Let Me Show You My Awesome Things

I have mixed feelings about writing about the Christmas presents I received. On one hand, it’s very CHECK OUT ALL THE STUFF I GOT!!!, and on the other, it’s also, hey, check out the cool stuff I got that you should get, too.

(As a side note before I move on to the show-and-tell, do you have an Amazon wishlist yet? You should. My mom even has one now (hi Mom!) and she can attest to the success of having a wishlist as much as I can. They are awesome for the receiver—because you get the stuff you actually want—and also for the giver—because sometimes I have no freaking idea what to get you for Christmas.  The two awesome things below are gifts that were a direct result of my Amazon wishlist.)

This adorable thing is a BookBook iPhone case. On the outside it looks like a small, leather-bound book (everyone asks about my bible) but on the inside, it’s an iPhone case, ID holder, and it has a small slot where you can stash some cash. It’s been my little purse/wallet since I unwrapped it on Christmas. You can fold the cover over so you can still talk on it, like a phone, but since I put my phone in it I’ve realized that no one actually calls me anymore. I might have gotten three calls in the past almost two weeks. My one teeny tiny little complaint is that there’s no hole for the camera lens so I have to slide it up, out of the case to take a picture.  But otherwise, it’s $60 of pure awesome.

This random collection of images is illustrating the completely magical, amazing piece of technology called an Eye-Fi memory card. This bit of wonderment is a regular-looking SD card for your camera that will pick up the wi-fi signal in your home and automatically download the pictures from your camera to your computer. Seriously. Take a picture and within seconds a window on your computer opens to show that it’s downloading the picture. The setup was quick and easy and so far it’s working like a dream.  You need to be within your assigned wi-fi area to download pics, so if you’re away from home taking shots, just turn the camera back no once you get home, and BAM! The pictures upload automatically.  No cords, no clunky interface, just magic.  You cal also set your Eye-Fi card to automatically upload your pictures to Facebook, Twitter, or Flickr as you take them, but that seems a bit dangerous, so I’ve disabled that handy function for now.

I also asked for and got a food dehydrator, an ironing board cover, and WeatherTech Floor Liners for my car but I’ll spare you the excitement of talking about those things. So what sort of awesomeness did Santa bring you?

 

On Christmas Eve, before we left for dinner at my mother-in-laws, I thought it would be nice to have a family portrait in front of the tree.

I set up the tripod, tested the remote, then hopped in next to Luke for a picture.

Only Luke couldn’t get the remote to work for him, so our pictures came out like this.

OK, that’s better, but then the fluffy one was getting antsy.

Oh well… We hope you had a very Merry Christmas and a Christmas Eve as picturesque and ridiculous as this one.

That Time of Year

I was doing so well there for a while, wasn’t I?  Let’s just hope that four days away from Christmas, everyone is too busy to even notice that I haven’t updated.

So far in December we’ve seen three birthday parties, one family Christmas party, last night’s Christmas drinks with awesome friends, and one nasty (but thankfully brief) Christmas cold. Up next we have the nonstop eating and present-exchanging fest that is this weekend.  So yes, it’s that time of year.  The time when we’re so incredibly busy that we’re neglecting our blogs, but we’re doing it for good reasons.  Friend-visiting and birthday-celebrating reasons.

I hope you all have a wonderful rest of this busy week and a very Merry Christmas.  I might check in next week, but if not, have a Happy New Year, too.

Hey, would someone remind me next week to get started on my 2011 in pictures slideshow?

Let’s Talk About Christmas Cards

I have a question for you.  Are you a person who sends out photo Christmas cards of your family? Do you sign them? I’m just curious…

Picky

I’ve mentioned before my deep, abiding love for both A Miracle on 34th Street and It’s a Wonderful Life, and especially my love for the Lux Radio Theater productions of both shows which I listen to over and over each Christmas, but for some reason this year, listening to both shows for the 500th or so time, I’ve started to notice things.  Picky little things. Maybe I just have a case of the bah humbugs, I don’t know. You tell me what you think.

