to put pressure on it. I can just see it now. You're at home, alone, baking. You're humming along merrily as you wrap up your favorite wine in plastic wrap. You lay it on your dough and start to roll. Suddenly the bottle shatters. Your hands pass right into the mess of glass, slicing you badly. Wine and blood go everywhere, their scent sickly sweet and tangy as you shriek and stare sightlessly at what used to be your hands. You need a doctor. You need to call 911. But, wait, it's the modern day and age and your only phone is the cell in your pocket. This would be utterly impossible to reach with your hands the way they are. So you run for the door thinking you'll get the neighbors to help, but you can't get the door open because your fingers just don't seem to be working. You run back to the kitchen and try to wrap your hands in dish towels (assuming you haven't eliminated those from your kitchen as well) using your mouth. Finally you pass out from loss of blood and shock, not to be discovered until some time much later. ...all because you deemed it difficult to store a kitchen tool that sometimes comes with a handy hole for hanging it on a wall out of the way.

Oh, and this also assumes you either (1) drink wine and therefore have bottles of it sitting around and/or (2) keep the empties.

09/05/2011

2011-09-05T18:30:00.000-06:00

I spent today putting on a single piece of drywall. That last bit of the wall from yesterday. I watched videos on how to cut around outlets. But none of them helped. I wound up measuring how far from the floor they were and how far from the first pieces of drywall I did yesterday and then marking these spots on the drywall using a level and a square. I still wound up scraping each hole until it fit. And then neither the outlet nor the phone jack were out far enough to go through the holes. I couldn't even get the outlet cover on. So I took them off and repositioned them numerous times, bending two nails that I had to straighten and breaking the nail sliders a little. Finally after breaking down and crying and curling upon the bed I got it perfect. So I screwed in the drywall and now the outlet (and probably the phone jack) stick out too far and rather than unscrew the wall we're going to get trim board and go around under the outlet frame thing so that it looks decorative. And my arms itch from the insulation.

On a better note it's been somewhat warmer at nights.

Here's the phone jack. Which, btw, I accidentally knocked the wire off of the jack. All I did was pick it up and it fell apart.

Here's the outlet. The cover is on just cause. I'll take it off when we mud and paint and stuff.

Here is how far the outlet is out. I don't understand it either because I tested it and the fit was perfect! Now it's out and ugly and awful. I just hope we find the perfect trim that makes it look like a design feature instead of a big flaw. Now I'll have to make all my outlets this far off so as to put trim on all of them to make it look intentional.

09/04/2011

2011-09-05T18:18:00.000-06:00

I did all the rest of the insulation upstairs that I could. Now all that's left is the door thing we're to get the big furniture through and the parts around the window so Steven can finish putting it in.

So I started drywalling the downstairs some more. These pieces are horizontal. And I figured out how to cut drywall easier. I make a slit on one side and then snap it and cut the other side. This picture is out of focus because my camera couldn't find anything to focus on.

I did have to slice the top corner a little to get it to fit. Oh, well.

09/02/2011

2011-09-03T10:51:00.000-06:00

It has been so incredibly cold here. It was down around 40 last night, I think. Which isn't bad when you've got a heat source. We're waiting on the last bit for our woodstove to arrive and until then have nothing. We do have an electric heater but we can't really run our generator all the time. I slept in my coat last night and the night before. Yesterday morning we went to my mom's to warm up with her woodstove. I need to find where I packed my sweaters. I think I know where they are, but I have no idea where my gloves went.

The guys put the side of the upper part up yesterday.

They also put in the window.

Here is our battery bank, charger, inverter, charge controller, and multimeter. It's inside a dryer casing we found at the dump.

And there is the panel. We can move it around to get more sun throughout the day.

The window from the inside. There is a bat window cling on it.

We insulated the roof...

Except for this part over the stair opening. You can kinda see the second coat of mud I did.

09/01/2011

2011-09-03T10:23:00.000-06:00

Victor put in the cat door.

I did the third panel of drywall where the stairs will go.

Here are the tools for doing the mud and taping. Some of them, anyway.

My overhead light. We put the cover on it after this picture.

The switch hangs free for now.

First coat of mud. I watched a youtube tutorial on how to do it.

08/29/2011

2011-09-03T10:10:00.001-06:00

Atton and Boney.

Some of our furniture. We tarped it for now. It's up here cause we wanted to clear out storage before we had to pay another month on it.

We started on the drywall. My mom showed me how.

Not sure why the quality of this picture is so bad, but here's one of the seams, as you can see I had issues cutting right, but Steven says it's actually not bad.

hm, same quality issue here too. I think I know why, but I'll have to fiddle with my picture editor thing.

