Dancing with the Pros

It's gotten to the point on Dancing with the Stars that I look more forward to the returning pros than the "stars." I usually hang in with shows till the bitter end but even I am doubting this season.  Here's the cast and their partners:

1.  Jack Wagner, soap actor from “General Hospital” and “Melrose Place” with Anna Trebunskaya

2.  Melissa Gilbert, played Laura Ingalls on “Little House on the  Prairie” with Maksim Chmerkovskiy

3.  Donald Driver, receiver for the Green Bay Packers with Peta Murgatroyd

4.  William Levy, telenova star apparently known as the “Brad Pitt of  Mexico” with Cheryl Burke

5.  Sherri Shepherd, co-host of “The View” with Val Chmerkovskiy, Maks' brother

6.  Katherine Jenkins, opera star with Mark Ballas

7.  Gavin DeGraw, pop singer known for penning the “One Tree Hill” theme song with Karina Smirnoff

8.  Martina Navratilova, tennis pro with Tony Dovolani

9.  Roshon Fegan, star of Disney Channel’s “Shake It Up” and hip hop producer with Chelsie Hightower

10.  Maria Menounos, co-host of “Extra” with Derek Hough

11.  Jaleel White, best known Steve Urkel in “Family Matters” with Kym Johnson

12.  Gladys Knight, singer or “empress of soul” with Tristan MacManus

Jeff's happy to see the return of Peta and Chelsie so maybe that will hold his interest for a few weeks.  I'm happy to have Mark and Derek back since I enjoy their choreography and Maks... for Maks.

After I posted the photo of Hunter yesterday, Dru thought he looked almost as big as her Billy Elliot.  I weighed Hunter and he's 18.4 lbs so I think quite a bit less than Billy Elliot.  He's very fluffy so looks bigger than he is but he still is overweight.  Kalani only weighs 6 pounds so Hunter is 3 times as big!  Hayley is in the middle at 12 1/2 lbs.

Happy Leap Year!

Equal Time for Kitties

Seems like I'm always posting photos and videos of the dogs or the boys so I thought I'd give a little equal time to the cats.  The gold finches are swarming the bird feeders right now and I caught this photo of Hunter spying on them.  I shot this from the living room looking through a window.  I can't believe how close the birds are letting Hunter get to them. Jeff says they probably saw how fat Hunter is and knew he could jump high enough to get them.  Here's the bird Hunter.

 

Daily Dog Park Outings

Since I wanted to get my post done Sunday afternoon before I plopped in front of the TV for the red carpet arrivals and Academy Awards show, I thought I'd post a video of Cooper and Kanan at the dog park.  I took this Sunday morning.  Although the weather forecast was for a cloudy day, it was clear, sunny and beautiful.  There's a lot of butt-sniffing going on in this video which Cooper is not a fan of!

Here's a link to the Red Carpet Arrivals.  The first photo shows Brad and Angelina and the exact pose she struck on stage.  I'll bet she is going to get a lot of flack for that!   

Tomorrow morning on Good Morning America, they are announcing the new cast of Dancing with the Stars.  A few rumors are Melissa Gilbert of Little House on the Prairie fame, actor and former Melrose Place star Jack Wagner and comedienne and The View co-host Sherri Shepherd.  Another rumor is Maria Menounos who co-host Extra with former DWTS contestant Mario Lopez.   Three others have been mentioned but are less certain:  Singer Gavin DeGraw, Pee-Wee Herman and Suzanne Somers.

Oscar, Oscar

We who live in the LA area are way more obsessed with the Academy Awards than the rest of the US.  Well, some of us anyway.  I know I never miss them and get all ready to watch the early red carpet arrivals on Sunday afternoon.  I'm looking forward to the return of Billy Crystal as host.  His opening bits where he's inserted into the nominated movies is usually hilarious.  Jeff and I have done a good job of seeing most of the nominated movies and performances.  I'm pulling for The Artist as Best Picture and it's a toss up for me for Best Actor. I'd be happy with either George Clooney or Jean Dujardin.  I'm pretty sure Viola Davis from The Help will win as well as Octavia Spencer for Best Supporting Actress from the same movie.  Tonight we have The Beginners to watch starring Christopher Plummer who is the front-runner for Best Supporting Actor.  Next week we can dish on the gowns.  It's not as fun as it used to be before the actresses all had stylists.  We don't have the swan dresses to look forward to anymore.  Have a great weekend!

