The Home Depot Store?

Apparently, Toys-R-Us has an entire section of the store dedicated to Home Depot toy tools. I guess Lowe's thought this was just a bit too childish for them. Ha ha.

I discovered this when I went to Toys-R-Us looking for a toy chainsaw. I was inspired by a comment to one of my recent blogs to dress up my son as a lumberjack for Halloween. They had TWO toy chainsaws; small and deluxe. They have rubber chains that move and of course, they make chainsaw noises. I even got one of those hats with the flaps on the sides. Spiff.

I'm A Lumberjack And I'm OK

Well, I hadn't intended it to be a costume, but I think he looked like a lumberjack that day...

Girl and Lamb

I was digging around a closet and found some of my old artwork. I don't know what year I did this one, but it was definitely before I was married (Peace is my maiden name). Click the image to see it fullsize.

Adventures in Jewelry

I have a hobby (addiction) to beading and amateur jewelry making. Recently I have made this formal set of sterling silver and sleeping beauty turquoise. This variety of the semi-precious gemstone contains little to no impurities, which gives it a clear, solid color and translucent "glowing" quality.

I purchased the chain, earwires, cabochons, cinch mounts, and bail from Fire Mountain, an online/catalog company that has literally thousands and thousands of components. Half the fun is in creating a design from the many individual pieces. The technical fun involved with this set was to mount the cabochons, cinch the settings, then attach them to the bail and earwires via loop enclosures. No soldering or gluing needed, just a bit of care and dexterity, and a bit of experience in opening/closing loops without distorting the circular shape or fatiguing the metal (I've been doing this for about 9 years or so).

This particular chain, made in Italy, is called an "Omega" chain; the links are connected in such a way as to give the illusion of one solid piece of metal.

Meet the (Great Grand) Parents

A few months back, I had a conversation much like the following:

Jen: (answers phone) Hello?
Mom: Hi honey!
Jen: Oh! Hi Mom, how are you doing?
Mom: Great! How is my favorite daughter and grandson doing?
Jen: Pretty good. What's up?
Mom: Well, I have a request to make.
Jen: (getting suspicious) Oooooo-kay, what is it?
Mom: Your Father and I would like to know if we could take Adrian for a week -
Jen: YES!!!
Mom: - to Ohio -
Jen: YES!!!
Mom: - to see -
Jen: YES!!!
Mom: - his great-grandparents?
Jen: YES!!! When are you coming to pick him up? I can have him ready in an hour!

So Adrian got to travel far and wide to meet his Great Grandparents in Elyria, Ohio. Isn't that nice?

And I Did It ALL By Myself

I made this play area for Adrian using these interlocking foam mats from Lowe's and a toy storage bin from Target. I custom cut a few of the mats here and there to fit it into this unique space, which previously had just been a pile of unused stuff and trash (which is now at the local thrift store and dump, respectively).

I got the idea from my friends the Sharpes, who had made a similar play area for their two adorable girls. It was low cost and makes great use of this odd space in our home.

Yeah, Why Not?

OK, so not every post has to be comic genius. Not that any posts yet have been comic genius, or even comic mediocrity, but that is neither here nor there.

Why not make a further display of said mediocrity with a vague attempt at poetry? I figure I have nothing to lose at this point.

My apologies to the Title Fanatics out there. It has none. Here is an arbitrary marker to show you where to start:

****************************************

I offered it gifts both exquisite and dear,
I praised and adored it, not a moment passed
That I did not attend it; yet it did not remain.

I caged it, I kept it, I begged it to stay,
With every bold action my loss was assured
By a blind adherence; I was stranded once more.

In angry rebellion I shed expectations,
Ran jilted and jaded, careless and foolish;
They should have been warned that I had no heart.

And then… By fortune? I chanced upon it
Where it quietly waited, patiently hoping,
Neither bound nor bribed, to endure.

By Jennifer Lynn Vanderputten
Over the course of some years
And finally left to be itself
On October 14, 2004

How To Take A Shower

Step #1: Take off clothing and throw it in one of the following places, whichever is closest:

a. On top of a nearby piece of furniture

b. On the corner of the nice huge champagne tub that is never used (except as a hamper)

The exception to this rule of proximity is to throw the clothing (with best attempt at aiming) into the laundry hamper inside the closet from across the room. Do not worry about missing the hamper (or even the closet for that matter). Instead, wait for the pile to reach epic proportions then kick it down the hallway to the laundry room, at which point let it sit for a week before laundering.

Step #2: Turn water on and wait for it to get warm. Forget to close the shower door while doing this, resulting in a localized flash flood.

Step #3: Get into the shower and realize that you forgot to get a new bottle of soap out from under the sink. At this point you have one of two options:

a. Make a mad dash between shower and sink to obtain the fresh soap; if electing this course of action, make sure to leave the old empty soap bottle in the shower for weeks until someone (else) gets so sick of it that they finally throw it away.

b. Scream at the top of your lungs for your spouse. Promptly ask them to retrieve said soap replacement for you. And while they are at it, make them throw away all the empty bottles of stuff left in the shower from previous implementations of step 3(a).

Step #4: While showering, use spouse's razor to shave parts of the body that resemble the overgrown areas of South America's rain forests. Do not rinse the blades thoroughly. This is in consideration of your spouse, who might never have known that the razor was used by someone else unless they find great gobs of thick hair entwined in the blades.

Step #5: Once finished, realize that you forgot to get a new towel yet threw the other one into one of the locations mentioned in step 1. You have one of two options at this point:

a. Make a mad dash from the shower to the hallway linen closet. Exposure to open windows while sopping wet and completely naked can be considered a bonus. Do not, repeat, do NOT clean up the water puddles left behind.

b. Scream at the top of your lungs for your spouse. Promptly ask them to acquire a fresh towel for you. This step can be strategically used to annoy said spouse by acquiring the last fresh towel for yourself BEFORE they have taken their shower.

A Fresh Approach to Rabid Ranting

The fact that I have not updated my blog in, oh, about a month, is mighty embarassing. So, I thought to myself, "Self!" I said, "You ought to take a different approach to this blogging thing.". Of course, I wondered what I was trying to tell myself.

Then I had an epiphany. Or an error in judgment, it will remain to be seen. When I responded to an email that my Father sent concerning the differences in the way men and women go about the daily ritual of showering, I was inspired to write my own account of showering mayhem in my household.

Apparently, it was funny. I have been told that I should "write a book", but that takes too much effort. Not to mention the fact that I don't believe this to be good advice, necessarily. I think I'll blog my (alleged) funnies instead.

You have been warned. I will do my best to keep them as clean as possible, and I can't promise to offend nobody, because there is always some lame moron out there with nothing better to do than be offended. 'Nuff said!