…Or a tumbling rock, in our case.

This year’s most exciting (yet painful in that it requires effort and patience) gift (I forgot to mention it in my Santa Brought More to Dad’s House post.) was a rock tumbler.

All summer, when we’d hit the beach, Drue picked up interesting rocks and beach glass. Santa was paying attention, I guess.

This thing is bound to yield a selection (6-10) of gem-like treasures that we can craft into keychains, earrings, keychains, keychains and keychains, but it is louder than I could have predicted. We’re in the middle of the second cycle (14 days) and I swear, this thing gets louder each day. I keep moving it further and further away from the main living area of our house. It is now in a distant corner of the basement, and I can still hear it.

One of my friends at work offered up the delightful (yet wrong) idea of swapping the mid-cycle rocks for museum gift shop stones while the kids are in bed. I had to laugh, especially since everyone is dying to see how this little experiment affects my electric bill.

In two weeks, when this thing is done, I will post photographs of our finished products!