5/28/2015 0 Comments Frozen: team HansI've been watching the first half of Frozen a lot lately, since my son figured out how to open and start the digital copy on our iPad (but he loses interest after the summer song). And you know what? Hans isn't really that terrible. He may have had evil intentions, but his actions weren't evil to begin with. What did he really do aside from voice his inner dialogue? He DID provide for the city of Arondale. He was a better leader than secluded Elsa or sheltered Anna. He had every right to imprison Elsa, and it's what a good leader would have done.
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4/15/2015 0 Comments ID bottle design failI love me some international delight creamer. I love creamer in general, but coffee mate has so much trans fat, and I just don't want to have to concern myself with the mass quantities of creamer I'm consuming. In addition, ID has a really rich flavor, it's smooth and delicious. But when I'm getting coffee in the morning, I'm rarely doing it with both hands free. I'm fussing with babies and getting breakfasts or lunches made. Maybe I'm just plain groggy. On top of not being awake all the way (pre-coffee part of the day), the kids are needy but it's too early for them to be mad. So I just grab my creamer from the fridge, with one hand, like any normal person should expect. My conundrum? The extra large bottle design is too wide to grab. I have to be careful and concentrate not to spill it. I'm not awake enough to fully absorb myself in making sure the creamer bottle doesn't fling itself from my hand. If I grab the more slender section, it's moist from the coolness of the fridge and slides slowly from my hand, and if I'm lucky it catches the lid as it cracks open. I have yet to drop it on the ground, but I still find it obnoxious. And since I'm on the subject... The sweet cream ID tastes like melted ice cream The butter pecan ID tastes like a butter pecan sandy Those are my go-to flavors. 4/15/2015 0 Comments DIY hair cut: attempt 1So, I started with a long ponytail of straightened hair. All the tutorials I had watched implied that I could place the ponytail where I wanted it, snip that off and my hair would be practically done. There was also an impression that I could use one hand as a guide and hold my hair out to the desired length, trim it up with the other hand, and go around my head that way. Here's what happened: -the scissors weren't even close to being able to cut the ponytail in one go, so I had to make 4 passes, leaving striated lines on the ponytail nub. Once I pulled the hair out, I ran my fingers thru the hair and could feel for unevenness and where I wanted the length to be. The when I took my free hand and tried to snip the hair, I couldn't even come close to telling where I needed to cut. In a mirror, everything is reverse, and it was hard to navigate. If I tried to just move my arm up and look in the mirror forwards, it was still complicated to tell how far my hands were apart. And when I came at the free bit of hair, I kept snipping my fingers since I couldn't tell where they were. Mostly it was just light pinches on dry skin, but i got one good cut. And when I had one bit of hair that was established as a guide, I couldn't see it at all against the longer hair. Once they touched it blended together. So I enlisted my husbands help. It's not as "DIY" as I'd hoped, since I wanted to be able to do it entirely independently, but I had become flustered and he was willing. That's not a good description for it. He didn't reluctantly agree, he voulenteered. He said he would love to help me and he felt honored I trusted him to do it. It was lovely. Plus, the hair cut was partly a cleansing. Shedding the past and starting fresh. And him being involved made it even more meaningful to me. So I pulled my hair out and held it still. He snipped it. He found it easier to snip when it was wet, so we spritzed it periodically. The wetter it got, the curlier it got. After a while it was hard to know if we blended it well. So once we got it to a good even cut and we felt it was likely done, I straightened it once more. We have it one more pass thru and made sure it was even and blended. It turned out nicely. It definitely wasn't the smoothest haircut. I could tell there were some weightier sections. It didn't air dry well on its own. But it was free and I had fun doing it. I appreciated the experience, but I learned a lot about my limitations. -I can't hold my arms up that long -I can't tell how far apart my hands are when they're holding things and behind my head -just because I can feel a section of hair is too long, doesn't mean I can retain that sensation for the length of time it takes to bring the scissors up for the correction. 4/9/2015 0 Comments Balancing life with dreamsI have such good intentions. And a to do list the length of my arm. Part of the curse of the creative brain is when you're flooded with ideas that would be awesome if you had endless 1)time 2)money 3)focus. Life endlessly gets in the way. And if you manage to grip tight to one idea, the challenge becomes fighting off other ideas that either detract or distract. In addition, the ideas that often seem the best are the ones that don't mesh with who I naturally am, as an individual. I've had to come to terms with a few sad truths, and in doing so, it's made the projects I have started working on more fruitful. We need to be more purposeful in our decisions, and know when to force out those creative thoughts. They're a blessing, and a curse. A few of my inexcapable truths: -I'm messy. I want a clean house so bad, but to get it is a constant