Tuesday News

ON THE GROW:  Yesterday's weather was so delightful, the kids were inspired to plant some more seeds.  Here, some Carolina Reaper and Bhut Jolokia Ghost Chile are sown.  They're germinating away on our kitchen counter now, right next to the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion plants we started a few weeks back.

ARTS AND CRAFTS:  Annabelle and I had a half hour to kill this morning before her art class started at the Queen Anne center we attend several times a week.  We took that opportunity to participate in a group art project using CDs or DVDs and yarn to create a pretty little piece that will be displayed as part of a collection, along with others' creations.

You start with a blank disc, and yard is woven from its outside to its inner hole (the green seen below).

Next, you take a few lengths of other colors of yarn and weave it over and under the initial pattern, in circles.

After a few minutes, you have something that looks like this. ... 

It's a pretty, dynamic sculpture when hung somewhere light can reflect off it. 

After she finished decorating her disc, Annabelle showed me some of the things she's been working on in her art class.

One page was all about value, or "the relative amount of light on a plane," per her paper.

And she shared this self portrait. ...

Cute. :)  She explained the shapes in the upper right corner were different ear experiments.

THE BEAT GOES ON: Today I introduced something very vexing during the kids' guitar practice: a metronome.  It was easy to find one online (I chose this one http://www.metronomeonline.com/). They're working on an acoustic duet that is so simple, that there really isn't anything to 'hide' behind, and timing is everything.  It has been a bit of a struggle for them. I thought a metronome would help. Of course, initially, it just made things LOTS harder, because they're not used to, well, staying on precise time.

At one point CJ said, "I'm going to be hearing that (metronome) in my sleep tonight!"

My response? "Good! And when you do, sing along with it, in time!"

SCORE:  Yesterday we hit Value Village because club members could get 50 percent off all short sleeved shirts (yes, they have a club, and yes, we're that cool that we belong, ha ha).

Anyway, of course we came out with all sorts of things that had nothing to do with the sale, like this gem!

Not a single page had been touched in it, which is good for us, but it makes me sad for the kid who was its first owner. 

NOT GOOD: Rather not good news from Roscosmos today. A cargo supply craft headed for the International Space Station is spinning out of control in orbit. 

Here's a short video of its launch, which happened a little after midnight our time, last night.  The launch looked nominal, but when they turned the camera on the Progress craft, the trouble was obvious.  The video below includes footage from the launch and of the trouble, as well as some NASA TV commentary. (Frankly, the spinning ship video makes me a little dizzy.)
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7Hw9j-1pj6I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
https://youtu.be/7Hw9j-1pj6I
Russian ground control is continuing to try to make contact with and corrections on the craft, of course.  Per a NASA press release, on board the Progress is more than three tons of food, fuel, and supplies for the space station crew, including 1,940 pounds of propellant, 110 pounds of oxygen, 926 pounds of water, and 3,128 pounds of spare parts, supplies and scientific experiment hardware. Among the U.S. supplies on board are spare parts for the station’s environmental control and life support system, backup spacewalk hardware, and crew clothing, all of which are replaceable."

You can read the rest of the press release here: http://1.usa.gov/1ElDjKy