Review and Giveaway: The Garfield Show
As a kid in school, we used to have the Scholastic book orders and there were two series I ordered every book from. The first was the Little House on the Prairie series. The second was the Garfield series. I really loved reading the little vignettes and they were a good escape for me. I think part of it was that I just loved cats, and Jim Davis had a knack for capturing the behaviour of cats in a way that explained it to very young readers.
I also loved the Garfield cartoon specials. I had them all (recorded on VHS, of course, from the TV), so when the opportunity came to share Garfield with the Poptart, I immediately said “yes”.
The other weekend (when I wasn’t feeling well), I popped The Garfield Show: Dinosaurs & Other Animal Adventures video in the DVD player. The menu screen shows a few scrolling scenes from the six episodes on the disc so she was able to pick one that interested her.
We started the episode and she was immediately entranced. Although the cartoons are no longer hand-drawn, and I don’t think Jim Davis has much to do with it, the antics of Garfield, Odie and their friends bring back a lot of fun memories. And the fact that I can share this with my daughter means a lot to me.
The best part is that she seems to love Garfield as much as I did. She’ll ask to see the video or part of it about once a day.
And for you, I have a copy of the video to give away. Just leave a comment by January 31 answering the question, “What’s the thing from your childhood you wish you could share with a small person in your life (or a big person, if you have no small people)?
Open to people with a Canadian or US mailing address. Winner will be picked at random with the “And the winner is” plugin.
Disclaimer: I was given a copy of the DVD for review purposes. All opinions are my own.
Water Safety Wednesdays: Getting Ready for Summer – Boating
Now that spring is officially here, many people will be getting prepared for summer, whether that’s prepping the backyard pool, or getting the cottage at the lake ready for summer weekends. I’d like to make a plea that you put water safety first and foremost. I’ve helped compile the statistics; I know how many people die needlessly every year through drowning. While that number has been going down over the years, it’s not at zero yet.
So if you’re getting your boat ready for summer:
- Get a pleasurecraft license.
- Make sure you have proper safety equipment. Transport Canada has a list of what you need depending on the type of boat you are using
- Have your boat inspected for leaks and any other damage
- Fork out the money to have the boat repaired, already
- Get educated on how to be a safe boater (if your kids have been taking swimming lessons, it’s likely they know some of this)
- Have some float plans ready in a convenient place. It’s really important to let someone know, where you’re going, who you’re going with and what time you’re expected back at the very least. That way, they can call for help if you don’t return
- Be smart: don’t drink and boat. Most boating related accidents have some alcohol involvement.
On a side note, did you know that most boating accidents occur 50 m or less from shore or another point of safety? So being able to swim 50 m in open water might be a good idea.
So in all your summer boating fun this year, play it safe: get everything ready before you go; be prepared – it’s much easier, and less costly in so many ways, to never have an accident than dealing with the fallout from one.
Disclaimer: this series does not represent the ideas of the Canadian Red Cross, the Lifesaving Society or any other body. They represent only my own knowledge and opinions from years of teaching swimming and water safety.
Releasing the Inner Geek: the Stages of the Ebook Reader (Parte the Firste)
I was writing this and all of a sudden I had about 1800 words because apparently I love me some ereaders. So I split it into two. Parte the Seconde will be posted tomorrow.
I’ve mentioned before that I go through books the way other people read. I think since January 1, I’ve read at least 8 books (mostly James Rollins and I am tiring of him a bit, so I’ve switched to reading one of the latest JD Robb books for a nice easy read). That said, I don’t usually read books more than once. I’m also really bad at returning books to the library and often wait impatiently for books to come in there. This resulted in friends and parents getting a lot of second hand books from me. It also resulted in me carrying around, at any given time, at least 2, usually more, books. So a few years back, we started experimenting with various forms of electronic books.
Stage 1: The Tablet Laptop
The laptop I use to compose most of these is actually a tablet with a full keyboard. It’s got a matte finish which makes it good for reading and only weighs about 3 lbs. My biggest issue is that the batteries just don’t tend to last on it all that long and I do get a bit of eyestrain from reading on it. Of course, this could be due to the fact that I stare at a computer under fluorescent lights all day too. It does in a pinch, but works best with PDFs as I’m not a fan of the Adobe Digital Editions programs or any LIT readers I could get for it.
So now I use the tablet mainly for blogging and websurfing and all that fun stuff. And now that the hard drive is being replaced with one that is bigger, faster and solid-state, it’ll be even better.
