AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Making with code!

Happy Holidays!

So, Q is a little too young to really enjoy this now, but for those who have young children (I could see this being as young as 3, but probably closer to 4-5) this looks like a fun way to play with coding with them.

This isn't the only project available, but it is thematically appropriate for the season. 

So, try Make With Code. It is pretty cool. Oh, and click the image. It is more than just some dots on a tree.

If Make With Code is a little too easy for your kids, there are a number of other online coding platforms to get your kids playing with code.

Try out:

Turtle Academy for all of your Logo experiences

Kodu (no link, because I saw it via Lynda.com)

Scratch - for programming interactive stories

Learning something new is a perfect way to end the year! So, go out and learn something!

starting something new?

Camp Loopy project 2 starts on Monday, so I have one day to start winding my balls by hand (I never got around to picking up a ball winder or swift). This month doesn't quite have as many days off as last month did, but I already have the pattern, so I should be able to start earlier. On the other hand the project is much bigger.

I'm making the pinwheel baby blanket. It might end up being huge for a baby blanket, because I would like to use most of the yarn up and maybe just set aside a bit for possible future repairs.

I have finished 3 projects in June, and if I was less fried I bet I could find one of the random pairs of socks I started where I just need to finish the toes or something else easy to have even more!

Instead, I will leave you with this. The new thing (or new to me thing) to make me less grumpy when life seems content to try and kick me multiple times.

 

Hey! it's cute!

[10 Tuesday] bulletin boards

Today's topic is 10 items pinned to your bulletin board. Now, I'm going to have to go with pinning, aka Pinterest for this one, because I don't have a bulletin board at home and the one at work, well, it is covered with work. I don't think you need my account numbers or procedures for things, and I wouldn't ever post those anyway. Just isn't going to happen.

I'm on Pinterest as qarylla (but probably also findable via my first name), and most of what I pin is food. I have boards for holidays (mostly full of food), boards for sweets, boards for dinner items, and boards for alcoholic drinks that I will probably never try.

Since sometime last year (I cannot find anything on Pinterest that gives you an idea of when you started pinning, boo!), I have been adding things in fits and spurts. So, here are 10 items from my Pinterest boards.

1. (Gluten Free) Ice Cream Cake (pin | original site). This might be the most popular repin on my boards. I pinned it when I got tired of searching for it to find it. The original recipe isn't gluten free, but it involves a cake mix so I tried it with a gf cake mix and a dairy free ice cream and it was pretty awesome. Very moist!

2. Pomegranate Vanilla Sangria (pin | original site). I made this for hanging out at game a number of months ago, and just finally threw out the fruit in the past couple of weeks (it still looked and smelled good, but was way past my comfort date). I love pretty much anything with pomegranate in it.

3. Cute bunny pic (pin | original site). I have a board for animals, both cute and funny. It is nice for when I am having a rough day to spend a minute looking at all of the adorableness.

4. Pineapple Upside Down Cake (pin | original site). I have made this cake from Smitten Kitchen at least twice this year. While I know some people have problems with her recipes (or recipes that she has modified from an original) based on the comments, I've never had any issues. This one was as delicious as I have come to expect. And well, dark rum!

5. Glitter Shoes (pin | original site). I made a pair of similar shoes a month or two ago, and while it was a fun process there are definite flaws in using the cheapest shoes from Payless to attach copious amounts of glitter paint to. Of course, I might walk around occasionally dropping a piece of glitter from my feet, but I still wear them and enjoy them.

6. Rolo Caramel Fudge Brownies (pin | original site). I made these and they were a huge hit. Super addictive and now that I'm cutting out sugar (to curb my sweets addiction) I won't be making these again for a while!

7. Lemon Cupcakes in a Lemon (pin | original site). I haven't made these yet, but I so want to!

8. Black French Manicure (pin | original site). If my nails didn't look like I worked constantly with my hands, I would do this!

9. The Traveller's Guide to the Duat (pin | original site). My friend Kiya wrote this and I couldn't be more proud of her! So, I pinned it, so I couldn't forget.

10. The Tokyo Subway Map Quilt (pin | original site). This quilt has started my quilt dreams. Now, like many of my dreams I haven't done anything with it yet (except buy some fabric). I fully expect that I won't get around to quilting until a few more of my craft ideas have run their course. Oh, and I have created a better set up for sewing or have decided to sew my quilts by hand...

My boards also have knitting, a lot of things from Craft Magazine, art, story boards for a sweater coat, etc. I know that Pinterest has its own problems, but I do enjoy it.

public relations and cookies

So, I had a good post and Typepad ate it when it decided I wasn't logged in. Grr!

So, here's a recap of what was in the post.

About 2 weeks ago, Komen Foundation defunded Planned Parenthood over what appeared to be reasons chosen to guarantee defunding. There were reasons to be unsupportive of both sides, but the vast brunt of the public opinion came down on the side of Planned Parenthood. They received thousands of dollars of funding to make up the shortfall from Komen and shortly thereafter Komen rescinded its decision.

In honor of this PR fiasco (and at my husband's suggestion) I made cookies.

(my photo color correcting is way off)

Clusterfucks and penis For the Cure cookies.

Clusterfucks are a standard nut and chocolate/candy melt candy. Mine are 1/2 each of almonds and walnuts with a handful of pecans and chopped up and toasted then mixed with a melted bag of pink candy melts and 1/2 cup of chopped pistachio nuts (red pistachio nuts, green pistachio nuts). Then you drop them in small scoops onto a parchment covered cookie sheet and chill. They're a snap and are pretty tasty. You could use any non-melting, non-wet foods as long as you have about 2 cups of fill ins.

