hand eye crafts

Winning yesterday: Katy Tur Ben Kingsley Princess Charlotte George Strait Laura Linney John Hodgman Let's get to some unfinished August business;  trying to break these ties. KH #2.1 KC #2.1 Now on to our first September chores: KH #12 KC #10 KH #13 KC #11 KH #14 KC #12 I'll see you all on Monday! Have a wonderful weekend. (And, Happy Birthday, Sir Barry Gibb!)

Allow me to put a quick note here about voting today and tomorrow.  There will be additional pairs both days, as I'll be away from my computer Sunday.  Not worth a "Breaking News" banner, I realize, but I wanted you to know. Yesterday saw Serena Williams Chris Hemsworth  Lynda Carter Liam Neeson moving into the second round.  Here are your choices for today: KC #7 KH #9 KC #8 KH #10 KC #9 KH #11

First, yesterday Tracy Ullman Leonardo DiCaprio Mila Kunis all won. And, of course, there was a tie: Bryan Cranston and Alan Cumming.  Another day for you, gents. Second, since he is no longer in the contest, and this cannot unfairly influence you, here is Sam Heughan and an example of The Shirtlessness mentioned before: Third. . .  Well, third might be catching your breath, so Fourth, your match-ups for today: KC #5 KH #7 KC #6 KH #8 See you tomorrow. . .

Two days in, and I'm realizing that there are more KH nominees' pictures in which they are shirtless than ever.  I'm trying not to go there, but it may happen.  Just a warning. Madeleine is pretty, and feigns interest, but doesn't really care about such goings on. Winners yesterday: Angela Ralph Jim The second day brought the second tie ---we'll revisit Danai and Emma later on. Those who did make it out of the first round need some company in the second round.  Help out with that, will you? KC #3 KH #5 KC #4 KH #6

The day before yesterday, it was very hard not to go with these photos for the Oscar Isaac/Alexander Skarsgard match-up.  Very hard.   These are for  Twinnie , btw. Winning yesterday was Alexander.  Henry and Jeremy?  A tie.  We'll revisit them another time. Your choices for today are: KC #1 KH #3 KC #2 KH #4

Whew --- almost forgot myself there. . . This was the second Chewy.com product I asked to try this month, and 1/3 of it was a smashing success.  The Chicken & Rice was met with lots of lapping-up sounds, and lots of licking of bowls after all the food had been eaten. The Turkey & Rice and Chicken & Vegetables formulas weren't as well-received.  Eaten, mind you, but not with the gusto of the Chicken & Rice. We are down to just a couple of cans left, which prompted be to go to Chewy just before coming here and ordering a full case of the Chicken &Rice. No money is ever exchanged in either direction when I review products for Chewy.com.  Goods are sent to me on request each month, in return for my honest reviews.

We're starting off with just two match-ups, so that from tomorrow on, we can have the same number of Hunk and  Chick contests. As usual, you've come up with some cracking good nominees.  Very well done, all! Sadly, I am obliged to ask that everyone be nice here.  Don't bad-mouth anyone's nominees.  Everyone has entered in the spirits of good faith and good fun, and everyone has the right to nominate in those spirits, and according to their own tastes. Too, I've gotten many, many comments over these 11 years that I have stacked the draw, or inflated the votes to favor some candidates over others.  The votes are tallied by Polldaddy.com;  I cannot monkey around with that.  The draws are filled out by blind choices out of a hat (the Fedora of Fate, if you will.)  The only --- only  --- times I disregard chance is if two names submitted by the same person wind up facing each other.  Then, and only then, do I re-draw. So, can we just...

The nominations are in. The seeds are: KNITTERS' HUNK 1.  Henrik Lundqvist 2.  Ewan McGregor 3.  Sam Elliott 4.  Mike Rowe KNITTERS' CHICK 1.  Michelle Obama 2.  Judi Dench 3.  Helen Mirren 4.  Tina Fey 5.  Drew Barrymore 6.  Carol Burnett 7.  Ruth Bader Ginsburg And so my work begins. Two inductees into our Hall of Fame this year;  you can read about them  here.

NOMINATIONS ARE CLOSED. (Or should that be "N"-Minus?) Whichever, you have six hours to send me the names of your Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick nominees.  Remember that, while anyone can --- and I hope will --- vote, only those who nominate will be eligible for prizes. I'll be using tomorrow to make the draws, though I will post to let you know who the seeds are, and also to announce this year's inductees into the Hall of Fame.  

