But no photos to prove it

Yesterday was crazy. Kim picked me up sometime in the late morning along with my food and other stuff I was toting to the location of our festivities. She already had three kids, a friend from Dresden and all of their food with her. We were met at the building by another family and later by the folks who had to take public transportation.

We started cooking immediately with the goal of dinner at 2:00, but it became clear pretty soon that we weren't going to make our scheduled meal time. Even though we had several ovens, the ovens here are tiny, so most of the time we could only cook one dish at a time. And at one point we managed to trip a breaker that affected only the microwave and oven, so we didn't notice it for a good half hour. I knew there was a problem when I opened the oven and wasn't greeted by a hot blast of air. But despite the set backs, we eventually finished cooking everything and the meal was delicious. I would love to show you a picture of the spread at this point, but I was too exhausted and hungry to bother with a camera. Suffice it to say, it was your traditional Thanksgiving fare.

After dinner, we had a devo and then an auction. Several families donated items (mostly food) from the U.S. and we auctioned them off with the proceeds going to a good cause. It was a lot of fun -- especially when the kids started in on the bidding. They are quite competitive!

All in all, it was a pretty chaotic day, but it was worth all of the trouble.

The day in between

Yesterday was a typical day in Vienna. No turkey or stuffing -- at least not for me. But all of that is coming tomorrow when we'll join with friends from Vienna; Dresden, Germany; and the U.S. to celebrate the things for which we're thankful and to feast on the traditional fare.

Today, on the day between when those in the U.S. celebrated Thanksgiving and the day I will celebrate here with my co-workers and friends, I wanted to share a prayer of thanks. When our team meets together on Sunday to worship in the German language, we spend a lot of time reading the Scriptures as it's easier to read and understand German than it is to form sentences and express thoughts. We often have a responsive reading of Psalm 136, where we take turns reading the verses and everyone says in unison, "Denn seine Gnade bleibt ewig bestehen" -- or, in the NIV translation, "His love endures forever." I've included a section of this psalm below. I can't think of a better reason to give thanks.

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good.
His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of gods.
His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the Lord of lords:
His love endures forever.

to him who alone does great wonders,
His love endures forever.

who by his understanding made the heavens,
His love endures forever.

who spread out the earth upon the waters,
His love endures forever.

who made the great lights—
His love endures forever.

the sun to govern the day,
His love endures forever.

the moon and stars to govern the night;
His love endures forever.

To the One who remembered us in our low estate
His love endures forever.

and freed us from our enemies,
His love endures forever.

and who gives food to every creature.
His love endures forever.

Give thanks to the God of heaven.
His love endures forever.

Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26

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.

Nothing terribly interesting

It's been pretty quiet on the blog for the past week, but things are still hoppin' here in Vienna.

Last weekend I baked lots of little loaves of banana bread and sweet potato bread and brownies and cake for a Christmas bazaar organzed by the American Women's Association. I volunteer with this organization, so I wanted to help with the largest fundraising event for the charaties we support. And in the end, I won two prizes in the raffle. The first was a box of chocolates and a gift pass to a fitness center for women. And the second prize was a really fancy necklace and pair of earrings. When I opened the box I thought, surely these aren't real diamonds and pearls. And, of course, they weren't. But apparently they're the highest quality fake stuff around. I told Brian we might have to go to a ball next year so I'll have a chance to wear them. I don't think it will happen.

This week I'm preparing several dishes for a Thanksgiving meal. I'm going to tackle a turkey, ham, rolls, mashed potatoes, carrots, and a pecan pie. That sounds like a whole lot when I write it all out! Since Thanksgiving isn't a holiday here, we will celebrate on Saturday instead of Thursday. There are about 25 of us, include co-workers, other American friends who live in Vienna, two American families from Dresden, and some friends visiting from the U.S. Hopefully everything will come off without a hitch. And I'm sure I'll have more to say about it next week.

Oh, and today we had our first snow. I know that has nothing to do with Christmas bazaars and Thanksgiving meals, but it was pretty exciting. Sharkdog and I went to IKEA and on our way home it really started coming down. Fortunately, I was pretty well bundled up and Sharkdog was wearing his coat. And I must say, Sharkdog was quite the attraction at IKEA. But then again, he's quite an attraction everywhere he goes. Everybody loves the Sharkdog. But who can blame them? I know I can't. That dog is irresistible.

