Thursday, February 06, 2014

Germinating

Topping my To Do List:

  • Blitz the house
  • Germinate Seeds
  • Sort Papers
  • Locate Library Books
  • Place Order with Thred UP

The second item -- Germinate Seeds -- made the list because we are moving into my favorite season of the year: Science Fair season. For details, be sure to check out this and follow the link to Dave Barry's brilliant analysis of this annual event. Here's a brief excerpt:
(The Science Fair demonstrates) Newton's First Law of Inertia, which states: 'A body at rest will remain at rest until 8:45 p.m. the night before the science fair project is due, at which point the body will come rushing to the body's parents, who are already in their pajamas, and shout, `I JUST REMEMBERED THE SCIENCE FAIR IS TOMORROW AND WE GOTTA GO TO THE STORE RIGHT NOW!'
Dave Barry at his best (except for his column on camping, which you can fully appreciate only if you've just endured a 36 hour camping trip during which half the responsible adults encountered, ahem, stomach issues of a dramatic and technicolor variety).

But back to Science Fair . . . which, I'm happy to report, has absolutely nothing to do with stomach issues, dramatic, technicolor, or of any other variety.

The good news is that my involvement to date has been shooting a few pictures and, now, germinating a few seeds. The very good news is that all else is taking place Off Site, i.e. not in the middle of my dining room, i.e. we can eat dinner without (literally) negotiating an obstacle course, and all of this is thanks to the very, very nice grandfather of Kolbe's partner.

The robot faced a number of obstacles -- including a two-year-old.
Can I hear a shout out for Grandpa Doughty? He has a first name, I'm sure -- in fact, I think it's John -- but I call him Grandpa Doughty like everybody else. He is leading the boys in analyzing whether cover crops improve soil quality.

No human experimentation. No highly breakable robot to keep out of the way of  a two-year-old. So far just one trip to Lowes.

And did I mention No Mess In My House?

They've already won first place by my reckoning, but then my judging criterion differs ever so slightly from that of the scions of the Science Fair.

4 comments:

Karen said...

So do you like thredup?

Kelly@http:/inthesheepfold.blogspot.com said...

Hi Karen - I ordered two dresses and a bunch of shirts. I will let you know how they turn out. The prices are better than Ebay, and you avoid the hassle of bidding. I bought several dressy t-shirts for $3-4 dollars and they were Hannah Andersson, Jack and Jill(?), and Olive Juice. Better brands at Target prices! But keep in mind, I haven't seen them!

For some reason their shoe prices were very high and the selection was small.

Kris said...

I've ordered from them and was pleased. The only thing that makes me nervous is not being able to try stuff on ahead of time. But the price is right.

Kelly@http:/inthesheepfold.blogspot.com said...

Yes, Kris. I decided no pants or shorts. Even with little, little girls, you can run into Joe the Plumber troubles. Sizes on used clothes are always a bit of a guess because of shrinkage, so I ordered large. We'll see.