Saturday Stuff

Today was a rainy day here and after making banana bread and molasses cookies with my new mixer, I did not do much of anything else except meander around the internet. (Well I did fold some laundry and cleaned the kitchen....) It was interesting to look at my site statistics to see if there are any readers out there besides the few that I know come by and read this blog. Based on the semi-anonymous nature of this blog, there are limitations to what I can really write about without stirring the pot of my life. Right now, I have a whopper of a vent just stewing in me, but it will never be on the blog. Just know that I am a deeper person than seen on J's thoughts and musings.

In the vein of being random, I found the following website, Scrapblog, which I thought was a great waste of time. What I really liked about it, was how easy it was to use with flickr photos and that I was able to manipulate photos and elements. I would rate it as a 9 on a scale of 1-10 for websites that entertain. (Shelly and Rock Chick, I just didn't have the patience to do the sand, I gave up after getting a 1/3 done at thissand.com )

Time now to get back to knitting and finish up my second sock on my second pair. It's so true the procrastination that occurs when there is a pair of something being knitted.



Fun with Photos

Way to much fun to be had on the Internet. I have to give Dog's Eye View the credit for leading to a website that consumed a few hours of my time the other night. She had a flickr meme going and I was all set to do the Meme, but the pictures for my name were a little risque and then when I got into the Big Huge Labs fun with pictures, I gave up on the meme. (But do check out Dog's Eye view, it is kind of cool)

There was fun to be had with my pictures and here are a few of my creations, including the motivation poster above.
Here's some pop art displaying the posing antics of my two youngest sons:

And who would have thought that I could make my own Lolcat, this could get addicting. Check out I can haz cheeseburger for other cat pictures.

Thurday 13, #42- 13 Things to do besides Blogging

Here are 13 things to do besides blogging once you get on the computer. Let's just call it exploring versus procrastination....

1. Learn how to use fireworks instead of spending 30 minutes making the above graphic which I did two weeks ago.

2. Open up Google Reader to read all the blogs that I have been lurking on rather than reading and commenting.

3. Start my own little city--> check out my blog from yesterday and please, do click on this link to my little city to visit.

4. Leave a silly comment at my city.

5. Play Bubble shooter until you see bubbles in your sleep. ( Warning-- Do not go to this site if you are into addictive games.)

6. Here's another strange game to waste a lot of time on. I am embarrassed to admit that I played Filler for 2 hours since my browser was slowing down which made it easy to win. Think Quix with bubbles.

7. Go to craft blogs and look at some really ugly crochet patterns at sites such as What not to Crochet

8. Or look at What not to Knit

9. Actually go to a blog like Inspiration Bit learn more about color and realize how much I forget so quickly.

10. Go play lots of spades at Pogo.com.

11. Return back to Crochet Cabana to make sure that I am whipstitching Grannie Squares together correctly for Shelly's Share a Square project. (If you can crochet, she's looking for people to crochet the black rim around the squares- it's pretty easy.) I should have the afghan done by this weekend.

12. Drool over yarn at various websites. For example,Noro yarn which self stripes. If you buy yarn online, any good hints for bargains?

13. Go to Youtube and get excited for the upcoming Superbowl game by watching this video. It's worth watching to hear the singer with the Boston accent worm his way out of his attraction for Tom Brady.


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Here's Something Silly.....

I tried to post a screen shot of the silliest website that I came across this evening and I guess my little town just won't show up. Someone out there has way too much time and has come up with a website where you start a town and the population increases when people visit. The name of my humble little town is Blog Valley and I am not sure how far it may be from Horny Meadow. Yep, Horny Meadow, that's the lovely name that A World of Chaos' boyfriend gave to her little city that he made for her. (Sure, like a female would come up with such a name...LOL) Could be worse, at least he didn't include her first name in the title. But if you check out both our cities, you will see what a visit will do.

I think I am craving silliness right now. It's just that time of year. Wouldn't you agree? Yea for 2 and 1/2 Men and Malcolm in the Middle repeats!

#21 Thursday Thirteen, 13 Favorite Thursday Thirteens

For the anniversary of the Thursday Thirteen, I came up with a few of my favorites. This was not an easy thing to do! I love hopping around the blogosphere on Wednesday evenings and Thursdays where I read so many posts about ordinary people with a love for writing and sharing. I love that from linking to one, I can keep going and learning about so much. There is such an extreme in politics, religion and family life out there and you know what, there's something for everyone out there. Here is my list in no apparent order.

