Emails Running Amok

Things have priorities and depending on how high something is it will either get done earlier or later, or perhaps not at all.   I have a thing about my email, liking it to be as empty as possible.  I wax and wane on the state of my inboxes, sometimes having nothing them at all, meaning everything needing to be done from an email-based standpoint has been taken care of, responded to or filed.   Sometimes, things are not so well-managed. 

The current state of my emails is full blown jungle overgrowth.   I get a bit of time here and there and do some portion of catching up, but it isn't enough to make any real progress.   At the end of the day, typically quite late, I just want to go to sleep.  Or when I do take time to not do anything and relax or take a nap, email is the furthest thing from my mind. 

The way 3D printing works is there are lots and lots of little things that need to be taken care of.  Maybe I should write a blog post about that some day, although it might bore you to death.   Even though there are long bouts of time for some models that they print on quietly and calmly without your intervention, when you have multiple printers running at the same time, something always needs to be taken care of, restarted, sliced, downloaded, uploaded, edited, filament changed, ad nauseam.  

I have let the emails slide.   I'm getting to all the important ones and perhaps it doesn't matter that everything isn't filed, deleted or marked.  Every few days I say, "I'm going to beat back my inbox(es) tomorrow!" not unlike the phrase we are known to say about starting the diet tomorrow.  Only tomorrow it gets put off for another day. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl One Minute Shower Morning:  We forgot to set our weekday alarms back on and woke up eight minutes before we needed to leave for school—and the children absolutely, positively had to have showers because they were bad news from a cleanliness perspective.   Somehow we made it to school as they were shutting the door to my son's classroom so technically he was late, but only by a minute or two.  My daughter and I missed our morning Starbucks pumpkin bread, but we somehow survived.   The car had breakfast consumed in it, I'm not sure how it fared with the crumbs though.

Keeping Up With The Jonses

I used that phrase tonight even though it's not something I say, because I've been having fun with my new Australian slang deck of cards.   Only it's caused me to realize I don't think about American slang.  So tonight when I remembered that phrase, I used it in context and found out it is also used in Australia.

I'm going to have to cave and search online and then I'll remember all the phrases that just haven't been coming to mind. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Shower Lapse:  The children haven't had a shower in several days.   And we forgot to get them to take one before they went to bed.   They would skip washing themselves for months I would bet if they weren't required to get clean from time to time.  

Everything Goes Wrong, But There Was Song

I won't detail for you all the things that went wrong today, but it was a bad 3D printing day.   We lost hours of filming, had to print models multiple times over and at this point, at the end of the day, we have no video and no completed models.   

Some days just don't go your way. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son just came down with a nightmare.  He couldn't get past it for the first ten minutes but eventually, his father got him laughing and he was fine.  I was working on a broken printer and the three of us were talking while I was repairing it.  The nightmares don't happen often, but it's scary when they do. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  This is where the song part comes in from the blog title is that while I was filming today, Ashley came over and she and my daughter started decorating.   They brought down the bin of animated stuffed animals that are all Christmas-themed.   When I came upstairs the two ladies demonstrated how each one worked.  

Presents In Action

It's hard to tell when a child will like a present they receive.   They may want it, but when it arrives they have changed their mind or they aren't as interested in it when they find out what's involved or how it works.   Today I saw two presents in action that are working well, and on both occasions, I had wondered how they would work out. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son likes magic because his grandfather has been a magician since he was eight himself.  Tonight for the first time I saw my son put in enough practice to be able to do a trick without being nervous or bumbling through it not sure what to do.  He was so pleased with my surprised reaction to the cups and balls routine he had learned the first moves to.  When I went upstairs to help his sister, he started working on another trick with his father. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is "bored bored bored" but today she got a circular loom from Uncles Bob and Brian.   This was a simple loom that would make tubes of knitted material that could be made into hats or other items.   I had fairly high confidence she could do it—but would she want to.   Tonight she is up in her bed, lying in the dark, making mistakes, because when you can't see what just went wrong, it's not always easy to recover.   But she's being successful.  I told her not to worry about it being perfect, that this first time was to learn and to get the motions down so she knew what to do and how to prevent the yarn from going in the wrong places.   She is interested and determined.   I think she would be so happy to go to school and have people compliment her on her hat this winter and then be able to tell them she made it.  

Hedgehog!

Today we had four grandparents, two uncles, two parents, two children, and a dog for Thanksgiving dinner.  We had taken my parents and the children's uncles over to visit the rental property we bought during COVID-19 that hopefully will someday have our retirement home built on it.  For now, it's a very eclectic rental property.

My husband was working on the turkey, Uncle Bob was making a pie.  Mimi and Gramps had brought ham and green bean casserole.  Nana was making a completely from scratch starting with a pumpkin pie. Dinner was on the way to being ready.

Uncle Bob managed to get ten chairs around the one table in our dining room and we had a very nice dinner with no bickering at all from the children.  They were having fun doing something that could be initiated by either child by calling out, "hedgehog!"

