Just Plane Ol' Fun!

Here is your weekly shop class report - try to contain your overwhelming excitement!  Did you know there are six steps to squaring up a board?  Ha, I knew it!  Well, up to this point, I only know three of them {bummer}.  Here are the first three steps in abbreviated detail of course:

• Step ONE - Make one face flat and smooth by using the Jointer.  Basically this machine shaves the crap off of the bottom face of raw lumber and spits out these shavings perfect for the hamster cage.

• Step TWO - Make the other face flat, smooth, parallel, and to the correct thickness on the PLANER {the mammoth machine in the pic above}.  The rough wood on the top face never stands a chance once it goes through this fine machine to make it smooth as a baby's bottom - ok, it does take multiple passes and possibly a bit of sanding at the end to really get it super-duper smooth.  However, you put the rough splinter-filled lumber in on one end and something very Willy Wonkaesque happens to where this gorgeous rich smooth piece of wood comes out the other end.  It's magic.

• Step THREE - Make one edge flat, smooth, and perpendicular to both faces on the {nope, wrong guess}, on the JOINTER again.  Do you see where I'm going with this?  Well, I don't because I don't know what Step Four is, aaaahhhh the agony.

Anyway, next week we are finishing up the remaining three steps, then starting our project planning and will incorporate wood techniques as needed like dove tail joining, turning wood for legs, FUN, FUN, FUN!  The best part?  I'm gonna have skills AND I get to buy safety glasses this weekend, jealous are you?

image courtesty of WW Thayer

You're Like School In The Summertime...No Class

To start this post, I'd like to pay tribute to one of my most favorite cartoons growing up, Fat Albert. One of my favorite characters was Russell who always dropped the best one liner ever, "You're like school in the summertime"..."no class."  Aaaannndddd, I loved the fact that he always wore a thick hat, big coat and big boots no matter what the weather was.  As a matter of fact, I do the same thing...with flip flops.

All this to say "no class" for last night's "shop class."  It was cancelled due to a power outage.  I know you were sitting there on the edge of your seat just waiting for a new update, at least in my mind you were.  More next week.

image courtesy of ZAP 2 it

Shop Shocked!

So, I went to my first Woodworking class last week {affectionately referred to as shop class - what else?!}  Guess what?  You'll never guess in a million years.  My instructor, who was a shop teacher for local high schools for many many years {drum roll}...has ALL his fingers!  I was stunned - I thought it was an urban legend that they existed.  He wears his wedding band on his pinkie finger which I find fascinating!

Shop Class - Take One!...We learned all about lumber, from forestry to sawmills, to drying the boards, the condition of the boards, the nomenclature, hardwoods vs. softwoods, etc.  In case you are lying awake in bed at night debating on log sawing methods - plane sawn wood gives you prettier grain {all lovely and curvy} BUT quarter sawn wood is less likely to warp {vertical grain}.  Now you can rest easy {you're welcome}.

Did you know hardwood trees typically loose their leaves in the winter and softwoods do not?  Yep, I cannot lie.  AND, rough lumber is sized by thickness and yard lumber {yes, the kind you get at a lumber yard - duh} is sized by dimension.  I was on the edge of my seat all night!

Loved it, loved it - and on deck for tomorrow night, learning how to square up a board, use the various saws and tools, etc.  If a woodchuck could chuck wood...oh who cares!

image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Shop Class

I'm so excited! Want to know why? Sure you do! Tonight is the first night of my Woodworking class! So what if you don't care - but I think it will be much fun. Learning about all the tools of trade, crafting a piece of furniture from your own little hands, the smell of sawdust...

