Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Bungee Jumping in Paradise

Jake started classes this week at the University of Cape Town in South Africa. He's taking Environmental History, 21st Century Perspectives on History, Comparative Politics, and Xhosa (native language). Since arriving, he's done quite a lot of sightseeing and van tour of the Garden Route. He also did the world's tallest bungee jump!!!!! He has a video of himself doing the jump, but is having problems transferring it and e-mailing it to us. To give you an idea, here is a link to a YouTube video of the same jump ... Bloukrans River Bungee Jump.

We've been looking at lots of pictures of South Africa, and it's not what we expected! Here are some pictures so you can get a mental picture of Jake's surroundings ...

South African coastline

Camp's Bay

Clifton Beach

Mossel Bay

Garden Route

Tsitsikama National Park suspension bridge

This map will show where those beautiful places are!

Last week Jake was able to go on a safari and saw lions, cheetah, rhinos, elephants, springbok, water buffalo, and ostriches. When they went to Mossel Bay, they stayed in a converted rail car for the night.

Mossel Bay converted rail car accommodations

After that, Jake went kayaking, did a huge rope swing, and a forest walk. He's also been to the largest cave in South Africa and an ostrich farm.

largest cave in South Africa

ostrich farm
As you can probably tell, Jake is having the time of his life in South Africa. More updates to come ...

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Blogs I Read

I'm not sure I can come up with ten non-knitting blogs, but I'll do what I can ...

1. Pioneer Woman - she's one funny lady! Plus, she's got great recipes, beautiful photographs, and some cool contests (I want to win the MIXER!!)

2. A Year of Slow Cooking - this blog has some of the.best.crockpot.recipes.EVER.

3. $5 Dinners - 'cause who doesn't want to be able to put dinner on the table for $5??

4. Cake Wrecks - this is some seriously funny stuff. Really? Are there cake decorators *that* stupid? Umhum, there sure are!!! Here's proof :)

5. All Things New - I confess, I haven't been keeping up with this blog ... but I do check out this one entry from time to time. Mainly to remind myself how truly Blessed we are, even when we think we're having a hard time.

6. Natalie's Killer Cuisine - don't go here if you're hungry. You've been warned.

7. Food Wishes - some seriously great recipes, with videos to show you how to do it.

8. Lazy Girl - just love it.

9. Post Secret - I have this weird fascination with things people will send in ... like, c'mon people! Seriously??

10. I have several other blogs that I read frequently, but they're friend-blogs & I didn't ask their permission to link here. My friends Jana, Tricia, Tina, and a few others - they mainly blog about their kids, their lives, and I find it all interesting ... because I love them :)

Wow, I was able to come up with 10 that have nothing to do with knitting. Yowzers! Alot about food, though, hehe!

Tuesday, February 08, 2011

Ten on Tuesday - 10 Favorite Oscar Winning Films

Ok, so I'm afraid that this week's topic is a huge stretch for me. We aren't big movie-goers, sometimes seeing popular movies only once they've arrived on DirecTV (and not on pay-per-view, LOL). I went back and looked at all the Best Picture winners for the past 83 years and I've only seen twenty of them. Yup, 20. Roughly 1 out of every 4 ... so sad. Might have to finally bite the bullet and subscribe to NetFlix to cure this malady. But, that aside, it wasn't too hard to whittle down a list of 20 to my 10 favorites!

1. Casablanca ... my all time favorite movie. Ever.

2. Gone With The Wind ... tomorrow is another day!

3. The Sting ... I'm a sucker for anything with Paul Newman.

4. Silence of the Lambs ... so eerily creepy, so wonderfully suspenseful.

5. The Departed ... love Leo, and this one was a real, "Wow, didn't see that coming!" movie.

6. Driving Miss Daisy ... Morgan Freeman is one of my all time favorites!

7. Braveheart ... Mel Gibson with little to no clothing? Winner winner, chicken dinner!

8. Titanic ... I'm a sucker for an epic love story.

9. Forrest Gump ... I'm convinced that you could put Tom Hanks on a bare stage and have him read the phone book & he'd win an Oscar. I'll watch *anything* he's in.

