The Importance of Being Sharp

I finished all the routing on the harp today. Last time it seemed the routing was the most horrible, time-consuming part of the whole process. When I started it last week it looked like I had remembered correctly. Frustrated, I took a closer look at my router bit. Blackened and dull, it wouldn't even scratch my finger. So why was I expecting it to cut oak boards?

When I went down to Lowe's they didn't have 1/8" routing bits for the Dremel, so I ordered two new ones off of Amazon.com instead. It is scary what you can buy through Amazon! They came in the mail a couple of days ago, and I finally got around to trying them this afternoon. I could not believe the difference it made to have a sharp bit. The whole project was finished in two hours.

Close Encounters of the Creepy Kind

Everyone please welcome special guest blogger Rachel Bayles, who sent me this delightfully creepy e-mail:

This morning my just-turned-2-year-old approached me and in his baby language informed me that he had seen something “cary” (scary). He led me by the finger back to his room and pointed at a few toy cars on the floor. I didn’t see much that was scary about the cars, but somehow through his gesturing and limited vocabulary, I presumed he had seen a little bug of some sort. “Was it a scary bug?” “Bug,” he stared repeating, putting a scooped hand along the ground like Audrey sometimes did with the ants she would find and decide to keep as pets. Well, it must have been an ant or a spider, and I returned to my work, lamenting the beginning of warmer weather and the threat of ants finding the 20-pound bag of sugar I have kept open in the pantry all winter.

Later this morning, I was standing at the doorway of the boy’s room casually chatting with my husband as he played with the boys when I felt something tickle its way across my foot. I looked down to see a very hairy insect slithering (thankfully) away from me. Big strong daddy jumped into action and told me to get the vacuum. While we disputed about the finality or lack thereof of sending the creature on a terrifying 3-foot journey down a hose into the suction chamber of the Hoover, the little beast crawled under the kid’s dresser, laughing glibly as it went. While my husband put on a pair of shoes and began pulling out drawers, I decided I wanted to know with what we were dealing.

I was pretty sure it was a centipede of some sort, and a quick google image search revealed that my hunch was correct. This is the beastie we were dealing with:

The common house centipede. I found that disturbing on three levels, all spelled out in the name. (The scientific website I visited to read more about it even scientifically confirmed the things were disturbing with these words: “They are highly predaceous arthropods, nocturnal in activity and disturbing when found indoors”). First and foremost, the word “common.” “Oh, yeah, those guys,” I can hear my seasoned neighbor say, “They’re all over the place. Welcome to New Jersey.” “House” obviously worries me because it indicates this little guy lives by “Mi casa, su casa.” And lastly is the very fact that this guy is a centipede, which as I recall from my science classes years ago likes to take a nip at people now and then. Thankfully this particular species is not very toxic, but he does have a “painful bite.” I’m glad he wasn’t on any rampage when he decided to traffic the territory of my foot.

After tearing the dresser apart and searching the length of the wall behind piles of stuffed animals and toy bins, we were about to give up when we spotted him again. Dallyn had pulled back the toy bin one more time and was trying to show me a little hole in the wall where the thing might have crawled out, when it came casually pit-pattering back into view. Maybe he was trying to make a last mad dash for that hole. We gave him the boot (literally) and were safe once again.

Welcome to New Jersey.

A Little Evening Entertainment

Last night after we put the kids to bed my husband and I thought we might go on the internet and look at some of the promotional material for the new Indiana Jones movie. Then I noticed that my brother Jim had e-mailed asking for help in solving the following equation:

1/T=A + B ln(R) + C (ln(R))^3

My husband the math professor took one look at that and said, "No problem." Some Italian mathematician in the 1600's had already solved it. Here's the simplest of the three solutions:


You can click on that image to get a better look. Beautiful, isn't it?

The Endless Laundry Loop

I daydream while I'm doing my housework. Housework takes very little mental effort, so I give it none at all. For example, this morning I put the clean laundry from the dryer into the basket, put the wet laundry from the washer into the dryer, put more soap into the washer and started filling it with water, and then without thinking I emptied clean laundry basket RIGHT BACK INTO THE WASHING MACHINE!

By the time I realized what I had done, the clean laundry was already wet and soapy, so I just let it run through another wash cycle.

A minute ago I went to move the laundry again. The dry, clean laundry went into the empty basket, the wet laundry went into the drier, I added soap and started the water, looked down at my feet and saw a basket full of laundry and started putting it into the washer.

About half way through the basket I realized I HAD DONE IT AGAIN! I was putting freshly cleaned clothes RIGHT BACK IN THE WASHER! I picked up the half full basket of clean laundry, hurried to the doorway, and deposited it out in the hall where it would be safe. Then I went and found some real dirty laundry to fill up the rest of the load.

The Real Reason I Bought the Boots

Okay, this is not the only reason I bought the boots, but the reason I couldn't wait for fall like most sane and ordinary people had nothing to do with industrial collapse. I had to have the boots by today because I wanted to dress up like a Jedi for my son's birthday party.


Here I am teaching a crowd of nine Kindergarten Jedi the ways of the force. They did very well, and thoroughly destroyed the death star for a big finish at the end of the training session.


If any of you want to have your own Jedi Training Academy party, I'll tell you it was really easy. Pass out light sabers, make it clear that sabers are ONLY for whacking at other sabers, not at people or furniture or walls or ceilings, put on some Star Wars music, and let them go! They loved it. We did play one organized game I would like to mention: I had the children pick partners and gave each pair a light saber and a bottle of bubble stuff. One child blew bubbles while the other tried to pop them with the light saber. I also took a movie of each child individually showing off his or her best light saber moves. I could tell that some of those little Jedi had been practicing at home!

Fully Operational Battle Station

My six-year-old asked for a Star Wars party for his birthday. This is the pinata that I made for the party. My daughter helped me paint on the details.

Boots!

Since industrial collapse is imminent, I thought I'd better go out and buy myself a nice pair of dress boots while I had the chance. I've always wanted a pair, and my mother sent me some birthday money, so I set off just after lunch to find some.

Unfortunately, this is not boot season. For some reason, all shoe sellers and department stores believe that no one will get a sudden urge to buy boots in the month of April. I visited four stores before I found any boots at all, then it took three more stores before I found a pair of boots my size. On the other hand, because no one wants to buy boots in April, they were on clearance!