Zoo Day - A Bit Too Crowded and Too Bright

My husband and I went to the Cleveland Zoo yesterday.  In the morning, before we arrived, a parent dangled their little kid over the edge of the cheetah exhibit and the kid fell in!  Fortunately, the cheetahs did not bother coming near them, but what a stupid thing to do.  The zoo is charging them with child endangering and I'm glad about that!  (See News Article at WKYC Channel 3--some people actually blamed the zoo!)

We went in the afternoon since it was such a beautiful day!  The temperature was near 70 and the sun was shining so it was very comfortable.  I wanted my husband to shoot some short video clips of me recommending some animal books for my YouTube channel that I could edit into a video (Fast Five Animal Fiction Part 1).

Sounds easy, right?  Wrong!

• First, it was SO crowded! we had a hard time finding a quiet place to line up the shot so Gerard could get both me and the animal in it. 
•  Second, we managed to get a few done but the bears were disappointing.  Both Grizzlies were actually lying together in a dugout hole and no other bears were on exhibit.  
• Third, The flowers weren't in bloom, there was lots of construction going on all over the zoo, including the giraffe exhibit so we we couldn't shoot the video I had planned by them.
• Fourth, it was so bright that we really couldn't see the Flip camera screen outside to see if we had the shot lined up well.

The animals of the day though were the otters and I did manage to get a selfie of us in front of the elephants without being able to tell if it was on record or not.  We plan to go back again Friday when I have a day off to do some more.  I figure it will be much less crowded and maybe not so bright.  Some clouds would be appreciated.

Joining in Mama Kat's Writer's Workshop with the prompt:  Tell us about a local news story that's all a buzz in your neck of the woods right now.

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Our Breakfast Routine: Pets First!

Manny: Since Karen has cut back on my food so I would lose some weight, I am very hungry in the morning and meow for my breakfast. If you turn up the sound on the video, you can actually hear me waking up my humans. My bowl is now on top of the kitchen table so Abby does not eat my food. She is good though because even if I knock some off, she leaves it alone when Karen tells her to. Spunky Doodle and I got in a little bit of a fight in the video because I had to make sure she didn't try cutting in front of me and eating before I did.

Abby: Karen feeds me first because I am such a good girl and wait patiently for my breakfast. Also, I think she likes to feed me first so I don't start barking. She only gives me half my breakfast though when she feeds the cats (except on Saturdays) and the other half she puts into my Kong and gives it to me when she goes to work. I will do a separate post about my Kong to show you the art of using it. Sometimes though if I hang around and make my cute face she will give me an extra little treat--of course, she always makes me do something to earn it.

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7 Things I Learned This Week-#65

Uploading Flip Video--Without the Flip Software

Thanks to Tim at Everyday Living, he solved another one of my problems I posted about at "What Did They Have To Go And Do That For?" I followed his suggestion about going through "My Computer" and using the Flip camera like a flash drive to load it to the windows movie maker program from there and it worked. I added the video of my singing bear with Gerard's voice this week. Here's the link to the post: "My Most Romantic Valentine's Day Gift."

Femara

Thanks to a nice pharmacist at Giant Eagle last month who told me about going on www.femara.com and printing a coupon for my next refill of this over $400 prescription drug, I got it refilled yesterday for just $10! Now that's some coupon!

Vigilant Wives Club

From Mrs 44444 at Half Past Kissin' Time this week I learned about the Vigilant Wives Club. She wrote quite an interesting post about it. Brianna at Then Some Mre is just getting this started for wives who want to make a conscious effort to show their husbands how much they are loved and appreciated. It's so easy to take our loved ones for granted and marriages are fragile things. We need to constantly nurture our marriage and guard against things that will pull us apart. I will add the link to my sidebar so I remember to visit each Monday.

Jude at Mature But Not Senile Liked My Funny Dad, Harry

I learned that Jude, my top commenter of 2009 on "My Funny Dad, Harry" blog, finished my book and liked it! She wrote a great book review on her blog that I hope you take time to read at: Mature But Not Senile. It made my day!

Sealed Envelopes

Putting a sealed envelope in the freezer really doesn't make it that much easier to open. Look for a post about this here this coming week.

TV--Damages

Don't know how many of you watch this show, but it's about a law firm trying to recover money for people who were scammed in a pyramid scheme. The finale is April 18th. Gerard loves this show--it is really good drama and lots of unexpected twists. It focuses on the investigation and discovery rather than on a trial.

Advice From Thieves

I got an email with lots of advice on how to protect your home from break-ins that I thought about posting but saw Sandee at Comedy Plus beat me to it. It's really a very good list that includes some things I would not have thought about--I'm a trusting soul. Here's the link to her post: Advice From Thieves.

Here's a link to more Friday Fragments.