I Survived Chuck E. Cheese

Our field trip to Chuck E. Cheese was better than I expected.  There wasn't one of the germy ball pits.  There were mostly little cars and horses to ride on and arcade games.  Ryan's teacher called me in the morning and said it was fine to bring Jacob along.  They shared the pizza and I bought extra game tokens so Jacob could play, too.  There was a really cute machine that drew your image.  You put a token in the machine and put your head so you can see it in an oval area on the screen and it captures and draws your image like a pencil sketch.  Both Ryan's and Jacob's came out really cute even though it was touch and go as to whether I was going to get them to stay still long enough.  To me, that was worth the token way more than the other rides and games.  Although I don't have a photo of their sketches to share, I do have two photos that I took.  Here's Ryan and Jacob riding on a fire truck together.

And here's a photo of Jacob riding on a little mini Merry Go Round.  I think he's trying to figure out how it works.

I'm still not sure where these photos are going when I upload them to blogger.  Does anyone know?  I still have my website but once that's gone, where are these photos going?  I thought maybe I needed to use Photobucket or a service like that.  For now, it's magic!  And I like that you can click on them to see them larger!

What a Trip!

I have another field trip with Ryan today... to Chuck E Cheese.  Not one of my favorite places and I haven't been to one since my kids were little and going to birthday parties.  Another germ pit!  I think I may be taking Jacob along, too.  I had a nice morning with Jacob yesterday.  It was trash day so he was thrilled to see the three different trash trucks- garbage, recycling and grass/plant clippings- arrive and do their thing.  What is it about little boys and trash trucks?  I have DVD's for Ryan and Jacob with construction vehicles and trash trucks and also fire engines.  They can watch them over and over!

I went by the Salvation Army on Monday after our tax appointment (not related) because I'm always looking for things for Jessica's house but couldn't find anything fabulous like the china cabinet I got there for them for $100.00 but I did see a painting that I liked.  I thought they could use it over their fireplace or on the wall over a console table in their entryway.  Once I saw it was $7.99, I couldn't resist.  It's quite large- probably 3 feet by 2 feet.  Here's a photo.

The photo reminds me of both Toni and Elizabeth who love Tuscany and lavender.  Tuscany is on my bucket list!

After Jacob left, I spent a lot of time on Pinterest.  I know many of you have been pinning on Pinterest for a long time but I have never seemed to find time for it until a few days ago.  I found out that you could add a little Pinterest Button on Blogger to link to your Pinterest so you can see mine on the right below my weather.  If you don't know what Pinterest is, here's an explanation:  "Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard.  Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.  Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests."  I know there's been some controversy lately about copyright issues over the pinned photos.  For the most part, I have used my own photos on Pinterest.

Right Place, Right time!

Ryan and Jacob were here on Monday so Jeff and I took them to the park.  We can also take the dogs to this particular park and Cooper and Kanan run around like crazy while the boys swing and play on the equipment!  While we were at the park, we heard sirens which, of course, got the boys very excited.  The sirens seemed to be getting louder and louder and soon they arrived at a house right across the street from the park.  There was a fire engine, two rescue ambulances and a private ambulance.  We walked the boys across the street and talked to the fireman waiting by the engine.  It was a medical emergency and the house was a small home for elderly residents.  While they were tending to the patient, the boys were able to climb around on the fire engine and the fireman gave them both little badge stickers.  Even though the boys had plenty of opportunities to be in a fire truck when Jeff was a fire captain, it never gets old to them.  Here's a photo of Ryan sitting in the truck and you can see his new short haircut.

One of the features I like about Blogger is you can add a large photo and it automatically uses the lightbox javascript so the photo is resized to fit in the blog and then you can click on the photo and see it larger. I also have a photo of Jacob in the truck but I thought I'd show this photo of him on the playground equipment.  He thought he was very daring trying to climb up this ladder.  You can see he's still a curly top!

Ryan is back in school today but Jacob will be here again for a few hours at least.  It's hard to find computer time when the boys are here but will try and get around to visit.  Did anyone make a favicon?  Looks like Kia did!  Well done!

Boys are Back

We haven't had Ryan and Jacob here for several weeks other than a few hours here and there.  Today is President's Day and Ryan doesn't have school so we will have them both here while Pat goes on a job interview.  We weren't expecting them so we made an appointment to have our taxes done today at 11:15.  Jeff likes me to come along because I often think of things in the way of deductions that he doesn't always think of.  If Pat can't pick them up in time, we may need to reschedule.  I'll try and get a photo of them tomorrow.  Ryan has a really short haircut so looks quite different.  Jacob still has his curls so his is staying long as they don't want to cut off the curls.

