paradise ali

Feeling much better today. Check this out! This is the most incredible art thing I’ve seen in a long while–

I’m a pack rat.  I hesitate to throw things away because "I might need it someday." 

I have almost half a closet full of evil plastic grocery bags.

It’s been coming to this for quite a while.  I am running out of space in the small hall closet and it is becoming increasing difficult to squish my vacuum cleaner and supplies in there without conking myself on the head and starting a small avalanche. 

With my rather large family, I can easily fill ten shopping bags per trip if there’s a good sale and I’m not careful.  We recycle the bags as trash can liners and rubbish bags.  I try to go "bagless" if possible and use my pretty, purple Chico Bags.  Still, the accumulation of bags in the closet is staggering.  What can I do with all these evil grocery bags?

The internet to the rescue!  There’s a site called My Recycled Bags.com and it has all sorts of ideas for turning the bags into nice looking purses, totes, wristlets, pot scrubbers, rugs and such.  The author cuts the bags into strips and ties them together to form "plarn."  Plastic yarn.  She then crochets the plarn into her fabulous creations.  Even better, this lovely lady "Cindy" or "RecycleCindy" shares her patterns for free!  How eco-consciously cool is that?! 

Making the plarn is easy enough.  My challenge is remembering how to crochet.  My grandmother taught attention deficit me to crochet and do embroidery (Okay, okay, she tried to teach me!) when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade and I actually crocheted a hot pink poncho some time thereabouts.  I attempted a baby blanket when I was in my 20’s and didn’t finish it. 

So here I am.  My goal is to cut a bunch of plarn and crochet something out of it.  I hope to make a bag but may start with something smaller and do baby steps.  I’m sure I can find a "How to Crochet" vid somewhere to help refresh my memory.  Either way, I’m making room in my closet and easing my eco-guilt. 

After all, I can’t just throw them away!  What if I need them later?!

Okay, I know I’m not the only one that does this.  I really like to look at other people’s houses, yards and garages.  Not in a peeping Tom or stalker way but as I drive by, sometimes I catch a little glimpse into the lives of the people who live there and it’s interesting.  There are families sitting around the dinner table laughing and enjoying what I imagine to be a fantastic meal, Tata patiently pulling weeds one by one out of an immaculate front yard, six custom Harley Davidsons all lined up in the driveway, huge garden filled with colorful petunias, Sponge Bob on a  big flat panel TV, fishing poles and huge ice chests in the garage, homemade picnic tables and benches underneath a double wide tarp, big trampoline with an enclosure, hunting dogs in kennels next to pickup trucks — the nice list could go on without end. 

Every now and then, though?  I like to hear my neighbors yelling at their children to clean their rooms or see a dining table piled with papers or boxes stacked in the garage threatening to overflow into the driveway or an overgrown jungle of a yard or a rusty roof or a house painted an off color.  Why?  Purely selfish reasons!  I like to see that other people also love their children but sometimes want to hug their offspring really, really hard . . . around the neck. Other folks have problems with clutter.  We’re not the only ones who need to save money to replace the roof.  Someone else out there picked the perfect paint sample in the store only to find out that it looks 10 times brighter on the house than in the store, too.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging anyone or taking joy in the misfortune of others or sending out bad vibes.  I guess what fuels my voyeurism is I want to remind myself of the good things that I already have and that are to come in the future and to also have the assurance that we’re all only human.  I’m not the best or the worst or the only one to take missteps and make mistakes.  We all do.  It’s a common experience.

I signed up with the user name “paradiseali” for a Twitter account a little over a month ago just to check it out and see what the buzz was about.  I started out following a few Hawai`i people that I remember from back in the day and it just expanded from there. 

And guess what?!  People tweet about family, what they’re eating, about traffic and weather and surf, share cute things about their children and pets, confess that their house or office is a mess, that they unclogged a toilet, where to go for KC Drive Inn waffle hot dogs or sushi or Hawaiian food and then some. Sometimes these tweets are linked to audio/video clips, pictures, books, event sign ups, and all sorts of juicy online tidbits. 

The best part is . . . I get a peek into other people’s houses/yards/offices/cars/lives without getting into my car and taking out a loan to cover the price of gas! 

I haven’t watched American Idol since Fantasia was on in Season 3!  Got this clip of Jason Castro performing the Israel Kamakawiwo`ole version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” via Neenz via Twitter.  I think he did a good job!  Probably won the hearts of many Hawai`i viewers.  Since when do they let the contestants play ukulele? 

I’m testing out blogging via cellphone using Jott.com. It is supposed to transcribe your voice into text and then post it to Twitter, or WordPress, or Google Calendar, or a whole bunch of other services. It can send text message reminders to your cell, and e-mail reminders. You can use it to keep To Do list by just calling and dictating. You just can take an e-mail and send it to a group of people all at once, too. The only thing I’m not so sure about is that it real showing me (will show a link) to actually hear your message, if it supposed (posts) to your Blog, or Twitter, or whatever, and I’m not so sure I want my voice all over the internet. (There was a link here to listen to the message but I deleted it!)

Powered by Jott

It was fairly accurate with the transcription! I’m impressed. The only parts that were not right are bolded with the corrections in parenthesis.

You know those late night infomercials for “Hits of the 80’s” and “Smooth Soul” and other compilation CDs? They play just a tiny snippet of the song and move on to the next snippet while a bunch of titles and artists from the melodic past scrolls through the screen. I love that! It makes everyone else crazy but that’s how I listen to the radio. I watch TV like that, too.

Yesterday, I followed a link on Alltop (great site, by the way) to this article called “Describing Twitter in Plain English” at The Cranking Widgets Blog. At first, I thought, “Why would I want to broadcast the mundane little details of my life?” Well, after watching the little video, I decided to give it a try. It’s kind of fun! It’s perfect for attention deficit disorder me! Short–no more than 140 letters at a time. It’s interesting to read little blurbs of people’s day.

True, it’s not very productive (it’s filed under “distractions, practical, technology”) but it is entertaining . . . at least it is for now. There’s a Twitter thingy in the left column. Go sign up so I can stalk, just kidding, I mean follow you!

EDIT:  The Twitter Badge is in the right column now.