New Collection

So I have been spending quite a lot of time on Tumblr of late because it is pretty much like crack to fandoms. I mean, it's awesome, but when I look at my Dashboard some days I have no idea how I ended up with such a random assortment of blogs that I am following on that site.

Originally I made an account so I could lurk a bit on a bunch of the Dragon Age sites and submit to Dragon Age Confessions from time to time. I tried to get a thing going doing a random funny photo a day of my daughter's My Little Pony toys, but that tapered out pretty quickly because I just kind of lost the motivation. But then someone sent me an anonymous ask (asks are really one of niftiest bits about Tumblr in my opinion) requesting "more yarn please." Probably because my account name over there is YarnAndTeaIsAllINeed (made on a random whim when I signed up because I was drinking tea and looking at a skein of yarn). But it was a nice little kick in the pants and so I have been trying every day to post at least something yarn or tea related--usually  a picture of yarn from my stash, new acquisition, finished projects, and teacups and teapots.

That has somehow led to me garnering a small handful of followers on the site, which is weird but also nice. So I am trying to spread the love and actually be part of the community over there. When people ask questions I try to chime in if I have anything to say on the subject. It's been kind of interesting watching it develop.

One thing I have started to really notice is the prevalence of animated GIFs in posts. Sometimes because they are funny, sometimes to express a reaction to whatever the post is about, that kind of thing. I know that GIFs have been around forever, but this is the first time I have really paid that much attention to them, because this is the first forum on which I find myself where they are actually a type of communication in and of themselves.

So, I have started collecting GIFs as a random little side effect of joining Tumblr. I thought I'd share with you a few of my favorites that I have come across so far.

(Note that I am not in any way claiming credit for these, they were just found and enjoyed on the internet. The two pony GIFs came from My Little Brony.)

Anyhoo, happy Friday, y'all.

Now I just need to figure out how to make some of these on my own.

My Daughter Is Now a Monkey

Last night I got to experience another moment of simultaneous joy and terror at watching my daughter figure out how to do something new.  I noticed this past weekend that, while trying to grab something out of her reach at the back of the couch, she swung one of her feet up toward the cushion like she was about to climb on up and get it herself.  While I was pretty impressed at the time, and thought to myself, "Hey, I bet she'll be climbing soon!"  I was completely not prepared for "soon" to equal "four days later."  Sigh.

She didn't make it up onto the couch, but last night she did manage to climb up onto the coffee table.  Repeatedly.  And then stand up and try walking around on it.  The first few times she got up there, I kept an eye on her, and when it looked like she wanted down, I put her back on the floor, only to watch her turn around climb back up.  Eventually, she was sitting on it, ooching around backward and pushed herself off of it, and I was not quick enough to catch her before she made it to the ground.  Thankfully the coffee table is not high up and she fell in an area clear of anything to hit her head on.  She was completely unhurt in all but her pride.  There was some crying, and I held her and rocked her for a bit.  And when I put her down again, she climbed right back up on the table.  Sigh.

After I put her to bed I had my husband help me move the coffee table out of the room.

I know that this will only be a temporary safety measure, and hopefully we won't have to have a big honking coffee table in our bedroom, attacking our unwary shins at night, for too long.  But hopefully, for the time being, this will keep her out of any extra trouble.  Being a parent is so awesome.  No, really.

Wally naps in the aftermath of playtime.

So before the whole coffee table fiasco last night, I finally got to watch Toy Story 3.  I never got a chance to see it when it was in theaters.  I think one of the only things I really truly miss about life pre-baby is going to movies.  I used to do that a lot.  But, I am confident that in a few more years I can resume that habit--and with a buddy in tow!  I loved the movie, of course.  It really was an excellent movie, and I think it would have stood well on its own had the other two movies not come before it.  I can admit I cried my eyes out at the end.  So sad, and then, so happy!  The character Bonnie actually made me think of Baby Girl quite a bit, and what I think/hope she will be like in a few more years.  It got me really excited for those times to come.  (See, parenting really is cool.)  Also, it made me feel bad for every toy I have ever given away or stuffed in an attic.  I may or may not have given each of Baby Girl's toys a hug and a kiss as I put them away last night...

I am making decent progress in my novel-writing adventure.  I currently stand at 9,744 words (out of 50,000).  The NaNoWriMo rules state that the goal is a 50,000 word novel, which they say breaks down to 175 pages.  So when setting my goals, I divided 175/30 to get that I would need to write six pages a day, and I did manage to make six pages on Monday.  And then I did some math, and realized that however I have MS Word set up on my computer, six pages is a lot more (about twice as much, actually) than what I need to be doing to make the word count goal.  So, it's day four and I am already a little bit ahead, and just starting to find my momentum, which is awesome.  I did struggle a bit on Monday to get those six pages in though, so I have decided to adjust my goal to four pages a day.  It's still more than the minimum I need to do, but it's not so much that I feel overwhelmed trying to hit my goal.  My only real problem right now is that NaNoWriMo's website is being glitchy and I have been having trouble keeping my word count up to date on their site.  And really, that's no biggie, as long as they get the validation tool fixed before the end of the month!

