Pot & Kettle...

In our house the pot never calls the kettle black. This is not just because they are inanimate objects and therefore lack moral agency:

No. The reason is that they are...

RED!

Finally go for a run...

On Saturday I posted all about my winter run. After all of that I didn't even go: It snowed lightly on Sunday and I just didn't have the heart to go out (running) in that mess. Instead I went cross country skiing, which is fun but not much of a workout...Not the way I ski.

Normally I would drive somewhere nearby to ski but I didn't want to take either of our two wheel drive cars down the snowy driveway--since they might not make it back up and I didn't want to shovel the driveway until the snow stopped falling. My wife had the 4 wheel drive and the kids which was why I had the free time to ski in the first place. As luck would have it, the initial work on a bike path nearby has been done. It is an old rail line which is fine for walking on but had been clogged with fallen trees, which make skiing a pain. The trees are cleared-out now, so it is perfect.

Yesterday though, I did make the run and even tacked-on an extra 2.5 miles since I was already wet-n-miserable from the drizzle. Today no run possible due to a work-related lunch thing. Of course today was bright with sun and blue skies.

Does This Mean That Deep Down Inside, I Plan to Never Move Again?

Probably.

Yesterday I purchased a 7-quart cast-iron dutch oven.

It weighs a ton.

After Having Not Changed Much In Years, Mattresses Have Suddenly Gotten Much Thicker

Why was I not informed of this?

The design process for Dahlia's new bed consisted of two parts: 1) Measure other queen-sized beds we own, so that I could make a bed which would hold the intended mattress. 2) Pretty much do whatever else I liked, design-wise, so long as a queen-sized mattress would fit.

A big assumption was that mattresses have not changed since the last time we bought one. It seemed safe: We bought our first not too long after moving into our first home, a two bedroom condo--this would be around 14 years ago. The next one we got about 4 years later when we moved into a three bedroom house. It was the guest bed and later Surenna's bed once Dahlia was born and took over the crib. The one after that was not too long after we moved into our current home: Jemma got the crib, while Surenna and Dahlia had been sharing a bed (full size). We got Surenna a Queen sized bed and mattress and Dahlia got the full size bed. All of these mattresses were about the same 8 inch thickness. The new one and all the ones we looked at are about one foot thick.

I made Dahlia's new bed extra high so that storage bins would easily fit under it. That height plus the extra four inches from the mattress made the thing really high. Dahlia (a normal sized 2nd grader) could climb up by herself, but it was a struggle and I am sure she would have wiped-out while dismounting at some point. So we gave the new mattress to Surenna, Dahlia got Surenna's and of course Jemma got Dahlia's old one. Even my wife and I got something out of it. We had a glider in Jemma's room which had to go,- to make room for her bed: That is now in our room.

Jemma, at six still fits! She used this crib longer than both her sisters combined. Next, it goes to my wife's brother and his wife. We used it for more than 10 years almost continuously.

ADDED: If you notice the drawer at the bottom of the crib, this thing holds a ton of stuff. When we were looking at cribs (a long time ago) I don't think I really cared if it came with a drawer or not. Advice to new parents: Care! It holds a ton and you will underestimate how much stuff goes with kids. This one drawer almost filled the three drawer chest that I just made for Jemma, that is how much it holds.