October 2008 - Posts
A few days ago we helped my son Nathan make his first homemade Halloween costume. I’m embarrassed to admit, but this is the first year we have fully embraced the fun and festivities and attempted a homemade costume. I’ve always wanted to, but normally Nathan has always eyed something in the store that he really wanted to be like Elmo, a spider etc. (except last year when he wanted to wear his own flight suit to be a fighter pilot like Daddy!). And, it just made things a lot easier anyway.
This year Nathan is really into Disney’s Wall-E, and robots in general. So, we made our own robot. First, we spray painted two rectangular boxes with silver metallic paint. Next, we cut the bottom out of the “body” box, and we also cut a head hole and arm holes. In the smaller “head” box, we cut out a big rectangle for his face to poke through. Then it was time for the creativity and imagination of a 5-year-old to take over. Naturally, every robot must have lights. So, I covered some of those Stick 'N Click lights with colored plastic wrap to make red and blue lights. (Best use I've found for those things yet!) Nathan added some pipe cleaners for antennas; old caps for eyes; and stickers, nuts and washers for control panels etc. I must admit, it turned out really cute and I can honestly say I think it’s one of my favorite costumes so far!
But, the whole homemade costume idea got me thinking. I wonder if anyone has every tried to be a Lifetime product for Halloween. Sure enough, after just a few quick Google searches, I came up with some creative ways to be a table or basketball hoop for Halloween!
So here are the links I found to few ideas for you if you’re crazy about Lifetime, tables, or basketball. Some are cute (like the one in the photo above), some are scary... but, all of them are pretty funny and creative. Of course, I’d add one other small detail to your costume that these people skipped…the Lifetime logo! :) Seriously, if you do dress up as a Lifetime product, send us a picture, we’d love to see it and post it on our blog!
Basketball Hoop Costume
>http://family.go.com/2008-halloween-costume-contest/costumes/basketball-hoop-688/
http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/coolest-basketball-hoop-costume.html
http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/coolest-basketball-goal-costume-2.html
Dinner Table Costumes
http://fun.familyeducation.com/halloween-costume/halloween/35395.html
Scary Head on A Platter Table Costume
http://www.coolest-homemade-costumes.com/scary-halloween-costumes.html
Happy Halloween!
For a fun family activity last night we thought it would be fun to do some pumpkin carving. It was an amusing evening that our two boys thoroughly enjoyed.
As soon as I left work, I picked up the boys and we drove down to a local outdoor produce stand that always seems to have a great selection of pumpkins, all in different shapes and sizes, each one seemed to have their own personality. I think Josh and Jake changed their minds on which pumpkin they each wanted about eight times. Originally Josh was really set on a small pumpkin just a little bit larger than my fist, (I don’t think I have the patience to carve a pumpkin that small), so I had to use my best diplomatic efforts to convince him to choose a different pumpkin. He eventually chose another one-- the largest one out there. Jake also chose one that I am sure outweighed him. I thought I would have to look up my car’s towing capacity in my owner’s manual to make sure I could get the pumpkins home.
After we arrived home and ate dinner, the boys were ready to get started. Before dinner, I picked out a great jack-o-lantern design from the tips and solutions pages on Lifetime.com, and printed it off. I chose the “happy template design”.
Since Mom was still cleaning up dinner and working on a treat for the family in the kitchen, we decided to take our pumpkin carving adventure out to the garage. I set up a 4-foot Lifetime folding table and placed a disposable plastic table cloth over it so that clean up will be really easy when we are finished. We set the pumpkins on the table and went to work. The boys were hovering over me like hawks, asking me what I was doing at every move. The best part was when I finished carving out the “lid” of the pumpkin and got to hear their squeals as we pulled on the stem and revealed the “guts” of the pumpkin.
The boys were having a great time. Cleaning out the pumpkin was a messy job that I thought Jake, our youngest, would love to do. But he was pretty tentative about sticking his hands in the pumpkin, so he was satisfied with just using the metal tongs provided by his mother.
After marking the template, I started carving the pumpkin. 
The boys were really interested while we were carving the first eye of the jack-o-lantern but by the time we started on the second eye, their attention span was gone and they were ready to wash their hands and ride their bikes around the garage. Before long, our “family activity” turned into dad, a lone man, carving a pumpkin in the garage.
