Ants

Today on Sesame Street (yes, I learned something new from Sesame Street), Elmo and Telly were reading a book with fascinating insect facts. One such fact they revealed was that ants don't sleep. I realized that I had never heard this fact before. So I did some research. According to several websites, ants do actually sleep but their sleep is so unlike ours that it can barely be called the same thing. It seems that most ants "sleep" together as a colony for 8 minutes every 12 hours.  For all the work ants do, it's amazing that they can function on so little sleep, if sleep is what you even want to call it.  Now if only humans felt rested after only 8 minutes of sleep!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-1967,00.html

What I learned: Ants sleep for 8 minutes every 12 hours.

Qi

My grandparents seem to know every two letter word in the English language thanks to their addiction to playing games like Upwords. When playing Quiddler with them once, my grandmother used the word "qi" which of course we all confidently challenged, sure that this was not a word. So we looked it up and sure enough it wasn't in the dictionary. "Well, it's in the scrabble dictionary!" So we asked her what it meant.  Now, not to make my grandma seem unintelligent, because not only is this not true but she usually knows the meanings of every word she plays. In this case unfortunately, she did not remember what qi meant.  I remember thinking that I should look it up and find out...

...a few years later, I'm playing Words with Friends on my phone and often play "qi" as a word when I get the letter Q with no U. It's a very useful word to play. But I realized that I still don't know what it means. So I looked it up. The word is not in any of the three dictionaries we have at home (merriam webster, oxford, or american). According to dictionary.com, it's a noun meaning Ch'i. That word is also not in any of the three dictionaries we own. But again, according to dictionary.com it means: one of two dynasties that ruled in China a.d. 479–502 and, as the Northern Ch'i, a.d. 550–77. In other words, it's another term for a proper noun, so how is this word allowed in scrabble?  I can't believe after all this time that it has such a boring definition and is like a slang term for an illegal word.  I am so disappointed.


What I learned: I learned what the word qi means.

Witches and Orgies...in the Bible

While attending a Reforween party (yes, that's Reformation/Halloween), my friend Brett, dressed as a devout monk, lectured my friend Angela, dressed as Professor Trelawney, that witchcraft and orgies are in the same sentence in the Bible and she should be ashamed of herself!  This was all said in character of course, but I found this to be such a weird statement for some reason and decided that I had never heard this fact before and that I needed to look into it.  Sure enough, Galatians 5:19-21 reads as follows:

19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions  21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

What I learned: Witchcraft and orgies are indeed in the same sentence in the Bible.

The NBA Lockout

For someone who thinks basketball is the lamest sport ever, you might be wondering why on earth my post is about the NBA.  Well today I realized that while I keep hearing about the lockout and that more and more games are being canceled for the 2011-2012 season, I don't actually know why there is a lockout.  Normally, since again, I do not like basketball, I would just shrug it off as yet another example of greedy athletes.  But since I am striving to learn something new every day, I decided to look into it.  And by that I mean I had my brother Neal look it up on his phone and give me a summary of what's going on.  Hey, that might be a cop out, but it's already a big step for me to pretend to care.  After hearing the summary I came to the conclusion that it pretty much is another example of greedy athletes and I went about my day.  I'm sorry, but I will never feel sorry for someone who makes over a million dollars a year and complains about not making enough or that revenue sharing isn't split up evenly amongst players and owners.  Seriously?  There are people losing there homes.  There are people getting jobs at McDonalds to pay bills because they can't find another job.  Your job on the other hand is to play a sport that you supposedly find fun on national television for millions of dollars a year. Why are more people not up in arms about this?

Oh, and I also made a delicious tuna casserole for lunch today that I had never made before.  I was thinking about making that the one thing I learned today but thought it would be lame to not have pictures of it and it's completely gone.  I guess that means it was a hit.  I plan on adding that to my list of good recipes to make for a big family-for when my family has more kids in it and for when they are older and eat large portions of food :)

What I learned: The NBA lockout is a result of greedy people wanting more money (surprise). I made a new yummy tuna casserole.

Walgreens, Beef Jerky and Economic Analysis

Why limit yourself to learning only one new thing a day? Here are some things I learned today:

1. To buy an 8.5x11 linen photo book from walgreens costs $19.99 plus $6.99 for shipping.  OR you can choose in-store pickup and pay only $5.00 and...that's it.  FIVE DOLLARS!  This is a new option available from walgreens and not all walgreens stores are capable of printing the photo books in-store.  Luckily there are several within ten minutes of my house.  Now I want to make photo books of all the digital pictures I've taken in the past 5 years.

