Out Visiting

I had scheduled some time to visit someone in the Assisted Living Home tonight after work. She’s been helping me with a couple of projects that I’ve been working on and it’s been great! Not only has she given me some family history that I don’t have, she really has a funny sense of humor! But the coolest thing that she had was this one toy drawer. We were having a conversation about the old times and some history and then she stared to talk about an article that was wrote about her a couple of years ago, along with a display that was set up. The article & display was about how her and her husband made toys every year for at least 25 years for all the grandchildren. Now I’m not talking one or two kids – I think she said that they had to make 16 toys every year! The toys were all wooden and all of them did something. Like one was a monkey that would swing on a bar when you pinched the sides together and another one was a bunch of chickens eating when you twirled the hand held toy. Now there’s no way that I can explain just how cool these toys were to anyone. She showed me them the first visit that we had together and I just couldn’t get them off my mind after that! What they would do was her and her husband had to come up with an idea and then make one of the toys up and see if it works. She said that sometimes you would have to do a lot of ‘fixing’ up. Like making what looks like a monkey actually into a boy by sanding and then maybe re-cutting, and finally adding some paint. Once they had a good design, then they were off and mass producing for their grandchildren. The story that was wrote about her was that you really don’t have to go out and buy the most expensive gifts all the time. That maybe some of the ones made with tons of thought and care could be so much better. As for me? Well I’m just glad that I had the chance to see all the things that she made. It was really cool!