When I finished the first pumpkin, we gathered everyone back together to place a light inside the pumpkin and set it out on our front porch. The boys were really proud how well their pumpkin turned out. The second pumpkin will have to wait until this evening, it was a school night and the boys had definitely had plenty of Halloween fun for one evening.
Jan's post about her favorite fall recipes got me thinking about Halloween. I'm a big fan of making spooky treats for Halloween parties, and October is the perfect time to cook with your children. Simply pull out a Lifetime table, some sugary ingredients, and let your kids go to town. No matter what they invent you know it will still be scary ;). Here's a fun idea posted on a personal blog by my good friend Jennifer, from Lifetime's own IT department.
Spider Cupcakes
1 pkg. (2-layer size) chocolate cake mix
1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Chocolate Flavor Instant Pudding & Pie Filling
1/3 cup KOOL-AID Orange Flavor Sugar-Sweetened Soft Drink Mix
2 Tbsp. hot water
1 can (16 oz.) ready-to-spread white frosting
24 OREO Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
12 pieces black string licorice (32 inch each)
48 miniature candy-coated chocolate pieces
PREPARE cake batter as directed on package; blend in dry pudding mix. Spoon evenly into 24 paper-lined medium muffin cups. Bake as directed on package for cupcakes. Cool completely.
DISSOLVE drink mix in hot water. Stir into frosting until blended. Frost cupcakes, reserving some frosting for attaching candies.
CUT each licorice piece into sixteen 2-inch pieces; set aside. Place 1 cookie on top of each cupcake. Insert 4 licorice pieces into each side of each cookie for the "spider's legs." (Eight licorice pieces for each cookie.) Add 2 candy-coated chocolate pieces to top of each cookie using some of the reserved frosting for the "spider's eyes."
I'm also a big fan of easy recipes, especially during the busy holiday season. The recipe below is certainly going into my cookbook. If your life is anything like mine-- anything that takes longer than 20 minutes to prepare usually just remains a collection of ingredients that sit in the fridge (along with all my good intentions) until they go bad.
For all you busy people out there, here's a great recipe from Jennifer for quick Pumpkin Cookies.
Pumpkin Cookies:
1-Spice Cake Mix
1-15oz. can pumpkin
1C of chocolate chips or desired amount
Mix, bake in the oven at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes.
Makes 2 dozen.
Have a sweet Halloween!!
We headed up to Dallas this past weekend to visit my in-laws. My sister-in-law is a Director and Consultant for Creative Memories, a scrapbooking company. Personally, I’ve always been anti-scrapbooking because I detest never-ending projects! I’m a person that likes to see the fruits of my labor and I want to be able to relish in the feeling of accomplishment and productivity when I see a project completed. Plus, I’m way too anal retentive…I hate cutting and gluing my pictures, I feel like I’m ruining them. I also loathe messes so I’d spend way more time cleaning up and organizing my supplies than working on my scrapbook!
But, there is a new scrapbooking fad that is a little more up my ally…digital scrapbooks! No fancy-schmancy paper, no glue or “embellishments”, no cutting pictures required. Apparently, it’s all the rage. My sister-in-law made a digital scrapbook for my daughter’s first birthday incorporating all the photos and memories from her birthday party. I must admit, it turned out really cute and is a neat keepsake. The digital scrapbooks feature a hard cover and are available in a variety of sizes. Basically, it’s like making a slick coffee-table book with your own photos and text. You can select from prepredesigned pages where you simply drag and drop in your photos, or if you have a creative mind and want more flexibility, you can create pages from scratch.
My sister-in-law Tara frequently hosts scrapbooking workshops for customers in her home…kind of like a scrapbooking party. So often, in fact, that her living room is actually permanently set up with three Lifetime 6’ folding tables for scrapbooking work areas. She also has a Lifetime 4’ adjustable height fold-in-half table set up to display her albums, paper kits, and supplies that are for sale. The folding tables can easily be rearranged in different layouts so everyone has room to spread out supplies and share tools depending on how many attend. However, the night I was visiting, Tara was hosting a digital scrapbooking workshop. Her customers simply brought their laptops and Tara helped them learn to use the special scrapbooking software and develop creative page layouts. Now, that’s my kind of scrapbooking party! Why lug around a bunch of markers, paper, pictures, glue etc. when you can just carry a laptop instead?
