Bittersweet Symphony

We had another fun weekend but it was bittersweet for me since yesterday was my last day of sabbatical. On the happier side, Ryan visited us this weekend and we played a bunch of board games, took a baking class at King Arthur Bakery and went to a Red Sox game at Fenway (the kids’ first one). Overall a good distraction from impending doom err… my first week back.

Luckily my first day back wasn’t completely horrible. I went into the new building which actually is really nice. The drive in was picturesque with the autumn colors. I got a tour of the new building and we had a team lunch in the new “craft beer” place downstairs. Later my friends at work managed to give me a heart attack and pranked me on my first day back… It started when Mike told me this morning he needed to get on an airplane suddenly and gave me 0 details (other than the backlog of emails) of what might need covering. I originally thought it was a joke, but my manager and Delaney both went along with it and asked if I’d heard from Mike to see if everything was okay. Then Alex called and asked me to drive a huge decision for units for the program… something that I had 0 details on and would have to ramp on super quickly… he called in his “planner” to the call and after me asking a few more questions to Alex, the “planner” spoke up and I realized Mike and Delaney were both on the call and I’d gotten got. I feel like this replaces the old cubicle decoration ritual. We’ll have to think of something elaborate for Mike’s sabbatical next.

In really uninteresting news Will thought I should share this super simple upcycle “craft”. I hate to call it a craft because it’s so simple. This is how to turn broken pants hangers into chip clips for keeping potato chips fresh. We always end up coming home with weird hangers from kids’ stores (the ones that had tags thru them so you can’t leave them at the store for them to recycle). So I started cutting off the alligator clip bits and using them for chips. Will actually didn’t realize they were upcycled which is why he thought it would be a worthy post.

Upcycled Pants Hanger Chip Clips

What you’ll need:

Pants hangers

a saw (fine toothed is better, in the picture below I’m using a coping saw)

sand paper (I used a fine grit)

1. Place pants hanger in a vice. Use the saw to cut off the hanger very close to the clip portion.

2. Sand the area you cut off to ensure it is smooth.

3. Clip your chip bags with it. I know that was too easy to write a blog post on so have at it!