There's Nothing To Do

We're approaching the 4th of July, so most of you have been out of school for.... about a month?


And you're bored already, right? Because while you might say you hate school, once you're out there's "nothing to do." For instance, you couldn't do these:

• Learn to cook or bake, and then make something for your family or friends
• Try a new sport or learn more about one you think you aren't good at

• Take a walk.
• Take pictures, maybe with an old film camera. See how creative you can get: take pictures close up, try for cityscapes, notice the odd thing on the ground, try making videos.
• Get a book or find a source online about another language and learn to say 10 sentences in that language.
• Learn all the words to three songs.
• Pick a new word from the dictionary every week and learn it:Pronunciation, meaning, origin.
• Volunteer someplace---and be creative, find a business or organization that's not necessarily looking for a volunteer but you find it interesting, go in, introduce yourself, and see if they'd like some free help.
• Give yourself a reading challenge: Three books a month? Five?
• See if you can lose 5 pounds-research the healthy way to do it
• Build something. From whatever. Make it up.

• Set a goal of walking a certain number of miles per day, week, month, or for the summer. Keep track and see if you got it done.
• Do you know someone who's a good dancer? Ask if he/she will teach you the moves.

• Start tracing your family tree: Ask questions of parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles. Write down what you learn. Get names and dates. Make a chart, and do some research. Here's a good free resource: https://www.familysearch.org/ask/partners/myheritage

• Visit the library and see what treasures it holds. They sometimes have free classes, too...
• Try a no-social media day: Could you do it? What about leaving your phone behind as you go about your day?

We interrupt this can't do list to give props to your local library...…. Did you know they offer..

• Gaming activities
• Storytime for little ones, including an evening family story-telling
• STEM activities
• Cooking activities
• Bike fix-it clinics
• Exploring outside activities
• Graphic novel design activities

-All at a cost of exactly 0 dollars, which is pretty hard to beat.. Go to the library websites and check it out:  Anoka County- https://www.anokacounty.us/1758/Libraries and Hennepin County: https://hclib.org/




Here are links to various summer ideas for all ages.

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/summer-learning-resources-matt-davis

https://www.pbs.org/parents/thrive/simple-tips-for-summer-math-learning

 https://www.tynker.com/parents/#/ts/courses/learning-paths/advanced-languages  *Tynker has a fee

 https://thekrazycouponlady.com/tips/family/online-activities-keep-your-kids-busy-summer

 https://www.education.com/resources/

https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev073.shtml 

Free online games for high school age https://www.commonsense.org/education/top-picks/10-great-free-games-for-high-school-students

But of course, these are all things you couldn't do. Because.. you're busy??

And They Lived Ever After...

Do you have a wedding to go to this summer? Here are some things you may not have heard about wedding traditions....

• In Italy, they used to break bread over the bride's head as a way to wish her good luck...or.. something.. In time people realized wedding cake not broken over anyone's head was a much better option...

• The original meaning of the word "bride" was 'cook.' See how that would go over now.

• In ancient times, if the groom didn't show up for the wedding, his best man would then marry the bride. Win-win???

• The veil of the bride was thought to protect her from evil spirits. It's not known if that would include her new in-laws.

• The "Bridal March" is part of the opera Lohengrin, written by Wagner, and is played after the wedding in the story. Further trivia: It involves a woman named Elsa, a man named Gottfried, and swans. https://www.metopera.org/Discover/Synposes-Archive/Lohengrin/ *let it go*

• There are about 100,000 weddings in Las Vegas every year and about 25,000 in Hawaii.

• The bride originally stood to the left of the groom so he could ward off other suitors with his right hand. And what of left-handed grooms???

White socks? Really?

• The most expensive wedding dress costs $12.2 Million. it has 150 carats worth of diamonds sewn onto it. It hasn't been sold yet...  You could totally wear it after the wedding to a cocktail party or to Target...

• Queen Victoria's cake weighed 300 pounds. That's a lot of cake.

• And you'd have to have plenty of cake to feed 30,000 people, which is the number that showed up for a wedding in Jerusalem in 1993.

Ice Cream!

Summer!! Time for ice cream.


It's likely that ice cream has been around for thousands of years in some form or another. We know it was made in the 1500s in Europe, and by the 1700s it was introduced in the U.S.


Ice Cream Trivia: The University of Guelph in Toronto, Canada, teaches Ice Cream Science.

There was a long-standing myth that Thomas Jefferson introduced it to America, but while it was served in his home, he wasn't the first one to do so.


Here is the recipe his French chef used:
Thomas Jefferson's Vanilla Ice Creammakes about 4 pints (2 quarts, 1/2 gallon)
6 yolks of eggs
1/2 lb sugar (1 1/4 cups)
2 bottles (quarts) of good cream (4 pints)
1 vanilla bean
Mix the yolks and sugar together. Put the cream on a fire in a casserole, first putting in a stick of vanilla. When near boiling, take it off and pour it gently into the mixture of eggs and sugar. Stir it well. Put it on the fire again, stirring it thoroughly with a spoon to prevent it's sticking to the casserole. When near boiling, take it off and strain it thro' a towel. Put it in the Sabottiere* then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. Put into the ice a handful of salt. Put salt on the coverlid of the Sabotiere and cover the whole with ice. Leave it still half a quarter of an hour. Then turn the Sabottiere in the ice 10 minutes open it to loosen with a spatula the ice from the inner sides of the Sabotiere. Shut it & replace it in the ice open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides when well taken (prise) stir it well with the spatula. Put it in moulds, justling it well down on the knee. Then put the mould into the same bucket of ice. Leave it there to the moment of serving it. To withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turning it well till it will come out and turn it into a plate.