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My Most Romantic Valentine's Day Gift

UPDATED 3/27/10--ADDED THE VIDEO! I remember our first Valentine's Day before we were married because we were both looking forward to it so much, it being the first time either of us had someone special with whom to celebrate Valentine's day. He sent me some candy and balloons at work and we played our songs (Always and Masterpiece). Unfortunately, I had a bad cold so kissing was out because I didn't want to give him my germs.

I know some people think Valentine's Day is just a Hallmark money maker, but we look forward to making it a bit special now that we have a special someone to share it with. After we were married, our first Valentine's Day together I surprised Gerard by taking off work early and greeting him when he got home in my skimpy longerie and set up a candlelight supper with a pizza since I don't cook. He was really surprised and liked my teddy!

Gerard is good at finding unique gifts that I like. Over the years, he's bought many wonderful gifts for me and Valentine's Day is no exception. We both agree the most romantic one he got for me is my talking bear that has his voice, who I named Romeo. I press Romeo's tummy and I can hear my husband's sweet words:

Mrs. Wonderful, who you are,
Mrs. Wonderful, that's you!
You're the all time sweets,
Love you so much!
You're the bestest best,
There ever was!

I am not a jewelry or fancy restaurant person. I don't go for candles and I'm not real big on flowers either because they only last a week and with the cats, it's best not to bring in flowers. I don't wear perfume and I'm trying to cut way down on my chocolate intake so I am not the easiest person to buy for. This year we got a cute bear picture that has our names carved in the tree. Santa brought it for us at Christmas as an early Valentine's Day present.

(I wanted to include the video so you could actually hear the bear and the two singing hearts we have two, but since I did the Flip update, it hasn't worked right. There was no sound and it wouldn't upload to the post. Now the program won't even open--any suggestions what I should do to get it to work? I'm really flipped out over this!) UPDATED 3/27/10: I finally found a way to do this without the Flip software.
Hope you have a happy Valentine's Day! We normally take that day off so we can spend it with each other. It's nice it's on a Sunday this year! Did you do anything to make it special? What is the most romantic gift you received?

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Four Things I Learned This Week--Part 15

I found this great giveaway at I Never Grew Up and just wanted to let all my readers know about it. You can get a free Flip Ultra Video Camcorder! Hurry, the giveaway ends Jan. 2 and of course, there are rules to follow. I love mine because it's small, easy to handle and I can make video clips for my blogs! Good luck! Did you see the one Gerard and I just made with Leo the Lion about the Detroit Lions? Check it out, it's funny.

Although a little late for this year, J Louis shared this great Christmas Card site for pet owners, www.petcentric.com/crittercarols/?DCMP=RAC-PETC-DogTm-Carol08&HQS=Blog in the comments on "My Funny Dad, Harry" blog at "Are You Sending Christmas Cards This Year?"
It allows you to create animated e-cards featuring a chorus of singing and dancing pets that bark or meow your favorite holiday songs. What's more fun is that you can even use your friends' or your own pet's photos. Here's the link to the card from: Spunky & Manny that I made. (You can only actually put one of your pets in it, but the one that was already there looks just like Manny anyway.)

I knew pointesettas are poisonous to cats, but through my cat/dog trivia game, I learned that Mistletoe, Holly and Christmas Cactus are poisonous to dogs! Have you played lately?




Actually, two Sundays ago our Pastor gave a message on Giving His (God's) Presence through showing compassion to others but since I already had a bunch of things I saved it for this week to share with you. He shared a web site, www.adventconspiracy.org with us that has this concept: Worship Fully, Spend Less, Give More, Love All. Here is the video that we saw in church that is on their web site:


Please be sure to read my related post to this that you may have missed before Christmas or because I did two posts in one day. Here's the link to it: "Is All Your Shopping Done, Better Check Your List"

Walk In the Park with My New Flip Camera

I just got a new flip video camera for mother's day and am learning to use it. These are pictures I took with it today. I'm so excited that I discovered how to email video clips, save as pictures, and upload clips to my blog or You Tube. These are video clips I took today.

This is Gerard (my husband) & Leo the Lion!

Here's Gerard crossing the overflowed bridge.

The Bridge I crossed.

Path through the woods.

Reading in the Park

Here comes a man walking his dog.

One of three dogs we saw today, a 4 yr. old Siberian Husky.

I also made a little movie of them, but haven't yet figured out how to save the movie to my files. Nor have I yet figured out how to email a movie or upload it to the Internet. If anyone could explain this to me, please leave a comment telling me how to do it. I'd appreciate it!

UPDATE 1/11/09:
I did learn how to put various clips into one movie and save to my computer. You go to START on your computer and choose "run" and type in "moviemk." When you enter, you then can import video (or photos) and drag them down to the movie bar at the bottom. My Flip videos go into a subdirectory under "my videos" which I finally discovered after some time.