Heffalumps and Woozles

I have made an absolutely fabulous discovery.

I can watch Winnie the Pooh via Netflix streaming.

How did I miss the fact that up in the left hand corner of the Netflix app screen there is a little button that says "Kids". I am sure that it has been there always and if you have small children you will know this. But I don't have small children...although there is the boyfriend. And it is because of the boyfriend that I discovered that I can watch Winnie the Pooh on the Netflix app.

My Babysitting Boyfriend, he who shall be refered to as MBB from now on, needed a bit of "wind down" time before setting off on his afternoon nap. I had my iPad in my lap, he wanted to look at something on it, I pulled up Netflix....and that is when I saw the "Kids" button up in the left hand corner. I figured that I could find something to look at for a few minutes.

Scroll.....scroll.....scroll....

Mulan is too long. Some of the other stuff I had never even heard of. And then I saw it.

The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. Did the sun just come out and are those angels that I hear singing?

It isn't like I haven't watched this is the years since it first started showing up on TV. I am not even sure when was the first showing but I am sure that it was on The Wonderful World of Disney. Pilot Man and I used to watch that on Sunday nights, plunked down in front of the TV with a tray full of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. That is most likely why I feel that grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup are forever linked together, never to be separated. You cannot legitimately have one without the other. It just isn't right.

Where was I?

Oh yes, Winnie the Pooh. When the progeny were little we had all these Winnie the Pooh VHS tapes that they watched. All the time. I have an aversion to Sesame Street so that was not on the TV much. But we could fire up Winnie the Pooh whenever they wanted.

I just spent a very enjoyable 30 minutes watching Winnie the Pooh and Tigger and Christopher Robin and Piglette and Owl. I sang the songs. I said all the dialogue. And I am going to admit that there might be a time in the not too distant future when you might find me watching this again.....without MBB even being around.

I love Winnie the Pooh that much.

And we won't even talk about the original stuffed Eyeore that might be residing at my house.

It is the little things in life.

 

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7 Quick Takes (Vol 249)

Greetings and salutations from a place where it is always Winter. Or at least it seems like it. When you are finished insulating yourself with a layer of cold busting blather you will need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of my murderous intentions towards Mother Nature, over to Conversion Diary to see how others are coping.

Life is too short to deny yourself blather.

1.
I got on the scale on Wednesday evening, something that I try NEVER to do.

I restarted using the My Fitness Pal app on Thursday.

I bought a pedometer today and added 45 minutes on the treadmill to my daily routine.

Need I explain any further?

I wasn’t going to purchase a pedometer. Those things cost, you know, money. I found a free app for the iPhone and downloaded it on Thursday morning. And deleted it on Thursday night. Even if I dialed the sensitivity all the way down to the “numb” setting it still wanted to add steps to the count whenever I even thought about moving the iPhone.

I want to have as many steps daily as I can but the goal is not to lie to myself about anything, not what I put in my ever opening maw and not how many steps I do….or don’t…take.

So I went to Best Buy this morning and plunked down a small amount of money for a pedometer. Not a FitBit…the most basic of which would cost me $50….but something that is fairly basic but can still track my steps and/or mileage plus tell me how many calories I have expended.

Sigh.

2.
Remember I told you last week that I had ordered a Reversing Ring so that I could do some down and dirty macro photography without actually having to shell out $$ for a macro lens that I so do not need?

It arrived on Tuesday. Such excitement.

I opened the ridiculously big box to find a reversing ring in a small plastic bag. So far, so good.

I opened the package and screwed the ring onto my 50mm lens (for which it is intended). Excellent.

I start to screw the other end into Big Bertha (you know, that sounds slightly pornographic).

And….

It isn’t working!!

The ring is too small for the body. Oh this is so not good.

And as we all do, I looked at it and kept on trying to make it fit, as if doing this task more than once will give me a different result.

So I looked at the front of the ring……and saw that it was for a Nikon!! Did I order the wrong one??? Dang it! But then I looked at the packaging, which said quite clearly, that the ring was for an EOS system….which is Canon. Amazon, or more likely the factory in China from which this thing originated, doesn’t know their head from their whoowhoo hole.

So I have returned the ring, communicated with Amazon and told them that they need to have someone go and check the packaging, and the new ring will be coming on Monday.

3.
This is what I was greeted with when I went out this morning to take Max the Magnificent for his early morning “constitutional”.

Oh for the love of Peter, Paul and Mary! Obviously Max and I didn’t walk very far. And my mantra for the entire short jaunt was, “Hurry up! Do your business! Hurry up!”

A friend of mine asked me today what –6F feels like.

I would suggest that if you want to experience this go to your local grocery store. Stroll over to the freezer section. Open one of the freezer doors and stick your head in as far as it will go and take a deep breath through your nose. If your nose hairs freeze….you are just about there.

