Monster Mini Golf - the countdown begins!!!

We are inviting you to the 5th Annual Monster Mini-Golf Pub Crawl to benefit Berwyn C.A.R.E.S!

Sign In is from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm at the Windsor Bar
Tee Off is at 12:30 pm
After Party is at 6:00 pm at the "19th Hole" at Windsor Restaurant featuring pizza compliments of Berwyn's own Salernos!

Drink specials will be available at every bar and there are plenty of prizes to be had!

Registration is $50 and is due by April 13, 2009!

Bars include:
Cabin Fever
George's Tavern
Quan's Oasis
Windsor Restaurant & Sports Bar
The James Joyce Irish Pub
Salerno's Pizza
Garv Inn
Cherry Lounge
Olive or Twist
Over the Rainbow

For more details and our registration flyer, visit, our http://www.berwynjaycees.org or our Facebook Group

Social Media - how much time does it take? (or the #1 question I get asked)

This is probably the top question I get asked, so I thought I'd list my time out here:

-Twitter: I check in a couple times a day, and scroll maybe the first page of tweets in my newsfeed. I post tweets more frequently, but those take maybe two minutes to write. - Total: app. one hour per day

-Facebook: Err...I spend a lot of time on here On days when I have to help the Jaycee groups I spend an extra hour - probably two hours a night and an hour spread across the day.

-Blogging/Reading Blogs: I don't blog as often as I should (guilty!), but I do spend a lot of time reading my favorite blogs (Frugal Dad, Retire at 40, Sustainablog, Construction Marketing Ideas, Seth Godin's Blog, Blog Maverick/Mark Cuban) - probably an hour a day total. If I write something for my blog make that an hour and a half.

-Ravelry/Craftster: I peruse at my leisure. I will go weeks without going on at all, and then stay on for hours a day. It all depends on that weeks content or if I'm looking for something. - probably fifteen minutes a day

-Email: I still spend a LOT of time on email - I run the mailing lists for my USGenWeb sites, interact with people on the Canadian ones and am an the National Advisory Board for USGenWeb - which translates into a ton of email. I also get a lot of newsletters sent to me because I'm terrible about checking websites. - Total spent across the day, 3 hours across 3 email accounts.

-Google: I've set up alerts for my name and my maiden name to see what comes up. Sometimes I have to play defense, but most of the time its a pleasant surprise to see my name in the news (even if its not me). - total spent: 10 minutes a day

-Flickr: I still post pics when I have time, but rarely do I do it when its not associated with Ravelry somehow. - maybe ten minutes or less each week

That being said, its not the majority of my day spent on the SM circuit. I still make plenty of time for working, knitting, eating and working out.

Anyway, what reminded me of this was the latest batch of emails I had received expressing wonder about how much time it took to do this and then there was a beautifully written piece at Museum 2.0 about the topic of how much time they spend doing things and what they recommend for time crunched museum peeps.

Alton Brown and Company in the FN Dish

Guys,

I am so excited! One of the photos I did for Ravelry was found by Food Network, and they're in the FN Dish.

If you haven't already read it (since its a very cool blog, you should read it regularly!), here's the link

Food Network Action Figures

Twittering Again

More followers or Better Followers?

I have this problem ALL the time. I have to clean spammers out of my Twitter regularly. I would rather have a network of experts and interesting people to read than watch my counts go up or down. As long as people aren't twittering on something really stupid, I never defriend them. A great many people I follow just because something catches my eye, or Mr. Tweet says they're interesting so I start there.

Twitter's a hard little critter. I'm somewhere in between its totally useless and a timesink like Facebook and its interesting because of its totally lack of boundaries to people I really admire. I'm still working on it.

Valentines Day - or why I hate reading articles about it

Here's the latest example:

"How Not to Gain Weight on Valentine's Day"

I don't hate Valentines Day. I rather enjoyed as a kid handing out the little cardstock cards saying "Bee mine" with a little picture of a bee for example. The act of stuffing a homemade mailbox full of cards was fun, to say the least.

However, when you grow up, Valentines Day becomes all about gifts, chocolate and flowers.

I bucked that trend a long time ago. My boyfriends quickly learned that I wouldn't be happy with a gi-normous bundle of flowers. All I wanted was a single rose with a pretty velvet ribbon. On occasion, a cute stuffed animal. The man who married me even gave me a bit of jewelry one year.

That's as far as it goes for me. I think its idiotic that people have Valentines Day "arms" races to see what guy can spend the most on his lady. Or lady spend the most on their lady. For that matter, Sweetest Day in October is the same thing.

My husband and I have declared Valentines Day and Sweetest Day null holidays. We'll say Happy X Day to each other, but there's no gifts, no fancy meals, no insanely expensive things, etc.

We prefer to show each other love on the date of our union - our anniversary. This makes much more sense. And we don't go crazy and buy tons of jewelry or anything. We spend the day together and enjoy some time. Sometimes we pick up a bottle of wine. We also tend to go on vacation around our anniversary since its right by Memorial Day, so there's a paid day off.

Why people make such an insanely big deal out of two days a year and then treat each other like crap is beyond me. My husband shows love by cooking dinner and fixing my scooter. I show love by making him things and cleaning the house. Its that partnership that shows love, not either of us spending mega bucks (or not) on the holiday.

So I encourage you to think outside the box and plan something nice for your anniversary - even if its just taking your spouse to the park and then Pizza Hut for dinner. That would show more love than anything the press is suggesting.

Even in the darkest times, a light emerges...

David Tree Shares His Water with an Injured Koala

Can't get onto Yahoo, but I can get on Youtube!

Slip Stitch with yarn in front on a loom

*You might have to crank the sound - no matter how much my video editing guy worked with it, we're still having trouble with it.

This is driving me crazy! I still can't get onto Yahoo!!!

ARGGHH!! I must have 500 messages built up by now. I can't access groups, I can't access my mail - nothing but the home page and that's IF I haven't signed in.

Our home computer is down so I've been accessing things on the work laptop - and its locked down otherwise I'd download Firefox immediately.

Curses! I apologize if anyone is trying to get ahold of me - use cfbandit at gmail dot com instead.

LoomClass Yahoo Group -

If anyone sees this, please let them know I have not been able to access Yahoo since about 12 noon yesterday. I've made all the updates to my browser and added all the shortcuts that Google suggested, but all I end up with is an endless spinning circle in my browser and nada for any Yahoo site.

Yesterday I was able to get on for short periods of time (a minute or two) before it would start that bit.

My computers from work only have Google Chrome on them since IE was deemed too much a security hazard and FF too resource intensive.

The video for "slip stitch in front" is in processing now and should be up tonight.

I've also updated my twitter status, facebook status to reflect this in the hopes someone sees it!

Great Marketing!