Miser family update: buried treasures edition

Life continues to be rich and full in the Miser family.   Nowadays, if you look for me, you're likely to find me here, in my Command Center, teaching class in front of my chalkboard or via screen sharing my laptop.    

The answer to a problem involving derivatives of inverse trig functions,
y'know, mixed with family photos and my exercise weights.
Everything kind of blends together these days.

On my birthday a week or so ago, before our classes started back up, I got to have just about the perfect "me" day: it started with a run with a friend through a ritzy neighborhood on their trash day; one family was throwing away a beautiful folding dining room table . . . and so guess what my husband and N-son got me for my birthday?  A beautiful folding dining room table, that's what!  And then I did a bunch of cool math involving hyperbolas and multiview geometry.  And then I did chocolate cake with my husband, I-daughter, and N-son. 

In addition to appropriating treasures from other people's trash piles, I've been appreciating treasures that already exist in my own home.  For example, I turned an old sheet into about seven face masks, using a pattern that my sister sent me from her local hospital.  These masks aren't suitable for our own local hospitals, but they're good practice for making eventual high-tech masks.  These beta-masks, so to speak, are headed for a nearby nursing home that's asked for them.

A colleague of mine bought a giant, 8-foot inflatable light-up unicorn for her front yard, and it's become a destination walk for neighborhood kids, who post selfies with the unicorn on NextDoor.com.  I'm kind of jealous, but there's no way I'm going to (a) buy a (b) electric-powered (c) plastic unicorn.   Fortunately, I have a Plan B.  Because, in addition to sheets that can become face masks, also in my vast stores of Things I Have Lying Around is a collection of Cows.   Since my front porch has now become my connection to the larger world, I've decided to start a Cow Farm on the front porch.

 In an homage to Gary Larson's "Wildlife preserves", I added Bovine Preserves. 

Yes?

The Chocolate Cake on my birthday, combined with the canned cows, was yummy/fun enough that I realized another treasure I had in the basement was a canning jar of Mint Brownie mix.  So we recently had  Brownie and Boggle night.  

Well, except that I-daughter had the sniffles and so responsibly decided to stay home (sigh), so instead N-son and I modified it to Brownies and Connect-4. 

Afterward, we walked over to I-daughter's home to put a brownie (in a canning jar)  on her porch and then stand back and say hello from a safe distance.  Fun times, this life!   One advantage of this arrangement, by the way, was that this was the first time ever that I-daughter and N-son got to observe Prewash do one of my favorite tricks:  poop on command.  (Every dog should poop exactly when you ask them to on a sheet of newspaper right next to public trash cans, I think.)

N-son and my husband have gone through training with our local Meals on Wheels, and so they're gearing up to help pack meals and serve as a substitute driver, respectively.  It's good to be in a position where we can try to be a help.

And that's the news from our family, which continues to unearth familiar treasures previously forgotten.  May you and yours be safe and sound as well.