Fairy Tale Wedding

Isn’t this a hoot? 

How Many Friends Can We Really Have?

According to "Dunbar's Number," human beings can maintain a network of only about 150 close friends.  Robin Dunbar is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University of Oxford. 


Dr. Dunbar tells how a company with 150 employees remains a close knit group that is more productive and a better place to work than a company with more employees. This research substantiates 'bigger is not better.'


I first noticed our culture's trend to 'largeness' when the mega-schools arrived in the 1990's. My kids were in elementary school then. They did not have cohort of friends from one school year to the next because there were 8-10 other classes at each grade level. The feeling of the school was  anonymity.  Dr. Dunbar’s work speaks of our human need to be know in a community, a community that is of no more than 150 people 
NPR's Rachel Martin interviews the professor and the interview can be found here.

Done

The dresser is complete. It turned out nicely. It even has brass plates on the key holes.

Half way there

Conclusion of morning session with dresser

Wow, all that white paint is almost gone.

The big surprise is that the oak is tiger oak. That's cool.

Nannie's Dresser

My daughter was given an antique dresser that came from her  great-grandmother's. It was painted white. We always suspected that it was made of oak underneath.
I volunteered to refinish the dresser.  Here it is after it's first application of stripping gel. That stuff is gross. I had to use my industrial strength gloves

I found out stripping a well painted dresser is not an easy feat. It took a couple applications of stripper and lots of scraping. I could feel my biceps protesting after a couple hours.

What is looked like at the end of the first day

Pesto Making Day

I couldn't resist. My first crop of basil is ready. I planted lots of basil this year in order to make pesto sauce. The amount of pesto sauce I put up last year hardly lasted through the summer. I put in 10 plants a while ago and they are ready to harvest.

I spent the morning in the kitchen. The basil yielding 12 two ounce containers of pesto sauce. They are all sitting on the top shelf of freezer. Yum!

It's time to transplant my new basil seedlings into the garden for second harvest.

Done

There is nothing in this world more fun than taking a piece of cloth, I have woven, off the loom and finishing it.

I LOVE how these turned out.

The only thing I'll change in the future is make them smaller. The pattern has them finished at 22 X 40. Way too big for me.