Security

At the Valley of the Kings.

Thanks For The Warning!

I was doing laundry late one afternoon at the hotel in Sharm El Sheikh, As I was hanging socks and underwear on my homemade rubberband clothesline on the balcony outside, I noticed this cloud. 'The fog must roll in from the Red Sea', I thought, 'much like it does every afternoon in San Francisco'. When the fog enveloped me, I realized that it was the insecticide that the hotel sprayed every day.

Koshary

Koshary at Ali Baba's restaurant in Aswan. Koshary is a mix of rice, lentils, garbanzos, macaroni, fried onions, and a tomato-y sauce. Additional toppings are optional. I like a lot of fried onions i mine. The bowl of koshary in the photo cost about $1.25. 14 of us ate here for a grand total of $31 U.S.

Egypt

You Bet I Bought Them!

We'll see how it goes!

Crocheted Thanksgiving Day Hat

Worn by the most cooperative model I could find.

20 Questions - What Country Will I Be Visiting?

Here are some of the real questions and answers from 3rd and 4th graders. I told them I was going on a trip to another country, and that their job was to guess the country. I displayed a map of the world, and pointed out the difference between continents and countries. Yes, I thoroughly explained the concept of asking 'yes' or 'no' questions.

Q: Is it a big country?
A: Since I can only answer 'yes' or 'no', I'm going to say 'no'.

Q: Are you going by plane?
A: Yes.

Q: Is it around China?
A: No.

Q: Is it past Greece?
A: Yes.

Q: Is it near the Pacific Ocean?
A: No.

Q: Is it by Russia?
A: No.

Q: Is it east of the Prime Meridian?
A: Yes.

Q: Is it by Brazil?
A: No.

Q: Is it by the Atlantic Ocean?
A: No.

Q: Will it take longer than two hours to get there?
A: Yes.

Q: Is it mostly green or orange?
A: .....yes.

Q: Is it in Africa?
A: Yes.

Q: Do they speak Arabic there?
A: Yes.

After each child was allowed a question, they each got to make a guess. Some of the answers included:

Australia

Canada

China

Russia

New Zealand

Egypt

Saudi Arabia

Madagascar

New Jersey

Cloche

An adaptation of this pattern.

Etched Skeleton

Violin carrying skeleton. Another Armour Etch creation.

Aye Chihuahua!

This is from an amigurumi pattern I found online. It fits in the palm of my hand, and he's so cute I almost don't want to gift him!

Etched Bats

This was made using Armour Etch cream. I drew bat outlines onto clear contact paper, then cut them out with an X-acto blade. I then stuck the reverse images onto a vase I picked up from the dollar store and applied the cream.
After the etching was complete, I filled the jar with Halloween candy and gave it away as a gift. I've been able to use the cream for several other projects (including the SpongeBob tealight), so, overall this was a quick and inexpensive craft.

That's Right Neighborly!

The neighbor behind me has a giant oak tree growing on his property. It hasn't been trimmed in years, and a portion of it hangs over my back yard. Last week the neighbor came over to tell me that he was getting several trees on his property trimmed, including the one hanging over my yard. After a few minutes of pleasantries and small talk, the conversation went this way:

Neighbor: So, can the tree trimmer come into your yard tomorrow to access the tree and to clean up any branches that fall?

Me: That sounds fine. Just tell him to make sure to move any of the potted plants or items that might get damaged from falling branches.

Neighbor: Sure, sure. They're finishing up the tree that hangs onto Susie's property today. She's paying for half since it's on her side. (Long pause and significant stare.)

Me (Confused): So...you're asking me to pay for half of the trimming?

Neighbor: I'll tell you what: he's charging me $500 for the tree. I'll pay $300 and you can pay $200.

Me (Moronically): Well, I guess so...

That was the basic gist of it. So I'm feeling like a big loser, and friends and family aren't alleviating that feeling when they tell me what they would've said to the neighbor who isn't behaving in the most neighborly way. I mean, I've got some huge trees on my property, and I would never even think about asking neighbors to share the cost when I've got to have those trees trimmed. I was caught off guard by the audacity of the moment.

It gets better.

