Tag: blog

Crocheted Kitchen Towel Topper

On By Michel McDonaldIn crafts4 Comments

Remember going to Grammas house and seeing these on the oven or fridge door?  Ever wondered how they make those?

I always have a towel on the fridge door because… well, that’s what you do, right?  When I’m done with the dishes I dry my hands on that hand towel.  Well I was thinking, I wonder if I could find a pattern for making the towel topper so when I dry my hands it doesn’t come off all the way.

Well I found one and you are welcome.

My search brought me to YouTube which has a full 22 minute video of how to make it from sewing the chain into the towel with the yarn, crocheting all of the rows, making the button and the button hole and then finishing it off.  It’s really not that difficult and it looks so good.

The video on YouTube also has a link for the full instructions which is over on the Art of Crochet by Teresa blog on Blogger.  The video is over on YouTube via the Art of Crochet channel.

My problem is that I have carpel tunnel syndrome which means my hands get numb very quickly and I feel a very painful pinch in my palms so I shouldn’t really work on this.  The problem is that I love to crochet so that’s a huge bummer for me.  I mean, I can see the endless possibilities with this, I can make a topper for a towel for every holiday and for every season.  Like in the summer I can have the sunflower or watermelon towel, Christmas can be the Christmas towels, Halloween, Easter…  If there is a towel for everything then you bet that I would want to make a towel topper for that time of the year.

I found like 4 Christmas hand towels in a drawer too that would look so awesome with the vintage Christmas yarn that I have that has the mixed red, white and green colors in it.

Maybe some day I might be able to do this but for now I can’t but that doesn’t mean I can’t share the pattern and video with all of you crafty people so besides the link above which you can view to rate, comment and subscribe to, here is that video.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdePxyZ6Kog

Restoring My Blog

On By Michel McDonaldIn BlogLeave a comment

As some may know, I recently lost my blogs database.  The database was corrupt and even the backup that my web host had was corrupt so I had to start over.

It has been a little over a week now and I have been working hard for at least 8 hours a day restoring posts.  I have almost 500 posts back and I have not given up totally on getting the rest back but I do need to take a day off.

I was restoring them backwards from the day my blogs database died until July 2010 but then I decided that 6 months is good enough, I will start from the beginning in 2007 and work my way to where I left off to fill in that gap.  I want to do it chronologically because there were posts that had links to past posts and the only way I could restore those links is by restoring old first then newer.  Does that make any sense?

As of right now the restored posts are from the very beginning in 2007 all the way to the beginning of October 2008.  Then July 2010 to now.  There were specific posts that I wanted to restore because I see people are still searching for them so I did a search on my blogger site so I could restore them out of order (but with their right dates and times).  Those are the KFC posts, Star Tatoo Girl and Bokni Magus posts.  Those were by far my most popular posts and now they are back.

Now, I need to take a break because I am very bored with the whole process of copying and pasting from Blogger and YouSayToo lol.  My old posts can be seen on those other sites until I can finish restoring them here.

I got some reading to do so I will continue where I left off tomorrow.

My Blog Progress

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Things aren’t going as fast as I had hoped they would. My projection last night and this morning was that I would get at least 200 posts copied from YouSayToo but that just wasn’t the case.

Last night, in just maybe 4 hours, I had copied 18 posts so that is where I got my estimation. I figured it would be so much easier today and I would have gotten way more than last night. I have only gotten 27 copied over.

The thing is, it’s so boring lol. I mean, I have the YouSayToo website loaded in a tab and my blog in a tab so it’s not difficult switching tabs to copy from one site then paste to the other. It’s all the editing I have to do and adding tags and putting each post in a category and this and that and the other. Plus there are images that I have to use that I have to upload all over again because even though the images are all in my blog uploads folders, they don’t show up because it’s a new database. I could go on and on but no matter how long it takes I will keep at it until it is all done.