The holidays are quickly approaching and I must say, a digital scrapbook would make a wonderful “handmade” gift for grandparents or other loved ones. Relive that family vacation, capture that senior year of school, or simply remember special family bonds. One of my favorite ideas - gather favorite family recipes in a digital scrapbook! What a fun concept to include pictures of the cook beside each recipe for a unique family treasure! But, if you’re still a little leery of the digital concept and prefer the good ole’ fashioned cut-and-paste technique, check out Scrapbooking with Angie Tips and Solutions at www.lifetime.com on how to create an ideal scrapbooking workspace, design eye-catching layouts, and more.
Tara’s digital scrapbook workshop was a success and on Saturday morning she attended a local vendor fair to help further build her digital scrapbook business. And, guess what? Yep, she loaded up her Lifetime tables and hauled them to the vendor fair to display her products!
Saturday was a winterizing day for me. We got about eight inches of snow last weekend, so I figured I better take advantage of the beautiful fall day and get the shed cleaned out and then packed up with all of our patio playthings.
As you can see from the photos, my shed is absolutely packed. I guess that's what a shed is supposed to look like, isn't it? I had a unique opportunity of being a part of the team that developed the shed - from start to finish. I remember when it came up as an idea for a new product, I remember reading through the miles and miles of research about it and I remember seeing the prototypes as they came and went. I know more about these sheds than any other Lifetime product, and I am exceedingly proud of them.
I also bought one of the first sheds we produced. According to the serial numbers and julian dates on my shed, it was manufactured on the second day of production - ever! So, it could be said that my shed is one of the founding fathers. It has served me well.
Now, going through my shed is like walking through my own personal Presidential Library. It's full of stuff dating back to my childhood, and my career out in the workforce. Let's walk through it and you'll see what I am talking about.
Hockey Sticks - About a dozen or so, all of them used by guys I was close to when I worked for the Utah Grizzlies.
Boxes and boxes of Olympic Documents. I spent 18 months working for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, so I've got results books, news stories, training materials and things I wrote for the Olympic News Service. The best being object being the oversized head of "Powder," one of the Olympic mascots. That is a very long story, perhaps another day.
The big gold tubs on the left are full of Star Wars Action Figures. The remnants of an obsession that has gripped me since I was five years old.
Up on the shelf, their are posters of football players, super villains, blockbuster movies and even a snow-globe or two. I also have a statue of a rooster - I honestly don't know why, but I can't bring myself to throw it out.
You will also find a quilt frame, many used baby seats and toys, all of my childhood memories, boxes of mostly-read books, an antique sled and several other products by Lifetime. Including my beloved Sport Table...one of my favorite tables we make.
The point is, a shed is what you want it to be. Some use it for garden tools and lawn mowers, some use it to store motorcycles, and for me, I use it to store my treasures and trinkets. If it were a little bigger, and heated, it would be my man cave.
But that's another blog post altogether.
Tuesday night was my turn to host our Air Force squadron’s monthly wives’ meeting. The evenings in Texas are just starting to cool down so I figured it would be the perfect opportunity to serve my favorite Fall foods - soup and pumpkin desserts!
I didn’t want to spend too much time and effort on decorating since the meetings are supposed to be simple. So, I planned to eat outside in the cool autumn air and allow Mother Nature to provide my décor. Well, unfortunately, Mother Nature didn’t exactly cooperate with her end of the deal…apparently she thinks low 80s is ideal for Fall!? But, after the sun set, it did feel slightly “brisk”.
I borrowed three of bales of straw from a friend to set around in the yard as easy Fall decorations and extra seating if needed. I used my patio table and chairs, a card table and chairs, and my Lifetime 4’x’2 table and Lifetime chairs for seating. Since the Lifetime table was white, I threw a Fall tablecloth over it to help tie it in with the natural décor just a bit more. I also added a tiny, lighted pumpkin and a bowl of Halloween candy to each table for the centerpieces. Like I said, I was going for easy! But, if you want to get crafty and really dress up your tables for Fall or Halloween, check out these Halloween Table Decor Tips at Lifetime.com. I should have taken a picture of my actual food serving table, because that is what looked festive and coordinated, but I forgot amongst all the chaos of getting everything ready and people arriving!