It's a 5-week class offered at my local community college - my thought is to craft a 50's inspired side table, we'll see how that turns out. Maybe use hairpin legs on it, hhmm. Then, I've promised I would make Coco a barn for her horses - hope it doesn't look like a ghetto shack. I'll be posting my progress on the whole adventure and hopefully at the end, I will still have all my fingers.

image courtesy of The BAFRA

The Gift That Keeps On Giving

So Chloe went on a regular field trip to the Farmer's Market with the "rents" and she brought back this sweet bouquet just for me. How can one mommy be so lucky?

image courtesy of me

You Say It's Your Birthday!

Nothing like your baby's birthday making YOU feel another year older. I must say though, 11 years ago today at precisely 12:07 p.m., Chloe-Bell came into the world simply screaming and made my heart melt and it certainly has been a sloppy mess o'love ever since.

When I look at her nothing else matters and everything is put into perspective - the world slows down just a little and before I know it, I'm usually rolling with laughter because she's the funniest person I know. I couldn't be more proud nor have I ever accomplished anything else in my life so great {tear ducts starting to work, gotta go now...}

Here's to you Coco, my cup runneth over...

image courtesy of me

The Funniest Girl I Know

So Chloe and I were out running around this afternoon, first stop was to pick up some new headphones for her...well I guess they are for me too since silence is bliss right? Anyway, all of the sudden Chloe says, "mommy, you are the bus to my stop". She's always coming up with these great one liners out of nowhere, but apparently she caught sight of a city bus stop sign and there you have it. So, her one liner made my day and indeed, she too, is the bus to my stop.

image courtesy of clker.com

Full Circle

Yep, it's been quite awhile since my last post. A lot can happen in a month. The sale of my house FINALLY closed...a lot of wine was consumed during that painful process and I'm still experiencing night terrors and blackouts over it but that's another story for another time.

So Coco and I are back at the "rents" until I find my needle-in-the-haystack 50's ranch. Yea yea I know there are tons of 50's ranches but you know from previous posts that I want a very specific mod 50's ranch. I have hope, tons of hope.

Anyway, coming back to the house that my mother grew up in, the house that I essentially grew up in visiting my grandparents, really brings back the old childhood memories. It is a house right smack dab in the middle of Winston Salem, around Wake Forest, and my mother has pictures where all you could see were fields. Looking out of the window now, there are apartments in the distance, houses across the street, continuous traffic, etc. I found the pic above online from this very area from 1965. Very few houses and buildings really - drastically different from today.

I remember going down to the dug out basement sitting on a wooden stool eating homemade sauerkraut out of a huge enamel pot that my grandmother made. I sat in the backyard with my grandaddy and shot cardboard boxes with the pellet gun and climbed apple and peach trees until I couldn't climb another branch. I would go into my grandaddy's shop in the backyard and "tinker" and somehow the days lasted forever.

I hope to give Coco a slice of this life I experienced even though life is very different now. She's been going outside lassoing branches and playing with her horses while sitting in the dirt of the garden - maybe she's on the right path.

image courtesy of flickr.com

Going Going Gone

Recession or not, my house is under contract!  After three months on the market{ain't bad huh}, I accepted an offer and now Coco and I are surrounded by unpacked boxes awaiting our closing date in July.  Maybe if I wait long enough the boxes will miraculously pack themselves?  Ok, what ever.

I am very excited to start on our new house hunt soon for my 50's gem.  We'll be bunking with the "rents" until I find our next {and hopefully just perfect for us} home.  In the meantime, I'll be sitting by my garden willing the fruits of my labor to ripen so I can eat them before the move.

image courtesy of take the day off

Berry Good

So I felt like I was on my death bed the last half of last week with a nasty sinus infection but really started to feel quite a bit better yesterday. On yesterday's agenda was an unexpected assassination of wasps on my deck to which Coco was crouched inside peering out of the bottom of a window to watch the vicious scene. That was really the only excitement on our Sunday, jealous?

A silver lining to our day...what is better on a Sunday evening than having farmer's market strawberries thrown on the top of some Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream? Nothing, nothing I tell you! This dessert made all things right in the world again, at least in my world.

image courtesy of me