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Friday, October 23, 2009

7 Quick Takes Friday, #37



1. I'm a dishwasher freak. If it's not completely full, I can't run the dishwasher through a washing cycle. It feels improper and illegal and I just can't do it. I fill it up so completely - utilizing every inch of space - that it rivals the cluttered kitchen aisles of Bed, Bath & Beyond. No. More. Room. But not so tight that the dishes don't get clean; I make sure it's all in good order.

On the other hand, I run into those times where it's pretty much full, with only a tiny slot left. There are no more dishes to be found in the whole house, but I badly want to get these clean so I can finish the job.

This happened yesterday, and I was doing my best to locate a stray bowl or mug for the top rack. Everywhere else was full and ready to be washed. I started to get itchy just thinking about running the dishwasher without it being completely filled - just one more bowl would do it. Just ONE more....

So I ate a quick bowl of cereal. For no other purpose than to make a dirty dish.

Welcome to crazy town.


2. Speaking of crazy, I've been heading that way since trying to download photos to purchase online prints. It's been SO long since I've ordered prints and I'm feeling the pressure to get it taken care of. Only, when I say SO long, I mean like, about a year ago. If I remember right. So there are approximately one million pictures to be located, sorted, and uploaded to the photo site. This takes approximately two million life spans and has sucked me dry of my life force.

The photo site can upload 200 photos at a time and if you do that amount (which I've done 3 separate times already) the standard time it takes is 120 minutes. 120 minutes. You could hand-draw the pictures yourself in that amount of time. I don't even want to think about how much money I'll be spending on the photos, but I do have a $20 coupon from the site, so hopefully that'll put a teeny tiny cutesy wootsy dent in my order.

But I'm not sure it'll make a dent in my ability to see straight after editing my one million pictures. Those things take time.



3. If I didn't take so many pictures, we'd be OK. But I'm such a bad photographer that I have to take about 8 shots of the same thing for one to turn out looking something like I want it to. And then the other ones are hard to delete because they're usually pictures of my daughters, and doesn't it feel sacrilegious to delete your child's picture? It does for me, anyway.

Would you like proof of my terrible photography skills? NO? Well, you're this close, you may as well look anyway.

There was the most beautiful sunrise the other morning. Since the kids were still sleeping, I ran outside to the street with a camera to capture it so they could see it later. But my camera is so plain and even if it did have some setting which would make this picture better, I wouldn't know how to use it. What I ended up with are terribly unflattering shots of one of the most colorful sunrises I've ever seen. (Not that I've seen a whole lot - I'm still working on enjoying the waking up part of the day.)

In all its not-fully-captured glory, the sunrise:






Make of it what you will.



4. My sweet little Lauren Jade - at 18 months - can talk like nobody's business. And often she talks about nobody's business.

While rolling on the floor together, rough-housing (ruffling!) before bed one night, she suddenly stopped. Looking at me with surprise and concentration, she said "TOOT!" before popping off a noisy row of toots. She was warning us, I guess. But the...the...duration...of her gassiness caught her off guard. With even more surprise than before, she yelled, "MOTORCYCLE TOOT!"

I snorted and cried and honked with laughter. We were quite the noisy pair.



5. How, in ancient times, did people deal with bad eyesight? I've been wondering about this because it seems like everywhere I go, a good deal of the population needs glasses or contacts to see correctly. Is this a recent phenomenon? Because I never really hear about bad eyesight in, say, historical novels. Which are the height of accuracy, as we all know. Were people with really bad eyesight just considered blind? I'm sure I would have been. How did they make a living or keep from getting hurt? Did they get treated differently for not being able to see? Or did everyone have bad eyesight, and therefore nothing seemed amiss?

I read somewhere that about 75% of the population (world? US?) needs corrective lenses of some sort. Has it always been so?

These kinds of irrelevant things keep me up at night.



