SerenaTalksALot- YARN

#2

Today Serena finds a bundle of yarn and thinks it's silly string...

DrAWING PICS :) ;)

Hi. serena here.

I draw some pictures. Yeah, yeah I did this aLLL DAY. DID IT ALL BY MYSELF WANA SEE?

I LOVe butterflies. rainbows are awesome
next 1....

messed up on veronicas arm.

veronica like picture. She said it awesome.

Serena is Awesome!!!

Blog #11

Serena and I were doing nothing much today. In fact, it's been rainy today. We woke up this morning to it JUST POURING DOWN RAIN. We watched the weather report today, and we're expecting rain ALL WEEK.

Anyway, if you haven't seen it yet, the SerenaTalksALot YouTube channel is up and running, with our first video where Serena enjoys some sunflower seeds. Can you believe I was able to put the video together with iMovie? Normally I wouldn't use iMovie to create and edit my videos... but I did, and that was amazing.

So now, we're in the process of doing another video. In fact, Serena has a lot of ideas in mind. If you haven't seen the video, it's entitled "SerenaTalksALot- SUNFLOWER SEEDS."

Also, here's a link to the channel. Please subscribe, and then write in the comments that Serena sent you.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUZDkMzX6GPK3ixh9qYg3xw

: )

SerenaTalksAlot- SUNFLOWER SEEDS

#1

Today Serena enjoys a bowl of sunflower seeds.

Serena Eats Out!!!

Blog #10

It was a chill day, so I decided to take Serena and Mombo to China Harbor, a buffet restaurant. I've been here numerous times before, but this was the first time that Serena and Mombo had visited. Now, mind you, there were very few people at this time. (I assume it was because kids were still coming home from school and whatnot.) So, it was just us and the few people.

Serena and I were going for stuff like the clams.

I also had the crawfish, but Serena wasn't really interested in them--she was more into the clams, like I was.

At some point, Serena kissed me on the cheek, and I kissed her back. Some guy walking by giggled...? I don't know, Mombo said so.
"Look at that millennial," she mumbled. "Laughing for no reason. He's like you, Veronica. All millennial and finding everything funny."
"I don't find everything funny," I said.
"Yeah, well you're wearing a Veggietales shirt. What does that make you? Millennial and funny."
"Just eat the food, Mombo…"

"Can we keep these shells?" she asked me. "They look pretty!"

"But they're part of the food," I told her.
"Yeah! Don't play with the food," Mombo jumped in.

Mombo was enjoying a chocolate pudding.

At one point she had tried to spoon-feed the pudding, but I told her no. She was like, "Oh well... More pudding for me."
"It's not even your pudding, Mombo," I reminded her.
Then, sipping my Sprite, Mombo was like "Okay."

Serena's Brothers are Back!!!

Blog #9

Remember how Serena had her nails painted in the previous blog post? And I also said that I did my toenails as well? Well, Serena's brothers had to be absent during this time, because since I painted my toenails, I couldn't show them with the nail polish--

Well, duh! Piggy and Pugsy are boys!!!

So yeah. Piggy and Pugsy are doing awesome!

Last night, they were hanging out, doing so-and-so.

(I say so-and-so, because... we were doing nothing much.)

As always, I would always welcome Mombo and Serena's brothers at home, because hey--they're part of the family. They're my pride and joy.

Serena's Nail Polish GLAMOUR!!!

Blog #8

This past week, I had decided to wear some nail polish-- a lavender purple color. When Serena saw this, she wanted to get into the excitement. So I let her. By the way, this was Serena's introduction to nail polish--she has never tried it before. Her reaction? PRICELESS!!!

Serena: "Ooooh! Nails!"

Serena now loves nail polish.

"I look stylish!" she told me.
"Well, duh!" I told her. "Every girl wears this stuff."
"Really? Even Mombo?"
"Well, I could ask her, but... She told me that nail polish wasn't for her."
"But you said that every girl wears it!" Serena objected.
"Yeah, but Mombo is a woman, not a girl. BIG difference."
"You're right--a BIG woman with BIG hair."

Lol. : )

Now, this week, the nail polish was taken off the fingernails, because Serena got tired of it. But she asked me to try some other colors, and I probably will.

