Marilynn's Blog
Thursday, March 08, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Sending Saffola
When I first got her message to send margerine, I thought What?? What else do you need? Pencils, rubber bands, shampoo? It's not like Bellingham is in the Arctic.
OK - turns out, you actually can't get Saffola in Bellingham.
First I had to explain to the grocer why I needed a small insulated bag. (Are you going on some exotic trip where you need to transport fragile food? - No just sending margarine through the mail.)
Then I had to tell the UPS store worker what was in the box. Really, she says she can't get Saffola in Bellingham...
After telling Dan I spent $12 to ship Saffola, he said, Of course they don't have Saffola in Bellingham, its so unhealthy!
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Creat your own Flat Catan Board
1.
Get a piece of foam core from your local art or office supply store.
2.
Paint it ocean blue with acrylic paint. Wisp in white to suggest waves.
3.
VERY IMPORTANT. Not only do you need to put the
border pieces together on the board before gluing – you need to arrange the
hexagonal pieces inside it to make sure the borders are at the proper angles
and shape. Otherwise it may end up
being too tight to fit the pieces in. Pencil around the outside and/or inside
of the border pieces so you know exactly where to put them once they are glued.
4.
Lay the border pieces on a disposable work
surface face down. They need to be perfectly flat so that the spraying glue
does not creep under them to the front.
5.
Spray with spray
adhesive. (or use white glue) Immediately arrange on your prepared foam
core.
6.
You now have a lovely lightweight permanent
Catan playing surface!
Hint for cutting foam core. If you do not have a paper
cutter and want to use an exacto knife, make several light scores along a
straight edge before making any heavy cuts.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Open Drop Ether
Mom's story about the old days of anesthesia.
Apparently "open drop ether" was an anesthetic technique that she used for years. Ether was dropped onto a gauze mask worn by the patient. Keeping track of vital signs was the only monitoring system. This was back in the low tech days when they could bring a baby into the dining room to monitor recovery while they ate. One reason that ether is no longer used is that it is highly flammable. "That is the reason that electrical outlets in operating rooms are up high, right? Because ether sinks?" (A bit of trivia I knew.) This reminded her of a demonstration one of the professors did. From a container of ether up high, he lit a match to some papers down low. Unfortunately other things on the desk started to catch fire and he had to staunch flames for a while before continuing. He often had things go wrong. Another time, he gave some morphine to a cat to demonstrate how it sped it up. He probably gave it too much because the cat sped around the room so fast no one could catch it. And in one of his examples comparing the effectiveness of a medicine, the wrong rat died.
Monday, January 09, 2012
Funny things
Two funny things Dan said last week:
1. "Oh yeah...that oven mitt has a hole in it"
2. "Now if I was going to work with glitter, I'd put on an apron first!"
Sunday, January 01, 2012
New Year's Day
Every New Year's Day there are articles about people who did something mildly interesting every day for a year. Like, date a different guy, send a thank you note to someone new, not buy anything new (except food and basic toiletries.) Then they write a book about it, because it becomes somehow life changing, or at least meaningful in some way. So I feel pressure to start a year of doing something... It really needs to start out sounding boring. Take a picture of everything I eat. Done that. Take a picture of my dog every day. Already do that.
Maybe it should be something I want to do, but don't make time for. Keep a journal. Do a sketch every day.
Maybe instead of trying to improve myself every day, I should tell other people how to improve themselves. "you should get more exercize", "talk less and listen more", "make eye contact please". This might end up being good book writing material.























