Practical math

A word problem:

To make your own baking powder, you need two parts cream of tartar to one part baking soda. If you need 5 tablespoons of baking powder, how many teaspoons each of cream of tartar and baking soda do you need?

Furthermore, if you drove 9 miles roundtrip to the grocery store to buy a $1.19 can of baking powder in a car that gets 22 miles to the gallon and gas costs $2.50 a gallon, how much money have you saved by solving the first word problem?

See, these are the kind of math problems that are useful. With the price of gas being what it is (and I believe this current drop in prices is going to last until about five minutes after the polls close on Election Day), I try to figure out the second half of the above word problem on a daily basis.

Oh, here's the answer ...

• 5 teaspoons of baking soda to 10 teaspoons of cream of tartar



• Money saved: $2.29 (cost of the gas was 1.02, baking powder $1.19 plus .08 tax.)

Of course, my husband spend that money on a cup of Starbucks coffee and an Almond Joy the very same day!

Little known pregnancy fact ...

If you try to put your pants or socks on while standing up, you could tip over. Don't laugh, it almost happened to me yesterday.

How to get a man to eat fruit

• Step 1. Clean out the refrigerator so that it is free of clutter.


• Step 2. Put all fruit in clear plastic or glass containers in front of everything else. Important note: DO NOT, under any circumstances, put the fruit in the draws specifically for fruit in your refrigerator. He will never find it and it will rot.


• Step 3. Any fruit that can be left out on the counter should be put in an attractive bowl, neatly arranged and in plain sight.

Tonight, my husband pulled out the bowl of grapes (in a clear glass bowl) and munched on them while watching television. Amazing. I've been trying to get him to eat fruit on a regular basis for at least four years. As my father often says, his world is only one row deep. So, remember, if they can't see it, it doesn't exist in their world.

Thrust into the Dark Ages

I've had a scary day.

My computer crapped out and left me without Internet all day long. Then I went to make bread in my breadmaker and that crapped out on me, too. I managed to actually make two loaves of bread from scratch this afternoon, but restoring the computer and the Internet took considerably more effort, gnashing of teeth, several cursing fits and a few broken pencils. My poor husband finally fled the family room to get away from the very angry pregnant woman. And apparently, the baby doesn't like it when I'm angry, either. He's been elbowing me for about a half hour.

All in all, I've decided that making bread from scratch is much more relaxing that trying to restore my connection to the outside world. Something about kneading and punching the dough is very satisfying.