Really want it? Do it. Or make it!

When a job needs done, you just find a way to do it. When there is something you want to do, you just find a way to do it.

For many years I've remembered, lived by and passed on the quote “Anything the mind can conceive and believe in, can be achieved”.

Over the weekend my youngest son decided he wanted to take a piece of log and turn it into a piece of furniture. A small table that would be sturdy enough to sit on.

He had the piece of log. He split the section of the log he wanted to use. He asked me how he could smooth it enough to begin working it into his table top.

I explained to him how the old time carpenters did it. The tools they used long before there were power tools.

He began eying my old antique hand tools that hang now as decorations. I told him to get that idea out of his head, it wouldn't happen. He has a way of using my stuff and never putting it back. I've even found tools rusting away from being left laying on the ground... He is banned from using my tools until I see he will take care of them as good or better than I do.

Well he didn't let that stand in his way! He began doing as the old man does.

He put his mind to work and began thinking. He went back to the wood shop and I didn't see nor hear from him for hours.

Turns out he also went to the equipment shed, found some steel that would work and began making his own tools that would work for his intended purpose.

I had severely hurt my neck again on Thursday and was in no mood to go out to the shop or anywhere else that it wasn't absolutely necessary to go. I was very happy to just hang out in the warm house wearing my torture device neck brace.

He needed some kind of tool to smooth the really rough wood. That involved a sharp edge and a tool sturdy enough to hammer on when needed. He also needed a draw knife.

Now they are not the greatest but he made tools that worked and did the job he wanted.

There are even hammer marks that show they took the abuse of the hammer as he was using them.

FINALLY!

I've always tried to teach my kids that they can do anything and make anything they need and don't need to run to a store to buy things. And today it's hard to find heavy duty tools like the tools of the old days. If you do manage to find some they cost a small fortune.

His version of the tools he made may not be what I would have tried to make, but they work and he has shown me that he actually learned something from all my talking.

So even though today I'm still in a lot of pain I am also feeling very proud.

I've seen the tools because he brought them in for me to see. That's when I found a piece of board and got the pictures. Today when I do venture out I intend to go to the wood shop and check out his adventure into using them.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Yes, anything the mind can conceive and believe in, can be achieved.

When you make up your mind that you really want to do something only you stand in the way of accomplishing it.

Think outside of the box of normalcy and you can do anything you really want.

Now what did Rowdy think of all this?

Not much...

But then again there is not much beside food that impresses Rowdy.