Pedigree Adoptadrive..

The following site (child and work friendly) has an ad on tv running at the moment, it goes something like "I know Im a good dog, I can sit, I can fetch, I can roll over, but what I dont understand is why I ended up here" ..

As someone who has adopteted two dogs who needed a loving home, and would if I could adopt more, but I just dont have the space, and having paid up a fair chunk when I had a pay out on my own car accident I paid up to a local rescue dog place, I actually object to the almost every 20 minute guilt trip they try and put me on..

Please, donate and help the doggies if you dont have those you already have helped doggies of your own area, or have rescue dogs, or just plain cant afford it, but if you're sitting there on your plush pc, with fat internet link, car, and savings and no cares in the world... think of them.. and the fact they dont necessarily have a tomorrow, they have no home, no family they can get in contact with, no one to turn to.

All gone green..

So, after many months of swear, tears and a couple of bits of blood..

I finally got my green belt yesterday, I get the impression the regional guy was not happy to do it, but, kinda didnt have any real reason he could give to stop me. So, finally, my green belt.. RAR! I worked my feet off, I lost blood and feeling in one foot and had extreeme pain in the other.. I sweated like a man in a forge.. it was not a great grading I felt terrible, I was tired, drawn out and there were only 14 of us, not the 100+ that there had been at my last grading, so, I felt rather on show..

My friend who made the orangey/pink and red blanket for? got her blanket today in the post, and is dead happy, which is excellent news..

Its my mothers 61st birthday (assuming shes still alive somewhere)

My Dad phoned he has a new furry friend..



As you can see, shes a big ball of black fluffy fur, shes 11 months old, and called Rosie! Currently weighing in at a monsterous 33kg, so, shes only going to get bigger!!!

A view on life.

Im a member of a number of crochet mailing lists. They work out as roughly similar while some are UK others global, its all pretty much the same, except 1.

There are a couple out there who make crochet hooks, generally rather tubby ones. They market it as very different, eg, like they invented crochet. Which if their marketing is to be believed they make nice hooks and so on. However, this one mailing list, is devoted to these "hooks" .. but the attitude of those people almost follows on from the site.. They believe that while they use a technique thats been around for like 100 years, this couple invented it, and that by using these hooks it will be entirely different, and thats fine.. although it is rather amusing to read.

However, what really stands out is the general attitude of wanting patterns.. To give you an idea of how hard it is not necessarily to make a "graph" try the following.

Go to google
select search on images
type a cartoon character
Look for something that has only a few colours, something such as bloo here..

Now, save it, to your disk, open it in mspaint.. And select the view menu, then zoom, then custom, select 800, then select the view menu again, then zoom and then show grid.

Now, you see some part of bloo with little squares. Each of those squares can be used as a crochet stitch. There, now you have a graph you can use. Congratulations..

So, why is this group full of people who want graphs for things? things that you can find all over the internet, and in fact can find pre done saved with grids and everything graphs..

More to the point, some also then want "row counts" which is that you could from the bottom and (assuming right handed) right to left, the number of each colours.. so it might go

Row 005 (R to L) :{White} x1, {Christmas Green Med} x6, {White} x4, {Orange VY DK} x3, {Christmas Green Med} x7, {White} x1

yes, all you do is count the squares colour by colour...
and they almost get rude and offended if people dont make the graph and row counts for them!!

So.. I finished my last project



Ignore the "work in progress" banner.. but, I did this, I did this without asking anyone to count things for me.. I did ask an artistic friend to turn it into simple set of colours, as it was originally a chalk sketch.. but, its really not that hard to count..

These people are kinda frustrating because I see them being so demanding, but at the same time, if you dont do the same they all but lynch you!!

Weight loss inspiration..

OK, so theres a program on my tv about Renee Williams who weighed 841 lbs

Shes on the tv program about how its not because she ate too much, yet at the same time her children point out she'd buy 8 big macs.. and eat them..

The sad reality is (as an overweight person, but not in the same league as Renee) that we kid ourselves we arent eating badly, that it must be "something else" .. however, the sad fact of the reality for Renee was

a) the gastric bypass then she lost 67 lbs in 12 days.. Hmm so funny now you cant eat the weight starts shedding.
b) the shock was too much for her and it sadly cost her, her life.

Now, I have a BMI of somewhere around 31-32 which is fat. However, I know its because I eat more than I do.

This year, I vow to do more, so even if at the end of the year, I still eat more than I do.. I will be eating less or doing more..

Welcome to 2008!

2008 has arrived, at least around here by being blown up with small firework like bombs.

The boring person looks out my window this morning at the grey miserable looking weather and cant help but think, its only another day..

Well today my doggie goes swimming, he loves that, but he was limping last night so I need to check him this morning.. sigh..

Heres to hoping 2008 goes well.