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My oldest son and I are working on a fun little garage project together.

As you know, I take my daughter out a lot, to shoot photography. We have that to share. My oldest son and I haven’t been doing something like that. So, I decided that we’d undertake a project together. It has been fun.

This project will be a framed chalkboard. My wife has wanted something like this, to hang on the wall.

We took a long piece of red oak and cut it down into four smaller lengths, to eventually become the frame. Next, I got to use my Dremel tool, with a little plunge router attachment, to route down a recessed groove along the back of each oak piece. I then used my chop saw to cut the ends to 45 degree angles.

Once they were ready, I glued and nailed them together, to form the frame. Once the glue was dry, I wiped it down with a nice oil/orange combo.

The chalkboard is made from an extra piece of plywood I had laying around. I had to fill it in with a lot of putty, as plywood isn’t the best for finish work. Since I was eventually going to paint it, I knew that the putty would be fine. The puttying took three applications, interspersed with sanding. This step was perfect for my son to help me. He was able to do some puttying, and I had him do most of the early sanding. I just made him a nice sanding block, by stapling some sanding paper to a small 2×4 block. The final sanding I did with my power sander, and some much finer sandpaper.

This is where the project is now. We painted the first coat of chalkboard paint on the plywood. This afternoon it is drying. This evening, we may be able to paint another coat. My son will do that one. On Saturday, we’ll possibly sand the two coats, and paint another one or two. My goal is to have at least 4 coats of the chalkboard paint, before the final assembly.

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I’m just chillin’, watching Disney’s Enchanted with The Wookiee, and The Padawan keeps jumping up and down on the toy box.

I hollered at him a couple of times, “Stop doing that. It’s loud, and you could hurt your little brother.” You see, The Joker was playing right next to the toy box.

Moments later, I hear nothing but a sucking wind. You know the sound? It’s the sound of a one year old, hurt so much that he can’t cry. He’s trying to suck in enough air, so that he can let out the most horrible cry of his life. Yes, The Padawan had jumped again, and crushed The Joker’s little right hand under the lid of the toy box. I was angry, but I didn’t have the time to punish him. The Joker was in a lot of pain. The lid had come down on his little hand, right where his fingers join his hand. There was a nice dark red line across his knuckles and a purple spot on his ring finger. Poor baby.

As I tried hard to get control of the situation, many things raced through my mind. First, Deanna was off with The Princess in the family car, with the car seats. Ah! There was no way I was going to drive my three boys to the hospital, not in car seats. Luckily, we live 3 blocks from the hospital. I called Deanna as we prepared to leave.

I scooped up the boys and we raced out the door, walking/running to the ER. As we entered the parking lot, the screaming stopped. I looked down and also saw that The Joker was actually grasping his blanket with his injured hand.

I gave him a little assessment, and he did not wince or cry when I touched his injured area. Hmmm. So I called Deanna to see where she was. She was driving into the parking lot. Once she found us, she also checked out his hand, and agreed. The Joker would survive.

We drove home.

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You know, our local library opened its doors in a brand new facility this past year. Actually I think it opened several months ago. Anyway, we hadn’t taken the opportunity to go check it out and though we should.

Since we homeschool, using the local library really should be an important tool for the kids to learn and understand. Also, it’s only 3 blocks from our house. I know, I know, how easy could it be?

We decided yesterday that we would walk the whole family over there and check it out. So that’s just what we did. It’s safe because we don’t have to walk along any major street or cross any either. We put the Joker in his stroller and the other three walked just fine. Enjoy a few photos from the trip…

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