*The Sabottiere is the inner cannister of what we now know as an ice cream maker.


Here's what a basic homemade ice cream recipe includes now:

See what's listed on an ice cream label.                                                                  

                                                                          A serving is 1/2 a cup? That's cute.
Here's how ice cream is made in a factory:

 

• 1. Mixing of ingredients: This will include milk or cream, but also various ingredients to make it smooth. It may also include eggs for richness. The mixing step is most important, to get rid of ice crystals that would break it down.
• 2. The mixture is homogenized and pasteurized: It's heated to kill any bacteria present
• 3. Colors and flavors are added to the mixture
• 4. It is aged: the ice cream is allowed to cool to 40 degrees F for four hours or overnight, this helps it freeze better so it is smoother
• 5. Freezing the mixture
• 6. Adding sauce ingredients, such as caramel or chocolate syrup
• 7. Hardening
• 8. If the ice cream will be shaped into bars or put into cones, it's done now
• 9. Packaging

 In a factory, sometimes the vats hold up to 3000 gallons.

For more about how it's made, check this out: https://science.howstuffworks.com/innovation/edible-innovations/ice-cream1.htm

In 2002, more than $20 Billion was spent on ice cream. California is #1 in ice cream sales.

 

 

Summer Bucket List 2.0

Here are some ideas to keep your brain functioning and your days less boring for Summer 2017:

 

• Make an entire meal for your family: Plan it, make it, clean up afterwards. If you already do this, try something new.
• Take a walk around your neighborhood and see how many different types of trees you can recognize.
•  Press some flowers--just put them under something heavy, or between the pages of a thick book, and wait
• Make a fairy garden without buying anything:

• Try to take an unusual picture every day for a week. Or two weeks. A month?
• Or, take tons of pictures all summer and then make an album or collage right before school starts-there are photo apps with a collage feature. Share with friends you haven't seen since the end of this school year.
• Fly a kite
• Visit your library. Get a library card if you don't already have one.
• While at the library, find a book that has an interesting title or whose author has an odd name. Read it. Did you like it, or not? Why?

• Re-read something you liked a while ago. Or exchange favorites with a friend.
• Built a blanket fort, or a cushion fort. Maybe build one outside.
• Clean your room. Put up some cool decorations you make yourself. It will shock your parents.
• Think up a great Halloween costume: you have lots of time--but how awesome would it be if it was all ready?!!

• Dance.
• Learn origami.  http://www.origami-instructions.com/simple-origami.html

• Try your hand at making paper. https://www.thoughtco.com/how-to-make-handmade-paper-604163
• Measure the rainfall in a rain gauge all summer. Keep track of how much rain we get in total from the last day of school until September 1.

• Write something on the sidewalk with chalk, to brighten someone's day.
• Look for minnows in a lake. Watch how they behave.
• How many rainbows will you see this summer? Try to get a picture of each. They fade fast.
• Go to a free outdoor concert--Look for free concerts available by looking up your city website.

For example, these free concerts are held at the Coon Rapids Dam, Pavilion 3: https://www.anokacounty.us/941/Summer-Concert-Series

 

Do one good deed every day without asking anything in return:

• Give someone a smile.
• Open a door for someone
• Before the end of the school year, say thank you to a custodian for keeping your school in order.
• Pull some weeds
• Put something away even if you didn't get it out
• Pick a flower from your yard, put it in a vase, set it out to enjoy
• Leave a dollar somewhere for someone to find

• Call your grandparent just to talk for a while
• Buy lemonade from a kid's lemonade stand
• Go up to someone shy in a gathering and start a conversation.
• Sit quietly with someone having a hard time
• Share a snack with someone
• Post something positive on Facebook

What's on your summer bucket list 2017?

 

 

 

 

 

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A Carnival in Pictures

There was a carnival in town for the 4th of July. Triogenius snapped some pictures--and played with them a little bit-and thought you might enjoy seeing them. Are you going to a carnival this summer? What's your favorite thing about carnivals?

Ferris Wheel at Dusk

                                             The Fun Slide from behind.

Someone doesn't want to go down the slide....

It's not a Gravitron if you can float above it....

                Just some random woman hanging out laundry.

 In the sky.

 

       Merry Go Round Horses don't know what real fun is.....

            Whoa.......

               This is called a sepia tint.

                  Ballet on the top of the Kamikaze ride

           Regular serpent.

 

             Ghostly serpent.

 

          Not all spirits are gray...

                          Just taking the cat for a stroll in the evening...

                     Someone has the swing ride all to herself.....

Hope you enjoyed the photos. They were taken with a digital camera, then altered by changing colors and tones and transparency. Then I found images using Bing search, re-colored them, blurred the edges, and inserted them into the original photos I took. If you like photography, you can do it, too!