This week, on a purely individual level, I managed to stabilize a little bit. I'm starting to settle in after the shock of a completely new way of life and global situation. Now comes the getting-through-it part. I did a little better with juggling work and childcare/homeschool at the same time. I have been doing a lot of compartmentalizing and just pure coping. In essence, I'm not trying to accomplish much beyond what is absolutely necessary.
For our homeschool "special" on Monday we talked about the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio. My older child was already aware of this mathematical wonder. We watched a TED talk by Arthur Benjamin and a Sound Field clip about the Golden Ratio (phi) in music. Then we went around the house looking for objects that either have a 1:1.6 ratio (such as the human arm, hand, and finger joints), or that fit into the Golden Ratio spiral.
I have a necklace that represents the Golden Ratio, so I cheated a little.
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| Example A: Frame from Season 1, Ep 1 of Hamish MacBeth |
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| Example B: Jumbo carton of Pepperidge Farm Goldfish |
Behold! When viewed through the Golden Ratio spiral, the curve of Whisky Bob in the foreground frames and tightens on Hamish MacBeth starting to walk away in the background.
And here the spiral lines up with the swoop around the product name, then curls in to pinpoint on the goldfish's eye. COINCIDENCE? I think not.
On Tuesday we did some math gaming with dice (following a school worksheet). Wednesday we did a not-very-successful version of home pictionary.
On Thursday we baked! This is the most popular part of the week so far. This time we made banana chocolate bundt cake with cream cheese filling from my Half-Baked Harvest cookbook (it's her second one, called Super Simple).
About to add the mashed banana.
Here's the result with a line of cream cheese baked into the middle. A fun part is if you post a HBH photo on Instagram and tag her account, she will repost it or even write back (which she did!). The cake is delicious and very chocolatey.
When I'm feeling twitchy during the day, it turns out that short Gaelic lessons are the one thing that can consistently calm me down. The duolingo app on my phone is soothingly repetitive and has satisfying noises. I've also made myself flash-cards that I can shuffle through and practice pronunciation and spelling and such. Duolingo is teaching me some weird words like guga (salted gannet) and sgadan (herring). I don't know what kind of Scottish conversation they're prepping me for, but I like it.
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| Salted gannet and herring |
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| I do not like salted gannet at all. |
Today there are 389 confirmed COVID-19 cases in Vermont and 21 cases in my county.
1 comment:
Love this blog! The Golden Ratio and Gaelic is a great combination!
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