Project 365 - Day 56

Working on wrist warmers again. This time with some pretty variegated yarn.

Project 365 - Day 55

Road trip with my siblings always includes a stop for gas station hot dogs. Yummy!

Fun history fact of the day!

There are only four people who served in all four elected federal offices as US Representatives, Senators, Vice President and President. 

John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon

Project 365 - Day 54

Project 365 - Day 53

Prickly bush in the front of my house. I want to hate it because it tries to eat me whenever I walk past, but it provides such brilliant color (even a bit of red in winter!) that I can't get too mad.

Project 365 - Day 52

Yarn for wrist warmers. I picked them because I liked the colors separately, but they look nice together.

Project 365 - Day 51

Prints in the snow. Cat? Squirrel? The peg leg of a marauding land pirate?

Project 365 - Day 50

Day 50! Yay!
Grace Church sent me a bracelet in the mail. I love getting mail! This is for the Ownit365 reading program and it was very cool to get this today. My desire to read the bible in a year has been...let's say flagging...and this was just the encouragement I needed to keep going.

Project 365 - Day 49

Teaching myself how to crochet wrist warmers turned out to be a lot like Goldilocks & the Three Bears. (except there was no bears, no beds or no tiny blond children...otherwise it's exactly the same)

My first try ended up too short and the stitches too tight. It now has a new life as a bracelet.

My second try actually made it to the wrist warmer stage...sorta. The stitches were loose enough that it's filled with gaps to let air in and make it bumpy.

This last try is much better. It's even without being too small and tight, it's mostly the right size and there are no gaping holes! It's warm and it's on my wrist...therefore fulfilling its purpose. Hooray!

Now, I just need to make a couple more of the good kind and skip over the "this porridge is too hot, this porridge is a mess of knots and tears" steps.

Project 365 - Day 48

I like to call these photos "Cause & Effect: A study in Jen's Frustrating Sunday"

This would be the cause...

...and this would be the effect. *sigh*

The Unthinkable - Amanda Ripley

I have always been interested in reading about disasters. Books about outbreaks and explosions, bombings and plane crashes catch my attention. When I was a kid I cherished a copy of ‘Flight #116 is Down’ by Caroline B. Cooney. The story of a plane crashing on the estate of a teenage girl and how she (and the others in the crash) survive. As any girl, I was entranced by a book that had a heroine and of course there was a bit of a love story thrown in between Heidi and Patrick, the 17 year old EMS guy (…maybe he was a trainee?). But the real appeal to me was the  plane crash and how people solve and survive a problem that big. One of the scenes I remember most from the book was when they tore out the holly bushes. With the massive amount of vehicles that needed to get access to the plane on Heidi’s estate there just wasn’t enough room in the normal driveway. Someone (and it may have been Heidi herself) makes the decision to rip out the holly bushes to give access to ambulances. It’s a pragmatic decision, but the part that sticks with me is Heidi thinking about how everyone gets Christmas holly from those bushes and how that will change now. A plane has crashed into her backyard, her home is being used as triage and it seems like the entire world is showing up on her front lawn and yet her mind drifts off to Christmas decorations. That one instance, where the minutiae of daily life seemed to overshadow the current crisis, has always intrigued me. Just how do our brains cope in a situation like that? How do we think when our bodies are focused on just surviving?

In Amanda Ripley’s book “The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes – and Why”, she attempts to explain answers to those questions. Rehashing several  current disasters through the use of interviews and articles, she combines the personal experience of survivors with scientific research to explain what happens to us during a disaster. Over the course of the book she explores both the physical and psychological changes to the body and mind that occur during situations where our lives are threatened. The ‘disasters’ mentioned in the book range from grocery store shoot-outs to Hurricane Katrina and of course, 9/11.

At times, this book falters, not sure if can be the self-help book it attempts to emulate, wanting to give us steps to follow but never quite staying in that genre. Which is understandable, considering the fact that while you can adequately teach someone to the steps to bake a cake in a book, there can be no easy 1-2-3 of surviving a plane crash or terrorist attack. Instead the book becomes a mixture of information and anecdotes, all told with just enough sensationalism to keep the reader interested and just enough information and facts to keep from being frivolous. Ripley, a magazine reporter for Time, has a unique style that reminds me more of blogs than books. She varies between strictly clinical explanations and personal reflections easily, creating a rapport with the audience that takes what could have been a literary version of rubbernecking at an accident site and turns it into a journey toward preparedness. Remarking how cool she thought it was to wear fireman suspenders or sharing three years worth of meetings with one World Trade Center survivor, Ripley humanizes what could be an otherwise voyeuristic topic.

