Friday the 13th

Another Friday the 13th, huh ? Today it will be lucky for me since I get to buy a new (drumroll, please) dishwasher !! Our current dishwasher hasn't been cleaning well, and it's been several years, so it's time for a new one. All the major home stores have appliances on sale for President's Day, so I've been comparing prices and calculating how to get the best deal. Now if I only had a coupon....!!!

Open Office

Open Office free office suite has been such a tremendous help to me this week. I'm working on a website for the volunteer action center in our area and they asked me to upload and link to a manual. The manual was in Word Perfect format (which I don't have), but Open Office opened it with no problem. Of all the tools offered, I use the Base (database), Calc (spreadsheet), and Writer (word processor) the most.

I'm not in any way affiliated with Open Office, Sun, or Java.

Mr. Mom

My kids watched the 80's film "Mr. Mom" last night and I think everyone enjoyed it. I told them that's how their "woobies" got their name. When they were born, each was given a "woobie" and "little woobie" made by their aunt. My son carried his little woobie with him everywhere when he was a toddler.

Now both kids have their woobies safely retired in their tote bins where I store all their childhood treasures, some homework papers, artwork, honor roll certificates, yearbooks, etc. Actually each child has about 4 bins by now. When they're 40, they'll thank me (isn't that what all moms say ?)

Homescan

Last April I joined the Homescan Consumer Panel and I'll be celebrating my 1 year anniversary soon. This is an AC Nielsen company where you're issued a bar code scanner and you manually scan all the purchases that you make.

You get points for submitting scans weekly and for answering surveys, then you can redeem the points for prizes. Plus there are prize giveaways and I'm planning how I'm going to spend the $20,000 that I will win this year (this the power of positive thinking, right ?) !!

My daughter likes to help me scan but my husband tolerates it. From what I hear, that's pretty typical. I think it's fun, but I like gadgets.

I'm not in any way affiliated with Homescan or AC Nielsen

Your Fonts

Thanks to Pinoy Web Surfer for posting this amazing free font generator. This is the coolest, easiest, funnest computer gadget-y thing. I use Open Office, and it was unbelievably cool to type and see my handwriting on the screen.

I don't know if it translates to email, such as if I send someone an email using my font and they don't have my font on their computer, I assume it will default. But I will try it out and report back.

Window Garlands (In Progress)

I'm not a "crafty" creative person, but it seems like I have alot of fabric decorating projects in the works right now. This pile of fabric strips (each about 5 inches long) is going to make garlands to hang over my windows. I had Christmas garlands up at the holidays and I liked the look of something over the windows, so my husband suggested that I make some to replace them.

I'm going to tie them onto 6 feet jute strings and hang them over my sliding glass doors, my front door, and grandfather clock. I'll post a picture when they're finished.

Photo Editing

Picnik.com is the coolest site for photo editing. Granted, I'm not a major editing whiz and usually all I want to do is resize and crop my images. But this is free, online, interfaces with Picasa (which is the photo software used by Blogger), and VERY easy to use.

I am in no way affiliated with Picnik.com

2nd Rag Crochet Vase (In Progress)

I'm trying to make another rag crochet vase to match the one I made earlier, but I had a problem with the second one being too big. So now I'm going to tear out about 4 or 5 rows and have to redo them. Do you think I will earn a lesson from this and write my stitches down? And by writing them down, that would make a crochet pattern. And I could actually post it on Ravelry since it would be a crochet pattern that I haven't seen anywhere else. YAY !! I'll post a picture when I get this one finished.

Ravelry

I just started crocheting this summer and one of the first things any beginner needs is patterns. Finding the Ravelry community for knitters and crocheters has been wonderful.

Ravelry describes itself as "a place for knitters, crocheters, designers, spinners, and dyers to keep track of their yarn, tools, and pattern information, and look to others for ideas and inspiration. The content here is all user- driven; we as a community make the site what it is."

While it's still in kinda-beta, you request an invitation on the site and then your account information is emailed in 3 or 4 days. It's completely free to join.

I'm not in any way affiliated with Ravelry, just a happy member of the community.

Pineapples and Licorice

I'm on blood thinners from a blood clot almost 10 years ago, and I didn't know that so many foods, other drugs, and herbs can interact with the blood thinner. After Halloween, I was eating some Good and Plenty candy (the really licorice ones) and then my ProTime number tested really high. I found out from Drugs.com that licorice can act as a blood thinner itself.

Now I wanted to take a bromelain supplement (from pineapples) to help with my joint swelling (probably from playing tennis) and found out that the ingredients can also act as blood thinners. Bummer....

I am in no way affiliated with Drugs.com

Family on Facebook

I got a pleasant surprise today when I got a friend invitation from my mom to join her on Facebook !! I was thrilled and amazed. I'd just joined Facebook a few weeks ago and had already connected with some high school friends. So when I found my mom had joined, too, I thought this was fantastic. Then it turns out that my dad had created an account at the same time. This will be such a fun and easy way to keep in touch with them since they live 5 hours away from me.

My Tarot Card

I love tarot so I thought this looked like fun. Thanks to Color Addiction and Dogmaw Glass for posting this free tarot tool. Here's the card chosen for me based on my answers:
You are the World - Completion, Good Reward.
The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion.
The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.
I am in no way affiliated with Flarn.com