Lucas Blackwood Contemplations » Friends/Family

Broken zipper

Lucas — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:54:26 +0000

A few weeks ago I saw a zipper repair kit for sale online at one of those “bargain” websites. I had been looking for something to give my wife to use to repair the zipper on the hooded sweatshirt that she had hand painted several years ago. The zipper had broken and she had stopped wearing the sweatshirt, but she did not want to throw it away because she had spent so much time and energy hand painting the thing.

So when the zipper repair kit arrived, we hunted for a while to find the sweat shirt. It had been put away in the back of a closet and was being elusive. Finally we put the zipper repair kit in her sewing basket and had given up looking for the sweat shirt. Well, surprisingly enough, when my wife was looking for a gray skirt to lend to her sister to wear at a funeral, she found that sweat shirt and pulled it out of the closet.

We tried to use the zipper repair kit, but we were unsuccessful with our attempt. We broke two of the replacement zipper heads in the attempt. Very discouraging!

Frank Lloyd Wright was my father’s favorite architectural designer

Lucas — Tue, 08 May 2012 02:53:26 +0000

When I was growing up, my father would take us kids out and drive around to look at open houses in different new neighborhoods. He made his living as an architectural designer and he was always looking for what the “other guys” were doing and what was the newest and trendiest thing in architecture.

He had designed the house we lived in, and although at the time I thought that it was not an attractive building from the outside, I have to admit that the interior layout was really very nicely designed. It wasn’t until I was a young adult that I learned that the inspiration behind the house was from the designs of Frank Lloyd Wright. I had never even heard of the name of Frank Lloyd Wright until the album “Bridge over Troubled Waters” was released by Simon and Garfunkel. I can remember asking my father who Frank Lloyd Wright was, and he told me that he was a famous architect. I always thought it was weird for Simon and Garfunkel to be singing a farewell song to Frank Lloyd Wright…. but it did pique my interest to learn who he was. And to be honest, he really was a very good designer!

Lawyer up

Lucas — Sun, 06 May 2012 22:26:09 +0000

Sharon called me to ask me for some advice on how to handle the problems that she has been having with her husband’s ex-wife. She has been a thorn in her side ever since she found out that Sharon was a part of his life. The most recent thing that upset her was when she was at the grocery store and was in the check-out lane and saw her walking into the store. Sharon tried to leave the store from the opposite door, trying to avoid detection, but within a few minutes of driving her car she looked in her rear view mirror and saw the ex-wife was tail gating her! I advised her to get the best Raleigh lawyers that specialize in family law that she can find. There’s no need of that!

Brio trains

Lucas — Sun, 06 May 2012 15:33:31 +0000

My grand-niece is visiting with us today, and we have been trying to keep her entertained with the Brio trains that my sons played with when they were younger. These trains bring back a lot of memories – all the way back to when our oldest son (now 30) was only 5 years old and we took him to a model train and dollhouse show down at the armory. My wife was eight months pregnant at the time, and I hoisted our son up onto my shoulders as we walked around the train show. His eyes gleamed with excitement as we walked around looking at all of the model trains. There was one very large display set up that had the electric trains actually running around and we spent at least an hour looking at the display.

When we decided to buy the starter Brio train set, we had hoped that the set would stay in the family for generations to come, and so far it looks like it will, in fact, do just that. And that feels really good.

Chocolate fountains

Lucas — Sun, 06 May 2012 02:24:13 +0000

Guest post by Rita Sheldon

Have you seen those commercials on television for the Golden Corral restaurant where they show photographs of chocolate fountains? To be perfectly honest when I saw the commercial I thought to myself that it sounded pretty gross.