And just to make things “extra special”….we are predicted to get another 6-12 inches of snow Sunday night and into Monday.

Mother Nature had better not show up anywhere near me. I am going to beat her senseless.

4.
Did I mention that the refrigerator repair man was going to arrive at my house this past Tuesday?

The refrigerator is still making noise. Not as loud as the last time, when they had to put in a new compressor, but still not quiet.

He showed up…..2.5 hours late (I knew he would be late as he had called me)

He listened to the frig

He checked the compressor (which is working fine).

He checked the freezer fan.

And announced that yes, the freezer fan was a bit noisy but it was still working and he could guarantee me that HAS would not authorize it to be fixed at this time.

Then he told me about his family and why he had quit drinking all those years ago and what kind of truck that he drove.

And then I paid him $75 and showed him the door.

It is always something around here.

5.
I have seen exactly one of the pictures nominated for Best Picture for 2014.

That would be Captain Phillips.

It doesn’t really matter as I most likely will not be watching the Oscars this year….again.

I will watch something else that deservedly can be called a classic. Like Casablanca or perhaps The Philadelphia Story.

Stepping down off of soap box now.

6.
I have decided for the next little while to be a monogamous knitter.

I am currently obsessed with knitting on the Never Ending Mitered Square blanket. It is one of those things that I think to myself, “I will just do one more square” and I look up and it is an hour later and I have done about 5 squares.

But I am having so much fun doing them that I am not going to start any other projects for a while and just work on this one.

Well, I am going to start the next pair of socks but that is because I will be traveling in a few weeks and I always start a pair of socks when the plane pulls away from the gate.

Just my thing.

But other than that it is mitered squares all the time.

I lead a very boring, if fingering weight sock yarn filled, life.

7.
Here are a few Instagram pictures from this past week. I was going to put them into a collage again but that is just a big pain in my bahookie so….I am not going to do it.

Warning. Rant Ahead.

This has been the longest winter.

LONG.

LongLongLongLongLongLongLong.

On a normal day, with the sun coming up and the birds tweeting, this is what my little town looks like.

A quiet little place. A happy place.

But not always.

This was what I was greeted with today when I had to walk Max the Magnificent.

SNOWMAGEDDEON!

Somewhere along the line I seemed to have missed the memo that said something about heavy bands of snow moving through the area today.

Mother Nature, if you were standing in front of me right now I would beat you bloody with a blunt instrument.

But Alpha, how can you not like all this lovely snow. Stick your nose out into it and breathe deep.

A Legacy List

Today would have been my father’s 76th birthday. Because I knew this day was coming up on the calendar I have been thinking about his legacy to me.

Legacies, at least in my mind, are a very personal thing.

A legacy, as defined in the about 8 million different online dictionaries that I looked at, is

Something handed down from an ancestor or a predecessor or from the past.

My father left a lasting legacy, at least for me. I think if you asked all who knew him they would say that he was a larger than life person who lived life to the fullest. I would hope that when my time comes to go home to my savior that others will say the same of me.

I was going to write a wordy post (is there any other sort??) about my dad’s legacy but I think a list will do the job nicely. I have searched all over my blog posts thinking that I had already written out this list for you but I cannot find it. If I did and I posted it…..I blame the menopause brain.

* Christ is all.

* If you are going to do a job you need to do it to the best of your abilities. Don’t waste your time doing a half way job that will have to be redone because you didn’t do it right the first time around.

* Ice cream is always a good idea. Well, all except for that one time when he had the bright idea to have a scoop of Bubble Gum ice cream and a scoop of Black Licorice ice cream. That is the only time that I ever remember him NOT finishing an ice cream cone.

* When braking in your car, let up on the brake pedal just a bit as you come to a stop and you will never have a “herky jerky” stop.

* Organ music is the music of the angels. And if you throw in a bit of Bluegrass that is even better.

* You can never take too many pictures.

* A good glass of wine is an excellent thing.

* If I, as the Chief of the OBGYN department, have written orders on a patient. And you, as a lowly resident, have said to ignore MY orders and written your own…..it will not go well with you my son.

* Hard work is a good thing.

* If you need to, ask for help.

* Yes, we are stopping at this vacation spot. No, you may not stay in the car and read your book.

* There is no need to yell. Intimidation Expressing your displeasure with a quiet voice is MUCH more effective (ask the progeny).

* Take the time to put your tools, whatever they may be, back where you got them. That way you always know where they are.

* Think through the problem before acting on it.

*You can never have too many flashlights……or pens…..or combs…..or nail clippers…..or baseball caps….or tools….or books…or batteries.

*You can never have too many pads of paper.

