Mercator Map Puzzle
don't cry, Tim Gunn
I have made LOTS of progress in the kitchen.
(It was very gracious of you not to point out there that I didn't say, "The kitchen is done!" But it will be done soon. As demonstrated by the fact that tonight I am going to start tearing up the floor in the sun porch.)
And, more importantly, my faith in my shopping ability has been restored. (I pause here to note that I have been appropriately shamed by JBTC's St. Francis post, in that I should not rely on my natural gifts [although I would like to think that shopping may be a gift of the Holy Spirit, and thus a supernatural gift, but the epistles are curiously silent on this point], nor on my own labors to see my life through, but on the mercy of God, and maybe stop white-knuckling every day of my life as if it all depended on me. But that only means that I am contrite. Not reformed.)
You may recall this item, a recent purchase I mentioned in my previous post:
It is an antique jelly cupboard. As I said, I bought it on craigslist for $50. I went to see it thinking it had a wood inlay. I decided to take it home with me realizing that the darker wood grain was a faux finish, but also (after peeking inside) that the cabinet was at least 100 years old and possibly quite a bit more. After it got to my house (still sitting in the car), I suddenly remembered that I wanted a 36" high cabinet, not a 47" high cabinet. So the cabinet was on probation. My husband thought it overly large in the space. (It also bothered him that it leaned forward - because the floor is uneven. I fixed this by doubling up on the felt slide-y feet in the front.) I began contemplating a replacement - which meant selling the cabinet, which is a pain.
But I started to realize a funny thing. I'm not a decorator and I don't have design training, so I don't have that trained-in sense about what things will look like. I try to set good parameters (size, color, age, general design style) and then buy things that meet those requirements and also strike me as beautiful. Usually these standards are enough for a win, but sometimes something that is perfect on paper is just...off...in person. Often I realize this is true when I walk by it, not really paying attention, see it out of the corner of my eye, feel very displeased, and suddenly realize that what I am looking at is Not Working. (Such has been true with the coffee cabinet wall. But I think it may be almost fixed.)
With respect to the jelly cupboard - I kept walking into the kitchen from the laundry room (thus, walking straight toward the cupboard) and noticing something stunning out of the corner of my eye, and realizing that it was - that cupboard! It occurred to me that its wood tones go almost perfectly with the door and the spice rack on its wall:
I disliked the faux graining when I first saw it, but the longer the cupboard stayed in the room, the more I realized I liked it. But it was still taking up too much visual space. So I sat down to commune with the cupboard and determine its age before I made a decision. I took out one of the screws to see whether it was machined. (Yes.) Then I looked up when machined screws first became widely available. Before 1800. Okay. I hadn't narrowed it down yet. Then I started to look at some of the other hardware. There's an original lock made out of wood (probably no longer working, but I don't have the key) and an additional lock you can see was added. Even the later lock is clearly very old - I think from the nineteenth century (I am not an expert, but it seems to line up with other pieces I have seen). The drawers have dovetailed joints, but those were used well into the twentieth century. They use small, apparently hand-cut blocks of wood as sliders rather than hardware; that makes it seem a bit older.
Then I looked at the back of the cupboard. I had planned to put a hole in it through which I could feed an extension cord. The back is made of wide slabs of 3/4" thick pine. I would about tear my arm off with a hole saw trying to go through that. More interestingly, nobody makes furniture backs that way now. I also have a late-nineteenth-century armoire - solid oak with nice carving, much fancier than the jelly cupboard. Its back wasn't made that way, either - it's 1/4" thick oak. I started to suspect my cupboard was made in the first half of the eighteenth century. The chances of my DH winning the battle to get rid of it were dropping.