Victor starts wiring the house.

The cats recognize the couch.

Atton runs off and Boney gets set to pounce.

County Fair

2011-08-28T21:04:00.001-06:00

So on Thursday we went to enter things in the fair. I actually could have entered more than I did but I didn't know all the categories. Now that I have a booklet I have more ideas for things for next year. I was almost scared to enter anything and I doubted I'd win anything, but I did.

I made this tote for my mom for her birthday.

And these are from the last batch of soap I made. Also third place, not sure if you can see the ribbon. I don't think third place wins anything except the ribbon, but that's ok, I'm happy to have this much.

08/27/2011

2011-08-27T22:27:00.001-06:00

We've been sleeping in the new house since Tuesday or Wednesday or sometime, and the first night it was warm, the second night freezing, and then generally cold since then.

Insulation stacked in the corner.

Laying on the bed looking up at the window. It still needs washing on the inside.

Looking upside down at the stair opening. It was covered for the night.

Looking up at the underside of the second floor.

I got everything out and covered the bed.

Here's the first wall, done. Victor was so happy that the insulation came in bats so we wouldn't have to cut it. So to be funny I gave him a quizzical look and flapped my arms and asked "bats". It was cute.

Here I am working on the insulation still. I did almost the whole first floor all by myself. I only have a few places to finish up at where I need to cut 10" wide strips for the corners. The shirt is one I got at the thrift store specifically for work. It somewhat kept the insulation off my arms but I still feel prickly. The scarf on my face is from my pirate costume so I don't care how dirty it gets. Might as well get some wear and tear on it since I haven't the heart to weather it on purpose. I had my hair in a clip so I tied the scarf in the middle of the clip to keep it in place better.

08/25/2011

2011-08-27T22:13:00.002-06:00

The upstairs window. It's upside down right here. My mom put a screen over the part that opens.

From the hill.

The back of the house. Steven did this one by himself because me and my mom went to down to enter stuff in the fair.

Steven fell off the roof this day. He was standing on one of the scaffold boards and was taking nails out of it and forgot he'd already taken one too many out and it came loose. He tried to grab the ladder but fell anyway. He landed on his feet then fell sideways, so all that's really wrong is his ankle. He could barely get around on Friday but was doing much better yesterday.

08/24/2011

2011-08-27T22:08:00.001-06:00

From on top of the hill.

Looking out from under the roof.

That will be a door for leading into and out of the top. We will get big things like the box spring of the bed in through that. It will be covered over later with the option of uncovering it should we want it to be a normal door once we add on.

Steven and I put up the plywood. Steven mostly because the ladder I was using is the shorter one.

The guys measure stuff.

08/23/2011

2011-08-27T10:23:00.001-06:00

We put tarps over the roof cause it was going to rain.

Steven tosses little boards up to Victor.

Leveling out the boards in the roof.

Looking out at the yard.

With the temp support board.

And without it.

We took the tarps down.

Steven and I did most of the up-high work because Victor's terrified of heights.

Odie manages our work.

First set of roof covering is done.

Neat shadow.

One side done.

In order to get the ones on up high Steven put horizontal boards in with scaffold nails and climbed up them. On the first side he did that while me and Victor were inside helping. Like I said, Steven and I did most of that because I was up on a ladder leaning over and out. For the second side of the roof I went up the ladder that was inside and stepped out onto the roof. So here I am! Barefoot, naturally, it's easier to climb barefoot. The parts of the roof that stick out got cut off later so they were all even.

08/20/2011

2011-08-27T09:58:00.003-06:00

Starting on the framing of the roof.

Me and Steven on the second floor.

Steven.

The roof, so far.

While working on the roof Victor was cutting boards while on the second floor and his vertigo made him nearly cut off his finger! It's a clean cut, though, so it's ok. It's still healing, though. He didn't go in far enough to do a lot of damage, but he could see bone when he bent his finger.

08/18/2011

2011-08-27T09:52:00.001-06:00

Notes that Steven made. Not sure what they're for, but here they are.

Steven on top of the second floor.

Looking in the door.

Starting on the supports to get them going on the roof.

08/17/2011

2011-08-27T09:46:00.002-06:00

This is looking up at the second floor.

Looking through the window.

From on top of the hill.

Another one looking up.

Steven.

Victor.

First night in new house

2011-08-22T22:11:00.000-06:00

I'm in the new house now! We have the door and window in. We have tarps over the roof (because we don't have the roll roofing stuff on yet). We have sheets and blankets tucked around the edges of the second floor to block out mosquitoes. And it's really, really warm in here. We have the mattress right on the floor for now. I'm happy. :)

08/10/2011

2011-08-10T21:07:00.000-06:00

Pictures behind the cut!

