Their ears are ringing.

So Fred has been saving his Christmas money that he gets from his mom for a few years now. he has been wanting to purchase himself a toy. Not a real toy. A man toy. A handgun. Well this was the year. He had enough money. We live in a state with very liberal gun laws and he actually has a little time to spend on a hobby. He also has two sons who think that shooting is COOL!

He bought himself a cool handgun and took himself to an indoor gun range two weeks ago. He decided today that he could take the boys and go to an outdoor range. They took a couple of rifles that belonged to Fred's dad and shot them for the first time in many many years. The boys each took a turn or two and although their excursion was short I think they had a good time. They did decide that beefier ear protection would be necessary in the future. So tonight, I think that each of them would say that their ears are ringing just a bit.

On a personal note. I knew very soon after I met Fred that he had experience with shooting, hunting etc. It was never anything that I was interested in and while we were moving around the mid-west, growing our family and working hard he only spoke of this topic occasionally. Now that we have older boys who love to play army/shooting games with their dad. We are a bit more settled and we live in TEXAS! (Where the right to carry a weapon is acceptable in most all situations.) He had been talking about it much more frequently. We have guns in our home but haven't had ammo for said guns until quite recently. I have generally considered them more memorabilia and collectibles than useful tools or even a hobby. Fred bought this gun with his own gift money, taking nothing away from the family to do so. He deserves this hobby and I am actually a bit excited that he has something new to be excited about. He was so pleasantly surprised when he went to the gun club a few weeks back at how well he shot. He was like a kindergartner showing off his target to me! We could have hung it on the fridge if it were smaller.

I have had a hobby or two for as long as I can remember. I always had something to keep me busy on a rainy Saturday or a frozen weekend. The desire I have to create somehow now rivals his desire to shoot out. He has been faced with deciding the "value" of investing time and money into his hobby and thankfully has decided that his leisure warrants the investment. For that I am grateful. He deserves it and so much more.

Will I be running to the range with him in the near future? Probably not. But I will support his desire to get out and blow off some steam and perfect a skill and I may even join him sometime, just to take a photo or two to make into a scrapbook layout of course!

Back to work....

Well, just a few weeks ago I posted about how thankful I was that I had been given a choice about working or not when my kids were growing up. Well, at the time I chose to stay home for the most part and now financially contribute to the family beyond spending Fred's hard earned $$$$$$. When we moved to Iowa an opportunity to work at the school near the boys was offered and we needed the money to help us while we owned two homes. I worked full-time but kid-friendly hours and no one suffered too terribly much. (Maybe you shouldn't ask my kids about the suffering because they still recount that as an awful time in their lives.)

Well, moving to TX I chose to not work which worked out well since rebuilding my house and my household's stuff was practically a full-time job last year. Spring '09 I signed up to sub at the elementary school where the kids attend and worked just a few days. This past fall I subbed even more but still not too much and I guess that I did well enough because now I am subbing full-time for the next 6 weeks in the school office. It is VERY different than subbing in a classroom but I have a feeling that it will NEVER be the same day twice.

I am pretty pumped about working but am less than enthused about being at work at 7:15AM daily. I realize that many people do this daily and even earlier than that but Ugh! that was tough this morning. Will and Nic may pay a bit of a price and need to rise earlier too but they are old enough to understand the responsibility of the job and that me working will provide them with some benefits as well. Hopefully a win win for everyone in the family.

Well, I had my first day of many today and am happy that it happened mid-week. I have three days of work this week to get geared up for a full week next week, another full week and then SPRING BREAK! I may be around there until mid-April so that will be a stimulating way to start my spring! Guess I'll have to limit my spring cleaning to just evenings and weekends! (insert snide comments here..... If you know me you probably wouldn't believe that I spring clean!)

The staff at school all seem to happy to have me around to help. I get to see Will a few times a day and hopefully we'll even get to have lunch together on occasion. I have often thought that being a school secretary would be a great job within education so this will be a good taste of it with an early summer vacation. The sad part of the job though is that I will not be subbing with my kindergarten friends any time soon. Since I have accepted the longer-term spot I have gotten two requests and had to turn them down. I LOVE my kiderfriends and I hope that they won't forget Mrs. Bakery and how much I love hanging out with them!

Snow... do I miss it?

Texas snow on Christmas Eve 2009

As my friends out east struggle with feet of snow and my friends in Iowa are digging out of the drifts. My family in Indiana are also enjoying the "white stuff." We here in Texas are being told we might get an inch or two tonight. My boys are counting on a snow day tomorrow. They are desperate for the white stuff! We have seen more than usual here in TX this winter but still nothing near what we have averaged over the last 10 years or so.

