Perspective

As we all have a greater opportunity to look back and think about the experiences we had and the way they have changed us, this spring is speaking to me very powerfully.  Although overall, Iowa did not have a bad winter, there were a few absolutely brutal weeks. The picture I included was one of those days. This is a picture of one of the streets on the way to my shop on a Saturday morning. Yes, in fact the day was as grey as shown, and yes, I was one of the first people on the street.

The interesting thing for me was where the experience took me. As I sat at the top of the hill, I went back to a time I sat in the snowplow with my grandfather, looking at a mile of country rock road, the only visible sign of where the road was being the fence posts on either side. I remember clutching the handle of the door, wondering if we were going to drive off into a ditch, or hit something unseen on the way to the other end. My grandpa, on the other hand, based on his age, time, and perspective, knew exactly what we were doing and what the outcome would be. He had done this dozens of times in his life. His perspective brought him comfort and confidence in a situation he had experienced before.

I don't know about you, but I find I am this way. With more time around a topic, I come to a better level of understanding and knowledge. The last year has been an exercise in this exact thing. As the pandemic descended on us, I found myself in a complete state of panic. Well, maybe panic is too big a word, but let's leave it there. As time has passed and i have more perspective on the situation we have found ourselves in, I am much better with it. I have come to understand the importance of wearing masks, social distancing, and other safeguards I take to help keep my family and friends safe. Yes, I miss going out to dinner and gathering with family/friends, but I have the ability to view these things through the lens regarding the future. I feel as though I have seen improvement in the overall situation, and I have faith I will see more.  This is a much healthier place for me to be.

The other thing I have realized is how often I touched my face.  Who knew?

I hope you are experiencing some of the same things. There is nothing about change that comes without discomfort. I think we have come through the largest part of the change around the world we live in. We have faced a worldwide pandemic and the results have been horrific. At this point we all probably know people the disease has had terrible effects on, or we have lost. But, we are still standing today and for me, I am more confident about the future of the country than I have been in a while.  Heck, I must be. We just finished putting a new roof on the house. This behavior is looking forward without question.

Things at the Toybox continue to move along briskly.  My daughter is keeping a couple of items on my list of projects to complete, and a few weeks ago we had a first at the Toybox. Andrew and Brian, a friend of Andrew's and now a member of my extended family, came to town to work on a project. Over one busy weekend, we completed a maple bedstead for Brian. Plus, we had a GREAT time in the shop and at home. Good food and camaraderie were watchwords for the weekend. I hope we will do it again sometime.

Finally, Sara and Megan did something cool this week. They put their first quilt out on Etsy. I am incredibly prejudiced, but I will put their work up against most others. Their attention to detail is quite good and they both have an eye for color and overall look.  I am including a link to the quilt on Etsy.  I hope you all like it.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/978378910/quilt-for-sale-55-34x-67-handmade

Finally

Good things come to those willing to wait, right? If the last year has emphasized nothing else, this HAS to be part of the message the world is sending us. In the last few months I have closed the chapter on a couple of things I had been working on for a great deal of time. The first was completion and delivery of the Teardrop trailer. I went back through old notes and the first thing I had regarding this project was in January of 2014. I must have just been in the "thinking" process in 2014, but in September of 2016 I bought the plan which was the basis for this project. I also  purchased the trailer kit in the same month, which was step one. So I worked on this for a total of four years. Of course, this was  not continual work. I would work for a while, get to a place where I either did not know how to do something, or I could see it was going to be a pain, and move to something else for a while.

The plan had always been upon completion of the trailer my sister would drive to Iowa and pick it up. As part of the overall process, she even bought a new vehicle more prepared to pull a trailer. The alternate plan was pulling it out there for her behind the pickup. Then came COVID. The two of us talked again and again about who could drive safely, what states had restrictions to entry, and even whether there was a way to meet in the middle and do a hand-off. In August of last year, I decided there must be a different/better way to get this done. To some degree, I think the pandemic made us all more ingenious. I found a company who puts people needing things moved with those willing to do the work. Through this company, Uship, I met Derreck. Initially, all conversation and planning was digital. The date was Sept 14, and the trailer was to be delivered within a couple of weeks. While waiting to get this process started, Derreck had COVID come to his home and he was quarantined for fourteen days. Finally, on November 7th he and his daughter  picked up the trailer. Both were very nice people. The thought that day was to deliver in a few days. Oh, the best laid plans. Somewhere in New York state, Derreck's truck decided to lose it's mind (computer) and they got laid up in a service center for several days. But finally, the trailer was delivered on November 22. It was in perfect shape and Derreck had done great work. Also, my sister was ecstatic to finally have it in her home.

Within a few weeks, the other project came together. When we had been in Kearney, MO, we had purchased a piano for the kids to learn to play. Both learned, just like I did when I was young, and just like me, as they grew older they lost interest in playing. So, the piano moved with us several times, often not being played one time between moves. We had tried over the last three years or so to either sell the piano, or give it away. Neither had worked. If any of you are looking for a new home for an old piano, good luck.

The manner we used to find the piano a good home was really happenstance and listening to conversations. Last year, I installed a set of bookshelves in an adult recovery unit. The manager working told me his training was in music and he hoped at some point to do some type of music therapy. After checking with anyone in my family who might want a piano, I called him back and offered it . They were very excited to get it and on a Saturday in December, brought several guys and we loaded it up. Later in the day I got pictures of people sitting around the piano, obviously singing. It was one of those times you just have to smile.

As I come to the completion of this blog post, it strikes me how often in my life I have taken great periods of time to complete things. The last one I think of is an oak secretary I disassembled when I was still in high school to refinish. Mom had wanted it refinished. I didn't finish it for her. I finally completed it in 2001 and it is in use in my home. Wow, the secretary may be the record, depending on how long it takes me to get Sara's kitchen remodel done. Keep your fingers crossed on this project. 

Have a great weekend. If all goes well, I will have received my first COVID shot by the end of the day Saturday. Take car and be careful.

Close Call

Well, I hadn't really told any of you about this. As a woodworker, I'm a little embarrassed. Back on May 10, I had a close call in the shop. It resulted in nine stitches in a finger, but it could have been a lot worse. Which is why I am calling it a "close call." I do have a finger that looks slightly different than it did before anything happened, but it is still in place and it still functions the way it is suppose to. With a nod to my Industrial Arts teachers, Russ and Bill, I will also tell you I wasn't doing anything identifiable as "WRONG." it was just one of those weird things that happens.

The idea of a "close call" seems to have a really different meaning at the moment, one we have all gotten somewhat used to and one I believe we will get more used to. I'm talking about those who are all around this disease we are all contending with. I've had about three of these so far. This is when someone you know and have been around either comes down with the disease, or is close enough to someone else that they need to be tested. With the move from summer to winter months, I fear these encounters won't decrease in number.

So, what do we do about this? I'll tell you what my behavior is going to be. In the time I have been in distribution/logistics, each time we had a close call, we took the time to look at the situation and decide what could have been done differently. Trust me, I've certainly done that with the situation in my shop. I stopped, and thought about what I could have done differently and what I can do going forward to make sure it doesn't happen again. I just don't like the pain and recovery period associated with any type of injury.

When we think about the corona virus, we have to take it very seriously. Not only is it taking lives, but in talking to friends, family, and co-workers who dealt with the disease personally, there seems to be the possibilities of true lasting consequences. This is really something to be avoided, so take the precautions you see necessary and I would encourage you to analyze any close calls you have, to make sure you can avoid the situation the next time. Hurt fingers heal and get better over time; sometimes lung function does not.

Enough of that. One other thing I wanted to talk about today is logistics around the holidays. I am sure most of you have seen this, but the major freight carriers are predicting an inability to stay caught up with packages over the next two months. The suggestion... ship early! This is one of those things I say to you today, but I'm really saying it out loud so I remind myself. Many of you know, particularly if you are family or a friend, I am horrible at planning ahead. Many times I have finished Christmas shopping on the 23rd or 24th of December. That looks like a bad plan this year, so I will need to plan differently.

I think I had let you know I found someone to take my sister's teardrop trailer to her. While this is true, we are struggling a little bit to get it done. Derek, who agreed to do the hauling, was first hit with a truck going down, then he was hit with COVID in his warehouse and had to shut down for a time. I hope we will see forward movement soon as I would like to get the trailer to my sister. I also have a couple of projects I've committed to this winter and need the space. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Finally, I would like to say think you to those who have found my Etsy store and placed orders. It is nice to know some of the things I make will be in your lives. If there is something you need and you believe it is in my skill set, do not hesitate to reach out. There may well be a possibility there.

Please continue to be careful and safe. I want everyone to be okay when we finally round the corner and find a way to deal with this terrible disease.

Resilience

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how brittle people are right now. I still believe this, but I also think it is important to talk about the flip side as often as we can. To me, the reverse of brittle is resilience. And resilience is what we need in the toughest of times. I may have told the story before, but it bears repeating. 

In the last days at Payless Cashways, we had a tendency to close ranks and work to take care of each other. We knew where we were going, we just didn't know how we were going to get there. In that environment, we were all pretty open about feelings and personal history. One friend talked about a period in his life when he and his family had to live in the haymow on a family farm. It would be very easy to think about how horrible living in a hay mow for any period of time could be. On the contrary, my friend told me how great the experience was. The family had each other, had a place to live and a whole big farm to play on. Sometimes it is just about looking at things the right way.

When I was working to finish college, one summer I had nothing, including a place to live. I ended up living in what would now be called a walk-in closet. There was enough room for a mattress and some space for personal items on the floor. Of course, there was plenty of room to hang things :). I went into the summer thinking I could survive anything, and this was just the next step in the journey. I came out of the summer having had the best time ever. The rest of the people living in the house weren't really people I knew well in the beginning, but we grew to know and appreciate each other. When I moved back to a more traditional living environment, I missed the craziness we had all enjoyed during the summer.

I know I repeat myself, but much of what we are going through right now is best handled with a good positive attitude. If you think about dealing with 2020 and all it has brought, those handling it the best know it will be a good story in a decade or so. Think about the number of stories that will begin with, Remember 2020? This will be our equivalent of those stories we heard when we were kids. You know the ones. About how our grandparents walking four miles to school, through deep snow, uphill both ways. Stories get bigger over time, and although it is hard to imagine, the stories about this year will get bigger as well. Okay, that is all I have to say about 2020 right now.

And now we wait. The teardrop trailer is complete, the transporter has been contacted and accepted the contract to haul it. The little final things are finished, and now we wait. 

I find the experience of completing a large, long-term project to be an interesting one. One I haven't necessarily experienced too often. The feeling that occurs when you are done with something which has taken time and work to complete. As I sit and think about it, it seems a little like finishing a college degree. There is the huge relief of a thing done, and hopefully done well, and at the same time you wonder what will change and how things will be different. Having this project going on in the shop over the last four years has always given me something to think about and something to talk to others about. I actually bought the trailer kit at the beginning of September 2016. This has actually been the length of an average undergraduate degree.

Where to next? When I started on the trailer I actually thought the next thing I would do in the Toybox was to rebuild a small tractor. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I  lost the desire to do mechanical work. I missed the window to learn it from someone I grew up around. I can watch enough on YouTube.

It has been interesting how the world has continued to fill up with woodworking projects for me to complete. There have been several library projects at this point, as well as work for people I know in the community. I have a project scheduled for this winter that will keep me busy for a while, and although I have joked about it, the time has come to get serious about finishing the kitchen cabinets for the house. That project has been on the back burner long enough. Time to get busy on it.

If you have any needs the Toybox might be able to help with, reach out and let me know. Have a great weekend.

Value

Last week, I had a couple of different discussions about the stuff we surround ourselves with to make our lives easier and more enjoyable. Colored by what 2020 has been and continues to be, the conversations really made me think. One person is finishing a house right now and asked if I had advice for preparing for the move. Now, this made me think back. My family and I have made five major moves over the years. This may not really seem big, except we did all of them in a span of less than ten years. We got really good at moving. Anyway, when asked about moving, I said without question the most important thing to do is to sort and get rid of the items you won't need. Don't move items you really won't need. If you move it, that item will stay in your house for time, possibly years, to come. Now, with this simple advice comes some really big caveats.

First, if working with someone else to determine what should and should not be re-purposed, you will find "value" is incredibly subjective. Some items you couldn't even imagine being without are items the other person would throw in a garbage bag and carry to the curb. The same is true the other direction. I can tend to be somewhat overbearing in decision-making situations, and this tends to be one of those (for those of you who've known me for years, quit laughing, it's not funny). There is the potential for hurt feelings and loud voices or screams. I remember working through items in my mother's house with my sister. Before we were done, we were both in tears.

Second, what is the current perspective around things. For those of you who have not watched, the lines at thrift stores and Goodwill have been huge over the past months. With everyone at home more than usual, the current perspective is that now is a good time to eliminate useless items. Other things affecting current perspective are people's age and how they are playing for the long term. I don't want to make my children sort through any more than absolutely necessary when I am no longer here, so I try to deal with it now. The exception, of course, is the shop. Everything there is important and will all be wanted by someone down the line. I guess one or both of my children will have incredibly well set up shops at some time.

The third thing driving the valuation of items is how long you've had them. If something has been in your family/possession for fifty years, it has a greater value than something added to the house today. I know we could have gotten rid of much of the kids take-home work from school if we had done it then. But, load it in totes and move it five times over almost thirty years and it is much harder to get rid of something. We are there on some of the artwork the kids did when they were young. The most interesting thing for me was I remember running into those boxes of schoolwork of mine when we were taking care of mom's house. I hope there was not a gold brick hiding in one of the boxes as I opened them, looked to see what was in the box, and got rid of the whole box.

So, in the midst of all of this thought about things and what is the value, I have found a way to move our piano to someone where it will truly be valued. We bought this piano when we were in Kearney, MO from a traveling piano salesman, a story in and of itself and it worked wonderfully for the kids to take lessons and learn to play. I doubt it has been played in the last ten years. Anyway, the place I did the last library installation has been trying to figure out where to get a piano, and we were more than happy to offer it up. I love it when you can take an item which is not of great value to you anymore and move it to a place, or to people, that will love having it. This is the case here. Yeah, it just makes me smile.

Speaking of things being relocated, the time has finally come for the teardrop to make its way to Maine. This month, I have a transporter  picking it up to deliver it to Jaye and Karen. I am so excited and I hope they just love it. It has been a joy to build, and it will be nice to regain about a quarter of my Toybox. Of course I already have plans for the space. I am also looking for the next big project, so if you have something in mind, it may not be a bad time to reach out to me. I hope you are all having successful weeks, mine has been very good, and I hope the weekend also goes well for you.

Metallurgy

 
We learn many strange little things in a lifetime. One thing I learned when I was in the bolt business was about the manner a piece of steel could be made brittle through repeated bending, or flexing. The easiest example of this is to take a coat hanger and bend it back an forth. The first thing the wire will do is get hot. Then at some point, the wire will break. What has happened is that through the bending, the steel has actually gotten harder, to the point it will no longer bend, at which point it breaks.  This is called work hardening, or strain hardening. Sometimes it is called embrittlement. Many of us have taken advantage of this to break off a piece of wire .

When my grandmother worked at the County Engineer's office, she used to tell me about an extreme example of this effect. It is called metal crystallization and happens when a piece of steel is stressed thousands of times over a long period of time. The molecules in the steel actually line up and if you have a piece of crystallized steel fail, inside it will look more line a rock than it does steel. Grandma used to tell us that almost all of the old "pony truss" bridges in the state were like this and if you took a sledge hammer and hit the rivet in the corner of the bridge where all of the parts came together, it was possible the bridge would fail.

Be clear, I am in no way suggesting attempting such an act.

So, what does this have to do with the world we are living in? I think for many of us, we have been repeatedly stressed by the world we are in. Whether it be COVID-19, or getting our children educated, figuring out work, personal health, and probably fifteen other things I am not thinking of, the world has been bending us back and forth, repeatedly. Based on everything going on, we have been work hardened. And for some of us, we are approaching the point where we could actually break. Some already have broken.

In talking with a group of my colleagues last week, there was discussion around "decision fatigue." I was amazed to find  a definition for this around COVID-19. From Medicalexpress.com,  "The concept of exhaustion and stress after making choices is known as decision fatigue. After months of assessing the risk and benefit of daily choices during the corona-virus crisis, people are tired." I was surprised to find a definition, but it seems pretty accurate. For those I work with, everyone is tired of all of the non-normal decisions needed in 2020. As we all know, there has been little normal about this year.

I also took a little time last week to ask questions of friends who operate call centers. I wanted to know about the length of calls they are experiencing this year. Interestingly enough, both friends say their average call time is up this year over last. I would suspect there are a hundred different ways to explain this, but I am going with the explanation that people need more interpersonal interaction this year as what they normally experience is gone, to some degree or another. Who would have ever thought people would replace the conversations they have with others at work or in the grocery store, with time on a call with a telemarketer. 

What do you think we should do with all of this? It seems to me it is time to take a little better care of ourselves. This could take many different forms. Maybe for some of you it is a long bath. Maybe it is going for a long walk, or a bike ride, or talking to your family members over the phone, Skype, or Face-time. Maybe it is disconnecting from all of the information feeds of the day. Whatever it is, we need to find a way to take one or two of the "bends" life has given us out of our worlds. It is time to make sure we are not stressed and flexed so much we become strain hardened.

In situations like this, I  head toward food. It is the great equalizer of the world for me. I am generally a "meat and potatoes" Iowa boy, but with today's topic it really seems like there is one go-to item.  Yup, you got it. Peanut brittle. Maybe peanut brittle could be the item that helps set some of this aside. Below is a recipe from Sara's side of the family. I know it is typically a Christmas treat, but maybe September needs a little this year.

Thank you all for following my musings. I hope I continue to bring a smile, or something to think about.  Have an awesome weekend.

An Extra Step

I'm not sure how everyone else feels, but I find myself exhausted. Given everything going on with 2020, there are plenty of reasons for this and you probably have one you are partial to. I've thought a lot about this. Everything takes at least one or more extra steps this year. I believe this is related to the pandemic.

Take something as relatively simple as going to the grocery store. In times past (last year) if you needed something you swung in when you were in the area, picked it up and came home. Pretty simple.

Not anymore.

Other things we consider these days: 

• Do I really need this?
• Should I do this as an online order or go in person?
• Will they have the product in stock?
• When should I go to have the least contact with others?
• Will other patrons be wearing masks?
• Where can I shop that they really care about my safety?

These are the thoughts just about shopping for groceries.

Admittedly, some of these were in the back of our minds historically, but have really come to the forefront. Now think about going out to dinner. We probably averaged a couple of times a week prior to March 2020. It was often a last minute decision when nobody wanted to cook. Sometimes we chose to go to to a "drive-through" and bring food home, which we still do, but often we chose to eat at a restaurant. Since March, that option has been a "hard no". The places we frequented for years in the Des Moines area haven't seen us for seven or eight months. And, as I said at the beginning of this, it has added extra steps to everything around this.

With all of this there are trade-offs, just like what happens with almost everything in life. 

Let's take cooking. I'm not sure about you, but when the pandemic started, I thought of myself two ways where cooking was concerned. First, I thought I was okay at it. I could find my way around the kitchen and it had been a few years since I absolutely destroyed anything while cooking. The second thing I thought about my ability to cook regarded what I was willing to try. I had a certain number of things I would cook and could accomplish regularly. That was the sum total of my cooking repertoire. 

Enter 2020 and the pandemic. I would have gotten WAY sick of the things I regularly cooked. You can only have breakfast for dinner so many times. But 2020 forced us to do things differently. We cook more at home, or eat peanut butter sandwiches. One thing I am truly thankful for in all of this is the companies who came to market with recipes and meal ingredients shipped directly to our homes - companies like Home Chef and Blue Apron. We just celebrated four years with Home Chef on August 28th. We skipped a few weeks, but in round numbers, they've shipped over twelve hundred dinner servings into our home. This explains why every time I go to look for a box to use for anything, there are a few Home Chef boxes around the house and at the Toybox. It's helped me to learn to be a better cook and has caused me to stretch my palate as to flavors and items I like. Without question, I will never like the taste of truffles or truffle oil. It tastes like dirt to me. Anyway, with the extra steps required around meals and cooking, I am thankful someone stepped in to help me.

The final thing I need to talk about in the light of adding extra steps has been around the supply chain this year. I have friends in virtually every part of the business world. Anyone who has a physical product needing to be sourced, at one time or another there's been a disruption. One friend waited months for dishwashers and other appliances he used to be able to get in three days. My work has a vendor who has historically been able to provide full loads of product in 3-5 days. Now, their loads dribble in a little at a time over multiple weeks. 

Each of us has to think about the way things work. At the beginning of the pandemic, when toilet paper was almost impossible to get, one thing I thought about was the reality of household and institutional toilet paper being produced in a specific ratio to each other. Suddenly, the institutional side wasn't being hit as hard as residential. I did a little research, and found that I could purchase large institutional rolls with no problem. If we are ever able to visit each other's homes again, don't be surprised by the toilet paper in our bathroom. 

I would also bet that when bacon was hard to find, you'd have gone to a meat distributor, and had no trouble buying a thirty pound purveyor's box of bacon. It would have just taken an extra step or two. 

2020 has been about taking the extra steps, and it has made us all weary, in one way or another.

I hope you find a way to relax and unwind over this long weekend at the end of our summer. Relax and take care of yourself and those close to you. It is the right thing to do.  Take care.