Saturday, April 27, 2013

Creativity



“Creativity is always an option.” Or at least that’s what some of my friends claim when a problem is mentioned. Often exasperating, but, (it kills me to admit this), there is some truth to it.

Months ago I realized we had a problem at Church; the kids have nowhere to put the name-tags we created. After several weeks of chaos, a wonderful volunteer brilliantly created an alphabetized system which has worked very well. 

Before this system, my Lumber Yard crew helped me figure out the details for a name-tag-tree. Due to life, (company was coming and we had to get the lumber and drill out of the middle of the room so the children wouldn’t kill themselves or something) and the fact it was no longer became necessary, the project came to a grinding halt and has sat waiting in the office. Until this week.

 The events leading up to this phenomenon of me completing a project were; a) I had a lot of time on my hands; b) I was looking for things to do; c) I was actually making myself do those things; d) I think our table housing our current system is going to be relocated or removed soon, (pure speculation)); e) I’m lazy, and have decided the kids can start putting their own name tags away; and f) I wanted the lumber out of the office.

Ok, so b, and d, were the main reasons, but the rest did play a part.  I learned many things constructing the name-tag-tree. It was a project of firsts. First time I’d drilled 1” holes through anything, first time I’d successfully used a little hand sander, even the first time I’ve used stain.

I decided to set up shop out on our front porch. I started off to the side, but sprinkler + wind caused me to beat a hasty retreat and I ended my project directly in front of the door.

Like I said, I learned a lot, for starters, it takes forever to drill a one inch hole through a 4x4. You have to put some weight on the drill, or it doesn’t go anywhere. Your hand, or at least my hand, get’s cramped and exhausted. That was step two.

Step one was actually figuring out what I was going to need and getting all the necessary parts. That’s where Hilmar Lumber comes in. The guys in the yard took time to a) understand what I was trying to do; and b) kindly inform this ignorant savage of a better way to do things, that would actually work.  They also cut all the wood for me which was great, ‘cause I can’t wood straight at all. I manage to mess up with guides. (Don’t ask, I don’t know).

The rest of the brainstorming came from various tidbits my (at the time) ACE coworkers had shared with me.

Step three was sanding everything down. After step one, sanding was pretty much cake with an abundance of frosting. I do wish I had realized before I stained everything, that the direction I was attempting to sweep the saw dust off the porch was merely giving the wind fuel for flight.  If you notice little bits of sawdust stuck to the tree, well, now you know why.

Then came step #4, staining. I’d always heard staining is harder than painting, but I love the grain of wood, (plus I thought I’d get in less trouble at church if my “creation” wasn’t painted neon green or something.), and I thought, how bad can it  really be, I can paint boards ok. HA!

My goodness, was I ignorant. To start with stain is much thinner and stickier than paint. Because of this it runs down the sides a LOT! easier leaving dark gummed up streaks. It’s made to show the wood grain, which means, any markings you didn’t sand off before staining also show up. (Yes I learned the hard way, just pretend those red marks don’t exist). Finally stain has to be remixed if you’re using it for a prolonged period of time. Otherwise some parts will have, in this case, tiny red streaks.

Step five, drilling the stabilizing boards to the post. Once I figured out how to brace the boards and tighten the drill down all the way on the bit, this went fairly smoothly. Not all the boards are perfectly attached. But together they create a fairly sturdy base.

Step six, putting the dowels through the holes. Just because you drill a 1” hole does not mean a 1” dowel will slide right in. In fact, none of them did. I had to take a rubber mallet and pound them through. Bright side they won’t be sliding off any time soon. Down side, it messed up the stain.

Since I’m on the subject of dowels, a small rant, can anyone give me a good reason why the bar code stickers stick to them so well? I had to sand those stupid things off, which left gunk on the sand paper, and then use packaging tape to get the last of the residue. It was ridiculous! 

Step seven, touching up the stain, particularly on the now chewed up dowels. I learned from Dad, that a cloth rather than a paint brush might be the way to go. I decided to try it for the touch up, he’s right; I like it a lot more. Drawback, I stain my fingers. I got it off with the mineral spirits, but I’m not sure that’s good to use on skin...
I dragged this out of hiding Thursday morning. By 9 am Saturday, I’d finished it. I seriously put the final touches on while still in my pajamas. (And may I just add, I am astounded, I did not get stain on my white t-shirt).

Ok, so it’s not the greatest piece of construction; I didn’t even drill the holes straight. But dang it, I’m proud of it.  I thought it through and for the first, and possibly only, time created something decent out of wood. And I finished it! To date my carpenter endeavors have included a poorly constructed box (that was the idea, for the record), and an A-frame, that only worked because someone else cut the middle piece of wood for me.

So thank you Hilmar Lumber crew, friends who egg on the creativity and you brother for ignoring my whining and assuming I would be successful, ‘cause “what idiot could mess this up?!?”

Oh and for the record the brown spots on my skin are not unnoticed moles, or random places where I’m suddenly darker, and they are most definitely up NOT chocolate spots. I do bathe thank you very much. They’re remnants of my er, encounter with stain.

(Enough pictures for you Leila? And Em this counts!)

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Six days ye shall labor, the seventh ye shall rest.


Years ago the Priest in Livingston visited my Grandfather and asked him why he didn’t come to mass more often. Grandpa replied he felt closer to God out on a tractor than he did in Church. It has always been strange to me that the Priest accepted his answer and never asked bugged him about it again. (Not that he was on a tractor on Sundays).

 Life has been kind of up in the air recently. It seems to go in waves, you figure one part out and get it settled and something else decides to break loose, get hurt, or jump off a building on a dare. It’s nothing new to anyone breathing, but the uncertainty was bugging me today, so to clear my head I decided to go work in the garden.