The problem is, people are still coming to my blog from the search engines with old posts that no longer exist. How do I tell the search engines that my old links don’t work anymore? I can’t. So all I can do is hope that people do a search for themselves on my blog to see if they can find what they are looking for and go from there.

My toolbar has a notification explaining what happened so if they see it great, if they don’t then there is nothing else I can do. Tomorrow is another day so we will see how many I can copy then. I already have all of January 2011 and December 2010 copied so maybe I can do 1 month per day. Yeah, that will make it easier. Let’s hope November 2010 was uneventful in the blogging department :p lol.

Fixing My Blog

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

Yesterday when I got on the computer I discovered that my database had issues and I went half of the day without any blog posts but my blog was still functional, sort of. I called my web host and they fixed the database but could only give me their backup from before December 23rd. I thought, ok that’s fine. I’ll only have a month of posts to restore, no big deal.

Unfortunately it wasn’t that easy because as I was restoring the 2nd post everything went wrong. The backup that they installed was still corrupt and everything disappeared. Not just the posts but my entire blog became useless. I couldn’t do anything at all.

Today I got back on the phone with them and thought it was all fixed when I hung up but it was far from fixed. I didn’t call them back but instead I re-opened my support ticket and sent them an email telling them it’s still not working. I got tired of waiting so I just decided that they weren’t going to be able to help me so I’ll just start over.

I created a new database and started from scratch. I got most of my ad’s back up so I get paid for them and while I was at it I figured, while I’m starting over I might as well change the permalinks. It’s the way the website address (URL) looks. Instead of being xanapus.com/blog/?p=(numbers) it’s going to have the date and the name of the post in the url. That makes it easier so if I have that issue again with my database then I can easily add the posts without having to contact the companies I do posts for with a new url because they will automatically be the same as before.

The downside is that I had over 1700 posts. I had more than twice that amount of comments and they are all gone now. The only way I can get any comments back is if new people comment. I was fortunate to have 616 of my blog posts copied over to YouSayToo and I had about 609 posts over on Blogger so all I have to do is copy and paste those posts.

The good thing about being able to copy my posts back manually is that I can edit which ones I copy over. Like all those Roku posts, I can finally just delete all the useless posts and make 1 new post review of the product.

The bad thing is that my arms and wrists aren’t going to be too happy with me. I’m already in pain in my left arm and both my hands from the carpel tunnel syndrome. This is going to take a lot of time to do but I will get as many posts back up as I possibly can.

I have spent the last 4 years making this blog what it was, I am not about to throw in the towel just because my database is corrupt and I wasn’t smart enough to do backups. Although, I will be doing monthly backups from now on lol.

My widget bar on the right doesn’t have everything in the same order as it was and I’m probably missing a few things but those are things that I thought might have been there.  I’ve also changed the paragraph style so they are fully aligned like a newspaper or book.  I think it makes it easier to read.  That has always bothered me but 1700+ posts made it difficult to want to change every post.  Now I can since I have to manually add them.

Well, tomorrow is another day and hopefully I can get as many posts added as I can before my arms fall off.  I copied 18 posts tonight but that was in a very short amount of time.  Tomorrow I will have the whole day to get as many copied before I get too tired to go on.

So until tomorrow…

New Xanapus` Lair

On By Michel McDonaldIn Daily BlogLeave a comment

I have some good news and I have some bad news.  The bad news is that my database was too corrupt for me to fix so I have to start all over from scratch.  The good news is that I was smart enough to back up my blog over on Blogger last year but that doesn’t give me over a years worth of blog posts back.  However, I did also send my blog posts over to YouSayToo as well which means I will have those missing posts.  Thankfully.

So I will be able to manually copy and paste my entire blog but it will take time.  I’m not sure if I will copy every single post back but I will try my best.  I have to copy all of my paid blog posts before I will copy my regular posts just so I can get credit for those that I wrote all month-long.

Wish me luck lol.

My Newly Reformatted Computer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Computer, TechLeave a comment

I reformatted my computer yesterday and it went better than I thought it would.