Stage 2: The iPod Touch
This was our first foray into something that could be termed an ebook reader. After I had the Poptart, I would spend quite a bit of time sitting with her in my arms at night until I was sure she was asleep. While I loved doing that (mostly – there were nights I would rather be asleep), I eventually got bored and would want to do something. TV was out because it would flicker and disturb her.
So I asked Darren to look into readers for the iPod touch, with the idea that I could read it in the dark because it was backlit and would glow in the dark. The other thing I asked for was if there would be a possibility of being able to invert the colours (so say white, or green, print on a black background) to reduce the amount of light sent out.
Enter Stanza. If you don’t want to carry around an ereader, then it’s a really good alternative. It’s not the easiest program in the world to get going and you need wireless access for it which could be a problem if you’re going with the iPod Touch and don’t have wireless at home. But it’s a really good app and I’m very impressed with it. Although I don’t use it much anymore because I have other ereaders (and how else would I play Angry Birds?), it’s an excellent fallback and I would probably bring it to use it for reading if I was very limited in the amount of stuff I could bring along somewhere.
Stage 3: The non-backlit ereader
After awhile, I got kind of tired of reading on the Touch. I was getting some eyestrain because I stare at a computer all day and then read for a couple of hours a day on the Touch. So we started (and by “we” I mean “Darren” started looking through the different ereaders. We went through all the usual suspects:
- Kindle (too expensive for shipping to Canada)
- Kobo (mediocre to bad reviews)
- Nook (not available in Canada; B&N won’t ship to Canada)
- Sony (too expensive for something we just wanted to read on)
Got that? We just wanted something to read on. It didn’t need to be fancy.
There’s a store in Vancouver we buy most of our electronics from: NCIX, and they often have some super good deals on consumer electronics. Darren found, while perusing their website one day, an ebook reader for $125 (CDN): the Jetbook. It’s the same as the Aluratek Libre, with different firmware. To this day, it remains my favourite ereader for reading. I just pop the memory card in my computer, load some books (pretty much any format, but if it’s one that it can’t read Calibre will convert it – HT to @AnthonyFloyd for that one), put the card back in and it’s ready to go.
It’s not backlit; it uses the lighting of the environment to light up the text. This means you can read it in bright sunlight, with sunglasses. So when I lazed on the lawn at lunch in the summer rather than going for a walk, I could read. The downside is that if you want to read in the dark, you need to have a lamp on or get one of these little reading lamps that you can attach to it. This can be disturbing to your partner who may want to sleep at night while you may want to read.
The Approach of Two
I actually wrote this a couple of days ago. The weekend was sort of sucktastic, and then I found this post, which makes me happy.
The Poptart is 20 months old and is very much a toddler. The problem is, she’s the size of a 3 year old: 28lbs and almost a metre tall. She’s at that point where she can communicate what she wants, most of the time, and we can understand her, most of the time. Except when we can’t.
But god forbid you don’t give her what she asks for. Especially if it’s Smarties at 5:30am. Or that glass of wine you have because SERIOUSLY MOM WHY CAN’T I HAVE IT NOW??????
But if you won’t there’s always the option of flinging herself facedown on the kitchen tile and screeching about it. Or, you know, turning off the hot water tank (seriously. I know we’re doing the Four Hour Body thing, but I refuse to do cold showers)
She loves the Wiggles (I do not any more unfortunately) and will ask for “Wiggles! Tick tock!” (there’s a video that starts with a ticking clock) and she knows all the moves to “Rock a bye your bear” and “Quack Quack”.
She hates when I leave the room to go do laundry. The other week, she had a full out temper tantrum when I went downstairs. Then she threw her otter over the gate and down the stairs and got mad about that, so she threw her phone at it (an old cel phone we don’t use anymore) and then got mad about that. Then she slipped so her legs slipped under the gate at the top of the stairs and kind of got stuck so she got mad about that. And Darren extracted her from under the gate and she did that toddler thing where they get all limp and stiff at the same time and screeched. So he laid her gently on the floor and left her there. She got her otter and phone back when I came upstairs and we had a snuggle on the couch.
(ed. note: We’re very much of the “ignore it and it will go away” mentality when it comes to toddler antics. And when she’s mad, she needs to get over it. We make sure she’s not hurting herself or destroying things of value and keep an eye on her, but from a distance. Within a couple of minutes, she’ll calm down and come for a hug and snuggle. Yes, it takes an incredible amount of patience, but it’s worth it. We talk calmly to her while she’s working out whatever she needs to work out and make suggestions like “Lets get otter and have a snuggle” and will usually get a sniffly “Okaaaaaay” from her.)
If she doesn’t want something to eat, she’ll let you know by throwing it away from herself. But don’t you dare remove it because she WANTED THAT!
