Click to see more takes.
1.
This, my friends, is marital harmony:
Taken not to document our perpetual clutter problem, but to test the new lens somebody earned by building these things for me. That’s love. 12 feet of plywood heaven. Worth the wait.
2.
PS, no there will NOT be boxes of books on the space-where-the-counter-goes forever. Countertops are out on on the work bench in the garage. Soon they will be finished — repeat: FINISHED — and then there will be an interesting collection of geeky artifacts strewn across the desktop in what looks like chaos but is actually carefully arranged nerdvana.
3.
Did you know that every. single. museum. is closed on Monday? Except the Fire Museum. So that’s where we dragged grandpa for his last day in town, because sitting in the house on a rainy day playing Angry Birds does build fond memories, but you can only do so many hours of that before the mother notices it is a school day and she would like very much to get something done that counts as school, and look, hey, field trip!
Here’s a link to the Fire Museum Network. Some of the state-by-state links are old, but the museums are likely still around even if the webpage has expired. We’d had no idea this was in our town until desperation had me googling random possible museum ideas.
4.
So is it just me, or are fire-fighters not the coolest, nicest, manly-men in the universe? Not only do they run into burning building to rescue people, and keep whole towns from being demolished*, but they are, you know, friendly. Every time we’ve popped into a fire station with a five-year-old, there was a guy who was totally ready to give us a tour.
5.
If you haven’t taken your small children to meet fully-garbed firefighters, do it. They need to see this:
And know that it’s a good guy. Specifically: the person they should be looking for and calling for, in the event they are stuck in a fire. Because it easy to mistake someone dressed this way for something out of the bad-guys-who-give-me-nightmares department [monsters, aliens, death troopers, etc.], and decide to run and hide.
6.
Allie Hathaway. Once a week whether you need it or not.
7.
Want to feel like a stellar parent, even though you yelled at your kids seven times before breakfast? Here’s our two-step method for teaching kids to evacuate when they hear a smoke-detector go off:
a) Open the oven to take out that freezer-burned casserole you’re gonna try to pawn off on the kids as “food” tonight. There goes the alarm again. Sheesh.
b) Hand out candy to everyone who runs outside and towards designated rendezvous point.
Conveniently, you can do this every night at dinner. Even really super little toddlers learn fast when there’s candy involved.
*Also ours do: High- and low-angle wilderness rescue, hazmat, swiftwater, ground-collapse . . . anything that involves getting your trapped body out of a place it doesn’t belong. There’s boats at the fire station. Boats. We had a great chat about rescuing people entrapped in the rapids at a lowhead dam. Our local guys had worked out a seriously cool technique. (Hint: Don’t try it at home. That dam wants to eat you up and never spit you out.)
Keep this for future reference: http://www.examiner.com/cultural-travel-in-columbia/explore-columbia
I want to check out the train museum this summer… not sure why ;)
Yeah, I wonder why :-). [Um, I want to come.]
We walked down to the fire station a week ago and you are so right: so frienly, so ready to give a tour!
As for the shelves: slobber. Green with envy. If that constitutes clutter, I don’t want to know what you’d think of my house! (But we’re working on that today.)
Oh Kathleen, you don’t know all the things that *aren’t* in that photo :-). And yeah, I know the shelf-envy feeling. I have a couple bloggers who I think of mostly by the “I wish I had shelves like that” thought I had when I saw some random house pic. (Melissa Wiley comes to mind. She has nice shelves.)
Love the shelves, and the museum. We have a couple of firefighters in our family so the kids really love those strange-looking people. But a good point, nonetheless.
Do you think we could trade an extra firefighter for a hunter? We’re short a hunter or two, here.
Praying for Allie.
We have a fantastic model train world and museum here in my hometown. We can only go a couple of times a year, but it’s always great.
What I want to know about museums is why homeschoolers lose their usual daytime advantage in a museum. The school field trips completely overwhelm the museum. FWIW, the art museum is a lot less crowded than the nature and science museum. What a shame. I can’t help but think of my beloved Catholic friends when we visit the Spanish art wing.
Sorry. Short night, still drinking coffee.
Anna, I think you’re on your own for hunters. But they are easier to develop in-house than firefighters. Anyone can hunt, ya know?
Almost all the museums I go to are nice and quiet. The school kids only seem to go to the annoying ‘fun’ museums. (That said, sometimes the homeschoolers overwhelm, too.)
And yes, re: religious art. It is very strange to me when I see something made for a church show up in a museum. My instincts get confused.
He played Angry Birds? LOL, that’s so cute! :)
He’s totally Mr. Ipad. Which was awesome for taking videos and pics of the kids and then being able to see them right away.
Jennifer, you’re hilarious! Are you writing a book? I want to read it if you are. Impressive shelving and I’m also envious! I’m trying to downsize our books, however, but a nice shelving unit would certainly improve the organization of my desk area! Nice job! I also love firemen! My uncle is a retired firefighter; firefighters are definitely the good guys! God bless…
Ellen, I’ve got a booklet on classroom behavior management for catechists that is written and in the process of finding a publisher. And then the next project to finish on my to-do list is a book of practical, encouraging support for parents struggling with the decision to homeschool — weeds through the noise and helps parents make realistic decisions. [Whether for school or homeschooling.] I’m on about draft #678 of that one — figuring out what exactly to write is trickier than when it’s just ideas popping around the brain, kwim?
I have donated so many books. It is silly how many books flow through this place. My poor husband is always sure he’s built his last set of shelves . . . no but this time, really, we have to draw the line : – ).
I was trying to research door options for the laundry room and this made me think of your new shelves and “library” ;) http://www.specialtydoors.com/library-ladders/
Ooooh. Yes. That. Nice.