battle. I will never be a Monica Geller. I need to prepare myself, that even the simplest of maintenece, will be a struggle to finish. And I can't allow myself to slack even a little. -I'm cheap. If it costs a lot of money to get done well, I won't do it. Especially if it's something that has uncertain outcomes. I want some things to be splurged on, but even when I save up I can't pull the trigger. Nothing ever seems worth it. -I'm lazy. If I can't blog on my cell phone, I likely won't do it at all. If I have to leave the house to do it, there's even less of a chance. I choose the path of least resistance every time. I keep thinking I'll have motivation to prioritize whatever it is, but siting on my ass wins Every. Single. Time. -I'm shy. I want to be able to "put myself out there." In my head, I'm a dynamo. I'm confident and funny and loud. But in reality? I won't speak up in a group of there are more than 4 people. I won't dress up to comicon because I don't want people looking at me. Being the center of attention makes me shrink. But despite knowing all this, I walk through stores that don't exist. I watch movies that have never been made. I dance choreography that I wouldn't physically be able to do if I tried. I see all these brilliant, and funny, and beautiful things in my mind as if they existed. Sometimes it becomes so distracting that I forget to see the things in front of me, like two growing babies that won't be little forever. Like a husband who works hard all day to provide for us, and doesn't have the luxury of wearing sweatpants all day. Like a teenager on the cusp of becoming an adult and moving away, that I should appreciate while she still has a shred of respect for me. My life is so much richer than I give it credit for. I need to remind myself to take a step back periodically. I'm not even talking about making great art, (which in itself is a crushing task if that's what you start out working towards), I'm talking about making or doing ANYTHING. I keep seeing funny little videos on YouTube, or comical/cartoonish photoshop creations. And all I can think is "do you know how many HOURS of work that fart joke took??" Knowing what's worth putting the effort into and what's not is my struggle. Knowing when to focus on the creative vision and when to focus on a productive and functioning family is another struggle. I'm always saying to myself "if you have 2 hours to spend on a doodle, you have 2 hrs to work out." Which turns in to "if you have time and energy to work out, you have time and energy to tackle the dishes" which turns into "aw man, I hate dishes. I guess I'll just sit around in my sweatpants." So here I sit. Fat, in a messy house, with nothing to show for the last 2 hrs. This doesn't seem like the best solution, but it's my 'go-to' logic. I need to find a better way of balancing all the things I want to do, and find a way to get the motivation to do it. 3/28/2015 0 Comments Little girls dress with smockingCruzing my local craigslist and I come across an add looking for someone to finish a sewing project for hire. I reply and set up a meet to learn more. Well, this mans mother has recently passed. He's been going through her belongings and came across a half finished little girls dress. He has the idea that it would be a brilliant gift for his sister who has a daughter, rather than leave it unfinished. Sort of like one last present from grandma, from beyond the grave. It's actually a sweet story, it's almost enough to get past the ugly fabric. Lol Well, I had never worked with smocking before, and there were no instructions, and some of the pieces were missing. So beyond this being a cheery little project, it transforms into more of a brain game. Cue mortal combat music and narration: SEAMSTRESS CHALLENGE So here's what I get... There's a yoke front cut, a random piece with smocking, a skirt back cut, two sleeves, and a yoke back. There's no collar, no indication of how it's going to be pulled over a head, and no clear indication of where the smocking goes and why it's so much shorter than the front yoke. So I search the Internet for examples. Sometimes the smocking is found in the top yoke. Sometimes it's below the yoke in a band, and sometimes there are additional pieces on the sides where it attaches to the arms. The band below the yoke from armsye to armsye is the most popular, but it seemed too short. I asked around and my cousin said she thought I could cut the gathering stitches (which I was hesitant to do). BUT IT WORKED! Well, it had to be stretched and ironed, since it was a bit springy. I decided to use a lining fabric to use as a guide, and to keep the lumpy smocking from being itchy. And to save you from the rest of the brain storming and sewing issues, I finally got it finished. I promised a week and took a month and a half. But most of that was procrastinating. It was quite the teaser, and I wish I had handled some of the issues differently, but it's done and he was happy. So I should be content. 2/17/2015 0 Comments Lost: purgatory theory2/13/2015 1 Comment Lost: philosophy and theologyThis last year I worked my way through Lost for the first time. I didn't have any preconceived notions about the show, and I didn't really know anything about it. I got to soak it up with virgin innocence. It was delightful. If you enjoy long winded meta stories, soap opera like drama, and suspense adventures, you'll enjoy this show too. It's better if you can keep an open mind when things cross from science fiction into pseudoscience or just flat out fiction. And if you're open to theology or religion, you'd be more accepting of all the twists and turns.
