Enhancing Your Thinking

Here at Vantage House, our continuing care retirement community, there are lots of activities to keep our minds sharp.  We have a wide variety of regular exercise classes.  I attend muscle toning three days a week and book camp two days a week.  Dan goes to the latter and agrees it is quite a workout.

There are speakers that come on various topics to keep us informed and aware.  This week it was Mel Goodman, a monthly regular, who talks about the political scene from his perspective as a retiree from CIA, State and Defense Departments.  Next week there's an expert on the court system to talk about the Supreme Court.  There are Brainy movies, Great Decision discussions, twice weekly trivia gatherings, as well as a wide assortment of musical performers.  More events going on then we can even get to.

Once a week Dan and I attend "Enhance Your Thinking" led by a retired community college professor who lives here.  I thought I would share with you some of the critical thinking questions we work on individually and then compare answers and thinking with a partner.  We then discuss all the answers as a group.  It's a great exercise.

I will give the answers in another post but if you want hints, put that in your comment.

1.  There are 3 separate, equal-sized boxes, and inside each box there are 2 separate small boxes.  Inside each of the small boxes there are 4 even smaller boxes.  How many boxes are there altogether?

2.  Do they have a 4th of July in England?

3.  When does 8 plus 5 equal 1?  Come up with several answers.

4.  If you had only one match and entered a room in which there was a kerosene lamp, and oil heater, and a wood burning stove, what would you light first? Why?

5.  Seven months have 31 days.  How many months have 28 days?

6.  A man builds a house with 4 sides to it and it is rectangular in shape.  Each side has a southern exposure.  A big bear comes wandering by.  What color is the bear?

7.  A snail is climbing out of a well.  The well is 10 feet deep.  Every day the snail climbs up three feet and every night he slips back two.  How many days will it take him to get out of the well?

8.  Explain how you can change a dollar bill into exactly 50 coins which when added together will equal a dollar.  There may be more than answer.

Good luck!  Let me know how you do.

WW - Sunsets on the Gulf of Mexico

Mallory - Neely House in Memphis

Memphis, Tennessee has an area called Victorian Village where homes and churches from that era have been preserved.

It was a snowy day in January when we visited, but we were fortunate to arrive in time for the last tour - a private tour at that.

Below is the Adams- Woodruff - Fonatine House (c. 1871).  It was also a museum but we didn't think it was open.

Not sure what this one below was called.

Below is the Adams-Mollie-Fontaine-Taylor House (c. 1886).  It's now a restaurant.

This is the Mallory-Neely House (c. 1852).  Now a museum.  I didn't get the whole roof because I think I was afraid of the ice I was standing on as I took the photo.

Here's one from the internet.

The inside was lovely but in some places incredibly dark.

A lot of money went into the construction of this house as you can see from the special trimmings and moldings.  I'm not remembering all the backstory of the ownership but I know that the last family owner lived a very long time and had few heirs.  Refreshing my memory with Wikipedia, she deeded the house to the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR).

The last owner, Daisy is pictured in the painting there on the right.

It is worth the trip if you are in Memphis.

Joining Tuesday Treasures.

Pysanka Eggs

I said on an earlier post that I had put my collection of Pysanka eggs out on the display shelf outside our front door.

This week I made three more.  As I was dying the first ones I realized I didn't have the pump thingy that blew out the inside of the eggs.  I looked all over but didn't find it.  I may have given it to one daughter and asked her but she had no recollection of it.  First casualty of our move I guess.

I called the company where I purchased my supplies and the egg pump and they said they are no longer being made.  The only thing they had was a device to blow out the eggs with your own breath, so I ordered that and got it in the mail on Friday.

Today I blew out the three eggs I had decorated and now they are doing a final drain and dying out.

I'll add them to the rest next week.

If you're not familiar with how these eggs are decorated, here's a brief overview.

The egg above was first put into yellow so the entire egg is yellow to begin with.

Then I used a stylus of sorts to paint hot melted wax  where ever I wanted yellow to be.  In this egg it was the lattice work.  Then the egg went into green.  I then painted leaves on with the wax and dyed the egg red.  I painted flowers and finally dyed the egg blue.  The wax is removed by slowly melting it in a candle flame and wiping the wax off.  It's the most tedious part of this craft.

I have 12 different colors.  When you dye you start with the lightest color and work to darkest.  With the egg below I started with the white egg and painted on the ducks. Then put the egg in orange and painted the beaks and the cattail tops.  Then dyed green and painted the leaves.  Then dyed it blue and painted the water and ended by dying it brick colored. I should have painted clouds at the beginning but forgot to.

 This egg only was dyed twice: pink then blue.

 I wrote about Pysanka eggs here, too.

I have 9 more jumbo eggs in the refrigerator and have the supplies still out so there may be some more decorating in the weeks ahead of us.

Through My Lens