Suppy

Bag From A Bag

Every two weeks, I go to the airport and feed a colony of feral cats. Don't worry, the cats are fed every day, just not by me. I usually carry around this free reusable type of bag to store my cat food, canned food, and water. However, this reusable bag was dying. There were several holes in it already. Since I use up a 16-lb of dry cat food every month for these feedings, I have been collecting a lot of empty cat food bags. I knew I should use them for something but I didn't know what. One day, I saw this tutorial on how to make a bag out of old cat food bag. You know where this is going. But before we go anywhere, I got a sewing machine!


It's pretty.



Before doing anything I washed the bag really well with delicious smelling soap because cat food tends to be stinky after a while. Then I just cut open the bottom (it was taped together) and cut the bag in half.



Turn everything inside out!


Sew a line about 1/4" from one end then make a mark 2" from the edge.



Open up the bags and fold it down. Sew a line across where the 2" mark was made. Do this for both corners. Repeat the same process for the other bag halve.



Flip one of the halves right-side out. Then stuff the inside-out halve inside the other one. That way both the inside and outside of the bag will now have prints on them.



Fold the lips down and sew the two halves together.



Punch two holes on each side of the bag.



Grab some twine or some ribbons.



Loop the twine or ribbon through the holes and tie them together to create handles.



Display the newly made bag proudly and use it like a boss!

I decided to not do the cloth lining like the Instructables tutorial because I wanted something easy to clean and sturdier. So half of the original bag was used as a lining. Since I didn't have any wide ribbons for a handle, I went with the hole punch and twine method because I didn't want to figure out how to sew a thin, round, and hard piece of twine between the outer layer and the lining. Those are the only things I changed from the tutorial.

A Rant

WARNING: This post is very negative and it doesn't match very well with the positive attitude I'd like to keep for this blog.

In an effort to make sure that my lifting forms are good so I won't hurt myself at the gym, I've been searching and watching a lot of Youtube videos on proper forms. Whilst going through all the videos, I came across the 2012 European Championships Women 58kg. I started watching it because these women are around my size and they lift like crazy. Watching people compete in something that I enjoy doing is very fun, as many people would agree with me.

Now, I knew that comments on Youtube are dumb and I usually skipped over them. However, today was not a good day for me because I decided to read the comments. They were atrocious and I couldn't make it past the 2nd page of the comments. I had to stop before my perfect blood pressure raises too high.

These are 58kg (127 lbs) women snatching twice their own body weights. Yet, comments are all relating on how they look such as "Just like to watch zoe smith hot," "Im in love with zoe smith shes good looking and very cute," and "Iam afraid an horney at the same time" or "what you look like without make up" or "these women would produce good offspring."

To these people, I ask: Who the fuck cares if you're horny? These women don't know you exist and I doubt they would want to bone you anyway. They would probably snatch, clean, jerk, and then throw you out of the window.

None of the comments are relating to how these women can basically snatch most of the male commenters sitting on behind their computer screens judging the women on their looks and their ability to bear children. No one commented on the competitors' skills or techniques. These women who do what they love and are very good at it get no compliments for their accomplishments. Never mind that they probably trained 8 hours a day for years, stuck to a strict lifting diet, have the desire to better themselves and be the best. Nor does it matter that a great amount of mental discipline also went into weightlifting years after years. No no, none of that matter at all. As long as they're hot, they'll get plowed by the manly men and all is well. If they're ugly, they'll get called a troll and jokes will rain on them. All will be fine and dandy.

Even though I didn't make it far enough within the comments to see the comments about how these women are manly looking and gross, that they need to look more feminine, I know that these comments are out there. I've read enough forums to know that is the general consensus on women who lift weights. All I have to say is that people train for different things. Some people train to look good (female and male models, actors and actresses, etc.) and some people do not care for looking manly/feminine and they only train for strength. Applaud them for their achievements rather than critic them on how they do or do not fit your own mould of attractiveness. You do not need to be attract to someone to say "Oh hey, I think you're great at what you do."

I am aware that not all men and women are like this. In fact, the men and women I know are wonderful human beings. They are great friends, generous people, intelligent members of society. I'm jut surrounded by really wonderful people that I sometimes forget that there are a portion of the world out there who are not very nice. Once in a while, I encountered them through the internet and it's ugly. It makes me sad and angry.

