table saw news

As you will remember from announcements on various national news outlets, my table saw motor burned up. That is really no big deal, unless you want to cut something with the table saw. It is hard reach under the table to keep spinning the blade AND push the board through.
So I looked into rewinding the motor (not done any more), getting a new motor (cheaper to buy a new saw), buying a new saw (mostly poor quality unless it comes as part of a sawmill) or buying someone else's piece of junk. I rapidly narrowed it down to the junk option because one of the guys I play gof with had three sitting in his shop and he didn't use any of them. Even better, one was wired for 220 which was especially appealing because I don't have 220.
So Matt and I wired up the tailgate on the truck and went to pick it up. We carried the saw to the truck (I say we because Matt is going to read this, but actually he didn't lift much at all, it was mainly me). Don, the gleeful former owner, told us to flip the saw over into the bed of the truck--it was too heavy to lift. It was so heavy that we couldn't keep it from slamming down into the bed. We commented to each other on the way home that it hit hard enough to take ten years off the life of the truck bed and might not have improved the saw much.
I had to wire a 220 plug so Matt started cleaning the saw up: replacing the baling wire and reglueing the bubble gum. After two hours of potential electrocution I plugged her in and I for one was impressed by how quiet it runs. On close inspection, I detected a correlation between the noise level and the speed of the blade. No noise/no speed. Soon Matt noticed the correlation, and was making snide comments about my saw, and snickering behind his hand, and pointing and such.
We loaded it back up, using an improved technique (IT), and took it back to let Don take a look. We unloaded it using IT, remember this thing is heavy and the bed of the truck doesn't have that many decades left on it. Don--now I find this curious because the saw was now back in Don's workshop--Don did not have 220 either! That is, he didn't have a plug. He had hot bare wires sticking out of the wall. He went outside to the other side of the wall and we heard a bunch of banging, and then he came back and announced that the wires were no longer hot. We wrapped the wires around the prongs of the plug and Don went back outside. More banging. He came back in and said I could turn the saw on while he stood over in the corner. I flipped the switch and we immediately started correlating lack of speed and lack of noise.
Now here is the interesting part. Don took a 2-pound hammer and banged that saw--my saw at this point--four or five times. The saw started up, Don cut the wires, we used IT and drove home. More IT and there it is in the garage. I plugged it in and it still works and that's why tigers don't have spots. Anyone with a 2-pound hammer is welcome to stop by and build them a piano or something. BB

Benjaminisms

On showing Will the ropes...

Me:  When Will gets bigger, you can play together.  You can teach him how to play trucks and cars and airplanes.

Benjamin:  Yeah.  And I can teach him how to put in the dvds!

Was that a chuckle?

(video missing of Will chuckling)

Well... not really, but almost.

New Place

Lynn and I have returned from a few fun hours ripping up carpet tack and wall paper at the new place. It seems like the place looks better with everything we rip out of there. As per my promise to Cody, here are a few pictures of the house and neighborhood.

Hot Springs Trip, M&R Division

Meme hosting us all at her apartment: Harry mad that I dare give him a cookie:


Benjamin's reward for doing - um, uh, well, you know, um - #2 in the potty for the first time was to watch the movie Cars. Here are all 3 boys (well, minus William) enjoying the spoils:

One evening at U. John and A. Karen's, Benjamin collected rocks while Jackson dug for worms. Here are just a few of the dozens he collected:

Part 2: Lake DeGray
Benjamin initially hesitant about the murky water:

Look! I made it into a photo!
Josh and Benjamin, Father and Son kisses:
On the way home we stopped for the infamous "#1 Taco Salad in Bismark". Emily as Vannah. Benjamin: "Really, Mom?" Let's just say D.J.'s Drive-In should replace "#1 Taco Salad" with "We have a good barbeque sandwich".
I finally nabbed a Harry-sucking-his-thumb photo on the way home:

Everyone enjoying the lake. Each boy on his Dad's back, and The Newlyweds on the left:

Harry eating a rock:
Jackson has a thing about collecting, I'm learning. Here he's collecting, um, lakeweed:
And Emily and William on the shore:

Since everyone's left, we've gotten back to "regular life". Sarah's been giving me a few hours every morning to prepare my lesson plans for Jackson's preschool co-op that starts this fall. I'm teaching Drawing using Mona Brookes Drawing With Children. I find this hilarious, as I'm totally inept in this area, but I'm finding comfort in the fact that it's 4 and 5 year olds that I'm teaching, not the jr. high and high schoolers I'm used to.

