An Open Letter to Winter

Dear Winter -

We've had some good times this last season.

The snowshoeing trips up north, the long walks in the park around the lakes, hiking among the cattails on the frozen marshes, it's all been wonderful. And who could forget sledding?

But I think it's time we separated - just for a little bit. Maybe six months or so?

I think the space will be good for us. And I promise, I'll be happy to see you after the tomatoes have been canned.

Sincerely,
Megan

How Bella Helps

This is how Bella helps guard the house:


This is how Bella helps me study:


This is how Bella helps Matt open presents:


This is how Bella helps Matt get his bag:

How Not to Save Money

I love my Roomba, but among some other minor irritations there's a rather large one. The replacement batteries cost sixty dollars. Doing a bit of looking around online, you can discover that the roomba battery is just a bunch of C NiMH batteries inside a fancy yellow case.

For about thirty dollars you can purchase a pack of batteries to go inside the case, and just replace the batteries instead of throwing the whole case away.

Sounds peachy, right? It turns out this project requires soldering, something I'm not very good at. I've watched my husband do some soldering before but I've never had to myself. And it also turns out that you really can't solder a stiff metal tab to a wire without another pair of hands to help hold the two together.

Unlike the neat, original solders mine have big blobs of solder on top of the tabs as opposed to little blobs of solder below. Also, I managed to melt on of the tabs into the yellow battery case. I'm pretty sure it's permanently in there now. Miraculously, it worked. But I think next time I'll just buy the battery.

A Shout Out to Microsoft (and some snowshoeing)

Okay - so I don't normally have good things to say about Microsoft products but I have to admit their Microsoft Image Composite Editor is very cool.

On my latest trip up to the north I took a bunch of pictures of a particular pretty forest scene to try it out and I was pleasantly surprised with the result.



The first adventure up north is here.
The rest of the Tettegouche album is here.

Have fun playing in what's left of winter!