By the way, I painted my toenails as well. But... let's just say that Serena's brothers Piggy and Pugsy won't be showing up anytime soon until I decide to remove the nail polish from my toes.

Anyway, Serena wants to do more stuff with me. I can't wait to see what's in store for the both of us.

Serena's Evening in the Dark

Blog #7

This evening was... interesting, to say the least.

I was about to write a new blog post, but I had to get to a stopping point on a drawing project that I'm going to enter in a fan art contest (more on that in the future). But then, the lights flicker, and everything shuts off. (This was at a few minutes til 7:00 PM CST.) Yep. We had a power outage. However, luckily it didn't last long, because the power came back on at about 7:43 PM (I know this because I immediately checked my alarm clock to see if I needed to change it to the correct time).

Now, during the time that we had the power outage, Serena and her family had mixed reviews.

Serena was asking me what was going on. "What happened? What happened?" she asked me.

"It's okay, Serena," I told her. "It's just a power outage."

"Aaaaagh!" (I don't know why she screamed like that.)

I told her that there was nothing to be afraid of, and I asked her to check on her twin brothers, Piggy and Pugsy.

They were watching a movie on my tablet.

The boys became fussy when they saw that they couldn't watch their movie because of the outage.

Believe me, they didn't like the dark either.

Meanwhile, Mombo was chilling with a Cherry Coke,

and didn't understand what the fuss was about.

Mombo: "I don't see why this is such a problem."

Mombo: "Back in my day, we didn't have any electricity."

Me: "Come on, Mombo! You aren't even that old!"

Anyway, the power got fixed, and I'm going back to my project. The deadline for the project is on Wednesday, July 18, 2018; and I'll be sure to give you more details on it soon.

PRODUCT REVIEW: Lamb Chop (Aurora)

Previously, on this blog, I had talked about how some of my idols like Shari Lewis was what gave me the idea for Living With a Hand Puppet. 

And one of my wishes was to be like her. And what better way to make this wish than do so on my 25th birthday.

Yesterday (June 26, 2018) was my 25th birthday, and of course, I had a very special guest...

LAMB CHOP!

That's right! A puppet replica of Lamb Chop is real! She was out there, and I was able to get her off of Amazon. She came in a big box, because I had bought something else. In my opinion, a box as a choice of packaging was fine by me--it sure beats putting the puppet in a flimsy Amazon bag packaging like when I got Dylan the bookworm. It even came with a fine protective plastic bag, which was also okay.

Right off the bat, Lamb Chop makes it perfectly clear that she's "a puppet" with the red tag on her neck. She also came with another tag on her ear that said that she was "The Lamb. The Legend."

(Well, of course she is!) 

This tag also had a "To-" and "From-" spot in case someone wanted to give this as a gift. 

A celebratory gesture, seeing that I got this on my birthday. 

On the back of this tag, we see that the character Lamb Chop is owned by Classic Media (since 2012), which begs the question: "Why haven't re-runs of Lamb Chop's Play Along been given the DVD treatment? (In other words, why can't this show be on streaming services like Netflix?)"

Upon sitting her down on the bed, Lamb Chop exceeds 12 in. (I think Amazon said that she was 17 in. long); and she's made with polyester just like the real Lamb Chop. The likeness of the puppet strongly resembles that of the original--in my opinion, that's good, because it's almost close to the real thing.

The puppet was brought to us by Aurora, which has a website when you type in "Aurora plush." At a glance, Aurora is known to sell plushies and other kid products that have licensed characters.

So then it was time to actually try my hand at using this puppet like how Shari Lewis would. 

(Lamb Chop blowing kisses)

Me: "She's a little shy..."

Now, putting my hand into the puppet to work the mouth was both exciting and challenging. 

The mouth is manufactured to where you can't really move your hand much to make it "talk." Her mouth doesn't open and close, but does a shuffling movement whenever you fit your pointer, middle finger, ring finger, and pinky in it. I guess the exciting part was that I got to move her arms with my fingers: my right thumb moves her left arm, and my pinky moves her right arm.

QUALITY

You can tell that Aurora took pride in recreating the Lamb Chop character, especially allowing the consumer to operate her as a puppet, just like Shari Lewis. Fine craftsmanship and needle-work show that a lot of effort was put into this product: the polyester, the fabric. The material to this product is super genuine.