Matthew is plugging away at his writing; yesterday he submitted a paper proposal for a conference this fall. . .

A few evenings ago we took a walk after putting the boys down and discovered that the peaches that we thought were hard and useless (good only for deer, which have been spotted frequently munching on felled peaches; there are peach pits everywhere), were in fact quite good. So we ran up the hill, loaded up a ladder and buckets in the cart, and collected barrels full of what Matthew dubbed "The Famous Wright Half-Peach". Half has some sort of black mold, but the other half is fabulous! So far they've gone in hot cereal, muffins, chicken salad, and soon to be in Peach Vinegar (thanks, Emily!). In the following picture I'm trying to capture the peach-laden tree with the sunset in the background:

Matthew is picking up Meme from the hospital right now; she'll stay here "at the farm" for a few days to recover, but she's doing quite well. We're making her famous waffles for dinner tonight. We miss you all!

Love,

Ruthie

Sneak Attack

Caught on video...

(video missing)

Oh, how we miss you all!

Seeing pictures and reading posts helps ease the ache a little, but still, we are all three so SAD to have missed out on family time in Hot Springs last week. I've been drowning my sorrows by blogging on my new birthday blog today; I finally managed to get some photos and comments up, and there are more to come, so check it out! We love and miss you! CKS

Warm Southern Summer

Dear Fam,

David and I miss y'all already. Thanks for hosting us, B.B. and Sarah. We had SO MUCH FUN swimming with the boys, eating at McClards, playing (and watching) tennis matches and just relaxing in the sweet summer air. Love that porch swing too--it's a great gathering place (and the perfect ice-cream making spot!)

We didn't take our digital camera, so if you have photos, will you please send them our way? (Emily, I did see the ones on Facebook--thanks!)

Loved being with you all--

L and D

PS: For those who want to know about the Car Cruise we do each night, here's the link: www.starlitecarcruise.com. We're back in the swing of things, but missing AR.

Hot Springs Trip, J&E division

I sat down several times during our stay in Hot Springs to post (really, I did!), but with slow connections and busy kids, I kept getting interrupted.  So here at last are a few shots from our 2 weeks.

Here is Will meeting Meme for the first time.

Benjamin really got into vacuuming.  And incidentally, he's sporting his new big boy underwear!

Aunt Ruthie gave B a summer cut.

A favorite activity was pool time, although B and J spent most of their time looking at the water and throwing toys in it.  But that won't last long...

On our last Saturday, we all went to Lake De Gray.  We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly and here you can see Will enjoying his first lake-visit in the way he does best...

Silly Songs with Benjamin

(video missing)

I looked down in my hole

I looked and a strange thing happened

A big animal came out

Ooo ahh eee ahh...

An elephant ate a girl

Ow ow ow ow owha

In my tummy oh whoa whoa whoa

Um um ahh ahh ahh

And the elephant say, all the animals say, 'Umm, umm, umm.'

In case there was any doubt...

of Keri's status as a Wright, this, the perfect purchase, erases any lingering misconceptions. Notably, Keri had bargained several weeks ago with several store employees for a rain check large enough to meet our family's All-Bran needs (apparently other Flagstaffers appreciate the benefits of All-Bran). She returned to the store last night to refresh our dwindling stock with newly arrived store supplies, picking up the additional gear necessary for comfortable consumption.

On Eating and Being 3

last night about 5:30:

Jackson: "May I have something to eat?"
Me: "Sure, It's about dinner time."
Jackson: "May I have something else?"