(This is assuming that you’ve seen the movies at least once before. If you haven’t yet, please stop everything you’re doing and go watch them now, Miracle on 34th Street is even available on Netflix streaming so you have no excuse.)

OK, so Miracle on 34th Street… the basic premise is that a nice, old man named Kris Kringle believes he’s Santa Claus (because he IS!) and has to go to court to keep from being committed because of this belief. His friend and lawyer, Mr. Gailey is charged with defending Kris and proving that he isn’t insane, despite the fact that he believes himself to be Santa Claus.

Now here is my issue: Mr. Gailey admits to having no idea how to prove that Kris isn’t insane, yet when Mr. Sawyer, the psychologist who caused this hearing to be held in the first place, offers to drop all of the charges, let Kris go, and pretend it never happened, Mr. Gailey chooses to go on with the hearing anyhow. WHY? This makes no sense. Of course it makes for a great story, but still, I have an easier time believing that reindeer can fly than believing that a lawyer with no defense plan would choose to go to court rather than have his case dismissed.  The case he isn’t being paid for.

BAH HUMBUG!

And then we have It’s a Wonderful Life. I love this movie. I think I would have had a big crush on Jimmy Stewart if I’d been a teenager in the 40s. But there are a few things that gnaw at me every time I listen to the story. The basic premise of It’s a Wonderful Life is that a man named George Bailey is at his desperate wit’s end on Christmas Eve and decides that everyone’s lives would be better if he were dead. His guardian angel, Clarence, is sent to help him see that his life is worth living, which he does by showing George what everyone’s life would have been like if George had never been born.

So here’s my problem… in one scene George mentions how much money he makes at his job: $45 per week.  That equals $2,340 per year. Fine, so then in the scene where George has just gotten married and is heading away on his honeymoon, he and his new wife, Mary, have $2,000 in cash on them for their trip. Where did this come from?  This is nearly a year’s salary, it would be like a young couple taking off today with $25,000 in cash for their honeymoon. Does that really happen? Did I just invite the wrong guests to my wedding?

My other issue is with the book Tom Sawyer, which Clarence, the guardian angel, has in his pocket. Brace yourselves, this one involves some math.  Clarence tells George that he is 293 years old—I’m not sure if that is his living years plus his angel years, or just his years as an angel, but let’s say conservatively that it’s living plus angel years.  Maybe he died when he was 70, that means that he died 223 years before he met George.  I’m not certain of the exact year the movie was supposed to be set in, but it was released in 1947, so let’s go with that.  That would mean that Clarence died in 1724.  Tom Sawyer was published in 1876.  How would Clarence—in heaven—get a copy of Tom Sawyer?  Are there bookstores in heaven? I hope so. At one point he comments on how he’s sorry he isn’t wearing something more current, he’s wearing the clothes he died in. Following that logic, he must have carried in his pockets whatever he had on him when he died, right?

BAH HUMBUG!

I know I’m supposed to suspend logic when I watch movies, especially black and white movies from the 40s, but for some reason I can’t seem to let those little things go. Maybe I need a candy cane. Don’t worry, though.  It won’t ever stop me from loving them. Now you just wait for what I have to say about Frosty the Snowman…

Embroidered iPod Cozy

What can you possibly get an 18-year old boy for Christmas?  Heck if I know, but the 18-year old boy in our family got what he gets every year: an iTunes gift card.  Since his sisters were getting little handmade goodies to go with their Borders gift cards, I decided to make him a little fleece case for his iPod, and since he loves The Nightmare Before Christmas, I decided to try embroidering a Jack Skellington head onto it.

It’s not perfect, but it’ll do.  I embroidered Jack’s face onto the white fleece first and then cut out the shape of his head and stitched that to the case.  I made it just the right size for his iPod Touch and even added a little button closure onto the bottom.  Cute, no?

