MrsDrPoe: House Progress, Week 4

It's another Foto Friday on the blog!  As promised, here's our progress from the fourth week of home renovations:

Kitchen: painted the hardware black
Living and Sun Rooms: began laying flooring
Upstairs Closets: trimmed and painted white (2 coats where necessary)
Upstairs Baseboards: painted white
Spare Bedrooms: trimmed and painted 2 coats of brown


We're super close to being able to put carpet down upstairs and also to show finished pictures of the living and sun rooms!  The picture I'd like to share with you today comes from Mr. Poe's closet:

This section is about 2.5 feet deep and has a maximum width of 8 inches.  I have no idea why it exists.  So for something a little different today, I'd like to poll my readers...

what should we store in this very narrow, awkward space?

MrsDrPoe: A Caricature of God

It's another Theology Thursday on the blog, and as always, I invite you to open your Bibles with me as we look at another portion of God's Word.

As I mentioned last week, I'm currently in a class on the Judges.  While studying about Gideon a few lessons ago, a verse in the sixth chapter of the book got me to thinking:

v.13 - Gideon said to Him, "O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us?  And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, 'Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?' But now the LORD has forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites."

In this verse (emphasis mine), it seems like the children of Israel were teaching their children something about the Lord, but it seems like they were only teaching of the Lord's power and might- of the plagues that allowed the nation to leave Egypt.  These parents have apparently neglected, however, to teach their children about the law of the Lord and the fact that He is a just God who judges righteously.  Hence they are in the situation they are in- under subjection to the Midianites because they neglected to follow the way of the Lord.


While it could be argued that 'something is better than nothing,' it is very important for us to not only have a full picture of God in our own minds but to also teach that full picture of God to our children.  God IS NOT the nice old grandfather who only loves and that sweeps all of our sins under the rug.  As we see from His dealings with the children of Israel, those who do not follow God's law will be punished in one way or another.  God IS loving and merciful; although the children of Israel don't 'deserve' it, He sends them deliverance when they repent.


We must avoid caricatures of God that emphasize one or more of His 'more desirable' qualities while neglecting the others; we must see and teach the full person of God, even if we can't understand how justice, righteousness, mercy, power, love, etc. can all perfectly coexist.

MrsDrPoe: Big Salads

What's for Dinner this Wednesday?  It's big salads here at the Poe House!  This meal is a fantastic way to use up a multitude of soon-to-expire items in your fridge.

Ingredients*: lettuce, spinach, cabbage, celery, carrots, green peppers, onions, water chestnuts, green peas, lunch meat, left-over ham/turkey/roast, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, croutons, dressing.


Toss all the ingredients after slicing/chopping (except for cheese and croutons) in a large serving bowl or several individual serving bowls.  Add remaining ingredients to individual portions right before serving.  

Any leftovers can be refrigerated and eaten another day; however, refrigerating the cheese and croutons in the mix often causes them to be soggy and gross. 

*Use your favorites or whatever you have on hand.

MrsDrPoe: What to Expect the First Year

For the latest Reading Review, I present the follow-up book to "What to Expect When You're Expecting," "What to Expect the First Year" by Heidi Murkoff, Arlene Eisenberg, and Sandee Hathaway, B.S.N.*

This book is a fairly easy read, and I have thoroughly enjoyed it.  There is a multitude of information between the covers; I'll definitely be purchasing a reference copy of my own**.  The work is broken down into months, with each containing what your baby may be able to do, what things you may be having questions about, and things to expect from well-checkups.  Illustrated guides to holding, bathing, breastfeeding, and other activities are included, as well as growth and immunization charts, first recipes, common childhood infections, tips for helping older children and pets get used to the new addition, and a review of items to buy for baby.

I really don't have any negative comments about this book; although, as Ms. Murkoff herself cautions, nothing in her book should trump what your doctor tells you.

*Mr. Poe and I are not pregnant, but we would like to have children one day, so I'm reading about it now before it's upon me and I have no time to read. 

**I recently found a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" at a thrift store for $1.50.  Be sure to check out used books before paying full price at a bookstore or even the reduced price on Amazon.

MrsDrPoe: Lift

It's once again Thesis Tuesday here on the blog!  Today we'll be discussing another external flow property, lift.

For asymmetrical objects moving through a fluid, there exists a resultant force from pressure and shear stress normal to the upstream velocity, termed lift.  It can be calculated as:

L = -int(p*sin(theta))dA + int(tauw*cos(theta))dA

however, as previously mentioned, these distributions are difficult to determine.  Thus, the lift coefficient is often used:

CL = L/(0.5*rho*U*U*A)

As with the drag coefficient, CL = f(shape, Re, Ma, Fr, epsilon/l).  The Froude number is only important if there is a free surface present.  Surface roughness is often unimportant in therms of lift as well.  The importance of Ma is low except for high-speed subsonic and supersonic flows.  Reynolds number also yields no great impact; however, for high-Re flows, shear stress has little effect on the shape of an object is the key factor in the lift force placed on it.

Bodies designed to generate lift, like airfoils, typically do so by generating a pressure distribution that is different on the top (low) and bottom (high) surface of the body.  For symmetric airfoils to generate lift, they must be moving through the fluid at some angle of attack.  For asymmetric airfoils, there is some non-zero angle of attack for which no lift is generated.  If the angle of attack is too large, however, the boundary layer along the airfoil separates and is unable to reattach to the body.  This event is known as stall, and it is especially dangerous if it occurs for low-flying aircraft.  For calculation of CL, the planform area (A = b*c) is used, where b is the length of the airfoil (into the page), and c is the chord length.  Thus, the lift is the dynamic pressure times the planform area of the wing.  The wing loading or average lift per unit area of the wing (L/A) is also useful for design, as is the aspect ratio (b*b)/A.  From these characteristics, it can be determined that longer wings are more efficient, but more difficult to maneuver in flight.

Since, for most cases, the shear stress is not important for calculating lift, the potential flow solution can be employed to determine this force.  For airfoils at angles of attack not equal to zero, the potential solution alone causes incorrect streamlines at the trailing edge of the airfoil.  This can be corrected with the addition of circulation or clockwise swirl to the solution.  While this may seem random, arbitrary, or inappropriate, this addition has well founded physical and mathematical grounds.


Next week, we'll look at calculating lift and drag.  Happy studying!

MrsDrPoe: Deals, 1/22

There aren't tons of deals to report this Money Monday, which is probably good for me since we've been so busy lately!  Here are a few of the free/really cheap items out there this week:

CVS
Estroven 28ct ($9.99) - get $9.99 back in ECBs

Wags
Ultimate Flurry Protein Bar ($1.99) - get back $1.99 in RR
$10 back WYB $20 in Gas-X ($5) or Ex-Lax ($5) - $2/1 SS 12/04, SS 10/23 (buying four and using a Q for each make them $0.50 apiece)