Jackson has no idea what is for dinner, but to him dinner = something he doesn't want. Throughout the day he often asks, "May I have something else for breakfast?" hoping to extend his favorite meal until bedtime.

Childhood Friend

My friend Katharine (and neighbor) posted this on her blog and I stole it. It's from Jacob's 3 1/2 yr. birthday party (his bday is Jan. 1 so they celebrate in the summer) on Monday.

"Dinleyland"

The trip to California went without a hitch. After the usual Flagstaff leavetaking 4 hours after schedule, we arrived at the Sanders' house long after the sun set. Geri and Del began their royal treatment right away--flowers everywhere and Trader Joe's delicacies (though I found out later that the clamshell of "dunkers" I downed over the week actually belonged to the Sanders). We had some wonderful family time, the highlight of which was a trip to Mickey's house in Toon Town. Sophie rode her first roller coaster and a bunch of other rides that took all of us down memory lane. The only one Sophie missed that I really remembered from my trip to DisneyWorld (which I was careful to point out to the Californians is bigger and, hence, better than DisneyLand), was the Peter Pan ride (Keri and I finally made it after she was already asleep). We almost got sick on the sliding gondola Ferris Wheel, watched the Electric Parade, and stayed up way past our bedtimes.

Sophie loved it all, though sometimes only in retrospect. We waited in a long line to say "Hi" to Mickey in his "screening room" only to have Sophie shriek in terror, clinging to Keri as though the waving, primary-colored overgrown rodent was a battery-powered fluffy toy or a dog. However, when we asked her later what was her favorite part of Disneyland, she surprised us all, "Meeting Mickey Mouse."

Geri and Del treated Keri and me to a wonderful night in Laguna Beach, shades of our honeymoon. I enjoyed being on the beach for hours more than I ever have. We worked through the questions in a marriage book, talked, prayed. It was wonderfully restorative to bodies, minds, relationship.

We stayed the entire week in the Sanders' lovely home while they were away at Berkeley. For those of you not fortunate enough to have been there, it is shrouded in beautiful, sweetly-scented vines, is cool and inviting, and had TWO playrooms for Sophie filled with a dollhouse, beanbags, enough plastic food for a grocery store, books galore, etc. We all loved it.

We also spent a morning with the Nesbitts and then headed down to the beach at Oceanside for the afternoon. Sophie loved chasing a retreating wave back toward the ocean and then running (but only in my arms, of course) screaming away from the next oncoming wave.

We closed out the week with church at Grace, gazing in disbelief at the foundation already poured for the new church building. I cried throughout the service, hearing about the Thoennes' adoption of their daughter Caroline (what a picture of God's grace!).

And then it was home, with a stop at the Ludlow DQ (best one on the route) for another example of God's grace, a Mississippi Mud blizzard. Of course, it is always nice to sleep in one's own bed, but we will miss our California adventure for some time yet.

Wrighting Jackson, MS

Despite dire warning in this space from Keri about the dangers of ever leaving town again, Sarah and I are in Jackson. It is still a little strange that Benjamin is in Jackson and Jackson is in Austin. Basic math would dictate that therefore Benjamin is in Austin. Aside from the math being off, I wasn't here ten minutes and I found that Josh hasn't taught his son the basic difference between a pig and a snub-nosed pink elephant. After a full explanation, I think Benjamin is still confused.
Then Josh figured I wear bifocals now. Off to the ping pong tables for a drumming every day.
Then Sarah thought it was home improvement-at-Jackson day. I opted for demolition: wrecking bars, hammers, rusty nails. I dropped a large piece on my toes, ruining a sock and breaking my toe.
I am now typing this in Benjamin's room as he has to go to sleep in a room full of monsters. Trying to explain to a three year old that he can't tell a pig from an elephant and probably is wrong about the monsters is harder than you might think. The math doesn't work out.
Now the battery is getting low and I'll have to turn this computer off and lie here in the dark with these monsters. BB