All was not calm, but all was bright

We weren't able to see the "Christmas star" conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn on Monday, because it was so hazy that we often couldn't even see the moon, but we were able to see them well yesterday.  My husband has a small telescope plus a wide assortment of odd lenses, and we were able to just see the rings of Saturn.

A bit after that, a tree blew down onto the power lines in front of a neighbor's house.  The power went off, and on, and then mostly off, with a series of power surges from arcing wires.

At least one of the wires broke and fell across the neighbors' driveway and into the yard next door, starting a smallish fire there.

It took some time for the electric company to get the electricity to the wire turned off, although the fire department arrived within a few minutes.

With the combination of for-real pyrotechnics and wind, it seemed to us prudent to load up the family and go run an errand.

After we got back, the power was out for only about two hours more before it was repaired.

Our electronics and appliances seem to all be working fine.

As a test of our emergency preparations, things mostly went well.  The deficiencies that we've identified will be addressed.

Straight out of Mordor

 Where they'll start:

Think long and hard about how far the tentacles of achieving the Green New Deal can extend under the auspices of federal COVID-19 mitigation.

Remember, those who are working on this don’t care about the middle-class and they have not for decades. The visibility of the ‘rust belt’ is the reference. This is about government bureaucrats using their DC power-base to control trillions in economic value and sell their ability to influence the winners and losers to the highest foreign bidder.

Look at what blue states have already done to seize power and control. Now think about that same manipulative intent spread throughout the entire country by weaponizing federal agencies with advanced regulation.

That should start to frame the reference point going forward. Remember, within totalitarian states religion is a risk… the assembly for religious worship is always considered a risk to by those who demand control over free-thought and lives.

 

Assembly lines

Every year I try to make some kind of a homemade Christmas ornament for each child, that they will be able to take with them when they grow up.

This year I took a torn-off notebook cover that was foil-printed with a abstract design, cut out shapes from it, and backed them with aluminum foil.  I embossed the backs using a small glass bottle that had a ring of little dots around its base.  Then I ran them through the laminator--just because I could--made holes with an awl, and put strings through them.  I didn't have enough string, really, and it was too thick, but I was able to partially separate the strands and turn it into four thinner strings.

For another project, I've been working on sewing up a bunch of pieces of cotton, some of them very small.  I was stuck for a long time, until I decided to adopt a simpler and more modular scheme for cutting them and putting them together.

I took a piece of paper, folded it in half, and tore it along the fold.  I did the same thing with one of the halves, and then again with one of the new halves.

I ended up with three pieces of paper:  one at full width, one at half-width, and one at quarter-width.  These became width templates, although I had to remember to always add extra for seam allowances.

With the templates, I was able to cut the fabrics according to the widest template that would work, and on to the smaller ones from there with the remaining scraps.

In putting them together, I worked from the narrowest pieces to the widest:  make a long strip of the narrow pieces, find the middle, and cut it there.  Put the resulting two strips side by side and sew them together.  Then add medium-length pieces on to the end, making another long strip, find the middle again again, and cut and join the two side by side again.  Then add the widest pieces.     

The largest pieces of fabric I set aside, but now I'm at the point where I need to know how much longer the strips (I have four, in different color schemes) need to be.  

That means I'm stuck again, waiting for my laundry helper to wash the blankets I'll be using as quilt batting.

YouTube THIS

 

"There won't be a Shire, Pippin." 

 

I'd rather be doing happy little homemaking projects right now, but that's not the only thing God made me for.

 

Tis the season now

I haven't been feeling the Christmas spirit much, but I finally just turned on some Christmas music and pulled out our two boxes of Christmas decorations, to see what I could put up around the house.  I also pulled out my Joy sign, which can be seen in this post.

I have several ideas for Christmas crafts, but am only just getting started on them.  

The one I did complete wasn't one that I planned.  My husband found a bagged-up broken necklace in his office.  I took the beads, and I strung them on memory wire to make a bracelet that I will give as a Christmas gift.

The memory wire is from a package that I bought at Hobby Lobby quite a while back.  It has a lot of flexibility, but when it is released, it returns to a more or less flat coil.  It's not suitable for younger children, because it will only take so much abuse before breaking.  Also, some beads are too heavy for it to really support well, and some beads have rather sharp edges around their holes that will likely weaken the wire.

I had a tiny helper for this project, and it appears that we have another child with exceptional fine-motor skills.

Milk jug experiment

We did a further experiment with laminating flat bits of plastic milk jugs (#2 HDPE), and ended up with a strong, flat little chunk of plastic.  It's four layers thick, two inches long, and barely bends when I try to flex it. The translucent jug plastic turns transparent when it is very hot.

It made sense to build it up by adding one new layer at a time, instead of doing them all at once, partly because the pieces were small and tended to slide around, and partly so that the center would be heated enough to fuse well.