The phone company was here today to hook us up. First they dug a hole to put the post. Since we're building a new house we need a new service thing. They charged 60 dollars to run a new line for us.

Digging for the post.

Again.

Since there's neighbors above us who have phone there's already a cable so they had to find it.

Again.

Digging.

Cable.

Pole.

Box.

Standing the pole and box upright.

Setting up the pole.

Digging to the house.

It was kinda like a big knife that they drug through the ground.

Again. Had to take my clothes line down but that's ok.

Looking back at the road.

From on top of the hill.

From the driveway.

Running the cable.

Tiretracks are pretty much all that's left now.

The box. We probably have internet now but we haven't had time to check.

To put the siding on we need to nail it onto the studs. To find the studs from the outside one person climbs a ladder on the inside, the other on the outside.

They take a rope thingie that's inside a holder (like a tape measure kinda thing) and hold it over the studs.

Then you pull it tight and twang it and a chalk line is left on the wood. I wonder if this would be good for sewing? Except for marking grain lines I don't know what use it would really be, though.

Victor uses my little girly hammer. haha

Me!

Victor holds a board over the doorway, a header.

The guys work on the header again.

From the oustide.

Now we cut a board to the right length.

The guys held it up.

And then they nail it into the wall. This will be part of what the second floor sits on. I know it's not a very high ceiling but it'll be good.

08/08/2011

2011-08-08T20:14:00.000-06:00

I have several new posts titled with the day on which the pictures were taken. I spent the last week and a half in town to cover Bonnie's vacation. I trusted Victor to take pictures and he did. My mom took several as well but they're on my other computer.

Here are the pictures I took today:

Cutting the hole in the plywood for the window.

Cut!

Three walls up.

Working on the fourth wall.

That is the frame the door is going in but I'm not using that door. The window and door I am using are back behind the frame.

Four walls up, but the 4th doesn't have all the plywood.

Steven working on the 4th wall.

Victor working on the 4th wall.

Victor again.

Victor accidentally put the nails in the wrong place and had to put more in in the right places!

Looking out the window. It's at just the right height to lean on. I am exceedingly happy with my window.

Boney checks out the house.

From the lawn swing.

From the hill.

08/05/2011

2011-08-08T19:54:00.001-06:00

A wall.

The diagonal boards are to hold the walls up.

From the hill.

Framing the window.

The window area.

Checking to see how well the window fits. The window is not permanently put in the frame. Yes the window needs cleaning, but that's ok, that's easy.

08/04/2011

2011-08-08T19:44:00.000-06:00

One wall.

08/03/2011

2011-08-08T19:39:00.000-06:00

From the lawn swing.

From the hill.

Victor cutting.

08/02/2011

2011-08-08T19:33:00.003-06:00

I think this is an awesome shot. Congratulations and thanks to my husband for taking this picture!

This one's pretty good too.

Spacers that hadn't been used yet.

See the cups on the ground? It's why we don't let men work alone. I guess they did pick them up at some point because these same cups are now on the ground by the drywall along with various soda cans.

08/01/2011

2011-08-08T19:23:00.000-06:00

From the lawn swing.

From the hill.

07/29/2011

2011-08-08T19:19:00.000-06:00

The foundation, from the lawn swing. The guys removed the wood around the cement, but I don't think there's a picture of that.

From the hill.

Steven with the logs.

This is the guide they used on the chainsaw for the log.

Again.

More log cutting and leveling.

From up on the hill. These are the logs laying on the foundation.

From the lawn swing.

07/28/2011

2011-08-08T19:06:00.001-06:00

Steven cuts the logs.

Up-close of cutting the logs.

Flowers

2011-07-27T18:47:00.000-06:00

These were on markdown. I got some and my mom got some. She gave me the planters and I got the mulch from old, rotten trees.

I put them on the pallet in front of our battery bank (which is housed inside a dryer casing) and threw some deer netting over them. After I'd taken the picture I put a lawn ornament in front of the planters. It's actually a pond thing, I think, it's a log that water can flow through and there's two frogs sitting on it.

Log Work

2011-07-27T13:19:00.001-06:00

These were all taken on July 23rd. I know some of these aren't the best quality but that's cause I found that I had accidentally set it to "Flowers in bright sunlight" setting. oops.

The guys cut down a tree and then cut it into three parts. They'll be part of the foundation.

Victor drags another log over.

Victor and Steven roll it over next to the other one.

All three of them.

And again.

This was taken on the 24th. Victor sat on the logs and scraped the bark off.

This was taken this morning. He finished up the logs yesterday. Found it was easier going when we propped one on another.