A few of my friends helped make the food so we had a nice variety of Fall favorites for people to sample. Cheesy Potato Soup, Taco Soup, Caesar Salad, Cornbread, Buttery Pumpkin Bars, and Pumpkin Muffins. I had several ladies ask my for the recipe for the soup and pumpkin dessert I made, so I thought I would share them with you as well! If you like creamy, cheesy soups, you can’t go wrong with this quick standby. And, the dessert recipe is an easy twist on the traditional pumpkin pie. It uses yellow cake mix for a moist crust and cream cheese for an extra creamy filling!
Cheesy Potato Soup
4 cups water
3 - 3 1/2 cups diced potatoes
1 medium onion diced
1 small carrot, shredded
1 1/2 stalks celery, diced
1/2 bag bacon bits
4 chicken bouillon cubes
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 lb velveeta cheese, cubed
In large stockpot, combine water, potatoes, onion, carrot and celery. Cook until potatoes are tender (about 15-20 min). Add bacon bits and bouillon cubes. Add cream of chicken soup. Add cheese. Cook until melted...stir frequently to avoid sticking to bottom. 6 servings.
Buttery Pumpkin Bars
Cake Crust
1 box yellow cake mix
1 stick butter
1 egg
Filling
8 oz cream cheese
2 cups powdered sugar
1 stick butter, melted
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 15oz can pumpkin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
Stir the cake mix together with 1 egg and 1 stick of butter. Pat the mixture evenly onto the bottom of a greased 9x13 baking dish.Beat the cream cheese and pumpkin together. Beat in the eggs, vanilla and butter. Gradually stir in the powdered sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Spread the pumpkin mixture over the cake layer. Bake for 45-50 minutes at 350 degrees. Cool and cut into squares. Serve with whipped cream.
Enjoy!
If you run a pre-school, a day care, or just have children at home, you probably know all too well what creative little ones can do to furniture. I neither have children, nor have I taught children. But I’ve seen Daddy Day Care and that was enough to know that things break when children are invited to do their worst.
If children were to work with our Research and Design lab, I think they’d come up with some interesting new tests. I remember using Lifetime Banquet Tables as slides in our game room. Then my sisters and I would put foam mats on top of them and use them as tall beds for sleepovers. I have a vague memory of reenacting the princess and the pea once… lucky for me, no injuries were incurred.
Anyway, the other day a co-worker gave gave me an ingenious idea-- The Pre-School Experiment. She suggested that we donate a Lifetime Table to a pre-school, give them a few months to color on it, stand on it, spill icky things on it, do all sorts of things that children tend to do (and that we at Lifetime don’t advise)-- then check back to see how it survives.
I took her idea and called Ms. Laura. With about 9 children attending her pre-school and a relatively small area, she and I picked out the small and sturdy Lifetime 4-foot Adjustable Height table. Laura was happy to accept a new table and kindly allowed me to visit her class. As I sat with the kids making play-doh shapes on the table, I pointed out the pink crumbs that were sprinkled everywhere. “You’ve got a lot of little crumbs around here,” I said. Without hesitation, one child piped up “Oh, that’s ok.”
Then I asked “But couldn’t they get stuck to the table?”
Claire, a small girl with a cookie cutter in her hand responded to my question matter-of-factly: “No.”
“Why?” I asked
Claire looked around searching for an answer, and then she said “Because the carpet gets stuck with play-doh.”
She then quickly returned to her work of lining up play-doh x’s and o’s, meticulously making sure that they were all the same size.
Before I left the little school, Ms. Laura stopped me and asked where she could get another 4-foot Lifetime table. This table is available at Sam’s Club, www.buylifetime.com, and Back Yards Inc store locations. Of course, I felt all warm and fuzzy as I walked out the door. It’s a great start, but we still need to see how the table holds up in the long run. After-all, it’s only been a couple weeks. Check back in January for a follow-up to this post, and see if our table survived the Pre School Experiment!
