Monday: Flurry on the lap

Flurry is still sitting on my lap on a regular basis. Tonight she started out like this:

and then ended up like this:

She was a little bit more to the left than normal, so she kept trying to head-butt my arm out of the way.

Sunday: dimes or quarters?

The pregnancy center in our area has an interesting fundraiser. Every year they give a bunch of baby bottles to churches and then members take them home and fill them will change (or dollars). It's a nice way to get rid of the spare change that we've accumulated during the year and help out the organization.

While I was putting coins in, I noticed that the dimes felt so much smaller than the quarters. It made me wonder: would it be better to put only dimes in the baby bottles or only quarters? My guess is quarters. But what if weight is a factor? Then would it be better to do dimes or quarters?

So off to do some math. But I started out at the US Mint, where they give handy facts about the coins. (If you don't care about the math, you can go to the end for the tl;dr) (Too long; didn't read)

A dime has a volume of 340.0964 mm^3.

So lets see what a quarter's volume would be if it were equal to that of a dime:

340.0964 mm^3/dime * 2.5 dimes/quarters = 850.241 mm^3

A quarter has an actual volume of 808.9035 mm^3, so if space were perfectly utilized, quarters would be better to put in the baby bottle.

But you can't fill up the baby bottle perfectly, so this becomes a packing problem. I think the baby bottle was about 2" in diameter. We'll estimate that you can get three quarters per row (you can't quite get three flat quarters, but if you put some in vertically it is probably close). We will estimate that you can get seven dimes per layer. If the baby bottle was 35mm (7" tall), we would get 331 dimes or 184 quarters in the bottle. Oh, quarters won again with $46 to $33 for dimes.

However, the bottle of quarters would be about 25% heavier than the one of dimes.

tl;dr

If people want you to fill up a baby bottle with coins, putting only quarters in the bottle would be better than putting in only dimes. My hypothesis was correct.

Saturday: 1000!

Happy 1000th post! How exciting!

Since no one gave me any ideas on what to do for a 1000th post earlier, I came up with an idea on my own. It's rather geeky.

I did a word analysis. I'm not guaranteeing that it is perfect, but I think it is close enough to be accurate.

First: the words I used most often were "the" (1378), "I" (1212), and "a"(1014). Below is a pie chart showing how often words were used. I was surprised that I had only written so many words only once. It seems like I often write about the same things, so I would have thought that the 1x would have been much smaller.
Ben got mentioned 129 times, Flurry 77 times, and Dad 28 time. I thought Flurry would have been written more often.

Here is the number of words per post.

The highest one is 848 words. I average 96 words per post. Per a linear trendline, I am slightly increasing in words per day.

Here's to another 1000 posts!

Saturday: yuck

I haven't been feeling great this last week. Well, I guess I've only been feeling about 98%...not enough to normally complain about it, but enough to be annoyed. My stomach is off. While I can hope it's because I'm pregnant, it's more likely my body getting itself straightened out or stress. Especailly because it started I think before my body would even know I'm pregnant.

I remember not having happy periods before I went on the Pill (although I don't remember it starting this early in the cycle either). I am not looking forward to dealing with a few months of them.

Friday: I'm back

I'm back! Sorry I didn't post for a few days.

Tonight I went to a women's praise and worship service at church. It was nice to take some time to go and spend with God.

Tuesday: five question friday

It's Five Question Friday again!

1. Where did you meet your spouse and did you instantly know it was love?

We met at college. The first time we met we barely acknowledged each other...we were just lab partners. That summer we met again and started hanging out more.

2. What is your favorite room in your house?

What an interesting question. I'm not sure I have a favorite room. I'm not really a fan of the basement though because there's no carpet and my feet get cold.

3. Can you wiggle your ears?

Yes. It was a talent I discovered after getting glasses.

4. What is your evening ritual?

I get ready for bed and then read/play iPad games for a bit until it's time to go to sleep.

5. How many hours of sleep do you need to function?

I think I need about seven between sleeping and naps to be happy. It's been a while since I have had less than that.

Monday: today

Nothing of note happened today. So I'll give you a story from yesterday.

NPR announcer: "Today we have with us Melissa. Melissa, I hear that today is Pi day."

Melissa: "That is correct..."

Amanda (thinking): "Pi Day? Wait, what month is it? It's January. Pi day is in March. It's not March, is it?"

Amanda (still thinking): "Oh, they mean pies. Seriously, they put pie day on the wrong day."