The two children would then duck under the table and grab our legs or play with the dog, who was waiting to have any food at all sent her way.  

The food was so good tonight.   I ate some of everything except the roll and then finished up with a slice of both pies.  

I got to sit beside my father and talk to him some.   It was nice to spend a little time talking with him.   He's become more quiet as he's grown older but he does talk a good bit when it's just him and you.  

It was a lovely Thanksgiving.  I'm so grateful for the family we have and that we were able to get together this week and today.

The Big Boy Update:  My son opened his birthday present from my parents early tonight.  I haven't seen him so excited.  He got a mouse for the computer that apparently is the best mouse for drag clicking—ever.   He hugged them and thanked them and then ran downstairs to install it.  He is playing on the computer now, presumably drag clicking away.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is currently wearing the Cookie Monster pajamas I got myself for Christmas two years ago.   It's a bit scratchy, what with it costing only five dollars and most of the cost being eaten up with fluff materials of questionable quality.   The ankles are elastic so it doesn't really show how loose the pajamas are on her.   She is so happy.   I can't believe she's wearing my pajamas. 

Long or Short? Detailed or High-Leveled?

I spent several hours today filming a review I'm going to be putting out on the Mosaic Palette 3.   After finishing it my husband pointed out that the monitor (a small screen that lets me see what's being recorded) had dropped over the corner of the lens, blocking part of the shot.  That meant a significant portion of what I'd recorded was unusable.  

Or was it?  I asked my husband if he could do some editing magic and paste the unblocked corner from another video earlier on, before I knocked the monitor (not like a computer monitor, this is a small thing like a small-sized tablet that I use only at the beginning to make sure the videos look okay.)  My husband had saved the day and the video I'd been working on so long to script, or to outline more accurately, didn't have to be recorded again. 

It took me a number of takes to get what was in my mind to work well when I recorded it.   But I'm not sure I want to publish it after my husband said something: is it interesting, fast-paced, full of neat things, shot changes, basically anything to make a longer video something people will want to take twenty to thirty minutes to watch?

And this got me thinking.   We talked about it and I explained what I thought the typical audience would be like that would watch the video, and I think I may want to do it over.   Is that bad after all the work I did today?''  Possibly not.  It will be much easier to redo and if I can make it snappier, plus do a quick overview video for people who don't want an in-depth view of the product, it might be better than what I recorded.  

I need to look at the current video and make a decision.  And I need to get this video out because I'd like to have it behind me. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Uncles Arrive:  Children are interesting things.  They love their uncles Bob and Brian, but when they're occupied on something else it is quite possible they won't jump out of their chairs to say hello and greet them upon their arrival.   My son stopped watching television and did his version of hello and my daughter was definitely happy to see them.   My son went back to his television show as soon as he'd said his greetings and my daughter headed off to Madison's house (a special concession letting the girls come into each other's houses).  They've been talking about when they'd get here so I know they're excited to see them.   So am I.  I can't believe it's been two years since we've seen them because of COVID-19.

Review To Do

I have a product review I need to be working on.  I've needed to be working on it all day, but a hundred little things stopped me every time I tried to get started.   At this point the camera is up, the lights are on, everything I need is in frame.   My outline is prepared.  

All I need to do is press record and start filming.   But at 9:12 at night I can't keep my eyes open.   I'm trying to even write this post and I'm falling asleep as I do.   I might have a nap and get up later to record.  

I even had a shower and did my hair.   I wash it every four or five days, it just takes too long.   I always love when it's clean and freshly styled—even if I'm about to go to sleep on it.

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Out of School Status:  My children are out of school for the entire Thanksgiving week now.   Only two days of school this week and now they're done:

Holly Night

On the way to chorus today my daughter wanted to do a round of Silent Night, one of the songs she's singing with the older chorale group, who will be singing an entirely different song while they sing Silent Night.  She and I have practiced this together and it's tricker than we thought it would be, but we've got the timing down now and we don't have to put our fingers in our ears so we're not distracted by the other person's part. 

She decided she wanted to do a standard round of Silent Night today, though and it was a bit in when she corrected me, saying it was "holly night". I said the word was "holy" and then thought that perhaps she didn't know the full meaning of the song. 

She was fully aware of the story Silent Night is about, but she hadn't made the connection with the words of that song.   After explaining, she was quiet, thinking about the song's meaning until we parked.

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn't finish folding his laundry last night so he was grounded today until he did.  My mother picked him up from school and he was hungry but he declined my mother's offer to get him food through a drive through.   When my husband and I found out, we told him we were so sorry, that that's not what we had meant.   He doesn't have much of an appetite from the Adderall he takes for school and we like to make sure he's fed when he gets home.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter rode home from choir with her friend Grace, who is also visually impaired.  This is the first time in all the years my children have been alive that we've had driver duty turn taking with another family.  My daughter loves getting to spend time with Grace. 

Maybe it's Puberty?