So, the first time I went through it, there was a toddler running about, and I went from 7 mo pregnant to having a newborn babe. So I will concede to saying I may have just been distracted. The last season was using these flashes to what seemed like either a parallel universe or alternate reality. I kept repeating the mantra "it will become clear in the end. Just keep watching." But it wasn't until 15 min before the end of the last episode that they offered any explanations, and that was just a brief conversation over a coffin (between jack and his dad) before having a cast reunion filled with warm hugs. I rushed to the internets for answers/explanations for what that supposedly all meant, and apparently most people, like me, thought the end implied "they were dead the whole time." There's plenty of support that this wasn't the case. But that got me thinking... Would it really have been so bad it the were dead the whole time?? My instinct is to say yes, that it means it all wasn't real and the people just died. But if you can imagine that in this reality, once death occurs, the soul continues into an afterlife, and this is the story of that journey, is that really so bad? I've seen several Star Trek episodes featuring non-corporal beings. This never made me feel cheated or tricked. A large number of the world population believes in an afterlife, so why should it be less interesting to explore one version of what that might mean? So I'm re watching the series. I'm on season one. I'm trying to view it as though the possibility of this being a purgatory universe exists, and being ok with that. (Not sticking to it, just being open to it). But you know what?? I'm kinda diggin' it. Let's say, after death, each person needs to be judged and assessed.* It needs to be apparent if they were, down to the core, instinctively good or evil. This isn't an easy task, and it would require more than a simple judgement of actions to conclude what the true nature of a person is. So a person dies, but is unaware of their death, and the judgement begins. Hunger game level. They're tested. A trial by fire. The way they deal with conflict, the way they respond to fear, the way they treat one another, all go to proving their true nature. And when they die a second time on the island, it is because a decision has been made on them, and they are free to move on to the next level (heaven/hell, reincarnation, whatever). Example: Jack. Jack was a surgeon. But he had a failed marriage and a tumultuous relationship with his father. He continually shirked responsibility, and never seemed like he was confident in his choices. His life didn't make it clear if he was a good human, or not. Example: John Locke When John comes to after the crash, his legs miraculously work. If this was after he died, and the beginning of a "trial reality" it makes sense that he saw himself with functioning legs. It also makes sense that he had a sixth sense that the island was testing him, that is was providing for those who believed, and took from those who fought. He understood that faith was a quality worth having. And it also makes sense, that when he got frustrated with things when they were "supposed to happen" (latch door not opening, etc) it was really an additional test of his faith, to see how far it could be pushed. "You believe-it happens" is much easier than "you believe- it doesn't happen- you believe anyways." Well, you get what I'm saying. I'm actually having fun trying to see if the concept holds through. I can't remember every twist in advance, so I'm sure my ideas will change. We shall see. *I'm not saying that ISNT what happens to humans on earth, via Jesus and whatnot, I'm just talking about in this reality, in this story. 2/13/2015 0 Comments Jake and the Neverland PiratesWatching this Disney channel favorite and am left with a few questions:
P.s. Jake and his crew usually model good behavior. I appreciate this. Sometimes in shows, the main character makes bad choices or acts rude in order to "learn a lesson" in the events that follow. I don't think little ones always pick up on this, then just model what's funny. So in always making good choices from the start, it's less likely a child will pick and choose what suits them to model. 2/13/2015 0 Comments Consumer review: Baby GeniusAvailable on Netflix are a wide selection of short movies under the title "baby genius" accompanied by a title that summarizes the type of music (favorite nursery rhymes, favorite sing-a-longs, etc). What you'll find is a series of the worst music videos, paired with mediocre versions of children's songs. The animation is clunky and harsh looking. The videos of children look awkward and dated. The life sized fur suit mascot animals don't look any better than their animated versions. But despite all that, my children still sit mesmerized when it's on. They love music, and the imagery is just flashy enough. What I can't forgive, is a seeming attempt at popularizing the shows own cartoon characters. I don't care how many views they've had, how much they've sold, these aren't the lovable household icons I can get behind. It's not Mickey Mouse. It's not Clifford or Big Bird. So I absolutely don't want a song that wastes my time learning the names of these animals. It's garbage music and a copout. It's not a nursery rhyme or a sing-a-long favorite if it's a new made up song based solely on this "Baby Genius" franchise. "It's Vinko, the dancing bear, the dancing hear is here. That's V. I. N-K-O." Nope. Just don't. 12/7/2014 0 Comments Picking out glassesI'm going to wait until next month to get new glasses, but I had some fun trying them on and I think I've found a few favorites. |
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