I recently heard that it is acceptable to still give a baby gift within the first year. These are some better late than never gifts I finished up this weekend. I have yet to actually package them up and send them off, but at least the easy part is done.
I am slowly dipping my feet in the reemerging trend of high waisted clothing, with vintage inspired wrap skirts. I have wanted to make myself one of these skirts for a couple of years now, but just recently, I wished I had made them this spring, got around to it. I found this great pattern on Ebay and used it for my first try at it.
I chose this light denim fabric to make it look and feel like I bought it second hand.
For my next try, I used only the skirt pattern pieces, and modernized the rest of it. I put on a real waistband with belt loops,made the pockets smaller and more rounded, and shortened it.
I should be able to get quite a bit of mileage out of these through fall, maybe by then I will have worked my way up to high waisted pants, but probably not.
We kept it pretty cool today. We had several sets of tentative plans today including Coney Island, Storm King, Dia Beacon, Central Park, but we ended up doing none of them and staying in Brooklyn. We at least knew we wanted to get as far away from our neighborhood as possible, we had the West Indies parade practically coming right down our street, loud music and trash included. So we went down to DUMBO. Standing for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. This is one of my favorite spots in Brooklyn. There is a terrific playground that overlooks both the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges and the city skyline. This park is complete with a water stream, sand, grass, rocks, constant wedding photography, trains, the East River, a great view, and lots of kids.
Of course no day at the park would be complete unless Luke drenched himself and needed a change of clothes. Luckily Mom thought ahead this time, of course after many previous unlearned lessons.
Not on that this is my least favorite of the Star Wars Trilogy, but on the 2004 enhancements made to Return of the Jedi. My brother and I threw this one one yesterday, I usually watch A New Hope or Empire, but we decided we needed to brush up on our VI trivia.
Some of the edits, enhancements, whatever you want to call them, I am ok with, especially when the picture is clearer and easier to make out some of the details, although some of those details are new. I would like original copies of all of them just to have, but for viewing pleasure, the new ones are just fine. But there are some that I cringe at. They just don't work, they don't flow, its like Lucas forgot about continuity or why the simplicity of a scene or character is what made the original trilogy so enjoyable.
This is my least favorite change in all three movies. I hate it. It is over the top and almost ridiculous. I will set the stage. Jabba's palace, the Max Rebo band, and the newly created CGI character named Joh Yowza. Together they sing " Jedi Rocks", I usually mute this 30 seconds of torture.
Before the enhancements, and crazy CGI.
After 
The one bit of trivia I found out about this scene is they did add a few more shots of Oola dancing. In my opinion it was unneeded, but she was in such great shape after 20 years, she was able to still dance, and attempt to fight off Rancor. Impressive.
I do like the enhancement to the Sarlaac. It seems more scary.
After the beak and tentacles were added.
The reason I post these next pictures isn't because of what you see, it is because of what you hear. Yub Nub was completely taken out of the Victory celebration with the Ewok's and replaced with an over the top Phantom Menace sort of song. John Williams has a special place in my heart, but why did he have to mess with this one?
After. I do like that you can sort of see some dancing Ewoks.
Being that Wedge Antilles is my second all time favorite character, to Luke of course. I was thrilled that this scene of Luke and Wedge reuniting was added. He was one of the only X Wing fighters to survive all three movies, and he is Hayden Christensen's uncle.
And this scene being the most controversial of all the editions. This is the one, I can't decide on. At first, I hated it, then I kinda liked it, now I am on the fence. Anakin did die when he became Darth Vader, so it does seem to make sense that he was restored to his Jedi self, but when he killed the Emporer, he redeemed himself. Admittedly, I do smile when I see Hayden standing there, he is so cute.
After. Would I prefer Alec Guinness, or Ewan McGreggor? tough call. 
These last added final shoots of Tatooine,Naboo, and Cloud City are very grand and animated. They seemed unnecessary at first, but they do sort of set the stage for the prequels and show how wide spreading the empire was.
All in all, these movies are still my favorites of all time. I can live with the changes, and I do still watch them over and over. I will just have to accept them, or ignore and mute.
*Clearly I didn't take these freeze frame shots, I had help from some internet friends, to whom I say "thank you".
She is going to kill me for doing this, I did warn her though.
Carrie and I have been friends for a long time. We met at Rick's college, roomed together at BYU, and have shared several great memories. Carrie has many talents, one of my favorites is her ability to make me and everyone else smile and laugh. She has an amazing wit and sense of humor, some of which I have been able to pick up and pass off as my own.
One of her new talents is quilt making and sewing. I am one of the lucky friends that have received one of both of these. For my birthday she made me this apron. I LOVE IT! The fabric and color combinations are perfect. I am almost afraid to use it, it might have to be for show on special
occasions!
And for Luke, she made this quilt. After I saw some of the quilts she had made, I mentioned under my breath that I wanted one, and before I knew it, I got it in the mail. Isn't it amazing?
Thursday, September 6, 2007 at 10:38AM