My son has been very angry lately.  Maybe not so much angry, but something is going on.  We are getting all kinds of moods from him lately.   He's cranky, he's boastful, he's angry, he's just seemingly not happy.   He's also defiant and we just can't figure out what the impetus for any of this can be.   

He's not happy at us, but that's in significant part because we're asking him to do things like clean up his things, do his laundry, not use improper language, be respectful, eat properly, you know, all the standard things parents ask children to do and not do.  

But something else is going on and he's fluctuating between moods that go from angry to sad and upset.   I was talking to him tonight and he actually let me hug him for a while, which I could tell he needed but I didn't think he'd let me get near him, but he did.   I asked him if he knew why he was so upset lately.   He said, "maybe it's puberty?"    

I don't know, it's a little early, but it could very likely be. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son had to be taken away from the dinner table with my parents tonight twice, after not seeing them for several months.   He was not having a good day.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had the best time talking with the my parents while her brother had been excused from the table for bad behavior.   She was so happy to see them after such a long time apart.

I am the Bed Destroyer!

I just heard my son say online to his friends, "I am the bed destroyer!  How many beds have gotten?"  Now if he were a teen, I would have been concerned.   He is about to turn eleven in a few weeks and at this point, comments like that I know mean something else entirely.  

He was playing a variant of Minecraft in which eight players try to conquer each other's bases.   The "mod" is called Bed Wars, because to knock the other players out, you have to destroy their beds.   The players can either take an offensive position and attack the other players or spend time trying to fortify their bedrooms and beds, commonly entombing them in layers upon layers of bricks and other materials.  

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn't have a good end of the day.   He had his friends complaining that his microphone wasn't working, which really upset him.   He didn't want to eat his dinner and generally had a bad time all around, which we felt badly about because his aunt and uncle were visiting.   His father spent some time with him in his bedroom tonight and he thinks he helped.   We had no idea his mic wasn't working consistently.  I hate hardware that's not working well, just like my son, only no one teases me about it. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  In true fashion for my daughter, just because the adults were interested in talking, it didn't stop her from making up games that we had to passively play.  She would come around and whisper words in our ears and the one with the different word was, "the special one" that round, or tap us on the shoulder and see who was paying attention and if so, how many times did she tap us?   She was so happy having us all around and not in the least bit deterred when we said we didn't want to play games because we wanted to talk and catch up.

Test Video

My husband and I worked on a sample video to send to our new client.   It's short at only twenty seconds in length, but I think it looks quite professional.   We're going to have a meeting with them and get their feedback as soon as one of them is back from vacation. 

I like the content we produced, but I think the thing that makes it is the animation sequence for their new logo, which has been recently updated to reflect that they're now making recycled filament.  We engaged a graphics designer to do something short with the logo to animate it in some way to be used in videos.  We knew we could do something, but it would be at the level we wanted to be and we would have spent far too long on the lesser version we might have come up with. 

The designer initially came back with a seven-second video.  We had asked for a two to four-second video.   We went back and explained much of the content we would be making would be only twenty seconds long and so it had to be much shorter.   We decided on three seconds and he came back with a very nice version that was shortened while keeping the essence of what he'd done in the first iteration. 

So far, I think the video work we've done for the client doesn't have the same feel as our videos, which was something we wanted to try and do—to separate the work with a different style.   We'll see how they like it and what suggestions the client has. 

I'm so glad we got an outside source to build the logo work.   It looks very good. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son asked for new masks.  He wears disposable masks for school and complained there were only pink ones with hearts left.  I got him several sets, all with space themed patterns.  He found them before I even had a chance to show him.  He said he liked them a lot.   I think he'll look good in a black mask with stars and planets on it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is still in book reading grounding status.   She was very unhappy tonight about not playing with her friends tomorrow.   If she read book four in the set (braille book, one fifth of the total book and reasonable in size to read) then she could play with Keira.  She said it was impossible.   I said I was so sorry about it, but she decided to play with her friends and not read for the past three weeks and that made this weekend a hard one to catch up.  Consequences can be hard, I hope she remembers this for next quarter's book.

A Whole Book

My daughter read a whole book today.  It might have been in part that she was grounded for not reading her book.   It might have been that the deadline for reading the book was today and she was still on volume one of five.   It might be because she has to start a project with a team or partner tomorrow and she hasn't even read the book yet.  

For whatever reason, she spent a long while reading today.  The lubricant I gave her to roll on her fingers to keep them from getting sore has helped a good bit, she said. 

The Big Boy Update:  No screens during the week, but my son convinced his father he wanted to do some 3D modeling in Tinkercad today and his father let him.  I came down later to find some nice things he'd designed.   He made a complete crown replete with detachable gems.   He's not asked me to print it yet but perhaps he will when he's done with it.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came home today, got her Chromebook out, opened it up, logged in, asked us to be quiet so she could hear the VoiceOver talking and then found a window and navigated the complex process to get to her music class page and open the school choir signup form.   This, coming from a child who said she didn't know how to do anything and hated working with the computer not one week ago.