I don't want to spend the whole day brooding because of some jerks on the internet. I also know that I alone cannot make a mass of people change their ways of thinking. Getting sad and angry will only hurt me and does nothing to hurt anyone else. So I will go on with my day and be the best I can be. By the way, last night, I deadlifted 185 lbs which is only 15 lbs away from my deadlifting goal for this year.

Cheers!

Granny Square Blanket

Some time last year, I read this blog post from According to Matt and decided that I want to make a granny square blanket, too. I have never made a blanket before and it would be nice to start on this project.

After deliberating with my sister, the graphic designer, we came up with a color scheme and combinations for my blanket. My sister said that I should just go with two-color combination as opposed to three-color like Matt did on his blog. This would make things easier for me and I like the idea of more white.

On August 8th, 2012, I started my first granny square. I have set a goal for myself that I should make at least one square each day and gave myself one whole year to make 432 squares. That would allow me with a blanket of 18x24 squares.



I'm happy to report that I have finally went over the 50% mark. I've been way behind on my progress but I'm quickly catching up. Currently, there are 281 squares completed and I have 2 months left to finish the other 151 squares. Once the squares are finished, I will have to join them together and I figure that would take at least another month. By the time I'm finished, the cold season will creep around. Perfect!

Kindle Paperwhite

Last Christmas, my sister gave me an Amazon gift certificate with a lot of money. Finally, in March, I decided to use my Amazon money for a Kindle. Being the old books lover that I am, I spent a lot of time debating whether or not to get the Kindle. I gave in to the dark side due to a lot of convincing words from other book lovers.

Then it was a matter of which Kindle to get. That was also exhausting. After receiving so many detailed and well-thought out recommendations from friends and the interweb, I decided to get the Kindle Paperwhite. I would like to thank Ruby, Joanie, Brendan, and Nur for their opinions and recommendations. I appreciate your precious time.

Inside the black box.



Turning my baby on!



So, what do I think about my purchase? I LOVE IT!

It has a nice matte exterior finish like an eraser. The same texture as the Google Chromebook. It's very light. However, Brendan mentioned that his simple Kindle is a lot lighter than mine.

The Kindle Paperwhite has a back light which is very helpful because I love to read in the dark. Please don't try this at home. I'm able to read nonstop from the afternoon, to dusk, to night without having to get up to turn on the light. This is not a good thing, I'm sure.

Previous owners of the Kindle Touch complained that the touch was too sensitive and it reacting to clothing (sleeves mainly) touching the screen flipping pages. The new Paperwhite model corrected this problem and I have not encountered this issue.

Some of the reviews complained that there isn't much hand room to hold onto the Kindle and their fingers get tired. Well, sure, if you're dumb enough to hold the Kindle like it's shown in the picture. How about not hold it up with just two fingers? How about just letting it whole thing rest on your hand? It's small enough.


I sew a really quick and simple cover for my Kindle from 3mm thick felt. I didn't feel like adding embellishments or buttons (it was tight enough to hold it in place) or design because I was lazy. It helped keep my Kindle scratch free in my purse.

Overall, I'm really happy with this purchase and have been buying a lot of ebooks already.

Thank you everyone for contributing to this purchase!

Invisalign

At the end of December last year, I decided to get Invisalign. I know my teeth aren't in the celebrity smile status but I didn't have a problem with them at all. I liked them snaggletooth and all. In fact, no one seemed to have any issue with my snaggletooth either. No one ever make fun of my teeth or reject me for anything because of my teeth. So why did I decide to go with Invisalign? Mainly because it's nice to have a straight set of teeth...a luxury! The second big reason is that the way my teeth were lining up, the top front teeth were scraping on the bottom teeth causing them to wear down. I didn't want them to get so worn that they will be completely gone when I'm 55.

Because I was an idiot, I didn't take photos of the original state of my teeth to compare. I only started to take photos in February. So, here are the comparison between February and now.


I didn't see any improvement here. I actually think it got worse. My bottom teeth would take almost twice as long as my top to move around since I have that one tooth that is almost horizontal.


Left view.


Right view.


Top view.


I found this photo of my upper teeth back in October of 2012 and you can see that they did move from their original positions.


Front view. Oh yeah, one of my front teeth is chipped like crazy because it's freakishly long so it got into the way of me eating and noming.


Bonus non-crazy picture!


I'm always pretty, I swear!!!

Changes Are Good

This is the piece of paper notifying my dad that we were granted permission to emigrate from Vietnam to the United States almost 23 years ago. This piece of paper helped changed the courses of four lives. I'm sure my parents were afraid and apprehensive of the new direction we were going but I did not know its significance.