I typed out my check list in Open Office and printed it out so that I could check things off as I went which was a very good idea because I think I would’ve been lost without it. My checklist was files/folders to back up, drivers, programs and my browser extensions to install etc.

I had a few video DVD’s that I had to burn to get off my computer first before I could burn all the backups. The backups were about 4 dvd’s worth which were my home movie files that were still in mpg format, all my documents, pictures, mp3′s… you know, the basics.

One of the things that was very important to me was my Microsoft Money file. I did a backup in my Documents folder and put that on a dvd but after I reformatted the computer and installed MS Money and restored the file, it came up with nothing. I did it wrong. I’ve done it before in the past when I had to reformat and never had that problem so I don’t know what went wrong.

But that’s ok because when have I really ever needed to use that old information? Never that’s when. So, I can start fresh from my current balance and continue from there. The only reason I use it is so I always know my balance so I don’t overdraft.

One of the reasons I wanted to reformat was because my computer was so slow to load so I just left it running 24/7 to avoid having to wait to read my email. Also, when I load TweetDeck it can take up to 20-25 minutes for the columns to load. Now it’s instantaneous like it should be.

One thing that I wasn’t expecting was the Georgia font to be missing from my browser. For some reason, whenever I load my blog admin area, it forces me to type using the Georgia font. I don’t know why, it won’t allow me to change it, or at least I can’t figure out how to change it so I just had to deal with it. That’s why I liked Windows Live Writer, it used a default font like Arial which is easy to read. Georgia is very difficult to read, especially when you have eye problems like I do. You get used to it after a while but still. I just checked and Georgia is installed but I’m seeing something else, it’s not Arial but it’s easier to read than Georgia.

I have only installed half of my programs that I wanted to install so I still have work to do today but I’m sure it won’t take too much longer to get it all done and over with. I’m pretty sure all the Windows updates are complete. It’s been a few hours since it did any updates so I think it’s done for now.

I have a love/hate relationship with reformatting. I love how fast my computer is when I reformat but I hate all the work that goes into it and the risk of losing certain information. But you know what? When your computer is as slow as mine was, it’s worth the headache. I’m glad it’s finally done and over with.

Scrubbing Bubbles Power Sprayer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I LikeLeave a comment

Scrubbing Bubbles has really gotten my attention with this miracle product. I know it as the Scrubbing Bubbles continuous sprayer but it’s really known for it’s “extend-a-clean” feature.

Look, I don’t care how long it keeps its surface clean, I’m just impressed that it cleaned my impossible grout. Ever since we moved into Chips moms house in 2004 I have been struggling to find a grout cleaner that works but have been very unsuccessful.

I have tried countless products (which I can’t even think of their names right now) along with elbow grease and a good strong scrub brush and have had no luck. That is until tonight.

I was doing the dishes and I looked into the empty drain board and saw how dirty it was. This happens every so often where the bottom of the silverware part gets all orange and same with the bottom part of the thing and you spray cleaner on it and scrub it with all you’ve got but it just doesn’t come as clean as you would like.  It’s the best you can do so you either live with it or toss it and buy a new one.

I thought, I have this Scrubbing Bubbles continuous sprayer, I wonder… I sprayed it on and went in the bedroom for a few minutes. Went back in there and got a clean wash cloth and started wiping it off. I figured I would have to use the scrubber but I thought, let’s see where this wash cloth takes me. It wiped away as if I was wiping a fresh spill off the counter.

So as I was doing the dishes I thought, I wonder if it will work on the grout on the counters… hmmm let’s see. The grout is really bad, almost black and it looks terrible. Recently I took a picture for a paid blog post for ampm secret menu of a sandwich I created on that counter. I was mortified at it but it was too late, I had already eaten the sandwich by the time I uploaded the picture to the computer. Here it is.

As you can see on the left, the tiles are really bad but on the right they are really clean. I wish that I had known how good this scrubbing bubbles cleaner was BEFORE I took that picture which went on the Facebook page for ampm lol. I was mortified before but now I’m double mortified that it could have been prevented.