We have quite a few options all from Costco for our Meatless Monday dinner tonight.  We bought Veggie Burgers that are made by a company that we haven't heard of, Don Lee Farms, but they look good.   Hope we like them because there must be 20 in the package!  We took out two and froze the rest.  Then we bought Roasted Vegetable and Goat Cheese Ravioli with whole wheat pasta made by La Pasta.  We'll probably have that with the Veggie Smart Pasta Sauce that we used last week with our spaghetti squash.  Finally, we bought Cedar Lane's Chopped Vegetable and Barley Soup.

Do you know what a favicon is? I know some of you do because I can see a few in my list of blogs on the right side.  They are little icons that replace the big ugly orange B for Blogger button.  You can make your own and they will show up on the blog list and also in your browser bar.  You can use a graphic or even a photo like Dru has done. There are several favicon generators online but HERE'S a simple one.  You can upload a graphic or even a photo but it should be square... so 100 pixels x 100 pixels or 150 x 150, etc...  If the background is transparent it should stay that way.  The favicon will be 16 x 16 pixels.  If you see mine on your blog list, it's a little red schoolhouse.  After you generate an icon, you can save it to your computer and rename it.  The suffix is .ico so it could be named favicon.ico.  The directions about uploading it to your root directory are only necessary if you want it to show up in browser bars.  If you just want it for replacing the big orange B, there is a place in Blogger to add a favicon.  Make sure you are using the old interface.  You can switch back and forth between the old and the updated interface.  (See how to below.)  Then go to your dashboard and go to the Design tab. Select the Page Elements section. At the top you'll find a separate area for the favicon. Click the edit button and upload your .ico file and you're done.  Here's a screenshot to show you where to do that.

If you're used to the new layout and using it exclusively, you can find the favicon area under "Layout."  I'm still learning but I like the new blogger interface for some things and the old blogger interface for others.  Do you know how to switch between them?  If you are stuck on the new interface and want to use features of the old interface you can switch back here.  Adding a screenshot to show you where.  Click on the little sprocket next to English to get the dropdown menu that has "Old Blogger Interface."

    

Day Two

Do you know I began blogging in August of 2002?  So I'm coming up on my 10th anniversary.  I would say for probably the first 8 years, I rarely missed a day of posting.  That's a lot of posts and if I ever had time to go through all the saved blogs and all the WordPress archives, I would have quite the extensive diary of my life!  I'm actually kind of excited about this new blog as there are a lot of new things to learn about how to customize it and make it my own.  Yesterday, I tweaked a few things such as colors, font size, etc... and added the "About Me," "My Weather" and my "Blog Buddies" list.  If I've inadvertently left anyone off, please let me know.  I just added those friends who are actively blogging and I left off passworded blogs.  Not really happy with the looks of that list... is that customizable?  There's also a place below the weather where you can add yourself as a follower of my blog so please do that.  And for those of you who are secret followers, come on out of the closet and start leaving me comments.  I am happy to have you as a reader but I'd like to get to know you!

I had trouble finding things with the new blogger interface so switched to the older one and I was able to find the place to turn off the word verification to leave a comment.  Hopefully I won't be flooded with spam but don't you hate that word verification?  Can they make it anymore illegible?  If you're having any problems leaving a comment on this blog, leave me a message on my old blog.  I will be keeping that up until the end of the month but you might want to update your links with this new address because this will most likely be my new home.  Oh and I did figure out how to postdate so this should publish Friday at 12:01 AM!

To further my Blogger education, I'm going to try and add a video.  This was at Christmastime, 2010, when Cooper was a 3 month old puppy.  Aww!

New Beginnings

To blog or not to blog... the question is arising because I am paying for domain names for my old family site- The Mills Family HomePage and Elliot's Excellent Adventures and paying for webhosting for my home page.  Jana has been hosting Elliot's pages for free.  I haven't updated my family site in years but that's where I have my Darylynn.com-ments Wordpress blog.  So I'm going to try moving Darylynn.com-ments to blogger so I can remove my family site.  Yesterday, I worked on putting all of Elliot's site on to DVD and I will also do that with my old HomePage. 


I will have a lot to learn about blogger.  So far, all I did was add a background and change a few colors for links and selected a few fonts to use.  I guess you will have to have a google account to sign in and leave me comments.  Any tips will be greatly appreciated.  As I'm about to press "Publish" I don't see any way to postdate posts.  I won't like that because I'm used to writing my posts during the day and postdating them to publish at 12.01 AM.


While I'm at it, I might as well try adding a photo.  That was easy!  A photo of Zuma Beach where so many commercials and movies are filmed.  Maybe I'll like this!