It was looking like the cupboard was about to be painted - I figured white to match the beadboard behind it would make it less obtrusive. I know some jelly cupboards were painted white. I kind of wanted to paint the drawers and door insets yellow, but first I wanted to check whether that was an original color scheme for jelly cupboards. I also wanted to find out how valuable they were. I was pretty sure that faux graining treatment wasn't original, but it wasn't that recent, either. If the cupboards regularly sold for $100 or so, painting it for my own convenience seemed perfectly reasonable, even if it might diminish the value somewhat. But first - to the internet!
Where I found this article. It starts with this picture:
No, that is not my cupboard. That is the cupboard from the article. (I thought this quite an auspicious start.)
The article explains, "Patina and normal hard wear add to the value of these pieces." Plenty of hard wear here. Moving on: "The sought out cupboards and pie safes are either grain painted or have their original painted surface." It has a picture of grain painting:
So...I guess I was wrong about how old that graining treatment was. The article also helpfully provided some market values for jelly cupboards. One was walnut, obviously more valuable than my pine cupboard, and had tin-punched panels. Another also had tin-punching, but some of the original panels were missing and had been reproduced; not sure how that shakes out. The values of those items were, respectively, $5000-$7000 (estimated on Antiques Road Show) and $3,819 (sold at auction). I don't imagine my cupboard is worth that much, and I am only assuming that it is original, rather than a fake. (I am 99% sure it is a real antique, but again - not an expert.)
However, I am not painting my cupboard. And it is not going anywhere.
(It was very gracious of you not to point out there that I didn't say, "The kitchen is done!" But it will be done soon. As demonstrated by the fact that tonight I am going to start tearing up the floor in the sun porch.)
And, more importantly, my faith in my shopping ability has been restored. (I pause here to note that I have been appropriately shamed by JBTC's St. Francis post, in that I should not rely on my natural gifts [although I would like to think that shopping may be a gift of the Holy Spirit, and thus a supernatural gift, but the epistles are curiously silent on this point], nor on my own labors to see my life through, but on the mercy of God, and maybe stop white-knuckling every day of my life as if it all depended on me. But that only means that I am contrite. Not reformed.)
You may recall this item, a recent purchase I mentioned in my previous post:
It is an antique jelly cupboard. As I said, I bought it on craigslist for $50. I went to see it thinking it had a wood inlay. I decided to take it home with me realizing that the darker wood grain was a faux finish, but also (after peeking inside) that the cabinet was at least 100 years old and possibly quite a bit more. After it got to my house (still sitting in the car), I suddenly remembered that I wanted a 36" high cabinet, not a 47" high cabinet. So the cabinet was on probation. My husband thought it overly large in the space. (It also bothered him that it leaned forward - because the floor is uneven. I fixed this by doubling up on the felt slide-y feet in the front.) I began contemplating a replacement - which meant selling the cabinet, which is a pain.
But I started to realize a funny thing. I'm not a decorator and I don't have design training, so I don't have that trained-in sense about what things will look like. I try to set good parameters (size, color, age, general design style) and then buy things that meet those requirements and also strike me as beautiful. Usually these standards are enough for a win, but sometimes something that is perfect on paper is just...off...in person. Often I realize this is true when I walk by it, not really paying attention, see it out of the corner of my eye, feel very displeased, and suddenly realize that what I am looking at is Not Working. (Such has been true with the coffee cabinet wall. But I think it may be almost fixed.)
With respect to the jelly cupboard - I kept walking into the kitchen from the laundry room (thus, walking straight toward the cupboard) and noticing something stunning out of the corner of my eye, and realizing that it was - that cupboard! It occurred to me that its wood tones go almost perfectly with the door and the spice rack on its wall:
I disliked the faux graining when I first saw it, but the longer the cupboard stayed in the room, the more I realized I liked it. But it was still taking up too much visual space. So I sat down to commune with the cupboard and determine its age before I made a decision. I took out one of the screws to see whether it was machined. (Yes.) Then I looked up when machined screws first became widely available. Before 1800. Okay. I hadn't narrowed it down yet. Then I started to look at some of the other hardware. There's an original lock made out of wood (probably no longer working, but I don't have the key) and an additional lock you can see was added. Even the later lock is clearly very old - I think from the nineteenth century (I am not an expert, but it seems to line up with other pieces I have seen). The drawers have dovetailed joints, but those were used well into the twentieth century. They use small, apparently hand-cut blocks of wood as sliders rather than hardware; that makes it seem a bit older.
