Things I'm Diggin

Wow. A lot has happened in the last couple weeks.  For one, the Hottie Hubs and I both turned another year older.  yay.  I'm just thrilled to be in the beginning stages of my thirties.  Is that excitement or sarcasm you're reading??

I went on an almost week long vaca for the first time in YEARS.  It was nice.  I spent it at my parents cabin on Coeur d'Alene lake and although the weather wasn't the greatest, I still achieved the relax I was going for.

Its my birthday and I'll lick every straw if I want to. 

Smily and Ducky

What.A.Blast

My Lola Rae has finally learned how to catch a frisbee mid-air.  Funny how I thought every border collie was born knowing this skill. Now if we can teach her not to destroy the frisbee's edge with her toofies. 

Speaking of amazing border collies, have you seen this video of Nana?  She's basically my Lola's hero. If I had more time and patience, I'd totally teach Lola more tricks.  That was my thought when we initially got Lola, but it just seemed like a lot of work (for me). 




OMG. I just ran across this video this last week.  I could totally see myself prancercising on my morning walks with Kelly Riddle.  Minus the cameltoe.  Well, maybe with.  It does add a little pizzazz.




I love a good youtube video.  In fact, we took turns this weekend picking videos to watch.  We watched a colorguard video (for Michele), a couple Squirrel Suit videos, including adding "fail" to the end, and the Bri-Wi (as Jimmy Fallon calls him) video.

But THIS video came to me Monday and I cannot get over how funny it is.  First off, we had a German foreign exchange student live with us for 9 months back in 1999 and I remember how often she would ask us to explain different english sayings that made NO SENSE to her.  I also remember her educating us on a few terms that translated funny.  Example: For a song that gets stuck in your head, she says, is "an ear worm" which is a really creepy visual.  Now, I know my mother does not appreciate when I mention poop in my blog, so I'm sorry Mom.  But c'mon. This is funny.  Real funny.




There's not many pages I "like" on Facebook, mainly because I'm bothered by the crazy # posts I could give two you know whats about. But if there's one page (besides Blake's Beanies of course) that I could only "like" it would be the Tosh.0 page.  They link to different blog posts on his website, and its not so much the post as it is the comments that I enjoy.  For example: He had this picture of someone's McChicken posted, and the first person's comment was very punny. 

And the top commenter wrote: "You will have to lettuce know when the wedding is. You better not chicken out! We can ketchup on everything. Is there a bun in the oven? Nevermind I don't really karat all."

***Disclaimer*** (for my mother really) THIS SITE IS NOT APPROPRIATE MOST OF THE TIME. ITS FUNNY, BUT NOT APPROPRIATE TO SHOW YOUR PARENTS/BOSSES. 

As far as TV shows, we've really had to get creative since the end of Survivor and The Following.  (holy crap. The Following's finale was cray cray)

Soooo,  we've been searching around our Roku and have found a couple pretty amazing shows.

1. Nathan For You

Think Sasha Baron Cohen with a side of Tom Green.  Basically he goes to businesses offering advice.  Really bad advice.  They take him 100% seriously, and he manages to keep a complete straight face the entire time.  I think we watched every single episode in one night.  And then watched them over just because they are that good.

2. Inside Amy Schumer.  Its another one on Comedy Central and she's pretty funny.  I think she's funniest when she's interviewing people, because then she's not trying too hard. But her sketch show has had some pretty funny skits.  One was about a school you send your older generation relatives to so they can learn how to be politically correct when they talk.  It hits home to me because my grandpa was born in 1915 (nuf said). 

3. The Ben Show with Ben Hoffman.  Something about a TV show about pretending to be completely serious but really majorly messing with people is and always will be hilarious to me. 

Basically I'm limited to what my Roku decides to store on it, so sometimes I have to fall back on the always dependable Law & Order: SVU or Lockdown.  

