Just for Fun on Friday

November 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Its Friday!! While the winter weather starts to bear down on us here in Dallas, I thought I’d share just a few things that brightened my week!

Girl Toys

If you haven’t seen this video you should:

I work in the construction industry and I’m one of very very few women in the field.  And if you missed it, I shared a few feelings about Women and Tools a few months ago.  If you have a little girl… teach her to love math and science and engineering… or at least give her that option. I was very lucky my parents did.

 

Thanksgiving

I have seen more houses with Christmas lights up, trees being decorated, Christmas on display.  I understand that retail stores need to meet their quarterly earnings and spread out their Christmas sales, but a little part of me dies inside at the thought of casting aside one of the very few holidays that is truly about giving thanks, spending time with family and relaxing in order to buy more things for people who don’t really need them.  So my Christmas lights are still in their box, and this is on the chalkboard that welcomes me home every night.  (copied from this pin)

givethanks

 

Ode to Joy

This is a video I’ve seen a few times, but it just resurfaced on my Facebook feed, and I never get tired of the beautiful music, the feeling of spontaneity and the cute kids pretending to conduct the orchestra.

I hope you guys have a great weekend and stay warm!

Filed Under: Just Fun, Life

Veterans Day

November 11, 2013 By Leave a Comment

This is the time of year where I always think about my grandfather.  He was a veteran of WWII, signing up for the Navy after Pearl Harbor, he and my grandmother got married before he left for the war.  He was the captain of a sub-chaser.  He used to tell people that Kansans made the best sailors because they were used to seeing nothing but horizon all day long. He loved the water and he loved Kansas.  I can still see him in my mind showing me how to drive that old pontoon boat on the lake pointing to the trees I was supposed to be headed toward.  His 94th birthday would have been tomorrow.  He passed away a little over 5 years ago.  Here he is reading to AJ and I when we were younger:

bimbam-reading

Anyone who knew him knew that he dedicated his life to serving others.  He was the president of the family company I work for now and cared very deeply about public service and taking care of his employees.  I still hear stories from the company that humble me and show me just how wonderful of a man he was.

bimbam-with-parrots

But I think more than anything I remember how much he loved my grandmother and how much he loved all of us grandkids.  He and my grandmother were married for more than 65 years and they loved and cared for each other until the day he died.  I hope everyone gets to experience a love like that.

bimbam-and-nannan

 

I am grateful for all of the veterans out there on this Veteran’s Day, but I especially think about Bimbam and how much I love and miss him.

Filed Under: Life

DIY Shield

October 11, 2013 By Leave a Comment

When I married my husband I inherited some pretty awesome nephews and a fabulous niece.  They are a ton of fun to be around and my husband and I love playing with them. Our garage is the go to place for projects, so last spring we helped the oldest make a Derby Car for Boy Scouts.  So when he needed to make a shield for a school project, he thought it would be fun to make it out of wood.  We were of course happy to oblige.

For projects like these I think it is really important to teach the kids a few basics in DIY and tool safety.  So while I did most of the heavy cutting, the rest of the project was all Jax.   This was a simple project that took less than 30 minutes to do and has a super fun result!

Our supplies were:

  • 1/4″ piece of plywood
  • leather straps from Michael’s
  • staple gun
  • sandpaper
  • jigsaw
  • paint

 

 

First, since this was a school project we had to follow certain dimensions.  Yes I own more than 3 measuring tapes, no we couldn’t find a single one, hence why the husband is using my sewing measuring tape to measure the plywood.  What can I say, we live on the edge (of insanity… daily).

shield1

 

Once we had the dimensions marked, Jax showed me a picture of what he wanted it to look like and I free handed the shape onto the board and cut the shield out with the jigsaw.

shield6

Once that was done, we cut our leather strips.  We found these on the same aisle as belt making supplies (?!?) at Michael’s.  We just stapled them onto the back of the shield, making sure to use staples that didn’t go all the way through the board.  And since this is Jax’s shield we just placed them over his arm to find placement and spacing.

shield10

Next, Jax and his dad sanded the top and edges of the shield.  We taught Jax the #1 rule of sanding: always go with the grain of the wood.

shield4

It’s starting to look like a real shield now!

shield5

Next up, painting.  Jax’s assignment is to draw things on each of the four quadrants of the shield to represent him and his family (I’m pretty sure we all did a project like this in elementary school).  The plan was for him to do that part at home, but he wanted the background to be white so we decided to spray paint it in our garage (especially since I already had the spray paint box set up from the mirror).

shield3

After two thin coats, the shield was done!

shield2

This would be a fun way to spruce up a superhero costume for Halloween! It can be cut out in any shape, painted with any decor, and Jax was pretty excited about getting to be a superhero!

shield9

And just for a fun little side note… since there were 3 other kiddos we set them up in the living room to watch a movie on TV (unfortunately my house isn’t super kid friendly and their normal place to play is in mass chaos right now as we try to revamp it).  We weren’t out in the garage for very long, but when we came back inside, all three kids had decided it would be more fun to watch the movie from inside Lexie’s crate. I’ll spare you the picture so it doesn’t look like child abuse, but your imaginations can run wild.  Oh to be a kid again…

Filed Under: DIY, Life
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