With Flying Colors

My son took a standardized test today for Middle school entrance.   We went to one of those testing centers and he (and I) had to go through more security than the airport to allow him to go in to take the test.   I had to sit and wait while he was the only child amongst a collection of adults.   

We were worried he would be upset or lose the ability to sit there and test for the entire three hours.   He came out for three short breaks and calmly sat to talk to me.   When he was done he and I went to get lunch, which he wanted to take to go in the car so he could get to school for a music event he and his classmates had been working on.

As we drove to get lunch I asked him how he did.  He said, "I passed...with flying colors."   I talked about how he did and he told me about some questions and then we talked about other things.   He seemed nonplussed about the whole test.

When I dropped him off at school his teacher gave me his COGAT test score, another standardized test he had to take that's nationwide.  He was at the 99th percentile in two of the areas and 97% in the other.   We really had no idea how he would do with these kinds of things.  It looks like he does fairly well. 

The Big Boy Update: My son's COGAT percentiles are in comparison to national scores.   Within his class,  he scored right at the 50th percentile, which means I think that the school is doing a good job educationally. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has been grounded until she reads the book(s) she's been putting off reading.   She's had several weeks to read them and tonight we drew the line.   She cried, saying her fingers would hurt.   I believe her, but she wouldn't have to power read if she would read some every day.   I thought of something I could give her for her fingers that would lubricate them.  She liked it a lot and got a good bit of reading done.  I made a little roller bottle of what is actually a hair product I repurposed for her fingers and have it in a little zipper pouch attached to her backpack now. 

The Sparrow's Fart

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "what?"   That's okay, we were thinking the same thing too. I had a friend from Australia mail me a care package in thanks for some filament I sent her.   As it turns out, "the sparrow's fart" means way too early in the morning, the crack of dawn.

And as it also turns out, I have to get up at the sparrow's fart in the morning.   And now I'm wondering if the last the words in that sentence are redundant.   They probably are.  

I have another Australian friend who is going to be my new Australian slang victim.   I shall unleash it on him when he least expects it.   I just explained about having to get up at the sparrow's fart and he texted back he was on a video call and he was trying not to laugh. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has four hours of standardized tests to take in the morning—at ten years old.   Plus an essay.   I have no idea how he's going to make it through.  I wouldn't be able to sit still for that long at that age and take a test.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loved opening the care package from my Australian friend.   She is a model designer and she made her a keychain with her online name, 3DPrintBunny, in Braille.   So cool

Family Visits

I came home today to find my daughter walking a dog that wasn't ours.  I realized fairly quickly that it was Daisy, my brother- and sister-in-law's dog, visiting with Nana, who was bringing my daughter home from school.   The dog is stopping in for a week while her parents are traveling back and forth from Florida as they relocate to their new, under renovations, retirement home.

Daisy is only one of several family stopping in for a "spell" here.  My cousin and her husband are spending the night with us tomorrow.   They're in for a dinner event in town and we're glad to have them stay and catch up where we can. 

Then, my brother-in-law and his wife will be back and plan on storing their trailer in our off-site garage later this week.   And later still, they'll be back down to get the trailer and leave some other things which they'll be back for later.  

All in all, it's nice to have family around again after all the time and distance COVID-19 put between us. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter has loads and loads of fidgets.  More fidgets than anyone needs to have.  Of course the one thing she wants is the one thing we gave away at her party yesterday: these little rubbery, squishy things called Mochis.   She wants them because the set I got online had all kinds of shapes she'd never felt before.   She might even spend her allowance to get some. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has to take a standardized test for middle school entrance this week.   He can take it a second time, but either time he takes it he will have to answer questions quickly.  Hopefully he'll do well on the test.   We'll know eventually how it goes.

Middle School Applications

It is very hard to believe we are filling out applications for middle school for my son.  My daughter will be going to the school that has the vision impairment specialty with the county's public schools, so we don't have to do anything for her next year, but since my son is attending a Montessori school that's private, we have to make a decision on where he'll be going next year. 

There is a possibility we could have him attend his current school for one more year and then have him and his sister attend the same school the following year, which is one of the options we'll look into, but we also want to consider other options. 

This weekend we had to pull teeth, and by that I mean we had to get my son to answer two written questions for one of the applications.   One of the questions was if he had a super power that would help him at school, what would it be?   The second was how has an experience at home changed how he sees things in the world. 

The second was an easy one because he talked about how having a sister who is blind had helped him see people with disabilities just as regular people and that he saw them the same as he sees everyone else.   The super power one I had to help with and we decided he would be Focus, a super hero who's power gave him the ability to focus (which definitely has advantages when it comes to school)

The Big Boy Update:  My son didn't get off the computer at the start of my daughter's birthday party today and then proceeded to throw an entire temper tantrum because of his actions.  I had to go to extremes, counting to ten, telling him he'd better get his butt outside, and then, to no adult's surprise, he had a good time.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter's birthday party was today.   She had a great time and I think her friends did as well.  Many Popits and Fidgets and things that the children know all the names of that we as adults can't keep straight, were handed out.   Also, there was cotton candy.  