The Unthinkable isn’t like a manual for surviving disasters. This is not the plane crash version of Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” and shouldn’t be treated that way. Ripley herself states that while she has explored types of responses, that no disaster is the same and people won’t respond the same. In reading this book you feel that the key to surviving a disaster is less in learning certain skill sets and more in learning about yourself. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t adapt a few proactive behaviors like learning about evacuation plans for the buildings you’re in, listening to safety instructions on the plane and even just paying attention to your surroundings. But the real point that Ripley stresses in The Unthinkable is that we will react differently in a disaster than we do in our regular life. Those reactions may or may not be something that we can change with prior knowledge, but self-examination, proactive behavior and just the awareness of certain reactions could potentially save our lives someday.

Project 365 - Day 47

It's snowing! Yay! Despite it snowing heavily at times, it was hard to capture on camera. Used the Megan method of aiming up and using the flash!

groan

I don't feel good at all.

Sweet tea overdose. Seriously. So very ill.

My southern ancestors are probably rolling in their graves with shame.

Project 365 - Day 46

It's soooo very cold tonight!

Once upon a dream…

Last night I had a crazy dream that involved FBI agents, a big city and several costume changes. I was kind of sad that it ended, so I decided to doodle.

Follow this link to see the doodles up close in my Picasa gallery. Yay doodles!

The Ghost and Miss Chicken

Our house is old and drafty, and in an effort to reduce heating bills, we decided to block off the upstairs with a curtain in the stairwell. After trying a lot of configurations, the best way to block most of the draft was to hang the long white curtain halfway up the stairs. Almost immediately it was dubbed “The Ghost”. You can’t see it until you start up the stairs and then it’s right there, blocking the entire stairwell. Since it’s heavy enough to keep out the draft, it’s also heavy enough to keep out some of the light and at night you can’t see anything past The Ghost. In the daytime you get faint images, dim shapes and faded light through its folds and honestly, that is more foreboding than the complete darkness.

Getting past The Ghost isn’t just about gathering your courage. In my case, at least, it’s a balancing act. Steps have been my foil ever since I learned to walk and adding a giant obstacle to them seems like a disaster (or at least a tumble) waiting to happen. With nothing in your hands, you can reach for the edge of the curtain by the railing (the other side is velcroed to the wall for minimum draft seepage), pull it to the side and take a step past The Ghost. Then you slide the curtain back over and continue traversing the steps. The problem comes when you’re carrying things. Or when it’s early and you haven’t had your morning coffee. Or when you’re talking on the phone. Or when you miss a step. It’s easy to get tangled up in The Ghost and not as easy as you’d think to get untangled.

Tonight I was heading to bed when I got a bit of a scare. I had barely started up the steps, when from behind The Ghost, came a series of loud beeps. Like a smoke alarm that was sending out morse code. I backed down off the steps and the beeps stopped, leaving the house in a shocked silence. I turned to stare into the living room, wondering how to express “I think our draft dodging ghost curtain has gained sentience and is now sending me messages” without sounding crazy. Edgar gave me an equally shocked looked and then prompted me to go upstairs. Ah ladies, chivalry is truly dead. I demurely declined (laughed in his face and pushed him ahead of me) and he went upstairs to check on the beeping. The Ghost didn’t send him any SOS messages and together we went room to room to check on the possibility of a smoke alarm malfunction. Each room we checked had an open smoke alarm on the ceiling, all missing batteries. (yes, I know that’s dangerous but they kept going off when steam came from the shower and it’s annoying to try and run around the house in your towel waving a broom in the air to silence the alarms) The last smoke alarm in the hallway, right above the ghost was propped against the wall and I flipped it over, exposing the back. I carefully pried up the panel to expose…no battery. Not a single alarm was powered to beep and nothing else upstairs makes that same noise so I’m not sure what was going on.

I did make it past The Ghost tonight, and I’m now sitting in my room trying not to focus on waiting for a beep. Or a lot of beeps. Or beeps that spell out a message. Or a giant evil robot that beeps as it attacks me in the middle of the night to avenge his giant evil robot brothers.

You know, the usual.

ETA: The phone just rang and I jumped half off the bed. I’m brave like a lion.

Project 365 - Day 44

Project 365 - Day 43

The cutest lil' bottle of apple juice. I love it!

Hee!

From today’s online Lansing State Journal:

Maybe things would work better if we weren’t so concerned with the ‘dudget’.

Project 365 - Day 42

Moo! Bible study cat extraordinaire!

Project 365 - Day 41

Baby Emmaus, one of my sisters first baby dolls, named after our first church. Much creepier after years of being packed away in a box. (although like all dolls, it was always a bit creepy)

Project 365 - Day 40

Went on a road trip today and, for some unknown reason, brought along my wireless mouse. Since it was there, I decided it needed to do something.Here it is climbing a mountain. It stalled about halfway due to low batteries.

Project 365 - Day 39

One of the best parts of taking pictures for me is printing them out and sending them as picture postcards! Look how pretty and shiny these all are! Who wants postcards?!

Project 365 - Day 38

Found this weird thing on top of a doorway. While my friend assured me that it had a totally benign purpose, I think it looks weirdly sinister. A cylinder removal tool? Where are the cylinders that they are removing? Why do they need to be removed? Who is removing them and why do they need a tool that is so clearly labeled?

