Snow day!

Despite the snow, we hung out inside most of the day. We went to my work Christmas party today and Sam enjoyed the food, especially the deviled eggs. He helped me make the mashed potatoes I had to bring by dismantling everything on the refrigerator. You'd think this is a not-so-subtle hint that I should get rid of most of that stuff but alas, I put it all back up for him to remove again.

We also spent some time this morning painting salt dough ornaments. This has been a long process and the ornaments have been hanging out in the kitchen for what seems like a month even though it's only been a few days. Yesterday I went on a search for shellac which is what you're supposed to use to seal them so they don't pick up moisture from the air. It appears that shellac is no longer available anywhere we have easy access and I ended up buying some other stuff. Somehow I think I'll do the sealing when Sam is asleep or otherwise occupied. As you can see, he took his painting responsbilities very seriously.

Things have been a little dull around here in case you hadn't noticed by the lack of posts and, er interesting posts. I've been under the weather, Sam's been under the weather, and we've been fighting diaper rash from hell and no one wants details on any of that stuff, especially the diaper rash.

Sam did get some awesome slippers yesterday though! Ben wonders why they don't make them in adult sizes and you know, they should! They'd dang cute AND they aren't some trademarked brand name things. I'm so sick of clothing and toys, etc. all having licensed characters that I do whatever I can to avoid them. Hm, for some reason I don't seem to be able to add a third picture to this so I'll just post that separately.

Yesterday I was reading the Wall Street Journal and there was an article in there about testing toilet flushes. Now, it's not something I think about often but I find it interesting since we're the owners of two newish low flow toilets that actually DO work although I'd heard plenty of bitching about non-functioning toilets from other people. The article was about the miso test which some people are proposing to use as a part of the new standards. I was amused that at no point in the article did it say that miso was being used because of its close resemblance to the real thing. Also, I learned that current testing is done with 100 small plastic balls and in order to pass, 75 of the balls have to flush. And what in real life does this resemble? I can't think of anything. There is controversy about the test because it costs a full $5 to test a toilet. Outrageous? Can you think of any test you can get done for less than that? What's the average charge for a lab test of any sort?

The miso manufacturers had no desire to have their name associated with the tests and prefer that the word "miso" would also not be used in association with this process.