So when I found myself going to the Golden Corral myself a few days ago, and I saw the big chocolate fountain in the dessert section, and all of the plates of fresh fruits and pieces of angel food cake, marshmallows, and Rice Krispy marshmallow treat bars, all skewered with bamboo skewers I decided to pass it up. Until I saw that the chocolate fountain was actually really, really popular. I decided that I would go ahead and go up to the fountain and take one of the skewered strawberries and dip it in the chocolate and give it a try. I mean, what do I have to lose, anyway? I’d already paid for my meal, and it was all-you-can-eat buffet. Isn’t one of the biggest reasons that I go to a buffet is to be able to try new things without committing to ordering a huge plate of some unknown food and then hating it? Of course it is!

Well, to my surprise, I really DID like it. I think that the reason I thought that I would not like it was that I was expecting the chocolate to be dark chocolate, which is bitter, and I don’t like bitter. But this chocolate was delicious – I’m not sure if it was milk chocolate, or semi-sweet, or a combination. Regardless, it was delicious and I went ahead and took a lot of the different fruits and dipped them into the chocolate and filled up my plate with a lot of chocolate dipped strawberries and apples and marshmallows and pieces of angel food cake.

I think that I’m going to look into what kind of chocolate they used and see if I can get some of it to melt in the crock pot at home and just dip some fruit in it at home and see if I can get a similar taste. That would be a nice dessert to have at the next family party that I have to hold!

OBX homes for sale

Lucas — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:10:34 +0000

When Stan told me that he was going to the Out Banks to look at some obx homes for sale I thought he was joking. Turns out he wasn’t joking at all! There is a “for sale” sign out in front of Stan’s house now, and he and his wife are busily putting fresh paint on the walls, having me do some landscaping work for them, and they are starting to price out the costs of having moving companies come and move their furniture to the new house. They still haven’t picked one out yet, but they know that it will take some time for their house up here to sell, so they are getting all of their ducks lined up in a row.

Metal daybeds

Lucas — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:54:00 +0000

My wife and I have been talking about buying a couple of metal daybeds to put in the guest room so that we could make the guest room multi-functional. My wife has been talking about using that room as a den/office, and having the daybeds would make it look more like an office than a bedroom. I’d like to see if we could just buy one daybed, though, and maybe it could also be a trundle. I think that would be awesome!

Swimmers itch

Lucas — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 01:54:56 +0000

When my wife read that swimmer’s itch has been reported in the pond that we live beside, she was very upset. From what we understand, swimmer’s itch is a small parasite that burrows under your skin. And the thought of a parasite burrowing into her body just totally freaks her out. She gets extremely upset if and when she ever finds a tick on her body, and she totally freaked out when she went swimming at the town’s public beach when she saw leeches in the water. She told me that she will probably never swim in a New England pond ever again. I guess that really doesn’t bother me much at all – I’m more of a boater than a swimmer.

Renewing my vows

Lucas — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:49:20 +0000

Contribution by Saul Martin

One of my very best friends is getting married this October. I am really excited for her! Before she went to buy her dress, I started watching some “Say Yes to the Dress” on Bronx Dish Network to get myself in the wedding mood! I love that show and it reminded me of when I went wedding dress shopping. There are so many emotions that come with looking for the perfect gown for your wedding day! Some are happy moments and some are angry moments. I was terrified when I went to look for a wedding gown. I just feel like every time that I go to a store to try and find some thing to wear that I usually end up leaving the store with my hands empty, and feeling depressed because I didn’t find what I was looking for! Wedding dress shopping was actually a lot less stressful than I thought that it was going to be. Wedding dresses actually fit much better than I thought that they would. Maybe one of these days, if my husband and I renew our vows that I will get to go back to Klienfeld’s and find a beautiful gown!

Mother’s Day

Lucas — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:06:31 +0000

Mother’s Day is coming, and I have been racking my brain trying to remember where I put the pretty beryl ring that I bought a few months ago to give to my mother. Her name being Beryl, I thought it would be appropriate to give her some jewelry made with it for a gift giving occasion and when I saw it on Ebay a couple of months ago I bid on it and won it. When it arrived I put it in one of those “safe places” that act like black holes. I might have to buy her something else for Mother’s Day this year and give her that ring for her birthday in September if I don’t find it soon!