Picture pages, picture pages

Do you remember Picture Pages? You know, Picture pages, picture pages. Time to get your picture pages. Time to get your crayons and your pencils... Sometimes my family accuses me of making up memories and my memories of Picture Pages is so vague that I thought perhaps I had made it up. But thanks to Google and YouTube, I was able to assure myself that I hadn't made up this classy little ditty.

I read a tutorial a while back about how to turn photos into coloring pages. Basically, you use Photoshop or something similar and use the "photocopy" tool to turn a color photo into a black and white line drawing. But I didn't really like the results so I've been trying different methods. I've finally found a method that works pretty well, so I thought I would pass it along.

First of all, you'll need some kind of photo manipulation software. I use GIMP because it's free. If you've never used software like it, it can be a little intimidating. At least it was for me. When you open GIMP, there are several windows. This is what mine looks like when I have a file open:
Of course, when you start Gimp, you probably won't have a file open. To open the photo file, go to File > Open. Viola! Now you should have a photo and the two other windows open. If for some reason the Layers window isn't open, you can open it from File > Dialogs > Layers in the Gimp window. But you don't really need the Layers window for this exercise, so it doesn't matter.

I'm going to use this photo of my family posing at the Riesenrad at the Prater.


When I convert the photo using the Photocopy filter (Filters > Artistic > Photocopy), this is the result.


It's not completely awful, but it's not a good coloring page. So instead of using the Photocopy filter, I tried the Edge-Detect filter (Filters > Edge-Detect > Difference of Gaussians). And here's the result.


I like this one much better, but the lines are too light. So after using the Edge-Detect filter, I tried some of the features under the Colors menu to see if I could make the lines darker. Now a word of warning. I don't really know what I'm doing. I understand how some of the features work, but mainly I just play around.

The first thing I do is make the photo black and white. Even though it looks black and white after you add the Edge-Detect filter, there may be a little color still in the photo. So select Colors > Desaturate and then click "Desaturate" on the popup menu. Now you can play with some of the other options in the Colors menu and see what you like best. This is what I came up with.

Colors > Colorize. I increased the Hue and Saturation. Since this changes the color, once again I made the photo black and white by using Colors > Desaturate.


Colors > Threshold. I slid the bar to the right until the lines were darker, but the entire photo wasn't dark.


Colors > Levels. I moved the bar on both the Input Levels and Output Levels towards the right. I honestly have no idea how you're supposed to use Levels, so I just played with it until I found the levels I liked.


Colors > Curves. I use this feature a lot to lighten dark photos, but today I used it to make the lines darker. Just grab the line and pull it downwards.


I haven't decided which style I like best. What do you think?

You, too, can be a winner

I'm a winner. Maybe not in any of the giveaways I've participated in, but when it really counts, I'm a winner. At least, that's what I like to tell myself. And I'm not giving up on the giveaways.

Tomorrow starts the 12 Days of Junkie, where Laurie from Tip Junkie is hosting a giveaway for, you guessed it, the next 12 days. Each morning, two winners will be selected from the previous day's giveaway. And up for grabs are handmade goods from Tip Junkie's Mom-preneur Shop-a-thon. Check out the links below for more information on how to sign up.

Relax! More handmade gift ideas

Friday I passed the Rathaus and noticed they were preparing for the Christmas markets. I think they open on Saturday! Why would I go to the Christmas markets when I'm making all of my Christmas gifts, you may ask. The food, of course. Last year they had a stand with a huge chocolate fountain and you could get little waffle bowls filled with fruit and covered in chocolate. Yum!

Speaking of making gifts... I have three gifts finished and plan to finish three more this week. Three in one week! I'm very optimistic. But for now I have some more ideas to share. I would definitely make some of these products if they were more conclusive to mailing, but since they're not, I'll pass them along to you.

Today's theme: relaxation.

