Dave's latest Amazon purchase

But my brain is not completely dead. I did hazard a guess as to how many miles it is from here to Aberdeen, Scotland. I looked at Sam’s placemat (a map of the world with longitudes) and counted how many “squares” from the islands to Scotland. Seemed like about 45% of the total circumference of the earth. That would be about 11,000 miles. With a little tutoring from Dave, I calculated miles in latitude and longitude (the A-squared and B-squared of the Pythagorean theorem) to get to my C-squared. I was only off by about 112 miles – the correct answer is about 11,112 miles or 44.6% of the earth’s circumference. So we are indeed traveling about halfway around the world to my brother’s wedding next month. But still…Dave is clearly the intellectual! This book is not a school-related purchase. Does that scare you a little?

Slideshow of a couple hours having fun as a family: day-at-da-beach.wmv

This was the first time in about 5 weeks I think that we had a day off together with Dave’s recent travel and school schedule. Now we’re whipping up a couple homemade grilled pizzas to take over to my friend April’s home – she has 7 kids and is expecting twins! She’s so much fun to be with and a great inspiration.

The full moon from our deck, with Saturn visible above it. (Dave – thanks for looking that up!)

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for the 21st century housewife on the go. His remark was in response to one of my household tactics – putting plates and glasses away without drying them off. I figure they can air dry just as well on the shelf as the would on a rack, especially since we took the doors off our cabinets. Agree? Please comment if you do so I can point to the grassroots support for my housekeeping. (Dave actually subscribes to an RSS feed of this blog so he can keep up with my shenanigans…)

In other news, I drove the worst shopping cart on the planet yesterday. Longs drugs in Kaneohe is where you can test drive it if you like. I had to lift up the back end about 3 inches, and point it on a 45-degree angle while pushing (with 35 lb Sam in the seat) in order to keep it from rattling and squeaking at 100 decibels. The sad commentary on how busy I feel (I’ve had a lot of work projects to squeeze in this week) is that it would take too much time to swap carts, so I actually preferred to drive this horrific wreck of a cart around (all the while asking everyone where I can find diapers and hand sanitizer, the only things I needed in there, because these common items aren’t listed on ANY of the aisle markers and the staff didn’t know where to point me…).

Lastly, in my list of items I feel compelled to air tonight…here is a link to a SNL skit about the TSA. Mom sent it to me shortly after we returned from the Big Island because on our way back I had a bit of a run-in with the security people. I was well aware of the 3 oz cap on liquids, and duly packed my almost-empty 3 oz sunscreen in my carry-on without concern, knowing it was well under the limit. I even declared it just to be sure. BUT I did not account for the 5 oz of egg nog milkshake Sam was clutching as we showed our IDs and boarding passes. Oh no. That would just not do. We were told we would have to finish it or chuck it. I was aghast. Saddled with heavy car seat, backpack child carrier, carry-ons for Sam and me (his library, my diaper bag/backpack) and duffel bag, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was turn around and retreat. I am all about the forward progress. Not to mention my lunch was still in a bag unopened and I was eager to park my butt at the gate and chomp. Faced with the prospect of telling Sam he had to ditch his nog, I decided to turn around (it was the lesser evil). However, I parked myself and Sam in his car seat (he has a nice, portable recliner chair) right on the other side of the little cattle chute to security. I plunked down like a homeless person and ate every ounce of salad dressing while Sam finished up his nog. Poor mom was probably embarrassed at my protest and sat on an actual bench about 20 yards away. I apologized to the security person for my huffy attitude, but chuckled to myself that Sam still had contraband tucked away in his diaper. Would they find the 6 oz of liquid and/or gel he had in there? Or would we get all the way to the gate with it undetected??? Enjoy the video. It’s 4 min long, but well worth it. I am not up late enough for SNL so it was pretty funny…

http://www.wxpnews.com/HAVVW4/070130-TSA-Training-Spoof

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Above is a picture of bread I made today – rosemary focaccia. It turned out really well! I ate more than I should have tonight, but I always do when it’s fresh out of the oven. There is nothing like it. You can even see the sea salt on the crust. Mom, Dave and Sam all enjoyed it, too. This was made with my natural starter which I keep in the fridge and just use for baking about once a week. It was grown from wild airborne yeast and works really well. I don’t use any commercial leavening agents, and haven’t for about 2 yrs now. It’s fun to keep my hand in bread-baking (literally and figuratively), and Sammy is enjoying kneading the dough with me. He gets to form a little Sammy-loaf that we bake alongside mommy’s loaf. Today he also watered ALL the plants in the backyard. He is such a good helper.