Category: To Occupy my Time

Requiem: Food processor.

Oh humble and hard-working food processor, I’ve had you since 2001.  You were my first appliance purchased after I moved to Portland.  And now your top has disintegrated, leaving me unable to convince you to grate the Fels-Naptha to make the laundry detergent.
I’m hoping I can purchase a replacement, because your motor is still running like a champ, so this may not be a final requiem.

Various things from the paper today.

From an article about getting your child off to college.

Here’s what I remember of my college application process.  At some point, I went to the library and researched some schools to go to.  I also got a postcard in the mail for a women’s college.  I sent away for more information.  The information arrived and I applied.  I asked my teachers for recommendations, I filled out the forms, I wrote and proofed the essay.  I got a money order for the application fee which I paid for out of my Pizza Hut earnings.  I got in.  I showed my parents the letter and asked if I could go.  They said yes.  I went.  I did not have SAT prep classes, (in fact, I did quite poorly on the SAT and then tried harder on the ACT) I did not have my parents reminding me of my various deadlines.  I wanted to go to school and I did what I had to do to go.  Do these children who need the post-its and reminders really want to go to college?  Maybe the college application process is the time to find out just how badly they want to go. By letting them do it themselves.

I don’t think there really is such a thing as Poncho Perfect. 
(That said, I kind of like the purple one in the middle.)

Did Jeremy Renner really have a desk when he was in the middle of filming “The Avengers”?  Does it come standard in his trailer?  What else does he do at his desk during filming?
I guess maybe he could, but I think this is lazy writing, employing a cliche instead of using description.  Standards people.  Standards.

So how do you fund your schools?

Here in the United States, we make children sell things in order to have fun things in their school.  No one wants to buy this crap, but they do, because who doesn’t want to support the neighborhood children on a mission?  So there is then more crap in the world, and entire industries make money off this endeavor.  Enough to send a sample kit in the mail.  
I have an idea!  Why not fully fund our children’s education?  Then no one would have to purchase things they don’t want and the children wouldn’t have to sell things.
I’m happy to say that the school at which I work does not do fundraiser of this nature.  That’s one school down, and many, many more to go.

Wrinkled newspaper.

It’s weird, the way the paper arrives.  Rather than just stacking all the sections in the middle and folding once, there are various configurations of sections and often just the front page is wrapped around a stack of sections.  This leaves the front page rather wrinkled and strained. This was something that was never a problem, before the advent of the tabloid format.

Excellent parsing of words.

Said by a mom at school to her third-grade daughter:

“It’s not about him being a man, it’s about him having a skill I don’t have.”

I was so excited by that phraseology I grabbed for a paper and pen to write it down.  In my ideal world, people would have skills and the gender of the person performing a skill wouldn’t matter.

The fourth summer of my summer reading volunteering.

This year’s t-shirt is my favorite so far.  It’s the first one I haven’t immediately donated to Goodwill upon completion of my service.  If you want to volunteer for Summer Reading contact the library volunteer program early next year.  Summer Reading volunteers help children keep track of where they are in the summer reading game.  They also distribute prizes and answer questions.  The two hour per week shifts are fun.  Volunteer today.
(Note that my summer reading volunteer service ended in August. I just forgot to take the picture of the shirt until the end of September.)

Progress on apron.

Sure it took me taking a personal day of vacation to finally get back to work on my apron.  But I did it.  I scheduled in “sewing” from 8-Noon and sewed for that entire time.  There was some seam-ripping (or “unsewing” as I’ve rechristened it.) and also I seem to have purchased half-inch bias tape rather than the quarter-inch the pattern called for, but I’m rolling with it.
Here’s where I ended up.

Moneta work uniforms improved!

I still love the uniforms, but I am less enamored of keeping my bra straps from showing.  I resolved to make those things that keep them in place.  I don’t know if those things have an official name, but I guess I can call them bra strap holders.  I did a search and found a good tutorial that explained how to sew in the kind where you crochet the thread and attach a snap. Here’s the link.  However, I was having trouble getting the crochet-with-thread technique to work, and wanted these done, so I got out some ribbon I had and improvised.  The result was great.  They don’t really match, but you can’t see them from the outside anyway and they keep my bra nicely in place.