It's time for another installment of Things I Own and Love.

My Grandma Bonnie's kitchen timer, from the '40's or '50's. It was one of the three items I claimed from her basement after she died a few years ago, along with her pickle crock and her Staffordshire china dog. There is beauty in the timer's simplicity (and its Bakelite hand).

This timer serves us well. We use it for timing such things as hard-boiled eggs, tooth brushing, time-outs (not often), and clean-up blitzes (not often here, either). Most recently we have been using it to time Fezzik's reading sessions, not because we want to make sure he reads the specified homework amount, but because we want him to have enough time to live a little, too. Kiddo never puts down the books.

Except today, when he strapped his calculator to his belt loop and exclaimed "I know it's weird, but I like doing random calculations."