Mid-Week Lift

This one gets me every time especially during the credits when the alarm goes off. Enjoy.




Stay on the path.

Okay, No Mid-Week Lift

It was really weird this week. There are lots of good stories out there, but I'm just looking for a laugh; a lift. Not anything too heavy or preachy, you know? Anyway, I came across a headline that made me laugh ... until I read the story. A man in Peru tried to go through the airport security with 100 birds. Isn't that funny? Can you just imagine a little old man trailing along a bunch of bird cages behind him wondering why on earth people are giving him such a hard time about some birds? Well, that story didn't turn out that way. Let's just say he was more of a smuggler and some of the birdies didn't make it. Ugh.

So, it's no longer mid-week but as the weekend approaches, here are some fun jokes to share with your kids:

What do you call a deer with no eyes?
No ideer.

Why do gorillas have big fingers?
Because they have large nostrils.

Why do cows wear bells?
Because their horns don't work.

Why do hummingbirds hum?
Because they can't remember the words.

Why do birds fly south for the winter?
Because it's too far to walk.

What do you call a boomerang that doesn't work?
A stick.

If you're Canadian in the kitchen and American in the living room, what are you in the bathroom?
European.
(This is a favorite of my nephew's! Of course, his aunt taught him that one.)

Sigh. Sorry people.

On the knitting front, I decided to try and make a yellow and orange hat for my son, Chandler, and that really didn't work out! The weight of the yarn was too small (it said sport weight but was closer to fingering it turns out) and it ended up looking more like a prison cap than a cute, striped hat. Soooo, I'm thinking of turning that into some fun socks for Chandler and Ava.

I am ordering some more of that super-yummy yarn, KnitPicks Shine worsted weight. It is hands down the best value and the prettiest yarn I've found. I still buy from my lys once in a while but I can't get over the prettiness of the Shine Sport and Shine Worsted. Love it. I'm thinking of making a couple of BETTER winter hats and a sweater or two. Better limber up those fingers!

And now, I had better get moving. I am preparing to go on a MASSIVE road trip with my two little ones tomorrow. This should be interesting ... but also fun! We plan on visiting friends and family. Happy days! Unfortunately, I'll be driving so I can't knit during the trip. Argh. When will they come out with auto-pilot? Work on that, Detroit!

Stay on the path...

Your Mid-Week Lift...

Em over at Em and the Gang sent in the VERY FIRST Mid-Week Lift submission and I thank her very much. This idea is so simple and so great! When we think of making things, we think of having to actually creating something like a dress, a painting or a bookshelf. But, making things can be expanded to almost anything. These videos help you think out of the box.

Let's start with the first video that inspired the video submitted for the MWL:



Cool, huh? Here's the video Em submitted. It is so FUN and inspiring. It reminds me of all those times all the families in my neighborhood where I grew up would hang out outside at dusk, talking, playing and making fun...



Wow! Who knew so many people would come together to make stuff? Isn't that what we creative bloggers are doing? I love the crafty/creative online community here. Let's keep sharing and inspiring.

Thanks, Em!

On the path...

Your Mid-Week Lift...

Okay, it's still Wednesday so it's the center of the week. I just had to share this with everyone - you never know when you might get a small surprise (but I'd be worried if this showed up in your Subway sandwich):

Oyster lunch yields 26 pearls for Lebanese couple

By Associated Press
BASSEM MROUE
Updated: 9/10/2008


BEIRUT, Lebanon

Lebanese restaurant owner Raymond Salha and his wife were having oysters for lunch when she made a stunning discovery — a cluster of 26 pearls inside an oyster on her plate.

The find 10 days ago at his Al-Fanar Restaurant in the southern port city of Tyre was a ''total surprise,'' Salha told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

It was one of about 200 oysters they had cooked that day at the restaurant. As his wife opened the shell, she let out a gasp and said, ''Look at this oyster, there are lots of pearls in it,'' Salha recounted.

