Movies 2008...so far

Lezlee did a cool post about the movies she has seen in 2008. It started me thinking. I knew I hadn't seen as many, but couldn't remember for sure how many I had seen. I looked up all the movies released in 2008 and was actually a little shocked to realize I have only seen 7. Since I got Netflix, I don't worry too much if I don't get to see a movie in the theatre because I know I can always watch it later. I also seem to have so many other things to do, sometimes it's just hard to make myself go.
So first of all, here are the movies, I've actually gone to a theatre to see this year:

Juno 5 stars!
The Spiderwick Chronicles 3 stars
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian 4 stars
Kung Fu Panda 4 stars
Wall E 4 stars
The Dark Knight 4 stars
Beverly Hills Chihuahua 3 stars

You know I try hard not to go see R rated movies, so it's interesting that my list looks a little childlike, doesn't it? I'm okay with that. Now my netflix list looks a little different. I pulled it off of Netflix. Here is what I've seen in 2008:

Maxed Out (I don't even remember it. That's indicative don't you think?)
Driving Lessons 3 stars
Shall We Dance? 3 stars
Must Love Dogs 3 stars
Failure to launch 2 stars
Mr. and Mrs. Smith 2 stars
The Notebook 4 stars
Hitch 3 stars
Flightplan 3 stars
Firewall 2 stars
The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio 3 stars
In Her Shoes 4 stars
No Reservations 3 stars
Enchanted 5 stars
The Golden Compass 2 stars
The Orphanage 3 stars
Matchstick Men 4 stars
The Prestige 3 stars
Reign of Fire 1 star
An Inconvenient Truth 3 stars
The U.S. Vs. John Lennon 4 stars
August Rush 2 stars
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 4 stars
Hairspray 3 stars

I think this was an interesting exercise and I would love to see what the rest of you watched this year and what you thought of it. I tag Joyce, Michelle, Cynthia and Cathy!

What's up with the canning?

I went to 2 little canning classes we had in the ward a little while ago. I hadn't really planned on canning, I was just trying to be supportive. Well, suddenly, I'm canning like crazy. And the funny part of it is that, at least for now, I can't eat most of it. It should be good for a year, so I will be off my diet and able to eat it, but for now, it's mostly just getting stored away.

It started with wanting to make jam for Christmas gifts. And then I got such a feeling of satisfaction from doing it, that I just started doing more and more. And then I started talking to my friends Michelle and Juanita, and I got even more ideas. It kind of cracks me up. You would think I had some kind of large family to feed and as it is I'm barely feeding myself on this diet.

I'm starting to run out of room to put what I've made.

Let's see, here is what I've made:

Plum Jam

Peach Jam

Corn Relish

Salsa

Pinto Beans

Chicken

Carrot Cake Jam

Apple Pie Jam

Apple Butter

Pears halves

Grapefruit sections

I still have several things I want to try. I want to make pickles and dilled green beans. Maybe some other main dishes. I have been trying to watch the ads on Wednesday, by what is on sale and can it. I still have several different kinds of dried beans to can.

Between my crocheting, crafting and canning, you would think I was some kind of stay at home mom, instead of a never married, single career woman!

I'm weird I know!

Yard Work

About four years ago, I helped my friend Joyce relandscape her front yard in Kearny. She has done her best to take care of it, but doesn't know much about plants. So I went up last Saturday to do some pruning and yard work with her. One of the trees we planted was a desert willow. This is a delightful tree, minimal care and beautiful flowers. For Joyce however, it was a monster. It wasn't trimmed into tree form when it was young and so grew into a mulit trunked out of control shrub. It blocked her view out of her front windows, keeping her from being able to spy on her neighbors! Here are some before photos:

The tall, multi trunked thing, taller than the roofline is the desert willow. Her cassia is also blocking her window.

She also had some dead grasses around some of the decorative grass we put in.

So we went to work. We had a hand saw and some loppers. I did the best I could to try and turn the desert willow into a tree. Time will tell If we've been successful, but I think it will work out as long as she keeps the suckers from growing. Her neighbors weren't happy with what we were doing. They said they loved the tree and thought it was awful, what we were doing to it. I think they just didn't want Joyce to spy on them. My after photos are before I got to it with a chain saw I borrowed from the Hales. I couldn't saw through some of the branches that were up to 6" thick with the chain saw.

As you can see, she can now see out of her front window. We got the cassia trimmed too. There are still a lot of ugly stumps sticking out of the tree in this photo. It was almost dark when I was back with the chain saw and I don't have any photos of that.

Here are the grasses after we got some of the dead stuff pulled out. They could still use some cleaning up, but we were about done.

