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Friday, December 12

Getting Ready for Christmas


Here Rob puts electric candles in the windows.

Sunday, November 9

New Camera



I got a small point & shoot for taking snapshots. I used it to snap the betta fish pics. Hopefully, this will improve my blog pics and you won't have to look at the terrible cell phone photos any more.

:-)

betta fish photos



These are my betta fish. They live on and beside my desktop computer. My new camera really freaked out my (normally calm) blue betta. He really didn't like the look of it and swam around his bowl really fast when I tried to get his photo.

The bettas did really well all summer. My office, where they live, stays about 80 or 85 degrees F during the summer months due to the west facing window and poor air circulation pattern in this room. Since it has gotten cold, they haven't been as active.

:-)

Sunday, November 2

I finally caught a mouse!




We've had mice for 6-12 months now. Standard mouse traps have been mere serving platters to our furry "friends". Three days ago I put out a 5 gallon orange bucket filled with the meeses' favorite foods. As you can see, there are Cheerios, Kasugai Roasted Peas and Ramen noodles. This is the second mouse I have caught so far in 3 days! This one was delivered to the woods about 2 blocks from our home. He rode on the Ramen cake inside the bucket the entire time.

Sunday, September 28

Learn to Sew book from 1946


This arrived in the mail last week. (I love antique sewing stuff.)

Are you finished with that hot dog?

Saturday, September 27

My Dress Muslin - 9/27/08


Here is my dress so far. It is from McCall's pattern #5378. I had to buy two different patterns because I'm larger on the bottom than on the top.

9-21-08 - Columbia Dogs on the Go



Bonnie & I joined Columbia Dogs on the Go and went on a walk with them last weekend. Here is Bonnie relaxing afterwards with a brewski at Pub Dog in Columbia.
Pub Dog has a nice outdoor area and two for one drinks everyday. Dogs get their own water bowls, too.

Friday, September 26

Thursday, September 18

Goodbye Old Car - Sept 18, 2008


Today the tow truck came and removed the old car. Here are some pics.

Sandra Betzina at the Sassy Sewer - Sept 16, 2008


I attended Sandra Betzina's all day workshop at the Sassy Sewer. How exciting!

Crab Feast - Aug 31, 2008


Rob & I had our own private crab feast at the Ship's Cafe. Click on the image to see a larger version.

Tuesday, September 2

A Wedding in October - Dress Progress


My brother-in-law is getting married in October and his fiance is sewing all of the dresses herself. She posted one of the finished bridesmaids dresses on her MySpace page.
Karen's My Space page

Friday, August 29

Phishing Email - Litigation - PayPal & eBay

A word of caution -
Today I got an official looking email that turned out to be malicious.
The text of the malicious email follows at the bottom of this blog entry.
I sent it to PayPal's security team at spoof@paypal.com and they sent me this email:

______________________________________________________________________________________

Thanks for taking an active role by reporting suspicious-looking emails.
The email you forwarded to us is a phishing email, and our security team
is working to disable it.

-------------------------
What is a phishing email?
-------------------------
Phishing emails attempt to steal your identity and will often ask you to
reveal your password or other personal or financial information. PayPal
will never ask for your password over the phone or in an email and will always address you by your first and last name.

Take our Fight Phishing Challenge at https://www.paypal.com/fightphishing to learn # things you should know about phishing. You'll also see what we're doing to help fight fraud every day.

-------------------------
You've made a difference.
-------------------------
Every email counts. By forwarding a suspicious-looking email to
spoof@paypal.com, you've helped keep yourself and others safe from
identity theft.

Thanks,

The PayPal Team
_____________________________________________________________________________________

**** This is the evil email ***********************

From: steelesettlement@tgcginc.com [mailto:steelesettlement@tgcginc.com]
Sent: Friday, August 29, 2008 9:32 AM
Subject: Federal Court's Notice of Proposed Class Action Settlement. Please Read.


Steele et al. v. PayPal, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 1:05-CV-01720 (ILG)(VVP)

Notice from Federal Court. Please Read.

You may be eligible to receive a benefit from a class action settlement if you funded a PayPal transaction using a source other than your credit card between February 1, 2004 and the present.

A federal court has directed that this notice be sent to inform you of a proposed class action settlement. Records show that you may be eligible to receive a benefit under the proposed settlement.