The couple immediately believed the pearls were valuable, so Salha called the city's maritime museum which sent a team that took the oyster — and the pearls still inside it — away for testing.

At the museum, Salha said officials later told him they counted ''only'' 25 pearls. He insisted however, that he and his wife Amal counted a total of 26 pearls of varying sizes inside the oyster, some very small.

A few days later, the oyster was preserved and returned by the museum, along with the pearls. Salha, who insists the oyster still contains 26 pearls, plans to keep it on display at his restaurant.

Oysters fished off the Lebanese coast are regularly on the restaurant's menu in the summer, but Salha and his wife had never seen anything like this find. Once, long ago, they found a single pearl while opening an oyster.

Although the pearls are not believed to be worth a lot of money, Salha says their importance is in the sheer number found inside a single shell.

Oysters from the Lebanese waters of the Mediterranean are of a different variety than those usually served in European restaurants, which are larger in size.

Salha said he buys a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of oysters for about US$10 from the fishermen during oyster season between August and October.

He showed the oyster on Wednesday to reporters and visitors, and later placed it on a shelf on the restaurant wall, covering it with a cloth for protection.

Asked whether he plans to get in touch with The Guinness Book of Records about the discovery, Salha said not for now.

''If they read about it and find that it is a record, then they can come and record it themselves,'' he said.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

******************

Stay on that path...

Mid-Week Lift

I can't stop watching this. For those of you who happen to be in my line of work - this is even more hilarious!

A WORD TO YOU MOMS - TWO SWEAR WORDS FROM THE OLD GUYS. Cover the appropriate ears. Who knew those fonts could be so crotchety?

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Have a good Tuesday! Stay on that path...

Your Mid-Week Lift...

So, I don't have any happy NEWS exactly, but I do have a couple of cute videos to share with you. So, as I do most of my work on a mac and yes, most of my work is done in graphics programs, this is what my day feels like (again and again and again...):



Only, I'm not singing in Quicktime to myself.

This little cutie was sent over by my very good best friend Nikki (a.k.a Jackamo). This is the exact tune that runs through my head and I catch myself humming during meetings that last more than two hours:



Mnah, mnah! Have a good Wednesday.

Stay on that path...

Success ... Maybe Not.

"Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." - Abigail Adams

Abigail had five children (gave birth to six). Do you think that she could be talking about potty training in the above quote? Possibly. Well, it went so well on Tuesday morning before Chandler's nap. He loved sitting on the potty, he loved his new big boy underwear:


He was so excited about going on the potty and kept talking about how he "made yellow on the potty" and we danced and sang. And that was it.

After his nap, it was like a whole new boy! The next couple of times he went in his underwear and he absolutely refused to go sit on the potty. He would back away from me and just ask to be changed. Hm.

So, I had to take him back to daycare so I could get in some work yesterday and his teacher (God bless that woman!) said that every time she took him potty, he was already wet and it didn't seem to bother him that he was soaked or soiled. They ran out of underwear yesterday (all six pairs!) and ended up putting a diaper back on him at the end of the day.

My M.O.M. radar senses that Chandler may not totally be ready to make the huge jump to regular underwear and total potty time, but maybe we should keep the diaper and just go to the potty as well. Darn! I was ready to be done with the diapers. I know you should never push a child to go potty though. So, I won't. But we'll keep the potty downstairs as a reminder to Channy and ourselves and we'll try to go often and make it fun. I supposed that if we lived in the country, we could just run around outside all the time and fertilize the grass and no one would care. At least, I wouldn't. But we live in town and go to a public park to run around.

Another good thing about Tuesday was that I was able to finish some WIPs. I guess now they are FOs. I put the faces on my lion washcloths and they are ready to be used by the little people they are going to be given to. One lion is pretty happy, he must have just eaten, can't you tell by the smug look on his face? The other lion seems to be donning a grim look. Could it be he is thinking about the possibility of having his lathered-up face plunged into a dirty armpit at some point in the future? It's hard to tell.


