Blocks of Service

I'm still playing catch up... I'm a month behind in posting things, so bear with me... I realize you really don't care about the sequence of events, but I'm feeling a little dumb that April is nearly to a close and I haven't closed out my posts for the month of March!

Thursday, 20 April 2006

GR was in charge of this months combined YM/YW activity and they really wanted to do a service project of some kind. One of the things he and I brainstormed in the car weeks ago was the idea of doing some kind of humanitarian aid project that the kids to assemble on Wednesday night.

All the toy patterns we saw were too involved - not in assembling, but in cutting and since we were limited on the people we could ask to cut wood - not that many people have access to the necessary equipment - and had 20-25 youth to keep busy for 90 minutes, we X'd that idea.

GR spent a lot of time looking online for patterns and ideas and found patterns for wood blocks. He talked to Bob about the feasibility of the project and the two of them agreed it would be do-able. Bob had enough scrap MDF to cut 300 blocks. The YM went over a week before and helped sand all the rough edges and corners and smooth out the curved arches. And I purchased the paint and brushes.

The youth did a fine job on painting them and they look amazing. The children quickly discovered the box of painted blocks and have had hours of fun playing with them. The way they've been playing, you'd think they'd never seen blocks before! They have built quilt patterns, houses, towers, castles, anything and everything you can imagine - they've built it.

GR still needs to decide where to send these blocks, and there are a couple blocks that need a little touch up painting, but other than that, they are ready for needy children to play with!

Golf Balls, Marbles and Ice Cubes

Sunday, 23 April 2006, 10-10:30pm.

This evening starting at 10pm we experienced the worst hail storm GR and I have ever experienced. All during Grays Anatomy, the Kansas City weather guy kept giving us updates during commercial breaks on the conditions just north of our county. On a different station, the Topeka weather guy was doing the same (only he wouldn't let them go back to the normal programs). For most of the hour, the storm hovered northeast of us, not wanting to cross over the highway. By about 9:45 it started to cross the highway and by 9:55 it was hitting downtown and heading southeast at about 10mph... straight for our neck of the woods. That's when I headed for the garage to clear a spot for the Cadillac ... no sooner had GR pulled in to the garage, did the rain start with the hail quickly (just seconds later) following.

We had pure hail for a straight 20 minutes, then a break of just hard rain, and then another 10 minutes or so of hail. We are both amazed that the children didn't wake up - the hail and strong winds were coming from the east, and their windows all face east; no windows were broken; and GR's Civic sustained NO damage (it sat unprotected in the driveway). As you can see from the pictures, the hail ranged in size from golf ball and shooter size down to marble size... 1/2" - 1-1/4" in diameter. GR risked a concussion, and got three of the larger ice pellets and stuck them in the freezer so we could show the kids and you what happened during the storm.

Thankfully my flowers and plants seem to have survived the pelting they received. They are a little beaten down and the tulip and hosta leaves are shredded in spots, but other than that, they are going to survive. We've desperately needed the rain. And they are expecting more on Monday and Tuesday.

"Easy to Sew"

Thursday, 24 March 2006

One of the projects I took with me while at my parents was a dress pattern I wanted to test out for perspective Easter dresses. Mom has about 10 yards of a blue floral from 15+ years ago that we'd like to turn into dresses for all the granddaughters - if we can find just the right pattern and coordinating "do-da's" as we like to call them to update the fabric and minimize the homemade look.

It was supposedly "Easy to Sew" ... I don't think so ... To me "Easy to Sew" should also mean "goes together quickly" and this didn't go together quickly. I admit it's a relatively simple pattern, but you end up sewing the collar and sleeves into the dress three times, after doing all the basting, stitching and top stitching it calls for. I did a little bit of it Sunday night before realizing I'd forgotten to cut out half the collar (the underside). Having brought none of the scraps with me, Emily and I made a trip to the fabric store Mom and I have been going to for nearly 22 years, and found a subtle bright yellow to use as a coordinating contrast fabric on the underside of the collar and then as a peek out from the hem. Despite the trauma and frequent trips to the fabric shop because I was missing this, or forgot about that, the end result is really cute and will more than likely work for the Easter Dresses we envision, as well as a few other dresses for this summer.

Here's a picture of the pattern cover, and Emily in my version (picture taken 4-23-06).

A Saturday Morning in the Captial City

Saturday, 27 March 2006

With the purchase of GR's coat last month, I think I mentioned he purchased a new suit. His last new suit was the one he got the day my sister got married 6 years ago... it's been looking really sad for over a year, and a few weeks ago it developed a hole. Anyway he picked up his new suit eariler this week and we decided to spend our Saturday morning shoe shopping in Topeka.

Some friends who use to live on my parents street and now live in Kansas, help run a shoe store in downtown Topeka. They have fabulous shoes for incredible prices – most around $30 – and we wanted to see if they had anything GR and I both liked. He wears through shoes so quickly – it doesn’t matter if he’s spent $30 at Target or $100 at the mall – they last less than 6 months. For a mear $60 we purchased a brown pair and a black pair and they are nice high quality shoes.

After purchasing shoes, our friend Sondra (who happened to be helping out that morning) suggested we walked down the street and check out a few of the shops. We stopped in the handmade candle shop where each child picked a votive candle in their favorite scent/color to take home, we looked in the candy shop and purchased chocolate dipped pretzels and then went to Jersey Mike’s – a sub shop that came highly recommended from another friend – for lunch. Here we are enjoying our sub sandwiches before heading for home.