App Development Time

I am working on new apps for my iPod and open to suggestions. Sadly I do not know any coding stuff so I am a bit light on the details of how to make these things actually work, but the idea is the main thing, right? right?

Virtual Cuppa - this app gets you through rainy days, boredom, slight illness, or anything else that cries out for comfort. You pour a mug of water, hold the mobile device over it, and type in what sort of tea you want and if you want any sweeteners. The app even heats it. There will definitely be a beta version for hot chocolate (gotta figure out how to whip the cream) and probably some coffee lover will insist on yet another similar app.

Not Today - allows you to hit the button and bump a crisis into the future. Bad day for the washing machine to flood the basement? Just access Not Today and it will be moved forward. (One guess what may have happened here today) I am pretty sure you will not be allowed to bump a particular crisis more than once, so use it carefully.

TruPaint - I have been thinking about the need for this one from way back in Commodore 64 days. This app Truly Paints your walls, furniture, car, whatever, just as quickly and smoothly as a paint program fills in areas on the screen - no drips, no spills, no missed spots, no brush strokes or gnats stuck in the paint. Just take a photo of what needs to be painted, highlight the area to color, and click on the desired shade. Voila - your item is immediately and perfectly painted, in just one coat! Did I mention it dries instantly to the exact hue you chose, no matter what the lighting is?

Math Meld - This app is pricey, sorry about that, but I call it a bargain. It allows the homeschooling Mom to simply wirelessly convey math skills to the somewhat frustrated child by accessing the app and placing her hands on the child's head, Spock style, assuring success in everything from decimals to factoring pesky trinomials to basic differentiation. 

ReDo - This is the biggest idea yet. It quite simply moves you back five seconds so you get a second chance to not touch that live wire, drop the casserole, or say the smart aleck remark. 

got more ideas? I'm sure I'll be adding more as soon as I figure out the details so the apps work.  :) 

Too Easy

Miss Language shared a 7 minute workout with us and I decided to give it a try because, really, how hard can anything be that only runs as long as about two youtube videos?
So Monday I asked Miss Dog Lover if she wanted to join me for it and her answer gave me my first inkling that it may not be as painless as I was thinking. She told me she didn't want to do it because "it's too easy."

I have a theory that Screwtape could have written a letter to Wormwood about the advantages of teaching humans not to bother with doing things that are "too easy" but saving their strength for the Big, Important Work.

Not to jot out a thank you or get well note, much too easy. Not to bother with a simple kindness at home. Not to do the easy work of memorizing a verse, or of praying for someone in need. Not to hold your tongue or your temper. Because all of these are Too Easy, and really not worth doing.

And what do you know, those 7 minutes are not actually as easy to do as they are to think about.  :-P

One-word Quotes

Yesterday at a meal it came up that one of Miss Language's friends has just watched (sit down here) The Princess Bride for the first time. (fan yourself and recover a bit. I know. Poor deprived young adult.)

Anyhow.

We all started quoting the movie and of course came to "Inconceivable." And we began to wonder what other one-word quotes are famous. We came up with a few but I am curious about what you will come up with.

The follow-up question is this, Do one-word quotes exist in books, too? Or do they need the inflection etc of a song or movie? The only contender we came up with was So (or more accurately Hwaet), although I thought the So could be just as well Vonnegut as Beowulf. 

The final tunnel in this rabbit trail was one-word tags: Mr Music suggested for example that there is really only one place to go from "Ishmael."

Anyone here want to contribute to this discussion?  :)

Snidely and Inhalers

This week I've thought of "distress" and the whole SOS idea a bit.

It started with a friend who had been hospitalized with asthma. We were with her Sunday and her breathing was obviously far from normal. Good for Devastatingly Handsome, who told her to use her inhaler. She tried to tell him, no, it was only for when she was in respiratory distress (which is what the doc told her). DH explained to her that she was, in fact, in distress. She had no idea she needed help. Amazing.

I guess we think of distress looking like this:

But often distress is more common place and hard to recognize. I am asking God to give me eyes to see when someone is in distress, to be able to show them their need, to cut the ropes, and point them to the Rescue. 

~ ~ ~

Psalm 59:16 ~ But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress.

Kosher Gone Krazy

Sometimes at our local Ollie's store I find a product so mind-bogglingly strange I have to have it.

Who on earth decided matzos!?! could become decadent by being dipped in dark chocolate? What was wrong with just dark chocolate covered chocolate? 

Lessons from the Porta-Potty

I am preparing to spend a month in China with Miss Language. I have never prepared for a big trip, (except, of course, the Ultimate Journey). 

I expected to have to buy a backpack, get a passport and visa, check on immunizations, make many lists, and get some lighter travel-friendly clothes and a new journal. Maybe even pick up a few phrases in Mandarin. But I did not expect a change in the way I feel about using porta-potties. 

One of the things Miss Language has told me to prepare myself for is Asian toilets. These are not raised seats, just a hole over which you strategically squat. Paper is not provided, and when you use the paper you hopefully remembered to bring - you don't flush but put it in a trash can. And there is sometimes a dipper and bucket provided for flushing. Very not me. 

And so, when I entered the porta-potty the other night at Mr Music's baseball game, and was met by The Well Known Odor and saw a lack of tissue, I was surprised to find myself thinking, not "I'm out of here", but "Oh, good, a chance to practice."

Which makes me wonder, of course, about the more spiritual applications of preparing for a Journey and seeing life in that light. As is so often the case, C S Lewis has something to point the way, from God in the Dock: 

If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it's not so bad.

If I am willing to prepare for squatty potties, how much better to prepare for glory? What Well Known Odors and lacks should I be glad to welcome as needed practice?

~ ~ ~ 

II Corinthians 4:17 ~ For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

Just One Thing Question

Wondering here if it's easier for me to identify which is my favorite in a category or which is my most hated... 

Hmm. I got to wondering about this when Mr Music ordered a Mountain Dew. I have long felt it is an evil beverage and thought, Mountain Dew is the world's worst drink. But then I remembered Tang, which is ALSO the world's worst drink (I agree with my brother who maintains it is too bad the astronauts did not LEAVE it on the moon). And then, as I was trying to figure out which is REALLY worse, I remembered Vernor's Ginger Ale. Aged three years in oak. Ugh and blugh. Yuck and nasty. 

My quandary is this: when I think about each one, I am sure it is the worst. Maybe they all ARE.  :)

And then I thought about soap. If there were to be only one kind of soap in the world, what should it be? This question at least is more pleasant. First I thought Ivory, it makes things seem so clean (that 99 and 44/100% thing, I guess). And, it floats. How cool is that? Hasn't everyone carved a little Ivory bathtub boat? Then I remembered Camay with its sweet scent and the even sweeter cameo. But then there are also two widely different Yardley soaps I love, the smooth foaming Lavender and the Oatmeal & Almond with little scrubby flecks.

Sigh. Choices, choices. Do YOU have favorite soaps or most hated beverages? And which is more fun, to love and enjoy something simple, or to indulge a harmless hatred?