There's a difference between being a proud small business where you're not tied to big dumb corporate rules so you can be flexible and agile, and being so small that you still have a single AOL email address on your website.

I want to support the small guy, but if they still use AOL, how can I be confident that my credit card info is secure in their office?

This one local place sells kitchen appliances. They have cutesy commercials featuring the owner's two small boys. "I'm Cameron!" "And I'm Gavin!" "And if you have trouble, call us and we'll make sure it gets handled RIGHT!"  I wonder how creepy it would be if I called up the store asking to speak to Cameron or Gavin to complain about a bill or a customer service issue. They would call Child Protective Services in 5 minutes. And what the fuck does that say about their family dynamic (or Dad's business acumen) that a 7 year old is their accountable executive in charge of customer satisfaction?!

Anyway.

We need a new washer/dryer. The one I have currently is the set that came with the house. I would love to get a set of stackables, and then put a shelf where the dryer currently is.  The washer/dryer used to be in the basement, but my house's previous owners brought them to the main floor of the house, taking up the hall linen closet with the washer/dryer. So I'd love to reclaim some of that closet space since I currently have none whatsoever, unless you count bedroom closets.

I heard a thing on the radio this morning about how small businesses should consider buying "CyberInsurance" in addition to general liability insurance and worker's comp, because small businesses are more vulnerable to cyberattacks.  Really? I know of a zillion huge corporations that were brought down by the ransomware viruses and no small businesses that I use were hit. But maybe that's because large businesses have a higher percentage of dumb people who surf the web at work, clicking on shit they oughtn't... and granted, I'm a small (vaguely tech-related) company, so maybe the percentage of employees who work for my company who click on dumb shit is 0%. 

But I figure Cameron and Gavin (or their mom) click on dumb shit pretty often, so they probably need CyberInsurance. 

The only people who use the term "cyber" are people who shouldn't.

In other news, we spent this past weekend (Saturday through Tuesday) at my folks' place. We hadn't seen them since Christmas, which is waaaaay too long. My mom tore a muscle in her right shoulder, so in addition to her back and her legs being in constant pain, let's add her right shoulder to the laundry list.  My dad has days where he's very weak for no discernible reason, so we needed to go up there and just help them out a bit. They felt so awful that they decided to cancel Easter dinner because my mom couldn't cook and my dad couldn't clean the house, and they both felt that having a house full of people would be too much.

So we offered to come up and do all of the cooking/cleaning, so now Easter is back on. 

We're in the car now heading back up there. We'll be there for a few days. I'm so excited it's finally starting to get warm... this fucking winter might FINALLY be behind us.

I hope everyone has a fabulous Easter, Passover, or April Fool's. :-)

So I have some friends who march with the local 501st Legion, First State Garrison.

They wanted to engrave helmet stand bases. The stands are stainless steel. I've never tried steel on Glowforgeous Splendiferous, so I'm heading down that rathole. 

First, I did the design file, and a quick cut on wood.  Meh.

Then I tweeked the design file, redid it, again on wood. Better!

But now I notice there are issues with the font where characters overlap. Meh. 

Now discussing with my friends the next steps. Space the font out? Color in the overlap spots? A different font all together??

I also did some research that suggested a coating to use before you attempt to laser steel. So I got a bottle of Dry Moly Lubricant Aerosol Spray. Yup, I'm buying Moly. :-P  . . .My Moly arrives tomorrow. So maybe tomorrow night I'll be etching steel! Assuming I can sort the font issues by then. 

It occurs to me that I never posted finished photos of what I did with the silhouettes I posted about last month.

So here:

I made a cuttouts of my campmates and framed them. I did this 4 times i n various color combinations, and have 1 more to make. (I stopped because I ran out of frames). I made several because some of my campmates wanted their own copies. Here are 2 of the finished product - coffee mug included for scale

And then, with the silhoutte of my daughter, I assembled a wall hanging, and then attempted an inlay. The inlay is not as perfectly flush as I would like, but I'm fine with it as a first try.

So yes, having fun with the Glowforgeous Splendiferous. 

Maybe some of you can help me out with this. 

I like the book A Wrinkle In Time, and I appreciate how the movie is a little inescapeable right now. I think this is a good thing. I will take Ted to see it when we can swing it and showings are less crowded. 

Spoilers for A Wrinkle In Time (the book, not the movie) follow. 

There is an obstacle in my heart about this story. The first time I read it (I might have been seven or so), I had to stop when they described Calvin O'Keefe's mother. It made me so upset that I cried uncontrollably, and I couldn't finish the book for years. Calvin's mother is described early on. She's described as a miserable woman with a messy house. The point of having her this way is that Calvin wouldn't be missed if he takes off on an adventure with the Murry family. Right? She's too busy and unhappy to show up banging on the door, saying, "My son wasn't home in time for dinner, where is he?" One more kid in that house wouldn't be missed, right? I felt so sorry for her, so angry that she was left alone, forgotten, that it distracted me from everything else. 

