Distribution Plushies

I've been doing some stitchery lately, and I don't just mean my curtains. I've also been making cute little statistical plushies. It was Shannon's idea and he is giving me feedback as I go. So far I've made 3 little fellas.

The standard normal (z) was the first one I made. The fabric is quite thin so you can see the dark threads through him. Also, his top isn't very smooth or symmetric and his mouth is too low. But he is still a little cutie.


Next I made Student's t. I used the same fabric, so same issue there, but he has multiple degrees of freedom. So I embroidered a curve for 2,5, and 200 (I think, I don't remember for sure). However, his bottom isn't very straight.


Then last night I made Chi-squared. I used a different fabric, obviously. This time you can't see through it, but I should have used darker floss for his different curves (at 5, 10, and 20 degrees of freedom). I also should have used lighter floss for his eyes. You can't even see the little buggers. Due to the curves, deciding where to put his face took some time, it's okay, but I'm open to suggestions. Also, instead of stitching his bottom, I placed it on the fold. That not only seems to make more sense, but it looks a bit smoother too.

Another Glorious Weekend at Home

So, I've talked about our bathroom curtains and here is a picture of them. We started with just the red striped fabric, then found the gold-ish curtain underneath it at Target for cheap, so we bought it and it matched the fabric really well. Plus it makes it seem more like we meant to put up some decorative curtains.


Keeping with the curtain theme, I introduce sidelight curtains, for added privacy. Now I don't have to worry about people being able to see me inside of my house. Not that there are that many people around. Living on a cul-de-sac in a small development, we didn't even have many trick-or-treators. But still, now you can't see in. The new curtains make the room feel more like a room and make you notice the window above them (which you can't see in this picture) a lot more. Not to mention they were really cheap becuase the fabric I found back in August for 50 cents a yard!


This weekend I also groomed an old plant. My dad gave my mom this plant on Mother's Day about 9 years ago... or so? It used to live on a stick that was about 3 feet tall. But it no longer actually was stuck to it. So I removed the stick and that dead pieces and this is all that was still attached.


A few pieces are in some water and hopefully they won't die on me. But instead, establish some roots so I can plant them and have baby plants. Aw.


In other news, last time Shann and I went shopping we bought a ham. This way we can have a ham dinner and then make some delicous pea soup with the remains. Yummy. We made a honey ham (the picture above is stupid big if you actually click on it to see), some scalloped potatoes, and an egg bread. The bread, shown below, was huge! That rack that it's on is about 10" by 16" and the bread covers most of it.


With the eggwhites left from the bread, we made angelfood cake. And then with the left over bread I made french toast. Yummy.

It was great to have a weekend at home to cook, clean, sew, do stained glass, and even other things! Like on Saturday we went to PetSmart just to look at doggies. Pet Adoption League brings pets to show on every other Saturday. Let me tell you, they had some cute doggies! If only Shannon and I were going to get one...we aren't going to. Despite how we would both enjoy a dog, we just don't think now is a good time to get one.

Stripes

I've been doing some housework and updating recently. Such things as...

1. Hang a picture from my mom that I got for Christmas in our bedroom. Nothing matches in this room at the moment. There are some old blue curtains from Jardine, a few boxes for Goodwill, some light lilac paint, and other random things.


2. I also made some curtains for the kitchen window (shown below) and our master bathroom window. I don' t have any pictures of that one yet for you. But the kitchen curtains match the color we painted in the eat-in part really well.


3. And a project in progress is this fabulous bathroom. The wallpaper is now down and the walls puttied and sanded. Once we get the opinion of another party about our color choices, we can buy the paint and tiles and finish her up. We plan to paint it green and put in a new tan tile floor. Currently the flooring by the sinks here is carpet and in the water closet part (through that closed door) its a cheap linoleum sheet. That will go too.


I've also been doing other crafty things like sewing, crocheting, working on a BloodBowl board, and making a stained glass Sierpinski's triangle.

The Lone Star State

This weekend I made my first trip to Texas. I've never been before and K-State Hockey scheduled a weekend of games down there. So, Jenette, Shannon, and I went down to watch the team. Michelle rode with us too, but she goes to every weekend the team plays (I mean she is a coach).


Michelle and Jenette got here Friday night and we at at Abuelo's and then went back to our house and played Pandemic with 4 people. This game is really fun. Newgen bought it for Shannon for Christmas and we've only been able to play it with the two of us. That has been fun, but everytime we play we want to try it with more people. So we got our chance and it was really fun. We played about 3 times and lost all 3 times, but were SO close the last time!