Then I looked at the back of the cupboard. I had planned to put a hole in it through which I could feed an extension cord. The back is made of wide slabs of 3/4" thick pine. I would about tear my arm off with a hole saw trying to go through that. More interestingly, nobody makes furniture backs that way now. I also have a late-nineteenth-century armoire - solid oak with nice carving, much fancier than the jelly cupboard. Its back wasn't made that way, either - it's 1/4" thick oak. I started to suspect my cupboard was made in the first half of the eighteenth century. The chances of my DH winning the battle to get rid of it were dropping.
It was looking like the cupboard was about to be painted - I figured white to match the beadboard behind it would make it less obtrusive. I know some jelly cupboards were painted white. I kind of wanted to paint the drawers and door insets yellow, but first I wanted to check whether that was an original color scheme for jelly cupboards. I also wanted to find out how valuable they were. I was pretty sure that faux graining treatment wasn't original, but it wasn't that recent, either. If the cupboards regularly sold for $100 or so, painting it for my own convenience seemed perfectly reasonable, even if it might diminish the value somewhat. But first - to the internet!
Where I found this article. It starts with this picture:
No, that is not my cupboard. That is the cupboard from the article. (I thought this quite an auspicious start.)
The article explains, "Patina and normal hard wear add to the value of these pieces." Plenty of hard wear here. Moving on: "The sought out cupboards and pie safes are either grain painted or have their original painted surface." It has a picture of grain painting:
So...I guess I was wrong about how old that graining treatment was. The article also helpfully provided some market values for jelly cupboards. One was walnut, obviously more valuable than my pine cupboard, and had tin-punched panels. Another also had tin-punching, but some of the original panels were missing and had been reproduced; not sure how that shakes out. The values of those items were, respectively, $5000-$7000 (estimated on Antiques Road Show) and $3,819 (sold at auction). I don't imagine my cupboard is worth that much, and I am only assuming that it is original, rather than a fake. (I am 99% sure it is a real antique, but again - not an expert.)
However, I am not painting my cupboard. And it is not going anywhere.
Digital Learning Day
Next Wednesday is Digital Learning Day. Fourteen of my students and I have been invited by the Alliance for Excellent Education to take part in a panel discussion at the Newseum between 1-2:30 pm. The panel is being proctored by our ABC affiliate's nightly news anchor and will include such notables as the White House Chief Technology Officer and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. ABC will be filming one of my government classes on Monday so if you are interested in doing something related to technology for the day, here is my assignment for which the students are looking at a number of different items I have detailed. Above is a flipped class video the kids are watching tonight and then commenting on a Google Form about. Ultimately the kids are making their own flipped class videos and using a blog page to share them w. each other.
Honey Butter Sopapillas
About once a month we make Fry Bread and top it with chili and all the fixin's, but the best part of this meal is the dessert. It is so yummy and so bad for you and so simple.
Here is what you need:
6 Rhodes Rolls
3 Tablespoons Butter
3 Tablespoons Honey
Powdered Sugar
Vegetable Oil
Let the rolls rise as instructed on the package. Heat up the oil and pat out the rolls making them as thin as possible. Cook in oil for about 30 seconds on each side. Melt honey and butter in microwave and stir. Pat sopapillas with a paper towel removing excess oil. Pour honey/butter mixture on top and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
Google Forms How To
Here is a new Google Forms how to. I use it all the time to do the business of our department. Tomorrow I am starting my fourth class of teachers who want to integrate technology in the classroom and Google Forms is the way I quickly collected their gmail addresses (which can then be put in the share portion of my folder for them thereby instantly sharing my items with them).
