It's like Tuesdays with Morrie without all the wisdom
Posts tagged Liberty
TGIMay
3May 5, 2010
I like to take a big chunk of April off. It feels good. May is my favorite. Obviously, I’m a narcissistic naval gazer, so my birth month would be my favorite. Duh.
Things I’ve been enjoying the heck out of lately:
- Season 3 of Big Love
- Making beans in the crockpot
- Secrets of Feeding a Healthy Family by Ellyn Satter (I don’t ever read books like that, but Dawn’s First Guest Blog Series Ever introduced me to Katja Rowell M.D. and the Satter book. Life changing, for real. Check it.)
- My kids wrapped my birthday presents in a Twilight movie bag, knowing that I would love to opportunity to deface and destroy it. (We all hate Twilight for its abusive relationship marketed to young girls as romance). Smart and funny kids=best birthday present ever.
- Saying “heck” whenever I can, affecting Bill Henrickson’s look of confusion and/or horror:
I love that Bill would say, “My gosh, just what in the heck do you think you’re doing?” even if he were witnessing a murder.
What are you enjoying right now? Let’s get reacquainted!
Eleven Looks Like This
11April 17, 2010
by Abby
in I have some daughters
Happy 11th birthday to Lena and Liberty! They’re partying with their friends and they just finished opening presents. We made up a little scavenger hunt for them and at the end, they found a video that told them what their big present was. Shout out to my awesome sister-in-law, Tracy, who came up with the gift idea. Below you’ll find the video with their priceless reaction after. They’re having a good birthday so far. I’m glad because these girls rock and I’m so proud of them.
Spring is Stupid
5April 12, 2010
April is busy for me what with pondering spring with its new beginnings, and staring at a giant bunny in my yard. This bunny leaves the most gigantic piles of bunny turds out there, right where she’s eating. My yard must be extremely high in fiber because I just can’t believe it. I’m going to take a picture. Then you’ll be sorry.
Our anniversary is tomorrow. Fourteen years, suckas! And you thought it wouldn’t last. I don’t know what it means that every year around this time Bryan asks, “How long were your parents married?” I hope I don’t find out that he had a secret bet with my dad and after our 19th anniversary, he’s going to call my dad and be like, “HA! I stayed married to one longer than you did. Pay up.” That would suck.
And Lena and Liberty turn 11 on Saturday. I haven’t even ruined them yet. Probably. April does sometimes kick me in the gut with the years-old fear that I had when things started to go downhill in my pregnancy and then Liberty’s surgery and recovery. I really have to tell myself that everything is fine and they’re both healthy and I’m not trapped inside a hospital while spring happens outside. I can eat whatever I want, not hospital food. And Liberty can breathe right on her very own. And I can see them both every single day instead of being too out of it and hemorrhage-y. I feel like I should get over it already, but it’s like body memory and when I look out the window at the sunshine and new leaves, I’m right back in that hospital looking out the window, watching spring happen, worrying, praying, crying, worrying, praying, crying.
Anyway, spring is stupid. Give me summer. Everything turned awesome that summer. Cute little onesies and babies who lived with me instead of at the hospital. And we’d put them in their little matching outfits and make them hug each other. And they liked it!
We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Bed
10January 27, 2010
by Abby
in I have some daughters
Most nights, in the wee hours of morning (you know, 12:10 am) this wee little one comes sneaking into our wee little bed. At first, she clings to the edge right next to me, but she slowly worms her way into a position that is more in keeping with her idea of her importance as the baby of the family. And we have a full size bed.
We are not reluctant family bedders by any means. It’s how we roll and we dig it. We used to have bigger beds, appropriate for all kinds of family bed configurations. We started with a queen, then a twin pushed up to the queen, then a full and a queen together, then back to just a queen when Lena and Liberty stopped coming in our bed every night, then we needed a new mattress and my in-laws were getting rid of a like-new full mattress, so we snatched it up thinking Maya’s just one kid, how much space can she take up? The answer is: As much as she wants.
We have always wanted a king size bed, but it has never worked out, what with being hopelessly cheap budget-minded and hopelessly afraid of having to move such a large bed. But now that we have a house and that full size mattress is nearing the end of its life and we still have bedtime barnacles, it’s time to spring for a proper king size bed. Even Lena and Liberty like to have a turn sleeping in there once in a while, but that takes much planning and there just isn’t room for Bryan’s long arms and legs, plus either Lena’s or Liberty’s Bryan-in-miniature long arms and legs, plus me. Forget about princess wing-span joining in.
Also, evening family lounging is our favorite thing. It would be lovely if we could all cuddle up on the big bed and read books or watch movies or play games together like in the old queen plus full days. And it would be super lovely to not wake up with Maya’s elbow in my mouth.
It’s a Real Snow Day! (And FlipShare is Dead to Me)
4January 8, 2010
A real one, not a fake homeschool one like we had yesterday where we went to the library for supplies and came home to camp out in front of the fire with books and movies and cinnamon bread. This here’s a real snow day with all of Columbus.
Bryan blew some snow into a hill at the top of our regular hill this morning when he was gleefully (yes, gleefully) snowblowing the driveway, he strategically placed a snow pile at the top of our regular hill. He’s nice like that.