Remember the other day when I mentioned that I was worried my story might not end up being long enough?  Well, I no longer really have that worry--as I thought, introducing other people into the action has started eating up pages--but I stumbled across this article in io9 that just made me smile.  It seemed timely (well, yeah, I mean, he was talking about NaNoWriMo), and relevant to my particular worries.  It even helped me lay my fears just a bit more to rest. 

It actually turns out to be a very good thing that I am already a bit ahead, as I am going to be giving up a big chunk of my writing time today to head out to Dallas for a book signing by Brandon Sanderson!  My completely wonderful awesome excellent mother-in-law is even going to watch Baby Girl so we can meet up with a friend and get to relax with a nice kid-free evening.  I am looking forward to it very much.  I will try to have a write-up for you tomorrow about the event.

In the mean time, kids and kiddos, have a groovy day.

Kitties! Crochet! Life in General!

Okay, first things first.  *cough* Ahem.  *cough*

Don't forget to watch tonight's new episodes of Stargate Universe and Caprica on Syfy starting at 8 pm CST!!!

Right, then.  Getting on with it.

I've got a couple of finished crochet projects for you today.  Here's the birthday present I was working on week before last.  It was a poncho for a good friend of mine, her birthday was this past Saturday.  

Poncho of Happiness by Cori 2010.

The pattern I used for this was the Groovy Granny Poncho from Lion Brand's free pattern database.  (To see the pattern you may have to register with the site, but that's free, it just gets you a newsletter, which you can even opt out of.)  I love LB's pattern database.  Because one of their big lines is Vanna's Choice, designed by Vanna White, who crochets, they have a ton of crochet patterns as well as knitting.  And they have patterns for all sorts of different fiber types. 

For this project, I used their Homespun yarn, in Baroque, Amethyst, Edwardian, and Black.  I absolutely hated Homespun the first time I tried to use it because I am really just not used to the bulkier yarns, but now that I've worked with it a bit, I have to admit, I kind of love it a little.  It is so soft and warm.  The pattern called for one skein of each color, but didn't use it all up, so I ended up having enough left over to make one (with a few modifications to the pattern) for my daughter as well.

Pint-sized Poncho by Cori 2010.

Baby Girl models her new duds.

I am now hard at work on my next project, another birthday present, which I'll post more about once it has been given to its recipient.  

In other news, I thought I would share with you some photos of my kitties, since I am bound to mention them from time to time.  They are my furred children, so I thought you should get to know them a bit as well.  I have two kitties that live inside with us and suck up all of the love that I don't give Baby Girl.  They've done a pretty good job of adjusting to her arrival over the past year.  Wally pretty much took to her right away and has adopted a "big brother" attitude of sorts.  He is extremely patient with her and endures her vigorous "petting" attempts, because he knows he will be well repaid with love from me after the baby has gone to bed.  Also, they both love to play with my yarn when I am right in the middle of the tricky part of any given project.  Tony finally seems to be warming up to the newest addition to the family.  He no longer flees the room when she enters it, and will even let her touch him occasionally--though not without flinching.  I think a big part of his deciding to come around (aside from the realization that she is clearly not going anywhere) is that now that she is feeding herself, there is a lot more people food being dropped on the ground for him to get to.  

I do also have two stray kitties that I have more or less adopted, though they stay outside.  One of them, a Siamese that I have oh-so-cleverly (insert sarcasm) named Sy, is very personable and sweet.  Part of me really wants to bring him inside to live with us (after a visit to the vet and a bath, of course), but I know that wouldn't be fair to him, because he is so completely an outside kitty.  So for now I am just doing my best to make sure that he has a safe and comfortable place in our backyard, as well as a regular food supply.  The other stray (who I don't have a photo of) is definitely Sy's companion, and I know he eats the food I put out, but I only see him very rarely.  He is extremely skittish around people and tends to dash off the moment he realizes he's been spotted.  I have dubbed him Skittles. 

Sy, the stray Siamese.

Tony, who will be 6 in December.

Wally, at 9 years old.

I started playing Star Wars Republic Commando last night, but alas, I don't think that I am going to be able to play this one all of the way through.  It is in the first person point of view, and you're looking out through your character's helmet display, which is just crazy.  It made me a bit nauseated.  I had this same problem when I played Portal, but that didn't have the added craziness of a whole slew of control buttons to remember, so I was able to adjust to it, though I had to limit my playing to only about an hour at a time.  I don't think I'm gonna make it through this game though.  It's sad, because I really really love the books and was hoping that playing the game would add an extra dimension to my enjoyment of them.  But it doesn't really have the RPG aspect I prefer in my games, and with that plus the controls just totally throwing me off, plus the POV, I may just have to set this one aside.  At least for now.  On the plus side, I only paid $6 for it, so I don't have to get mad at the waste of money.  So it looks like I might be finally diving into Morrowind next instead, to my husband's great excitement.  He has been trying to get me to play that game forever.