Did you know?

Set to release in 2007: Hairspray

Some of the notables?
Edna Turnblad - John Travolta
Wilbur Turnblad - Billy Crystal
Motormouth Maybelle - Queen Latifah
Velma con Tussel - Michelle Pfeiffer
Penny Pingleton - Amanda Bynes

Thank you for asking

Later in the day at MGM we went to the Brown Derby for dinner. This is our favorite restaurant in MGM and they have the Fantasmic dinner package so that is a bonus. We don't really dig having to get to the theater and sit there for 2 hours so the reserved seating is definitely the way to go.

It was still in season so Roland ordered the gazpacho (which may well be his favorite thing at Disney World) and I had the crab cake for an appetizer. For dinner he had a pork dish with a delectable cheese fondue drizzled over the top while I enjoyed the grouper with onion marmalade. For dessert I tried the flourless chocolate cake and Roland went for some cheesecake. All of it wonderful. In the middle of dinner our waiter appeared with two glasses of champagne each with a strawberry on it. Once again to help us celebrate our anniversary. The best part? The waiter made me show my ID before he would give me champagne.

Re-imagine

Some music fun for you:

Star Wars
Mario Brothers (click on Music from the Mushroom).

Tom

As I mentioned before we decided to try the ABC Commissary for lunch at MGM. We had never eaten there before and thought it sounded like a good option among the counter service restaurants. We walked in and began to contemplate the menu. We were just finishing the decision to get two different options to share and moving on to deciding which two options we wanted to share when a cast member approached us. He asked if we were on our honeymoon (I was wearing my Minnie bride ears, which Roland bought for me), and we told him we were celebrating our 5th anniversary and he offered his congratulations on that and the fact that we still looked like we were very happy together. He then asked if we needed any help with the menu, which is what I think he came out for in the first place. Perhaps it was in response to the new and interesting things people might not be familiar with. We thanked Tom, picked our options, and proceeded to eat our very good food. As we were finishing up our meal Tom appeared at our table with two chocolate mousse cups to help us celebrate our anniversary. He was so sweet and so sincere it really made my day. Plus the mousse was delicious! We made sure to stop by guest relations later in the day and compliment him.

Counter Service

I've been noticing it over the 5 years that I have been visiting Disney World, but it was on this trip that it really became obvious to me. Disney has some made a huge effort to have interesting and good counter service food. At the Pop Century cafeteria they now have soy burgers, ham and havarti flatbread sandwiches, vegetable lasagna, and some really good looking pizza among many other options. At the parks they now sell fresh fruit and the counter service food isn't just burgers and hot dogs anymore. Over at MGM we tried out the ABC Commissary and ended up sharing some curry chicken and a Cuban sandwich with plantain chips. I for one really appreciate the change, it makes eating at the counter service places a lot more enjoyable. Plus it is somehow easier to pay $7.50 for a Cuban sandwich, not so much for a hot dog.

Gizmo

I found another stray dog yesterday. I was just pulling out to run some errands and this groomed Pekingese came trotting around the corner. Some of the people around here are idiots and let don't leash their dogs so I sat for a moment and waited to see if a person appeared somewhere near the dog. No joy, but I could see it had a collar on it (a spiffy yellow Nascar number) so I figured I would sneak a peak at the tags and maybe take him back where he belonged. I re-parked the car, got out, and tried approaching the dog. Again no joy. He kept his distance and was quite standoffish. I did get close enough to pet him a little, but then he tried to bite me. Great, now there is a dog running around that will either get hit by a car or bite some child that doesn't know better and tries to pet it. As an added bonus the collar had no tags attached. What? That's right no tags. And what, pray tell, is the point of having a collar for your dog if you aren't going to put tags on it. Just letting everyone know he likes Nascar are we? Super. So I ran back upstairs and grabbed a leash. I spent the next 10 minutes or so following the little dude with the makeshift slip collar/leash you can make by passing the clip end of the leash through the hand loop. My patience and experience at the HSKC came into play here and I did get him on the leash without too much trouble. Then we trotted over to the office to ask if they knew the dog before I called animal control. They said there was only one Pekingese on property but the picture they had was of a Pekingese in full coat so they weren't sure if it was the same guy. They were very nice and volunteered to call over to the apartment to see if they were missing their dog. Turns out they were and Gizmo had mysteriously escaped. Mom and Dad weren't home, but their daughter (17ish) and son (12ish) were. One of the nice ladies from the office accompanied me over to their apartment to deliver Gizmo. There are three people at the apartment.

