Zongker Family Blog

I have been getting the greatest kick lately from being able to see things I drew several months ago finally be created. I used Google Sketchup to create all of the images below. Here is what the (almost) finished products look like.

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We picked out living room furniture for our new house a few weeks ago. We have the usual couch, love seat and recliner setup. Our living room is wider than deep so we want the love seat and recliner to be at 45 angles from the couch so that each of them are facing towards the tv. We want two end tables to go in between the three pieces, but square ones won’t really work out because no matter how you turn them, one of the seats have a corner of the table pointing at them. We didn’t really want a round table either, so we decided to go with an octagon.

Octagon tables are pretty hard to find, and it wasn’t looking likely that we’d be able to find one that matched anything else in the house so I decided to try to make them. I’ve never attempted anything like this before so I was pretty nervous. I drew it up first on Google Sketchup to figure out the sizes for everything and went to buy the wood. I had originally planned on just cutting everything with a handsaw and miter box, but very quickly realized that wasn’t going to be practical.

Fortunately, my dad has a table saw that can do the angled cuts so I went over there to cut all the pieces. Actually, he ended up cutting most of them for me. The assembly wasn’t too bad other than trying to figure out how to get it to stay together long enough to get enough pieces assembled for it to support itself.

The tile and stain match the floor and cabinets in our new house and were a bit of hassle to track down. I borrowed a wet saw from my step-father to cut the tile. This was my second time tiling, I put down tile in the master bath of our current house shortly after moving in. It was much easier than I remembered this time.

Thankfully all the trim pieces fit together nicely around the tile in the end. The only part I’m not real happy about is the stain. I had a hard time getting it consistent across the whole table, but all in all, not too bad for an amateur. I’m going to finish up the second table and if I’m not too burned out afterward, work up a design for a coffee table.

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Edit: Crud, just realized we changed our tile selection in the house and I used the original tile on the tables. Oh well, they’re pretty close to each other.

We are so happy, I just had to report it, here! Katrina had a routine eye doctor visit/exam yesterday & we got our first good news in a long time…

For those who don’t know, she was diagnosed with Amblyopia, one of the conditions more commonly referred to as “lazy eye”, when she was only 4 & 1/2 years old. In her case, we have come to understand that it has something to do with the connection between her eye & her brain (optic nerves, I think) not focusing quite accurately enough in her left eye. Her right eye has always been fine/strong & in fact, would tend to overcompensate for the “lazy” one… We have gone through periods of patch therapy, since then, upon her eye doctor’s advice. She wears an eye patch over the “good” eye for part of the day, so that it forces the other one to focus better.

We have been “patching” her on & off, for periods of about 3-6 months at a time. In the duration of the last 2 & 1/2 years, her vision progressed from being around 20/70 all the way up to 20/40 or so, which is the range it should be, in order for someone to legally be able to drive (if they are of age, of course), so at that time, her eye doctor told us we could take a break from using the patch & he would see us again in 6 months. However, at her last appointment (a couple months ago), she did not show any progress at all, so he recommended that we have her use the patch again.

It might seem frustrating/annoying, but the nice thing is that since she only had to wear the patch for 3-5 hour periods each day, we let her do it in the evening, on weekdays, so that it wouldn’t bother her (and she wouldn’t get questioned, or worse, possibly teased, by other kids at school) & we could also monitor her & make sure that she wasn’t “peeking” over or around it, etc. On weekends, she got into the habit of putting it on after breakfast, or after church, so that she could get it over & done with & out of the way for the day. She is such a mild-mannered, responsible kid, as well. We rarely to never had to remind her about it, once she got into the habit & she’s never complained of it bothering her, either.

Well, at yesterday’s eye exam, she out-performed all her previous ones! Her vision now looks to be at about 20/25, which is a really good result! Her eye doctor was so enthusiastic & proud of her success! He told us that, “there’s a light at the end of the tunnel” & that even though 20/20 would be the ultimate goal, it’s okay if she doesn’t get there & her vision stays where it is. She has shown such great progress, in the past couple of months alone, using the patches that he told us we could give her a break from it, if we wanted. He said it was really up to us & that it mainly depended on whether or not it was a nuisance to her. Since she’s never had any problems with it & we’re going back to see him in September, we decided to keep it up, for now. Who knows? Perhaps she’ll progress even more by then… And, if not, we can always take a break after that appointment…

I just wanted to thank all of you who have kept her in your thoughts & prayers over the years & to share that we know her breakthrough is a gift from God. It’s amazing what faith can do & we are so grateful to our Lord for all His good works! We plan on keeping a positive outlook & are continuing in our hopes & prayers that that light at the end of the tunnel is reached, sooner than later!

So, we each got our hair cut recently. In fact, it was Alyssa’s very *first* haircut, so we were a little apprehensive of how she’d act/react, but we made sure to (try to) explain the best way we could. Being only 2 & 1/2, she typically says, “Okay” as an automated response, whether she actually understands, or not, so even when we went to the shop, we weren’t sure if she knew what was going on. Thankfully, she did wonderfully! It was cute/funny, though, how she kept wanting to look in the mirror, even when they were trying to get her to look down. I had to put my hand in her lap, so she could see my pretty ring & that at least kept her attention for a bit, while they snipped the very back/bottom. Katrina picked out her own style & I think she looks like a blonde Ramona Quimby (for those of us who remember those books), too cute! Mine turned out alright. It was not what I expected, nor what I had described, but I still think it’s a good ‘do. They made it the correct length, just not the style I wanted. Guess I need to be more specific, next time around (or go to a different shop; this is the 2nd time they have not done what I asked for)… But, it’s just hair; it’ll grow back & then (hopefully) I can have it fixed the way I want, soon enough! Since Jeremy just had me cut his the same way we always do it, we didn’t take any “before & after” pics of him, but you can see us “3 girls” in the photos below, as taken by Jeremy! Bring on the summer sun!

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