Angry Chicken is one of my favorite blogs. Amy's Bend-the-Rules Sewing was my first sewing book and some of the patterns are sure to be use once again during this year's gift-making extravaganza. If you like sewing or baking or making your own personal hygiene products, I'd recommend checking her blog out. For gifts, take a look at her posts on making sugar scrubs and bath melts. She provides links to recipes and tips based on her own experience. One of those posts links to Recipezaar's Bath/Beauty list, which has a lot of bath product recipes. I think I may make a sugar scrub for myself. :)

If you're not into the bath products, check out the rice heat therapy bag from Sew, Mama, Sew's Handmade Holidays 2007 list. Or if you're ambitious, take a look at the wellness bag which includes a heat therapy bag, a cold therapy pack, and a cold therapy eye pillow.

Here's an awful photo of a rice bag I made earlier this year. I made it long so it could be draped over the shoulder or around the neck and segmented it so the rice wouldn't bunch in the ends. It was a pain to sew, but it turned out quite well.

Photohunt: Together

Imagine me and you, I do.
I think about you day and night. It's only right,
To think about the girl you love and hold her tight
So happy together.

This is one of the first photos I took with my then-new camera. Brian and I were driving from Oklahoma to Texas and I was trying to figure out all of the features on the camera. I would change one of the settings, lean over and take a picture of me and Brian, then look at the photo to see what it looked like on that particular setting. I was playing with the exposure at this point, which is why this photo is over-exposed. In all of the previous photos, I was looking at the camera and Brian was looking straight ahead at the road. So imagine my surprise when I looked at this photo and was greeted by Brian's huge grin. It still makes me smile.


And speaking of things that make me smile, I couldn't resist posting a second photo this week. I'm pretty sure I've posted this one before, but it works so well for this theme.



Check out more photos at PhotoHunt.

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.

Are you up for a challenge?

I did it. I took the pledge. The pledge to buy handmade this holiday season. Actually, my plan is to give gifts made by my hands. But there may be a little buying involved as well. And I'm really excited. I've already completed a few gifts and have a few more in progress. Mostly sewing, but I have some other things in the hopper as well.

For me, giving handmade gifts isn't about saving money. In fact, it would probably be cheaper to buy gifts. It's about spending time and energy creating something. I've been thinking about this all year. Honestly, Ive been bookmarking tutorials and gift ideas since last Christmas. I've found a lot of great ideas that I won't be able to use because they're not very suitable for mailing or some other reason. So I'm going share some of those ideas during the month of November. Not every day. I don't want to scare off the male readership. But hopefully once a week.

First up, gift ideas for children.

Homemade playdough. I made playdough about two months ago and it has held up very well. Buy a few small plaster containers, print cute labels from the computer, and voila! A cute, inexpensive handmade gift.

Tutu. I used this tutorial from Plumtickled to make a tutu for a birthday gift. It was easy, but it took a bit longer than the half hour suggested in the tutorial.


And finally, a fishing game. I haven't found a reason to make this yet, but it's really cute. I'm sure I'll find an excuse to make it sooner or later.

I'd call it a success

Thanks for the tips for the Halloween party. It turns out, I didn't need as many games as I anticipated. The ghost bowling was a huge success. We learned at our front hallway doubles well as a bowling alley.





Since the kids didn't get to go trick-or-treating, we had a little indoor trick-or-treating fun after dinner. I told the kids I would be behind one of four doors and they waited in the living room while I went into one of the other rooms. Then they knocked on each door until they found the room I was in, then yelled "trick or treat" while I passed out the candy. It's not quite the same as the U.S. tradition, but everyone seemed to enjoy it.

Here are all of the kiddos in their costumes.


Sharkdog also dressed up, but he didn't make in the photo. Just like most little kids, he only kept his costume of for a few minutes. However, I was able to get some photos later on when I bribed him with a piece of bread. That dog will do anything for some bread!

Here he is getting into costume:

What? You'll give me some bread if I put on my mask?

And the transformation is complete:

The phantom of the opera is here!

Visit Tip Junkie for more Halloween show-and-tell.

Photohunt: Blue

I had a hard time picking between the photo below and this photo. But in the end, I had to go with the blue Danube.


Technorati Tag: PhotoHunt