This month's inspiration art comes from a great story we read on Bored Panda.
"Ben Brucker was tired of the plain, bland walls at the office of the creative agency he works for, so he decided to do something about it. His solution was to cover the office’s walls with a series of pixelated superhero portraits made from a total of 8,024 post-it notes." - Bored Panda
After reading, we decided to have some post-it fun, too. As a writer, I have TONS of post-its in my possession. They always come in hand to story board an idea.
I started working on the fridge, it didn't take long for the kids to join in.
Reese made a minecraft head...one of many from her collection.
Ethan went for a Mario villian, though our lack of black post-its made it hard to make out the full design.
Me, I went for a basic collage, no rhyme or reason to the pattern.
Then added our April Rule, Count Me In!
Talk about a BIG, BRIGHT reminder.
Post-it tally 1,357...we'll see if this month's rule sticks.
We're not the only ones interested in the question.
Alex Bellos, author of the Grapes of Math, conducted a survey asking the question, "What's your favorite number" after constantly being asked what his favorite was at lectures and speaking engagements.
"At first, I was so annoyed by this question, Bellos says. "I thought, you know, you're trivializing mathematics. Until I said, "Well, what's your favorite number? and I realized that, actually, lots of people feel incredibly passionate about numbers. And more often than not, people, will have an entire story about what number they like."
Bellos yielded responses from over 44,000 participants all across the world and it turns out, the world's favorite number is (drumroll) SEVEN!
It's not just about luck. The number 7 appears across many cultures and religion, as well as through nature and much of our everyday life.
There are seven days in the week, seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes on a musical scale, seven seas and seven continents. The list goes on and on.
"Psychologist George Miller observed many years ago that our short term memory remembers in units of 7 plus or minus 2. You can remember an infinite list of words, tasks or facts if you organize it into 5 to 9 (but ideally 7) chunks."
- 7 Reasons We Like 7 Reasons - Psychology Today
So it stands to reason that if our mind is hard-wired to the number 7, we would identify with it in other aspects of our life, too.
Advertisers and marketers caught on...we have 7 Wonders of the World, 7 dwarves, even the famous character Bond was simply known as 007.
Our house may still like 16, 23 and even 1, 277 for personal reasons but now we've got 7 on our radar. I'm curious to see how many 7's we can pick out this month.
When I talked to the kids about our "Count Me In" rule, Ethan asked if we could share one of his favorite comedy skits by Abbott and Costello.
Everyone knows the famous "Who's On First" comedy routine. These guys are total MASTERS of wordplay. Well, they also know how to have a lot of fun with numbers, too.
In the skit 13 x 7, the numbers don't logically add up except for laughs. Ethan LOVES this one!! In the second skit, 40 and 10, the punch line is a funny poke back at the crazy scenario.
It's all a good laugh at the end of a long week and a silly way for us to ease us into some numbers fun.
This month we are nixing words and getting lost in numbers. "Count me in" is about making the connection between us and the greater world, from nature, art, music, science, even comedy!
Numbers are everywhere. Some numbers like the price of milk are obvious. While others like last night's homework and that pile of Oreos you ate, we'd pretty much like to forget. Still, there are so many more numbers that exist hidden in the everyday. Some may surprise you.
So why numbers?
I wanted to give the kids a new view of their everyday short of asking them to stand on their heads. Math gets a bad rap these days. I wanted to show them math outside of the classroom and why it's so good for our brain and future self....it's not just about smarts.
Lastly, I wanted them to enjoy the language of numbers - the simple, the complex and the funny.
So this month we're going exploring. Should we count you in, too??
March is almost over. Before we say goodbye to our rule, "do nothing" we wanted to leave you with a last thought.
Good JOB!
We learned many things about our exploration of "nothing" this month but the one thing that kept coming up was just how hard "do nothing" is.
Welcome to the club!
To just stop and be is a challenge, within one's body and within one's mind. To understand this is huge but the even bigger picture to see is that we are part of a world that is addicted to being busy.
No one gives out medals for doing nothing. No one says good job for a moment of silence. No one puts nothing on top of the list because busy is KING. Just ask Tim Kreider, he wrote an article all about busy in the NYTimes called, The "Busy" Trap.
"The present hysteria is not a necessary or inevitable condition of life; it’s something we’ve chosen, if only by our acquiescence to it."
Do you agree? Give his article a read and tell me if after reading it, you can look at your life with new eyes and spot the "I'm so busy" default of your days.
If you can, good job! Let it be your next clue for where some "do nothing" is needed and see what YOU choose to do next.
In our living room is a large bay window. It used to be a traditional space filled with picture frames, a bowl with colorful glass beads and the occasional bouquet of fresh flowers. Not these days!
If you drive by our house afterschool, you will spot something else occupying the window space - my children.
Yes, my growing children like to climb up onto the bay window and just hang out. They've been doing this years, slowly edging out all my collectibles.
When I ask, "whatcha doin?"
They always respond, "nothing" but it's never really nothing.
Ethan likes to do his homework on the window, especially on a sunny day. He'll read, play video games, draw comics, all for the world to see. And Reese, she likes to be wherever her brother is so she follows suit and makes herself comfortable.
I just to joke that in a previous life my children must have been cats the way they liked to lounge here.
They have always gravitated to this space. It's the best view to gaze at the passing world. Some days I catch them in their nothing moments. looking out at nothing in particular but taking notice of everything.
"Hey mom, the clouds are moving fast today. I see a ship."
"Hey mom, someone just tripped along the sidewalk."
"Hey mom, I just saw a yellow bird. What's it called?"
Hey mom, when will the snow melt so we can see the grass, again?
And when they are just sitting and silent, the answer to any question I ask is always the same.
"Whatcha doin', now?"
"Nothing"
I love this empty window. It offers to anyone a much needed slice of nothing everyday. I know that the kids get more out of sitting at this window then if I pulled them to do something more zen. And that's okay because one of the best things about this window is that they found it, all on their own, crawling around as babes.
So, where's your slice of nothing?
Did you find it in a window? A cozy chair? A cup of tea? The outside world or in the eyes of another, full of wonder?
"The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows is a compendium of invented words written by John Koening. Each original definition aims to fill a hole in the English language - to give a name to emotions we all might experience but don't yet have a word for."
The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows: For Lack of a Better World
