Saturday, 26 May 2012
This morning, Owen and I attended another Lowe’s Build and Grow event. This marks our fifth time this year.
Today, Owen made an ice cream truck. I was a little worried that this would be too easy – back February, he made a racecar, and the car was pretty much just one piece. All the kids had to do was nail on a bumper and the bottom of the car. Way too easy. This ice cream truck was better; Owen had to assemble the four sides of the truck, plus the windshield portion.
We met up with one of Owen’s friends (and her dad) for the event, and that dad pointed out that one of the stickers that the kids were applying on the side of the truck had a Kemp’s Blue Bunny logo on it. He asked if all the other things Owen had made at Lowe’s also had corporate sponsors. I wasn’t sure, but I said I didn’t think so.
When we got home, I checked Owen’s other creations. The castle he made, back in January, had a Lowe’s logo on the door (but we installed the door backwards to purposely hide that. The T. rex and the chalkboard had no logos on them, but the aforementioned racecar had some power tool logo on it. Hm. I guess we could have left off those stickers, but then the project wouldn’t look “done.”
I don’t mind the Lowe’s logo. After all, it’s their event. And having a power tool logo on the side of a racecar and a Kemp’s logo on the side of an ice cream truck seem fitting, too. But, as my friend also noted, the next couple of Build and Grow projects are heavily endorsing Dreamworks. Specifically, the new movie Madagascar 3. The kids will be making an airplane and some sort of SUV – both of which apparently appear in the upcoming movie.
So…yeah…I probably won’t bring Owen to those.
Also, my wife recently updated the kids’ blog. Go here to read the latest.
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Today, before getting into the shower, I had to open up my medicine cabinet and pull out my bottle of shampoo. The bottle of shampoo has been sitting in there since the day we move in.
“Whoa!” you say, “You moved in, like, 8 months ago, right? Don’t you wash your hair more often than that?”
“Yes,” I say, “I do wash my hair everyday. And we’ve lived in this home for 8 and a half months, to be precise.”
Here’s the story:
The morning after our first night in our new home, I stepped into the shower. The prior owner had left a shampoo dispenser installed on the shower wall. It had mildew on it. I had every intention of removing it and throwing it away, but there was shampoo inside it. My wife thought it was gross, but I didn’t see anythign wrong with the shampoo itself, encased, as it was, in a sealed plastic dispenser. So I began using that.
In fact, I used it nearly every day for the next six months. The only times I didn’t use it were the time Jennifer and I took a trip to Atlanta, and the time I went out to Wisconsin for a business trip. I also didn’t use it the one morning our hot water heater wasn’t working. Instead, I drove to work and showered there.
So, about two months ago, the dispenser was finally empty. That same day I removed the dispenser from the wall, scraped off all the mildew, and plugged the screw holes with caulk.
For the last two months, I’ve been using these two small bottles of shampoo that I obsconded from the hotels I stayed at during those two trips. The last bottle finally ran out today. So, it’s back to the trusty old bottle of shampoo.
I’m going out of town in about four weeks. I hope to score new shampoo then. In the meantime, I hope my bottle of Trader Joe’s shampoo holds out. I’d hate to have to break down and buy something as superfluous as shampoo.