Then Saturday we left for Texas. Before we went to watch the games, Shannon, Jenette, and I went to Fort Worth to see Audri's new place. Her and TJ (her husband) just got it 1 week ago after a few months of chaos. But thanks to a really nice guy who works with TJ they got a HUGE house. I mean, huge! It's got like 5 bedroom all with walk-in closets half the size of the bedrooms. The master suite has a bathroom that is substatially larger than our upstairs bedrooms. Plus there are 3 living areas, a big kitchen, and a nice sized back yard! It's pretty groovy.


While there we also saw Brenda and Audri and TJ's two kids. One of which is 1 week older than my niece. It was fun to see how similar yet different they are.

Okay, then to the rink to watch the team. They played Texas Tech first and pretty much stunk. They looked slow and not together. It was rather frustrating. Plus it was the first time I've watched the team and not played on the team. I'm sure that helped in my opinions.

The second game Saturday night was against Univeristy of Texas. We played really well. We were tied 1-1 for a long time and then we were down 2-1 for the rest of the second period (I think). But then UT scored a bunch and we couldn't match. We ended up losing, but the team played together and I think they matched/out-skated UT in the game as well.


After that, we met up with Lyndo at Applebee's and had some un-impressive food. Applebee's really isn't that good. Everytime I go I am just disappointed. But, not many places are open past midnight.

Sunday we woke up and watched 2 more games. We played Texas A&M and University of Texas Arlington, lost both. But again, they played pretty well. In the A&M game, one of our defenseman covered the puck in the crease, which resulted in a penalty shot. C-r-a-z-y. You never see penalty shots.

Well done, goalie.

Besides not having enough shots on goal, there were a number of absurd penalites. The refs in Denton called a totally different game than the refs in St. Louis. Plus it seemed to be incosistent at times. In one game, one of our guys got called twice for roughing while using his body on the boards to get the puck. Totally clean at St. Loius. In the same game, one of our guys got elbowed against the boards and got his upper arm injured a bit, but nothing was called. And we weren't the only ones a little taken by this. A few players and fans from other teams commented to us that it should have been called, but eh. What are you gonna do?

It was a good weekend. It was awesome to see the team and talk with old friends. I didn't realize how much I missed friends and family until I saw how nice it was to just sit and talk with them in the bleachers.

I gots one!

I enjoy sewing. I've made quite a few things for myself and for others over the years. One of the main drawbacks is having to try things on. For me, its just a pain. I make a change, then have to put the piece on. Then take it off, make a change, and so on and so on.

For others, its even more of a pain because they aren't me, they don't live in my house, let alone my town most of the time, and they aren't always there at the times I want them to try things on.

Solution: Dress form. However they aren't free. Unless you get one for Christmas!


Rhonda gave it to me for Christmas! It's purple even! The dress form used to be Grandma Fullers and Rhonda's sister Marsha had it and I guess wasn't using it. Well, they are letting me use it! Sweet!

So now when I make Rhonda's dress I can use the dress form to help! Sweet!

The Fitz

This weekend was full of 100's of sugar cookies, literally.


Friday night we drove to Wichita for our Superbowl party. We had it at Mom's house this year since that is a more centralized location.


On Friday, we just kinda chilled at Mom's house. Nikki entertained us (as usual), we played some "pool," and even got to sit on the couches downstairs! (That is special because usually the cat owns the basement, but Mom built her a little room so now she doesn't roam free downstairs, hairing and puking on whatever she pleases.)

Saturday we were joined by Rhonda, Jenette, Chris, and Michelle for lunch at La Galette. It's a cute little French joint with yummy pastries and desserts. After lunch, we went shopping for our Superbowl party. Then eventually met up with Andy and Rusty for dinner at Olive Garden. We conviced them to come back to Mom's house and help us frost our cookies for the next day. Shannon and I baked them before we went to Wichita.


On Sunday, we prepared the party and took Nikki and Dakoda for a walk. By kick-off we had all the food ready and there was lots of food to be had. We had the giant sandwich, hummus, salsa, guacamole, cheese dip, bean dip, cheese and sausage with crackers, perogies, 2 types of cheese balls, and 2 other cheese dips, veggies and dip, puppy chow, half of a butter pecan stadium cake (only half because a certain chug dog ate half of it while we all played Guitar Hero), Skittles, and our Superbowl Cookies. I think that is all. It was good! And we actually didn't have too much left over.


It's too bad the Carinals didn't win. All 10 of us were going for them. Mom even bought a sweet Larry Fitzgerald shirt. They played pretty good though. It was an awesome game to watch.