Thursday, July 14, 2011

The Little Things.....

Today I was having a bit of a tidy in our bedroom, going thru some of our boxes we shipped over from the states, seeing what we had in them. (I was actually looking for my cake decorating set which I haven't found yet.......)...but in looking thru the boxes- I came across one of the little golf-tee puzzles from Cracker barrel. I cleaned it up and have sat here for the past hour playing with it- (WITHOUT looking up the cheat-looking up cheats are no flipping fun at ALL)- and thoroughly enjoyed myself, just as much as I did the hour I spent playing the computer game MINECRAFT before I went up to tidy the bedroom.
That got me thinking and I remembered when my kids were little and I was recently divorced, working part time on weekends and struggling to make ends meet. The carpenters shop at work always had a half barrel of odd pieces of blocks and bits of wood left over from their projects at the end of the week. Very small pieces of them- like children's blocks you buy at the store and paid a LOT of money for. (This was back in the 80's, mind you).
One day, I found one of the carpenters working late and so I asked him if they used the leftover wood pieces in the barrel. He said no- they were just leftover scraps good for nothing, so I asked if I could grab a few of the "scraps" they had in the barrel. He said "Sure, feel free to take what-ever's in the barrel."... and when I came back by on my way back to the guard house, he asked me out of curiosity what I was planning on doing with them. I told him I had three small kids- two boys and a little tomboy girl, and I was wanting the blocks for them to use as building blocks since they loved the set my dad had gotten them for the previous Christmas, but they were WAYYYY too expensive for my budget at the moment. He laughed and said he certainly understood that and to help myself to whatever I wanted.
Every weekend I worked after that, there was a couple dozen or so bits of the blocks in a bag in the barrel. Not only was it the blocks...but they were sanded down a bit as well. My kids thought they were awesome and had the best time building huge cities with them the next few years.
God Bless Angels on Earth.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I always saved scraps in my shop to use when making miniature cabins looking for just the right sized piece for whatever was on my mind. that was therapy for me.

Jazmine Melissa said...

Just for the record....I LOVE those little golf-tee games. I didn't go to Cracker Barrel much, but I have that game and it is so much fun to play!

It makes me feel smart =P

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