Sunday: around the house

Let's take a look around the house!

Ben and Flurry say hi.

Today was sunny. The sun makes a cool pattern through the front door.

Our thermostat is acting up and won't keep time correctly. I realize that the battery is flashing, but it started flashing about two minutes after I put new batteries in.

Flurry enjoys her cat grass. The roots have grown in well, so she gets to make a mess when eating it.

This is the snow on our back deck. The previously mentioned applesauce is in one of those indentations.

Flurry says hi again.

I put my socks on before my shirt today and it caused me to clash today. Usually I choose my socks to match my shirt.

Unknowing

Seriously, it would be nice if there was an obvious sign at conception. Like your big toe lighting up or something. It's only the first month and I know our chances might not be great this month, but I'm already impatient to know.

Saturday: lights

Tonight we were driving home after dinner and seeing Tron and saw some streaks in the sky. I thought it was just those spot lights pointing straight up, but after seeing three of them and Ben also wondering what they were we figured it out. The Northern Lights were in the sky.

They weren't very colorful, but we thought we saw some red tints in them. By the time we reached home they were almost gone though. :(

Friday: curry and snow

I have a problem - I can't estimate very well whether we need to shovel or not in the mornings. There are two primary reasons for this. 1) I have just woken up and so while I do have my glasses on, I can't see very well. I also have a poor time making judgments. 2) I don't have a "measuring stick" to see how much snow actually fell. I look at the driveway and guess. I'm usually wrong. If I can see driveway I guess we don't need to shovel (but then the drifts surprise me). If I can't see the driveway...I just guess. I thought it was only an inch this morning but it was closer to 4".

I made some curry tonight. At one point I was afraid it wasn't going to turn out but then the curry paste did a nice job of thickening it up. There's enough left to freeze for one meal too! Luckily I found some more room in the freezer; otherwise it would have had to go outside in the snow with the applesauce. We might need to get an additional little freezer for all these foods I keep making in bulk.

Thursday: a comment

Isn't it weird how one comment can change your day? Today I was complaining to a co-worker that excel had just crashed and I lost an hours worth of work and he gave me a good reason as to why it was good that excel crashed. And the day changed from being annoying to being good.

We also got to see Laura for dinner, which was fun. Flurry finally came out at the end to see her too, so that was nice.

Wednesday: Grey

"We're adults. When did that happen? And how do we make it stop?" - Grey's Anatomy

Oh, there have been some days lately were that feels so true. I started watching Grey's Anatomy yesterday. It's kind of addicting. But I've also gotten several more squares quilted. Some are better than others.

It feels like it was a rough day but it really wasn't. It was actually a pretty good day when I look at what happened. It's a complicated feeling.

Tuesday: boxes

Flurry loves her boxes.

Monday: 10,000

Today I made it to 10,000 steps. This is the first time that I've made it while wearing my pedometer. The main reason is because I chose to do the ellipical tonight so that my pedometer would actually catch the steps that I was taking. (Versus biking, where it wouldn't see the spins I was spinning.)

And while the pedometer does make me a lot more aware of how much I'm walking (or not walking as the case may be on some days) there is an extra incentive to wear it because it can add a little bit more money to my health care account. I need to get 6000 health miles (HM). If you walk under 7000 steps, you get 20 HM. When I checked in today at almost 9000 steps, I got 80 HM. I didn't realize the incentive to hit the target number of steps was so large. Also, I'm not sure how I feel about HMs being a unit of measurement. Are there any units of measurement that scale in such a weird way? I think they should really be called Health Points, in which case I wouldn't have a problem with it. And I could pretend I'm in a video game.

Sunday: moneychangers

Today's Sunday School lesson was about respecting God. (Specifically from when Jesus goes into the temple courts to basically find a market there and whips everyone out and turns over the money changers' tables.)

So the activity of the day was to play a game on a table. We played Bible Trivia. It was rather hard. There are a lot of details in the Bible, especially the old testament, and then it can be hard to remember names even if you remember the story. But I digress. We were supposed to be loud while playing. That didn't really work. Then someone came in and flipped the table over. (That was the real point of the activity). I had put a whole bunch of game pieces on the table and the noise makers that I was hoping they would use were still on the table, so it all went flying.

I think everyone was surprised at how effective turning over a table can be at stopping the activity, even the people that were expecting it.

Saturday: quilting

I started quilting the quilt today! The batting is a little "sticky", which has been great because the cloth doesn't move too much.