Michael’s last posting talked about all of the basketball hoops he passed on his drive home. So, I started looking around during my drives as well. Normally, this Lifetime365 blog has been featuring upbeat, inspirational stories. But, the overall purpose of a corporate blog is to be open and honest. So, sometimes, it needs to serve as a reality check.
Unfortunately, instead of counting how many basketball hoops I passed on my drive, I noticed how many people set up their basketball hoops improperly. I pass this particular basketball hoop in the photo on my way to take my son to preschool everyday and it just makes me cringe. It reminds me of one of those children’s coloring book games where you are supposed to find and circle all of the things wrong in the picture. This photo has so many things wrong, it’s too scary to count!
First of all, it’s not a Lifetime basketball hoop… and that’s just wrong in itself. :) Ok, all kidding aside, whether it is a Lifetime basketball hoop or not, this basketball hoop is completely unsafe for multiple reasons. I know even Lifetime’s competitors do not advocate or support setting up a basketball hoop in this manner.
Portable basketball hoops are a great invention. You can take them with you if you move, they are easy to “install”, and you can relocate them if necessary. The bases are made to be filled with sand or water to weigh down the base and keep the system from tipping. But, let me be completely honest with you…even though they are labeled as “portable”, they are actually really heavy and don’t move very easily when they are full! Reality check - your 10-year-old is definitely not going to be able to simply tip the basketball hoop over when it is filled and conveniently push it around the driveway and out of the way like it’s a vacuum cleaner. More honesty…yes, it’s difficult even for adults. The portability actually only becomes a true feature when the base is empty. Why? We want to keep you safe! We’ve done our homework. The systems are put through dozens of rigorous safety tests to determine how heavy the bases need to be to keep them from tipping. Unfortunately, too often, people simply lay bags of sand, cement blocks, or large rocks (like in the photo) on top of the base to weigh it down. (Ironically, lifting that huge rock is probably harder than moving the basketball hoop!) What if those “fixes” don’t weigh enough? What if they slide off? What if your kid tries to rebound the ball and falls on the cement block? At risk of sounding like your mother…the directions are there for a reason! Please follow the assembly instructions your manufacturer provided and fill the base with the appropriate amount of sand or water to prevent your hoop from tipping over. (If you have a Lifetime basketball system, I've made it easy to access your assembly instructions, just click this link and find your model.) And, furthermore, the hoop should be on a flat surface. As you can see in this photo, these people have even shimmied another rock under the front of the basketball hoop in an attempt to make it level. Better idea - take the extra time and necessary steps to level your ground by adding more dirt, pouring concrete, etc.
Another sight that disheartens Lifetime employees is when we see basketball hoops set up for the city street to be the court area. Even if you think your street doesn’t have much traffic, you never know when a kid (or adult) may run to chase the ball and not notice an oncoming car. (This particular basketball hoop in the photo is in double danger since it’s actually on the corner of two streets!) Playing in the street puts both the basketball players and drivers in danger. And, if the hoops are actually placed directly on the street (rather than on a sidewalk or curb) they can be a driving hazard. Did you know for this very reason that some cities and subdivision Homeowner Associations actually have ordinances making it illegal to place your basketball hoop on the edge of the street? Save yourself some hassle and do some checking before you decide where to set up your hoop.
Obviously, Lifetime encourages people to get out and play basketball. It’s a fun activity that promotes healthy lifestyles and brings families and neighborhoods together. But, we also encourage you to be smart and safe. When you set up your basketball hoop, be sure to find a secure place for your hoop and then follow the assembly instructions completely and properly.
Interesting little story here. I recently received this email from Joanne Nelson of Exeter, Rhode Island:
“I purchased a Lifetime Personal Table several years ago and I love it. I am a quilter and this little table goes with me when I go to classes because I can set my sewing machine on it and adjust the height to exactly what I need so it is ergonomically correct for my sitting position…”
“However... I recently brought my table to a quilting retreat to let a 84 yr old lady, who is tiny, borrow my table so she could sew comfortably for the 5 day retreat. She was so happy about the table that I wanted to buy one for her. I found one and brought it home only to be very disappointed in the redesign of it.”
“My table has metal legs and they are secured into a metal frame work so the legs can't come out very easily by accident if the table is moved with weight on it.... With this new table, the legs are just pressure fitted into the top and they don't fit at all.”