6. I'm having a Pampered Chef party this weekend. I consider most in-home parties to be something to endure for the sake of a friend, but Pampered Chef is different: I love it. I love the cooking part, the eating part, and the kitchen gadgets part. I love that many items are in my price range and many items are in my dream range. In short, I'm really looking forward to the party.

What's your idea of a fun in-home sales party?



7. A while back, I saw an advertisement for washable, reusable lunch baggies. For sandwiches, fruit, veggies, chips, that sort of thing. We go through plastic baggies way too often and I've really been feeling wasteful about it. At one time I washed them out to reuse them, but after months of this I was starting to hate the sight of my countertops lined with ballooned out bags tented over every available surface. I'd love to find those reusable cloth bags again. Have you ever heard of anything like this or where I might be able to find some?



That's it for this week's exciting installment of 7 moderately Quick Takes - check out the entire link list at Conversion Diary, and enjoy your weekend!

23 comments:

  1. 2. FYI, artscow.com has an offer for free prints for new members, just pay shipping.

    3. Yes, it totally feels sacrilegious to delete pictures of your children. That is why I have dozens of blurry shots of my daughter turning away from the camera saved on my computer!

    5. I have wondered just this thing! I remember asking my dad when I got my first pair of glasses at 8 years old what happened to Native Americans with bad eyesight. I have no idea how he answered that one, but I was really worried about them setting up their tepees and going on hunting expeditions without 20/20 vision.

    6. Pampered Chef parties rock! Have fun!!!

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  2. I've been coveting things from this site lately: http://www.nubiusorganics.com/. Check it out!

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  3. I don't know about the reusable bags, but I just use Tupperware. That stuff lasts FOREVER. I've also kept some of those small containers for lunch meats, and those work great.

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  4. eww my MIL washes out baggies and I feel the same way. reused baggies gross me out washed and hanging there to dry.

    i still have pictures from 4 years ago that need pronted out

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  5. #1, 2, and 4 made my morning. I think I might have ruined my son's nursing session because I was laughing so uproariously.

    I can't delete any of my kids' pictures either. They'll appreciate the 500 shots of them playing with the same Lego block, I'm sure of it.

    And I think the sunrise photos are good :)

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  6. 1. Wow. Just wow.
    6. I just had a pampered chef party. Got lots of good stuff!
    7. Check Etsy. I've seen cute reusable baggies on Etsy.

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  7. Oh my gosh, I don't even have pictures from when Savannah was born...the last pictures I ordered were when I was pregnant-it seems so time consuming and I'd like to just order all of them and catch up, but I don't think that is in the budget so I am forever trying to catch up, all the while, taking more pictures that need to be uploaded!

    That Lauren is a funny girl!!

    I don't know about the washable reusable bags, we just use tupperware containers and the like...we also use plastic baggies (which I also think is wasteful) but not as often as we used to.

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  8. 1. Wow. Really? Somehow, that makes me like you even more.

    3. Just look at all that color!

    4. Oh little Lauren! I don't even know her, but I love her!

    5. Okay, I've thought about this before (a lot) and here's my list of theories: a) they didn't watch TV, look at the computer, read novels, etc. so their eyes were probably stronger b) they had shorter lives so their eyes didn't have time to weaken, and c) if they lost their eyesight early, they were probably eaten by wild animals...as I'm sure I would have been.

    7. I've never heard of that before, but it's a really good idea. I'll look around!

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  9. Great picture of the sunset!! I thought it wurned out good!
    I am a pampered chef consultant!!!! I love all the stuff and do it to feed my habit!

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  10. I hate deleting photos of my baby, too, but sometimes if one is just NO GOOD I make myself do it. I feel the guilt for hours, though.

    I don't have a dishwasher, but I would be the same way if I did. When I lived with my parents I took special pride in cramming that thing as full as it could possibly get before running it. (Which wasn't hard with 9 people producing dirty dishes).

    I wash out baggies sometimes. Just sometimes...I think it is a little icky. To console myself about throwing them away, I just buy cheap ones from ALDI.

