Julie’s Journal

The first Saturday of every month is Kid’s Workshop at Home Depot and is always the first thing to go on the calendar that hangs on our fridge each month. Sam and Savannah have been going just about every month since the Home Depot store opened in Jackson. If you have kids and you’ve never taken advantage of the FREE fun activity…you should. It’s become a great daddy/daughter activity in our family. Max is waiting for the day when he is old enough to go. Needless to say, we have a lot of little wooden handmade (but sometimes not very well made projects around our house. Some have gotten painted with cool patterns and designs, some have become gifts for grandparents, some have been used till they have fallen apart and still others just sit in cupboards or on shelves reminding us of the fun times Sam and Savannah have spent together on those Saturday mornings. Sam even bought Savannah a little tool belt which holds her hammer, saftey goggles and a tape measure and she wears it every time they go, along with her apron which is now adorned by 15 project pins, one for each thing she has made. Today Savannah made a letter sorter and her daddy took her to Roxy’s Cafe for breakfast. I am sure when she is older she will have fond memories of her special Saturdays with Daddy.

For this topic, I had to draw a child asking for donations for the tsunami victims for two reasons. First, I am impressed with the number of children who want to help. Even though they may be small, they believe they can make a difference. It is great to see everyone coming together to help in such a terrible situation…Second, I actually had an 8 year old come up to me at school and ask me to donate money…no envelope, no note from parents, just “give some money for the Asian people”…I have to admit I didn’t jump at this opportunity and it raised a question in my mind that sadly, I am sure, some people take advantage of situations like this and ask for money and keep it for themselves. I don’t know what her intention was, I am sure I could have investigated it further if I wanted. And maybe she really was taking donations to give to the cause, but I didn’t feel comfortable giving her money so I didn’t. I would like to encourage you to make a donation to the many well-trusted organizations that are collecting money for the relief efforts. What a great way to show a hurting world some love.

Our Alley Bathroom and some of the cool details so far. Yes those are fake bullet hole decals applied to our sink and toilet. We had to rough them up a bit…they looked too new for the environment we were creating.



Sam created this toilet paper roll holder out of a pipe and fittings and a chain. Pretty ingenious of him, huh? He also attached a tin can to the wall, which holds our chalk supply.



Yes the door and trim around the door are coated in black chalkboard paint.



A Durocher essential decor piece adorns the faux brick walls.



One of those things you have sitting around for years that you don’t really know where it came from or why you have it, or even what ever possessed someone to make it, but it finally found it’s home in our Alley bathroom where it fits perfectly.

Hope you enjoyed it. It’s not done. More to come later!

Today we received a handcarved wooden star ornament from Indonesia. My sister-in-law and her husband are missionaries there. It is really cool. I’ll have to find out if it has a story behind it. Anyway Savannah was admiring it with me and then I got busy getting dinner ready. I walked back into the room, and there she was…the star ornament sitting next to a piece of paper that she had found to draw on…clever as she is, I am sure she traced it first, but then continued by trying to add each detail of that carved ornament. How awesome! That amazed me.

I was checking out some sites that I frequent and saw something that amazed me. This photo was taken of a bookstore in San Francisco where an artist named Chris Cobb arranged every one of the 20,000 books in that store by color. It is breathtaking. I love the quote from him that Andrea included in her blog. It amazes me when beauty and the potential for it can be found in something that people pass by everyday, oblivious to it.

My evening tonight was spent with the kids, and while they were entertaining themselves with dressing up like princesses (Savannah had a friend over) and playing “Head Game” (a.k.a. Mr. Mouth) I grabbed a few minutes to make up some Golden Tickets which will be Savannah’s invitations to her Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory birthday party.



The labels on the candy bar will look better when they get printed in color tomorrow…and I kind of didn’t want to ruin the surprise for when we hand them out later, but oh well, only a couple of people on the invite list will probably read this before then, so I guess it’s no big deal. This is going to be a really fun party. I love to plan theme birthday parties! Especially the creative ones…not just Barbie or Dora or something commercial. I can’t believe she is going to be 5 already!

Now, I am going to spend the next 20 minutes cleaning up around the house and getting ready for tomorrow. We (all the teachers and the students too, I am sure) are all hoping for a snow day or at least a two-hour delay tomorrow as we are expecting a bunch of snow overnight. By tomorrow night we could have up to 11 inches! But most of it is expected after we would be at school and our school district rarely cancels school…so maybe I am getting my hopes up for nothing.