1. Son
2. Daughter
3. Daughter's boyfriend

Hmmmm, can you imagine what happened? I asked both the son and the daughter to tell their parents to get Gizmo a tag so that he didn't end up in the shelter if this ever happened again. I held my tongue on the neutering thing as I didn't think the message about the tags was going to get through anyhow. I also made the son take off the leash so I wouldn't have to get near his face. Good times.

In happy news Roland and I leave tomorrow for our 5 year anniversary trip!

Quicky

Two quick things:

1. Bleys and I are set to take our therapy test on August 3rd. Wish us luck.

2. There have been even more changes. Your comments desired.

The tupperware lady is having Satan's baby.

So I was watching television and an commerical came on for Starbursts. It was set on a tropical beach and featured a skinny white boy in a rasta wig named Tashi. I turned to my husband and said. "Dude that looks like Steve Huey." Low and behold, it totally was. I visited his My Space and found a blog entry about going to Cancun to film it. I guess I should have known after *ahem* "starring" with him in an unforgetable French class video skit.

Sharing

While I was sewing the other day and a certain someone needed to share my chair with me. Isn't he helpful?

Did you have a sticker book?

I made stickers! I got some special label paper and a template and made up some stickers for the hoodies for younglings. If I can find a color laser printer I may print them out in color (the AnneArchy symbol is in red) but it's not a high priority for it to be in color.



Anne has indicated that she has found the AnneArchy sew-in labels and is sending them on. Having recently moved myself I was rather amazed at the speed with which she found them. Kudos, Anne. I also ordered some size tags in your basic S, M, and L to sew in with the AnneArchy label. And I found a possible place to get short zippers (Joann is kind hit and miss on the zipper selection and I need a very particular kind of zipper). At least I use basic colors, black mostly , so that isn't an issue.

Unfortunately every time I think of one thing and solve it, I think of about ten more that need to be addressed before I can actually get close to finishing the site. I'm getting a little discouraged.

D20 Forever!

Roland just sent me an awesome clip from youtube. It is Steven Colbert being interviewed by Conan O'Brien. Steven Colbert gets a whole new level of respect from me for his D&D knowledge knowledge (+5). For those of you who may be wondering/feeling left out:

Gen Con - the largest gaming convention here in America.
Gary Gygax - orignal author of D&D and pretty much the father of roleplaying as we know it.
Len Lakofka - wrote the Lendore Isle campaign.

And if that wasn't enough here is some more!

I just can't stop

I was doing some work on the cutting board and after moving PW off to the side (it's hard to work with a puppy in the middle of the board) he fell asleep. So, clearly it was time to take some pictures. Warning the cuteness is well nigh overwhelming.



He also has the cheek puff so sought after on CO. Behold!



But I think the thing I find the absolute best are the eyebrows. It just makes him so expressive. Plus he did really well in difficult circumstances at dog obedience on Saturday. We had a make-up class on Saturday because we've been rained out the past two weeks in a row. When we got there at 1:00 in the afternoon it was wicked hot and they had just mowed the grass. The lawn mowage might not seem like a problem, but it stirs up all the latent delicious scents just waiting to distract poor defenseless pups like Bleys. But he came through like a champ and was only minorly distracted.

I have a feeling that we may be the only team that is ready to take the test at the end of this class. The other dogs obey very well, but only when they are on a gentle leader. Unfortunately you can't take the test on a Gentle Leader. It is flat collars only. I think a couple of people were a little surprised when she mentioned this. A few of them then tried to work a bit without the GL. You can totally see the difference in the people (yes the people, not the dogs). They lose their air of confidence and instantly revert back to asking their dog to do things, which the dog promptly refuses.

There is one dog in particular that I feel sorry for. First of all, both his owners come to class sometimes, and they sort of switch back and forth from week to week who is doing the training. Not the best situation, but hey at least they are both involved? However, they coddle this dog terribly and enable each other to do so. He moves like molasses and it's plain that the dog is just being lazy. They ask him to sit about five times before he actually does and half the time when they say 'let's go' (their version of heel) he just sits there and looks at them. Instead of just putting on their leader face and making the dog do it, they mumble things like 'oh, but it's too hot for him' or something. Yes, it is hot, but if you notice all the rest of the dogs are moving along just fine. Granted it is a lot easier to make a dog of Bleys' size do something that a dog that is more like 90 pounds (he could stand to lose at least 10 of them), but it's not impossible.