The next day, I come home and find the tree trimmer finishing up the last bit of work. I ask him how much he would charge me to trim one of my trees.

Tree trimmer: Well, your tree is a lot bigger than the neighbor's, so I'd charge more for this one.

Me (Cleverly): Oh? How much did you charge him?

Tree trimmer: $400.

You have got to be kidding me. Come collect.

Crocheted purse

Record Bowl

SpongeBob Mania

Crocheted hat

Etched glass

Crocheted purse.

Crocheted Teacup

Wind Chimes

Made using copper tubing from the hardware store, the lid to a teapot, and the lid to a wooden box, both from a thrift store.

Bent forks and flattened spoons from the thrift store.

There's the bottom part of that wooden box, along with large washers I got from the hardware store.

Playing cards bag & wallet

Made with playing cards and contact paper.

Crocheted Flower Scarf

Crocheted Rooster

For Diane: lover of all things cock.

I found them!

I've been trying to access my old This and That site in order to retrieve all of my craft photos, but haven't been able to. I changed my email address several months ago, so whenever I try to access my password, the info goes to the old address that I can't access anymore. Fortunately, while cleaning out one of my many junk drawer/cupboards, I came across 8 disks titled "Archives 2006". Could I have been organized enough to have put all of my craft photos onto a disk? The answer, once I looked through all seven disks and then took a look at disk number eight is, YES! Truthfully, I wasn't the one who actually planned and bugged until I organized the disks, but I am the one who finally found them! So, while I'm enjoying my summer and not doing too much crafting, I'm going to start posting all of the crafts that were on my old This and That site.

Praying Mantis

Crocheted baby hats

I'm trying to find any photos from my old "This & That" site. You know, the one that I can't get to anymore. Here are a couple of hats I made a few years ago.

Mom's Performance Review

From "great" to "rotten". Looks like February was a bad month for Mom!

Campfires and pancakes

A nice looking campfire, constructed by the man-child.

These pancakes weren't cooked on the fire, but rather on the Coleman stovetop. I thought it was kinda weird to find pancake mix in an aerosol can, so I thought I'd try it when we went camping. It's definitely easy: just shake and spray, but the pancakes didn't have any body to them. I made do with the box of donuts I'd packed.

Preemie baby booties

Crocheted. Yes, I'm using up the blue yarn.

Like they were really going to send a different guy...

Despite my clever plan of waiting a day to re-call, there was no auto club guy rotation, as I imagined there might be, and I got the same guy today as I did yesterday to recharge my car's battery. "Don't be embarassed," he told me, "you're paying for it." That didn't make me feel any less dopey. After a quick charge and half an hour of driving, everything is working as usual.

I get it now

My car is quirky. Old and quirky. The doors lock and unlock themselves at random times. I have to stretch into the backseats to lock the back doors because the remote on my keyring only locks the front. The driver's side sun visor fell off, making afternoon driving an adventure. There is a constantly flashing red light on the dashboard which indicates that my airbags won't deploy. I keep meaning to put a sticker over it because it gets hypnotically annoying after awhile. The cassette tape adapter for my ipod has to be ejected and popped back into the deck at least a dozen times before it will play music.

That brings me to another big quirk: heating and air-conditioning. I've got them, which is great. Everything turns on without a problem. I've got full controls for both the front and rear of the car. What DOESN'T happen automatically, though, is the heating or air-conditioning turning off whenever the car is turned off. If I forget to hit all of the 'off' buttons, as I did this past Friday, the air-conditioner continues to run until the battery dies, which I discovered this morning as I headed out to run some errands.

Fortunately, I called the auto club, who had someone out quickly to jump start the battery. Unfortunately, I turned the car off after they left because I forgot to do a couple of things in the house. I now know that I should've driven the car around so that the battery could get charged up, but that doesn't help the embarassment I'm going to feel when I call the auto club back.

Why you should make reservations during a graduation weekend

Nightstand.

Electrical outlet.

His and her bathroom.

Cozy sleeping arrangements.

Continental breakfast.

You might wind up sleeping in this hotel's conference room.

Elephant

It's about four inches tall. Happy birthday, Double Chin!