Sunday Scribblings: Deepest, Darkest

I'm a woodworker.

Now you know my deepest, darkest secret.

What? You already knew? Oh, right almost everyone who knows me knows that, and those who don't know me or don't know that can follow the link to my workshop and figure it out.

What you probably don't know is that I've gone over to the dark side, wood wise.

I haven't developed a jones for ebony, yet, but while at one of my favorite suppliers on Thursday I was drawn to a gorgeous slab of wenge. It was the deepest, darkest piece of lumber I've ever wanted to get my tools on. Many kinds of wood have found their way into my shop - pine (not so much lately), maple, birch, aspen, cherry, mahogany, walnut, and even zebrawood and purpleheart. I've been pretty much a light to medium wood kind of girl. Wenge isn't the right texture for the project I'm working on, and it costs more than I was ready to spend, but boy was it attractive.

The wenge didn't come home with me, this time. But now I'm trying to figure out how to incorporate a small amount into the next project.

P.S. This picture I just added (Sunday night) is an ornament I made for family and friends for Christmas 2005. I've made an ornament (different designs) almost every year since 1999. I've missed two years both because of work obligations. There are pictures of a few other creations in my flickr account (link to the right).

More: Sunday Scribblings

Thursday Challenge: Spring

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Waiting for Snowflake

Our pals, Sunshine and Snowman, are expecting their first child, Snowflake, in a couple of months. It couldn't happen to a better couple. The parents to be are kind, gentle, generous and fun-loving. And judging from the crowd at last Sunday's baby shower (Thanks Domino for organizing it!) the little one has a lot of honorary aunts to provide even more love.

I can't wait to meet this new person.

Morning Swim - for D and N

This is my entry in Buried in the Slushpile's contest. The challenge was to write a story of 75 words or less using words from the Dolce word list. I found out about this a the last minute and submitted my story less than 10 minutes before the deadline. Thanks to Shelley for bringing this to my attention.

Sun comes up
I jump out of bed
put on my best blue shirt
and my red shorts.

Where is my aunt?

Each day she jumps out of bed,
and walks past green trees
to jump in the big blue lake


I run past the green trees
and call to my aunt

Pretty please can I jump in too?

Sunday Scribblings: In the Kitchen

In the kitchen daisies dance on a field of yellow,
In the kitchen cereal is stored between the wall studs,
In the kitchen pudding is stirred from a foot stool,
In the kitchen cast iron radiator foot rest,
In the kitchen popcorn fire ceiling stain,
In the kitchen tricycle zooms from laundry room to living room,
In the kitchen cookies cool,
In the kitchen girl scouts learn to cook,

The kitchen,
now only a memory,
the house long ago sold,
and not quite so long ago fallen prey to gravity.

More: Sunday Scribblings.

Thursday Challenge: Green

green.

Detail from Niki de Saint Phalle's Nikigator outside the Mingei International Museum in San Diego.

A picture of the whole gator is here.

More Thursday Challenge.

Grey Friday

This afternoon's fog fascinated me. Usually this sort of weather depresses me, but the fog rolling off the river as I headed home and off the pond when I got there drew me to it. It was intriguing enough that I even made the trek down the hill to the pond.

The pictures here are (clockwise) the Charles River looking west from the Cambridge side, the base of the dogwood tree in our front yard, Pickerel Pond near our house, and the hill from the pond to the road.

Anniversary Celebration

Another shot from today's anniversary kick-off at work. The poem is inspired by my pal Shelley.

cold
grey
rainy
gloomy day
made bright by cannons
of purple and green confetti

Thursday Challenge: Entrance

A day late...

The kick-off for the 25th anniversary of my workplace was today. The day was rainy, but the event started out outdoors as planned. The highlight was the cannon release of many bucket fulls of confetti - the speckles above the banner are bits of confetti caught in the netting over the upper windows of the entry. Click the picture for a better view.

For more go to Thursday Challenge.

Kitchen Renovation

We're planning a major renovation of our house, so haven't done much about many of the things we dislike in the house. Our anniversary was two weekends ago. Many years we've spent the weekend away somewhere, but for a variety of reasons we didn't plan anything for this year. Instead we decided to do whatever we felt like.

So Saturday morning we were sitting on the couch watching tv. The view from the couch frames the pendant in the kitchen. I've never really liked the pendant. It's not that I don't like stained glass, it's just that this particular rendition doesn't appeal to me. While ignoring a commercial I looked over at the light and turning to Amy innocently asked "If we were going to replace the light in the kitchen, what would you want?"

Amy thought for a minute or two and replied "I don't know, should we go look at lights?"

So began our minor kitchen renovation. I don't remember why we decided to remove the pendant before going shopping, but remove it we did. As it turned out the wiring for this light went through the fake beam into the ceiling's drywall. So down came the beam, which turned out to be a whole lot easier than we expected. The beams are another item on the list of things we don't like in the kitchen. Since that beam was so easy to remove we decided to remove the other 6. About an hour later all that remained of the beams was a pile of wood in the living room, stripes in the paint on the ceiling, holes in the framing above the cabinets and patches of bright orange paint and orange striped wallpaper on the other side of the room.