I know, I know, it’s Sunday, but one of the best way’s for me to talk to God is to go outside. There’s something about dirt, sunshine and just being outside that’s therapeutic. Add in some sweat and hard work and you have the secret recipe to a health. (Exhibits A and B, Secret Garden and Captains Courageous).

A few days ago I did the first garden cultivation and then watered the area I want to put my plants. (The idea behind this is to soften the soil further down). Now it was time to turn the earth a second time, hopefully going deeper. As I started to sweat in the late afternoon sun, arms aching from previous use, I realized how much I had learned since I’d first put in a garden.

As I’m sure you’ll remember, my first year I was eager and excited; I got my plants, and picked my spot only to realize I’d selected hard-pan  Not to be deterred I soaked the area and started to dig down to make it work. In fine Nicole fashion I decided to do it all in one day, which was fine, except for the fact I didn’t give the soil time to dry out. So instead of turning over nice moist soil, I was digging in mud. It doesn’t work quite so well, the clumps of mud dry into shovel sized, rock hard, dirt clods.

Energy is great, but when it comes to cultivating the soil (cultivating used in all definitions of the word) patience works better.

 I want my issues fixed right now, this instant. I don’t like things to be unresolved and I don’t like discomfort let alone pain. But that’s not the way God always does things. Time is used to build up the soil, time is what’s used for plants to grow, and time is what’s used to nurture life. 

Oh sure there are other things necessary for my garden, sun, water, soil amendments, bug killer, but even those things don’t magically happen or work. (Although water can seem to cause miraculous results).

So I really shouldn’t be surprised when things in life take time. After all God is the Master Gardener.
Thing is, like waiting, cultivating isn’t pleasant. I kept imagining a shovel digging 4 or five inches into my heart and the moist contents being turned over, into the sunshine. That would hurt. Shovels aren’t little. But it has to happen so things can grow.

Nothing grows well in hard-pan  The water and nutrients’ can’t get down deep enough for the roots to push through the cement layers. (Parable of the seeds anyone?)

Anyway, that was the sermonet God preached to me as I was freaking out begging for answers. He didn’t tell me what’s gonna happen next, heck He didn’t even comfort me and say it was all gonna be ok. He just showed me how I’ve grown wise and learned to take time to do the garden right and showed how that’s what’s He’s doing with me, my family, and my church.

I’ll leave you with this parting thought; a footprint can’t be seen on hard-pan  Its impression is only noticed in soft dirt. 

Saturday, April 20, 2013

The Promised Information


I am officially back online. I’ve actually been back for a little over a week, but I got a tad busy and wasn’t able to get to this.  Yes indeed folks, I have safely returned from a 10 day cruise to Mexico with my Grandmother!

Wait, cruise? You were on a cruise?

Yup, I told you not to think I was suffering too much.

It was fun, the food was fabulous and I got some good bonding time with my Grandma. I tried many things I’d never tried before, lobster, veal, Yorkshire pudding, torts and baked Alaska. And got to enjoy others I’d only gotten once or twice before, like lamb.

Sadly this 5’7” child isn’t able to eat tons of food 24/7 and quickly learned, that a light breakfast and lunch was the way to go. I also learned afternoon tea is great, but when you have the early seating it wrecks havoc with dinner. But I am proud to say I did indeed finish the giant piece of chocolate (and either ice cream or mouse) cake, and suffered for it later.

One of my biggest concerns was how the whole pool situation was going to work out with like 2,000 people on board. I was looking forward to lap swimming, but that doesn’t work so well with people in the pool.

Turns out it wasn’t really a problem. There were a total of 4 pools on board and the indoor one was the least popular. That suited me just fine.  (On a sad note the first hot shower I had was rinsing off after swimming toward the end of the cruise. I kept hitting the timing wrong….)

I was reminded I am not a sit out in the sun doing nothing person. If I’m drying off from swimming, fine, if I’m reading, ok, but if I’m just sitting and it gets hot, forget it! I tried it one day, no me gusta.  If I want to be that hot, I’ll go weeding this summer, thank you very much.

We left from SF on Easter Sunday, and stopped at Catalina on our way down. (There were a lot of people from SF on the ship. It was sometimes sad, you'd ask someone where they were from and they'd say California).  Mexico was hot and muggy. Someday I want to go to the actual interior of Mexico. We stopped in two places, Puerto Vallarta, and Cabo. They were nice, but frankly it was kinda like being in CA. 

On the way back we stopped off in San Diego. That was cool, I got to see my SD relatives, and my brother who's going to school down there. 

When I was wandering around Cabo I did get asked if I worked on the ship that was kinda funny. And the day I wore my Pizza My Heart shirt, I got asked more times if I was from Santa Cruz than I knew was possible!

The trip ended with strong winds and choppy seas. At one point the captain announced we heading out toward Hawaii to get smoother waters. Everyone cheered at that, but sadly we didn't continue this course.
It was fun, but I must admit I was glad to be home back on dry land and not fighting off the Dramamine. (No one told me it made you dopey  imagine my surprise!) Oddly enough, I think the fresh bread and desserts might be what I've missed the most. Well, not so oddly if you know me.  Grin.

My biggest complaint, I got a banana split and there were no sprinkles and no cherry on top. 

I took some time to contemplate on board ship and continued it once on land and of course life has happened continued since I returned. And I’m going to stop there, dangling the cake right in front of your nose. Inhale that wonderful, rich, fresh aroma. You never know what I’ll say or where I’ll be next. The only way to keep up is to stay tuned into this wonderful fantastic blog. Or call me. Or email. Or literally surprise me and show up on my doorstep. Yeah…I think the blog’s the simplest…