And what does a Mom do with some extra time on her hands? Does she sleep? Take a bath? Exercise? Read a book? Well, I could have done all of those things yesterday when I found myself with a little extra time. But no, I decided to tackle this:


I don't think that it was a very good idea since I only had about a half an hour to spare, but it has been bothering me for about 8 months now. My children's closet is full of clothes that are way too small. Plastic hangers are strewn all over the floor and boxes and bags that go to who-knows-what are stuffed into the nether regions waiting for the day that I put whatever it was that belongs to it back in the box or bag. Know what I mean? So, after a very intense 45 minutes (I know, I went overtime), the closet looked like this:


I also washed and put the soft bumper back in Channy's bed since he has taken to cramming his head into the corners at night:


I finally put a breathable bumper on Ava's bed because she rolls around like crazy in her sleep and is always getting a foot stuck in between the bars:



Whew! Are you tired just looking at that? I can tell you I was sweating by the time I was finished. So, I guess I did get that workout after all.

Oh, it's the end of the middle of the week and procrastinator that I am, I am yet again doing the Mid-Week Lift on a Thursday. So, here's your lift. I hope it puts a smile on your face!



Chicago-style pizzas headed to troops in Iraq













Wed Jun 25, 6:43 AM ET

ELK GROVE VILLAGE, Ill. - Retired Air Force Sgt. Mark Evans wanted to send a taste of Chicago to troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.
ADVERTISEMENT

So he's doing it deep-dish pizza-style.

The Elk Grove Village man has arranged for thousands of pizzas to be frozen, packed in dry ice and shipped to the Middle East in time for the Fourth of July. His 16-year-old son, Kent, came up with the idea.

"I think it's good for them. They're in too good of shape," he joked.

Evans said DHL Global has volunteered to ship the pizzas that Lou Malnati's Pizzeria offered at a special rate. He hopes to get as many as 3,000 pizzas to the troops with the "Pizzas 4 Patriots" program.

"It's saying 'here's a taste of home,'" Lou Malnati's spokeswoman Mindy Kaplan said.

But Kaplan suspects there might be some soldiers who won't feel that way.

"Maybe New Yorkers won't like it so much," Kaplan said.

Copyright © 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

*************************

Have a great week and stay on that path!

Better Get to Livin'

What better way to celebrate the Mid-Week Lift than with Dolly Parton? I stumbled upon this great video over at the Hygge House blog. It's Alex's new theme song for her manifesto and I think I'd like it to be my theme song too!

Better Get to Livin'

With that, I'm off to live! I just spent the rest of my birthday money on fabric and it's currently in the wash ... hurrah!

Stay on that path!

Another Mid-Week Lift

It seems like I only get to my Mid-Week Lifts nowadays, doesn't it? I have been so busy with work that I have WIPs laying everywhere around my house. I am DETERMINED that they will not turn into UFOs. No. They. Will. Not. I will share them with you in a later post.

Well, on to the Lift. How cool is this lady?

By Associated Press
Updated: 6/5/2008

NEW YORK

Sandra Day O'Connor is developing a free interactive Web program for middle schoolers on the U.S. court system.


The program will be called Our Courts and allow students to participate in realistic government simulations and investigate and argue actual cases.

Arizona State and Georgetown universities are helping the retired Supreme Court justice develop the program.

Arizona State professor James Paul Gee says the program will teach children the importance of free and independent courts in a democracy.

The Web site will be launched this fall.

O'Connor is the first woman to have served on the nation's highest court.

———

On the Net:

Our Courts: http://www.ourcourts.org/

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

• • • • • • • • • • • •

I mean, how cool is that? Sandra is still being innovative and on top of technology. She's using it to promote learning and really tapping into the culture of today's youth. I want to be like that when I grow up.


Oh, and for you Wings fans, this is another Lift dedicated to my husband who has sacrificed sleep in order to follow the games:


(Gene J. Puskar/Associated Press)
In hand: Detroit captain Nicklas Lidstrom holds up the Stanley Cup after the Red Wings put away the Penguins in Game 6 Wednesday night.