Off we went to look for new light fixtures. After two circuits through a nearby lighting store we identified a ceiling fixture (to replace the square fixture pictured here) and a sconce (to replace the pendant). The sconce was going to require a 4-6 week wait, but the ceiling fixture was in stock, so we left the store with just the ceiling fixture and headed for the large orange big box store to look for something to replace the pendant. We located a pendant we liked at the big orange store, picked up some additional supplies and headed home with our purchases.

It was getting late, but excited about the new fixtures we decided to replace the ceiling fixture. With a worklight from my shop providing ample light we removed the ceiling fixture and installed the new light. Once I got the right combination of wire nut and electrical tape on the connections we had a beautiful new light. Tired, hungry and getting grouchy we decided to finish up the work on Sunday.

On Sunday we turned our attention to replacing the pendant. The wiring from the old light disappeared through a 1 inch diameter hole in the ceiling so out came the keyhole saw to enlarge the hole. Once the hole was big enough I discovered that the junction box for this light was about 2 inches above the drywall and the wiring wasn't actually in the box. This didn't really surprise me but did make me shake my head. We'd acquired a new junction box so I fed the wiring into it, and secured it to the studs (acquiring a lovely blood blister on my thumb in the process. I whacked it with the hammer I was using to persuade the box into the hole.) With the new box in the correct location even with the drywall, we assembled the light, secured it, wired it up and turned the power back on.

After a little cleanup - nails out of the old beams, lumber to the garage for later disposal, fixture remains into the trash, floor swept and mopped our spur of the moment renovation was complete. We are very happy with the changes and I'm still wondering what took us so long.

Icy Tree

We've had a mostly snow free winter, at least until today - yucky snow /sleet /rain /ice storm. A couple of weeks ago we got about 1/2 inch and the dogwood in our front yard ended up coated with ice. I love the way trees look when iced over, although I know that it's really bad for the trees.

Thursday Challenge - Cute

My nephew clowning for the camera. I thought he looked like a frog, but he said he was a dog.
See more at Thursday Challenge.

Concentration & Pride

When I visited New Jersey in December D and I worked on a project together. This is the second year that we have done this. When D was 3 I worked on a project (shelves for the downstairs bathroom) but he didn't help much.

Last year I milled the parts for a wooden tray, and D painted the bottom and helped assemble it. I posted one picture at the time since D couldn't wait to surprise his parents.

D is a little older now and more able to do more of the work on the projects and to keep secrets. So, this year's project remained a secret until Christmas (at least as far as I know). Which is why it's taken until now to post these pictures.

This year we created mosaic pictures within store bought frames sized to either be pictures or to be used as coasters. I'd like to have made the frames but all the travel I did this fall prevented that. In the shot above D is masking off the edges of the frame so the adhesive and grout wouldn't get on it. With the confidence of age I didn't mask all of the frame I filled, you can see it to D's right in the picture. I ended up getting grout on it and D was able to tell me that I should have done it like he did.

Here is D with the finished result (no pictures of the one I made). He's also holding the "god's eye" he made in First Day school that Sunday. I love this picture for the almost bashful pride he's showing.

Out with the Old

This is the before, outside and inside views. We finally reached the last straw when the mechanism to open the door from the outside broke several months ago. The door was hard to open - the method for opening it from the inside was by pulling on a chain, and squeaked when raised or lowered.

So we decided to replace it. After many trips to the local big box store - order placed, order revised (the original order wouldn't work with our _very_ low ceilinged garage), paperwork they forgot to have us sign...)- the door was delivered a couple of weeks ago.

Over the last couple of weekends, and a few weeknights we varnished the door sections. It's kept me out of the workshop, but it sure does look nice.

In With The New

The installers arrived this morning, and quickly got to work removing the old door. Soon all that remained was a pile of debris in the driveway.

After trimming the door, and lowering the header, the door started taking shape. Several hours we had ourselves a brand spanking new garage door, complete with an electric opener.

The blue in the after pictures is masking tape put on to keep the varnish off the glass. It's coming off first thing tomorrow.


Now we just need to decide what color to paint the trim. Any suggestions?

New Socks

Amy went clothes shopping today. I don't know if she found what she wanted but she did buy me a bunch of new pairs of socks, including the patterned and striped ones pictured here. I also got a few pairs of solid colors, but they really aren't photo worthy.

I don't know why I like brightly colored socks, but I do. And there's nothing better than a bagful of new socks. Thanks Amy!

A New View

I spend a fair amount of my free time masquerading as a woodworker. I've set up a new blog so that you can have a peek at that part of my life, if you're interested. There isn't much there yet, just my project list, but I promise to add to it soon.

