Would You Believe

That the votes you cast today will be the last of the first two rounds?  That tomorrow we start the Round of 32?  That it took this long to have our first tie?

So let's get to work, whaddaya say?

   

If You Need a Little Break

To any and all of you in other parts of the South right now, stretching into the Northeast in a few days, know you're being thought of.  All of us at Companion HQ wish you safety and a speedy rebound.

As far as today goes:

Round 'Em Up

  Ya know, somewhere people aren't having as much fun as we are.  If you know any, invite them to join us.  There are match-ups for everyone!  For instance:

 

 

 

 

As We Finish the First Week

I'm wondering how you choose your nominees.  As for me, I try to stick to the "Knit with, for, or next to" mantra in my head.  Then, unless it's someone who is an easy choice, I try to picture them in the room with me.  Honestly.  I try to imagine them in the chair in the den.  (I do most of my knitting sitting on the couch.)  If that doesn't fit, they won't be a nominee.  Maybe a bit odd, but that's how I do it.

Now, for some people you nominated, and perhaps some that I threw in, too.

 

Yes, We Have Saturday Voting

I believe I say this each year, but here's the reminder that if your nominee(s) hasn't / haven't shown up yet, be patient.  Lots of people got first-round byes.  Some of them may be here today, in fact.

We're in the Second Round

This is news that probably should have been shared with you before, as no doubt some of you are keeping pace by sketching out your own brackets.

Here are some more pairings for you:

 

Was I Right, or What?

 Craziness, huh?  The Fedora of Fate couldn't have been any more diabolical than the Bowl of. . .  Bowl of. . .  Let me put some people on this name thing.  In the meantime:

 

 

 

 

In the Words of Sam Jackson, "Hold On to Your Butts"

One of the benefits of this contest is gaining knowledge about other people in the world, and I mean that for the nominators and the nominees.  Thank you all for that. 

And this may be my thinking only, but there are some pairings coming up that are crazy.  You've been warned.

 Now, begin!  (And I know Numbers 13 and 14 are inverted.  It was getting late and I couldn't get them to change places, so I just let it go.)

 

Some Have Moved On, Some Haven't

 For those of you playing at home. . .  Wait. . .  You're all playing at home, aren't you?  Anyway, scroll down to yesterday's post to see the first few winners, then come back here to vote on the second batch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Day Jitters?

 Don't worry --- you know what to do.

 

In Case You're Interested

Here's how the magic happens at contest HQ.

As nominations come in, the name of the nominee and the nominator(s) go onto an index card.  Since I gave him away as one of my entrants the other day, here's an example:

Yes, that's a coloring book underneath.  You relax your way, and I'll relax mine.

This is the stack for this year.  Eighty-two entries!

Each name is then transferred to a slip of paper, folded, and placed in a bowl,  

First, the seeds are placed in the bracket.  Then, a blind draw gets one slip of paper out at a time, and the rest of the names are put in.  I usually just move up and down and back and forth, to make things truly random.  This year, with so many entries, the bracket took two pages:

This necessitated moving the operation from my desk to the kitchen table.

Once the brackets are filled, I go back to the cards

to make sure no one's picks are matched up in the first round.

The process becomes highly secretive at this point.  Tap makes a periodic sweep of the perimeter here to be sure there are no spies afoot.  He got really excited about a squirrel in the front yard a few minutes ago; it took a while to convince him that Squirrels' Companion is a completely different deal and that we're okay.

Voting starts tomorrow!

The Final Count

Okay, there are 82 nominees for our inaugural Companion campaign.  There would have been up to, maybe even over, 90 if characters from "Paw Patrol" and "Sesame Street" were allowed.  (Yes, there is a strong second generation of nominators now.)

The seeds are as follows:

T1.  Tom Daley

T1.  Henrik Lundqvist

T1.  Greta Thunberg

T4.  Stacey Abrams

T4.  Idris Elba

T4.  Chris Evans

T4.  Graham McTavish

T4.  Rachel Maddow 

T4.  Jason Momoa

I'll be working today to build the bracket, and if at all possible, voting will start tomorrow,  Tuesday at the latest.  With this many entrants, voting will take a good while.  So, do all your stretching, stay hydrated, wear sunscreen if you need to, and let's have some fun!

Well, We're. . .

 Sixty-four entries and Saturday is the last day you can nominate!  Give me your nominees' names before 11:59 PM.

PARTICIPATE! PARTICIPATE!

You have until Saturday night, 11:59 PM (ET) to get in your nominations.  We've broken 50 already!

And I don't know why the Dalek run lately.  I've only seen one episode of "Doctor Who," though the one I saw was glorious.

"Vincent and the Doctor."  I watched because of the gentleman in the background there: Bill Nighy.  Even if you're not a Whovian, you'd probably enjoy this episode.

  In the meantime, send in those names!

Day Two for Nominees

 CONTEMPLATE!

CONTEMPLATE!

GO!

NOMINATE!

NOMINATE!
 

