doctor who · Knitting

30 second movies

Jen

I admit that I often enjoy commercials. The really good ones are like tiny little movies–a complete story arc in under a minute. Yesterday was the advertising industry’s big chance to knock the socks off a huge demographic–the Superbowl. Companies pay a lot of money to advertise during the Superbowl–we’re talking as much as $43,000 for each second of air time–and so they do their very best to make their ads entertaining and memorable. Lucky for us, and thanks to the power of You Tube, we no longer have to suffer the Big Game to see them.

Many of the ads this year are quite violent and while I don’t generally condone violence, it can be entertaining. Case in point: Terminator 2. Violent as heck, but very entertaining. Most of the superbowl ads were OK. Here are my favorites (from You Tube):

Everyone knows someone like this.

This one has a great punchline.

This one was pretty good.

But I think this one was the funniest.

But the best commercial I’ve seen in a long time is this one which they say has been banned from TV and therefore did not air during the Superbowl. Too bad.

As a side note, I learned today that 1 cup of flour weighs in at around 4 ounces (depending on how you measure it), not at the 7 ounces I guessed. For future reference, if you have a cookie making method that makes really great cookies, don’t screw it up by guessing the weight of a cup of flour. Seriously. There’s nothing more annoying than having to answer the question “Well, did you follow the recipe?” with, “Kind of.”

I am going to try to finish the Doctor Who scarf tonight. Pray for me.

life

We’re Back

Jen1 Comment

We’re home from our trip to Florida. I must say that in spite of my husband’s granddad being ill and dying, we had a wonderful time. Please say a quick prayer for him as he will be greatly missed by his grandson who has many funny stories of him.

While we were there, we stayed with my hubby’s grandmother. She lives in this beautiful condo/retirement community in Juno Beach which has rental units for visiting families. This is the information sheet we found in our room:

Note at the top what they have to say about children. We had fun anyway. There was a lovely pool. Well 3, actually–a spa, a lap pool, and one they called a walking pool which had a gentle current that carried you round and round. Here’s my oldest next to the walking pool:

It was too cold for the Floridians to go to the pool, so we pretty much had them to ourselves (awesome). In fact, when I mentioned to grandma that people could do like they do in the arctic and jump back and forth from the cooler (85 degree) pool to the hot tub, her reply was “This is a place of old people.” I laughed.

In addition to the pools, they had a library, an art room, a dining room where hotel/buffet style meals are served 3 times a day, and a game room, et al. It’s a fancy hotel for old people–a way to retire in style, provided you have enough money.

Speaking of old people, our children were a constant source of entertainment for them. Everyone we passed in the hallways or in the dining room or strolling along outside just loved smiling at the baby and watching my 5 year old’s antics. All in all, we felt very welcome and enjoyed our visit very much.

Here I am with E on the Juno Beach pier–very lovely.

We took a two day, three night break from the old people, and headed up to Disney World. Now, I have lived in California, not too far from Anaheim, and I have been a stubborn fan of Disney Land ever since. I have many, many happy memories of Disney Land, as we went almost every year we lived there–sometimes more than once. That being said, Disney Land sucks ass compared to Disney World. I’m sorry, it just does. It’s bigger–the streets are wider, even Cinderella’s Castle is bigger, the monorail is longer (and more usefull). Here is Isaac in front of the castle:

Yes, he is wearing his winter coat. It was very cold that day. But we had fun anyway. Here’s the baby, asleep in the stroller on Main Street:

It was a great day, even though it was so cold. The kids had a blast going on the rides–sometimes more than once–and we grown-ups had fun watching them have fun.

Finally, I didn’t do as much knitting as I’d hoped to. I made some progress on E’s sweater and finished my Jan mid-month dishcloth. Isn’t it pretty?

random

Some Days Are Like That

Jen3 Comments

The sound a 5 year old makes about 10 seconds before he throws up is enough to wrench a co-sleeping mother from the deepest of sleep. It takes only slightly longer than 10 seconds for that same mother to race to the kitchen and return with a bowl into which the 5 year old can make his deposit. I wouldn’t be complaining too much if he had managed to get out of bed. At least it would’ve been on the floor. I would have been able to just clean it up and get back into bed and sleep another hour or so. No. Instead, he just leaned over the edge of the top bunk and vomited all over my comforter. Of course, there was considerable spillage onto my mattress, too. *sigh* I am thankful, however, that he didn’t get me or the baby.

