Optical Illusions

Optical Illusions...do you like them?

Can you see the illusions?

Some people can't~

Optical illusions are sometimes used in brain injury rehabilitation~ especially if the the patient has vision problems such as depth perception or problems discerning field/foreground.

Curtis has vision problems from his car accident. He has learned to adapt really well! In fact, I'm amazed at how well he has been able to learn to live with this disability.

Can you see the old woman?

Can you see the young woman?

Do you see a man's face?
The word "Liar"?

According to Wikepedia:
•An optical illusion (also called a visual illusion) is characterized by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality. The information gathered by the eye is processed in the brain to give a percept that does not tally with a physical measurement of the stimulus source. ...


•the use of shapes, colour, and line distortions which trick the eye and brain. When viewing confusing images, our brain can sometimes interpret visual information and cues incorrectly,or at other times our brains fill in the missing pieces.


Sometimes, our brains can play tricks on us!
 
Cherie has a great blog, Bakow Babble  that most of you probably already read.
A while back, she posted about her word of the year.
And then she posted a cute word strip under her header...
So cute! So clever!
Uh...it's misspelled! (Go ahead, go look again and then come right back, okay?) Bakow Babble...
 
So...I figured she would eventually figure it out. 
 
Then, I was reading this blog: Meanwhile Back at the Gusty Ridge Ranch and Keely posted the word strip that she had made for Cherie...
It was misspelled there too!!! (Alright...go take a peak...here's the link to the post...Gusty Ridge Ranch)
 
ACK!!! (Cherie and Keely...do not freak out!!!) :)
 
Still, I figured someone was bound to figure it out!
I contemplated kindly mentioning it to Cherie...but decided not to.  (Good thing!)
 
I decided just to ignore it!!! But every time I read Cherie's blog...there it was! This giant, misspelled word!!! I couldn't ignore it! It wouldn't go away...it seemed to get bigger and bigger every time I visited her blog!!! (Edgar Allan Poe ish?)...
 
A few days ago, I was reading blogs when Emily came home from work.
She sat down and asked me what I was doin'.
 
Seeing my opportunity, I quickly pulled up Cherie's blog and asked Emily;
 
"Do you see anything wrong on this page?"
 
"No, Mother. It looks fine to me." (Her calling me Mother should have been the first clue!)
 
"Really? Nothing?" 
She looks again.
 
"Nope, nothing. Nothing wrong here. Nopeity. Nope. Nope." (Okay, she didn't really say it like that~ I'm taking some creative liberties here!)
 
"Ha! That word is misspelled!!!" (I point to the word on the screen)
 
"Uh...mom? What do you think it says?" (Warning! Danger ahead!!!!)
 
"STRENGTH" (clearly misspelled, I think to myself)
 
"Mom, that word says STRETCH."
 
*Blink*
 
*Blink*
 
"Oh."
 
So...I am wondering if Keely will make me a cool word strip? But first I have to change my word of the year from CONNECT to
 

I*D*I*E*T

(What do you mean I misspelled it?)

 

(And my brain still tries to read that word as Strength!!! Maybe I need vision therapy?)



Places I Should Avoid

I had to run a few errands last week.

Had to get a birthday present for my nephew.
He loves dinosaurs, so I found this cute little Triceratops at Toys R Us.

I may have spent a little too much time looking at toys there. But I exercised amazing restraint and only purchased what I went for. 

I also wanted to get a dinosaur book...so of course I had to to go Barnes and Noble.

I already know that I should avoid book stores!



 Found the perfect book...I might go back and get myself a Triceratops! I think he is so dang cute!

I was doing fine in the bookstore...I looked at a few books but then put them down and headed for the children's section.

That's when things got a little dicey!

I love children's books!!!

First book that caught my eye was "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Wright Penn. I have these on my list to purchase~ but not right now. I contemplated...picked it up and looked at it...set it back down...walked away.

Came back...thought about it some more.

Nope! Not today!

Then I found the paperback section.
Oh my!

This is the alternate dinosaur book I had picked out.

I guess I accidentally forgot to put it back!

 

Then there was this little book. I used to sing this song to Shane when he was little.

"I Love You a Bushel and a Peck" from the musical "Guys and Dolls".

I didn't know it had been made into a children's book~ so of course I had to buy it!

Shane is still young enough that he'll let me read stuff like this to him.

He did roll his eyes at first~ but then he got right down on the floor with me as I read to him.

Fun memory for us!

(He was my fussiest baby, so I sang to him A LOT!)

This book also caught my eye.

I read it last night. To myself!

It's really a cute little story.

Maybe I can get Shane to read it with me.



I have boxes and boxes and boxes of books sitting in my garage, waiting to be unpacked.

I love books!!!

Maybe I should just stick with the library from now on?

Chocolate Chip Cookie...Cupcakes!

I made these cupcakes last week.

I saw the recipe a while back at Kevin and Amanda and knew I wanted to try them!

Here's the recipe: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

The recipe is pretty easy.

Most of my cupcakes turned out pretty good:

But a few turned out like this:

I'm not an accomplished enough baker to know why. Altitude perhaps?

No worries, I had plenty that did turn out!

And...just like my last cupcake experiment~ I had lots of cake batter left over. Really...lots! 

 (I have a few pictures that look like a freaky alien face~ I left those out!)

I found a few of these...frosting caps?

My family obviously does not like frosting.

Poor topless cupcakes!



The cupcakes tasted really good. Be warned~ they are pretty rich!

I made them for an object lesson for our Family Home Evening last week.

(Feasting on the Scriptures/Hidden Treasures)

Here's what we liked even better than the cupcakes...

The leftover cookie dough! The recipe contains no eggs, so it is safe to eat.

I kept some in the fridge and I froze some. I really liked the frozen ones!

 I have another recipe for "raw" cookie dough that I am going to try this week.

I'll let you know how they turn out & which recipe we like best.

(P.S. Two basketball games down with no embarrassing incidents! Things are looking up!)