I don't have a copy of A Wrinkle In Time around to refer to, only my shoddy memory of the book. The first time I read it, I knew that there was a very sad mom in the book, it upset me, and I moved on to something else. The second time I read it, I grudgingly finished the book, liking many aspects of the story, but not fully understanding or cherishing it. I think I moved back to the Narnia series, and then there were too many paperbacks lying around that weren't going to read themselves, so Stephen King was up next, and then John Lennon had a date with destiny, so I was obsessing about music for a while. 

What bothered me was, "why should I try to wrap my head around all of these heavy duty scientific concepts when you can't seem to balance the fact that you're chasing after a poor imprisoned daddy, but nobody seems to care about a poor imprisoned mommy, staring sadly into a sink full of dirty dishes?" 

I wish I could remember the wording of the passage describing Calvin O'Keefe's mother. All I remember was that it was extremely clear to me that this was a woman with a strong and serious mental illness characterized by depression. I'm shedding tears right now, just thinking about it. I mentioned it to other people who love that book, and they've said, "well, yeah, she's kind of a throwaway character." 

a) there is no such thing as a throwaway character. everything in your story is part of its foundation, otherwise get rid of it. if it's still there when it's published, it's important.

b) HAVE YOU NOT READ THIS DESCRIPTION???

I haven't read any of the other books in the series, because I have no proof that Calvin's Mother is saved, or that her imprisonment is justified. It's just that she's a "bad person," and Calvin should totally leave her to go play Shining Time Station with the Murrys. Did anything ever happen with her? 

The last time I read this, I was babysitting. There was a thunderstorm, and a power failure. I picked through the bookshelves with a flashlight, and then sat in my young charge's bedroom, reading A Wrinkle In Time by candlelight, accompanied by rain on the windows and the susurration of the child's breathing as he slept. It was the perfect way to read it. However, I had to take a deep breath, swallow my pride, read the passage about Calvin's mom, and store it for later, knowing that I would deal with those feelings and maybe write something about her in the future. 

I guess I'm going to have to deal with this. I'm really worried about Calvin's mother. On the other hand, maybe she and Calvin's stuffed tiger escaped and went sledding. 

EDITED TO ADD:

Editing editing editing editing editing editing editing Jarnsaxa Rising. 

Last night, some nice people said some nice things to me about the mermaid nightgown. So this morning I was inspired to spend time on a skirt made from the remaining mermaid print fabric.

I can't really finish the hemlin until the kid is around again next week.

Someday I will have to get me a serger.

Can't sleep, monkeys will eat me.

It's 3:25am, I'm six days out from back surgery, tired of taking pills, tired of apple juice and crackers, tired of sleeping on my back, and yet not actually tired enough to sleep. Ha!

Okay, back at it. xoxo

Well over a year ago I bought some mermaid print fabric with intention of making my daughter a nightgown. Today, I finally made it.

I goofed the pattern some, but it's a nightgown, so there is a lot of room for slop. (actually, I didn't so much goof the pattern as pick the wrong pattern, then tried to correct for this after the first few parts were already cut out.)

Anywhoo, she's sleeping in it tonight. Warms the cockles, it does :-) 

Any of my One Post Wonder people down with projecteuler.net?

if response == yes:
     1183867_IMS0sWktfxXi9wYmDmPGoLWGtiz71nXV

Edited to add: Got home, didn't have to break in-- power's on. One section of the fence is a shredded mess.  Go go gadget home insurance!  That fence needed replacing in 2008, so I'm happy in a way-- this will get me off my ass to get it done finally. 

The Philly airport was a shiiiiiiit-shooooow... I've never seen it like that. Granted, when we fly home we normally land around midnight so maybe we're just not used to the usual 9:45pm crowd? But I suspect it has more to do with the Philly airport being closed for 24-ish hours and being filled with stranded, grumpy passengers.  The baggage carousel had so much luggage on it that it couldn't spin anymore because it was gridlocked... and there was only one poor lady working at baggage claim... and she was trying to juggle 24+ hours of lost/rerouted bags and angry passengers so she couldn't unclog the bag carousel... so I did.  (Everyone else was just standing around like idiots. Ugh. So yeah, let the 110-pound anemic lady with a wooden leg* do it.)

Ok, bedtime.

*I do not actually have a wooden leg.

I am in a slump, creativity wise. Slogging along. I had the flu 2 weeks ago. Still coughing from that. And the mid-winter blahs doesn't help. And, oh joy, I strained my back 2 days ago so I'm gimpy and grumpy.

Anywhoooo, I saw an ad with silhouettes. And decided I should make some silhouettes on my underused laser cutter in the basement. But first, I needed some silhouettes. So I dug up some photos, and taught myself how to make silhouettes in Gimp (=freeware photoshop).  Source photos for the first 2 below.

The third silhouette is of the 8 campers in my camp last month at LoveBurn. Created from a number of camp photos. . . . next up cutting cardstock with these files. As soon as my back can handle walking down to the basement.