Footle and Grok

Messing about with empathy

Goodbye Moon

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

We live in a remarkable time.

The Moon is moving away from the Earth at a rate of 1.5 inches per year. That means that in 600 million years, there won’t be any more solar eclipses. What a bummer.

This may seem unimportant since humans won’t probably be around in 600 million years. But it reminds us of something important. We have total eclipses right now because the Moon is the perfect distance from both the Earth and the Sun.

If the Moon is moving away from us, then in the past, it was much closer. When there was an eclipse back then, the Moon would have covered the Sun completely, and the sky would have gone dark without anything to study.

Imagine our earliest ancestors a million years ago, watching the sky go dark and the Sun completely disappearing. That must have been distressing. We are lucky that we live today and can experience the Moon covering the Sun just enough so scientists can learn from the event.

Like I said, none of us are concerned with what will happen 600 million years from now, but for the planet, it’s hardly anything. Think of it this way,  To the Earth, 600 million years is the same as six years to humans. It’s not any time at all.

I wonder what our descendants will think. Hopefully, they’ll have remarkable eclipses on whatever planet or moon they live on.

A little becomes a lot

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

How well are you meeting your February goals?

You have a week left in the month. Seven days can go by so fast. Why not add a little time to your project? Five minutes can be enough. If you did something five minutes longer each day this week, you would have worked a half-hour more on the project. Five minutes doesn’t sound like much, because it isn’t, but a half-hour is substantial.

Your little extra doesn’t have to be time. Perhaps you are writing a book or short story. Why not add one hundred more words than you scheduled? Or if you are scrapbooking, like I am, you can do one more page than you had planned.

You won’t notice the five minutes passing at the time, but you’ll be pleased with what you got done this week.

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” William Penn

Happy birthday, George!

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Today is George Washington’s Birthday.

There are a ton of  quotes from our first president, but it was hard to find universal thoughts. Most of his words were about war, government, foreign powers, and God. This makes sense, but those quotes belong in other blogs.

I did find a few that were useful in our daily lives. I like the worry quote the best because I try very hard not to worry about things. Apply whichever of these works for you. Good advice is good advice, even if it is over two hundred years old.

George Washington Quotes:

  • “Associate with men of good quality if you esteem your own reputation; for it is better to be alone than in bad company.”

  • “There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.”

  • “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire, called conscience.”
  • “I have always considered marriage as the most interesting event of one’s life, the foundation of happiness or misery.”
  • “Worry is the interest paid by those who borrow trouble.”

Goodnight Neil

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Anyone who knows me knows that “Goodnight Moon” is my least favorite book ever. I can suggest a dozen similar books that are much better. However, I will listen to this boring story over and over when LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow fame reads it to a sleepy Neil deGrasse Tyson. This just goes to show that the narrator matters.

Sometimes sweet and sometimes tart

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Today is Cherry Pie Day.

At first, this seemed odd to me, but then I remembered that George Washington may or may not have cut down a cherry tree, and his birthday is Saturday, so it makes sense that Cherry Pie Day would be in February.

I’m not a huge pie fan and prefer the cherry cobbler my grandma used to make, but I wouldn’t turn a slice of cherry pie if someone baked one. I do like to eat cherries, so I thought I would include some fun cherry facts instead of cherry pie facts (I’ll let you google that one.)

Fun Cherry Facts

  • A cherry tree has about 7,000 cherries (that is enough for 28 pies!)
  • Thanks to mechanical tree shakers (check out this video), a cherry tree can be harvested in seven seconds
  • Most cherries are either sweet or tart
  • Sweet cherries are grown in California, Washington, and Oregon and are usually eaten fresh
  • Tart cherries are grown in Michigan and Wisconsin and are used for baking
  • Cherries are a healthy snack with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals (plus they are low in calories)

Let me know if you like cherries and/or cherry pie. Do you make your own or buy it from the store?

Would You Rather? House edition

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

I checked out one of my favorite shows from the library today.

I never saw Treehouse Masters when it first aired on Animal Planet, but I love binge-watching the DVDs. I would love to live in a treehouse and would settle for staying at a treehouse hotel someday.

However, my hubby dreams of living underground, hobbit style. He wants something safe and protected from the troubles of the world.

This led me to wonder what other people prefer. Now, you may think living in an ordinary house on the ground is ideal, but that’s not an option today. Today, I’m playing, “Would You Rather?”

Would you rather live in a treehouse or live underground? Let me know in the comments or on the Facebook page. You already know my answer.

I’m going to go watch another episode of Treehouse Masters.

Big name, small footprint

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

I watched both Jurassic World movies last weekend, and I have dinosaurs on the brain (well, that’s pretty normal for me.) I was looking up some dinosaur facts and discovered a dinosaur I hadn’t heard of. It’s a small dinosaur with a big name.

Micropachycephalosaurus is the longest dinosaur name. It means “small, thick-headed lizard.” This dinosaur:

  • ate plants
  • lived during the Upper Cretaceous (70.6-68.5 mya)
  • was found in China
  • measured about a meter long

It might have the longest name, but to date, it’s the smallest dinosaur found. Cute!

A slogan fit for a president

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Happy President’s Day!

Today used to celebrate just George Washington. Now it honors all our presidents. On my podcast today, I talk about the history of this holiday. I thought it would be fun on the blog to list some campaign slogans from various presidential campaigns. Everyone knows “Make America Great Again,” but do you know any of these others?

Presidential slogans

  • 1840: William Henry Harrison – Tippecanoe and Tyler Too
  • 1844: James K. Polk – 54-40 or Fight
  • 1844: Henry Clay – Who is James K. Polk?
  • 1860:Abraham Lincoln – Vote Yourself a Farm
  • 1900: William McKinley – A Full Dinner Pail
  • 1920: Warren G. Harding – Return to Normalcy
  • 1924: Calvin Coolidge – Keep Cool With Coolidge
  • 1928: Herbert Hoover – A Chicken in Every Pot and a Car in Every Garage
  • 1952: Dwight Eisenhower – I Like Ike
  • 1968: Richard Nixon – Nixon’s the One
  • 1976: Gerald Ford – He’s Making Us Proud Again
  • 1976: Jimmy Carter – Not Just Peanuts
  • 1980: Ronald Reagan – Are you better off than you were four years ago?
  • 1988: George Bush – Kinder, Gentler Nation
  • 1996: Bob Dole – The Better Man for a Better America
  • 2004: John Kerry – Let America be America Again
  • 2008: Barack Obama – Yes We Can!
  • 2016: Donald Trump – Make America Great Again

Two weeks is the perfect length

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

There are fourteen days left in February.

Two weeks an ideal length of time. It’s long enough to complete a goal, but short enough to keep your momentum going.

Why not pick a goal or project that you can finish in two weeks, and get started today. Break it into fourteen chunks and put it on your daily calendar. You’ll leap for joy on leap day when you reach your goal.

My 2018 scrapbook has been sitting in Shutterfly, unfinished, for a while now. It is fifty pages long, so if I journal and decorate four pages a day, I’ll be done by February 29th. I got behind on my scrapbooking, so it will feel good to get one done. Then I can use those 50% coupons Shutterfly keeps sending me.

Good luck with your project. Setting deadlines for goals is a great way to beat procrastination, something most of us need to conquer.

The Ides of February

Posted on by Jennifer Vandenberg

Today only happens once every four years (with exceptions.)

Well, every February has a day 15, but only in leap years is the 15th the middle of the month, and thus the Ides of February. The funny thing is, though the Ides of the month is the middle day, the 15th of most months is not the true middle. But this year, in February, it is. There are fourteen days before today and fourteen days after. Cool.