Zatera Ul

Archive for the 'General' Category

Impromptu homeschool lesson: The Physics of Mixtures

Posted: Friday, March 12th, 2010 @ 3:29 pm in General | Comments Off

(OLC invented Steps 1-3 all by herself.)
Step 1: Obtain 1 bag large pearl tapioca.
Step 2: Obtain 1 bag granola.
Step 3: Mix thoroughly. You now have a mixture: substances combined so that they still retain their individual identities.
Step 4: Now, how might you separate the two again? Picking out [...]

Local news

Posted: Friday, March 12th, 2010 @ 2:18 pm in General, Politics | Comments Off

Reading the local newspapers is always interesting. In the last one, there was a story about a guy starting up a hot dog stand or some such thing in a neighboring suburban town.
Points of interest to me:
1. He asked permission from the City Council first (there being no existing ordinances governing hot dog [...]

Prediction One

Posted: Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 @ 4:09 pm in Foofy, General, Politics, Projects | Comments Off

Coffee Tea Books and Me has a good series up about taking steps off the financial grid, by learning how to do things yourself. Since they kind of relate to a series of predictions that I was planning to post, I thought I might as well get started.
First, a warning about predictions in general: [...]

In which I realize, to my great amusement…

Posted: Monday, March 8th, 2010 @ 9:55 am in Foofy, General | Comments Off

…that we have more books per square foot in our apartment than our local library does.

Spring cleaning

Posted: Friday, March 5th, 2010 @ 8:38 am in Foofy, General, Projects | Comments Off

My monitor is starting to die. I also tried taking some over-the-counter allergy medicine, to see if it helped, and it did. Both have pushed me to spend more time away from the computer, so I started spring cleaning in the dining room.
I went through it and dusted every single thing, and found [...]

Community-supported agriculture, and art

Posted: Saturday, February 20th, 2010 @ 9:58 am in Foofy, General, Politics, Projects | Comments Off

We recently signed up for a farm share. We are trying a different farm this time. Last year we didn’t get a farm share, and often had a hard time getting over to the farmer’s market, every Saturday. Buying the farm share automates this; fewer choices involved, we just pick up the [...]

Back and sewing up a storm

Posted: Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 @ 5:20 pm in Foofy, General, Parenthood, Politics, Projects | Comments Off

Last week we took a whirlwind tour around to see various friends and relatives. We stayed four different places in the course of a week. I am glad that I got the apartment relatively clean before we left, it was nice to come home to our own space. The roads were great [...]

Minnesota screws over its renters

Posted: Friday, January 29th, 2010 @ 3:33 pm in General, Politics | Comments Off

Renters in Minnesota, give your Certificate of Rent Paid (CRP) a close reading this year. Your friendly state government has stolen some of the renters’ property tax refund money to balance the budget. Instead of estimating property tax as 19% of rent paid, they are using 15%, and the money to pay the [...]

Draggy and probably sick

Posted: Thursday, January 28th, 2010 @ 9:04 am in Foofy, General, Parenthood, Projects | Comments Off

But I got some sewing done yesterday: four more pairs of underwear. Sewing underwear is about as relaxing as sewing can get, because the mistakes will all be hidden under other clothing.
TLG has been taking ten-minute naps again. But he sleeps ok at night, as long as you [...]

Quanta

Posted: Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 @ 8:39 pm in Foofy, General, Parenthood, Politics, Pregnancy, Projects | Comments Off

I recently read The Alpha Strategy, by John A. Pugsley, which asserts that the best investment in an economy like ours is tangible goods, because of inflation and other eroders of value. A post at Coffee Tea Books and Me outlines basically the same strategy.
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I was reading in Nehemiah how debts with (if I [...]