    I did the pictures this week. I used to be really bad about saving them forever, but the computer died on us a few months ago and we lost everything. So I am paranoid now. I just put them all on CDs and truck the baby to the Walgreens a few blocks away to get them printed. I'd go insane trying to upload them to a website.

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  11. http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6871436
    Has some very cute re-suable bags.
    Motorcycle toot.
    LOVE IT.

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  12. Ah, great points this week, lol!

    The thought of Little Lauren ripping motorcycle toots just makes me honk with laughter too... :)

    Yes, try etsy for the bags...

    I like Emily's theories on the eyesight, especially the one about being eaten. Ha!

    And did you ever read my two posts about my picture-uploading dilemma? UGH x ten trillion!! 2100 pictures... *faint* Did you do prepaids yet? That's how I did it to save money and get the best price/pic. Still a lot, though...

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  13. Amanda - I love your Native American query! And I'll have to look into artscow.com. Maybe they upload faster...

    Erin - Thanks for the tip! I'm so bad about finding places to shop online. This should help.

    Megan - I use those lunch meat containers too :)

    babyyahyah - 4 years?! You and I are the ones digital cameras have done harm to :)

    Lenae - Yes! I love to make you laugh. Laughing milk is healthier for the baby - I think I've heard that somewhere...probably in a historical novel.

    Chelsea - Can we still be friends after #1? I'll try etsy - but I'm a little intimidated by the sheer volume of goods available. This is why I usually fail at online shopping. I need specific directions and fewer options. I'm a wimp.

    Katie - Maybe you should check out artscow.com too...you need it more than I do :)

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  14. Wow! Three Emily's commented in a ROW. Is that awesome or what?! It's like I bowled a turkey...

    Sicilian/Oklahoman Emily - I love that I'm not the only one who's thought so extensively on the eyesight subject. But I must admit, your theories are a little more well prepared than my own. You're my hero :)

    Missourian Emily - I think I remembered that about you. That you sell Pampered Chef. Are you still doing it since your move? Feeding the addiction is right. I could see myself doing that!

    Emily G - That's one of the main reasons I want to get the pictures now. I'm worried about our computer eating them all - it's a little on the temperamental side lately, and I hate to take a chance. Plus, I can order a CD of the photos I get, so it'll make a backup for me. Pictures would be awful to lose.

    happygeek - Oh THANK YOU! A specific etsy shop - my dream come true :) I'll check it out for sure.

    Kate - I remember that you had problems uploading, and then I saw the CRATE of photos that was delivered to you :) I think I'll fall short of 2100. Thank goodness. But I have no idea what prepaids are...please advise.

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  15. I used to do in-home wine tastings. Those were the best kind of party. I technically wasn't selling the wine b/c that would be illegal, but it was a similar setup. Good food and good wine--what more could you want?

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  16. I am the same way with the dishwasher!! So nice to know that I'm not the only one :).

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  17. My favorite HAS to be #4...hilarious, hilarious, hilarious! :)

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  18. #2 and #3 - Yes! I just uploaded my own photos after about a year. It took FOREVER. I was so exhausted I haven't even ordered them yet. :-)

    That first shot of the sunrise is glorious. We have great sunsets here in the southwest--it's also hard to capture their beauty.

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  19. The Toot and Motorcycle Toot is hilarious. OMG, too funny.

    I am so far behind on ordering pics, that once I do order and get them, they're in envelopes until I get them organized in the albums. Most of which I don't have enough of. You're totally not alone!

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  20. I love it. Thank you again for a brilliant post.

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  21. Motorcycle toot made me snort out loud...my cube mate thinks I'm crazy now. Well, crazier.

    I think you take beautiful pictures. Deleting them is impossible, isn't it?

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  22. Oh my stars, I was *snorting* at the Motorcyle Toot

    I think your dishwasher habits are completely normal, I'm exactly the same way. We should be neighbors in Crazy Town :)

    And as for the photography, well, those pictures look good to me, what does that tell you about my photography skills? :)

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Hmm...And how did that make you FEEL?