Data Collecters Wanted

or Dog Owners Needed

I know there are many of you out there who are as interested as I am in experimenting and collecting data for scientific purposes. You may remember my ill-fated egg frying experiments, my potato chip size to bag comparisons, and the M &M taste test that is still getting off the ground. Well, I've heard about a new study that I would love to try to replicate if I only had a dog. But alas, I only have cats. So I'm hoping that some of you with dogs will collect data and report back so we can hear if your results agree with the findings of the study.

Miss Lander's dog that I may have to borrow.

The study I am referring to came out in the December 2013 journal of Frontiers in Zoology. It stated that for two years, German and Czech researchers watched a group of 70 dogs of various breeds poop* 1893 times and pee** 5589 times. What they discovered from their observations was that when there was a calm magnetic field (no sunspot flareups, etc.), the dogs preferred to poop with their body aligned in a north-south direction. At this point, the researchers don't know why, but they're pretty excited because this is the first time that they have actually seen that the earth's magnetic field affects a mammal other than for navigation.

Now if you're going try to do this experiment to be published in a peer-reviewed journal or for a grade in school, there are several things you should take into consideration like the daily activity of the magnetic field and whether or not your dog is on a leash.*** And to make your results meaningful, you should use circular statistics to norm this activity with your observations. But just for fun, you can just get a GPS/compass (or use the sun and moss on trees) to figure out which way is north and start paying attention when you're walking your dogs.

So who's going to start collecting data? Or have some of you already observed something like this in your dog's behavior already? I may have to borrow a dog. :)

*in the biology world known as defecate

**in the biology world known as urinate
***dogs on a leash didn't exhibit the N-S alignment

A little more:

Although I read a couple of news releases and the provisional abstract of the article in Frontiers in Zoology, the complete article was not yet available online. So I was left with many unanswered questions like:

Where'd they get the dogs and did they depend on owner reporting or was there carefully measured, unbiased observation?

What happened when the dogs peed? Any directional preference?

What was the actual statistical confidence in their numbers?

Was there any correlation in size of dog to the amount of magnetic field disturbance it took before it affected the pooping behavior?

Who thought this one up?

Thankful Sunday--January 5, 2013

I am thankful for my stainless steel mixing bowls.

We got a stainless steel set of mixing bowls for a wedding gift many years ago. They are still as good as new, and we use them daily. I was thankful for them when I got them, and I am even more thankful for them now.

Do you have something simple like my mixing bowls that is invaluable to you in the kitchen?

Boys vs. Girls--grocery store carts

Before I had kids, I thought that each child was an individual, and didn't believe much in gender stereotypes in children. Little boys ran and jumped a lot because that's the kind of games they were taught. Little girls played with dolls because that was the kind of toys they were given. I thought that if all kids, regardless of gender, were exposed to the same things, they would have the same tendencies. Then I spent some time in the real world of kids and figured out that I was wrong. Possibly there were some differences between boys and girls. From time to time, I'm going to share some of my experiences that led me to this conclusion. However, so as to not bias you, I'm going to let you guess, who are the boys in the stories and who are the girls. 


Grocery Shopping

Recently, I observed two different scenes of mothers in the grocery store with young children riding in the front of a cart. 

The first one had a child in the seat who said they wanted out, and then they simply wiggled out of the cart and onto the floor. The child proceeded to hop around happily. 

The second encounter involved a child yelling, "I'm stuck, I'm stuck." The mother said, "You're not stuck. You're strapped in." The child looked upset, but didn't get out of the cart.

Who do you think was the boy and who do you think was the girl?

___________________________________________________________________________________

The boy was the one who got out of the cart and the girl was the one who stayed in. You can draw you own conclusions about whether gender or individual personalities was the bigger influence on the behavior of these two kids.

No Spend/Low Spend/Fiscal Fast

"A penny saved, is a penny earned."

Those of you who are out there in the frugal blog world are probably very familiar with these terms and have maybe participated in them at one time or another. And for those of you who aren't hanging out in the frugal blog world, these terms mean just what they sound like--ways to take short term or long term breaks from spending money to further savings goals.

This month I'm going to participate with Carla at 1/2 Dozen Daily in her month long No-Low Spend Challenge in January. During this time, Carla challenges you to figure out your necessities (such as rent, utilities, and basic food) and not to buy anything else. I'm looking forward to seeing where this challenge leads my family. Even though we look at the numbers and were doing OK, I'm still uncomfortable with some of our spending. Any extra money we realize in the end from this challenge will go to an elderly charity I'm fond of.

First my goals and personal rules for the challenge. We hope to cut out any extra spending of non essentials. For us, this will mostly mean watching our food budget and entertainment. It might also mean something like I've been needing some new jeans for a while, but I won't buy them this month. However, I will make an exception if I see a really good price on something that we have been thinking about buying for a while. Also, as deference to my family, I will not be posting many actual budget numbers. However, for those of you who do this, I find the details very interesting and often inspiring.

So how are we doing out-of-the gate on this challenge? My husband is on-board and my son who is away at college wants to participate also. However, I keep getting new ideas of how we should implement the plan, and I need to learn to control this. Every time I come up with a new rule, they say it's stricter than before and that's not what they agreed to. I sometimes tend to get carried away with things. :)

What about our actual spending? Have we been able to keep our goals for the first three days? Well not exactly, but we all know that flexibility is required in some circumstances. It's a long story, but the last couple of days, we have had to be out of the house for long hours without a lot of prep. This has resulted in a drive through meal, that under normal circumstances, wouldn't be allowed. In the meantime, if you want to join-in in your own no-spend month, we'd be glad to have you.

A New Year

Happy New Year!

“Again time elapsed.”
― Carolyn Keene, The Secret of the Old Clock

It all seems too soon—to have a new year start when I haven't finished everything that I had planned for last year or even last week. Or maybe it didn't come soon enough -- I am tired of everything from last year and really ready to move on. Do you ever feel conflicted like that?

We just returned from holiday travel and things are in more of a disarray than I like. We went from construction chaos, to holiday preparations, to holiday celebrations with not much breathing time in between. Some people thrive on excitement and change. Not me. While I like some variety to my life, I thrive on order.

So, I am going to do the only thing I can. I am welcoming the new year and the hope it brings of good things to come. Then I'm going to try to put some order to my house.