Tired

It's so late and I’m so tired I’m going to have to write a better post tomorrow. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son is working on applications for missed school, which involves writing question short essay answers.  He doesn’t really want to do them. He doesn’t see why they're so important. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  my daughter is so very excited for her Fidget themed birthday party tomorrow. She went to bed early to get some reading done for a bit school assignment she's been putting off. 

Booking Flights

Well, we're a go for a trip to Portland to work with a filament company that wants to hire us to do their social media.   We've discussed goals and we're all going to prepare in advance with us working on some things here and them thinking about what they want to have long-term from a content perspective.  As I type this, my husband is booking flights.  

It's a bit surreal, this whole thing.   It's like the imposter syndrome: surely this can't be me.   I have messages in my Instagram inbox from companies that want to talk to us and emails to respond to.   And yet we're so tiny.  Less than twenty thousand combined subscribers/followers and yet because our focus is specifically filament and no one is doing similar content, companies are starting to want to work with us. 

I already have a patter I send back stating what we're willing to do and within what timeframe.   It's not a problem committing to make a video if they send a filament (I suggest only one filament but some have sent more) because I need filament to make the videos.   I have a surplus I could do videos on for some time, but newer filaments are nice and sometimes reflect what's becoming more popular.   So I have the filament company side relatively handled at this point. 

But the large amount of work we'll be doing for this one company is a bit of a mystery to me at this point. They understand we're not professionals, they're only asking for us to do work similar to what we've put out for our own content.   Still, we want to do the best job we can. 

Then there are the other content creators.  For some reason, we're suddenly "one of them" when only a few months ago I was someone watching their content as a viewer.   That part is odd too, when they comment on your content.   

But the most interesting thing is a day we'll be spending while we're there.   We're going to do a day of filming with one of the biggest content creators in the 3D printing English-speaking world.   He's recently been working with Neil Patrick Harris on some 3D printed things for his home.   But outside of that Hollywood anomaly, he's just big in the world of 3D printing.   And we're going to be filming with him. 

The Big Boy Update:  I hate to mention this, but for the sake of historical accuracy I think I should mention that my son is streaking his pants again.  Streaking is a minor word for what's happening.  There is nothing medically wrong with him, he just doesn't want to stop what he's doing to go to the bathroom.  Oddly, I remember feeling the same way when I was young.   Tonight, we couldn't get him to stop what he was doing to eat dinner, if that's any indication to the level of his focus when he gets focused.   He is fine, and "just being a boy and he'll grow out of it" his doctor has said.  He doesn't like dealing with it afterwards, but he doesn't want to stop and go when he needs to either. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got more birthday presents today.   They came in the mail and she wanted to open them so badly but I had finally laid down to rest for just a bit.   She couldn't wait so she tried to wake me up.   Apparently I wasn't coming out of the sleep I had drifted off to not ten minutes before.   After trying to rouse me for a few minutes she said, "Maybe I should come back later."   That jolted me awake.   I had been trying to wake up but the sadness in her voice made me realize what had been happening and that I wasn't there for her to celebrate opening her presents.

Ten Today

My daughter turned ten today.   She was so happy about being a year older.  She woke up and asked about presents and because we had some on hand from some family members, after getting my son off to school, she opened them up.   

She's off of school today and tomorrow for some teacher workdays and she wasn't letting us get away with waiting to have the presents later.   You never know about presents for a blind child but I had hoped the things I put on her list would be things she liked.   

As it turns out, she was thrilled with both of them.  The first were some plastic tubes that are like the bendable straws that can stretch, only these were much bigger and the entire length expanded.   She had thirty of them and she loved them.   

We sent a video to her aunt, uncle, and cousin of her opening them.   I have no idea how she knows what something is so quickly.   But her hands can tell things ours wouldn't be able to.   Her friend, Madison, came over in a bit and they hooked them all together and had a grand old time with them. 

Then she opened a toy that was targeted at much younger children, but I had a feeling she would love them.   It was a set of dolphins that made different notes when they were in water.   Musical dolphins for playing in the tub.   Since my daughter still loves to play with toys in the tub (as does her brother sometimes) I thought she would like them. 

She and Madison ran off to the bathtub and they figured out how they worked.   I thought it might need batteries but no, it's all in how they're arranged internally.   She really loved them.   She and her brother did indeed have a bath tonight and made a big mess around the tub with music abounding from little tooting dolphins.  

She had what I hoped was a good day.   I got to spend some time with her and we had a dinner she picked out.   Her father was unhappy he had to be at the virtual neighborhood annual meeting since he's on the board, but she was okay eating her meal and talking with her brother and me, playing a game on Alexa. 

She's looking forward to her party this weekend.   A whole decade ago she was born.    It's so hard to think it's been that long. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son might act like baths aren't cool sometimes, but othertimes he loves getting in the tub and splashing around with his sister still. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was very sweet today.   We got presents from family members and many texts wishing her a happy birthday.   She smiled every time I read one to her and said things like, "aww, that's so nice."

