Monday, September 29, 2008

When Life Gives You Lemons...

make lemonade. Ok, that's all fine and good, but just what are you supposed to do with a car that looks like this?

Unfortunately, Melissa has been driving the car while I've been carpooling and apparently it really isn't cool to be a high school senior and ride the bus to school. She is more upset than I am that we are temporarily carless.

All I can say is thank goodness that when I was trying to pare down insurance costs, I didn't drop the comprehensive. And a special thanks to the Good Samaratin who made a u-turn to help with his fire extinguisher.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Faith In Action

Over the weekend I was able to see my old pastor, Tiger Pennington, at a fundraiser for GraceNow and HealthNow, a local foodbank and health care center.

His message was basically "Faith in action is a response to grace."

Isn't it funny that you don't realize how much you miss someone until you see them again?

Thursday, September 25, 2008

We Can Do OCR!

Yesterday afternoon I installed the new Abbyy FineReader software that just came in.

Installation was a breeze and the software is very intuitive to start using. Scanning the first document was simple. I didn't even have to look at the manual to scan or edit the text. It did get a bit more complicated when the document was saved, because there are so many options available.

The end result that I wanted was a .pdf document that looked like the original that, but that had a text layer underneath which allowed the user to search the document. After several tries and reading the manual (imagine that) here is the end result.

To get a document that looks like the original scan select 'keep original image size,' 'text under page image' and 'enable tagged pdf'.'

Some things to note. FineReader automatically rotated the landscape photograph on page 8, but it couldn't read the text that was sideways in the table on page 16. To get that section of text readable I think it would take a lot of extra effort.

I was impressed with the accuracy of the OCR and the ease of use. So now we enter another phase of digitization.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Finishing Knitting Projects

Since realizing just how many knitting projects I have started, I've been working hard to finish some of them.

The yoga mat bag was the easiest to complete once I resolved the not enough yarn issue, so I ripped out the strap and used that yarn to finish the bag. Instead of knitting a strap, I braided one from the Navaho rope directions in Shear Spirit. So one project is finished except for the drawstring around the top and that doesn't count. Sorry for the blurry photo and the cardboard tube used as filler, but that's what was available.

Then I started on the couch pillow that was mostly finished, only now it isn't. I learned the proper way to make a seam and got excited, but when I put it on the pillow form, I was even more dissatisfied with the flap that buttons down. Since that was the first part knit, I refuse to rip out the whole pillow, so I think I will try unraveling it at the color change, pick up stitches and reknit the flap differently. Isn't the right seam so much prettier? Well at least it is neater.

Friday, September 19, 2008

From Other Blogs

I picked this up from Eastside Farm Chronicles and want to keep it where I can get back to it, so here goes.

The Wolves Inside You

A Parable

An elder Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, "A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The other stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."

"This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too", he added.

The Grandchildren thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied... "The one you feed."

And from Rosemary-go-Round my next knitting project. I have the yarn in my stash and this one's a keeper.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Horses are Family, Too

Phanton and Bubba Louie have been part of our family for four years. We got them when the girls wanted any horse, just to have horses. The owner was moving and wanted a good home for them. Since they had injuries as weanlings they weren't rideable and as we soon found out, they were extremely high strung. They have been together since they were babies and don't like being separated.

The girls are older and we have acquired other horses that they can ride (a total of 6). With the drought this year and gas prices so high the hay cutter took 2/3 instead of 1/2, we don't have enough hay to carry us through the winter. So we had to find homes for some horses.

I made arrangements with Kentucky Equine Humane Center to take Phantom and Bubba, arranged for a truck and trailer to haul them, took off work and found out at the last minute that they had to have a negative coggins test. We loaded them to take them to the vet to draw blood. Not an easy task. They had only been in a horse trailer once before in their lives and they didn't like the looks of this one. When we finally got them loaded we started talking about how to get them loaded next week for the trip to Nicholasville. Todd, being a cow and goat person, wasn't too anxious to go through that ordeal again and myself, looking at scraping together almost $300 to give away two horses, started talking about what to do with them.

