Decision Angst

I don't think I could have botched up this vacation week any more if I'd consciously tried.

Now I have some tough decisions to make.

I did find a dog-sitter, as I mentioned. And spent the majority of this week feverishly trying to get ready for Pennsic. But a gnat inserted itself in the pudding about Monday, which didn't get resolved until yesterday, and resolved poorly.

Originally my plan was to have her watch Tyler from Saturday morning-ish to Friday night-ish, giving me 6 1/2 days at Pennsic. But when we finally finalized plans, somehow that time frame shrank to Sunday afternoon to Friday afternoon - a mere four whole days, with Sunday night (which I don't count for much as I'd just be arriving) and Friday morning (which I count for even less, as I'd be preparing to go home). And all this was going to cost me a small fortune, between site fee and paying said dog-sitter.

To be fair, this isn't really her fault. I suggested the time frame (what I was thinking I can't even begin to tell you; I have no freaking clue). But when I realized that I'd seriously shortchanged myself on time, and asked her about going back to the original plan, she was no longer available.

Then the dilemma set in. Do I really want to pay this much money for this short of an amount of time at Pennsic? Or do I want to say the hell with it, and cancel the dog-sitter, and just daytrip.

Adding to the mix of indecision, it's been raining off an on for the last week, and I found out today that Pennsic is slowly turning into a quagmire, as so often happens in rainy years. It's only the end of the first week, and the stories go that the camps down past the lake are flooding out, and they've had to close parts of the parking lot.

Knowing that new piece of news, would canceling the dogsitter and daytripping really be that bad a thing? Because I detest, detest with a passion, wet Pennsics. I hate camping in the wet. After a week of it, everything is damp - including bedding - even if it hasn't been subject to direct flood. It's just all the wet in the air that gets to it. And I cannot, cannot, not even sleep in damp bedding. I have gone home from Pennsic early before because of this much rain.

And, it's supposed to rain at least some part of about 4 of the next 7 days. More rain.

So now there's a new dilemma. Do I cancel the dogsitter, daytrip on days it's not raining, and make the best of it?

Or do I keep the dogsitter on, and go absolutely nuts milking the positively most out of my 4 days and 5 nights at Pennsic that I possibly can, rain be damned? Like the early years, when I was so completely enamored of Pennsic, that I could barely sleep (a few hours every couple days seemed to suffice) for fear of missing something - wringing every last drop of Pennsicness from every second I could be on site?

That's tempting, in a year like this. Throwing caution and sensibility to the wind, and just deciding to go nuts with it. It's got potential ... I don't have to take very much with me, as it is, so I could really go Bohemian this year, and just resign myself to being constantly drenched and muddy, and who cares? It'll wash off. Bonus - when it rains that much, you can really get away with not taking camp showers (I hate camp showers; I'm grateful we have one, but I never feel really clean).

Decisions, decisions. Hmmm.

Midnight Madness, Long Before Next Wednesday

It's the pre-Pennsic frenzy. I have to admit it's not nearly as bad as most years. But that doesn't make these last few days much easier.

Granted, I'm usually fretting about this stuff for weeks before Pennsic. Since I didn't even know if I could go, I wasn't worrying too much about doing a ton of stuff.

I just got confirmation Sunday night that my dog-sitter's a go! So, I can go to Pennsic. Yay! Crap! Now I have to get all this stuff done in five days!

But, we made it much simpler this year, as we didn't plan to take nearly as much stuff as we (umm, Robin) usually does. We scrapped the kitchen pavilion, the huge carport he usually uses for a tent, the kitchen cabinets, and a host of other stuff. Which meant he was able to pack up in just one afternoon, and actually get on site before dark - in one trip. By Sunday afternoon the camp was pretty much done (as opposed to it taking half of the first week).

For myself, all I have to worry about this year is my garb, a few personal items I choose to take (books, an embroidery project), and food. I don't have to hassle with a tent because, wonder of wonders, for the first time, Robin and I are actually sharing the same tent this year. (long story why we usually don't; and this year is a test drive on this plan)

So he's already got it set up, all I have to do is show up and move in.

Except this week ... when I have to cook all Tyler's food and package it up for the dogsitter for all of War Week (finished tonight); and cook food that I want to take for our dinners (half done); and go to the grocery store again; and find all my garb, see if it needs washed or something, and pack it. Not too horrible, except I've spent the last two nights entirely and exclusively in the kitchen, and I'm kind of sick of it.

Oh well ... it'll all be worth it come this weekend ... and don't think I'm not grateful that I'm getting to go at all, after the turmoil of working that out. Note to self: MUST find reliable, dedicated dog-sitter in the very, very near future!

Not So Fast ... and A&S 50 Stuff

I slightly misjudged how well Friday night went. I slept almost 5 hours, drove home, got Tyler up, and started my day. Thought I was feeling pretty good.

But about noon the bottom dropped out; I was so exhausted I could barely function, and had to take a long nap in the afternoon, not waking up till about 5:00.

