Poor little piggy

While getting the swine flu vaccination today I noticed this cartoon hanging on the wall. So naturally I had to come home, find it on the internet, and share it with all of you.

Total time suck

As if I don't have enough ways to waste my time, I've found another. Turning photos into cartoons with BeFunky.com. Within just a few minutes I turned one of my favorite photos of Sharkdog from this:


Into the cutest little cartoon beagle ever.


And while it only takes a few minutes to create, it's just so fun to keep trying more photos.

Like this one.


And this one.


Granted, I found this site because I was specifically looking for ways to turn photos into cartoon charaters, but I wasn't expecting to find something so fast and easy -- and totally addictive. Hopefully soon I'll be able to show you the project I'm working on that needed a little cartoonization. But for now, I'd better get off the computer and do something useful. I'm off to the grocery store!

You can look (but you better not touch)

You know how I've mentioned before that sometimes I spend way too much time trying to come up with a clever title for a post? Well, this is one of those times. This post is about how my husband is freakin' awesome and about one particular thing he bought recently that boosted him from "awesome" to "freakin' awesome". Here are some other potential post titles:

A Good Man is Hard to Find
It's Hard to be a Saint in the City
Part Man, Part Monkey
A Night With the Jersey Devil

Any ideas what he bought?




Anybody?






Bruce Springsteen tickets! (All of the potential title are Bruce Springsteen song titles, in case you haven't made the connection.) Now go on and just try to tell me I'm not married to a freakin' awesome guy.

It's a reasonable question since IKEA is Swedish and all

Last week I was sitting on the bus when two women got on and asked whether this bus stopped at a particular stop. After fumbling around a bit with the German, we agreed that they were on the right bus. I'm pretty good with keeping up with all of the u-bahn stops, but knowing the bus stops is a completely different story. However, I knew they were on the right bus because we were going to the same stop.

When we reached our stop, I noticed the two women weren't moving, so as I exited I asked whether this was their stop. They looked around and told me they didn't think so and that they were going to IKEA. I told them yes, this is the stop and we all hurried to get off the bus.

As we walked to the crosswalk, I apologized for my poor German and explained that I was also heading to IKEA. That's when the second woman spoke for the first time: "Oh, are you Swedish?"

Last will and testament

Brian informed me recently that in the event of his untimely death, he doesn't give me permission to remarry. But that doesn't really matter since he thinks I'm going first due to of my diabetes.

Brian also said that Sharkdog told him that I'm not allowed to get another dog in the event that Sharkdog goes before me.

Too much time on my hands

I don't know if you've noticed yet, but I like transforming Sharkdog into pop culture icons. So when I saw this video, I knew what I had to do:

Make sure you turn on the volume. It's just not the same without the sound.

Yeah, that's right. It had to be done.

A cautionary tale

Last Saturday Brian, Jessica and I headed to the Naschmarkt to check out their goods. I always enjoy walking through the flea market, but I rarely buy anything. But this time I found the greatest book ever.


It may not look like much to the untrained eye -- just an old book that's falling apart -- but I knew what it was right away. A book of cautionary tales.

If you're a big fan of The Office, you may recognize this story from "Take Your Daughter to Work Day". Dwight tries to read the story to the kids but doesn't get very far before Michael stops him.


In this story, a young boy is warned by his mother to stop sucking his thumb, but once she goes away, he sticks his thumb back in his mouth. That is until a tailor comes along with a large pair of scissors...


...and cuts off his thumbs!

Even if you don't understand German, it's pretty easy to learn the lessons just by looking at the illustrations. This story, for example, tells you what might happen if you play with matches.


Despite the cats' warnings, Pauline couldn't resist the matches. And look what happened.


As if the girl in flames isn't graphic enough, the final illustration shows the cats sobbing next to a pair of shoes and a pile of ashes.

If you need to teach your child some lessons, you can also find this book in English. And if you want to read all of the tales and see the original illustrations, you can find them here.

Round 2

I thought that Sharkdog and Daisy would get tired of playing with each other all the time, but they still like to have a few wrestling matches every day. I've been trying to capture some of Daisy's signature moves with little success. My favorite move is when she puts practically Sharkdog's entire head in her mouth. Sharkdog has tried to copy this move, but Daisy's head is much too big.

Here is the only move I've been able to capture. Daisy uses her massive paws to hold Sharkdog down then tries to chew his head off.


But she has to be careful. Because this gives Sharkdog the perfect opportunity to go for her jugular.

Get her Sharkdog! Go in for the kill!

I think I enjoy watching the dogs fight as much as they enjoy fighting. But don't worry, there's nothing illegal going on here. The two fight very gently. I think Sharkdog will miss his buddy next week when she goes home.

