Dear Entropy,

Would you please play somewhere else today?



I have work to do. Is it obvious?



I'd rather to more fun things too.



Actually could you just take an extended vacation?



I would like to be clutter free and clean for the holidays.

Thanks!

Sunday Book Review: Monkey Girl

Monkey Girl by Edward Hume made my head hurt but in good way. It's about evolution. So if this bothers you please stop reading now.

Things I learned:

The Scopes Monkey Trial was kind of a joke. The town was having some financial problems so the town elders thought that a trial about evolution would help the local economy. So they asked Scopes to say he taught evolution in his classroom. He agreed.

I didn't realize how much or for how long the teaching of evolution has been contested and challenged in the United States.

Text book publishing companies have watered down evolution because they fear the books won't be purchased.

Random Thoughts from reading the book:

I learned about about Intelligent Design. All I can say is why bring science into religion? I can't help but believe that this is drawing line in the sand. If intelligent design is real science then you need to test it. If you did test it would it hold up? I don't think so. So might that then prove there is no God?

I personally don't think evolution makes it so there is not a God. The more I know about the world and how it works the more amazed I am and the more I believe in something. How can you not look at your child's tiny body and not believe in something? How can you not think about life and not be amazed and thankful? I can't.

Ultimately, I believe Religion, Spirituality, and Philosophy is about why we exist. Science is about how. Let's keep it that way.

Silky Soft Scarf

So I’ve had some of this Frog Tree Pima Silk yarn in my stash for a really long time. On a whim I made this. I really like it. So I wrote up the pattern and got some great hookers to help me test it.

This pattern is also available as a pdf download on Ravelry and you can find it on Fiber Star Originals as well.

Remember when...

My dishwasher died? We lived without one for over a year. We broke down a few weeks ago and bought one. The last few weeks have been torture waiting for it to get delivered and installed. Why did I do or not do dishes by hand for over a year w/o out too much complaint?

So here is our wonderful new dishwasher.

Yet, I wonder if it's really worth the cost. I truly doubt it will help me keep up with the dishes. Unless somehow this dishwasher comes with magical properties so the dishes literally jump into the washer when dirty and out when clean. Now, that would be a dishwasher!

If you are curious we bought the SHE4AM1 model from Sears on sale for about $500 dollars. We've used it twice and it's cleaning the dishes pretty dang well. The only draw back I can see is the use of controls. I think this is the same quality in materials as the higher end Bosch but to save money that skimp on the electronics. So there's lots of button pushing manipulations to make some things happen. So for me there will be a learning curve to figure out how to use the dang thing. The wash cycle is long. I believe that normal for many new dishwashers. It's quieter than our old dishwasher but not quite as quiet as I expected.

The fine print:
The photos in the blog post have been cropped to hide this blogger's messy kitchen.

Brrr!

I have yet to turn on the heat. I know a but crazy.  I try to wait as long as possible to save money and do my part to reduce greenhouse gases.  We keep the heat pretty low all winter long too so the longer we wait the warmer 65 deg F feels.  I'm also inspired by the Yarn Harlot who has Furnace Wars each year with her family. 

But dang I'm cold. It's currently 58 deg F in the house. I'm wearing a hat, scarf, sweater, fingerless mitts and warm wooly slippers. If I was moving around and doing some housework, ha!, I might be warmer but I'm not. Now my nose feels cold and the key board is sucking the heat out of my fingers. 

It's less than 60 deg F in the house.  Why does it seem so cold? If this were spring we would have the windows open and enjoying a lovely day.  It may be warmer outside. Let me go check. Our out door thermometer reads 50 deg F and the newspaper says it's 41 deg F. So no it is warmer in the house. I think I'l go make tea.  I'm going to hold out a bit longer, atleast until halloween. I can do it. I can but I need some long underwear.

Library Reading Programs

Oh how, I do not like them. I don't really care for them because I don't think kids need rewards to read and sometimes these programs backfire. Kids will read to get the reward then after that they don't read for the rest of the summer. That's what happened the first year we did the summer reading program. However,the next year we did it, it did not seem to make a difference either way.

Jade is in her room right now with a load of books to read for the winter reading program so she can get a silly prize. Well, I think the prizes are silly like erasers, stickers etc. Maybe she won't reach the goal of 10 books or maybe she will. She's doing it on her own. I'm not making her do it. We talked a bit about the programs and why I don't like them. She came up with the idea that she can set her own goals and maybe her own reward for reading.

The cool thing is she is excited to read and to challenge herself. So that's not a bad thing. I told her if she really wants some fun pencils or note pads then please let's go the dollar store. I don't see them helping my son love reading more. He's enjoying books because we've found some stories he likes me to read to him.

The not so cool thing about the summer reading programs is if the kids do them then they get coupons. Often the are coupons are to fast food restaurants that I need to buy a meal as well. Sometimes this doesn't fit into the family budget or I don't want to eat there. So I make no promises to help them use the coupons. If I don't want to eat there too we don't go. I'm just sayin' I'd much rather eat at Rudy's pizza in town than Cici's Pizza. Depending on the coupon offerings I'm willing to busget and plan for all kinds of cool things to do for the summer so we don't need the rewards anyway. I tell them read because you want to not because you will get something.


PS I wrote this but never published it sometime last year. I liked it so I decided to post it after all.

Rainbow Sherbet Coin Purses

Materials
Rainbow Sherbet Handspun Handyed Yarn
4.0 mm hook
1/2 inch buttons

Are you a spinner or do you have some aran/heavy worsted yarn in your stash? Then checkout the free pattern here.