Oh well, there’s nothing I can do about it now. You can be damn sure that this is going to be my mission tomorrow, to get the rest of the grout on all the counters this clean.

The Price of Tea

On By Michel McDonaldIn Products I LikeLeave a comment

In my blog I talk about things that I find interesting or disturbing. My blog is more like a bad episode of Seinfeld. So… now I’m going to talk to you about the price of tea lol.

I went to the grocery store to buy some tea bags. I grew up on it and I like to make it as an alternative to soda. In my opinion it’s cheaper than anything else out there, all you need is a coffee maker, a tea jar and some sugar or sweetener. My mom used to brew it in the sun but I find it much faster to brew a pot of water in the coffee maker with the tea bags clamped on the coffee pot lid. I had an aunt who used to boil the water on the stove in a large saucepan then steep the teabags in the water then pour it into the jar. I like my way better.

I was a little confused about how much they charge for their teabags though because it didn’t make any sense. I was looking at the 100 count box which was $3.99. Ok that is a bit high but it’s not that bad I guess. But, I don’t need a big box, I just need enough to get by until Next week when I get some money. I looked at the box with 50 bags and it’s $3.49. What? It’s only .50¢ less? Well that’s not right. It’s half the bags, it should be half price right? $2! Then I looked over at the one that only had 25 tea bags and that one was $5.49 WHAT?!? How can it be possible? It has 1 quarter of the bigger box. How can it possibly be more? The box with 25 tea bags should cost $1 not $5.49.

Then I look and see all these boxes that only have like 10 tea bags and they cost more than the box of 100 bags. What is wrong with this picture? Why is tea so expensive when it’s in a smaller package? Why is this big box of 100 tea bags so cheap compared to the other ones? I don’t understand. And the box of 50 and 25 was the same exact brand and same exact flavor as the box of 100 bags.

Lipton, Lipton, Lipton, can we have a chat please? Is there something we can do to fix this? It just doesn’t make any sense what you are doing here. I just don’t see your logic in charging so much money for smaller packaging. It should be less but you charge more. Why? Is it because you are going broke? Is it because the packaging cost more than the tea itself? Maybe we can think of a cheaper way of packaging the tea bags then. I just can’t understand why you would charge so little for 100 bags but then jack up the price for the smaller boxes.

I’ve been a Lipton fan since I was a kid and I remember in my 20’s buying the smaller boxes of 25 bags and they were only $1.50 per box. I’m sure there was a mistake in pricing at the grocery store but it looked like it had the correct label so I don’t know. I just think that it’s a big waste of tea bags and packaging if nobody is going to buy the smaller boxes when they can get the bigger box so cheap. You know what I mean?

Ok, my tea bag rant is over lol. I’m stepping off my soap box now. Carry on.

Yes… that just happened.

Planet Michael

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, SingersLeave a comment

I just heard about this new MMO game on Attack of the Show based on the music of Michael Jackson.

Unfortunately it probably won’t be available until the end of next year but it will be an ongoing game and social network where players can build virtual Jackson worlds.

I signed up to receive updates on all the progress of the game by typing in my birthdate and giving my name and email address.

It’s said that this will be a free game and from the video they showed on Attack of the Show it looks very cool.  It’s completely 3D and looks very similar to the other MMO games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest, except it’s Michael Jackson music video worlds and not a kingdom or village.

I’m almost positive that my computer won’t be able to handle it considering it can’t handle games like WoW, EQ, LoTRO and DDO but hopefully it won’t be as memory intensive.  I’m sure it will be though.  And just like those other games, people are going to take it too seriously and get into fights over loot lol.  Maybe.

As far as being a social network, I think I’m good with Facebook and Twitter considering I don’t need to install anything (well, except for TweetDeck).  I can’t imagine being stuck in a game just for conversation and not being able to check my email or blog because I’m too focused on “Planet Michael” but I still wouldn’t mind seeing how it looks.