Grandpa’s mugs

My Dad is in his early 70s and just a few years ago he took up a new hobby – pottery – proving that it is never too late to start learning something new!

He now has a studio in the downstairs of their home, and against the wall he has shelves filled with what he calls his “duds”. Mostly he keeps them as samples of what the glaze combinations look like. Well, I love those shelves, and have raided them many times. One time was after he completed a batch of practice mugs, trying to figure out the right shape for a set of mugs that my Mom wanted for their home. He ended up with a bunch of too-small mugs. I snapped them up in a second!

Why you ask? Because they are perfect cups for little hands.

I am not a big fan of plastic for food use, in fact I avoid it as much as possible. I use glass and stainless steel for just about everything, including food storage in cupboards and the fridge. It is better for us and the environment. And these mugs are perfect for Damian to drink out of. They are just the right size for his hands, they are hardy, and he thinks he is super special to have exclusive rights on “Pa’s mugs”.

Time to open an Etsy store, Dad! :)

A lighter footprint

Our family has lived in many places…South Africa, Swaziland, Israel, and now we have recently settled in beautiful Hawaii…we hope that in exposing our children to many cultures and countries, as my husband and I were as children, they will grow with a more global perspective and greater appreciation of this beautiful planet that we live on.

Rylan at the tender age of four is already getting a head start…passionate about all things animal and nature, he asked me a few weeks ago whether we recycle (pointing out to me that if we didn’t we would be endangering the polar bears because the arctic is melting thanks to global warming, yes, the things out of a babe’s mouth!)…well, on this little island they don’t do curbside recycling collection, just regular garbage (something I was very disappointed with when we moved here). So, we did some research and found out that they do have recycle collection centres, two of which are not too far from where we live.

This gave rise to one of Rylan’s current school projects - helping with the recycling collection, sorting, and disposal. The first thing we did was make sorting bins for our garage. In the spirit of recycling, we made them out of our leftover moving boxes and added colourful signs which he and I made together. We only have three boxes, because that is all they have collection bins for (well, they also have a bin for aluminum drink cans, but we don’t drink soda, so no need for a box for that). Here is the finished project in a corner of our garage:

Every time we drop off the recycling both Rylan and I feel immense satisfaction that we are doing a little bit more to lighten our family’s footprint on this beautiful world God has given us.