I know that it doesn't look perfect, but I kind of like the look actually.

Friday: hurray, it's Friday!

Today was puzzle night. I decided to change it up a little bit and invite a ton of people and then choose the puzzle(s) based on how many people were coming. It worked incredibly well! Dinner was delicious and the company was great...there was a lot of laughter.

Here's the set up: although I had kind of been hoping people would table hop, we pretty much stuck with the puzzle we started with. But there was plenty of talk between the tables, so it still worked well.

Our puzzle finished well before the other puzzle. (It was also a lot easier.) We started helping the second puzzle after that. I don't have a picture of it complete, but we finished it around 11:30pm...perfect timing for puzzle night!

Oh, and my quilt batting came yesterday, so I might get started on that today!

Friday: no more pills

I'm going off birth control tonight. I'm excited. But it's a weird thing to be excited about since I won't know anything for at least a month and even then it might be a while before I can be really excited. I'm trying to prepare myself for delayed excitement.

Thursday: Wasjig

Last night I finished my first Christmas puzzle, a Wasjig. The box looks like this:

but then the actual puzzle is taken from a different point of view. (In this case, the driver of the cart.)

Here's how it turned out:

For the most part, it was a good puzzle. Enough detail without having too much detail when you didn't know what the actual picture looked like. The biggest thing I was disappointed with is that the point of view seems a lot closer to the front of the car than the cart driver is. I was hoping for more things that you could see in the picture.

Oh, I also decided to do the second choice for quilts below. I like the first quilt pattern better, but I don't think my fabric would do as well with it. Also, I've never done triangles before so this is something new to learn.

Finally, I would like to give a short rant to WoW: why do we still get fish oil and slimy fish scales off level 85 monsters? Everything else that the monsters drop levels with their level so that we aren't getting 10c items. And why does every single monster have to drop these things?? They fill up my inventory without giving me a good return. At this point we should be getting extra-great-superior fish oil and buffed fish scales.

Wednesday: snow

It snowed today. Apparently it was windy too because we had some foot high drifts at the end of the driveway. I think it would be a good idea to put a wind-block fence up so that these drift don't drift onto our driveway. Too bad it would look ugly. Maybe we could just put stakes in the ground and put up middle pieces when it is actually going to snow.

Flurry is snoring in my lap. :)

Tuesday: the way home

It is snowing out! I had to go slowly coming home from Bible Study. If I had been smart I would have taken the highway. Instead I took the back road because it's the way I normally go.

...I only fish-tailed a few times.

Monday: quilt

I finished the top of the baby quilt! I think I like it better in real life...it has a lot of bright colors and in the picture it seems too busy. It's busy in real life too, but not so overwhelmingly so. (Or maybe just enlarging the picture helps. I might have looked at the small version for too long.) I ended up ordering some batting on-line, but it is going to take about a week to get here. :(

In the meantime, I realized that I have enough extra cloth of these colors to make a second baby blanket. Below are the two choices that I've decided on. I looked on the internet and saw a bunch that I liked, but either they required many more colors or were easier than I wanted to do. So please vote for your favorite! And I know it's hard, but try to picture the patterns with the above colors.

Sunday: an odd happening

Today we had a potluck at church. It was delicious; there was lots of good food. Near the end I went into one of the side rooms where all the 4-6 year olds were playing. My goal was to just quickly take a look at something in the room and then leave. I knelt down to the box which was on the bottom shelf of a book case. When I looked up a moment later, four children were standing around me, looking at me.

Amanda: "uh, hi?"

kids stare back

Amanda stares back, wondering what to do next.

Ethan: "Hi! I'm Ethan."

Phew, that broke the ice. I was then told all of their names (which I already knew) and their brother/sister relationships (which I also knew) (the church isn't that big). And know they know my name too.

Saturday: more donuts

I tried the frozen donut batter today and the donuts came out fine! I used too many utensils still, but spoons and forks are a lot easier to clean up than baking supplies.

I also got the kitchen all cleaned today! Normally this isn't a big deal, but I've been trying all week and having only moderate levels of success...the dishwasher was running so I had to stop or I needed to wait for the trash people to come so I needed to stop...good reasons like that. But I finished it today along with several of the other tasks. Not all of them, but it was a good start.

Friday: my hero

Let's face it...it hasn't really been a great week. (Well, Sunday and Monday weren't too bad, but it quickly went downhill.)

