Thought Life

Kathleen Norris, in her book Acedia and Me, quotes the Benedictine Mary Margaret Funk in her book Thoughts Matter: "We are not our thoughts. Thoughts come and thoughts go. Unaccompanied thoughts pass quickly. Thoughts that are thought about become desires. Desires that are thought about become passions."
Norris goes on to say, "While good thoughts have the potential to become virtues, bad thoughts are likely to become "bad passions or habits of action."
That got me thinking about the Bible verse that says, "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." I think this means that the thought has reached the desire or passion point. We become our thoughts if we allow them to go that far.
I can easily sink into depression if I allow my thoughts to go on unchecked. The best cure I've found for controllable depression is to think of things I'm grateful for, smile at myself in the mirror, and go do the next thing.
I also know that sometimes I think too much. Instead, I should just go on my merry way and LIVE. Too much thinking, for me, is self-absorption. It makes me morose and unproductive.
On the other hand, if I go day after day serving my family with no refilling of the 'living waters' of Scripture, I become angry and want to get away from everyone.
So if I'm going to be consistently happy, grateful, and content, I have to make a conscious effort to keep the balance between working and serving others and refilling my soul with Scripture and quiet. It's hard but necessary.

Summer rain II

As we are all aware, there is nothing in the world more beautiful than summer rain -- or is there? How about combining summer rain, a rainforest, glow worms, fire flies, a bubbling stream and a really dark night?
How about me confessing that I just spent some time doing some seriously stupid victory salutes, not because of any amazing cycling feats, but purely because I just had the good fortune to experience all of the above first hand?
The really good part is that I heard a long range weather forecast suggesting we might be in for our first decent wet season in five years -- meaning there could be more of this in coming months.
In other good news, I've finally confirmed February 11 as the start date for the big NZ ride.
Does this site have an emoticon for :smug:? If not, I guess I'll just have to use...

Lupines at Sunrise

Lupines at Sunrise, originally uploaded by ParsecTraveller.

The wildflowers are in peak bloom across much of California. These lupines were no exception - fields of the flowers coated hillsides in Las Trampas.
Sorry for the recent hiatus - been very busy!

Teakettle frostflower

I've written about Frost Flowers before, but I don't remember ever seeing them this early.
This teakettle was formed from the stem of a White crownbeard flower (Verbesina virginica). Dr James Carter has the definitive page on Frost Flowers. He's also done a lot of fun experiments on extruding ice from pipes (also here).
The forecast was for 23°F last night (-5°C), but here in our glacial little microclimate, it was 13°F (-11°C) when we woke up this morning. Too bad it's not always 10° cooler in the summer too.

Re-Purposing a Sink Plunger as a Sewer Hose O-Ring

Sea Mist RV Park — NAS Oceana, Dam Neck Annex — Virginia Beach, Virginia

We have mostly been busy with ‘stuff’ at home since arriving in Virginia Beach five days ago. A few quiet beach walks is all that we’ve done to break the daily routine of reading, and doing errands, and working on chores.

Nothing exciting to write about, so I thought I would use one of Mui’s handyman projects to remind everyone that we’re still out here in blogland. It’s a simple project, but one that I especially appreciate since it closes off one more access point for mice (and snakes … shudder) to get into the coach.

The sewer hose comes into the bay through an opening in the center of the wet-tub. When the hose is not connected, there is a twist-lid that seals the hole. When the hose is connected, however, there is a large gap around it that is an open invitation to critters.

There are lots of critters out there that can easily come through the gap around the sewer hose.

There are some commercial solutions out there, but Mui felt that a simple rubber o-ring around the hose would work just as well. After scouring Home Depot and Lowe’s — two of his favorite playgrounds — he decided that a sink plunger would do the trick.

[Since some of you eagle-eyes out there will spot the faked-out photos, I’ll admit now that Mui did this little project a while ago. He did it behind my back to surprise me, so I asked him to run through the steps after the fact so I could take photographs for the blog.]

Left: First step, purchase a sink plunger that is the size of the hole in the wetbay tub.
Right: Remove the handle from the rubber cup.

Using a utility knife, cut off and remove the top of the rubber cup.

With the utility knife, slit the remaining portion of the rubber cup so that it can be
slid around the sewer hose.

Voilà! The o-ring goes around the sewer hose and the gap is sealed.

Mui could have done a snug fit around the hose, but opted to leave a gap and fill it in with copper wool. By doing so, any water trickles from the fresh water connection will drain out of the tub rather than pool inside. It is a wetbay after all ;-)