I promise to take some time out to post more crafty bits!

Just sitting on the path...

This week has flown by and it's no wonder. I keep thinking that it is Wednesday when it is actually Thursday. That can be a good and a bad thing I guess. Good because the weekend is closer and bad because, well, the weekend is closer. I haven't been able to really check anything off of my personal life list because of work. I have been working morning/noon/night to hit my deadlines this month. I apologize for not posting more often but I will fix that in the coming months. I'm cooking up a little project to share with you over the summer so stay tuned.

All that said, it is time for the Mid-Week Lift! You'll probably be reading this on Friday, which is not a day that is considered mid-week, but I am posting this on Thursday night so I still hit my blog deadlines. Technically. You get the effect of the Lift on Friday. Oh, well!

Here it is...



By Associated Press
Updated: 5/29/2008

SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y.

Town board members who had drawn the line at hanging clothes to dry outside are cutting residents some slack: It's OK for them to use clotheslines now.

The Southampton Town board has lifted a ban on clotheslines that had stood since 2002, when some homeowners complained the laundry on their neighbors' lawns was making the town look shabby.

But no one objected when the Long Island town board voted Tuesday night to repeal the clothesline ban.

Town Councilwoman Anna Throne-Holst said being able to hang her children's clothes on a line outside instead of drying them in a machine will keep her electricity use down.

''If you have three teenage sons like I do, your energy bill is going through the roof,'' she said.

Other residents said they had ignored the ban despite a possible $1,000 fine or six-month jail term. No Southampton resident had been sanctioned for hanging out a clothesline.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Hopefully your town doesn't have the same rules. Laundry hanging on a line reminds me of my grandmother and her lines of laundry. This inspires me to hang out my laundry sometime for that fresh line-dried smell. Hm, maybe not my unmentionables. Too many neighbors.

Stay on the path!

A Mid-Week Lift - Prom Bling

It's that time again - time for the Mid-Week Lift. Is it the middle of the week? Yes! Do you need a lift? I do. I found the perfect story for this time of year. It's prom time this spring and you may see scads of well-dressed teens haunting steak houses and Chili's restaurants this time of year on their way to Prom.

I remember for my senior prom I went stag with a group of friends and we all met up at my friend's house before going out to eat. I was very financially challenged at that particular time in my life, relying on babysitting money and the occasional monetary gift at birthdays and holidays to get me through the year. So, I was very proud to have found a really wonderful plum-colored dress at an even better price. Walking up to house in all my stunning loveliness, I was dismayed to hear my friend's brother-in-law (our driver for the evening) exclaim, "You look just like Barney!"

Yes. He. Did. My evening wasn't as fun as I had hoped it would be from that point on. Oh, well. Perhaps I should have been as innovative as this girl. I give her full marks for a)being so totally comfortable with herself that she would show up in such a FUN dress; and b)for being so totally crafty. Read on...

By MECHELE COOPER, Blethen Maine News Service May 19, 2008
Courtesy photo

Vanessa Randall of Wayne made her prom dress out of 3,000 gum wrappers.

WAYNE — Walking into the gym on prom night with a girl on his arm draped in a chewing-gum-wrapper dress was definitely different.

Max Pistner, a Maranacook Community High School senior, said he thought it was "very cool" that his girlfriend, Vanessa Randall, made her prom dress out of 3,000 gum wrappers.

Randall, a 17-year-old senior from Wayne, started collecting Wrigley gum wrappers three years ago to make the dress. Friends, relatives and co-workers saved wrappers for her.

Pistner, who lives in Manchester, said he was just glad she got the dress done in time. She started sewing it together only a week before their recent prom.

Randall said she reinforced the dress with duct tape inside along the edges and used elastic braids around the straps and collar and in between some of the chains down the back so she could easily slip into the dress.

