Family snippets // Weekend linkage

Ellie is constantly adding to her store of knowledge. She asks "is it?" a thousand times every day, and you absolutely must answer (it's a laundry basket, it's a bobby pin, it's a banana) or she will stand there repeating "is it is it is it" till kingdom come.

Funny thing is, sometimes she is asking to gain information and other times she's just testing you.

Ellie: Is it?
Me: That's toothpaste.
Ellie: Yeah! (Translation: Good job Mommy, you got it right!)

---

"What Is Quick?"

This weekend, I finally decided to conduct an experiment. I say finally because I’ve been meaning to write this post for about two months now, and I could just never seem to find the… time. What I wanted to do was to time myself, from a standing start, and see what took longer: a weeknight dinner made mostly with pre-made ingredients, or a dinner made with all real stuff.

"How Ikea Took Over the World."

Ikea printed 217 million copies of its most recent annual [catalog]—which the company claims is the biggest run of any publication of its kind in the world—producing them in a studio in Älmhult, Sweden. For every room setup, there is an Ikea employee standing by responsible for tracking any element that needs to be switched out—making sure that glass products produced in mainland China don’t show up in Taiwan’s catalogue and removing Persian rugs from the one that gets mailed to Israelis.

"Man Does Not Live by Man Skills Alone."

It’s certainly useful to know how to keep a journal, survive in the wilderness, keep yourself fit, plan a date, cook a steak, and do home repairs. But mastering these arts doesn’t make you a real man in the deepest sense. My father taught me how to polish my shoes, tie a tie, and match a shirt to a suit. He taught me how to shave and impressed upon me the importance of deodorant and cologne. He taught me how to look a person in the eye when you shake hands, how to safely handle and shoot a gun, how to look for a job, and how to keep the job you have. But ultimately, he lived a double life, and he left me unprepared for the weightier responsibilities of manhood.