1. I love Thursday Thirteens where the bloggers share their creations and I have the following two sites bookmarked for Thursday Thirteen Headers, Title Deleted, Thursday 13 Return of the headers and Teatime Ramblings Headers

2. This is one I want to do someday, 13 things I will never say to my kids Tea has such a nice demeanor, that I can just see her alter ego saying these things to her children with a gleam in her ey.

3. I am till in awe of Vader's Mom, Thirteen Food from the 2006 Texas State Fair, from Fried coke to Fried Mac 'n Cheese, this is truly a list of everything fried. We just aren't that creative with our food here in New England.

4. Through blogging I have learned that I am not the only one who does stupid things. Reading blogs like This Eclectic Life: I Should have Known better with her Thirteen Life lessons and all with humor of course from dogs relieving themselves on her head smelling of vinegar to clothing disasters is a good indicator that I am not alone!

5. As you can see by my sidebar, I am joining in the Share a Square and Thorne last week shared 13 different granny square patterns with pictures. Besides the squares, I enjoy Thorne's site and the Sirens Song blog where she blogs with other women about:Bitchy politics, culture critiques, manners, morals & random thoughts served with hot chicken soup & a loaded .45 caliber handgun in the apron pocket.* Just my kind of blog reading!

6. I like lists where you learn and since I have been known to enjoy wine, I bookmarked these two lists to look at before my next wine tasting event. From Pistols, Passion and Potions : Wine Tasting Terms and 13 ways to develop your Wine Palette . I may have to write them down on my wrist to be able to remember them, but at least I might be able to look and act knowledgeable before my 4th, 5th or 6th glass.

7. A lot of bloggers write musical Thursday Thirteens. Last week over at Dog's Eye View, L^2 had a list of songs that she called the 13 Possible Theme songs of her Life . A playlist was included where you could hear the songs on her blog, which made this very cool! I liked that the songs that I didn't know, I was able to hear them while reading the list. ( L^2 knows her music, even if she doesn't like Love Shack, go figure! )

8. My own favorite Thursday Thirteen is the Thirteen Places you would never find me. Think of the worst job ever for yourself, a fun and easy list for me since I can get motion sickness walking down stairs with bifocals...

The following are Five Thursday Thirteen Bloggers that I have not gotten around to sharing some Link Love. Link Love was started by Shelly at This Eclectic Life and I have fallen behind in sharing some of the sites that I have found through Thursday Thirteen where I go back for more.
9. Cooking by the Seat of my Pants- Need some Recipes? Great Template and organization. 13 Quotes From my Culinary Idols.

10. The Hidden Side of a Leaf - At lost for reading material? Dewey has it all! I missed this one about Calvin and Hobbes, our family's all time favorite comic strip.

11.Books, Lists and Life- Yep, more books, and a gorgeous template. Here is Lisa's TT about her new blog with questions about blog templates.

12.The Daily Cat Chase- I love her template, clean with a nice Winnie the Pooh Theme. This Thirteen list is about Thirteen things she would like to learn.

13. A Spot of Tea has a twist on the Thursday Thirteen, she writes Thankful Thursday Thirteens, that's a nice way to write about your week!

It's hard to find the newer Thursday Thirteeners, don't you find yourself going back to the same bloggers? My challenge every week is to try to go to at least 3 new blogs. How do you all do it?Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Tuning Out to Music from Around the World

I found this website, Last Fm through a blog that I was checking out on the blogger help mail that I subscribe to. ( hey, you never know how to fix something unless someone else asks first) Good blogging etiquette would require me to acknowledge that blog, but once I found this music site, that blog was long forgotten, may Miss Blog Manners forgive me!

Anyways, here I am sitting at my laptop, with the Red Sox game on the tv, headphones connected to the laptop and I am listening to a Celtic tagged collection of music. You can pick any kind of music to listen to. What I love about this player is that I can skip songs which you can't do on itunes radio. Also, I am listening to bands that I am enjoying that I have never heard of before. You can pick an artist, then the "station" that you listen to will have similar artists. The other night we heard some good "deep cuts" from artists such as REO Speedwagon, Jethro Tull and Elton John, when I put in Supertramp.

