The Simple Things!

Today it's a lovely sunny day, not a cloud in the sky and it's windy. A great drying day. Also a great day for blowing bubbles with Lauren. Sorry the bubbles don't show in the photo. In fact we got so engrossed I forgot about the spaghetti I had put on to cook for her.

Funny how the simple things can give you a lot of pleasure and even save you money. Well apart from when you burn the spaghetti!

When the children were small I had to hang the washing out, we didn't have a tumble drier. In the days before disposables, I used to love to watch those lovely white nappies blowing on the line, even though my fingers were freezing in winter.

Years later, when I went out to work, I used the tumble drier as often as I could justify, to save me time. Couldn't count how many times I hung the washing out before I went to work because it was a lovely day, then I came back to find it soaked.

Now that I've left work and I'm taking life at a different pace, I enjoy going outside to hang out the washing. I don't even mind going out in winter as long as it's fine and windy. I look at the garden, listen to the birds, look at the sky and clouds, have a chat with the cats and then enjoy watching the washing blow from the kitchen window. Very theraputic!

When I take it back in the fresh smell is absolutely wonderful and I know I've not only saved some money but I'm being green and helping to save the planet.

BBC - Spoilsports!

There's no doubt about it. The BBC really know how to spoil a party.

Today is the official celebration for the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic teams in London and what a reception they are getting. Well from everyone except the BBC.

They showed the celebrations live and everyone was really enjoying themselves, later they'll go to Buckingham Palace for a reception with the Queen. Nice!

However the chap interviewing Chris Hoy (complete with his 3 gold medals) on the Olympic doubledecker bus, couldn't resist asking him how he felt about the possibility that the funding for sportsmen and women would be cut for the 2012 London Olympics. Think I would have slapped him!

Nice one BBC. It's official, you are spoilsports!

You should be ashamed of yourselves.

Drunken Pony "Fat Boy" falls into Swimming Pool!

This story is so funny and luckily had a happy ending.

Imagine waking up at 3.00am to find a drunken pony in your swimming pool. Well I could try if I had one, a pool I mean.

It's true take a look at the news article.

The iPod Saga Continues

My iPod

Now just look at it sitting there. Pretty little thing isn’t it? Sounds great too for such a small piece of equipment. It's really small, my car key is longer!

However that's where my admiration ends. It’s amazing how it can be such a real pain to get the music onto it, thanks to iTunes.

Now I’m no quitter, I’m determined I’m not going to let iTunes beat me. I’ve been trying for almost a whole week to put some more CDs onto the computer but it’s such tortuous process. A real pain in the bum!

It's still putting some songs into different folders. Michael Jackson’s Number Ones went into 18 separate folders. So I decided I can live without that on the iPod and took it off.

Still not finding the art work either and it’s so slow. It often freezes totally and I daren’t use any other programs with it. So much for the multi-tasking concept, iTunes puts the mockers on that!

Decided to check out whether other people are having problems. First my son-in-law who has all his music on his iPod. He says he has the same problem with the art work but it doesn’t bother him. Well I can't ignore it, looks horrible. I know I'm a bit of a perfectionist but I hate those blanks. So I’ll have to keep going onto the Internet to find it and manually add it. How come if iTunes is the major online music store they can’t find half my records when they’re all still available to buy?

He has had a different problem with iTunes though, has lost half his music from the laptop! Hasn’t a clue how it happened. Now he has to figure out whether he can get it back from the iPod onto his computer. Hopefully I won't have that problem, but if I do, my backup drive should put them back.

Tried my son next. His comment about iTunes was, “It’s total pants!” He’s about to buy a new MP3 player, one that he can use his Windows Media Player with. Looks like I'm not the only one who has problems.

So Apple, (the company that is world renowned for its design of computers), if you can design such nice looking music hardware, why the heck can’t you go the whole hog and get the software to work properly?

Amigurumi

Amigurumi is the Japanes art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and other things. Apparently!

Had to say I'd never heard of it until last week.

Not sure what exactly this is, but it looks quite cute.The pattern is on Wikihow here http://www.wikihow.com/Crochet-an-Amigurumi-Toy

If you want to find more animals check out this website. There's lots of other stuff too here, snowman, frog, fish, jack -o- lantern or a skull bag for Halloween, even food like candy corn? There's also lots more crochet and knitting patterns on the site and lots of them are FREE!
http://www.lionbrand.com/cgi-bin/patternList.fcgi?tXX=1&d=Children&s=Crochet

This Blog has some unusual ones, jammy dodgers, strawberries, mushrooms and a bear dressed up as Little Red Riding Hood. Not all the patterns are given but it gives you some ideas. http://imaginarywardrobe.blogspot.com/search/label/amigurumi

Just in case you don't crochet but fancy giving it a try here's some instructions.
http://www.lionbrand.com/cgi-bin/faq-search.cgi?store=/stores/eyarn&learnToCrochet=1