So trying that scheme on a weekday when I have to (a) go to work the next day, and (b) come home and actually function (lots to do next week), probably isn't going to work after all. Oh well. It was worth a shot.

The next thing that fell apart is my potential kennel. A friend's friend had recommended it. I don't know what they were thinking. The place is awful. It's the typical institutional room with overhead fluorescent lights, concrete floors, and chain link cages lined up throughout the place, except way too crowded together. I would never, ever put Tyler in a place like that. In fact, this one wasn't even as nice as the one at my vet's, which I said I'd never use (and which also has the chain link kennels on concrete, but at least has huge skylights for natural light, and is much roomier and less crowded).

I was so disappointed. I really thought this place was going to be 'it.' So I'm back to Plan B, which is to have a friend come and stay with Tyler each evening, spend the night, and leave in the morning. It would be basically the same as when I'm working - he'll have company throughout the evening, get fed and walked, have someone with him overnight, get fed and walked and have some company in the morning, then alone for the daytime hours.

She offered, and we'd talked briefly about it, but I've had a hard time hooking up with her to finalize details. So I've been a little nervous about it ... I'm sure she's not doing it on purpose, but being vague about something as important to me as watching Tyler is really freaking me out.

I've sent her another email and I'm waiting to hear. This is my last hope. If she can't do this for whatever reason, I'm out of options, and probably will only be able to daytrip Pennsic during War Week. Very much a bummer.

Meanwhile, since I don't know, I still have to do what I can to get ready, and there's a ton of stuff on my plate this coming week.

Moving on ... I cast my first coins last night. That was really a lot of fun.

After our experiments Thursday night, I reworked the mold a little bit using my Dremel. That was tricky, as even with the smallest point I had, it was still difficult not getting the lines too big and chunky looking. I also had less fine control. I wouldn't want to try to use that for my initial design if it was anything detailed, but using it in already-existing carved out parts wasn't too bad ... it already had a channel to follow.

It seems to have worked not half-bad - at least the mold part of it.





The coins that came out well show that the design is mostly okay. I'm still not thrilled with it, but it was my first ever attempt, so I'm somewhat forgiving. ;o) Even mildly pleased.

The problem I had seems to be more with the pewter than with the mold design. Though it's kind of hard to tell in the picture, some of the coins are 'cleaner' and more clear than others - which is why I say, it must not be the mold, it must be something going on with the pewter in each different casting.

I would be tempted to say that in the clearer casts, the mold was hotter, but that's not it - one of the worst ones was the last one I did, when I know the mold was very hot.

I was running into a problem of ash collecting in my pitcher used for melting the pewter. I don't know why that was, unless it's a side-effect of the material the pitcher itself is made out of. I don't remember Robin ever having that problem when using a soapstone crucible. I'm thinking that may have been what was muddying up the casting.

Later edit: I was on site today at Pennsic, and talked to Ulfr, our local resident casting expert. He told me that the ash, or dross, is not uncommon, but it won't hurt anything - it floats on top of the molten pewter, and stays in the pitcher or crucible when the pewter is poured out, so that's not what was 'muddying' my casts. Also, it can be caused from overheating the pewter - which is very likely, as it has a very low melt point, and I had that propane torch cranked up to the max. Ooops. :o)

Also, the mold was supposed to be carved so that there was a nub left at the top, to create a hole in the coin so it could be strung on a cord. I had forgotten to do that, so I was going to experiment with putting a piece of nail into the soapstone prior to casting, to create that hole.

That didn't work, and created the bump at the top of the coins. I used the tiniest Dremel point to drill a hole straight into the soapstone, then clipped off the end of a small nail, and tried to insert it. It was a little too long, and rather than incrementally snipping off more and more, I thought I could drive it into the soapstone (it being relatively soft). Well, it's relative softness was the problem - instead of going straight in when I tried to gently prod it, it shifted sideways and gouged out a little hollow in the mold. Which of course, when cast, created a bump instead. There's nothing I can do about that now, as I know of no way to fill in a mistaken divet in the mold.

However, I solved the hole in the coin problem by cheating: I drilled it.

To make these right, rather than just so-so, the whole mold needs recarved. But I just don't have time to do that now - since I wanted to get Robin at least some of these coins today. Maybe, if the Fates are really smiling on me this week, I might have time to do it before next weekend, and make some better coins for the revelry that is War Week proper. It only took me one evening to do this mold the first time (plus a few tweaks last night), but that was when I had no idea what I was doing. Now I do, it should go much faster.

We'll see.

You can check out any time you like ...

I had an interesting night. Er, morning. Umm, at this point it's kind of all blurred together, I'm not sure whether this is yesterday or today.

Last night was Land Grab Eve, the parking lot party. I have very fond memories of parking lot parties past ... it's one of the first things I look forward to about Pennsic, because it's the very first night you can be there, and you begin to experience the sights and sounds of the upcoming Pennsic - people in garb, drums, etc. You know it's really happening and you're finally home for another year.