JIMMER
Jimmer Fredette has been an integral part of our daily lives for at least six years. Yes, it is safe to say that he is the object of Scott's bro-mantic dreams and I think he is pretty fantastic too. I even follow his wife on Pinterest, that is how close we are. He was in D.C. last night playing the Wizards. We got tickets that allowed us to go early and watch the pre-game shoot around on the floor. We were a little disappointed when all Jimmer did was smile, wave,and say "Hey, How's it goin'?" to us. No hugs, no air kisses, no messages from his wife about how awesome I am at pinning things. We had to remind ourselves that while we consider him a close family friend, he barely acknowledges us because he doesn't actually know we exist. We have invested hours watching him play, checking his stats, defending his honor and I don't even think he reads my blog. What selflessness on our part! It's heartbreaking really, but we will go on quietly supporting him and cheering him on from the nosebleeds like the stoic basketball martyrs we have become.
Checkout how impressed Nash was to be watching our family idol. Harley was not only unimpressed look what she is doing with the middle finger of her right hand! The vulgarity of that little girl is shocking. Where could she possibly learn something like that.
We did manage to take another horrible family photo while in attendance. It looks like we are physically trying to hold the boys in place, most likely because we were which explains the super fake smiles on Harley, Scott, and my face
We love you Jimmer!
Thinglink: Linking pictures to video and articles
David Korfhage tweeted this link to Thinglink. Thinglink allows you to upload pictures and link them to videos and articles. And it does so in a cool way. I watched the video and think the concept is great and has possibilities for class activities, maybe a web quest or something like that. Check it out see what possibilities you can find. Here's a picture of Marx and Engle's that I uploaded to Thinglink and edited. You can hover over the picture and see links and video. 
Timbuktu: A Rich History: PBS News Hour
Watch Timbuktu on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.
Fred de Sam Lazaro, a reporter for the PBS News Hour, just aired a story, produced for Religion and Ethics Newsweekly about the history of Timbuktu that is being destroyed by fighting today. It's a great story about the fabled history of the city and worth showing your kids when you study Africa.And here's a great story from NPR about Timbuktu. My colleague, Frances Coffey, just sent me the link. So, between the video and NPR story, the kids should get a great overview of Timbuktu's rich history.
Make Google Chrome More Stable: Turn-on Click to Play
Father Guido Sarducci and the Five Minute Universtiy
Father Guido Sarducci and the Five Minute University from Saturday Night Live in 1977. Sarducci is no Ken Robinson but he is very funny. I found this on Open Culture.
An RSS Feed Reader for Google Chrome
In his technology blog, Digital Inspiration, Amit Agarwal, describes a great Chrome add-on called "Feeder". It is, as Agarwal explains, " like a mini Google Reader embedded in Chrome – it tracks RSS Feeds and offers instant notifications whenever new content is available."
It's very cool. I installed it this afternoon. Every time you land on a site, Feeder detects the feeds and you can subscribe to them by clicking on the icon in your browser. I like the way Feeder displays your feeds by showing you a list of the most recent entries. And every time Feeder detects a new entry, a little pop up notifies you. You can even add your email to Feeder and it will notify you. Very cool!
Rotton Romans
My good friend Maren Hoover gave this to me a few years ago. It is a very humorous look at Roman leaders.
Rome PowerPoint
Since I only use a few slides (and they are flipped) for presentation, I have told my students they can use my PowerPoint (which I have decided to leave attached in their Blackboard page) for their review guide. You can use it for that purpose or to take parts of it for your own class.
The Byzantine Empire Introduced by Eugene Weber
Here's a ten minute clip from Eugene'Weber's "the Western Tradition" in which Weber introduces the Byzantine Empire. He compares its longevity to other empires, the origin of its name and its connection to the Roman empire.