I think I understand why some toddlers bang their heads on walls and floors. I feel like that sometimes too when she’s constantly changing her mind about what she wants.
But wakes up and calls “Moooooom!” and it’s the second-best sound in the world. The best sound is her laughing (and I’m sure I’m not the only one who tickles their toddler just to hear them giggle). She gives the best hugs and kisses, and in the morning says, “Bye, Mom! Take care!” and blows kisses. When I get home in the evening she’ll come running to the door, cackling with laughter and yelling, “Mom! Mom! And Dad!” I’ll lay down on the floor and she’ll lay next to me and we’ll snuggle for a bit. Then she’ll roll over and poke me in the eye. “Eyes! And nose! And mouf! And teeth! And tongue!” and we’ll blow raspberries at each other.
I’ll tell her to call Dad for supper and she’ll stand at the top of the stairs and yell, “Dad! Supper!” and the other night after her bath she went to the top of the stairs and yelled “Dad! Upstairs!”
She loves to brush her teeth. We sing the tooth brushing song while she does after her shower or bath, and she dances on the bathroom counter. And she’s just so much FUN.
And at night before bed, she demands “Pegasus” (which is a book of fairytales with a Pegasus on the cover), and we’ll sit there and read a story or some nursery rhymes and she’ll start dozing in my arms. I’ll turn off the light and sing to her then ask her if she’s ready for bed. “Okaaaay,” she says. And gives me a long hug and a kiss.
And I’ll put her to bed and she reminds me to put a blanket on her so I do. I tell her goodnight and I’ll see her tomorrow, and she says, “Bye-bye!” and blows me a kiss. And there’s nothing better than that kind of end to the day.
On Wednesday, watch for a guest post from Katie while I’m off dealing with family stuff. And check out her blog for some awesome recipes too!
BlogHer Bucket List
Since I plan things for a living, and I like having as much time as possible to plan, I bought a ticket for BlogHer 2011 in San Diego. So for the next year or so, I can hyperventilate and let my anxiety rage (thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for Zoloft). So I have about a year to get my ass in gear on planning what I want and need for BlogHer 11.
I get a real sense of satisfaction with planning things. Not necessarily executing, but planning them. In other words, I’m a lot of talk, and less do.
In the movie “The Bucket List”, Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson make a list of things they’d like to do before they kick the bucket. Some people call this a life list. While I have one of those, those are really long-term goals with no real time limits, and there are some things I want to do before BlogHer.
So I present to you, the BlogHer Bucket List:
1. Buy my BlogHer’11 Pass
2. Lose at least 2 dress sizes.
3. Renew my passport (it expires April 2011 so unless I do that I’m not going)
4. Find someone or a company to sponsor at least part of the costs OR start earning some sort of income from the blog to cover or partially cover the costs.
5. Get a smartphone. Better yet, find a US company to give a smartphone to use for the conference (Verizon? AT&T? you can email me ANYTIME) or find a Canadian company that’s willing to swallow the roaming charges (TELUS, I’m looking at you since I’ve been a customer for a long time. Anyone else – Wind, Virgin, Rogers? – email me, you might get a new customer).
6. Work four to seven extra contracts and save that money to spend there. This might mean doing a lot of 4 hour contracts, but it would be worth it. (To this end, I’ve arranged for two contracts already which are worth about $1100 each)
So are you planning on going to BlogHer? Are you making a BlogHer bucket list?
Once a month, I’ll provide you with an update on the BlogHer Bucket List. Will you do the same?
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You can still enter my A&D Diaper Rash Products giveaway here
A Sunshiney Distraction
I want you to know how much sunshine I have in my life.
Not only was February fantastic around here, and March hasn’t been too shabby either, but Sunshine commented on my last post, and I got a Sunshine Award from Denise related to this post.
So I’m supposed to pass this on to other bloggers that bring the light:
Karen, who for years and years has brought zen and light into my life.
Amber, whose dire warnings about $15 mangos and children getting into the baking cupboard make me laugh. And her tweets are pretty good, too.
Scatteredmom (AKA the other Karen) who has lots of yummy recipes and fights like a tiger for what’s important.
Princess Jenn, because she’s awesome, and also a fighter.
And really, if you’d like more, then please feel free to peruse my sidebar. Most of those bloggers, in their own way, bring the light. Because to limit this to just 5 people is too much (and I know I only did 4, but the combination of having to choose and being really tired is just too much).
To the award winners, please share the sunshine! Here are the rules:
1. Put the logo on your blog or within your post
2. Pass the award on to five bloggers
3. Link the nominees within your post
4. Let the nominees know they have received this award by commenting on their blog
5. Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.