The settlement will resolve a lawsuit against eBay Inc. and PayPal, Inc. (collectively, "Defendants") involving claims arising out of representations in the PayPal User Agreement regarding PayPal's policies and practices for responding to refund requests from those customers who pay for transactions through PayPal using funds from funding sources other than credit cards. Under the settlement, Defendants have agreed to establish a settlement fund of $3.5 million to pay claims to potential class members. The proposed Class is defined as:

all U.S. based PayPal account holders who funded a PayPal transaction after February 1, 2004, using a source other than a credit card: (i) who subsequently requested a reversal of the transaction through PayPal's prevailing Buyer Complaint Policy and/or Buyer Protection Policy (collectively, "Policies"); (ii) who did not receive a refund equal to 100% of their transaction payment in response to such request from PayPal or their bank; and (iii) who, through the timely submission of a Claim Form under oath, attest to a reasonable and good faith belief that they would have received a full reversal of such payment had they used a valid credit card in their possession at the time of the subject transaction to fund the payment and filed a timely chargeback request with their credit card issuing bank. Excluded from the Class are any judicial officer to whom this Litigation is assigned; PayPal, eBay and any of its affiliates; any current or former employees, officers, or directors of PayPal or eBay; any Persons currently residing outside of the United States; and, all Persons who timely and validly request exclusion from the Class pursuant to the Notice.
To see if you are a Class Member and to obtain full notice of the Settlement, the required procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com. This email is only a brief summary of the full notice that is posted on the website.

If you are an eligible Settlement Class Member, you have rights, obligations, and options under the proposed settlement. You have until December 14, 2008 to file your Claim Form and Certification Form. Your legal rights are affected whether you act or not.

1. Submit The Claim Form And The Certification Form By Mail

This is the only way to get a settlement payment. You must: (1) print and fill out the Claim Form and return it by mail to the address provided on the Claim Form; and (2) print the Certification Page of your Claim Form, sign it, and return it by mail to the address provided on the Claim Form. Your Claim Form and signed Certification Page must be mailed and postmarked no later than December 14, 2008. For more information on these deadlines, the Effective Date of the settlement, the Claim Form procedures, and the settlement benefit, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com.

2. Exclude Yourself – Opt Out of the Settlement

If you do not want to remain a member of the Class and participate in the Amended Settlement, then you may exclude yourself (opt-out) from the Class by mailing or delivering (email is not permitted) your written request. Your original, signed request for exclusion must be RECEIVED on or before October 31, 2008 and mailed to the following address:

PayPal/Steele Class Action Settlement
c/o The Garden City Group, Inc.
P.O. Box 9309
Dublin, OH 43017-4209

Your request for exclusion must contain your name and address, be signed by you, and include the reference "Steele et al. v. PayPal, Inc. et al., Civil Action No. 1:05-CV-01720." If you exclude yourself from the Class, you will not participate in the Amended Settlement and will not receive any payment from the Amended Settlement.

3. Object

Write to the Court about why you do not like the settlement. Your objection must be filed with the Clerk of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Brooklyn Main Office, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York 11201, no later than October 31, 2008. Pursuant to the Court's Order, you may not be heard on or entitled to contest the Court's decision unless you have filed written objections no later than October 31, 2008. A hearing ("Settlement Hearing") shall be held before Hon. I Leo Glasser on November 17, 2008 at 10:00 a.m. at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Courtroom 8B South, 225 Cadman Plaza East, Brooklyn, New York 11201.

4. Do Nothing

You will automatically be included in the Settlement Class and give up your right to be part of any other lawsuit about the claims in this case, but you will not be eligible to receive a settlement benefit unless you submit a Claim Form.

To get complete information about the proposed Settlement, the required procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com.

Please do not contact PayPal, or PayPal's customer support about this Notice, or the Settlement. Instead, you must visit www.steelesettlement.com for complete information about the proposed Settlement, the required procedures, the deadlines, your obligations, and your options.

Please do not reply to this message. We are unable to respond to inquiries sent in reply to this email. To contact us, please access the official settlement website at www.steelesettlement.com.

Thursday, August 28

Free Greeting Card for Baby Occassion


Here is a card for new parents-to-be that I designed.
You can use it to print your very own FREE greeting card on your computer.
The clip art is from Microsoft.
The poem is from The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Word by Linda LaTourelle.
The font is called FG Jayne Print.
It was created in Photoshop PS2.

Notes on using the file:

1. Double left click the image to make it large.
2. Right click and select copy image.
3. Paste (ctrl+V) the image into a new file in Photoshop.
4. Goto File>Print with Preview.
5. Click the box next to "Scale to Fit Media" and it should print perfectly.

