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Adorable squirrel, inside of an equally adorable log, seeks plant for long term happiness. Looking for a plant that will enjoy sitting in the sun, listening to music, and the occasional nibble from the resident bird. You can expect to be watered at all times, and to always look cute. Will you be mine?
I just got this fun self watering pot. I can’t wait to put a plant in it, and add water so I can see the squirrel pop up. I found it here.
Our bed frame is still broken. It broke months ago, and is now being supported by books. Books that move a bit whenever certain people fling themselves into bed. Books that I am just sure will slide completely out of place one night while we are sleeping.
In a dream world I would replace our entire bed with a king sized one. We love the padded headboard of our current bed, and we just replaced the mattress not that long ago with a Sleep Number Mattress. Oh yes, and our master bedroom is super small. So we are a bit stuck with what we have, but we do need to find a way to fix the frame.
But let’s talk more about the Sleep Number. We decided to get one when our old mattress gave up the ghost. I was so hopeful that it would solve our sleeping issues (I have a very active sleeper next to me, and often get kicked, punched, and bounced). So, having the two chambers of air, adjusting them to fit just right, sounded like a dream come true. Sadly it didn’t solve my problem at all, and my husband still finds his way over with kicks and punches.
Also, we were foolish and bought the least expensive model. I am sure that we should have paid more, since we ended up getting a memory foam mattress topper to make the bed more comfortable. I don’t doubt that the higher priced models are nice though, as my in-laws have one too, and it felt much better than ours. We should have bought what they did (but these mattresses are pricey, and even what we got stretched our budget to the limit).
The dual air chambers are quiet awesome. The only small complaint? They almost act a bit like a water bed. When one person lies on their side, it does pop up the other side a bit. Not a huge deal, but it does make it so you feel the other person moving more than you would expect.
Overall though it’s a nice mattress, and because of that it would be hard to justify replacing everything with a king sized one. Even though I do feel like our broken bed is a great excuse to do just that! Sure I might still get bounced a bit, but those extra inches might keep me from getting kicked and punched.
*Also, if you know the song referenced in my title, we could totally get along in real life.*
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It seems that Mother Nature is finally sending us some warm weather (at least she did this weekend, it is now raining). Of course any bit of warm weather sends me right out to the garden. Oh the weeds! But that is a post for another day. Today, I am making plans for our backyard, which quiet honestly has been a tad neglected. When we first moved in I got to work on the front yard right away, it’s the spot everyone sees (including us), and there really wasn’t much of anything going on there.
The backyard hasn’t been touched much in part because we are trying to figure out what to do with it. First, our dream list; a skate park and trampoline, a big deck leading to a patio, a hot tub, swimming pool, tennis court, and lots of plants. The problem? Our current yard is not big enough to really house any of our wishes. So, to make the most of what space we do have, we are going to need to be creative. First project on the list, our corner patio.
This is the back corner of our backyard. It was a dog run, with gravel and some nasty weeds when we first moved in. We had the concrete poured last year, and kind of just dumped our patio tables there. Sadly not much else has happened. I have plans though! Do you see that fire pit? I want to use it as a jumping off point for an outdoor living room. It would be the “coffee table”, surrounded by what will hopefully be outdoor wicker furniture (still researching for a set). I have an awesome outdoor rug that I got on sale last season. And of course, lots of great plants in planters.
Drawbacks; a budget of near zero dollars. Also, no where to move the stuff that is already there. We haven’t used the tables, but would like to if we had an area closer to the house and BBQ… but that’s a project for another time. LOL! What is on your garden wish list? Do you have big plans for your yard this year?
Oh how I love this series of books, and the latest Easy as Pi: The Countless Ways We Use Numbers Every Day
I was lucky enough to receive a review copy, and have been reading it ever since. It’s one of those books that you can pick up at any time, read from any page, and learn something totally new. It’s not boring either, and you don’t have to be a math whiz to enjoy it (which is good, because math is not my cup of tea).
As always, here is a great article to tempt you into wanting to read more from the book. Enjoy!
Brushing Up on Math is Easy as Pi
By Jamie Buchan,
Author of Easy as Pi: The Countless Ways We Use Numbers Every Day
“World War II? I don’t know much about it. You’ve lost me. I’m sorry, I was always terrible at history. I just don’t have the brain for it!”
Few people would willingly admit to this level of ignorance about key events that shaped the world. But when it comes to math — which shapes not only the world but the entire universe — many otherwise highly intelligent and educated people will happily proclaim ignorance. In many cases, there’s the implication that math is boring and difficult — the exclusive domain of the severely geeky.
This may seem merely frustrating for mathematicians and scientists in social settings, but it has serious and wide-ranging consequences. On an everyday level, a lack of confidence about math makes it hard to split a bill, work on a spreadsheet, or help a child with homework (and this can easily become a vicious circle, since anxiety about math can be passed on to the next generation).
If you feel like you’re math averse, be not afraid: the book Easy as Pi can help. Math itself is based on a limited number of very logical rules and, whether we like it or not, it surrounds us in everything we do. As Pythagoras (the guy behind the famous Theorem) remarked: “Number is the ruler of forms and ideas, and the cause of gods and demons.” The head of a sunflower has evolved with mathematical precision into a double-spiral pattern that packs the most seeds into the smallest available space. The computer on which you’re reading this, and every electronic device — from cheap digital watches counting seconds and minutes to NASA’s Columbia supercomputer, which simulates the collisions of entire galaxies — is powered by a vastly complex system of ones and zeros, which only works at all because they can be interpreted mathematically.
Just like our explorations of science, humanity’s understanding of math has advanced amazingly since we were counting how many mammoth hides it takes to wallpaper a cave. The concept of zero — a number representing nothing — is taken for granted today (apart from anything else, how could all that electronics work otherwise?). However, for centuries it was a thorny philosophical and mathematical question. Roman numerals stopped being used in Europe when medieval Italians learned the zero from the Arabs, who in turn had picked it up from India. The ancient Greeks gave us much of our understanding of geometry, and the Romans put it into practice with structural engineering. We’ve come a long way. The Pirahã tribe, a few hundred people living in a remote area of Brazil, reminds us just how far — with almost no contact with outside cultures, their math is limited to counting “one, two, many.”
Numbers have also slipped into our language and culture in various ways — the third degree, the fourth estate, and fifth columnists spring to mind. And have you ever been asked to “deep six” something? Intelligence agencies use “numbers stations” — radio stations broadcasting strings of numbers — to communicate in code with spies in other countries. And they’ve gained a cult following of fascinated civilian listeners. The controversial conviction of the Cuban Five came after FBI agents found a decryption program for a Cuban numbers station on their computers.
The influence of numbers in our everyday life also seeps into our superstitions. The number 666 — still feared by many people as the “number of the beast” — is believed to be based on gematria, a form of numerically encoding Hebrew words, which is also at the root of claims about a “Bible code.” Math anxiety and ignorance allows people who practice numerology and astrology to make a lot of money by claiming to imbue numbers with a spiritual and cosmic significance. Not only is this completely unproven, it masks the far greater beauty of a mathematically ordered universe.
To sum it all up, math and numbers are everywhere, and they are embedded in our lives in every respect. Anxiety about them is really worth trying to overcome. The benefits they bring us are countless.
© 2010 Jamie Buchan, author of Easy as Pi: The Countless Ways We Use Numbers Every Day
Life is my laboratory! Exploring all the fun things that life has to offer, and sharing them with you. I share my world with my husband, our adorable pets, and our ever growing flock of pink flamingos. Need to get in touch? Feel free to email me!
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