I have not disappeared...

[oloriel]

... I'm just incredibly, absurdly busy. I try to keep up with the f-list, but most of the time I don't have enough dimes* to comment, let alone type up an entry of my own.

So, while real life (TM) holds me firmly in its claws, have two shots of the kids. (Sorry if you don't like kiddy photos.)


Minion and Minion.
(ysilme and anybody fluent in Elvish is going to get the joke at once. For the others, minion is "first-born son" in both Quenya and Sindarin. Couldn't pass this one up, could I.)


The other mini-person!

Incidentally, these pictures also show some of the other things that have been keeping me busy. Happy guessing, or something? Or just have a nice Sunday, as you wish!

---
* the "spoon" imagery puzzles me, because if you have any spoons, you can clean them up and then you have as many spoons as ever, right? But dimes, those run out. Like, in the old days, when you needed dimes to make public phone calls? And some days maybe you have enough dimes to make an hour-long call to Tokyo, but other days you don't even have dimes enough to call home from school? That makes a lot more sense (to me) than "I don't have enough spoons". Not judging you if you stick to the common saying, just refusing to use it myself.

Comments

[hhimring]

They look lovely, those ionnath of yours.
You seem to be building furniture, among other things.
I hope that, although you're busy, you're not as stressed as you've been at times!

[ysilme]

Hahaha, how awesoem! :D How adorable, Minion as well as Mini-Minion. ;o) (And how practically for Moms on carnival, if the brood wishes to dress as minions... *g* )

The spoon image comes from the spoon theory and involves some knowledge of the context, although the dimes work equally well and make more sense without the context IMHO.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I suppose I should find him a pair of goggles... ;)

I'm aware of spoon theory. My problem is that I'm terribly pedantic, so I'd be OK with "spoonfuls" (even though measuring energy in spoonfuls is kind of weird, but OK, it works as an analogy), but "spoons" are the actual metal implements, which you don't throw away after use, so you can re-use them. And you don't need a spoon to clean up dirty spoons, so that's where the theory stops working for me. At the same time, I think it's useful to have an expression like this for the phenomenon, so I came up with the dime (or Groschen, really) version. ^^

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

It's not bad stress, really. It's just time flying by and several big things to do and having no clue how to get everything done. Basically, the thing they call life. ;) But thank you for your concern!

Not actually building furniture. My mom had to clean out my grandmother's house and I got quite a few pieces of furniture, which are for the most part much better than our old stuff, so I threw out some and replaced some and added some. Nice furniture and nice memories, but it was a hassle to get them there, not to mention the upsettingness of cleaning out the house and basically saying goodbye.

[ysilme]

But the theory doesn't mean "spoonfuls" as portions of energy, it's just using spoons as symbols because they were handy at the time the theory was created. It could also have been cups, pebbles, sticks or whatever - or dimes, of course. (Although any kind of currency doesn't work for me, as they also equal monetary worth I can't separate this from, but that's just me.)
As I understand the theory the re-usability is actually part of it, since you use the items again every day, which wouldn't work if you threw it away.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

As I understand the theory the re-usability is actually part of it, since you use the items again every day, which wouldn't work if you threw it away.

But that's the thing! If you can re-use them, you can't have "just one spoon left". After all, all the other ones are lying in the sink, so if you clean them up, you have as many spoon as you could wish for. And if you don't have enough spoons left to clean up the spoons, well, that's just absurd because the metaphor begins to mingle endlessly.
I think it's a useful analogy as such. And it has caught on well, so the phenomenon clearly needs to be described. I just overthink it and that's why it doesn't work for me. As I said, I'm not judging those who're fine with it! I'm just not happy with it meself!

(I'm actually using Groschen because those are no longer in use, and thus have no practical monetary value. In an age of cell phones and phone cards, they're certainly no longer needed for public phone calls. But in my youth, you always needed Groschen for emergency phone calls etc. - and while you generally couldn't re-use a dime you'd already thrown into the phone box, with a regular allowance, your stock of dimes could be replenished. But when they were gone, they were gone for the time being!)

[silver-trails.livejournal.com]

Beautiful children! =)

[independence1776]

It's good to hear from you! Your kids are adorable.

[lindahoyland.livejournal.com]

I love to see your children. How they have grown!They are lovely boys.

[sermanya.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the pictures. Your kids are wonderful :)

[chili-das-schaf.livejournal.com]

Spoon imagery didn't come from using spoons to eat but spoons as a symbol because the person explaining was sitting in a diner. If she had been sitting in a Sushi restaurant we'd all be saying "I'm running out of chopsticks" probably. Or not in your case ;)

My guesswork was clean up and new furniture, seems to be about right. And my goodness, J. looks like a small blonde clone of F. in those pictures.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Paper napkins! :D

Yup, among other things. And it's funny, the boys have got completely different faces in real life, but in those pictures, they really do look alike!

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

I adore them so much. Thank you for liking them :)