House Flies

A few days ago, we decided to paint our front door.  In order to do so, we had to take the door off of the hinges and lay it outside.  While the paint was drying and we had no front door, all the flies on our block appeared to have entered our house to get out of the cold.  I've been very annoyed with the flies constantly buzzing around and landing on me.  I've killed about 25 of them, but there are still a handful that appeared to have gone into hiding when the fly massacre took place because they survived the slaughter and  are back flying around. 

That said, the other day Evelyn woke up from her morning nap, and I could hear her playing in her crib.  She has this special giggle/laugh noise that she reserves for times when she finds something really fun to play with.  Curious as to what she had discovered in her crib that could draw out this laugh, I snuck into her bedroom.  Now normally as soon as she sees me in her room, she is instantly on her feet at the side of the crib with her arms in the air wanting to be picked up.  I found her this time sitting towards one end of the crib and looking at the blankets in front of her.  There was a fly sitting on her blanket.  She waved her arm at the fly, it moved out of the way, and then come crawling back.  This is what was eliciting those joyful giggles I had heard from the other room. She sat contentedly batting at this fly for several minutes. 

It started to make me think.  Oh to have the mindset of a child.  Where even pesky flies are fun playtime pals.  To not be bothered by a nuisance, but rather enjoy watching God's creation up close.  To see even the smallest creature as a means to be joyful.

I still try to kill the flies I see flying around our house, but it does bring a smile to my face when Evelyn is sitting in her high chair and a fly happens to land on her tray.  She proceeds to ignore me and smile real big at the fly and then watch it until she can't see where it has gone.

Morning Math

I always knew that there was a trick to converting square feet to square yards, and that it wasn't as simple as dividing by 3 or anything like that.  After a little bit of Google research I discovered a very helpful math forum with a smart man named Dr. Math who explains math problems.  The picture he showed made so much sense.

3 feet = 1 yard
    ___
   | 1 |  1 sq. ft.  
   |___|
    ___ ___ ___
   | 1 | 2 | 3 |   1 sq. yd. =
   |___|___|___|   9 sq. ft.
   | 4 | 5 | 6 |
   |___|___|___|
   | 7 | 8 | 9 |
   |___|___|___|

When you calculate it out, one square yard is equal to 9 square feet.  To go from square feet to square yards, all you have to do is divide by 9.

Excited that I finally figured out an easy way to convert between the two, I went outside to measure and calculate how many cubic yards of dirt we will need to fill our newly landscaped flower beds.  Wait?  CUBIC yards?  I thought we were talking square yards.  Well, landscape companies sell dirt and mulch and things by the cubic yard, so that's what we needed to know.

Well, here's how I did it.  I calculated out how many square feet of beds are out there.  I added up 166.5 sq ft.  Then I divided by 9 to get the square yards (18.5).  Then I measured that the beds are approximately 10" deep which, with a simple calculation equals .277777778 yds.  Multiply 18.5 by .2777777778 and voila!  We need 5.138 cubic yards of dirt to fill our beds.

Getting Paid to Landscape Our Own Home

As most of you know, Kevin does lawncare along with bits and pieces of landscaping for a living.  We have been looking forward to landscaping some flower beds around our home, but were waiting for the local landscape supply store to start their fall 40% off sale to buy our stones.  Kevin wanted to use limestone, which of course is one of the more expensive stones, so we were looking at about a $500-600 project just for the stones. 

Kevin called me about a week ago while he was out working and said, "What would you say if I told you that someone is going to pay us $200 for all of our landscaping stone?"  At first I didn't think I heard him right, but of course I had.  I immediately wanted to know how this would be possible.  I could tell he had a smirk on his face as he told me about one of the rental properties that he mows and how they have a limestone landscaped flower beds that are all overgrown and look terrible because no one maintains them.  He talked to the property owner and told him that he would take out all of the stones and plant grass seed for $200.  The man willingly agreed, much to Kevin's delight.

Now, not only do we have exactly what we wanted to put around our house, but we have an extra $200 to buy any extra stones that we may need, landscaping fabric, fill dirt, and plants to fill our beds.  My husband is such a business man, and it's wonderful!