Fall of Rome
He's no John Greene of Crash Course, but this guy, Jeffrey Lewis, is almost as effective as he sings about the fall of the Roman Empire.
World Migration
Peoplemovin, according to its website, "is an experimental project in data visualization by Carlo Zapponi."
Google Drive Extension for Reading, Dictionary, Pictionary and More
In three weeks I am presenting to a special education classroom and have started doing some research of education technology I want to show them in my 90 minutes (which I will post here on that day). For now I found this great extension (watch the video above) which lets Google Drive have the words be read to them (which you can do in Microsoft Word), look up words in a regular or pictionary or go straight to a search for the word.
Invaluable Information
Did you know that when a kid sticks an M&M up his or her nose if you wait long enough contemplating how to solve the problem the M&M will eventually melt? And when it melts enough, then you can pinch the child's nose hard enough to break that famous hard candy shell on said M&M. Then all the child has to do is blow out the chocolate flavored snot! Voila, problem solved plus the process is not nearly as traumatic on either parent or child as the emergency room.
Just thought I would pass along my AMAZING MOM TIP of the day.
Do you think M&M's will change their slogan to:
Melts in your mouth or your nose, not in your hand!
Win A Free Novel
I don't read fiction, but the publisher of the not yet published book The Afrika Reich has offered select readers of my blogs this book it they want it. The book will be published in the US in February, but if you give me a site that I choose to profile for the blog, I will get the publisher to send you a book (or tell you how to read it online). Watch the video to see what it is about, but it is essentially an alternative story to WWII of whose timeline, you can see here.
Snow DAY
Finally, the kid's prayers were answered. We got our first DUSTING of snow this morning. The boys were on a 2 hour delay from school but I let them stay home all day to enjoy the snow while it lasted. They had tons of fun. BUT, isn't putting snow gear on kids one of the worst experiences you can live through? It is so painful getting all five fingers in the right finger tunnels in a pair of gloves. Pulling on and off snow boots should be an Olympic event. Plus they become totally helpless when they are all bundled up and inevitably as soon as they are finally ready to venture into the great outdoors, then they have to pee. Sorry to be so negative but I am still really cold and my snow pants were so tight that I popped a button while bending over to zip a coat. The snap popped off with such force that when it hit the wall I took cover because it sounded like we were being shot at. I am still recovering from the adrenaline rush or the humiliation, not sure which. I should probably just be thankful all my children still have their eyesight.
Balloons!
I feel like I am always trying to simplify my life without any success. Every once in while I am given a nudge to keep trying because it will not only make things simpler but more joyous. Today it was more of a hard shove then a nudge. I had been thinking about the boy's four day weekend coming up and how I was going to fill every waking moment with activities and outings.
Then the mailman arrived and we received a package from my mom, AKA Granny. Isn't getting a package so exciting? Granny told me she was sending it, but she also said that there was nothing too exciting in it. She couldn't have been more wrong because amidst a lot of cool things, like next year's winter coat for Harley, there were 10 balloons. My kids had more fun with those 10 balloons than they had on Christmas morning among hundreds of dollars worth of toys. They played together without fighting. They used their imagination. First, we played Hot Potato Bomb. Then we rubbed the balloons in our hair until they were so full of static electricity that they could defy gravity. Harley made me tie three of her balloons together. She said it was a butterfly and that she was the butterfly princess. The boys drew faces and spaceships on their balloons and then competed to see who could launch their balloon the farthest. I had so much fun playing with them and remembering that kids don't need a lot to be happy. I think I also realized that maybe adults don't either.
I have to mention that in the package were these super cozy slippers.
And the coolest gloves EVER!!! They are called Plixio and they are only like $3 on Amazon. They look and feel just like normal gloves, but you can text with them. I love them. Thanks Mom! We love you.
Professional Learning Communities
It begins with explaining what groups you might want to join and then the protocol you would use when you join. It also has links to a number of groups you can join. I actually use Twitter and Google+ which are not on the group, but the author has several others to choose. I also use Netvibes which allows me to look at updates from webpages to which I just added the InformEd page.