Look, here’s a video:
GAH! There would have been a lovely video with subtitles and whatnot if I hadn’t been enraged by our new Flip Ultra video thing. I tried to put the videos into Windows Movie Maker, but couldn’t find the files. I asked Flip to tell me where they hid my files and they said, “They’re in that folder over there, I swear!” And when I opened that folder over there, they weren’t there, so I asked them again where did you hide my files? And this time, I cocked the gun and put it at their temple. Then Flip said, “Okay, okay, okay! We hid your files in a special place so you wouldn’t accidentally delete them! Don’t shoot! They’re in a magical place. Somewhere nobody can ever find them. Have you read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone? It’s like that. You have to go through a bunch of tests of strength and will to find them. We did it so you wouldn’t accidentally delete them! WE DID IT FOR YOU!”
Boom. (Don’t worry, I only shot him in the leg because I knew I might need more info.)
Let me tell you something, I have accidentally deleted so many important things over the years, I know exactly how to use the “restore” function on my computer, thank you very much.
Flip wants me to only use their software for editing and making movies, but guess what? They’re software is not what I want to use! I want to use my Windows Movie Maker! Turns out, it’s a Windows+Flip harmony issue, so I asked, “How do I get around your bullshit, Flip? Tell me now or I shoot you in the nut sack.” Do you want to know what he told me? Me, the person he thought was so techno-challenged that he had to hide my very own videos from my delete-happy fingers? These are the steps he expected me to follow (don’t read it, just look at the enormity of the thing and recognize that I don’t know what half those words are):
The 64-bit version of Windows Media Encoder has been updated so that you can install the encoder on the 64-bit version of Windows Vista. This updated version of the encoder includes the fixes that are described in this article. To obtain the updated version of the encoder, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/AllDownloads.aspx)Note To apply this hotfix on a computer that is running Windows Vista, you must have elevated user rights. We recommend that you right-click the hotfix package executable file and then click Run as administrator. Alternatively, you can run the executable file through a console window that has elevated user rights.
Before and after you install the hotfix, check the version number of the Wmenc file and of the WMEncEng.dll file to make sure that these files are updated. To do this, follow these steps:
- Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
- Double-click Programs and Features.
- Remove Security Update for Windows Media Encoder (KB954156).
- Remove the current installation of Windows Media Encoder 9 Series.
- Restart the system. Do not install updates.
- Reinstall the Windows Media Encoder 9 Series. To do this, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5691ba02-e496-465a-bba9-b2f1182cdf24&displaylang=en&Hash=Q7YOichtn5uaPziFse1ENeP0pr3Zm3uDvElbQn2p9UGArhz5hMZIta1wqWhKm7czKB%2bzqI%2fM7a20p1YBh%2fuqIg%3d%3d (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=5691ba02-e496-465a-bba9-b2f1182cdf24&displaylang=en&Hash=Q7YOichtn5uaPziFse1ENeP0pr3Zm3uDvElbQn2p9UGArhz5hMZIta1wqWhKm7czKB%2bzqI%2fM7a20p1YBh%2fuqIg%3d%3d)- Verify that the version number for the Wmenc file and for theWMEncEng.dll file is 9.0.0.2980.
- Install the hotfix that this article describes.
- Verify that the version number for the Wmenc file and for theWMEncEng.dll file is 9.0.0.3352.
- Use Windows Update to reinstall security updates.
- Verify that the version number for the encoder files is still 9.0.0.3352.
Uh…I don’t think so. All of that made me nauseous and disgusted. So I decided to shoot the bastard dead and go elsewhere for info.
Enter Jess Totdfeld’s comment on this post at technologizer.com:
I think I found the best work-around for the new Flip software.
My problem was that I couldn’t edit Flip / AVI videos in XP Windows Movie Maker. They needed to be in WMV or WMA format. Also, I don’t like this business of not being able to find my files. That’s crazy.
Here’s what to do.
1) Attach the Flip and think of it as an external drive.
2) Open the file with the videos in it and drag them to a file on your computer. You’ve just emptied the Flip and now have files you can see on your computer.
3) Download picasa.google.com . It is Google’s photo viewer. It turns out it is great for viewing videos on your computer too.4) View your videos in Picasa. There’s a feature to trim the videos if you want. You can upload right to YouTube if you want as well or… export to a file. When it exports, it saves as a WMA file and saves within a minute. It also doesn’t seem to decrease the quality which I’ve seen happen with some other programs as well.
Hope everyone finds this helpful.
Oh, I did, Jess. I did find that helpful. So, so helpful. Except, I just opened Movie Maker and dragged them into there instead of messing with Picasa. Thank you, Jess. Thank you, thank you! Why isn’t that Flip’s answer when we ask them to help us? WHY? It’s such a good answer.
By the time I got it all figured out, I was bored of the video thingamajig and I didn’t spend any time doing anything to the sledding video, but here it is anyway. It would have been way better if I hadn’t spent the preceding 2 hours yelling at the Flip guy.
ETA: OMFG IT’S NOT WORKING NOW. Are you effing kidding me? I know this is you, Flip. I will kill you again. It worked when I saved it. It worked when I uuploaded it to youtube. It worked when I posted it to my blog. It worked when I published my blog, and now it doesn’t work.
ETA: OMFG IT’S WORKING AGAIN! I have such mixed feelings about this. I know you’re screwing with me, FLIP!