The only negative I could give it is that when operating this puppet, working the mouth may not be for everyone: If you have small hands, then you're fine. If you have thin fingers, then you're fine. So, this, unfortunately, is not a one-size-fits-most format, like Dylan.

Rating: 9/10

ASSEMBLY?

No assembly required, other than taking off the tags.

Rating: 10/10

CREATIVITY

This product captures the spirit of the original source material. Having a replica of Lamb Chop--one that you yourself can own and operate--was one of my life's goals, because I wanted to so-badly channel Shari Lewis. So if you got the nostalgia, and if you know who Shari Lewis is and her works, then you'll love this product.

Rating: 10/10

UNIQUE & WEIRD?

There's ABSOLUTELY NOTHING weird about this product. This product is 100% unique, because again, it stays true to the original source material.

Rating: 10/10

DISTRIBUTION & PACKAGING

The way that Lamb Chop was distributed was decent. I respected the box that she came in, and the plastic wrapping that she was wrapped in. And that's saying a lot, compared to how Amazon treated the Dylan puppet with its flimsy bubble-wrap packaging (that wasn't The Puppet Company's fault). 

Rating: 10/10

***************************FINAL VERDICT: 10/10********************************

I love--I mean it, LOVE-- this product.

 It captures the spirit of Shari Lewis, and it was an honor to channel her with the Lamb Chop puppet.

Now... a suggestion: Can Aurora World make the Charlie Horse and Hush Puppy puppets next?

Sources:

Aurora World, Inc. (2018). www.auroragift.com/

Lamb Chop. Classic Media (2012).

REUSE IT!: Shredding Paper ---> Scratch Paper and Bookmarks

I was shredding some paperwork that I didn't need anymore.

Shredding can be hard work. But what happens to the unused part of the paper? It goes through the shredder regardless, when it could've been used for something else. Plus, the shredder works hard to shred every piece of paper that you would feed into it--the last thing you want to do is overwork it, and have it overheat on you.

FOR THE RECORD: The paper examples showed in the visuals are from some of the essays (drafts) that I would write during my time in school. I was shredding drafts that I no longer needed. (That's all part of being a writer, keeping drafts and discarding them for something better.)

SCRATCH PAPER

Now, I'm a writer, and I would jot down any ideas whenever they would come to mind. I also have a habit of writing grocery lists every time I go to the market to buy groceries. I even write To-Do lists--imagine that! But the thing is, I don't see myself going to the store just to buy a small pad of sticky notes that will only run out eventually.

So given that I don't want to waste paper, I decided to look through some of the paper that I want to shred, and cut off the blank, unused parts of the paper into small but sufficiently-sized scratch paper.

This way, not only are you reusing paper, but you're also indulging your inner-writer: jotting down ideas, keeping lists, etc.

DISCLAIMER: Adults are allowed to handle the scissors.

BOOKMARKS

I'm also an avid reader. Every time I start reading a book, I can't help but pick up a small piece of paper and use it as a bookmark. NEVER WOULD I EVER buy a bookmark at a store--I would use that kind of money to save up for a puppet friend for either Serena

or our bookworm Dylan!

So going back to the paper that we want to shred--cutting off a small rectangular portion of some paper that we want to shred…

that would be a bookmark that I would use.

It's nothing fancy, but it's doable.

Once you cut and separate the unused parts of the papers that you want to shred, the labor would be less time-consuming, and it would be less stress on your shredder--again, the last thing you want is for your shredder to die on you from too much labor.

Also, ANOTHER DISCLAIMER: Cutting the paper with scissors should be done moderately, so that you can avoid carpal tunnel in the hands.

So, this was something that I was fiddling with when I was shredding paper, because trust me--having a lot of papers is a lot to handle, especially when you're a writer trying to make note of everything that you want to put in a story. That's me: the busy writer.
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So yeah, this was my first segment of REUSE IT! I'll probably do another one of these in the future, because when I start constructing projects (arts-and-crafts wise). Part of my inspiration for this segment came from Noel Macneal's book Box! Castles, Kitchens, and Other Cardboard Creations for Kids.

He had some good ideas on how to reuse stuff to create something new or to make it more effective in its use.
So, in the future, another segment of REUSE IT! will come soon on this blog.