hand eye crafts

Those of you with children know that sometimes, Troubles (real and imagined) come to them all at once.  This is pretty much my situation of late: checking on my two again and again. No, I won't tell you which of the cubs is Hannah and which is Briton. And, yes, you sometimes have to avoid direct eye contact with your offspring so that the eye rolls aren't blatantly obvious.  

I came across this picture from when I was without heat last year.  It's been cool here in the mornings and at night, making it my fondest wish that Fall is here and we can get all warm and snuggly soon.  

I've had a blistering headache since the weekend, so staying still has been a necessity.  Here are some non-sequiturs I've been saving: You unwrap a head of lettuce, right?  You cut/tear the amount you need for a salad.  There is now less  lettuce, yes?  Then how come you can never   get   the   remaining   lettuce   completely   re-covered ??????  I didn't cut off any plastic wrap!!!!!! My "trick" for spelling "Mississippi" is reciting the words of a  Bobbie Gentry song .  None of the "crooked letter / humpback" stuff.  And yes, I sang the lyric as I typed the first sentence. My best friend's younger brother once told us how to remember the difference in spelling "dessert" versus "desert."  You'd want two desserts --- hence, the two s's --- while one desert --- and one s --- would be plenty. I was embarrassingly old when I realized the remarkable meshing of my mother's maiden name: England,  and m...

Yesterday, I moved a lot of the furniture in the den around.  On a complete whim.  No, there won't be many photos because not everything is truly settled, and the carpet needs work.  (Indentations and little stains you forget you'd covered over.)     You probably know that one wall in the den is this: I moved my desk into that far corner, and now have empty wall space for more things. My lower stomach muscles are reminding me that when you're 61 and live alone and some of what you want to move is heavy and unwieldy, they are going to let you know about it.  

Twinnie  will soon be published!  

I don't know why.  Nothing has happened --- or not happened --- that would cause me to feel this way, but I sure do.  

A good subtitle for the contest would have been "The Running of The Jasons."  (Bateman, Momoa, Sudeikis) Matching photos was surprisingly non-stressful this year, mostly because forbad myself to spend hours (yes, plural) looking for good ones.  The trickiest photo pairs were between one nominee who seems to smile all the time and one nominee who seems to not smile all time.  LOTS of pairs put me in that jam. One of my favorite match-up picture sets was Jason Bateman vs. Prue Leith.  It looked like they were each giving the other a skeptical side-eye. I liked the Scottish poetry of McGregor vs. McTavish.  And, yes, I tried to have photos of both of them in kilts.  The way CrowdSignal formats photos, though, none of the pictures would come through clearly. Nicolaj Coster-Waldau's last name is fun to type.  His first name, not so much. Somewhere, there are black and white portraits of every nominee, allowing me to use them in the contest.  This is my...

These are my worksheets from the last few weeks: Another wrap-up tomorrow.  

 . . . The winner of the first Knitters' Companion: Bill Nighy Congratulations to the still blogless Terry, who nominated Mr. Nighy and will receive the Grand Prize.  Dan Levy's nominator, my cousin Jorene (full disclosure and all here), will receive the Second Prize.   Interestingly, Jorene also nominated Patrick Stewart, who made it to the Semifinals.  I think she deserves a little extra for that, and, since I've stepped back to the semis, I'll send a prize package to Dolly Parton's nominator, Lorette. Thanks to all for nominating and voting.  I hope you enjoyed yourselves.  We'll be back next year!

 Knitters' Companion should be Final

 You can tell who prevailed in the Quarterfinals by seeing who's here for the Semis: Semifinal #1 Semifinal #2

No more real-time results available to you. Don't give me that look. Here --- here's a juice box and some graham crackers.  Do your homework. Quarterfinal #1 Quarterfinal #2 Quarterfinal #3 Quarterfinal #4

 Once more, a tie to break before we move on: #74 Tiebreaker

For those of you who might have had Labor Day off, we here at HQ hope you had a good one.  Ideally, you kept up your stretching regime so that hitting various keys or mice or screens won't cause physical problems. Here they are, the last of The Sixteen:   #71 #72 #73 #74

That's right, we're down to 16 folks. Not this round, but the next, will not show real-time voting results.  I usually wait until the Semifinals to do that but thought I'd change it up.  Here you go! #67 #68 #70 #69

Because we need to break this tie!   #57 Tiebreaker

So, if I have this right, this last group will decide the last people to be in the Sweet Sixteen.  We'll have the first Knitters' Companion chosen before you know it!   #61 #62 #63 #64 #65 #66

The contest itself isn't going downhill right now, but it's sure picking up its pace --- at least on my end.  I have to have quick turnarounds posting each day's pairings.  Still, it's fun, isn't it? Let's see where today takes you.   #56 #57 #58 #59 #60

Welcome to the Final 32!  Let's get started, shall we?   #51 #52 #53 #54 #55