For the fans of The Lego Movie

So I was continuing on with At Home by Bill Bryson yesterday, in a chapter on domestic architecture, when I came upon this paragraph...

Palladio's methods were based on rigorous adherence to rules, and were modeled on the precepts of Vitruvius, a Roman architect of the first century BC.  Vitruvius wasn't a particularly distinguished architect.  He was really more of a military engineer.  What made him valuable to history was the accidental fact that his writings survived - the only architectural work from classical antiquity to do so.  A lone copy of Vitruvius' text on architecture was found on a shelf at a monastery in Switzerland in 1415.  Vitruvius laid down exceedingly specific rules regarding proportions, orders, shapes, materials and anything else that could be quantified.  Formulas ruled everything in his world.  The amount of spacing between columns in a row, say, could never be left to instinct or feeling, but was dictated by strict formulas designed to confer an automatic and reliable harmony.  This could be dizzyingly particular.

From At Home by Bill Bryson, page 411 - 412.

No wonder Vitruvius was the master masterbuilder.

Stationary or stationery

By the way, do you know the trick to working out whether it is stationary or stationery?

stAtionEry   is   pApEr

 

A useful mnemonic for those who need to know, my fellow fans of paper and pen.

Things I like # 1

# 1 - A trampoline spring tool

Back in the day when Kevin Rudd was handing out stimulus package money, we spent some of ours on a trampoline.  The frame and springs are originals but we have replaced the mat, spring protector and barrier net each a couple of times.  Yesterday I replaced the mat that had done us two excellent years' service.  When I ordered the new mat I took the liberty of ordering one of these too...

...a trampoline spring tool.  This handy little tool enabled me to put the new mat on in ten minutes without giving myself a hernia as opposed to the last time when it took more than half an hour and was, shall we say, a tad exhausting.  I may not have many more trampoline mats to replace in my lifetime as a mother of boys who are not so small anymore.  But even if I only use it one or two more times, it was a worthwhile purchase.  Don't change a trampoline mat without a trampoline spring tool.  You can borrow mine if you need one.

Who knew?

I have a bit of thing about grammar and stuff.  You'd never know reading this blog.  All those sentences starting with conjunctions.  It's appalling.  But you'll never find a misplaced apostrophe for all the sentences that start with "And" and "So" and "But."

But I have been learning things this year.  It started with IKEA.  It isn't "Ikea" because it turns out the supplier of my meatballs (I won't hear you say a bad thing about them) sports an acronym.

And today, courtesy of a year five spelling book followed up by a quick tour of Google, it turns out that the Internet is a proper noun.  When you talk about internets in a general sense it can have a lower case "i" but when you talk of the Internet it needs a capital letter.  Who knew?  Obviously the writer of the year five spelling book.  But not me.  Not until today. 

Bringing in the new year

When is it the new year for you?  I chatted with a friend in early January about when the new year really kicks in.  For some the new year starts on 1st January.  That makes sense. 

For some it is a little more fluid.  The new year starts when they go back to work after the Christmas break, which may be before 1st Janaury or sometime in January. 

In my head the new year starts on the 27th December the year before.  There's Christmas.  Then there is that gorgeously quiet and still day that follows Christmas.  And then on the 27th December I put my head back up and I am into my new diary for the following year.  I am finished with the previous year's diary.  Tired of the old, bent out of shape, scribbled all over one.  Ready to open the brand new, crisp and clean diary.  (And I must boast...this year I have THE perfect diary.)

But then there is tomorrow, when for us, school returns.  And then all the midweek school, church and community activities kick into action.  It's feeling a bit like New Year's Eve around here.  Except that we won't be staying up until midnight.  And it must be true because today I wrote two cheques and almost put 2012 on both of them!

Making a spectacle of myself

This was always supposed to be one of the five new things for last year, but at least I can say I am making excellent headway into this year's list of things to do.  Because today I picked up my new reading glasses.

It must be fun to be an optometrist and daily see the joy in people's faces as the very small print on their "Here, have a read of this" card suddenly becomes amazingly visible.  It's quite a miracle really.

Happy days.

Kiribati

I'll probably mention Kiribati occasionally this year...so here's a little introduction.

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Adapted from the Australian Volunteers International site with a mix of my own general knowledge...

Kiribati, pronounced "Kiribus" (probably "Kiribaas" is better), is a group of thirty three coral atolls in the Pacific Ocean. Once a British protectorate, then a colony, Kiribati gained complete independence in 1979 while remaining a member of the Commonwealth.