“When I picked the table up out of the car trunk to give it to this old lady, the top came right off of the legs. After looking at it more carefully I realized it was a poor imitation of the wonderful table that I owned. I wouldn't want this lady to put her sewing machine on it and have it fall on her. The legs on this new one are awful. Please tell me that there are two models and I got the wrong one… If this is a redesign it should be recalled as a hazard to anyone using it. Please reply to me about this problem. I am returning this table.”
Now… I use a Lifetime Personal Table for sewing myself and I have a quilting machine similar to Joanne’s. Though sewing (and even mending) are sadly very rare occassions in my house, I'm glad my sewing machine has not slid off and smooshed me. After emailing Joanne, we figured out that she purchased a table made by another company that looked a lot like the original Lifetime's tables. She emailed me this follow-up to her story…
“I forgot to mention that I returned the table I purchased today, and I told them when they asked me why I was returning it, that it was a 'knock off' and I was very disappointed in the store for selling such a poorly made item… I did go on a little about its bad qualities, but I think they deserved it.”
Joanne's story got me thinking. There are a lot of look-alike brands out there, so it’s quite easy to see a lightweight gray, plastic and metal table and assume it’s the Lifetime brand. Looking for the Lifetime logo is the best way to know you’re getting quality and engineering that goes into all our products. What’s in a name? The logo says it all.
Over the years, my father has developed into the quintessential pack rat. To the horror of my mother and us kids, he has been able to build two large sheds and fill them both to the brim with all sorts of stuff. My mother and I are the exact opposite of my father. We are all about maintaining a nice, uncluttered home. That being said, we would love to break my father of his habit, and bring in a large dumpster to clear everything out. However, we haven’t been able to bring ourselves to accomplish this goal due to the fact that he seems to have developed a deep connection to everything he has collected.
Ever since my father has been unable to set foot into his large shed, he has dreamed of building a lean-to to the shed that would enable him to move stuff out of it and create a path into the shed. With my father’s birthday quickly approaching, I told my mom that I had found the best birthday present for him. A friend of mine was selling his Lifetime 8ft x 2.5ft Garden & Tool Storage Shed because he was unable to take it with him when he moved out of state.
My mother thought it was a great idea, and so I began making arrangements to transport the already assembled shed the 14 miles from my friend’s backyard to the side of my dad’s shed. I didn’t know of anyone who would be able to lend me their trailer, so I asked my father-in-law if I could barrow his long bed truck in the hope that the shed would be able to lay down in the bed of the truck. Unfortunately the width of the shed was larger than the width of the truck’s bed, and we decided that the only way to get the shed to my parent’s home would be to stand it up vertically and strap it down tight.
As I followed behind my father-in-law’s truck, I was not sure if the shed was going to make it. With my white knuckles clenching the steering wheel, and my eyes straining to see whether or not the shed was going to fly back at me, we made it, and in record time too. Normally the 14 mile drive would have taken approximately 20 minutes. But we were able to make it in just under an hour.
My dad did not waste much time filling up his Lifetime shed with a lawnmower, snow plow, rakes, shovels, etc. And at least for the moment he has been able to make a path into his large shed.
What is better than a trip to the neighborhood park, where you listen to the children shrill with delight while they swing, hang from monkey bars, and slide down the slides? 
Having your very own outdoor play system with all this and more in your own backyard.
Last fall, we invested in a BigStuff Adventure Hard Roof Play System, made by Lifetime, for my in-laws backyard. Our children get to spend a few afternoons each week at their grandma’s house, fortunately for them, their grandma and grandpa have a large yard and there was a perfect spot in one corner of the property for a play set. The system is free standing so I didn’t have to worry about anchoring the system to the ground. However, for safety reasons, I did excavate out about 6 inches of topsoil out of the play area and filled it in with bark so the children would have a soft play surface. Our kids and their cousins just love it! 
Having your own backyard play set is really convenient. It lets your children to play outside at home instead of going to the park alone or waiting until you can take them. It also allows you to step outside after dinner and spend an hour of quality time with your children, swinging and sliding with them in your own backyard.