All in all, I was still very pleased with her yard. Her golden barrels are growing very slowly. Her rosemary in her front planter looks great as do the fairy dusters behind the grasses. She had already trimmed back her bird of paradise, but one neighbor lady had already been by and told Joyce that she thought her bird of paradise was the prettiest one in the neighborhood. I was excited to see how much her hesperaloe and ocotillo had grown. The ocotillo was only 2 stems about 12 inches high when we planted it. Here they are now. Hesperaloe, first.

And then the Ocotillo. Finally, here are her golden barrels. Growing slowly, but still pretty. It looks like Dad, Mom and baby, yet they were all the same size and planted at the same time.

I like her yard. A few things have died, but it still has some good structure to it. It was fun.

More Crochet Projects

For those who are interested! Just a few more photos of some recent crochet projects. Here is another one of the throws I did.

Then I did some placemats. Some for Halloween. I even managed to find fabric that was exactly the same as a Halloween runner I had made some years before.

Then I made some Thanksgiving placemats. And Finally, I just found an asian print I really liked and made some placemats out of that. I had been using tablecloths a lot, and found that I kind of liked the look of placemats as a change. We'll see...

Tagged Photo

I am delinquent and getting some posts up. I will soon, but here is the fourth photo in the fourth file as tagged by Cynthia! This is Edith's fingers coming at the camera in Germany. We were in a horse cart on a little tour and I guess Edith started moving her hand as I took the photo.

Latest Crochet Projects

Ok, General Conference is a good time to work on some crochet while I am listening! I am making some different fleece and crochet throws for some gifts and thought I would post some photos. The brown and polka dot one, I made two of. One for some friends who just got married and the other is a birthday gift for a friend. The purple one was meant to be girly and princessy and is for my niece.

Those are her initials in sequins no less! They ironed on really nicely though.

Out of Africa or Tiger Attack

Penny and I went up to Camp Verde last Friday to check out where they had moved the Out of Africa Park. If you had been to the location at Ft. McDowell there are some things in this park that are different and new. Near the entrance is a large community aviary. There are lots of cool birds to see there, including several who talk. They really want to talk to you too. This parrot had a nice woman's voice and talked a lot. The other cockatoo came running over to talk too when we were talking to the yellow headed parrot. They were very smart birds.

Then they load you on a bus that had the windows gone to go to the "Serengeti". There they gave you carrots to feed to the Giraffe and camel. There were also loose antelope of different kinds and zebra families, including 2 babies who were nursing. They were very cute. Our driver said the zebras would bite though. And the camel stuck his drooling head, way in the bus at Penny trying to get more carrots. It was pretty funny to everybody but Penny!

The bus Driver said the Giraffe was in love with the camel Humphrey and they were always hanging out together. The giraffe had done some damage to the fence between the enclosures, as the camels were kept separate. I think they are both herd animals and were looking for a "herd" to hang out with. There was a different type of giraffe in a different enclosure and there was a different type of camel in with Humphrey. I guess they just like each other.

After that, we took the tram up the hill. There was a cute baby in front of me. I took a snap of him. Then we went to the snake show. We declined to go in an pet them. Then we looked at the bears, Mountain lion and wolves. All the animals have an acre or more of a pen and a swimming pool or big stock tank. They look like pretty nice areas for them.

Penny didn't want to have her picture taken. We were waiting for the Tiger Splash show and I thought it was cute that she had dressed for the occasion in her lepoard print top! The Tiger splash was really fun. They aren't trained they just play with them to elicit natural behaviors and get them to wrestle, jump and swim. It's pretty amazing to watch. One tiger was eating the grass while they were waiting for the show to start. And another one shredded the toys whenever they caught one. It was quite the testimonial to their size and power.

One of their favorite toys was a tennis shoe. I'm not sure how good of an idea it is to teach a tiger to attack something you wear. They claim that they never attack them when they are wearing them, but still don't think it's a very good practice. I think it would only take once for them to decide it wasn't a good idea.

Then we went saw some of the other animals, lions, patagonian cavey's, etc.

Then we come to the really exciting part.

We went to see the white tigers. There are a male and female, brother and sister. It was getting close to feeding time and I don't know if that was part of the issue. We got up there and the female was pacing back and forth by the fence.

I took some photos of her and then we saw her brother. He was sitting inside the stock tank full of water right next to the fence. We walked down to get some photos and look at him.

He doesn't look real happy to see us does he? He growled at us. I thought, oh, he's talking to us. So we stood there and talked to him and took some more photos. He growled again.

The next thing we knew, he roared, launched himself out of the water and body slammed the fence at us with claws out and teeth gaping. We were soaked and scared silly. He stalked off. I guess he didn't want his butt soaking interrupted by gawping tourists. It was quite unnerving and I'm very glad the chain link held up!

We left and caught the tram back to the front of the park. We told the tram driver about it. He said, Oh McCabe? He is always a little testy. Well ok then. I must say it makes an interesting story.