Note: The file was designed intentionally to have a lot of forgiving white border space, so it should be easy to print the file without problems.

6. Fold the printed card in half twice so that the picture is on the front and the poem is on the inside.
7. Sign the card.
8. Enjoy giving the card to a special couple.

Wednesday, August 27

Farmer's Market

I'll be at the Catonsville Farmers' Market in a little bit and then I need to tidy up the house. My sister is coming over for dinner. DH will cook something fabulous to eat.

Maryland State Fair 2008

The Maryland State Fair photos from August 22, 2008 should be posted on my Flickr site by noon today.

My Flickr Site

More info on the Maryland State Fair

Monday, August 25

Sewing - Marking Your Patterns

Instead of tailor's chalk:
You can use a sliver of soap to transfer pattern markings onto your fabric. The soap marks are easier to see than chalk marks, but be aware that ironing the fabric makes the soap marks disappear.

Monday, August 18

From My Garden


August 2 Garden Harvest

Road Trip August 16, 2008


Road Trip to Corridor on Saturday
It was a good cloud day.
This collage was created in FotoFusion.

Saturday, August 16

Monday, August 11

A Better Canditate - a Canine-ditate

This is interesting - a dog is running for mayor in Alaska:
Labrador Runs for Mayor of Fairhope, Alaska

Oddly enough there is already a canine mayor in Kentucky:
Yep, Our Mayor's a Dog

Butler's Orchard - 2008 0810



Here are some antiqued and collaged camera phone photos of yesterday's outing. Click on the image to see a larger version of the collage.

This road trip was inspired by the huge tasty blueberries that Dan & Stacy brought to the summer party Lynn & I held last month. D & S had stopped at Butler's Orchard in Germantown, MD to pick buckets of ripe fruit on the way to the party. (Thanks!) Stacy made a delicious & eye catching fruit salad with the berries and ripe peaches.

Right now the (delightfully thornless) blackberries are in season, but the blueberries are almost done. Red raspberries are just starting. They aren't really ready yet.

Dinner - 2008 0806





- Camera phone pics of the dinner Rob made on Aug 6. We enjoyed some of the wine from our recent road trip.

Weekend Fun 2008 - 0802






-Camera phone pics of our weekend-

DH & I went to the booze warehouse (Corridor) to select some fine wines. Seriously. Rob has been watching wine geek Gary Vaynerchuk http://tv.winelibrary.com/ and has been inspired.

The sky was dramatic that day.

Afterwards, we had dinner at our local pizza & Italian food joint.

Wednesday, July 30

Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog

This new work by Joss Whedon is totally great!
Go to Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-long Blog
and watch the episodes for FREE, now:
http://www.drhorrible.com/
Or, you can download them off of iTunes for a small fee.

Tomato, Basil, Mozzerella Salad



Saw this recipe in a recent magazine. It's what we've been eating a lot of lately, but we just used the recipe in Rob's head.

German Festival Timonium Fairgrounds






Here are 3 photos I took with my cell phone on July 27th. They are from the German Festival at the Maryland State Fairgrounds in Timonium. You can see my Mom and Dad in the foreground in the top photo. Mom is wearing the bag I made her. (You might recognize the fabric from the tutorial below.)

Friday, July 25

Spam!

If you get spam in your inbox, you can send it to the Federal Trade Commission. Here is a link to their website page on spam:
http://www.ftc.gov/spam/

Thursday, July 24

Maple Info


Here is the info on the maple sugar. The lady at the farmers market said that it is an alternative to processed sugar (brown sugar).

100 Mile Meal




Yesterday, I went to the Catonsville, Maryland Farmers Market.
Here are the results - a lovely 100 mile meal. (The carrots were from CA.)

Pictured:

A tomato & mozzarella salad -
with multi-colored cherry tomatoes and cheese from the market, some cherry tomatoes and oregano from my garden, olive oil, salt and balsamic vinaigrette.

Roast veggies -
The eggplants from the market were small, round and variegated purple & white. The carrots were ones we had in the fridge. They were mixed with olive oil, dried garlic, salt and pure maple sugar (from the market) before roasting. Hubby may have also added some other spices.

The corn on the cob
-was also from the market. They were prepared using the huge pot of water method.

Tuesday, March 18

My Measurements Form - Female Human

I designed this form to help keep track of my measurements for sewing and knitting projects. Maybe you can use it, too.
To use it, click on the image to make it large, and then right click to copy and save.