Since my washing machine is too small to handle my comfortor, we ended up at the laundry mat directly after services today. I guess it wasn’t too bad. My guys had a great time playing with another kid who was there. We would have gotten out of there much sooner if I had remembered how to work the washing machines at a laundry mat. I’ve gotten spoiled, having my own laundry here at home.

I was going to say that the good news is I got a start on my dishcloth at the coin-op, but the baby just pulled it off the needles and I will have to restart it. Damn.

Uncategorized

Blogging

Jen1 Comment

I blog about as often as I journal. Which is to say, never. That is bad. Writing is good. I want to write more–I need more writing in my life.

Here are my resoutions this year:

1. More writing. I need a creative outlet. I figure this blog can help. We’ll see. It hasn’t so far. Maybe I can try posting once a month?
2. More yoga. I’m shooting for 3 yoga sessions/week.
3. More knitting. Yes, that is a resolution, even though I am already knitting a lot. I’d like to try sweaters this year. I’ve been knitting with determination for about 3 years now and I still have not made a sweater. It’s about time I did. In fact, I’ve started a sweater for E. It’s the children’s neck-down cardigan from Knitting Pure and Simple. I love this pattern. I love this sweater, even though I’m knitting it in an inexpensive acryllic blend yarn. It’s soft, at least, and will be adorable on him.

Also, to add to my knitting, I’ve joined the yahoo monthly dishcloth knit along. This has been great fun so far, and a great practice for me at having UFO’s. Usually, with small projects especially, I will knit and knit and knit obsessively the one project until it’s finished. It turns out that when you have multiple projects going, you can switch back and forth and that’s fun because there’s variety. (I can thank the Doctor Who scarf for this revelation. I was very tempted to strangle myself with 16 feet of multi-striped garter stitch. The good news is I can see the light at the end of the time vortex–it’s almost finished.)

OK, so those are my resolutions. Not too unreasonable, I think. I guess I can post blogs about how they are going. I definitely want to post about knitting. I’ve been geeking out on all the knitting blogs (the Harlot is still my favorite by far) and, evidently, I really enjoy reading about what other people are knitting. Weird, I know.

doctor who

Entry

Jen

Okay, it’s been too long since I’ve blogged, and I have a lot of
catching up to do.

1st: I discovered today that my favorite blogger, the Yarn Harlot, is
an honest to goodness writer. I know, I’m a bit slow on the uptake. The
Yarn Harlot is a wonderful blog about knitting, et al. and I highly
recommend it. Follow the link. Her most recent post is what inspired me
to write today!

2nd: Church. I’m still attending the services at St. James and am still
loving it. This Sunday I will be baptized along with my boys and I am
very excited. I experienced something really amazing a couple of
Sundays ago while taking Communion and I’m not even sure how to explain
it. I was nearly overcome with the most intense feeling of being
connected to this community: the community of Christians. But not only
those around me, but those all over the world and all through the
history of the Communion–all the way back to Christ. I have had
feelings like this before, but never so strongly and never with such a
specific act. I will say again how happy I am to have found this.

3rd: Doctor Who. I am such a GEEK! OMG I am really enjoying Doctor Who!
Doctor Who is AWESOME! :-)

I know, that last bit was rather annoying, and I was going to write
more. I will just have to come back to it later since the baby is
crying!

Best,
Jen

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Sunday

Jen

I attended the local episcopal church today (2nd time) and am still very glad I decided to start going. There is something about being in such a sacred space, celebrating the eucharist with such a great community, which I have really needed. I looked forward to it all week and can’t wait until next week, too.

Uncategorized

Blogging

Jen

Why am I starting a blog?

To have a forum for exploring thoughts and ideas, a place to flex my writing muscles, a place to write more and write better.

There is a lot going on in my life which I need to work out and I believe keeping a “journal” like this will help.

This can also be a way for friends and family to keep up with what is going on in my life.

So, welcome to my blog. I hope you like it.