*Think ahead. It will save your bacon later on.

* Do not stick your hand under a running lawn mower. The consequences can be….not so great…especially if you are a surgeon.

* A clean car interior is the sign of an organized mind. (I might have a problem there).

* There is no reason why you cannot take 4 showers a day…as long as each of those showers lasts no more that 4 minutes.

* Keep good records.

* Go the extra mile for others without expecting anything in return.

* Raccoons, opossums and groundhogs must be eradicated.

* It is not acceptable to chew Green Apple bubble gum in a closed car. And NO you may not blow bubbles with it.

* A well written letter (or email) of complaint can go a long way.

* Be careful when lighting the gas grill. Your eyebrows might suffer a “mighty singe” otherwise.

* Measure twice. Cut once.

* If I have asked you to do something, I expect that you will get up and do it now.

* All work and no relaxation makes for a very grumpy person.

* Do your research.

* Read a book. Expand your brain.

Thanks Dad for the legacy that you have left for me. I long for the day when I will see you again. Until then……

I think I will go and read a book.

Puppy Breath

I fell in love yesterday.

You are asking yourself, right about now,

WHAT ABOUT HHBL???

No fears. I love him too. I love him loads. I love him more that coffee AND yarn.

I was working yesterday, taking headshots for a group of college students. We were all done. The students had scattered back to class or practice or who knows where. I was just sitting around talking with the Deloitte and Touche reps about this and that…….

And then the head of the grounds crew came into the room. And in his arms was snuggled…..

OH!

OhOhOhOhOhOhOh.

I am sorry but I just melted on the spot. A 9 week old, Silver Lab.

9 weeks old means PUPPY BREATH!!!

And ears so soft that you just want to roll around on them.

And eyes that speak the knowledge of a thousand lives.

OK, maybe not that last one but really this little thing had the most soulful eyes on a puppy that I have ever seen. And even as we all stood around and cooed and ahhhhed and fell in love, he gave a big yawn…..

And fell asleep.

If I had been able to figure out a way to not get caught I would have just laid that little puppy right in my spacious camera bag and slunk out.

Alpha you cannot possibly mean that.

Yes, yes I could. But I didn’t think I was going to be able to wrestle that puppy out of his owners arms.

But I thought about it.

7 Quick Takes (Vol 248)

Winter, Winter go away. Come again, like never.

You know what to do. When you are done ingesting your weekly dose of rejuvenating blather, you need to click on the picture above to be whisked, at the speed of the melting Sochi snow, over to Conversion Diary.

A triple toe loop of blather just for you.

1.
For all who have inquired…..

My back is doing MUCH better. Large doses of ibuprophen and application of heated cornbag have made life much better.

And the garage door was fixed by Monday afternoon. I was right, it was a gear.

Hopefully now the motor, and consequently the garage door, will last for another 17 years. It certainly sounds better.

2.
The Rainbow Wrap of Awesomeness……….

Was completed yesterday. That might have been why I haven’t blogged in a few days. I was totally might have been obsessed with finishing it.

Oh. My. Gosh I love her. LoveLoveLoveLove. She is only 14 inches wide but she is…….

9.25 feet long.

That is PLENTY long enough for wrapping around my ample body several time.

All told I knit 166 rows of linen stitch using 6 different skeins of yarn. Each row was 600 stitches long. That means that in just over three weeks time I knit….

99,600 stitches. On one project.

And I am going to be honest and say that I am already thinking about the next time I knit this pattern. There will be a next time I can assure you. It will look nothing like this one but I am already thinking and planning.

Oh, just to answer a question that someone asked me when they saw the photo up on Facebook. Will I make one for sale?

No.

In order to make it worth my while to do that (it took 65+ hours to complete) I would have to charge the purchaser an egregiously large sum of money just to cover minimum wage costs for time. I sincerely doubt anyone is willing to pay that.

But if you are…..then let me know.

3.
I cannot believe that I am going to say this but….

I am getting tired of the Olympics.

Maybe it is just because I am getting tired of watching TV. And perhaps it is because some of the competitions that I have watched (Men’s Figure Skating) have been totally uninspiring to me. And I definitely think there was something hinky going on with the Women’s Figure Skating final. Yuna Kim should have won.

I am ready to get back to my generally Netflix only TV schedule.

4.
Tomorrow is brew day.

I know I said that last week. But after I published that post I realized that I was out of the stuff that I wanted to use to sterilize my brewing kettle. It is this “non-rinse” stuff that makes life a whole lot easier. I ordered some on line from Northern Brewer (thanks Jon for the heads up on this company), the box arrived yesterday, and tomorrow is the brew day.

Who wouldn’t like to order supplies from a place that puts these kinds of stickers on the inside of the box.

