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!