Bone Dry

"Dry as a bone" or "bone dry" means that something is completely dry. That's the way that my brain feels: completely dry. I can't really think of anything to write, yet I want to write. So I though I would bore you with a mini-history lesson.

The phrase "bone dry" was first coined by a clergyman by the name of Robert Forby in 1830. The phrase is found in the glossary of his book entitled, The Vocabulary Of East Anglia; An Attempt To Record The Vulgar Tongue Of The Twin Sister Counties, Norfolk And Suffolk, As It Existed And Still Exists; With Proof Of Its Antiquity From Etymology And Authority.

Now, I have absolutely no idea what his book is about. I just thought the title was interesting. So I decided to try to glean additional information about his book. It appears to be a book of memoirs and, quite frankly, wasn't very interesting. But in the preface, there is a list of Norfolk words (whatever that means) that, according to the person who wrote the preface, do not appear in Forby's vocabulary. Here are just a few of them:

• blob - to shake
• buffled - baffled, disappointed
• chig-chig - a call of invitation to pigs
• diddle - to move the hand quickly in and out of the water
• kittle - to bring forth young (especially in rabbits)
• ligger - a rude foot bridge
• trip - few sheep

Interesting, eh? Since I am feeling quite buffled right now at my lack of brain stimulus, I believe that I will blob the dust off of my slippers and venture into another room to do some reading, or maybe hop on the exercise bike. G'night, y'all!

Ah, To Be A Kid Again!

There is nothing quite like the experience of visiting a children's museum with a two-year-old. Every experience is new and refreshing and, no matter how old you are, the kid in you can be expressed without inhibitions.

I recently had the opportunity to do this very thing, and I must say that I enjoyed being a kid myself. We enjoyed exploring a child-sized cafe, complete with kitchen utensils, phony food, and recipes. We ventured into the construction room, where hard hats and hammers were the primary tools, along with golf tees for nails and foam boards for wood. There was even a real fire truck and a small boat that were ready to be boarded for a trip into make-believe land.

A number of costumes were available for a toddler to wear to become a princess, an Indian, or even a penguin. There was a stage for performing and instruments of all types. The children can watch themselves perform on a closed-circuit television. It's quite hilarious to watch a two-year-old dance around in a penguin costume!

For the more scientifically-inclined, there was a wind exhibit with miniature wind turbine generators, a raised water display with miniature boats and levees, and a place to mix water and mud. What child could resist the opportunity to play with shovels full of mud?!

If you've never had the opportunity to visit a children's museum, you should. The one we visited is located in Walla Walla, Washington and, while it is small compared to the children's museum in Denver, Colorado, it had a greater variety of activities for all ages.

Jesus says, in Matthew 18:3, "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." While He was not speaking of actually becoming children, He was referring to the childlike innocence and thirst for knowledge that children have. A child is open to learning experiences and we, as Christians, should also be thirsting for knowledge. The traits of character highly treasured in the kingdom of heaven are simple trust and loving obedience.

Ah, to be a child again!

American Ingenuity

There comes a time in everyone's life when the odd things are what make us ecstatic. Recently, my boss and I (yes, another "work" tale), were given a new door to our office. Now, you would have to understand what the old door was like. The door was solid steel and had a fire rating of 4 hours. There were no windows, and it was impossible to unlock the door--it was permanently locked--entry was with a key only. The key was the size of a small car and weighed nearly as much. (Okay, I exaggerate, but it was huge and was on our key rings with 11 other keys.) If someone wanted to come in, we had to constantly get up and open the door. We even put signs on the door to let people know whether or not we were there.

Eventually, I got tired of getting up and down to open the door all the time, so I designed a doorstop. I took one hanging folder and folded it in half and then folded it a couple more times, and then folded it again. Then I wrapped it repeatedly with about 40 rubber bands. When I stuck it under the door, the door stayed open. Voila....a doorstop!

Our new door is pretty exciting. It has a window, albeit only 5" wide by 24" high, but it is a window. Not only are we able to unlock the door so that people can enter, we can actually SEE who is coming in. It was truly exciting....until we discovered that the manufacturer put the window in backwards. The screws to remove the window were on the outside. Hmmm, that means that someone could remove the screws, take out the window, reach in and open the door.

Never fear, however! Our Maintenance gurus came to the rescue and put in screws that cannot be removed unless you have a special tool.

Good ol' American ingenuity: creating doorstops from hanging folders and screws that can't be removed! Wow! Isn't America great!

Love/Hate Relationship with Computers

My boss and I were the lucky recipients of a new color printer a couple of months ago. Our old color printer was a little HP Photosmart that printed one page every three minutes, if you were lucky. The new color printer will print ten times that amount. It's about three times the size of the old printer and the ink cartridges are the size of an encyclopedia. There are four cartridges (black, yellow, cyan and magenta), and they cost about $100 each.

After our computer guy got the computer hooked up to the printer, we tried it and it worked. The problem was that it would ONLY print in color, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but we didn't really NEED everything in color and we need to conserve the colored ink. So I went in and changed the settings on my computer so that my printing would be black/white or grayscale until I told it otherwise. While I was finally able to print in black/white or grayscale, I now couldn't get anything to print in color. (And you wonder why I hate computers!) I tried to change the setting back to what they originally were, but the computer wouldn't acknowledge any of the changes. Fortunately, the computer guy at work is awesome and he was able to fix it.

Computers--it's a love/hate relationship!

New Experiences

They say that you should try new things, but as I get older, I find that new experiences in unfamiliar territory can actually be somewhat frightening. "You should start a blog," said my daughter. "What's a blog?" says I.

I discovered that "blog" is actually computer-eze for "web log", which is actually a fancy name for diary. Ah, it's like writing everything down on a computer for the world to see instead of in a dairy on paper that has to be burned in the fireplace because you don't want anyone else to read it. I can do that!

After three months of thinking about it, I finally took the first step to starting a blog. I logged on to the computer! Then I followed the simple instructions given to me by my daughter, and this will now be my third attempt to get it to work because I keep getting error messages. Hence the reason that I hesitate to try new things, ESPECIALLY anything technological!

But, I can do this. Now I can write down all of my thoughts for everyone to read instead of just sharing them with the cat, who is old and deaf and doesn't hear me anyway. So here is your first installment of The Mom's Perspective. Stay tuned for future updates!