5.
I have always been fascinated by macro photography. So cool.

But I do not have a macro lens. It is fairly specialized and fairly expensive and I just haven’t worked it into the budget…..yet.

BUT, you can do a gonzo macro photo shoot by detaching your lens from your camera body, turning the lens around and manually holding it to the camera body. You don’t have any control over much else like focusing but you can move yourself until you get something in focus.

The operation was a bit tricky because I was concentrating on holding my 50mm lens (my favorite lens) to my camera body with one hand and trying to steady my camera and myself at the same time. Like chewing gum, walking AND talking on your cell phone all at the same time, while there is a high wind warning.

OR, you can order a reversing ring for your lens so that at least you can have the lens secured to your camera body.

Which is what I just did.

Here is the Light Stalking article on how to do some macro photography without a macro lens.

6.
I might have mentioned before that I have an Audible account. I love audiobooks. And yes, I know that I can get lots of audiobooks at the library. No need to tell me that. I use the library audiobook system too. But there are MANY books that I want to listen to that the library doesn’t have available. So, Audible.

I love Audible.

I love it for the mind blowing number of books that are available.

AND I love it for their customer service.

Many years ago I had another Audible account. I didn’t have it for long, there was only one book in it evidently, but I knew it was there. But I didn’t remember what email the account was linked to and I couldn’t download it to iTunes or to my current Audible account.

What to do, what to do. It was a book that I really wanted to listen to and I didn’t want to re-buy it.

This morning I chatted online with an extremely nice rep named Julie who, after looking at the situation, added a credit to my account so that I could just re-buy Master and Commander but not have to actually spend any money again on it.

Now I can start listening to it this afternoon…after I finish The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich….which was 57+ hours long.

I love Audible.

7.
And here are just a few of the seemingly endless Instagram photos that I seem to produce on a weekly basis.

I am obsessed with Instagram.

Oh My Achin’ Back

It started out as such a nice evening. Dinner on Saturday evening with friends. Great Lakes Dortmunder and a fabulous bowl full of Pad Kee Mao. Laughter and catching up.

And then the garage door didn’t open all the way when we got home.

It was cold. We were tired. The garage door rose…….3/4 of the way up and then stopped. Hmmmmmm. The garage door opener has been on an individualistic kick of late but generally hasn’t given us all that much trouble. It is 17 years old and teenagers can be a pain in the backside. Maybe it was just something blew across the little light beams and stopped the upward motion.

I so hoped it was just that.

But when I got out of the car, HHBL’s Prius to be precise, I could hear the garage door opener motor humming away…but the chain was not moving.

Oh dear.

Google explained to me that it was most likely a gear in the motor that was now bad and would need to be replaced. Yeah, I am not doing that. And it was Saturday night which meant that no one else was doing that either until sometime during business hours on Monday or later. It was REALLY COLD on Saturday night and I didn’t even want to stand around in the garage, the unheated garage, discussing it.

So we went to bed, after letting Max out but before putting the garage door down, and just figured that we would have to manually open and close the garage door until whenever it was fixed. It has been close to 15 years since I actually had to open and close a garage door manually in order to let the car or the dog out. I remember now how much of an absolute pain in my big, fat bahookie that little chore is.

Sunday morning arrived. 6:30a I am putting on coat and boots and gloves and taking the darn dog out to do his morning “stuff”. Rats, I have to open that darn door, which I do without really thinking about it. Max finishes his morning deposit and we go on with the rest of our day……

I sit down on the couch for a bit of time to read and then decide that I need more coffee. I go to get up……..

Oh, OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH! My lower back has decided to stiffen up like a Russian general with a chest full of medals. Oh Lord have mercy upon my back. Suck it up an be brave Deb. It isn’t anything.

I am still trying to tell myself that today.

Currently Mr. Ibuprophen and this amazing little thing are my BFFs. Do you have one of these? It is a “microwave corn bag”. You heat it up in the microwave and it provides blistering heat to whatever portion of your body needs it for up to an hour (or longer). I whipped this one up this morning because I needed a slightly smaller one that my normal corn bag. We will be BFFs forever.

Or at least until my back decides that it isn’t going to try and make my life eternally miserable.

The thing that really bugs me about all of this is that I am usually SO CAREFUL about my back. I threw it out the first time when I was in my 20’s and a patient decided to go dead weight on me without giving me prior warning. I caught her before she hit the floor but my back went, “SPROIG!”. Oh that was a pleasant experience. As was all the lovely Restoril that I was provided by the pharmacy. Just as an aside. When they say take 1 or 2 tablets…..take only one at a time. Unless you love being in LaLa Land.

So take care of your backs folks. Or else you are going to have to get someone to help you put on your underwear in the morning.

Consider this your PSA for the day. You can thank me later.