Today my Dad turns 80 years old. 80! Have a wonderfully happy birthday, Dad!
Growing up, I remember that my dad was always making or fixing things. He made my super-cool bunk bed, a china divider for our living room, put up the brick tile in the kitchen, built a shed for the pump at the church – the list goes on and on. He is a mechanic, a tinkerer, a handy man, and an inventor. Thanks, Dad, for showing us that if something was put together, it should be able to be taken apart (and hopefully put back together correctly).
Today I did a job at school that was on the fun end of things. My own classroom easel is a thing I built, but what I love most about it is the surface is metal. The children can use magnet to hold up their paper, and when it get spattered with paint over the year, it is like a piece of art. (Then it cleans up like a dream for the new school year.) Our school-age coordinator has a tall easel that has a cork backing. She has covered it with plastic and uses pins, but when someone donated an identical easel for the other school-age care room, I told her I’d cover them both with sheet metal.
Here’s the one in the Kindergarten/1st-grade (before-and-after-school) room:
No metal:
Ta-da! I did the other easel, too (banner photo), and only sliced my fingers twice! Dang it. I’m not as careful as my Dad would be. 🙂
Kristi says
THAT is a cool idea. What would happen if I did my entire wall like that?
Happy Birthday, Lauren’s Dad!
Brad says
You definitely inherited his gene for handy-ness. I like what the Internet sometimes calls people like you and him: makers.