Movies:

Well, I finally saw The Mighty Ducks and Look Who's Talking.  Lets just say they were better in my mind, but I wasn't too disappointed. I mean, I had watched both before a few times, it'd just been awhile.  I guess what made me most sad was that Hottie Hubs wasn't as excited as me, and therefore didn't quite make it through either one.  Oh well.  Pick your battles.

-The Impossible.  It was great.  I cried a few times.

-Django Unchained.  It was amazing.  Even my own mother (who HATES the F word) liked it.  She liked it so much she watched it again with her friends.  Now thats a movie. 

-You've Been Trumped.  Can't remember if I finished it, but he's pretty much an asshat and only cares about himself.  Funniest part = one of the town folk describing what his hair looked like when the wind hit him just right. 

-Shelter Me. "Aiming to boost the adoption of shelter pets, this uplifting documentary focuses on the sucess stories, including dogs trained as service animals for the disabled and others who are helping returning war veterans with PTSD".  Pretty much amazing and a real boost for the facial tissue companies.

Food:

Not my steak pic, but this guy's who cooked his too long apparently.

Costco knows whats up when choosing which products to "sample".  We were there without a cart, specifically to get Rodney a new camera and I just HAD to snack on whatever they were sampling.  It was soo good, I immediately grabbed one and when the Sample Lady saw me, she offered us another sample.  She was nice. 

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS.  Since slappin this beast onto the BBQ, I've been eating it for every meal.  Just this morning I put a couple thin slices onto my egg sammy.  Since I've got less than 4oz left, I'm going to be heading back to get another one. Or two. Or eight. 

Farm Fresh Eggs.

I've heard they're the cats pjs, but I don't really know anyone willing to share their loot with me, so I've just stuck to the Kirkland Organic Browns.  Which were quickly pushed to the back of the fridge when our good ol' buddy Luke Jackson stopped by with these.  I didn't share ONE EGG WITH the hubs.  Oops.  They were just.that.good.  Not kidding, once you go farm fresh, you never go bock.  Get it?  haha. i'm funny.

Hey Luke. We need more. Thanks.

What are you guys diggin?  I'm always in need of some new shows, movies, food, youtube videos.  ALWAYS. 

Beardie Fever

Have you seen these?

Lady Beards

 

 Man Beards

If you're a friend of mine and not some blogstalker (which is o.k. too) you probably have.

I call them beardies, I spose because it sounds like (blake's) beanies and because I'm a dork.

I've sold them to people in Vermont, Texas, New York, Utah, Ohio, California, Louisiana, Deleware, Kansas, Florida,  Seattle, Pullman, to name a few places.  Crazy thinking about all these people putting something I crocheted on their faces.

The latest beardie craze happened over the weekend.  If you saw my FB posts, then you already know.  I have an order for 50 OR MORE.   And she wanted around 1/2 of those mailed to her this week, so all beardie buyers can wear them for a football game on Friday.  Its a fundraiser for the high school she teaches at, and the mascot has an orange beard, as shown here:

It's super awesome because it means lots of exposure and mulah for muah.  But what it also means is that I'm crocheting instead of sleeping, cooking, cleaning, bathing, blinking, etc.  Well, I guess the I don't normally bathe on Saturdays anyways, so thats nothing new. jk. kinda.

On top of that, my etsy store is on FY-AH.  I started my etsy page in December of 2011, so I didn't realize how much business to expect for the fall season.  Man,  people plan ahead!!! Either that or its a lot colder in other parts of the US right now because so far this week, I've had 7 orders for hats, fingerless gloves and beardies. 

Plus, I've got my in town peeps ordering stuff too!!!  (you guys are priority right now fyi)

Obviously, I LOVE CROCHETING.  And every year I'm helluz busy.  But this year tops it.  I've stocked up for my November 17th craft fair, but now I'm selling the stuff I have in stock, so I'm now restocking my stock.   I'm loving all the orders I've received and I see myself crocheting until I grow old and can no longer operate my robotic fingers. 

