Brain Games

Wow, what a day! It was gorgeous outside, at least 81°. Started out foggy, but that cleared up and it was sunny and beautiful. Jim worked outside laying some mulch on the steps he set in on the back hill. He also put some around various plants and our small apple tree, Ms. Granny Smith, until the 4 bags ran out. We need some more.

I helped him lay out some sod over the drainage trench he had made earlier in the week. After adjusting the level of the rocks, he laid a layer of soil on top, planning to fill the top 2 inches with sod. Well, turns out there is no sod available yet except one really sickly, pitiful strip from Home Depot that didn't even cover the whole trench. I filled in the remaining area with pieces of sod he had removed when he dug the trench. It looks pretty sad, but with watering and some luck, it may fill in. At least it is something until he can get some decent sod.

My Drawing and Painting class began today, and took up the whole afternoon. Had to leave at 1:00 and didn't get back until 4:30. However, it was a great class, and I know we'll be learning a lot. First, we did three drawings without any instruction - a face, our hand, and a chair - to see how our drawing skills improve over the next 6 weeks. It's a 10 week course, but the last 4 weeks will have to do with color theory. Some of the exercises we did today had to do with optical illusion and seeing with the right and left side of the brain. You've probably seen examples of this, for instance a picture that can be interpreted as a vase, or as two faces. There were many such examples, and she indicated if you were seeing with the right or left side of your brain, depending on what picture you saw first. (With pictures that are black if seen as one thing and white if seen as another, the black one indicates you are seeing with your left brain, and vice versa.) It was quite interesting. Some of us were able to see things immediately, others never did see it unless it was pointed out. I was able to see everything except the rider on a horse. I thought it might be a snowman!

We learned the differences between right and left brain thinking. Right brain is involved with creative thinking, intuition, visual association, sensory input, use of hand gestures to explain things. Left brain is predominantly analytical, logical, verbal, uses mathematics, planning, organization. In our household, I'm the predominantly right-brained one, and Jim, the engineer, is predominantly left-brained. Good thing - that way we're not both too flighty or too detail oriented! Pretty good stuff.

PHOTO: Cherry blossom time in Washington, D.C. Another spring.