So when I found out my paperwork was wrong and my cell phone died while trying to call the company for the fourth time today I had had enough. (I should have had to call the company zero times because Ben had called them earlier in the week. Also note that when I left the house my cell phone had three of four bars.) I got home and broke into tears. (I was also slamming doors and stomping my feet but those were almost justified as I had snow on my feet and I always slam the car door.) Ben took over. He got the correct paperwork. He's amazing and calm about stuff like that.

Three cheers for Ben.

Thursday: me again

It's me again. I still don't have much to say. My mouse batteries are almost dead but I found that if I take one out and then put it back in my mouse will live again for about two minutes. So I've been doing that instead of getting up and getting new batteries.

Ben and I worked out again today. I'm reading "A Prayer for Owen Meany" while cycling. The quote of the ride was "FAITH TAKES PRACTICE!" (Owen said it, so it has to be in caps.) Sigh. It'd be a lot easier if it was just second nature.

Wednesday: uninspired

Tonight I am uninspired to write anything. The day wasn't exciting, my random blog post ideas didn't sound fun, and the Five Question Friday Questions were all too holiday-y or deep or brought up something I don't want to talk about.

So I decided to make my own questions. They're easy to answer.

1) What did you have for dinner?

Spaghetti with garlic bread. A little extra garlic bread than normal because it wouldn't come apart and by the time it did it was in pieces and may as well be eaten.

2) What is the weather like?

I think it is just below freezing, so cold but not too cold. We've had a little snow but not much and it usually melts pretty quickly.

3) What color are your socks today?

Black.

4) How many times did you write (or type) the date today?

Not very often today...I think about twice today.

5) How many cups of tea did you drink today?

3...two peach, one sleepytime. The hot chocolate machine at work just increased their prices and decreased their sizes, so I'm boycotting it.

Monday: nope, it's Tuesday

Today has felt like a Monday all day. So it's nice to remember that it's actually Tuesday. Work today was fine. Nothing very exciting was going on and one of our big programs is being upgraded so there some work that we can't do.

Thrilling, no?

No.

I started one of my Christmas puzzles yesterday. I'm going to go work on that now.

Monday: Last day of vacation

Ben and I took today off too. It was really nice not having to go to work, but we'll be back at it tomorrow...and Ben will be back to extra busy again too.

We did get quite a bit done today, although not everything got finished. What else is new? All the Christmas decorations are down and I miss having the lights. I think Christmas lights are by far my favorite Christmas decoration.

I started the day with making some donuts. Donuts with nuts, sprinkles, and coconut (but not all together). Delicious. I froze the extra batter in ice cube trays, so we'll see if that makes it easier for the next batch. I'll probably try again on Saturday.

Oh! I also disguised myself as an herb! ...it wasn't quite as much fun as it sounded. Well, maybe it was as much fun as it sounds. Although the person standing next to me was willing to buy and sell to an herb, so I thought that was funny.

Ben and I tied in Dominion for the second time. I would have thought that ties would be rare, but so far we've had two in the 10-15 games that we've played.

Sunday: Happy Sunday

Today was a pretty normal Sunday. We went to church, did a few errands, and came home. I was super tired at that point...I could barely keep my eyes open during the episode of Castle that we watched. So I took a nap right after that.

Flurry has been sleeping on my lap a lot today while I've been playing WoW, so that's been fun. It's a nice feeling.

Oh, and I think we found the problem with the beeping smoke detector. The one we thought it was was the wrong one. Stay tuned to see if the next one that we think is the correct one really is.

Saturday: Happy New Years!

For not being a busy day, a lot sure did happen for me to tell you about.

I ate a yogurt for breakfast. Flurry's reaction in the movie is why I usually eat breakfast at work. I tried to make it a little shorter than it actually was, but I think it is still too long. Oh well. You'll get the idea quickly.

One of our smoke detectors is beeping. It has been since we got home. It beeps twice about every three hours. After we finally figured out which one it was I put a new battery in...and it is still beeping. Hmm.

I played a lot of warcraft today. Yesterday I saved some cute squirrels and rabbits and injured fawns. Today I impaled baby bears on the tops of pine trees. Then I realized what I was doing (the horror!) and instead threw them into the trampoline so that the could live another day.

It was also second Christmas today. Second Christmas is when we actually get out the stuff we got for Christmas and put it in usable places. And it's fun to rediscover what we were given. Here's Flurry staring down her present...it will have cat grass in it in a few days.