Who Needs Toys When You Have A...

I'll bet you're dying to know what one item can substitute all of the baby toys in your house. Be patient! I'll tell you in a minute.

If you want to get rid of all of the thousands upon thousands of baby toys, just go out and buy your baby...

A PHOTO PRINTER!

A photo printer is a baby's best friend.

See?

It teaches them how to crawl...

How to sit...

And how to contort themselves into all sorts of bizzare positions.

And also how to fall without breaking your nose.

And then they will just sit and stare lovingly at the photo printer, and talk to it, and proceed to turn all 37 knobs the wrong way.

A baby and her photo printer... how sweet!

Tutorial on How To Use GIMP, Part 1

I've decided to do a tutorial on how to use the various tools on GIMP. I don't know what some of the tools do because I don't use them.

When you first bring up GIMP, this is what the main window will look like:

These are the first 4 tools on the top:

The first one is used to make rectangles and squares. If you wanted to draw a house on GIMP, you could use this for the "body" of it. The second tool is just like the first one, only it is used to make ovals and circles. With the third tool you use the mouse to hand draw an area that you want to crop. The fourth tool is used to select an area so you can erase everything on the outside or inside of it without erasing the outline.

These are the next 4 tools:Actually, I'm not sure what they do because I never use them.

Here are the next 4:The first one you use to pick a color that is already on an image so you can color another part of an image the same shade as the first part. The second one is used to zoom in or out on an image. I don't know what the third one does (grin), but the fourth one you use to move an image that you have put on top of another image around.

Here are 4 more:I only know what the second one of these does. It's the cropping tool, and I used it to make these pictures that y'all are looking at right now!

Come back later for more of the tutorial!

We Have GUPPIES!

Yes, my subborn guppy DID finally pop! I'm not sure how many babies there are. At one time, I saw 4 swimming around together, but now, the most I'm seeing is 2. The others must have died or got eaten or else they're hiding.

The babies are SO CUTE! They're about as big as a grain of rice. They have HUGE eyes. I can't get a good picture, so here are a couple I found off of Google:

Oooh goodie! A Giveaway!

I've decided to participate in the Bloogy Giveaways Carnival! I'm giving away a free makeover to any Blogger* blog! It will include a free header, a free background, 5 free buttons, and your choice of a free customized picture for your profile or an extra sidebar!

Here are some examples of blogs I've done:

Logue Lobby got a complete makeover!

So did This She Could Do!

Leave a comment to be entered! I would appreciate it if you tell others about this, but it is not required to be entered. No more entries after 12:00 Noon on Friday, and I'll draw a winner and announce them in Friday evening.

Go to Bloggy Giveaways for more great giveaway fun!

*I can only do a makeover to Blogger (Blogspot) blogs at this time.

Salamander Habitat

I'm making a habitat for Cricket. It's good and big (70" by 44") so he has plenty of room to crawl around. It's not done yet, because...

Well...

I don't know how I could have possibly counted wrong (wink wink), but I don't have enough wire.

Actually, it's called hardware cloth.

Why is it called hardware cloth? It is in no way, shape or form like cloth. Look at the checklist:

CHECKLIST FOR DETERMINING IF SOMETHING IS CLOTH:

Soft: No.

Patterned: No.

Able to be sewn with a sewing machine without breaking the needle: No.

Pretty: No.

Un-scratchy: Definitely NO! (This can be proved by my right arm and hand, which look like I got in a fight with a cat.)

See?

Not cloth-like.

And about my guppy: The stubborn thing absolutely REFUSES to have its babies! Unless I counted wrong again, and it's due NEXT Monday.

Blog Designing

I can do headers, buttons, backgrounds, borders, and lots more! Contact me at smockityfrocks AT msn DOT com, tell me what you want, and we'll work out a price.

Guppies

My guppy is supposed to have babies on Monday! I am really excited! I can't wait to see if these ones live and what they look like! Last time she had 22, so I think she'll probably have about that many this time.

Anyone want a guppy?

Favorite Songs

Threeundertwo tagged me to do a list of my 7 favorite songs. The rules of this tag are:

List seven songs that you are into right now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re not any good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now, shaping your Summer of 2008. Post these instructions in your blog, along with your 7 songs. Then tag 7 other people to see what their favorites are this year!

My songs are:

I am a Sheep
Somewhere Over the Rainbow
That song from Star Wars (I'm not sure what it's called)
From a Railway Carriage
I Need You To Love Me
Listen To Our Hearts
Ring of Fire

I tag:

Mymomconnie @ Smockity Frocks
Emily @ He Is Risen
Kara @ Eskimo Kisses And Air Hugs
Kittykait @ Life In A Shoe
Linz @ Exceedingly Abundantly Blessed
Jennifer @ The Story Of Us...
Denise @ Logue Lobby

Photography

I like to take pictures of things, and since I don't have anything else to post I just know that y'all will enjoy staring at random pictures, here are some:

Funny Sayings

Yesterday, 4 of my little sisters were playing outside. They played for awhile, and then I heard Cameron say, "Come on! It's time to back to... ummm... ALABAMA!"

Once, Adrienne said to Mymomconnie, "Let's pretend that I am a child and you are my mother."

A few days ago, Reagan said to Mymomconnie, "Someone's mad at you!"

"Who?" said Mymomconne.

"Bad Girl! Hahahahhehehehehohohoho!"

Book Survey

I found this at Emily's blog:

The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you love.


1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo



I've read 13 - more than twice as many as the average adult reader!

Inexpensive Unusual Pets

Last summer, I got an idea to get a salamander. I wanted to get an Axolotl, so we went to the bait shop to look at the Water Dogs. You know, those mud colored slimy lizards with gills that get used for fish bait. I picked out a healthy looking one, and he only cost me $1! Then I bought a 14 gallon see-through Rubbermaid container for him to live in, and I got some polished rocks about 1-2 1/2 inches wide to put at the bottom of his tank. I also got some aquarium plants to put in there. Altogether, it cost me about $30 for everything. Now, If I had gone and bought my salamander at Petsmart or Pet-Co, it probably would have cost at least twice as much as it did.

As it turns out, he wasn't an Axolotl, but a baby Tiger Salamander. I named him Cricket. Now he's grown up, and he lives on land, but he still lives in a clear Rubbermaid tub (I need to build him a pen outside).

So, my Frugal Friday tip is, if you want a salamander, rescue one from the bait shop instead of buying one from the pet store!





Go to Biblical Womanhood for more frugal tips!

What Is Up With These Girls?!?

My 6 year old sister was taking pictures, and somehow, she managed to catch people with all of their weirdest faces:

Princess No Mouth

"I'm sleepwalking. See? My eyes aren't even blinking.... oops, they just did."

"Momma, I've got a biiiiiiiiiiiiiig mouth!"

"Don't you dare take my picture."

"You just did, didn't you?"

"Quuuiiiiiiit thaaaaaaat! Mommyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

"Got any treats?"

How does she get them to make those faces?