Like any other site now being developed on the internet, there are different widgets that you can embed in your blog/myspace/facebook. As if I had the Blog Real Estate to put in the widgets, but it's good advertising for www.lastfm But like anything else you may find on the web, there is a download involved and with a mac computer I am not as worried about downloads than I am with the PC. Usually when I find a new program or have any technical concerns, I do check out CNET.com, an excellent resource for any computer, digital camera or technical purchase/download that you may thinking of.



What did I ever do before the Internet? Oh that's right, I read, knitted, had conversations with my husband and played with my babies.

Getting some fun entries for the limerick contest, check out the links to the right for some of the entries. There are entries coming in from blogs that I haven't been before which is making the contest even more fun to run.

There was a girl born in Mass.
Who never let a good song pass
She'd rock and she'd roll
And sometimes she'd extol
Of finding a web site, first class

StumbleUpon! A New Way to Explore the Internet

The latest fun internet find from Shelly at This Eclectic Life this week is StumbleUpon, a hard website to explain, but I will try. It's a rating system for internet sites. I have downloaded the tool bar and when bored, I just click on the Stumble buton and I am taken to an Internet page that I may like or dislike, there are categories including one for blogspot. The choices are made based on what I put in for interests which makes it a lot better than the next blog button on blogs. It's a social networking group and you will just have to check it out yourself. Put me as a friend if you like.

The mosiac picture above is from a site that I StumbledUpon last night. At the Image Mosaic Generator, you just download a picture from your files and mosaic is made with images from flickr. I thought it was a cool rendition of the picture below.

#9, Thursday Thirteen Web Sites You May Find Me Lurking

What does a person's internet habits say about them? Please don't read that much into mine, just a few links to make you a little smarter or just to make you smile. Okay, so there's one that's just a little wierd! But here are 13 Random web sites that I have bookmarked.

1. Admit it, you have been tempted in the past to go up to a magnetic sign and rearrange the letters to write your own message! At Sign Generator.com you can make signs from Church signs to candy hearts!

2. Stuff on My Cat: It's sad and funny what people do to their cats! If you are looking for something to do, there is contest going on this week to pick your favorite.....the theme this week is "Literary Cats".

4. The Internet Movie Database is the site that I go to when I can't remember the names of actors/actresses or movies. It has solved a lot of arguments in our house.

5. Another website that I found while watching a movie, The Celebrity Death Toll Update, an interesting niche for a blogger, but answers those questions of, is so and so still alive? But how would you even think of starting something like this?

6. Kittenwar- No, not actual fights, but they put up two pictures of kittens and you vote for the cutest. Our black cat, Punky is a big loser, while Lucky our friend's kitten was a winner based on the statistics that they list for each kitten! My kids love this site and we have fun rating the kittens.

7. How Stuff works- Did you ever wonder what plasma is in televisions? Or have your kids asked you a question that you had absolutely no idea how to answer it?

8. Looking for book to read? Like a challenge? I signed up for Bookcrossing, but not a lot of books left in NH. Paperback books are left in random places with stickers and you look for them and register the find with the website. If you have done this, please let me know how it worked out for you.

9 & 10. I have a folder with two digital scrapbooking websites, Two peas in a bucket and Scrapbook-bytes, that I occasionally go and look at, but then I get nervous! Why you may ask? I am so afraid to start another hobby where I will want to buy a photo imaging program for my ibook. I know that there are bloggers out there scrapbooking and I enjoy looking at them, but where am I going to find the time? How do you do it? Any other easy sites out there?

11. You get that email with the story of the rabid man hiding under cars in mall parking lots and before you send it off to 10 of your friends, Snopes would be the site to debunk or support those urban legends.

12. CalorieKing: A great resource for dieting. Did you know that Cadbury eggs are 150 calories with 5 grams of fat? Do you care?

13. Last year I finally got rid of the toys that my kids had outgrown. I found Yardsalequeen.com and have lurked there ever since. It is fascinating to me what sells and doesn't on ebay and the people on the forums are very nice. Chris, who runs the website is a fellow blogger who blogs about bargains and yard sales.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants