Peek into the past

For the past few weeks, I've been working on cleaning out out office/store room. Today was another day of sorting and organizing. But I found something truly amazing. 

A box of letters that my grandfather wrote to my grandmother while they were dating. 

I never knew my grandmother, Bonnie, and my grandfather, Richard, died when I was young. My dad loved his parents, I know that, but he never has much to say about them. He always describes Richard as gruff and unsentimental. 

But these letters are poetry. 

"I'll be so glad when we're married and won't have to leave one another, ever. It seems so hard to be apart and waiting and thinking of that time, but I'm sure it will be worth it sweetheart. I'll wait for you if necessary just to marry you, honey."

And he wrote it all in gorgeous handwriting!

Honestly, I loved reading through these letters. They gave me a glimpse at my grandparents in a way I've never seen them. I'm not even sure if my dad has read them, but this Richard is a different Richard than my dad ever knew. 

There were other things in the box too: graduation invitations, a small tin of aspirin, and my grandfathers draft letter for World War 2. 

I am so amazed. 

College prep!

This is my favorite day of the year. 

SCHOOL SUPPLIES!

I get seriously excited about school supplies. As my brother says, "you have problems". It's fine, I accept that.

  

So today I got to load up on awesome school supplies, which include matching notebooks, folders, post it's, and hi liters for each class! So good. :)

And just to make it real, I ate cereal out of a cup, like a real college student. I'm so ready. 

Kids Club

I'm back! This past week, I was in Waukee with a group from my church, which included Becky, Tyler, Grant, Sam, Sara, Jacob, Molly, D, and Jill. We were putting on a Kids Club with the Waukee Community Church, and it was an amazing experience.

On Saturday and Sunday, we did some canvassing around the park where we held the Kids Club. We went door to door and explained when and where the Kids Club was and invited people to join us. I honestly don't know if anyone we gave flyers to decided to come, but it was a great learning experience either way. It's nerve-wracking to approach someone's door like that, especially if they aren't very excited about you being there.

During the mornings of the rest of the week, we did a variety of service projects around Waukee, including mowing, landscaping, cutting down vicious trees, hanging up a downspout, and washing windows. Again, those aren't the most fun jobs in the world, but I really enjoyed it! It's awesome to be a blessing in someone else's life.

In our free time, we found plenty of things to do to keep entertained. We went thrift shopping at Goodwill, played 18 holes of mini-golf, went swimming, spent way too much money at the dollar store, and played about 900 games of Egyptian Rat Slap. I still have broken fingernails from that game.

The actual Kids Club was Sunday through Thursday nights, from 6:30-8. We had around 30 kids every night, along with 5-10 extra helpers from the church. We sang songs, put on skits, played games, listened to a lesson, and did crafts. I actually think my favorite part was before and after the Kids Club when we just got to hang out and play with the kids on the playground equipment. 

God was so good to us this week. He blessed us with a wonderful place to stay, awesome church members who fed us every night, cool weather, no rain, and tons of energy to keep up with the kids. I feel so lucky to have been a part of this group and a part of this Kids Club!

Patio pallets #2

This weekend, the temperature is only supposed to be in the 70's, a happy improvement from the upper 90's we've been experiencing.

My mom and I took advantage of this and continued the pallet project we've been working on. If you remember the last time I posted about this, it looked a little like this. 

Happily, it looks much better now! First, we put the pallets in a good pattern where we wanted to patio to be. But there were big gaps in the pallets, which made them pretty unsturdy. We used the boards from the extra pallets and made "filler" boards.

We used this fantastic table saw from the 1930's, I'm pretty sure. No modern safety guards? No problem. We just went for it.

When we put the boards in their spots, some were too long, so I used the circular saw (my favorite of all the saws) to cut them to length. Then we simply lined up the boards, used the nail gun to stick them in place, and whalah!

Next, my mom is going to sand and stain all the pallets so they look cohesive. I think it's coming together nicely!

On a side note, I'm going on a missions trip this week, so I'm going to take a blogging break. I want to be where I am, not worried about what to blog about, or what to put on facebook, or who to text back. See you in a week!

Cables and boxes: fixed!

Welcome to Day #2 of my organizational frenzy!

I did a few things today, including sorting books, vaccuming, and most notably, organizing the cables, cords, and manuals from the various electronics we've accumulated over the years.

Let's just say, my dad is a "we MIGHT need this some day!" type of guy. Which explains every box of every computer, printer, camera, phone, etc of everything we've ever owned. Taking up space, just in case. 

Gosh, what a mess. WELL, I decided to organize and condense in a way that I could go back and find the manual for my laptop, for instance. 

We had two rolling plastic storage carts in the office already that had extra paper, old toys, some random cables, and other things collected over time. I just emptied them out and put them to good use!

Each drawer is grouped by type, as best as I could. I labeled what was in each drawer for easy searching. Granted, they aren't very pretty or decorative like some other bloggers would do, but it's an improvement. I don't think this storage will be permanent either. I just need a way to get everything out of the room so we can paint!

Inside the drawers, the items are grouped into plastic baggies, or in some cases, the boxes they came in. It makes it easy to grab all the information on my mom's Toshiba at once; the manual, warranty, installation disks, etc. 

I filled up two rolling carts and I THINK I got all of it! I'm pretty pleased.

Office makeover

I really enjoy organizing things. And lately, I've gotten the organization bug. 

Luckily for me, there's a room full of crap just waiting to be organized!!

The office. Or as it's better known, the slanty room, the crap room, the place to throw everything that doesn't have an otherwise specified home room. 

Now that my dad moved into a different office, my mom wants to make it her office/scrapbooking room. 

After two-ish hours of cleaning, this is what it looks like now. 

Slight improvement! 

It's definitely going to take some time, so I'll keep you updated. 

VBS babysitting

Now, I'm cheating a little today. I've been babysitting for the Vacation Bible School going on at my church all week. I'm supposed to be watching the kids who are too young to go to the actual VBS, so, younger than three. 

I only have one little girl, E. 

Back to me cheating: yes, I've been doing this all week. BUT today is the first day I've really enjoyed it. 

I really do love working with kids. That's why I started babysitting, working at the school, working at a daycare, nannying, etc etc. 

Honestly though, I forget. Sometimes it seeks more like a chore, or a hassle, or a burden to be with kids as much as I am. 

And then I get a night like tonight when I just get to enjoy being with kids. I am so blessed.