Mission Impossible

I came upstairs shortly before bed to find a crazy mess in the hallway.   The children had gotten the ropes we used before going on our sailing trip and had made a tripwire setup so it was nigh impossible to get into my son's room.   

My son didn't want it taken down so it's still in place for the morning.   I wonder if my son is going to be in a mood to clamber all over it when he's groggy and hungry?   As I saw him shutting the door for the night all I could think about was that he had "mission impossibled" his room. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son has school on Thursday and Friday while his sister does not.   He's getting older and didn't get upset, saying it wasn't fair she had days off.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter turns ten tomorrow.  It's hard to believe ten years ago I had her.  

What's In a Face?

Uncle Bob sent an article written by a completely blind many who didn't understand why people always asked if he wanted to feel their faces.   The article was interesting and explained how blind people experience the world serially through their fingers, while sighted people can see a wealth of information at a literal glance. 

The writer didn't understand the need to see faces, even when he was at a museum and was allowed to feel the faces of all the statues.   It wasn't until he was part of a research project in which a feedback area on a table lifted up pegs in a grid to match the facial expression of the person he was talking to that he got an understanding of faces—because of how they moved while they talked and interacted with you. 

My daughter tries to match what we do and doesn't understand much of the time.   We tried to explain what it meant to put your elbows to your side and hold your upper arms up with your hands out.   We said it meant something similar to a shrug, that it indicated you just weren't sure, didn't know, were taking a guess.   

She tried to mimic the motion but it came out stilted and awkward.   If she could see, she would just absorb the information and know.   But she has to learn and try very hard to get something "right" that makes no sense to her. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son sleeps diagonal in his bed.   A full half of his bed was until recently covered with stuffed animals, preventing him from sleeping straight on.   Even with them reduced significantly, he likes to have his head close to the wall and his feet close to the edge of the bed. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter got her converting scooter today for raising the money for her school (thank you again to all who helped her out).  She was overjoyed.  It's an interesting scooter and I think better suited to her than the standing scooters.  It converts to a sitting position.   Nana and Papa watched as she went up and down the street this afternoon after school.   The thing is fast!

To Portland We (will eventually) Go

We had another call today with the company that wants to hire us to do their filament social media.   We're going to do this, because the company is very reputable and is well-connected and, well, it's my favorite filament company.   We're scheduling going to their location to collect a lot of footage on all aspects of what they do. 

It's also their eight year anniversary coming up, which seems short in some ways but in the 3D printing world, that's a decently long tenure.   They're going to ask some other social media people to come join us, which, if it happens, will likely be very beneficial for us as well from a connections standpoint. 

This is all odd, surreal, bizarre.   We're working with, talking to, making future plans with and being hired by (I think there was some redundancy in that list) people and companies I would have never thought I would even have a chance to meet.   I'm not sure, but I might be dealing with a bit of the imposter syndrome.   

It's exciting.   Now we need to do the quality job we've been doing for ourselves for someone else.   They're extremely nice to work with and we're all being very reasonable with what we can do and the timeframe in which we can do it.  It's a very positive situation and with a company I'm pretty much thrilled to be working with. 

The Children To The Grandparent's:  My daughter wanted to know if she could go to Portland with us to the filament company.   I told her maybe next time.   Our thanks (in advance) to my in-laws for being willing to watch the children while we're gone.  

Five Hours to Laundry

My children took five hours to fold and put away their laundry today.   Five hours.  And the only reason they completed it in less than six hours was because we took away the entertainment we allowed them to have while they worked on the apparently arduous, cruel and unusual task.  

My husband lost his temper at my son who nearly lost his mind when I brought him more laundry that I had washed for him and then separated.   The children put things in my hamper and when I do my laundry, they get those pieces done "for free."   Putting the items on the coffee table was apparently an unpardonable sin as my son nearly flew into a conniption fit with rage at the attempt to help him in this fashion. 

I asked him if the chair would be better and he nodded yes, that would help (minus the helpful words) and then I left him the laundry basket, which he also mumbled about wanting.   We left them at that point in the expectation that they would finish the task, but that was short-lived as my son was angry and needed help with motivation and my daughter, who had had so much energy when she was lounging on our bed playing audio games on Alexa, had become completely exhausted and enraged at the same time. 

We did not help them.   They tried valiantly to rebel, but it didn't work.   My daughter was caught again, over an hour later, at still not having put up the clothes that were folded and waiting on her bed in the hamper, and almost became hysterical because she was going to miss out on the family game of live Among Us.  

They explained that they didn't like doing the laundry.   I had some rather lengthy explanations about how I didn't like doing it either, but who exactly did they expect to do their clothes?   It was their responsibility and <enter lengthy discussion from me> "fine, Mom, you always take forever to explain something, just stop talking about it."  And that's when they started working. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter was so angry about the laundry and had finally gotten a portion of her things in her basket to take upstairs.   She said in a cross voice to us, "your calm voices are making me mad."