Next it discusses sites you can use to keep your websites. The one I use is Diigo. Essentially the sites that are listed are ways to bookmark your webpages in the cloud. As with the previous section, it has lots of links.
Inaugural Splash
No, we did not fight the crowds to attend yesterday's inauguration. Instead we went to the pool which was much more fun. Plus there were only about 200 people there instead of 800,000. Harley was especially excited to show off her brand new swimsuit (TARGET $12).
Favorite Winter Treat
You have to try this stuff STARBUCKS SALTED CARAMEL HOT CHOCOLATE!
You can buy it at Starbucks or now you can buy instant packets at the grocery story. It is so delicious. Your life may never be the same, just don't forget to top it off with whipped cream.
Sign Documents wout Hassel
For years I have kept a digital copy of my signature to add to recommendations and items sent to me to sign. Well now there is an easier way from HelloSign that you can use along with your Gmail account. Watch the movie above to see how and thanks to FreeTech4Teachers for the original post.
When the Tooth Fairy is a Loser!
Ever notice how kids never lose a tooth in the morning when you have all day to think about it and make change. No, kids inevitably lose their teeth at bedtime when you are exhausted and the only money in the house is hiding in your sofa cushions. Nash lost his tooth last night and I had every intention of finding that hidden change and carrying it upstairs with me to carefully place under his pillow but I fell asleep on the couch. When I finally went up the stairs in a fog I was no longer thinking about the tooth fairy just my comfy bed. This morning when he came down carrying his little baggie with the tiny tooth inside I felt terrible. I had to think fast. "Maybe you just couldn't find it Nash." I said. He replied with, "Even if there is something under my pillow, it doesn't explain why she didn't even take my tooth." Good point, I thought. "You stay here and eat this yummy doughnut, while I go look around your bed." I had to think fast. I couldn't go back downstairs and look for change and even if I did it really wouldn't explain why the tooth wasn't gone. I remembered that he had been asking for two things lately, a Jawa from Star Wars and their transport vehicle, the Sandcrawler. I was formulating a plan, maybe Amazon could save the day. I grabbed a piece of paper and wrote him a quick poem from that failing fairy:
To my dearest Nash
I didn't leave you any cash.
I also left for you your tooth
Which for a fairy is quite uncouth.
What I want you very much to know
Is that I ordered something for you though
The Sandcrawler it is not,
But a Jawa is what you got!
Don't cry or shoot the moon
For it will be here very soon.
Nash if you ever come back and read this blog in 20 years or so, I hope you read this entry and realize how very much your mother loved you and would do anything to make you happy even perpetuate crazy lies about a fairy that orders you toys on Amazon.
The Ancient Olympics
This is a very interesting and fairly short overview of the ancient Olympics from the National Geographic magazine covers everything from why the athletes wore nothing at all, the opening ceremony, the origin of the Olympics and the female Olympics.
Kahn on Nightline
Sal Kahn was just on Nightline a few days ago. I like this piece as it is short and hits all the highlights. The main point is that technology can greatly enhance the classroom by using short videos (mine are now all under eight minutes) and then letting the students work on projects or webquests. I spend most of the class either working with students who are behind or walking around and checking in on the students who are up to date. I still haven't reached my own goal which will let students work on a self paced class.
Flour Power
Tonight Atley went to his very first friend sleepover. He was so excited and we weren't sure whether we should celebrate or cry. We decided to make it a special night for Nash, who is the proverbial middle child. He wanted to play games at home, he is also a home body, and eat his favorite food-homemade fries and hot dogs. When dinner was done we played a game that I remembered playing as a kid. You make a mound of flour and place an M&M or something on top. Each person takes turns cutting away the flour with a butter knife. Whoever makes the candy fall has to eat it out of the flour without using his or her hands. WARNING: It is a little messy!
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