10. The Sound of Music ... my Mom hated this movie, but I love it. It's so gloriously feel-good and you can't help but tap your toes & sing along to most of the songs :)

I feel kind of bad leaving out the other 10 movies I've actually seen, like Dances With Wolves, Rain Main, Bridge on the River Kwai, and Mutiny on the Bounty. I'm not so sad about leaving out a few others, like Rocky. I watched that under protest.

Thursday, February 03, 2011

On the needles ...

I've been wanting to knit something for myself for a while. Through all the Christmas gift knitting (7 hats and a sweater, which sadly still isn't finished). Through Christmas and New Year's. Through the anticipation of Jake leaving for South Africa.

On Tuesday I took the fuchsia merino blend out of my yarn organizer (thank you again to Babci for that) and did a gauge swatch. Washed it, blocked it, let it dry, then measured it. Spot on! Yay, me! After bowling last night I cast on for this DROPS jacket ...
I'm using a merino blend that I purchased on (gasp) eBay a while back. It will be a bit less "airy" but I'm ok with that. I'm just hoping that I can knit a respectable facsimile of that design :)

I'm also pledging to finish Shawn's Christmas sweater (which only has the sleeves & seaming to go) before his birthday. That's in August. Plenty of time :)

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

When 9 years is like a moment ...

On a gorgeous snowy night back in 2002, on Groundhog Day to be exact, I married my soul mate. Here we are 9 years later and it truly seems like just yesterday. The weather was snowy, then sleety, and now getting cold and we are waiting for more snow to arrive. Then it was just a dusting, like icing on the cake so it seemed. Today we got more than that!

Shawn wore his Patriots jacket to the airport as we were leaving on our Honeymoon. When we arrived in San Fransisco, a passerby commented, asking how long he'd been a fan (as you'll all remember, the Patriots won their first Super Bowl the day after our wedding) and I will never forget his reply ...

"I got married on Saturday, the Patriots won the Super Bowl on Sunday, and tomorrow we're flying to Hawaii ... life doesn't get any better than this!" Mixed somewhere in there was Shawn's affirmation that he'd been a fan for a very long time :)

Due to the weather we aren't going out for a special dinner, but we are going to our bowling league, and we did shovel the driveway together earlier today (so romantic LOL). He's still my lighthouse, standing firm and guiding me. Here's to life in increments of 9!

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Ten on Tuesday: 10 Things on my Bedside Table

So, I don't really have a bedside table per se ... but I do have a pull-out shelf in the tower of the headboard. To be completely truthful, that pull-out shelf is *always* pulled out. Anyway, here is what I have on my pull-out-shelf-nightstand ...

1. Sony e-Reader ... I love to read in bed, and my e-Reader is never far away.
2. Tums ... does this really need an explanation?
3. Lip Balm ... hate when you wake up & your lips are all dry and crackly feeling.
4. Water Bottle (or glass) ... I always seem to wake up thirsty, and when it happens in the middle of the night I'd prefer having water within reach so I don't have to trek to the kitchen.
5. Smart Phone ... I leave it here charging, and when I can't sleep I just might grab it & check FaceBook, or play a game or two (or fifty) of solitaire.
6. Foot Lotion ... I have incredibly dry, cracked heels (always have), and I try to remember to put cream or lotion on them every night. Note the "try" part of that.
7. Alarm Clock ... preset with 3 different alarms, depending on whether the kids have school or not.
8. Medications ... I take certain pills every night before bed. I tried keeping them in the bathroom or the kitchen, but never remembered to take them. So I moved them to the bedroom where I remember.
9. Glasses ... I've gotten to the age where I can't read the print on my phone, or the numbers on my watch, without my glasses. I hate getting old!
10. Knitting ... This isn't truly on my pull-out-shelf-nightstand, but underneath it, on top of a basket of knitting books. Sometimes I like to knit in bed while watching TV with hubby, though, and having it handy is nice :)