eric cuts his hair

My husband has extremely curly hair,

which he entrusts to no one.

Not even, quite, to himself.

But he'll have to do.

 

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pomegranate carcas

My friend Emily gave us a gigantic pomegranate.

The kids happily devoured it this afternoon, leaving

behind this exoskeleton and a whole lot of juice!

 

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serger

I've been enjoying my serger a lot

lately. I've only recently learned how

to get good, even stitches out of it --

the machine requires a great deal

of manual adjustment to set all the

tensions correctly. There's something

beautiful about the tactile, mechanical

nature of the thing, though.

 

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favorite water bottle

I really like Rubbermaid water bottles. They're

bpa-free, fairly leak resistant, and inexpensive enough

to lose on a regular basis and still have extras on hand.

 

On a more newsy note, the solar hookup started yesterday.

The electricity was off for eight hours, so Ashton and I went

to my mom's for the morning and then came back to read

in sunny patches by the windows. At the end of it all,

the electricity just went back on -- kind of anti-climactic,

don't you think? There are still some inspections and

test-runs that have to happen, but we're getting closer.

 

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collage underpinnings

Elliott and I played with paper & glue today.

His collage was a great example of unfettered creativity

and the joy of glue. I mean, he's got Sweettarts on there!

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we're going solar!

 I can't tell you how excited I am to see my squatty, terra cotta colored
house develop this odd, space-aged exoskeleton on top.
I have dreamt for many years of installing solar panels to replace
our dependence on the electric grid -- not so much because I'm a
particularly "green" person, although I do believe we should participate
in managing God's resources and creation well. Not altogether because
of the potential cost savings, although that is becoming more desperately
motivating of late with our already high (think nine people under two coolers
washing dishes and clothes while using their various computer-based
technologies and eating food out of three refrigerators) electric bill
unexpectedly increasing by 25 percent this year. I mostly have always
thought solar is a great idea because I live in a desert. Tucson gets 350+
days of sunshine every year. Why not get something out of that?!?
It just makes sense.
However, when I looked into solar a few years ago, the cost of purchase
and installation alone would have taken 70 years to equal the amount
saved on electric bills. There is more of an infrastructure for these things
now, and perhaps with more supply and developing technology, costs are
coming down. That and my housemate works for the county and was able
to get in on a lease agreement where we are likely to cut our energy
bills in half while paying for the use and upkeep of the equipment
over a 20 year period. Hooray to that! The big switchover happens
next Wednesday. I'm not sure what to expect at that point. I guess I'll
just be eagerly awaiting the upcoming electric bills to see what's changed.
I'll keep you posted!

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