After a couple phone calls we finally decided to take them to the stockyards and let them go through the sale ring Saturday. I'm trying not to think about what will happen to them from there. They are both sweet and I wish they could have lived out there lives right where they were. I feel like such a traitor.

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Water For Elephants

I have always been a voracious reader. If I go for a couple months without reading, then I can't do anything until I've devoured several books back to back. That makes it really hard to get things done.

Then I discovered audio books. Then the public library gave us access to free audio downloads through Kentucky Libraries Unbound and I got an MP3 player. Now I can 'read' books anywhere. While I'm knitting, pulling weeds, cutting up dozens of apples to can, walking, you name it. I'm much more productive and it makes the job I'm working on less monotonous.

Water for Elephants is the first audio book I've listened to that I feel like I need to go back to the real book and actually read it to make sure I didn't miss a single word. It is one of the best books I've read in a long time. Parts of it are heartbreakingly sad, and parts are funny and the twist at the end makes you go back to reread the prologue immediately. If you're looking for a good read, I highly recommend Water for Elephants.

Monday, September 15, 2008

House Renovations Already

All the canning that has been keeping me busy for the past couple months has caused an immediate renovation project (to a new house). Closet Maid shelving is easy to install and easy to keep clean and is fairly durable in most circumstances. Holding many jars of food is not one of them.

Besides the fact that I'm out of space (a couple dozen jars are on the kitchen counter still) these shelves are sagging to the point that I just know I'll wake up one night to a huge crash.

Over the weekend I gave my daughter the choice to put in new wooden shelves or to slice and peel apples for apple pie filling. She chose shelving. She found the studs, measured everything, predrilled holes, screwed the braces into the studs, leveled everything both directions, cut the shelves and reorganized the jars.

This afternoon she is using the last of the shelving to add one more shelf and eventually all the Closet Maid shelves will be replaced. Since the new shelves are closer together there will be more room to store food.

Just for the record she is 17 and yes, I am just a little proud of her.

The star of the garden this year has been sweet potatoes. These two potatoes alone weigh 5 pounds and there were a couple dozen between 1 and 2 pounds, not to mention the dozens of smaller potatoes. Even though they are huge they are still tender and delicious.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Knitting Has Gotten Out of Hand

When I woke up this morning the first thing I saw was yarn and knitting needles. Then I started counting works in progress. Yikes! There were seven projects within reach and 5 more that were hiding in a box just out of sight.

Granted 4 of these projects just need to be sewn together and have the ends woven in to be complete. For one I need a larger circular needle than I have right now. One I ran out of yarn and am trying to figure out how to work around that; the dye lots I can find are way off the original, so the handle may get a new color. I cast on a pair of socks for Ashley to knit this weekend that somehow ended up back in my pile of knitting even though I'm positive that I gave them to her and showed her how to do it.

For some reason there is something in my head that just can't wait to start the next new project. Who cares if there are a dozen in varying stages of completion waiting my attention? It must be a sickness, but is there a cure? Help!

Just What I Need

This post is for reference for an upcoming trip to Athens, GA.

The Cat's Meow
2141A w. Broad Street
Athens, GA 30606
+1 (706) 316 2130
Owner: Heather West
email: thecatsmeowyarnshop@hotmail.com
This is Athens' first yarn store. The Cat's Meow is a full-service shop with frequent classes, weekly knit-ins, and helpful, friendly and knowledgeable staff. The yarns carried here are high quality (Noro, Debbie Bliss, Brown Sheep, Elsebeth Lavold among many others) and there is a large selection of novelty and baby yarns as well. Different brands of needles in a wide range of sizes (Clover, Crystal Palace and Addi Turbos) and knitting notions, books and patterns are also available. This store is a must for any visitors to the Athens area.

Friday, September 5, 2008

Book Terminology

The Independent Online Booksellers Association has a great list of book terms on their website.

Perfect Corn Revisited

I tried the cabbage/hot pepper mixture on the corn this year and it worked pretty well. It stunk to high heaven, but I had only a couple ears with ear worms. I had more that was damaged by the worms that bore in through the sides, so next year I'll try spraying the entire ear rather than just the silks.

The biggest problem was pollination because we planted only 2 rows and ran out of seed. It needed at least 3 rows.