(Annual) Open Letter to Vancouver Drivers during the Snow
I wrote this yesterday when we were supposed to get 20 cm (8 inches) of snow. We didn’t and everything is all melty, but it still holds true. Suggest you take number 1 to heart since we have a bit of reprieve right now.
Dear Drivers,
It’s that most wonderful time of the year when Vancouver gets it’s annual snowfall. I expect this year won’t be as bad as last year, but the rules are the same:
1. Get some goddamn snow tires already
For real. Just because “Vancouver doesn’t get that much snow” if you’re going to insist on going out in your car, in the snow, GET SNOW TIRES. You’ve had a year to save up since LAST YEAR’S snowfall. Buy the damn tires and another set of rims, keep them mounted and have them switched out every Thanksgiving and Valentines Day (or Easter if you tend to go on long drives to the interior).
2. If you park your car outside clear ALL of the snow off the windows, headlights, turn signals and the taillights before you get going
The windows are there so you can see when you drive. If there’s snow covering the windows, you can’t see. Duh.
Also, once you start moving, the snow falls off onto the (hopefully) cleared roads and messes them up, and flies onto the windshield of the car behind you. Really, really annoying. This morning, I drove Darren to the train, and the minivan in front of me had only cleared the windshield. With the wipers. The headlights were on but the taillights weren’t cleared off. I couldn’t tell if the driver was using signals when he/she turned because those were also covered. If it hadn’t been for the streetlights, I wouldn’t have been able to see the back of the car. With that in mind…
3. If you need to clear the white stuff off your car, give yourself extra time.
Get up 15 minutes earlier, assess and get your car ready. Better yet…
4. Take public transit or walk. Or both
I’m not even going to bother elaborating on this.
5. Stay calm and take your time
Duh.
New Years Quiz
Before we start on our snowy way back to Vancouver and as I’m drinking my coffee at the inlaws, before anyone else gets up, Linda has a few questions. I’ve always meant to participate in this questionnaire, but never took the time. Of course, now I know how to make a draft of an entry and come back to it later so this might be easier. Anyways, here are the questions and my answers (in italics):
1. What did you do in 2008 that you’d never done before?
Um. Went to Chicago. Discovered Filene’s Basement. Oh, and yeah, got knocked up.
2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don’t generally make resolutions, except to be a little kinder and a little gentler with those around me. I think I did okay. This year, I plan to not be too hard on myself and to make time for myself once my baby arrives.
3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.
4. Did anyone close to you die?
I think after having my cat for 20 years, she counts.
5. What countries did you visit?
USA.
6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008?
A waistline. No, seriously. But that’ll have to wait til summer.
7. What dates from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Well, November 4. Duh.
8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I would have to say getting knocked up.
9. What was your biggest failure?
Nothing really comes to mind. I’m pretty happy with my experiences this year.
10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Just the vile cold I had shortly before Christmas.
11. What was the best thing you bought?
Hm. Probably the painters for the house.
12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
Darren.
13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?
Oh its the holidays. Goodwill towards men and women and all that. 
Besides, I’m a firm believer that this could return to bite me in the ass.
14. Where did most of your money go?
Bills, I believe. And computer equipment.
15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
This child.
16. What song will always remind you of 2008?
“Right here, Right now” by Jesus Jones
17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? – happier
b) thinner or fatter? – fatter (but knocked up)
c) richer or poorer? – about the same.
18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Exercise.
19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Sitting on my ass.
20. How did you spend Christmas?
Parte the firste was at my parents’s place. Parte the seconde was at the inlaws.
21. Did you fall in love in 2008?
Yes. All over again with Darren.
22. What was your favorite TV program?
Um. Lost. Or Heroes (which is kind of jumping the shark, but still)
23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
No.
24. What was the best book you read?
Hm. Good question.
25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
The new AC/DC – what I can I say? I am old school.
26. What did you want and get?
A baby (yes, it was mostly throwing caution to the wind, but still)
27. What did you want and not get?
A promotion.
28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Mongol.
29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 32. I think I was sick but was taken out to dinner later.
30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Being gentler with myself.
31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
Getting clothes that fit properly.
32. What kept you sane?
Besides wine? Meditation, I think.
33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
I don’t think I did. They’re just people.
34. What political issue stirred you the most?
The Prime Minister Proroguing Parliament (say that 5 times fast)
35. Who did you miss?
My mommy. Seriously, in tears at one point.
36. Who was the best new person you met?
The crazy guys at Pippin’s in Chicago. They were hilarious.
37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008.
That in 15 days, [insert issue of choice] probably won’t matter.
38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.
Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be – “Right here, right now” by Jesus Jones
