Grandmother Quilt

I did it -- I went to Sunflower Quilts and got a quilt kit, as I mentioned below.  My dental hygienist sent me there, which entertains me.  Had great fun at the shop, and last Saturday made these four blocks (not perfect, as the corners really aren't exact, but I'm very pleased), and yesterday made four more.

I'm always impressed by the women who can apparently do everything.  With a full-time job, getting home after 6:30, a husband who likes to eat dinner together, and an 8:30 bedtime, on my days off I can either make stuff or do housework/buy groceries/etc.  But the people who do both, and have kids, impress me.  I approve of homeschooling, and, if we weren't in a place full of good schools that I can trust, we might consider it if necessary, but I don't have the self-discipline and organization to do that.  I taught high school, and in a parochial school where we came up with our own lesson plans and lectures (none of that cushy stuff that some of my friends in public schools have -- and that I've seen/used when subbing at public schools, where your lectures and lesson plans are all pre-made by some syndicate!  (And yes, I know, not all public schools do that -- but some very highly-ranked and highly-regarded ones do)), and it was certainly a lot of work!  I certainly can't understand single mothers who homeschool (respect them, yes, but grasp how their lives function, no) -- if you're also having to earn a living for you and your children, how do you do it and also manage to teach multiple levels of children and stay with them all day?  The 1990s Supermom (who had a high-powered job, ran a perfect house, and raised perfect children with no hired help) stereotypically ended up on speed for a reason, I think! 

But, that said, my goals for the rest of the day:
-bring the workbasket downstairs to corral some of the loose knitting/clothing repair projects
-3 loads of laundry
-dishes
-find books that are owed to various people (good thing working at the library means no late fees!)
-go to post office (across the street)
-grocery/gas (Costco?)
-plan meals for the next 2 weeks
-pharmacy
-water plants (and, if enthusiastic, mow as well)
-call AT&T to figure out why the TV won't work
-only if all else is finished: play!

Marshmallow Utility

Before my current job, I was a high school economics teacher.  I like to think that I was a fun one, too.  We did in-class exercises to help illustrate basic economics principles, and my students seemed to enjoy those days just as much as they days we watched educational videos (the days when I had to have one-on-one progress talks with each student). 

My favorite exercise was teaching the students about marginal utility -- a lesson I called "Marshmallow Utility."  To their credit, the students remembered the name, and whenever marginal utility came up on a test they could identify it. 

Materials:

The big kind of marshmallows works best, as it has an effect faster.  Bring several bags.

I lined up several volunteers at the front of the class, and had them plot their happiness (after consuming zero marshmallows) on the blackboard. 

Fed each one a large marshmallow, and then had them plot their happiness again.  Everyone's went up.

Fed each one another large marshmallow, and had them plot their happiness (general sense of well-being, etc.) on the board.

Repeated several times.

For all except one girl (who absconded with the rest of the bags after class!), each student reached a point at which one more marshmallow made them feel a bit worse, whether from over-saturation or from dietary concerns. 

That, I explained, is marginal - or marshmallow - utility.  How much happier will one more marshmallow make you?  For all except the marshmallow-lover, the first additional marshmallow caused a big jump in happiness, the next few increasingly smaller jumps in happiness, and eventually an additional marshmallow causes a loss in happiness.  Similarly, if you're a supermarket, the first cash register makes things much better, an additional cash register makes things quite a bit better, the seventeenth cash register makes things very slightly better ... and eventually you reach a point where adding another cash register doesn't solve check-out problems but instead makes it so crowded it's hard to get your carts out the door.  If you've got a restaurant, one more helper in the kitchen is great, two is even better, fifteen means you're always tripping over each other.  Something massive, though, could be the equivalent of my marshmallow-lover -- if you're trying to pick up all the trash on the entire Pacific coast, for example, you have to go a very long way before the marginal utility of one more worker becomes negative. 

Lesson?  Keep eating marshmallows until it would be detrimental to chow down on another one.  Keep adding workers until the marginal utility of one more worker is less than the marginal cost of that worker.  (If I'd charged the students a nickel a marshmallow, they should keep buying marshmallows as long as they got at least five cents worth of pleasure out of each marshmallow.)

Economics is fun :) and tasty!