Smackdown

I was going to title this post Ruff Housin', but that was too cheesy for even me. And I love puns. And cheese. So that's saying something.

Since Friday, we've been dog sitting Daisy. She'll be with us for three weeks while her family attends a retreat and goes on vacation. I wasn't sure we were going to make it the first few days. The dogs love to wrestle and it seemed like they could go at it all day. I don't think Sharkdog has any idea that he's half Daisy's size. Nevertheless, he has some good moves. These are some of my favorites.

The scissors hold

The ankle biter

And one of my favorite moves is when Sharkdog sits on Daisy -- and she just humors him.

Fortunately, things have settled down a bit and I'm pretty sure we'll be able to make it through the next three weeks. They're pretty adorable when they're nice and calm.

Sicko

Brian has a disorder. I'm pretty sure it's genetic because I've heard that his mom is afflicted with it as well. I don't know the official term for it, but I think it may be called "room-rearrangitis". People who suffer from this disorder are compelled to rearrange the furniture in a room much more frequently than the normal person. We've lived in this apartment a little over one year and our living room has had three or four distinctly different furniture configurations. I thought the living/dining room was the only room that allowed for furniture manipulation because the master bedroom has built-in furniture on two of the three usable walls, the spare bedroom is my temporary sewing space so there's not much furniture in there, and the kitchen... well, who rearranges the kitchen.

But last week Brian's room-rearragitis flared up again and I learned that my assumption about the living/dining room was wrong. You see, last week, Brian moved our entire living room into the spare room. Now our living/dining room is just a dining room. Well, it's actually just a room with a big table in it because we never actually dine there. And the spare/sewing room is now a spare/sewing/living room. It may sound odd -- to have the living room in the spare room -- but I have to admit, I like it.

Sewing advice

I found this quote while perusing the blog of my Sassy Apron Swap partner a few weeks ago.

This is an actual quote from the Singer Sewing Guild: A Complete Reference Guild to Sewing first published in 1949)

"When you sew, make yourself as attractive as possible. Go through a beauty ritual of orderliness. Have on a clean dress. Be sure your hands are clean, fingernails smooth --a nail file and pumice will help. Always avoid hangnails. Keep a little bag full of French chalk near your sewing machine where you can pick it up and dust your fingers at intervals. This not only absorbs the moisture on your fingers, but helps to keep your work clean. Have your hair in order, powder and lipstick put on with care. Looking attractive is a very important part of sewing, because if you are making something for yourself, you will try it on at intervals in front of your mirror, and you can hope for better results when you look your best.

Again, sewing must be approached with the idea that you are going to enjoy it, and if you are constantly fearful that a visitor will drop in or your husband come home and you will not look neatly put together, you will not enjoy your sewing as you should. Therefore, “spruce up” at the beginning so that you are free to enjoy every part of any sewing you do. "

I think it's great advice. It fits perfectly into my daily schedule: wake up early so that I can make myself presentable before my husband wakes up; prepare my husband a breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast and orange juice; clean the house and bake a cake; sew a new dress for myself so I'll look pretty when my husband returns from work; prepare dinner; greet my husband at the door with a kiss; enjoy a quiet dinner together while discussing the day's events; watch the news; then turn in early so I can get up the next day and do it all over again.

'Cause that's how I roll

Today I have a special treat for my loyal readers. After much begging and bribery, Sharkdog agreed to grace us with a post. So sit back and enjoy the musings of this little dog. I promise, it's time well spent.

The life of a miniature beagle isn't always easy. Sure, I have good looks and people area always fussing over me. But emotionally, it can be trying when people question whether I'm 100% beagle because of my small stature. Or when people think I'm puppy just because I'm small. But every once in a while a product comes along that seems like it was designed just for someone my size, just for a miniature beagle.

Last week Brian and Alisha bought this miniature computer. They said it was so Alisha wouldn't have to carry around her heavy laptop when she needed a computer on the go -- remember what happened to her last laptop? -- but I know what it's really for. Me. It must be for me. It's just my size.

Ah, yes. Now I can finally keep up with my stories on my own computer.

It may be small, but like me, it's packed with charisma. It has Skype pre-loaded and with it's integrated webcam I'm able to talk to my friends around the world without running up a huge phone bill for Brian and Alisha.

Why, hello there. Aren't you looking fine today.

To give you a better idea of the size of this miniature marvel, here's a photo of Alisha's Dell and my new laptop. Isn't it magnificently mini!


Alisha says it's too small to use as a main computer, but I think it's just the right size for me. For those of you interested in the specs, it's the Asus Eee PC and you can a nice quick guide on their website. (The page has music, so make sure your volume isn't too loud if you're at work.)