A Kiss

Two sets of lips
lightly brush,
Is it a kiss?
Hours pass,
the lips meet again
long slow kisses.
Life shifts.
Love grown over
months of late night
long talks,
friends become lovers.

Twenty one years,
societal shift
a wedding kiss,
made sweet
by the wait.

The fearful,
claiming faith,
can't erase the love,
the legacy of that
first kiss.

Thanks to Shelley and Sunday Scribblings for the inspiration.

My New Nickname or Gravity Always Wins

I'm a very careful woodworker and I have all ten fingers to prove it. I get splinters regularly, I have gotten cuts from the edges of chisels, I've even sanded off skin (not recommended), but I have never had a major woodworking injury. I know how to use my tools, I think about how I'm going to accomplish the task at hand, and I stop working when I'm tired.

My workshop is cluttered (like much of my house). One of the home improvement projects on my list is organizing the shop - it'll happen one day soon, really it will. There are parts for numerous projects, bins of cutoffs, tool containers, and of course saw dust covering most surfaces. While this isn't the best way to work, I do make sure I clear off the space where I'm currently working. This frequently means that I make use of a work mate (small folding workbench) in addition to the workbench top. I sit on a counter height stool most of the time while working in my shop.

So Monday night I was working on the latest project - cutting dadoes with a router fitted with the plunge base using a homemade jig. The work piece and the jig were clamped to the work mate, which was sitting perpendicular to the work bench, and when not being used the router was placed on the work bench. After making a pass with the router I decided that the bottom of the dado wasn't even enough. So I turned to the bench picked up the router (plugged in but off) and turned 90 degrees to my left to position it on the jig. That's when gravity took over.

In turning I became unbalanced and tumbled off the stool toward the concrete floor (and the tool bags sitting on it). There wasn't time to catch my balance (my left foot was probably on the rung of the stool rather than on the floor. Because the router was in my left hand I didn't try to catch myself with my hand - which was for the best since that's a quick route to a broken wrist.

Amy heard the noise - the stool crashed to the floor shortly after I did - and came down to investigate, and helped me shut off lights, unplug the router. We left the sweatpants I had been wearing next to the washer. The sawdust they'd picked up while I was working had been supplemented by most of the sawdust from the floor - they looked like we'd dusted with them.

I ended up with a dime sized scrape on my elbow, an impressive bruise just above my elbow, and a very swollen knee which also has a couple of small cuts - I landed on it. The injuries are too gruesome for pictures! The good news is that the swelling is going down thanks to regular icing. The bad news is that the bruises have only just begun the inevitable journey through the spectrum. It's a really good thing that it's winter so I'm not tempted to wear shorts.

Amy overheard a couple of the guys at work talking about calling me Crash from now on (just what I need another nickname). The moral of the story - I need to organize the shop, including adding more rubber pads to the floor (I've got a few and they are very nice to stand on. While I don't plan to take any more dives I expect that they might have cushioned the impact a bit.); I need to pay more attention to my position when moving in the shop and remember _gravity always wins_. In the words of Beakman - "gravity - it's the law".

Christmas Carol Tag

My sister-out-law, Shelley, tagged me weeks ago. I've been thinking about how to respond since, but haven't taken the time to put this down.

I really enjoy Christmas music. There's very little I don't like, so finding 5 favorites is difficult, but here's the top 5 (at least tonight).

5). Anything from Peggy Lee's Christmas Carousel album, but especially Don't Forget to Feed the Reindeer. This album was an integral part of Christmas in our house when I was a child. One of my favorite memories is my mother singing "The Tree" ("We're going to get a Christmas tree" is the first line) as we headed out to get our tree.
4). Do You Hear What I Hear - I think this was one my elementary school music teacher's favorites since we sang it every year.
3). Away in the Manger - the alternate version with tune by William J. Kilpatrick.
2). God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen - Bare Naked Ladies and Sarah MacLachlan
1). Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer - but only the version by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians (otherwise this song is trite and overdone). What sets apart this version are the sound effects. As a kid I worked really hard at duplicating those sounds, and when I think of favorite Christmas songs this is the first that comes to mind.

Favorite Hanukkah Songs - Hanukkah Blessings by Bare Naked Ladies, and Light One Candle by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary.

Little Drummer Boy makes my least favorite list, although I do get a smile when I remember that my alma mater gets a portion of the royalties - one of the authors was an alum.

A note about the picture above - this house is near the grocery store we shop at most often. There aren't many people who go all out in their decorating near us. Lights in the bushes in front of the house, greenery and wreathes, and a few with those blow up characters, but very few people go all out with their decorations. When we first bought our house the people whose yard is pictured above decorated the "gum drop" bushes just visible at the back of the photo. In the years since the display has grown. This year they have 5 or 6 animated items, as well as blinking lights in the "gum drop bushes" and, as I discovered when I stopped to take a picture earlier tonight, speakers playing Christmas music.