NOMINATIONS ARE CLOSED. Invariably each year, several of you nominate people for KH and KC that make me wonder why I  didn't think of them.  A couple of them came in yesterday. The important thing is that they're in the draw, whoever nominated them. Let me remind you that if you are here via someone's blog, be sure and let me know so that I can get some little gifts out to you both. Let me also remind you of the people you do   not  need to nominate, as they go into the draw automatically: Henrik Lundqvist Ewan McGregor Sam Elliott Mike Rowe Michelle Obama Judi Dench Helen Mirren Tina Fey Keep the names coming. Leave the names of your nominees in the comments section here.  Or e-mail me if you'd prefer.  And spread the word!  You've got until 6 PM (Eastern) tomorrow night to get your nominations to me.

NOMINATIONS ARE CLOSED. The names of your three Knitters' Hunk and three Knitters' Chick in the comments section, if you please.  You have until 6 PM Eastern Saturday night to submit and/or change your nominees. As promised, here are mine*: Chris Evans  Sam Neill George Strait Drew Barrymore Rashida Jones Tea Leoni *We're all about the Full Disclosure here at KH/KC HQ.

After all, there's only 1 more sleep 'til Nominating Day. . . It may or may not get the ball rolling tomorrow, but I'll tell you who my KH and KC nominees are.  If I've for sure settled on them.  The first two names for each come easily every year, but filling in that third slot is tricky.  There are too many names for winnowing. Anyway, just a reminder that these folks DO NOT need to be nominated this year: Michelle Obama Henrik Lundqvist Ewan McGregor Judi Dench Helen Mirren Sam Elliott Mike Rowe Tina Fey Other than that, the nominations are your oyster!  As always, thank you for playing along, and I'm eager to see who we'll be looking at this year.

2 days!  TWO days.  Are ya ready?  Yes, you have Thursday, Friday and Saturday to get your names in, but still, 2 days until you can start. . . Today's de-clutter challenge has been cleaning out the refrigerator.   I definitely shouldn't have been so glib yesterday about the ease of the declutterings.  This is going to bleed over into tomorrow, gang. On a nicer note, Kathy has a  couple  of  patterns  for sale on Ravelry.  If you buy between now and Labor Day, you're entered into a  contest , where one of the prizes is a beautiful piece of amber. (John Hammond and spiffy walking stick not included.)

3 days until nominations can start coming in! And as a little bonus, if you blog about KH and KC, and one of your readers goes by  hand eye  and leaves some nominations, I'll send both  of you some little* pre-contest prizes.  Just be sure that anyone who nominates gives you credit for showing the way. Do any of you know about the  30-day Declutter Challenge ?  I learned about it from Facebook, and have found it not that difficult to keep up with. Today, I cleaned out a junk drawer.  A couple of the days I was able to take off, as not too long ago I thinned out both my closet and my shoes.  I will say that, in cleaning out one place which I will not mention (!), there was a BOATload of Backstreet Boys things.  Magazines, trading cards, posters, ticket stubs, bags that carried what we bought at concerts, concert programs. . .   No one in this house ever goes halfway when becoming a fan of someone or something. I ...

4 days until nominations begin!  Have you landed on your choices? I think I've decided who will go into the Hall of Fame this year, so my responsibilities are down to collecting nominations, seeding, making the draws, finding matching photos of the nominees, creating each poll, recording results, posting results, making up prize packages, sending prize packages out.   You know, the easy stuff.

5 more days, and you can start nominating Knitters' Hunks and Knitters' Chicks! A couple of you have already let me know who your nominees are, but I'm not putting anything in permanent ink until next weekend.  I know from personal experience that sometimes names pop into your head at the very last minute. It's been sort of a quiet Saturday here.  My headache eased up enough to allow me to read a bit.  I'm giving a book I began a while ago a second chance: Elizabeth Keckley (the titular dressmaker) is a heroine of mine.  Naturally, anything having to do with Lincoln fascinates me, too.  Mary Lincoln was quite a piece of work --- I doubt that anyone with less patience and kindheartedness than Abraham would have been able to build a life with her. My Hero of Heroes.

6 of one, half a dozen of the other. . .  days until Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick nominations can begin! I'm not feeling all that wonderful today.  For the last three or four days I've been battling sinus headaches, and it has finally taken its toll.  Just going back to bed has been my default.

7 days until you can nominate for Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick!  (For those of you who prefer smaller numbers, that is 1 week.)

8 days until you can nominate Knitters' Hunks and Knitters' Chicks! (This always  comes to my mind when I hear "8"!) I finished Eleanor Oliphant  this morning.  Just after writing my post yesterday, the book took a sharp, serious turn, plot-wise.  I was still engaged, but the tenor changed dramatically.  Still, it's a book I recommend.  And now I'm on to choosing my next read. I made a trip to Dollar Tree today, to pick up a few odds and ends. The index cards were an aim, as I use them during the contests.  The crosswords book is to satisfy a puzzle itch.  The pattern book was a complete surprise, laying on top of a messy scrum of all sorts of things.  It was as if it were saying, "I've been waiting for you!"

