A quick story from today and a few interesting links that I found this week.  But before all of that let me say THANK YOU to everyone who is reading this.  This marks the end of my third week of blogging and I never would have thought so many of you would read this.  This week my blog has started to spread beyond my friends…I even had a message from a man overseas who was asking for some advice on building his own treadmill desk.  If you’re on Facebook I have setup a “Dad is Learning” Facebook page where I make a few extra notes during the week.  You can also find me on Twitter where I make the occasional “tweet.”

Now a bit about my psychic daughter…  On Thursday our 5 year-old made some drawings for everyone in the family.  My ‘portrait’ featured a happy man with an awesome beard hammering away on a birdhouse…an orange birdhouse (drawing included in the photo collage below).  Fast forward to this morning and Brianne discovers (thanks to mydallasmommy.com) that Home Depot is offering a free kid’s workshop where they will be making birdhouses. Interesting coincidence.

Today was a day with no schedule, so the two of us quickly loaded into the truck and zipped down to HD.  We’ve never been to one of these kid’s workshops.  At our store, there were several tables setup in the front of the store.  The HD employees were very friendly and helpful.  We filled out a registration form and received the birdhouse kit, a Home Depot apron and a ticket for a free hot dog at the cart outside.  I’m sure each Home Depot runs their workshops differently.

It was a ton of fun and completely FREE.  It was good to see lots of other Moms and Dads with their kids.  The instructions in the kit were also very detailed, which is rare these days.  In about 30 minutes we glued, nailed and painted a nice little birdhouse.  Great event!  Here’s the info page for Home Depot kids workshops.

Home Depot Kids Workshop collage.

Now for the useful and useless things that I thought were noteworthy from the week:

Completely Useless – $100,000 Chicken Coop
Buried in the pages of the Neiman Marcus gift catalog was this $100,000 chicken coop.  This is one of the craziest things I have ever seen.  I’m sure Zsa Zsa would feel at home here.  There’s even a video of the chicken coop.

Very Useful – 20 Household Tips To Make Life Easier
Jamielyn over at Iheartnaptime.net put together a great post of quick and easy tips to use around your house.  Several of them I have seen before, but using a walnut to conceal scratches on furniture was a new one.

Smart Money – Updates for Tax-Advantaged Accounts in 2013
The staff writers for the Mint.com blog pump out some great information every day.  This week I found the update for 2013 limits for Tax-Advantaged accounts to be especially informative.

Best Graphic – How To Make Money on Facebook
Just take a quick look…it’s so true!

Useful Technology – 10 Things You Didn’t Know Your Smartphone Could Do
Several of these are cheesy since you have to own the add-on device, but who knew that their iPhone could match paint colors?  Might have to give that a try sometime.  Check out the Mashable.com post here.

And Finally… Aggie Fans Crash a Live Shot
Saw this little gem on Twitter last night.  Some ‘very happy’ Aggie fans walked into a live shot with Jeff Jamison of CBS11 last night before the Cotton Bowl.  Jeff, who is a weatherman for CBS11, handled the ‘friendly’ ladies very well.  You can view it here.  (What a game it was!)

Thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy some time with family and friends this weekend!