The cookies on the other hand were more work. I went to iParty and got a penis shaped cookie cutter (bachelorette party staple apparently). The booklet that came with the cookie cutter is horrific in its punniness. It also was more racist than I was expecting. Not something I would have bought if I had known.

The cookies are a standard sugar cookie recipe made with almond extract (from Cookie Craft), so they would too be filled with nuttiness. I then made a small batch of chocolate royal icing. I decorated the cookies in 3 stages: first I piped the outside and then I thinned the icing to change it to a flood consistency and flooded them. After they were dry I then used pink candy melts to write For the Cure on the cookies. I'll admit that I was in a bit of a rush, so the piping is not the best I've ever done.

I only made about 9 cookies, but I have dough frozen to make other cookies later.

Of course, doing this made me remembering how much I enjoyed decorating cookies, though it is always more fun with it is silly like this.

Happy almost Friday!

some things shouldn't be funny, but they are

So, a few weeks ago I listened to the Lesser Known Candidates presidential debate. It was like a train wreck. I couldn't stop. While it was on video (and I was listening to the video), I had too many things to do to give it the attention it deserved. However, it was hilarious. What people consider appropriate is an amazing, amazing thing.

The video below is definitely not the Lesser Known Candidate debate, but it does contain one of the highlights. Even with my distaste for normal political discourse, this was worth watching... or listening to.

 

Do you have an ugly sweater in mind?

Happy holidays!

Well, this holiday card suggests that you pick one and a donation will be made. It's a funny idea, though it isn't my favorite card from this year's line up.

I don't have any intense desire to make my own ugly holiday sweater. There are plenty in thrift stores waiting to be brought to their forever homes. Do the humane thing and adopt an ugly holiday sweater this season.

 

 

 

somedays cuteness reigns

 
See all the cuteness!

One of the commenters on Mochimochiland earlier this week linked to one of these videos, and I was hooked. They are short, cute and, well, did I mention short? All 20+ videos take under 15 minutes to watch. Great as a tiny cure for the grumps.

From my husband was this cuteness!

Now excuse me. I'm trying to update my iPad, so I can have Scribblenauts on it. A game that is cute even if you (like me) never make it past the title screen. (Also, I'm being attacked by my husband and Saru-chan teaming up by rubbing her jelly beans on my arm. Pretty cute.)

Too many tabs

Tomorrow is my lovely husband's birthday, and I have the day off (and today as well) to cook and clean (mostly cook).

This has resulted in the strangest proliferation of tabs in my browser.

Gmail (replaced Google+ when I decided I had too many tabs)
Facebook
All Romance Ebooks
Pretzel Shortbread Snack Crack Bars
Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake
Zoo Babies (get your dose of cute today)
Google Reader, which just shows that some people post a lot and I'm super behind already
Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Ginger Pecan Crust
Garlic Knots (Emeril), which I am making with the pizza dough I used for tonight's mostly successful deep dish pizza
Marshmallow Frosting (Martha Stewart), which I'm using for Chris's pumpkin-eggnog marble cake
Fleaflicker (fantasy football)
And typepad.

Tomorrow is cake and finger foods, like veggie samosas (made with wonton wrappers, because I'm lazy), homemade mozzarella sticks, garlic knots, and pakora. There will be brunch on Saturday with bagels, pancakes, sausage, bacon and coffee cake (unless I make something else). And Saturday night will be my collapse with hopefully a very happy husband.

And round.

Ah well, that is what the treadmill is for.

nothing is done without XP

My husband and I are doing both Chore Wars and Fitocracy as ways to encourage ourselves to be more active and keep the house cleaner. We are both competitive enough that we will make good use of these tools in order to get more done in a way that stops leaving either one of us feeling that we do everything around the house.

Chore Wars is very D&D style. You have stats and your chores involve wandering monsters and treasure as additional flavor. You have a character class and a character image that is definitely old school D&D with elves and dwarves and undead and various fantastically garbed humans. We added more chores last night: litter box related and dog walking. Funnily, my husband's chores for dealing with the litter box involve fighting elder excrementals and mine for walking the dog involve poo demons. Great minds? I'm hoping that this tool makes it less likely that I will come home and be completely pissed when I see my kitchen a mess, because the mess will be more likely to be picked up as we go along.

Fitocracy has a different feel and is currently in beta. If you want an invite, please let me know. There is leveling, and quests and achievements. People complain how much different exercises are worth, but to me it doesn't matter. The goal is that you exercise in order to level and you want to level and level a lot. I am at level 5 with a vast amount of dog walking, some weight lifting, a bit of bike riding and some running on the treadmill. If I ever make it to the gym again I will be super far ahead. The best thing is that it is an additional encouragement for me to give Victor a walk rather than relying on him having fun in the back yard. I like giving Victor a walk, but last year I was giving him 2 long walks each day and it started feeling like an obligation more than it felt like a companionable time together. He deserves these walks, so anything that makes both of us happy is all to the good.

Now it is time for me to slip on the flip flops and get Victor into his walking gear.

Thanks everybody for the well wishes for Victor. He has an abscess which became infected. He is on antibiotics, and they are already working. The swelling has gone down and his energy has gone back up.

wanna unsee this?

One of my friends posted a link to the Huffington Post on Twitter yesterday...

This just makes me feel so educated while also making me want to pluck out my eyes. It's still hilarious though!