Possible view of the backyard in MI or IA. Really a random pic from Flikr

So, I ask myself.... Do I miss having a real winter with snow pants, boots, scarves for everyone and an accessory dryer rigged by the fireplace? I think that the answer is a very honest NO!

I have never been a fan of extreme weather, which I do have to deal with here in the summer, but the two winters in Iowa and the six winters in Michigan were harsh. I do not miss that. I enjoy the milder temps, the grass, even though it's dead under my feet, and the occasionally sunny day tossed in for good measure.

Possible Texas summer temp.

So for my friends and family dealing with the blizzards of 2009-2010 I wish you luck and I admire your fortitude. As for me, I will enjoy the dead grass and will welcome a late start if Mother Nature decides that my kids deserve that.

Homework homework homework

All I can say is that if it is this hard now.... what do I have to look forward to? Not much!

So both boys have MAJOR projects due this week. Nic's is actually two projects about The Bull of Minos or Minotaur. Will is studying Blind Lemon Jefferson who is a historic African American Texan who was big in Jazz music in the 1920's. We divided and conquered as parents this weekend, each tagging along with a boy and encouraging them to focus, stay focus and make progress. This is not an easy task for either of us but it was made slightly easier because of the knowledge that we were both doing it. Not like I was off scrapbooking or he was off.... sleeping. (just considering possible hobbies attributed to each of us)

We gathered the boys up around 11 on Saturday and made a plan for the day. It started with a break, showers, food and prep work. Then Will got busy researching and writing and Nic did some work on the computer and made a shopping list. A little later he and I headed out to the dollar store in hopes of finding a $1 male Barbie-type doll. No luck so we headed to Target and found Beach Ken for just $5.94! We also grabbed a t-shirt for Will for Valentine's Day and a couple of hot dogs from the snack-bar.

With Ken in hand and a plan we headed to JoAnn's to look for some furry fabric. Minotaur is half man and half bull so we were going to make him hairy all over. We came up with some fabric and bought as little as we could before making one more stop. Nic and Will both needed new tennis shoes so we ran into the Sports Authority and satisfied one of their needs.

We headed home optimistic and Nic got straight to work. We pulled out some Crayola Model Magic left over from an earlier school project and set out to turn Ken into Minotaur. Well we hit a road-block when we realized that the Model Magic was not a good consistency after being stored and we needed more, fresher medium to work with. We hopped back in the car and headed to Hobby Lobby but not until I printed a couple of coupons, and picked up some brown Model Magic and some sculpting tools. Checking our separately we each saved 40% and spent a little more than $5 to complete the project. Whahoo!

We as a family, spent the rest of the night tweaking our dear Minotaur. Fred printed pictured of bull profiles, I tried to mirror a horn that Nic sculpted then we baked them to harden them. Nic worked on embedding red beads as his eyes and I found a shoe box large enough to accommodate the Bull of Minos Action Figure for safe transport to school. It was a learning experience for all of us and Nic led us through it all with his vision and our support. Good stuff.

Blind Lemon Jefferson was a name never mentioned in this house before. Will had actually chosen another famous AA Texan but had come to a standstill when it was time to draw a picture of the cowboy he had chosen. It seems that my son does not feel that he excels in drawing of cowboys and horses and cattle. I can see the hesitation. The particular historic figure he had chosen wasn't too stimulating a character either. We reassessed how far he was into the project and opted for a new famous Texan to research and share information about.

Who knew that You Tube had recordings of "See That My Grave is Kept Clean" circa 1926?! They do. Will took a listen and was amazed that this guy was considered a pioneer in the Jazz Music scene in Dallas. He wasn't too fond of the songs but the story was intriguing enough so we stuck with it. Will and Fred worked throughout the day writing sentences, designing a movie poster and talking about how to draw a guitar, musical notes and records. Of course Fred had to first explain what a record was.

Among all of that accomplishment Will and Fred also managed to get Will's hair cut and have lunch at one of Will's FAVORITE restaurants since moving to Texas, Dickey's. A little pulled pork sandwich would be good for the project manager and the student!

Well, all in all I'd say we worked really well as a team. Both boys did pretty good getting their projects to a good point considering the time they had spent on them. Will's movie poster is due in Friday and got a little more attention before the BIG game yesterday. He still needs to draw the guitar, musical notes and records but he has his title completed and the informative sentences written.

Minotaur is complete with loin cloth and a sword accessory. Nic spent some time tonight on the product launch presentation that will accompany his action figure and nixed my idea of developing some type of packaging. The shoe box will remain utilitarian for transport and will not market the contents inside. I suppose he may not want to advertise its contents to every student in the hall. Minotaur action figures could be hot items at Middle School.

Once all projects are complete I will post pictures. For now... Have a little to a great jazz musician and try to picture Ken as "Minotaur Man!"