Plus once you have a behavior you aren't finished. You should keep shaping that behavior to make it better. Now you only give them a reward if it's a speedy sit, not just whenever they feel like it, etc. Training your dog never ends. Bleys and I work nearly every day, granted it's only like 5 minutes a day, but it is constant and consistent. At class on Saturday we worked a little with introducing the dogs to walkers and canes. After they got used to them the instructor would walk around the dogs and drop the cane near them or make otherwise loud unpredictable movements. She commented that it was very unusual for a dog Bleys' size not to jump away from the dropped item. Why didn't he? Because I drop things near him on a regular basis. Phone books, clip boards, text books, anything that will make some unusual noise. I guess I'm just surprised at the level of the people in the 'advanced' class. Then again from what it sounded like people can come back and take this class again and again until they are ready. Guess I'm just lucky we will only have to do it once.

Hip hip

Three cheers for Jason! He totally rolled a twenty on his knowledge: java check. He pointed me to the source to make my site kick out a style based on which browser the user is using. I haven't had a change to upload it to the server yet, but it's working. Not the perfect solution, but at least it is a solution. I will probably wait until I've made a few more steps forward before uploading it, so you IE user will have to wait a little longer before you see the placement as it should be. It seems kind of silly to have two style sheets when they are identical except for a few key changes. C'est la vie I suppose. I also really want to see what it looks like in Safari, but I think that will have to wait until I get back to Michigan where my only access to a mac is. Also, Anne mentioned that she was using a different browser these days and I was going to check it out, but now I can't remember the name of it.

Hoodies

A little more progress on the site. Mostly in taking more pictures (this time of the hoodies). Things are going painfully slowly, but I'm trying to just keep going. I guess we will have to wait and see.

For Katie

Katie, who is currently remodeling one room in her house as a nursery asked about curtains for the room. I started to comment on her blog, but then the comment began to take on gargantuan proportions so I decided to just post it here. Those of you who don't care about curtains should stop reading here.

You've got a quite a few options for your draperies Katie. You eliminated the simply decorative types (which I totally agree with, I think that would be silly) and opted for actual functioning ones.

Option 1 - Rod pocket. These are some of the simplest to make as it can be as easy as sewing a large hem on the top and slipping that pocket over the curtain rod (add an extra seam above the rod pocket and you have instant ruffles on top). You can either make one large panel to fit across the whole window, or a pair one for each side of the window. The down side? They usually don't slide very well across the rod and you may need a lot of material to make the fullness look right.

Rod Pocket

Rod Pocket with ruffle

Option 2 - Flat panel. These are also relatively easy to make and are similar to the rod pocket draperies. The only real difference is that instead of attaching to the rod by a channel sewn in, these attach to the rod by means of a ring (very much like a shower curtain). This ring can be a grommet in the drapery itself or something that extends above the top. Again, these can be made as one long panel or two smaller sides. The down side? A little more complicated to make than a rod pocket and you may need a lot of material to get the fullness. If you use the grommet option that is also another added difficulty. I've never been very good at them and it usually causes me a disproportionate amount of frustration. Rings are available in both sew-in and clip-on varieties.

Rings
Grommets as rings

Option 3 - Tab Top. A close cousin to the flat panel. The only real difference is that instead of some foreign material to attach it to the rod (metal or plastic ring) fabric is used. This fabric tab can be wide or narrow, or even simply tie over the top of the rod. Again, these can be made as one long panel or two smaller sides. These were traditionally meant to be stationary draperies. The down side? A little more complicated to make than rod pocket and like the rod pocket these also tend not to slide easily over the rod, and you may need a lot of material to get the fullness.

Wide tabs

Tie tabs

Option 4 - Pinch pleated draperies. My personal favorite, probably because this is what we had growing up. These are the kind I just made for our bedroom (with that awesome light blocking lining). These are a lot more complicated to make, but not crazy hard, they just seem hard in comparison because the others are simple. They also require some specific hardware (available at Joann, and Fields etc) in the form of pleater tape and pleater hooks. They can be either one wide panel or two side panels and can either be put onto a transverse curtain rod or be but over a curtain rod with rings (I used the center pull transverse rod - purchased from Kmart). Reasons I like these so much? One: you don't have to fiddle with them to have them look full. The pleats almost guarantee the correct placement of material whereas on the others to get them to look like they do in the pictures you have to sit there and play with them to create the look each time you move them. Two: on the transverse rod they both go around the corner to meet with the wall and completely cover the curtain rod, thus blocking out more light etc. The down side? As I mentioned they are more difficult to make, you need more hardware/installation, and you may need a lot of material to get the fullness.

