Time on my Hands - and Pepper

When I do things, one thing leads to another, so I went from looking for batteries for a flashlight

to getting frustrated over whether the batteries were all bad or the flashlight was bad

and then digging out an old Universal battery charger

finding the plug for that (my first miracle - it was in the stack of cords and cables for Ryan to look at tell me what they belong to)

sitting down to read the instructions for charging the batteries - but then taking a minute to read my community updates and finding  a hand-washing experiment for children.

 Of course, I had to try it, and I may have enjoyed it a little too much.

A bowl of water with pepper sprinkled on top.

Dipping my finger, that I did consider clean, into the bowl and coming out with all the germs.

I then dipped the same finger into Dawn dishwashing liquid that I had near the sink and dipped back into the water.

Second miracle.  The germs ran away - fast.

Not one left!

Elise was almost as excited as I was, but she questioned why I left the soap on my finger.  That was a good question, and I had asked myself that, so I washed the soap off and dipped it in again.  Same result but without that enthusiastic scurrying away of the germs.

So after that fun interlude, I still was no further along with my battery problems, but I did find two things in the battery box.  I remembered that I had sent this same box home with Ryan one day close to Christmas last year for him to test all the loose ones and throw away the bad ones.  Sounds like I have a flashlight problem.

At the same time he took the box, he took home the broken pedestal for our old Christmas music box.

Looking for a picture of the music box by doing a search on the blog showed only this post from 2016, and luckily I had time today to enjoy these videos again.  Speaking of germs, sneezing and nose wiping going on in the first one.  No, No, Nutcracker.  Oops, I linked the wrong post, but I'm going to leave it since it's one of my favorites.  Here's the only music box picture I can find, and it's a video. 

So Ryan glued the pedestal back on, and I don't remember seeing it again - until today.  During Christmas, the music box came out, and we had several discussions about where that pedestal was, and the music box just sat there without turning.  I figured if I hadn't seen it in a year, there was no chance I would ever see it again.

Miracle 3.

So, I'm pretty much where I started an hour or so ago.

I did find this neat flashlight that I got at State Farm last year when I had my accident and was visiting the office some.

Better use of my time would be to throw the old flashlight away and stick this on in my nightstand drawer.

But it's so cute and yellow, and the girls like to play with it.  I'm sure that's how it came to have dead batteries - or worse.

There's a small chance I will get out and take a walk, but it's just 38 degrees now at 12:30.  Emily and the girls and I might meet at the garden to talk about what we're going to be planting.  I just want to see them for a few minutes.