The Big Boy Update:  I came downstairs and wanted to message Clockspring the latest news about how a company had paid us for some work we'd done with their filaments.   My son was looking at the screen, knew who I was typing to and said, "he doesn't know the secret of how to type without making mistakes when you're on your phone.   It's using your pinky."  Then he did the muhaha evil laugh and continued, "and he'll never know, he's not powerful enough.   You have to infuse it with blood and then only can you use it.  And you will never tell anyone this piece of information Mom, right?  Because if you do, lives might end.  Do you understand that?"   I typed it as fast as I could and when he realized what I was doing he gave me the, "seriously, mom?" look.  I read what I'd typed and he had a very cute little grin on his face, knowing I'd typed what he'd been saying because I thought it was funny enough to tell someone.   Sometimes, even when children are being silly, they like to know that they're funny and interesting.   

Colour

I have a 3D printing friend in Australia.   When I type to him online I use the Australian (or British) spelling of words.  I do this with other people as well, but I chat with him quite a lot as I'm his beta tester for all the models he designs.   

We talk about filaments a lot, which necessitates discussion of colors for models or filaments we might want to order.  What I didn't realize for a good while was that we must use the word 'color' quite a lot because I find myself almost spelling it 'colour' when I type the word in other situations.  I'm having to actively remember to spell it 'color' sometimes. 

I rather like the British/Australian spelling for a lot of things.  I've never mentioned to my friend that I use one spelling over another for words.  I wonder if he's ever noticed?

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter loves to play Othello.   She originally could see the colors on the board but now we play with a board that has inset spaces for each of the pieces and we have a felt spot added to each of the black pieces.   She is good at the game.  Very good for age nine and specifically for someone who can't glance at the board but has to remember what's where with only reviewing things with her fingers.   She and I are evenly matched and we have a lot of fun playing together. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son and husband are playing a new game together.  It's my type of game and I'd love to play it with them, only it's not available on Mac.   It's okay though because I'm busy playing Othello with my daughter. 

Will This Palette Work?

I bought, along with a 3D printing friend of mine, an accompaniment piece of hardware to go along with a 3D printer that would help create prints in multiple colors of filament.   It was more on the edge of the technology for 3D printing because of the heavy-duty work it had to do to pull different colors of filament in, splice them together, send the resulting single strand of filament to the printer and do so all in a completely orchestrated way so that the right colors got to the printer at the right time. 

In short, it was a highly complex job that was fraught with points of failure.   I had a lot of frustrations with the Mosaic Palette.   It was, however, such an exciting thing when it worked.   It was almost worth all the failures and hardware issues when you had something that worked.  

My machine had to be sent back to the manufacturer for extensive maintenance because it just couldn't seem to work much of the time.   My friend had somewhat better results, but not by much.   

As of last week the latest version of the Palette is out and it has been long-awaited and shipped with much anticipation by the 3D Printing community.   I ordered early when they first announced and I received mine last week.   I've done two live streams on it and have so far had very good results.  

Have there been failures?  Yes, but not on the Palette's side, on the printer side.   Although I've since discovered some of that was due to settings I should have caught on the Palette side.   Today I completed a seven-hour print of something quite small.   The amount of filament wasn't the thing that took so long, it was the swapping of filament and printing in a precise order.  Tonight, I'm printing another eleven-hour print.  

I'm excited and hopeful that this Palette will be the answer to a lot of issues the last Palette had.   I've discovered some, "features" that need to be addressed, but they're easily circumvented.   I'm already planning a tips and tricks video for the near future if I can get a few additional things worked out.  

Above all else, it's fun to see things that have always printed in one color, one filament, suddenly show up with all sorts of colors on the build surface. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter did her fun run today and was so happy she and he classmates raised money for their school.   Thank you to everyone who helped.   If we missed you, my apologies.  My daughter was calling people and forgot to tell us who she spoke to so we could send the link.

The Big Boy Update:  My son is playing a MMORPG (adventure game online with loads of other real people) with his father.   They've been playing for several hours and both seem to be having a great time. 

Drag Clicking

So, drag clicking is where you have a mouse and put your finger on it and angle and move it forward lightly pushing on the mouse button.  It's different for every mouse, but if you get it correct you will be able to obtain high CPS, a.k.a Clicks Per Second.

It's basically like your finger is hitting the mouse button, bouncing off, and hitting the mouse button again.  You can also put tapes on the mouse buttons to create more friction and more CPS.  Also, a thing with mice is called de-bounce time.   That's how many milliseconds it takes which is how long it takes for the mouse button to go down and come back up. 

The lowest I've seen (a.k.a. Greyson) is .2ms for the de-bounce time (lower is better).  My best mouse's lowest de-bounce time is 4ms and drag clicking isn't the only kind of clicking.  Also, the base de-bounce time is 10ms on most mice, including non-gaming and gaming mice.

