Tony Brewer

Teri’s niece Sierra called her up and asked her for help with her Math word problems.  Teri is always eager to help Sierra to figure out the Math answers whenever she has the time.  She can remember when she was a young girl she needed help with Math problems herself.  Unfortunately she had a mean math teacher that told her that girls never did well in math.  So if and when Teri needed any kind of Algebra help she knew that she could not turn to that teacher.  She tried asking him for help once and he refused to help her.  Instead he told her to drop his class because he said girls don’t belong in advanced math classes.

Well, Teri did end up dropping his class and ended up with a different teacher that was willing to giver her the Algebra 2 help she felt she needed from time to time. Her weaknesses were in the Algebra word problems that she was assigned.  To be perfectly honest, her teachers did not do a very good job of explaining how to solve word problems.  It wasn’t until Teri was in college that she found a professor that made solving word problems easy to understand and solve!  And now Teri is proof that girls CAN be good at math!

Teri bought a bamboo nightgown yesterday. It feels very soft and silky. She said that it was the most comfortable nightgown she has ever worn. I had never heard of clothes made from bamboo before! I think it would be very interesting to go see the process of harvesting and manufacturing bamboo clothing! I googled it a few minutes ago, and although I found several articles describing the process, I think it would be very interesting to see a video of it. I wonder if there has been a show done on it! If you know of one, and it has a website address for me to see the show, I’d be very interested to hear from you!

One of the things that the Internet has done to parents is to give them access to so many more products and services.  I can remember when I was a child, we were completely limited in our choices of where to buy the things we wanted to the local department store, or by the mail order Sears, Montgomery Wards, or Penny’s catalogs!  I don’t know if we lived that far away from the “good stores” or if the “good stores” just hadn’t spread out to our area when we were young! 

But now it seems that you can get anything you want with the click of a mouse button.  You can buy a huge variety of things from just one website – for example you can buy appaman clothes for the baby, jellycat toys for the kids, or a soft bamboo barefoot dreams adult bathrobe for your woman from the comfort of your own home!  All from one site!  I think that this age is an exciting one to be a child – there are so many more technological advances to be made.  As rapidly as technology is advancing, it makes me wish I could live much longer than I probably will!

One of the things that I’ve always found annoying about watches is that you have to remember to wind them, or you have to replace batteries.  Either way I feel that they are generally unreliable.  Up until I found out about the invention of Kinetic watches
These awesome watches don’t need to be wound, and don’t need batteries.  They run off of the motion of the arm of the person who is wearing them.

I think that these watches would make a great gift for anyone who has a hard time arriving on time.  I have a brother who is late for everything.  Whenever I need to meet with him I have to tell him the meeting time is forty-five minutes earlier than it really is.  If I don’t, then I am always waiting for him to show up.  Mom always jokes that he will be late for his own funeral!  She says he was two weeks late being born, and has been late for everything ever since!

He’s getting married in the spring, and I think that for a Christmas gift this year I will buy him one of those kinetic watches.  I’ll tell him that having one of these on his arm will eliminate his perennial excuse of being late because his watch has failed him in some way.

Teri wants to go buy the Christmas tree today.  There is a local Boy Scout troop selling trees at the shopping mall a couple of miles down the road.  I like going to tree farms and cutting our own tree, but Teri says that she doesn’t have time to do that this year, so I’ve agreed to go get one from the Scouts this time.  It’s not as if there is a big price difference, I just like the tradition of cutting down our own tree.  Something primal about cutting our own tree appeals to me.

The one thing I dread about the tree is doing the lights.  Teri always asks me to be in charge of the lights, and she will do the rest.  Even though I’ve tried different kinds of lights that are supposed to be easy and convenient, there really is no such thing.  They are all a nuisance!  Whoever re-invents the Christmas lights so that they are truly easy would make a fortune!