Sometimes children get bored around the house. Outdoor play sets, especially large ones with lots of exciting features like ours, entertain my children for hours on end with wholesome fun, and helps keep the house clean. Believe it or not, even in Utah, where we can have our fair share of snow, the play set is used routinely at least nine or ten months out of the year. The powder-coated metal and polyethylene plastic (HDPE) play set has been very durable and maintenance free. We are really glad that we got it for the kids.
Last night was a fun night in our neighborhood. We celebrated National Night Out. Apparently, most of the country celebrates this event in August. But, because of the summer heat, Texas officially moved its National Night Out to October 7. Plus, we all know, Texas just has to be different! :)
The night is a national crime/drug prevention event designed to heighten community awareness and strengthen community spirit. San Antonio and outlying towns hosted various festivals and events last night. And, some individual subdivisions also hosted activities.
Our subdivision celebrated by hosting a block party fully sponsored by our Homeowners Association. It was great… we just RSVPd and showed up for a yummy dinner and chance to mingle with our neighbors! A free night out of the kitchen…whoo-hoo!
Our subdivision is made up of only 64 houses on two streets. So, we simply blocked off the middle of the street for the “party” area. The event featured catered BBQ for dinner (what else would you expect in Texas?!). There were several Lifetime banquet tables set up in the street for people to eat on and the caterer also used Lifetime folding tables under the Texas awning to serve the chow. Neighbors simply brought their own lawn chairs for seating arrangements to keep it simple.
One neighbor rolled out his portable Lifetime basketball hoop for some friendly competition and the kids were all worn out from jumping in the rented bouncy castle. And, since the event is a crime/drug prevention awareness night, members of our local police department and fire department visited as well. The kids (and adults) loved being able to climb on the fire truck! Our block party was super simple, but for its inaugural year, it was certainly a success!
We’ve lived in four states so far during our military assignment and Texas is the first place we have lived where our neighborhood participated in this fun event. Hopefully, the event is growing nationwide. If you want to host National Night Out event in your neighborhood next year, now is the time to get the wheels in motion to get everyone on board! Check out the tips and organizational kit available at the National Night Out website to help get you started.
We had a great time at the Lifetime Products company golf tournament this past Saturday. Instead of working in the yard like I usually do, it was nice to take the day off and dig in someone else’s yard – that’s a jab at my divot taking when I golf. During the tournament I had to take a break – much to the relief of my team mates – to do an interview on the Homefront with Don Zeman radio show. I don’t think my teammates missed me since I wasn’t contributing all that much.
It was a lot of fun to participate in the show. Don, the host, recently purchased an 8x10 Lifetime shed to replace his existing shed. I guess I shouldn’t name the brand of shed he was replacing, but let’s just say it was maid out of rubber and he didn’t like it. He had a lot of complements about our shed and fortunately did most of the talking. (Don’t you hate the way your own voice sounds!?)
During the show we discussed the different size of shed options that Lifetime offers. Basically we currently have four different footprints to choose from:
- 8ft. wide : This footprint is our most commonly sold size. It comes in or can be made into the following depth dimensions : 8x2.5, 8x5, 8x7.5, 8x10, 8x12.5, 8x15.
- 10ft. wide : This footprint is essentially our 8ft. wide shed but we have taken the doors from the end of the shed and put them in the middle. This allows for a division of your stuff into to halves. Sort of like his and her. Guys you can store all your great stuff like Golf Clubs, Motorcycles, those scrap pieces of wood you may someday need, etc, on the left and your wife can store all their useless junk like Christmas Decorations, Halloween Decorations, Arbor Day Decorations, etc, on the right. This shed can also be expanded up to 15ft. wide with expansion kits.
- 11ft. wide : Is available in 11x3.5, 11x8, 11x11, 11x13.5 and I have seen it expanded up to 11x26 which is the biggest we recommend.
- 15ft. wide : This model is also like #2 above but already expanded to the limit and with a different window configuration. Again, it can be used to divide his and her stuff like Easter Decorations, Spring Equinox Decorations, etc, from the really useful stuff like that wire mesh I am determined to fine a use for.
Anyway, I hope this clarifies things a bit, as I have recently been receiving some questions about the shed sizes we offer. It’s a good thing I’m pretty good at gardening because my golf game stinks!