9 days until you can submit Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick nominations! I am late to a lot of parties.  I scarcely ever go to movies, so by the time I watch a film via streaming, or borrow a DVD from Netflix, everyone's fever has come and gone.  Since I read non-fiction almost exclusively, novels that everyone else has long since read and fawned over don't often appear on my radar.  Hence, If memory serves,  Kathy 's daughter talked about this book in one of her reading posts over the last few months.  Briton read it long ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, and it is his copy that I've borrowed and am just sailing through. What an engaging read.  Most of you have probably already read it;  did you like it this much?

10 days until Knitters' Hunk and Knitters' Chick nominations can start coming in! I'll be accepting nominations the 23rd, 24th, and 25th, with an eye toward starting the voting on Monday, August 27th.  The plan right now is to use the 26th to announce this year's Hall of Fame inductees, but that might change.  Watch this space. . .

Fancy Feast produces a dry food?  Perhaps for a while now, and I simply never noticed. ANYway, both Riley and Erin are enjoying this food.  The kibbles are smaller than most of the dry foods I have fed them in the past, which seems to make things easier on Erin's 19-year-old teeth.  In perfect honesty, whether I buy this in the future will depend on its cost.  If I do  buy it, though, I know it will be met with approval. As per the Influencer agreement between myself and  Chewy.com , I choose and receive products each month.  I use them with my pets, then give my honest reviews here. Neither myself, nor Chewy, receives any money.

One night this week, via  Plated , I made myself fish tacos.  Another night, also via Plated, I made a peach and raspberry cobbler.  I am not a cook. Today, I put this little bugger together.  I'm not all that handy. The brass umbrella stand that my father kept his collection of canes and walking sticks in finally gave up the ghost after 20+ years in my parents' house and 8 years here. That extra-long walking stick in the middle actually belonged to my husband;  I gave it to him when he got a little too weak to walk steadily.  Second from the left is Daddy's rattlesnake cane.  Yep, a full rattlesnake pulled over a cane.  The black cane there under Mona Lisa is  Dr. House's flame cane. I won it in an online auction.  It is signed by Mr. Laurie: In that last photo, there's Daddy's canes, Daddy's chair, the Tennessee Titans pillow my mother made for Daddy, and a framed picture of Hannah, Briton, Daddy, an...

Kath y asked some fun questions on her blog this morning;  thought I'd give them a go. Do you like to go on guided tours, or go it alone? As with all else in my life, I prefer going solo. When you go to a yarn shop, do you look at all the yarns? I do.  I find sale yarns first, then work my way around from there. When was the last time you swam in a pool? Never, because I don't know how to swim. What's your favorite college or university team to follow? What station is your car radio set to? I don't know;  I never, ever listen to the radio in the car. Really.  Never.

One of my multitude of Spence cousins got in touch with me after reading the superstitions post a few days ago.  Her mother was my father's younger sister, and evidently had a way around the "don't-go-back-once-you're-on-the-road" rule.  If you do  go back, you can sit down in the place you left, then safely restart.  I never heard that exception, but it may come in handy someday. She also talked about leaving a place through the same door you entered.  Though I didn't originally recall that, I did after she mentioned it.  One of our aunts was particularly vigilant about that one. Speaking of vigilance. . . All weekend, there has been a male cardinal in the holly bush outside this window in the den.  There has also been a sparrow hopping up and down the screen on this same window.  Riley has been thoroughly enthralled.

Oh, my goodness, I totally forgot to post my second review for my second Chewy product, and that needs to be rectified. Because this stuff is amazing : Yes, I have good things to say about virtually everything I receive from Chewy.  This, though, is absolutely, positively, easily the best cat litter I have ever used.  It scoops beautifully, it scarcely tracks at all, and it kills all the odors that three cats can manufacture.  Kills dead.  It's fabulous.   FABULOUS. Each month, I request and receive free products from Chewy.com in exchange for my honest reviews of those products.  No money, just truth.

Terry has  claimed Hugh.  Kathy has claimed a Pittsburgh Pirate.  Please, though, don't feel like your Knitters' Hunk or Knitters' Chick nominee has to be yours and yours alone.  In fact, the way I do seeding (after the automatic entrants are slotted in) is based on how many nominations someone has.  So, go with your heart.  Or whatever body part you rely on to help you make these kinds of decisions. Thank you, reigning KH Henrik Lundqvist, for The Wink. My son --- who is the person responsible for there even being a Knitters' Chick contest --- was just here, discussing the difficult time he's having coming up with his nominees.   I feel his discomfort.  I will re-post this before the nomination process starts (3 weeks from today), but those of you trying to get started should know that these folks do   not  need to be nominated.  They are going into their respective draws automatically: Michelle Obama Judi Dench Hel...