Thanks to EVERYONE who is sportin a Blake's Beanie, Beardie, Headband, or fingerless gloves, pretend eating my crocheted food,  or has just purchased one and is waiting (hopefully patiently) for one.   

Also, thanks to ROKU for allowing Netflix and Hulu+ to be streaming Teen Mom, Parenthood, Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Workaholics, and many many movies. 

If YOU would like a beardie, or anything else crochet related, email me at blakesbeanies@gmail.com, or visit my etsy shop!  And if you've already purchased something of mine, I would LOVE a picture of you wearing the beard or hat!!!

Roku, my new bff

TV has always been a bestestest friend of mine. A friend that occupies your time so much that even when they say the same thing over and over (re-runs) you still listen intently. When I was young, I can remember having a schedule during summer breaks that ran from 9am-5pm. A TV schedule that is. It went a little something like this:

(it takes a lot to admit to this much television viewing....baby steps)

9am: Live with Regis and Kathie Lee

10am: Price is Right

11:05: Batman (the old old version) "POW"
11:35: Batman (the old old version)

12:00pm: All My Children (hey it was my parents lunch break, and they hadn't missed an episode EVER)

1:05pm: Brady Bunch (TBS always had strange start times!!)

1:35pm: Brady Bunch

2:05pm: Saved by the Bell

2:35pm: Saved by the Bell

3:05pm: Family Matters

3:35pm: Family Matters

4-5 I can't really remember. Probably whatever was on after Family Matters. Anyone???

I heart Zack Morris

I was in love with Saved by the Bell and Brady Bunch.  I watched everyday because I KNEW there had to be an episode I hadn't seen. I may have blog mentioned this before, but remember the one SBTB episode with the lizard? Yeah, I actually saw that for the first time not that long ago.....proving my point.


So when we had to cancel our cable because we were getting ripped off by DirecTV, it was a sad day. Although the hubs and I had watched every History/VH1/MTV/Discovery reality show episode three times over, we still liked having the DVR and all those channels at our beck and call.

Its been over a year since we've had cable and we're still alive! For awhile, we didn't have anything. Then I noticed bunny ears at a friends house, and she was getting all the main channels for FREE.  Wait, I thought those channels were going away, and we were being forced to buy that "box"????? Not in this small years-behind-technology town!  So we have the bunny ears. Downside? It seems all 4 channels sing a different static song so we were constantly having to get off the couch to adjust the antenna. How 1960 of us.

Then I was at another friends house, and she was surfing these channels on a screen I had never seen before. It wasn't DirecTV, it wasn't Dish, it wasn't basic cable, it was like this little tiny box that harbored thousands of movies and TV shows waiting to be watched. I immediately felt my inner TV junkie coming out as I asked her a million questions about it.  Its name is Roku. And I love Roku. A lot. 

It hooks up to the TV with those red/white/yellow cords, and just plugs into an outlet. Thats it. Well, you have to have wireless internet of course.  Its not that magic. And you pay for it 1 time, no monthly charges. On it are channels: Pandora, Hulu Plus, Netflix, Crackle, Amazon Prime, plus more.  We already had an account with Amazon Prime (bc I have a Kindle Fire) and Crackle is free (TVs and movies).  We decided to get into the monthly charge of 7.99 for Hulu Plus and cancel our Netflix, just because there's soooo much to watch on Hulu Plus that we didn't think we needed both.  Now that we've surfed hours and hours through Hulu Plus, we decided to switch back to Netflix for 7.99/month and temporarily cancel Hulu+. So, for 7.99/month, we have streaming movies and tv shows.  Sooo much cheaper than satellite, and better because all the shows are waiting for you as if they were on a DVR. Plus no commercials.  I repeat. No commercials.

If you are interested, click on the link I attached above.  You'll get $5 off, and possibly free shipping. Totally worth it.  We've saved over $1000 in the last year by not having satellite/cable TV.