Now the other kinds of clicking that I know of are 1) Normal clicking, 2) Butterfly Clicking, 3) Double Clicking, 4) Scroll Wheel Clicking, 5) Space Bar Clicking, 6) Bolt Clicking, and 7) Jitter Clicking.  

These clicking methods are important because in some games, the faster you click, the better.  For example, in Minecraft version 1.8.9 (or lower) the best way to do melee damage is to left-click on the enemy as fast as possible.   In shooter games, if you have a semi-auto gun, you can use it to shoot faster.  But these methods are usually used in Minecraft where you can use them for placing blocks faster to bridge.   

Now I'm going to tell you what Butterfly Clicking is.  Butterfly Clicking is where you put two fingers on one mouse button and clicking the mouse with one finger, letting go just before clicking with the other. 

Normal Clicking is just your basic clicking, which is not too good but really easy to do.  

Double Clicking can only work on a Bloody A60 or a Glorious Model O mouse.  You hit the edge of the mouse next to the scroll wheel, stay there for a quarter of a second, and then let go.  If done right, it should register a click when you hit it and when you release.

Scroll Wheel Clicking is kind of cheating.  When you use the scroll wheel it counts as a click.  

Space Bar Clicking is pretty new.  It's the same as Drag Clicking but on your space bar and only works for specific kinds of keyboards.  

Bolt Clicking is where you also do the same thing as Drag Clicking, but on any surface and put the mouse on the knuckle of the finger you drag click with and make sure to have your knuckle on the mouse button and then drag click and move the mouse so they're in the same place. 

Jitter Clicking is where you make your arm shake by tensing it and if you get the right angle when you're shaking it could be hitting the mouse button pretty fast.

I think this is cool because, well I play the game and it's useful to me, but I find it really cool and crazy how cool the methods sound, feel, work and how people could have come up with them. 

Here's a video demonstrating all the different clicking methods I listed:  Mouse Clicking Demonstration

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter jumps off the stairs onto the sofa.  All the time.   How the sofa is still alive is beyond me.

It's Getting Easier

The first post I put up with my voice was scary, but it was recorded and gone over multiple times so it wasn't that scary.   The first time I posted something with my face in it I was terribly scared, but I knew I had to do it or I wouldn't be able to create the content I needed to.   And recently, the first time I did a live stream I thought I would have chattering teeth and freeze up, but it wasn't that bad. 

The second live stream was today, rather spur of the moment when I discovered I had everything working again after hardware errors.   I am intentionally not publicizing the live streams in advance in the hope that not many people will attend, which would make things easier for me.   And that did work out, although I had one person from Brazil and one from Ireland today, which was nice, even though the attendance was quiet low. 

The thing is, it's not as scary as I had feared it would be.   Now, granted, things haven't all gone to hell with nothing working at all. making me look like I haven't a clue about what I'm doing.   That helped.   But still, it's been low key, knowing people might watch later, but for now, I could just stand there, look at a lens and talk about whatever I wanted to on topic while things were happening, and then during bits of time while we waited, it was easy to ramble on just like I normally do.   

I am certain things will be terrible at some point if I continue to do this live stream portion of 3D Printing Content Creation, but for now, I've survived two new product demonstrations.  The product is complex and potentially temperamental but things worked out, which is all I could have hoped for.   

Actually, if a few things hadn't worked out, it would have been even better because I was ready to show how to handle certain situations.   But that's okay, there will be time for errors and issues later. 

The Big Boy Update:  My son came in in the middle of the live stream asking on a piece of hand-written paper if he could do some programming on his computer.   I said no.   He made the sad face.   A few minutes later he came back with a second piece of paper asking for just fifteen minutes to which I also said no.   He took it in stride and even helped me clean up after the stream. 

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter desperately needs new shoes.   Her feet have grown, but more than anything she left her shoes out at the trampoline in the rain and they turned all kinds of sour, even after a cleaning wash.   She and I went to get new shoes tonight with the understanding that if she leaves her new shoes outside to get rained on for multiple days again, she's buying the next set of shoes.

Asleep In My Clothes

I've had an annoying allergic reaction to something that has gone on for two days now.   Last night I fell asleep in my clothes on top of the sheets.  I woke up after midnight and got the rest of the way into bed.  It wasn't until this morning when I was talking to my mother that I realized I hadn't written a blog post last night and hadn't even thought about writing one I was so confused when I woke up last night.   

The Children Out Of School In The Middle Of The Week:  Both children were out of school yesterday.   It was voting day, but for my son, it was a continuation of the parent/teacher/student-led conferences.   For my daughter, it was an opportunity to give more people the ability to vote. 

Always Tidy & Clean

I ate something that I had an allergic reaction to last night and have been dealing with it for almost a full day now.   I don't know what it was, but wow, has my mouth been itchy.  Fortunately, it's abating now. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Always Tidy & Clean Update:  My children went to sleep unhappy.   They had a big run-in with us tonight over cleaning up after themselves.   Would you believe it if I told you they thought they never made any messes and that we didn't do anything to help ever, at all with them?