Tomorrow’s Christmas Craft: Andrea’s cowl and the skull and crossbones hats

Silhouette Ornaments

I had seen some beautiful silhouette ornaments in early December on someone’s website who linked to someone else’s website…  I really should keep better track.  Either way, those ornaments and the beautiful silhouettes on Nie Nie Dialogues tempted me to finally try making my own.  Only I cheated.  There will be no fussy paper cutting for me.  I’m a trace and paint kind of girl.

I either set up shots like this one (nice hair) to capture everyone’s profiles, or I went through my Flickr stash and tried to find profiles of everyone in the family.  I sized them appropriately to fit on the wooden discs I bought, traced the profile outline from the photos, transferred the outlines to the painted discs, and painted in the shape.  Voila!

I am truly amazed at how each person’s (or dog’s) profile really looks like them and also how incredibly different my sister’s profile is from mine.  Although I think we look alike, we could be strangers based on our profiles.  So interesting!  Can you tell who’s who?

After the paint was dry, I glued that fancy black and white paper to the back side of the discs and hung each ornament from black and white ribbon.  These were a gift for my mom, whose profile shot I didn’t have so I’ll have to add her to next year’s set.  I’m really pleased with how these turned out and I’m thinking of making another set for my Christmas tree.

Tomorrow’s Christmas craft: embroidered iPod cozy

A Constant State of Catching Up

So many great ideas…  It’s a good thing I didn’t resolve to get things done on time this year.  I wanted to tell you about the Christmas presents I made.  I started a “year in pictures” for 2009.  I have a hilariously embarrassing video of me attempting to play a dance game on the Wii to edit.  So many fun things to share!  Is it too late to catch up?  I hope not.  But in the interest of not boring you to death or overwhelming me, let’s start off slow.  How about I show off one or two Christmas crafts a day and then maybe I’ll have the slideshow and the dork video finished this weekend.  Sound good?

Today’s Christmas craft was one of my favorites and also one of the most irritating projects: the knitted disguise.

Have you ever tried to knit something that just didn’t want to be knit?  Seriously, I started this project about five times, knitting it halfway, then tearing it apart before finally finishing this one.  Do you get it?  It’s a neck warmer, and a disguise.

You couldn’t tell it was me, could you?  I saw the idea on Knitty and loved it.  Of course I didn’t follow their pattern or directions (hence the knitting, tearing out, knitting, etc.) and I made up my own mustache pattern that I knit into the neck warmer instead of sewing it to the outside of the finished project (as in the Knitty directions), but I love it.

Tomorrow’s Christmas craft: silhouette ornaments.

Coming Soon

Luke bought me a Flip video camera for Christmas. You know what that means, don’t you?  That means I have to figure out how to work it.

(It also means that WordPress blows because there’s no way I’m paying $60 per year for a video upgrade so I can embed the videos here.  Instead you’re going to have to click on the pictures to go to Flickr and watch the videos, sorry about that.)

Soon you’ll be bombarded with videos of… um, Molly and the birds in my yard? Maybe some dirtbike activity?  I really didn’t need a video camera but it just looked so cool, I wanted it.  And isn’t that what Christmas is all about?

Oh, speaking of Christmas, I’m sorry but I just don’t have any energy left for recapping our Christmas last week so if you’d like to see what our holiday festivities looked like, please check out the Christmas 2009 set on Flickr, and then enjoy this little montage I put together of the boys.  It only took me about an hour and a half and it’s a whole 51 seconds long.  This video camera thing was a great idea, don’t you think?

Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you got the useless gifts you didn’t need but wanted, too!

The Day After Tomorrow

I love to anticipate things.  Sometimes the anticipation is even better than he actual event. I think I’ve always been this way because I remember that, as a kid, the best thing for me was always when an exciting event was “the day ofter tomorrow”. That’s like almost today! So Christmas is the day after tomorrow, I’m just about finished with everything, and I’m very ready and starting to get excited.

I hope you all have a wonderful day after tomorrow with family and friends!

Check back for a roundup of Christmas crafting next week after the gifts have all been given away.