Open a Can of Worms

I've never seen a can of worms.   I don't know where you would buy one or what dish you would include them in.  Perhaps the can refers to a container in which you store worms for fishing.   Why opening the can indicates calamity is soon to follow is unclear to me.   And while the connection is unknown, I understand the connotation of the phrase perfectly well.   Today, I opened a can of worms. 

It wasn't my intention when I texted my sleeping husband this morning, saying I was thinking about buying something with a, "it's not expensive" addition to the end of the text.  Typically, if my husband or I want to purchase something, we don't need the express consent of the other one.   We discuss things that will be higher in price, but for the most part, we don't talk about things like getting new socks or a container to put my daughter's collection of stuffed animals in.   We trust the other person will make wise choices, or if they're rash choices, it will hopefully be an interesting kind of rash. 

In this case, I had been looking at videos online and had found something that was $250 so I wanted to talk to my husband about it because of price, but more because it was going to impact space and room organization, and I wanted to be sure he was okay with the potential change.   I had left the page up on Amazon the night before but when I got to the computer this morning the price was showing at $150.   I thought I must be missing somehing, so I went back to the review I'd seen the day before and linked to the site from his post and sure enough, the price was $250 there. 

So, I decided to just get it before things changed back.   I texted my husband saying I'd tell him about it when he woke up, and then got to work on some other things.   When he woke up, I told him, "I got another 3D printer."   I was expecting him to be angry or exasperated or to tease me because everyone knows how obsessed I am with 3D printing, but he just laughed good-naturedly and I told him all about it. 

This printer is entirely different from the one we currently have.   3D printing is done in two main ways.   We have the kind where a spool of filament is fed into a hot nozzle which melts it and then layers the now melted plastic into the model.   The type of printer I'd gotten this morning is a resin printer.   Instead of a filament, you have a vat of liquid resin, and light cures layers of the resin which build on top of one another. 

The first printer we have is more substantial and flexible and can do lots of things.   This little resin printer will do some things, on a small scale.   Some of the things I've been wanting to print are very, very hard for our current type of printer to print, but are just what resin 3D printers excel at.   

The title of this post was about a can of worms.   What happened was I needed to free up some space on the other side of the workbench—the workbench we got for my husband that I've mostly taken over with this 3D printing mania.   It wasn't about the $150 that I wanted to talk to my husband about, it was about the space and the use of his workbench.   

He was, like he always is, understanding.  He even had some good suggestions on what I could do with the secondary work table I'd gotten as I'd be needing it for the washing and curing stages after the printing was done (resin printing has more steps, but yields beautiful, finely detailed prints).   Later in the morning he was in the basement with me and I was asking if he really, really needed that miter saw in the workroom on account of it was taking up so much space (he assured me he did) when I noticed the reverse osmosis filter also needed replacing and could he please help with that too?

He got not only roped into rearranging part of the basement workroom but changing out two filters that spewed water all over him and took a good hour to get finished.   I don't know that it was how he intended to spend his day. No, I know it wasn't how he intended to spend his day.  But just like my husband always is, he didn't complain as he helped me.   

He hasn't been as interested in 3D printing as I thought he would be.   He told me today, "I haven't had a chance, you're printing day and night."  Maybe with two printers, he can get some prints in?

The Big Boy Update:  My son's shoes were missing from his trip to the beach where he went fishing with Blake on Friday.   We looked Saturday morning for them but ultimately gave up.  My son had no idea where they were.   It shows just how tired he was when he got home because I found out today his shoes are in Blake's car.   He had no idea he came into the house without shoes on. 

The Tiny Gitl Chronicles:  My best friend's daughter, Ellie, wanted to learn how to babysit and asked if she could do so with our children first.   My daughter absolutely wanted Ellie to come over, and today we were able to coordinate schedules for her to have a social distanced sitting of my daughter (my son mostly managed himself.)  Ellie could only stay a little over an hour, but she promised if we would have her back, she would do all the dishes—she likes doing dishes, she said.   My daughter wants her to come back as soon as possible.