Lars Anderson Car Museum

This past weekend I took a trip to Brookline to check out the Lars Anderson Car Museum which was amazing.  First I'll start with the building, in one word gorgeous.

I'm a sucker for anything that isn't pre-fab.  I love the look of brick and stone and how they windows line up so perfectly and the whole place just seems balanced.  Once inside I was pleasantly suprised to find out that the museum was free! It's actually free until friday as they have an exhibit on a new car, for all you car



fanatics it was the new Tesla model s.  Which was pretty neat, it's electric, has a snazzy, entirely touch screen interior and even the speedometer is digital.  I was overly impressed, especially when I came across this:

What your looking at here boys and girls is the first race car, is it not incredible?  I mean besides that fact that people actually used to race this on mainly dirt roads looking at the pictures in the same frame is really an eye opener as to how far we've come with technology.  The rest of the day I was just immersed with an overwhelming feelingof awe, I was experiencing a piece of history first hand.

The museum even had a whole bicycle display pretty much showing the evolution of the bike.  The photo above is my favorite, I've always been intrigued has to how people got on these things without falling immediately off.

Just a short walk through the parking lot there's also an outdoor skating rink, which as you can see was quite busy and suprisingly not just a giant puddle considering this crazy winter we've been having.  After it was all said and done it was a really fun day and I'm glad I made the trip.

Bat Cave

As I mentioned earlier my original intentions for this blog have changed to including a little bit of life with a little bit of crafts, today I'm going to focus of crafts.  My nephew so delightfully requested a bat cave to supplement his new bat man obession.  I thought it would be as easy as going to the store and picking one up I was wrong, so wrong.  Toys R Us apparently does not carry life sized bat caves, for $80.00 I could purchase one that he could simply look at and play with tiny action figures--not my cup of tea.  So I decided I would build him one from random supplies I could pull together.

I started with 6 cardboard boxes that originally contained paper for my office.  I cut them open so that they laid flat and taped them together to form a sort of cave like appearance.  I then used chicken wire to cover the cardboard to give the cave a little bit more stability.  The photo above shows the back of the cave and I am in the opening adding a bit more tape.

I then used paper mache (a combination of flour, water, salt and old newspaper) to cover the entire structure and to give the cave a more rock-like texture.  This was actually the best part of the entire project, my fabulous sister helped and by the end both of us were paper mached.

We were forced to let the cave dry over night and anxiously awaited the next day so we could spray paint.  The finished product turned out better than I had anticipated and I had spent less than $80.00 to make Nik the happiest guy in town.

Mixin' it up

Hi! My name's Sam and I'm a first time blogger.  The original intentions I had for this blog was to describe my rough road to realizing the importance of a quality education, which I plan on including in this post and maybe a couple of more but I no longer want to to be the main focus, I mean this is a long semester and I'll save you the reading about being over worked to the point of tears and underpaid to the point where my bank account would literally laugh at me.  So having said that I guess I should tell you what I am going to write about, I've recently discovered my crafty side, it seems to be the only thing that aleviates my stress and makes me feel good since most of the stuff is given away as gifts to my unsuspecting family and friends, and I'll probably talk about them too, they're the glue that holds me together.  I've created alot of stuff ranging from photo collages to bat caves (my nephew has recently discovered bat man and I just couldn't say no to this adorable little man)  

That's Nik and he is the cheese to my macaroni, it's hard to believe that 2 years ago this bald little baby boy stole my heart. Nik's just a small part of my crazy and ridiculously supportive family, I mean they would have to be crazy to be supportive (not happy) of me dropping out of college and taking the news like champions (I told them on Christmas).  I am the first to admit that leaving UNH was not one of my greatest moments but I was a scared, 19 year old kid who just wanted to experience life outside of the classroom, so I did and it was hard. 

Would you like your sub toasted?

If you've ever been asked this question then you know where my first job as a college drop out led me, Quiznos Subs.  That was one of the conditions of moving back home, if I was to make irrational adult decisions well then I was going to work like everyone else.  It wasn't really a difficult job, I think the worst part was slicing the onions oh and admitting that you dropped out of college to be a professional subist.  During my time at Quiznos I was offered another job, waitress.  Which I'll admit was a little better but not by much, it was a hole-in-the wall seafood restaurant so I would leave Quiznos smelling of onions to come home smelling like deep fried fish.  I'll give you a moment to take that in and get over the extreme jealousy of the fabulous life I was leading. 

Are we ready? Good! So it was real world 2, Sam 0,  until my best friend Stacia pulled me out of the food service industry forever and got me a job working with mentally handicapped adults who suffer from substance abuse, I'll start off by saying it was equally the most rewarding job I've ever had and the most heart breaking.  My starting job title was direct support professional, I not only took care of 13 adults I accepted the challenge of teaching them basic living skills ranging from the importance of showering daily to how to use the oven.  There were really good days and then there were really bad days, I became their emotional punching bag, I couldn't help but feel their pain when parents couldn't make a planned visit, I experienced every emotion with them as they went through the inner ping pong battle of to drink or not to drink, and that was my downfall.  I became to emotionally attached, it had become so much more to me than a job, it had not only become my life it started to effect my life.

I became sad, depressed and overwhelmed with feelings that I simply wasn't doing enough to help them.  I became completly consumed and that's when I knew my time with them was done.  I have an unbelievable amount of respect for anyone in the human services field and like I said while it can be incredibly rewarding however, I think becoming emotionally involved with your cases is a huge mistake.  My time with these indivduals is what drove me to go back to school, they were my cheerleaders and even attended my graduation. 

After graduation I found a job in the city where I'm currently a legal assitant/paralegal by day and a student by night.  So that's the short story.  Any one else drop out and find the courage to try again?  What was your this is it moment?