Pinch pleated draperies

Pinch pleats with rings

Close up of pinch pleats

Around the corner

Then of course you have to decide on length. You can go to the sill (so the bottom hem rests just above the sill), to the bottom of the apron (so the hem covers the bottom of the wooden apron below the sill, to the floor, or puddling on the floor. That is totally personal preference.

If you noticed a trend in the down side portion of each one, good eye. Most people underestimate how much material goes into draperies. This is why when you go to Target or someplace to buy them, they look like a good deal...at first. Then you read the package closer (I hope) and it ends up telling you that for the picture they used 4 or even 6 panels. So multiply each panel/package as they are usually sold individually and you are looking at a lot of money. To get the traditional fullness of a drapery you are generally looking at 2.5 to 3 times the width of the window. I used 2.5 because of cost, if I could have I would definitely have gone with 3. Of course the solution is to make a truly flat panel (one that has no fullness when closed), these often look very sleek and no frills-ish. Another solution to this problem is the one I used in our house in Grand Rapids.

Option 5- Roman Shades. These are most appropriate for windows that are taller than wide and I can't remember what you have in that room, so they might not be the best option. They are great because of the small amount of fabric and the sleek look. The ones I made were completely housed inside the window frame so there was no rod to install, but you can also make them so they fit over a rod. I used the light blocking lining there as well (we had a halogen street light directly outside our window). The construction is a little more complicated, about the same as pinch pleated drapes and requires some power tools (staple gun mostly). The down side? The aren't for all window types, you need to take down any blinds already in the window, and most of these work on a string pull system which means you will need to put up a cord cleat or some other means of protecting Baby Baker from the strings.

Inside the window frame

Over a rod

So there you have it, way too much information about draperies. Anything look good to you Katie? Anything right out? Also if you took a picture of your window, I seem to remember you saying something about the rod being right up against the wall or something, it would help me a bunch. Based on what I know and can remember right now I would opt for flat panel (with rings and with or without fullness) or pinch pleated draperies. I would avoid the rod pocket and tab top because of the difficulty with which they move across the rod.

I hope I didn't scare you away, it's just that there are so many cool options!

UPDATE: Now that I've seen pictures of the almost completed nursery I think I would choose:

1. Two Roman shades (one for each window) because I like how the white trim outlines the fabric, it avoids the wall/rod problem, and it keeps in the very sleek look of the nursery (me likes!).

or

2. A pair of pinch pleated draperies that came down just below the apron (rather than resting on the sill). Or maybe just a single panel of pinch pleated drapery haven't quite decided yet. I think my first choice would be the roman shades

Snort

Well, that was just frustrating. Roland noticed that my blog looked wrong in IE (why am I not surprised) in that the sidebar was no longer a sidebar. So after about an hour of fiddling I finally had to just reset the template. I saved my old template in a notepad and reset it in blogger. Then I went about making all the changes I had made to the old one, to the new one. I finished after another hour. Why so long? Well I wasn't sure what was causing the problem so I changed things back one by one to make sure they weren't the culprit, and reposting my entire blog is apparently a long process which sometimes stalls out and doesn't finish. Anyway, what was the culprit? I don't know. I put everything back where it was before and it still works as it should have before I started this whole thing. And it only took me 2 hours.

favicon.ico

I got a little creative today and made a new icon for the Annearchy* site. I had made one that was a red A on a black background, but it looked lopsided so I didn't really like it. The new one is a teeny tiny representation of Anne's tattoo. I thought it turned out pretty well considering I made it. I also found out that more browsers are allowing file types other than ico. However just to be safe, I found a free converter and changed it over. In Firefox and Opera it shows up in the url bar, in Explorer you have to favorite-ize the page and then look in your favorites to see it. The only downside is that it verges on the too small to see what it is, but I haven't figured out any other shape to use. Anyway, there it is.


*again, currently only looks descent in Firefox and Opera.

Sort of like molasses

I made some more changes to Annearchy. *Warning, until Jason can help me increase my css mojo it will only look decent in Firefox and Opera.