2. Do not be frugal when it comes to beef jerky.  Instead of going with the highly superior and pricey Jack Link's today to satisfy my craving, I opted to spend an entire dollar less to buy the Steakhouse jerky (which I learned later is the store brand owned by Walgreens).  Big mistake.  It's not like this jerky was just less superior.  It isn't even good.  But my frugal side can't just throw it away.  I have to eat it.  Not only was I not able to satisfy my craving but now I have the added displeasure of having to eat the remainder of the Steakhouse Beef Jerky.  And all to save one dollar.  I hate being thrifty sometimes.

3. According to a 2011 study done by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, Americans spend per month, on average, and in this economy, $256 on recreation items (things like sporting events, lottery, amusement parks, going to the movies, tvs, boats, computers), $121 on clothing, $161 at restaurants and almost $100 on things like games, toys, hobbies, jewelry (basically items that aren't necessities).  Who on earth are these people?  If I bought myself $121 in clothes in the past two years I'd be surprised.  These numbers seriously boggle my mind.  Looking at the analysis, if I take the average amount paid per month on all necessary items and subtract that from the average amount each American spends per month, I'd have $1719 extra a month, and that's just me.  The survey is per person, not per household, meaning that Jared and I would have $3438 extra per month.  And that's assuming that I spend the same on things that the average person does, which is usually not the case.  For example, apparently the average person spends $42 a month on household cleaning supplies.  What on earth are those people buying?  In this cash strapped economy, it's no wonder people are having so many problems.  If only solving our personal financial shortcomings were as easy as not going out to eat, reducing our trips to Six Flags Great America and not buying ourselves a yacht.

What I learned: Walgreens photo book are really cheap if you pick them up in-store. Do not skimp when craving beef jerky. Americans are materialistic spendthrifts, but I guess I already knew that :)

Picasa and Walgreens

Today I learned how to successfully get my pictures from my online Picasa album onto walgreens' website in order to make a photo book.  You see, Picasa seems to be set up so nicely-I take pictures on my phone, which automatically uploads to my Picasa web albums.  Then I can log on and order prints from these albums with just a few clicks.  However, I have never been able to order the pictures from an album by choosing that I want to put them in a photo book-you can only order actual prints.  Today I decided to figure it out once and for all.  You have to a) sync your web albums to Picasa 3 on your computer (since I don't upload my photos onto my computer from a camera, my pictures are only online).  Then you have to b) find out where Picasa 3 stores these pictures (easily done, my docs/my pics/downloaded album/etc).  Then c) on the walgreens website, you just have to log in, go to create a photo book and upload your pictures onto the website from your hard drive.  Not only was this way too many steps, but it required me to use my own laptop to do this since the pictures had to be stored.  This process also has the huge downside of having to wait for 153 pictures to download once onto your computer and then upload them again onto another website.  My laptop is old, slow, annoying and the left mouse button just broke in half.  Gah!  After an hour, I successfully got 153 photos from our vacation out west into albums on walgreens.com to make into photo books at a later time...which turned out to be for the past two hours after Avery went to sleep.

And now my task is complete and I know how to make photo books from my prints on picasa...too bad it takes forever.

What I learned: How to make a photobook on the walgreens website using pictures from a picasa web album.

While Avery Napped

This may seem like a cop out for my first entry, but trust me, it's not.  For anyone who's a mom, I'm sure you can sympathize with me on this one.  My wonderful son is not the best sleeper.  He has lately been so inconsistent with naps that I can't really get anything done during them as one day they will last 30 minutes and the next an hour and a half.  Instead of starting something only to get it partly done and being frustrated, I usually get around to doing nothing when he naps.  I might watch TV or read a magazine or play on my phone, waiting for him to wake up.  This might sound like it would be a great time to at least relax for 30 minutes, but usually I'm waiting in anxious anticipation, just wondering when I will hear him wake up.  Today however (and for a week or so) he would not go down for a morning nap. Instead he went down at 2:30 and slept for THREE HOURS.

Granted, I did not know this was going to happen, but I had so much to do that I decided to just start going down my to-do list until he woke up.  I ended up getting so much done including: making a menu for the week, making a grocery list, dwindling my email inbox down from 188 emails to 47, responding to a lot of emails, catching up on my friend's blog, getting some mail together and starting to set up this blog.  If Avery decides to make this an every day ritual, then I can actually tackle some projects that have been sitting by the wayside since before he was born.  However, it might have just been a fluke.

What I learned: I can be very productive when Avery takes a nice long nap.