She came up with the design after drawing sketches all year.

"I came up with how it was going to look like the week before the prom," she said. "The theme of the prom was Japanese, so I was inspired by that in making the collar and flower pattern around the middle and back."

Her father, David Randall, an artist and sculptor, said his daughter got the idea from an article she read about a Lewiston girl who made her prom dress out of Starburst candy wrappers.

"We had that newspaper article on the refrigerator. That was the inspiration for it," he said. "Vanessa wanted to do something different and came up with the gum wrappers. She was really enthusiastic about the whole thing. My only concern was that she wasn't going to get it done in time, but she kept at it."

"She has a lot of creative energy and uses it in a great artistic way," said her mother, Ellen Randall. "She is following her dad's footsteps in creating art."

She said her daughter enrolled in a yearlong internship program in Germany, where she hopes to study art. Last summer, she studied fashion design under the auspices of the Early College program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Vanessa said she will continue to fold gum wrappers into chains and turn them into her own designs, possibly one day to profit from her work.

"I have some extra that I was thinking of making corsages out of and accessories like purses," she said. "I might be able to sell them on the Internet."

Go, Vanessa! I'm sure we'll be hearing about her in years to come.

Stay on the path...

A Mid-Week Lift

So, I've noticed that a lot of other bloggers out there have catchy names for days of the week: Friday Favorites, Works for Me Wednesday, Watercooler Wednesday, Manic Monday (insert Bangles tune here), and so on. I have also noticed that some bloggers refer to themselves in the third person all the time, and we could all probably have a really great psychoanalytic discussion about it, but I suppose that is a discussion for another time.

Well, I've decided I'm going to introduce my own catchy blog day: The Mid-Week Lift. Don't we all need a lift sometimes? A little bounce in our step (without drinking Diet Pepsi Max - even if it claims to have ginseng)? A little tidbit of information that makes us feel like there are good things happening in our world?

I feel like I am surrounded by sensationalism and bad news because it sells. Then I find myself down about the world and life in general and at the least, grouchy and restless.

Then there are moments in my life where someone has done something kind for me or have gone out of their way to help and I am encouraged all over again that we humans aren't so bad after all! There are so many resources out there to find stories about those Good Samartians, but they are not on the major networks' landing pages, that's for sure!

In that spirit, I give you The Mid-Week Lift. I know that there are only a few of you who really read my blog (and I, yours) so if you are interested in sharing the love, please do. Just be sure to post something totally uplifting (remembering my guidelines) - maybe even a good personal story! Then link back to my blog if you like.

Oh, and since I've named this the Mid-Weed Lift, it doesn't matter exactly WHEN you post the good news, just sometime in between Monday and Friday. That gives a little more flexibility to those of us who are busy reading other people's blogs to really worry about our own (like me!).

By Associated Press
Updated: 10/9/2007

DEERFIELD, Mass.



John Carney was dumping a load of brush at the local waste transfer station last week when he noticed a man's gold wedding band partially buried in the sand.

Intrigued by the ''Ed and Linda'' and ''June 9, 1996'' engravings inside the band, Carney decided to do some detective work.

With the help of local librarians, the 57-year-old South Deerfield man went through the Deerfield town report for 1996 and looked up weddings. He found a listing for Ed and Linda LaCoille on June 9 of that year.

Last week, he returned the ring to the LaCoilles' house. Ed Lacoille had lost the ring more than six months ago.

''I never expected to find it again,'' Linda LaCoille said. ''It was amazing.''

It was the second time in just over a year the ring has been returned after being lost. Ed LaCoille said he lost the same band a lake in Maine while on vacation. He left a note at the lake house for future renters.

A couple of weeks later, the ring was returned by mail.

LaCoille said he recently lost weight, which may explain why the ring keeps slipping off his finger. He's keeping it in a box now until he can get it resized.

''The chance of it being found a third time is outrageous,'' he said.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


There. Don't you feel slightly happier now?

On the path...