Project 365 - Day 37

Shoveling snow is not a job for wimpy boots (or wimpy people for that matter!)

Project 365 - Day 36

What is this?


It's breakfast! Sprinkles and coffee drinks...the breakfast of champions!

Project 365 - Day 36

Downtown Lansing in the early morning. And nope, I was not driving at the time. Safety first!

Project 365 - Day 35

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it. ~Oscar Wilde

Project 365 - Day 34

Cookie time at Gina's house! I did the blending and while Gina did everything else...I'm sure the exceptional blending is why they turned out perfect.

I call this the magazine advertising shot. The only thing that would make this better is if she was wearing an apron. Why didn't I think of putting her in an apron?!

Cookies make me happy! (also, best friends who put up with photo shoots in the middle of baking and lets me play with the kitchen appliances makes me happy!)

Project 365 - Day 33

Chocolate truffles for breakfast. Not very healthy but definitely yummy!

Project 365 - Day 32

This awesome salad kit was one of my Christmas presents. It's got all these cool containers that attach to the outer rim and hold different ingredients for salad. I really want to do a huge taco salad like this sometime....I just need to come up with 8 mix-in ideas.

Project 365 - Day 31

Not sure what the right answer is here but I'm going to make a survival kit with salt, rum, a Bob Marley record and a VHS copy of Weekend at Bernie's. You know, just in case.

Project 365 - Day 30

Did you know that Fifth Third Bank sells postage stamps in their ATM? It's not my bank or anything, but I'm sort of in love with them now. You have no idea how much time I waste trying to find places that sells stamps, it's crazy!

(also: an armored truck pulled up while I was there and the guy was unloading boxes marked $500 Quarters. THAT IS CRAZY AMOUNTS OF QUARTERS PEOPLE! I was going to take a picture but I was pretty sure the guy was going to shoot me if I got too close to his CRAZY AMOUNT OF QUARTERS.)

Project 365 - Day 29

One of those days when you don't snap a shot all day and then right before you go home you grab your camera and just look for anything at all to shoot. Not my best work, although I like the greenish snow/light spots in the upper right corner.

Project 365 - Day 28

The only one of the 12 Round Fruits of New Years that I can't eat due to allergies. Oh, kiwi, you make me so very sad.

Project 365 - Day 27

Safety first!

Epic pattern fail

I really enjoy sewing and had a lot of success this Christmas making stuffed toys for presents. I looked at pictures of toys for inspiration, but the actual construction and design were all my own. I didn’t use a pattern for anything. In fact, I’ve never made a craft using a pattern. Until now. Or at least I tried. There were…some problems. A lot of problems.

I was supposed to be making a teddy bear and instead I made…something else. This is Igor. He’s kind of like the cross between a bear and an owl and insanity. The deep green is green suede upholstery fabric and the rest of him is a cheerful holiday blanket that was on clearance from Walmart. The arms and legs were stuffed independently and sewed on, while the head and body were sewed together before stuffing, which was a new experience for me. He has no tail because I completely forgot that part, and he does have ears but somehow they got sewed on sideways. (I like that… “somehow” as if I had then on there right but then a goblin came through and mucked it all up without my knowledge)

There is very little “teddy bear” in my teddy bear and I blame that completely on the fact that I used a pattern. It’s not like I don’t know what a bear looks like but all those pieces of pattern paper confused me and I created this owl/bear/monster thing. His head is all rectangle with that awkward long neck, his rear end is all square and despite the many times I unstuffed and re-sewed, his tummy still doesn’t fit the rest of his body. Even when I started looking at the thing and realizing that I was making it wrong, I couldn’t seem to correct it. I mean, I knew that for some reason the head was coming out wrong and it needed to be more round but I couldn’t make the pattern do what I want. Giving up on the pattern wasn’t really an option since that was the whole purpose of the exercise…but boy, was it sad to finish this project and see how bad it turned out. It was supposed to be a present for someone else but now it’s just got a permanent home in my room where I’m sure he’ll scare off any burglars or boogeymen.

Now, just because this didn’t turn out correctly doesn’t mean it was a total waste.  I learned a lot (although not much about using patterns to create projects) and am  excited about taking what I learned and applying it to a different project. Making tubes for the arms and legs was a new experience and I’m happy with how they turned out. Working with the two wildly different fabrics wasn’t as hard as I anticipated so I’m feeling like the next time I want to experiment with different types of fabric, I’ll just go ahead and do it. And while there are huuuuuge with the head, attaching it to the body and then stuffing them both was a success and far easier than I anticipated. Since my comfort level is usually in the whole “create  separate appendages and then piece them together later” camp, I’m happy to have learned an easy way to attach before stuffing. While not the easiest project I’ve ever done, or even a mildly successful one…I’m happy that I gave it shot. And the next time I decide to make a stuffed animal, I’m going to just go ahead and skip using a pattern.

Happy New Year!

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.