Map from worldatlas.com

This low-lying nation is subject to damage wrought by sea level changes, typhoons and tornadoes.  Rising sea levels due to global warming is posing a real threat to Kiribati and the issues of stemming the tide and deciding which islands to save and which ones to relocate whole communities are huge.

Kiribati has few natural resources and relies mostly on fishing and the sale of fishing rights. Physical remoteness and lack of access to technology and markets are impediments to the development of Kiribati, and the outer islands are particularly vulnerable. 

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And from the Operation World site...

The once-strong Congregational Church (Kiribati Protestant) is in slow decline and losing members to other groups. The theological college in Tarawa is not evangelical. Pray for a return to the Bible. Nominalism and syncretism with traditional spiritist practices are all too common.

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If you hunt around for photos of Kiribati you will find lots of beautiful tropical island images which belie the poverty and problems faced by this nations.  A search for Kiribati plus Global Warming or Climate Change show things in a more realistic light.

One thing is for certain...

...even if I make no other plans for 2011, this is the year that I HAVE to factor in some exercise.  I have before me a somewhat cleared slate and if I don't timetable some exercise into at least some of the spaces - and do so early on - it may never ever happen ever again.

This is not a New Year's resolution.  It is a statement of fact.

Cartoon from here



A Bit of an Update

I sometimes wonder how I come across in this blog. I know I write about how it would be good to be reading the Bible every day and praying heaps and being nice and kind to everyone and grateful for everything and...

And it would be good to be doing all this and running the perfect household (although I am sure if you looked at the photos here you won't be under any illusions!) and so on and so forth but lest you think I'm showing off and being...

...here's an update on some of the things I said I'd do or try in the course of this blog in recent months and how it has really gone!!

The Garden - well, I think I've been quite honest about the weeds! I did get onto mulching but all those bags of mulch I bought covered about a QUARTER of the area...my conservation of volume is HOPELESS...and I didn't really get back to it after that. That was early October. Having said that, the pots of herbs are doing really well. I think plants in pots are my forte! So if you are thinking of buying me a Christmas present, a big terracot pot would be lovely!!!

The Bible Reading Plan - got off to a great start but I confess I was overcome by the prophets. It's all fantastic and great to learn about the God who judges (and judge He did and judge He will) but I reached a point where, if I didn't change tack, I wasn't going to read the Bible for days at a time because I was so overwhelmed. So that plan was abandoned, I headed back into the New Testament for some refreshment and am looking forward to the Gospels during December. Stay tuned for 2010's plan (and how it goes!)

Praying before answering the door - getting better at doing this. At the very least, certainly pausing to draw breath and open the door smiling. And mostly answering the phone nicely too. Although one day, after about a million calls between 5 and 6pm I did pick up the last call in that series and bark down the phone. It was my dear sister who thinks I am too officious when I answer the phone! That time "officious" would have been a kind description!

Christmas cards - I said in the September post about Christmas that if one started then and wrote two cards a day, one could have 150 cards written before December even arrived. I actually wrote two the next day. And no more until a week ago. We send out an embarrassingly large number of cards so while it might have made it easier to start a bit earlier, it just seems strange writing "Merry Christmas" in September. Just like it is weird to have Christmas decorations out in the shops that early. But don't get me started on that one again...

Reading in general - just 15 minutes a day! It's not much to ask!! I got through both church history books and bits of other books but that too fell in a heap. Maybe next year!

The first thought of the day - the deal here was to try to make one's very first thought of the day one that focuses upon God. It is a marvellous, MARVELLOUS idea but I am wondering if it is next to impossible. I have in mind to email CJ Mahaney and ask him whether he was preaching in exaggerated form so that if we aimed high we might manage to make our second, third or fourth thought of the day one about God. I don't think I have managed a FIRST thought as prescribed. But with some discipline I can get going pretty quickly. A lot depends on how early I get to bed the night before.

West Wing - now, I am having great success here. I haven't missed "The Bill" at all. In fact I watched an episode of "The Bill" while we were on holiday - pretty easy to pick it up again but really, I didn't feel like I needed to make a date to watch the following week's episode. But "West Wing"...loving that! Been watching it since the beginning of July and am well into series three. And wondering where I can access grief counselling against the day I run out of episodes, which at current rate will occur about this time next year.

Toilets - and success here! All thanks to a kind person at church who helped out here. The three toilets are out of the entrance hall and installed where they should be. Yes, we have three toilets in this house!!! And what is better, they all work. What a joy. I started taking photos to blog it but then I pulled myself back into line. A post about toilets? I don't think so!

So to summarise, my life is full of good intention and long lists of things that haven't been ticked off. Which leaves plenty of scope for new year's resolutions!!!