 

Winnowed

I only just last night made the final decision on my Knitters' Companion nominees.  How are all of you coming along?  You don't have to nominate six, that's just the limit.  And don't worry about duplicate nominees;  that's how seeds are established.  Also, I've learned that someone is going to toss in a name that you facepalm over.  "Why didn't I think of that?"  But, hey, it's cool --- they are in the contest, after all.

 

The Calendar on the Wall

It's time to start building contest prize packages.  My kitchen table is rather covered with. . .  Oops, I can't tell you, can I? 

Oops again!  I just gave away one of my nominees. . .

I'd like to thank KnitPicks for having a big clearance sale just in time for all of this.  And kudos to a Dear, Wonderful Friend who went through her own and her mother's stashes to provide me with lots of yarn.  

Stay cool, stay masked, and come up with those nominees!  I start accepting them on Wednesday. . .

If It's Not One Thing

Someone has been using a credit card number of mine.  I have to say "number" because I haven't had a physical card for this account in I-don't-even-know how long.  This is my first experience with anything like this, and the purchases could have been larger and more numerous, but it's still unnerving.  Thank goodness for the Timeline feature on my maps app, though, so that I can prove that I wasn't in Athens on specific days.

Although honestly, if the charges weren't for yarn, books, or pet supplies, they should have known it wasn't me.

 

Nails

 Kathy asked a question about fingernails today, which got me thinking.  And taking a picture.

I polish my nails every day.  (My students were always sort of amazed that I'd change colors overnight.)  It's something I do for myself, like putting on jewelry each day  My mother was a polisher.  She drilled into me that one "polishes" one's nails, one doesn't "paint," as it's called nail polish, not nail paint.

Mama polished her nails down to the little "moons" on each finger.  These aren't her hands, but this is how her nails were shaped, and how they looked:

I've never been able to do this;  my hands aren't that steady.  She never fully got behind the covering-your-whole-nail thing, for whatever reason.  During visitation at the funeral home after she died, more than one person mentioned her nails to me. 

My mother also, when I started shaving my legs, told me to never go higher than my knees.  Not an exact parallel, but another example of line-drawing.

Before I got pregnant, my nails were super strong.  Like, it-was-tough-to-cut my-thumbnails strong.  After both my pregnancies, it took a while for them to get strong again.  There wasn't a whole lot of polishing in those days, due to my nails' weakness and my complete lack of free time.

One thing that has made my polishing life much, MUCH better is UNT Ready for Takeoff.  I may have talked about it here before, but I cannot say how much I love this stuff too much.  It's a coat that goes on under your base coat (or under your polish if you don't use base) and allows you to just peel off your polish when you want to change colors.  It is AMAZING.  Polish remover can be drying and is certainly time-consuming, but this takes care of both those things.  It's absolutely one of my favorite products ever.  And, no, it doesn't flake off at random times.  Well, only very, very rarely, at least with me.

Also, notice in the photo how twisted my index finger is.  Both my index fingers turn toward the middle fingers.  It would take literally breaking and re-setting them to get them to face the same direction as my other fingers.  Just a little trivia about me, as if the whole manicure thing wasn't shallow enough.

 

Brick Wall

Yep.  I'm tired of knitting hats.  All of a sudden this afternoon.  Just done.  The count right now is  26.

Will 100 Be Enough?

 When a new pack of index cards is purchased,

you know contest time is nigh. 

(Nomination period starts next week.)

If You're Looking for a Friend. . .

. . . You'd do well to find a knitter.  Look at the wonderful notecards Kathy sent me, completely out of the blue.

Thank you for thinking of me, Kathy.  It was a lovely gift on a less-than-lovely day.

 

In Twinster News

The Twinnie's Etsy shop was invoked the other day;  here is my first purchase from it.

"Snow Moon" vase, thrown by Twinnie's husband,  (My Twinnie-in-law?)

After it was unpacked, Tap inspected it.

"This smells like Comet's and Pilot's house. . ."

Concerns

Those of you who have dogs: do they have a problem with reverse sneezing?  Tap had a bad fit of it this afternoon.  He has them periodically, but this one seemed especially bad.  He was asleep, and he is a snorer, but the snoring woke him up/turned into reverse sneezing, and seemed to shake him up a bit.  He's good now, and I knew what was going on, but things were still a bit scary for a while.

County schools here started back yesterday.

Crazy, right?  The first week of August???

The mask mandate has been reinstated here, as COVID cases are up over 100% over the past week.  And thousands of UGA students due back in before too long. . .  

Meanwhile, all of us who've been doing the right things all along are just stuck.

Lap Pets

Tap from a few minutes ago.

Theo from when I last visited Hannah.

 

Everyone Take Note

My alpaca nephew turned three four yesterday!

This is an older photo, but you get how cute and full of personality he is.  Twinnie named him Calypso, but I have called him Bomber from the start.  He's cool with it.

And speaking of Twinnie, go see the Etsy shop she and her husband have opened!