Garden

My mom sent me a picture of the garden I designed for her backyard. It is in its second year (I think) and doing pretty well. A few things didn't survive, mostly due to ravenous rabbits I believe. The lamium and day lilies seem to be doing especially well.



I really miss having a bit of dirt to play in. I love it when Katie and Jason post pictures of their lovely gardens/landscaping. I was really proud of my back yard in Grand Rapids and still have a hard time with having had to let it go.

Flickr

I started a Flickr account and filled it with pictures of who else? Bleys

DFO

Last night the dog totally passed out! Notice the ear covering his eyes!



Bummer, no class tonight due to weather. Apparently it has been raining all day at the humane society and the field we use is a muddy mess. We are going to start back up next week, we hope, and go the final two weeks. I'm not sure when the test will be then, but I hope it isn't supposed to be the next Thursday after that (the 27th). Roland is taking me to Disney for our anniversary starting on the 26th so that wouldn't work out. I guess if it is, then I will have to ask her to test Bleys separately. We will just have to wait and see.

It's just an '

Ok, so what is the deal with Firefox? Every now and then I hit some unknown to me set of characters which switches the browser into some special mode or somehow switches the focus even though I'm still typing in a textbox (personally I think it's the latter). The upshot of this is that when I try to type the apostrophe it takes opens the "find" box and the focus moves with it. So I put the cursor back in the textbox and try again. It flips back over to the find box. I can't type an stinking apostrophe. And I can't find anywhere the shortcut that I pressed that will flip it back to normal mode. I even went online and did some searching and I found a solution (involving going into the config and changing a value). This fixes the problem, but man is it one of the most irritating things.

No chips

My latest culinary foray was into the wonderful world of pie, as per a request from Roland. He asked me to pick up some frozen pie crusts at the market, but I don't really care for those and making the crust is easy and much more tasterific. Apparently he was hankerin' after some blueberry pie. Since I really enjoy blueberries and I who doesn't enjoy a little pie now and then, voila!







Mmmmm...pie...

Contemplating

Happy Fourth of July!

Despite near constant reminders in the form of people lighting fireworks for the last two weeks, it just doesn't feel like a holiday. The result of being so far from home? My parents are in Chicago for the AGO conference and are lucky enough to be able to see the fireworks display on Navy Pier. Bonus. I'm not sure what Anne and Karl have in mind, but being so close to Detroit/Ann Arbor I'm sure they will have lots of options.

I don't know how Brodie and Logan react to fireworks, but it's going to be an interesting night with Bleys. He's not terrible or anything, he just feels a need to put those naughty fireworks in their place. I've got three options for curbing his distress about the loud noises. 1. Slipping him a mickey 2. Putting on his citronella collar 3. Putting on his Gentle Leader. Who knows maybe we will get to see all three in action.

I also noticed this new product from Premier (one of my favorite pet supply companies as you may have noticed). I wonder if it works, but not working in a humane society anymore I'll probably never know. Unless someday I get a more reactive/anxious dog than Bleys.

I just re-read what this post and it is very choppy and weird so I'm going to stop now and hope my brain recovers from whatever happened to it.

oh, and the pool is going to be closed again from tomorrow through Friday. Mer. At least this time they gave us the times beforehand?

Abra Kadabra

I thought I wanted to blog, but I've been sitting here staring at the blank page for a while now. Kristy (the nice person who went diving with me earlier this week) is going diving tomorrow on a sweet looking wreck. She invited me, but I don't think I'm going to go. I would have very little time on it since I'm not Nitrox certified yet and it's pretty deep for air. I guess I really need to get on that Nitrox thing. Kristy was even super nice as offered to dive air with me, but I would feel totally guilty about hacking her dive in half (or more).

Roland and I went swimming again today (woot, the pool is back open). Well, I swam and Roland floated but it was still a nice time. He seemed very pensive, but claims nothing was bothering him, so I'm forced to believe him. Personally, I think he is thinking about all the projects he has going on right now at work and feeling like there is a lot to do and not much time to do it in. Anyway, when we came back guess who was running around the apartment? Houdini-dog had somehow let himself out of his crate. Seriously, how did he do that? I still haven't figured it out. And this isn't the first time either, he has manage this feat at least once before. Maybe we will have to install one of those cameras to see how his does it. I always knew he was smart!


Coolest location of someone who visited my blog: Wattleup, Western Australia