For the past two years I wasn't able to go first weekend due to dogsitting logistics. Then this summer, after a couple of discussions with Greg and a dog-loving friend of mine, it was decided that if I wanted to go some place basically for the night only, it wouldn't really traumatize Tyler at all. You see, being older, he loves to sleep anyway. His preferred bedtime is about 9:30 p.m., and once in bed, he'll sleep soundly through the night, not waking up till 7:30 or 8:00 or later.

If I leave the house in the evening (or, for that matter, anytime I'm gone for more than a few minutes), he'll just go get in his bed and sleep till I come home - or, if it's late in the evening, till morning. So the theory was, if I was only gone over night, he'd never even really miss me or notice I was gone, and it certainly wouldn't trouble him. I wasn't even worried about it not being 'safe' in some way because, heck, I'm gone for 8 1/2 hours every day and he's here alone - overnight is no more dangerous than during the day. He doesn't get into things or bother things, so that's no concern.

I first experimented with this when I went to the Bardic Roundhouse in Chardon a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, that time I stayed up too late, and by the time I realized I had it was 3:00 a.m. and I was afraid if I went to sleep then, I'd never be able to wake up in time to get home before Tyler woke up, and the one thing I wanted to avoid was him waking up, needing to go outside, and having to wait hours for me to get home. So I decided to drive home then. (Bad idea, but all's well as ends well).

So last night Greg and Matt and John had loaded up the vehicles and headed out, and I was sitting here watching the sun go down thinking about the parking lot party, and suddenly decided, "I'm going!"

I threw a blanket and pillow and bottle of rum in the truck (because what else do you really need, for an impromptu adventure?), waited till about 9:30, set Tyler up in the bedroom (turned on the ocean-wave sound machine thing we always have on at night, and turned the TV on with the sleep timer set, something else he's used to), and headed out to Cooper's Lake.

I had a good time ... it was a great parking lot party! Dirk's was hopping, as usual - seemed almost everyone on site was there. I saw a shooting star! Early this year - there's a meteor shower that goes on during Pennsic every year, but this was the earliest I'd ever seen anything. I sipped my rum judiciously (and was very pleased with my restraint!), and tucked myself into my truck to sleep about 1:30. (I briefly considered trying to drive home instead, but decided against it - probably wisely).

I set my alarm and got up around 6:30, and headed out about 6:45. Or tried to.

Getting out of the battle field parking lot on Saturday morning is a real trick. No one leaves at that point, it's only people coming in, and people waiting to get on site to set up their camps. All the usual exits were blocked off, so that all incoming traffic could be funneled through just the one main entrance. But I wasn't sure I could get back out that main entrance, or if it was all kind of set up 'one way' at the time. (Seems unlikely in retrospect - surely they'd realize someone might have to leave at some point - but in my early morning fog it seemed a dilemma; and apparently, it kind of was).

I asked three different people on my drive through the battlefield if I could get out that way, and all three of them gave me vague, fuzzy confused looks - "You want to leave?" One guy said, "Leave? What, to like go to McDonald's, and come back?" No one could fathom coming out for the night, then actually leaving site Saturday morning.

When I finally made it to the main entrance, that guy was more confused than any of them, as to why I was going the wrong way. But eventually it got sorted out and I did in fact make it off site and home by 7:30.

Tyler was fine! He was sleeping in one of the kid's beds instead of in his own, which I doubt he'd have done overnight, which leads me to believe he might have woken up this morning before I got home ... but if so, he didn't seem too disturbed, he'd just gone back to sleep. I was home early enough that if he was up, I'm sure it wasn't long before I arrived. When I woke him up he was happy to see me, rolling around on his back and wagging his tail. But he was certainly none the worse for it, didn't seem the least upset about anything, and after a trip outside and breakfast, we settled into our weekend routine.

So I think that's a little trick I can use to good purpose in the coming week. Of course, it takes a very fine finesse to make it work for me - I have to be very careful to (a) not drink too much, and (b) get at least a few hours of sleep so I can then get home and still function the next day.

So Pennsic's officially on, I'm wearing my medallion, all checked in, and am not even remotely ready for any of it. I've done the least to get ready this year of any year, not even having any garb pulled out of storage, or anything else.

But ... it'll get done, and with this Tyler scheme I can now come and go as much as I can manage the first week. And I'm going today to check out the kennel for second week. Yay!

Pennsic Eve; A&S 50 Work; Cell Phones Don't Swim

Pennsic Eve

Well, here it is - Land Grab Eve, night of the parking lot party, the big pilgrimage. I'm bummed I can't go. I remember the 'good old days' when I would work today, then frenziedly pack the truck after work, and drive out to Cooper's Lake, arriving around dusk, excited beyond words.

Not this year. Robin will be going out tonight, and won't be home till August 8th. (which sucks). I will probably go out for a few hours tomorrow sometime, and maybe again on Sunday. Whether or not I'll sneak out any next week is up in the air.

But - as I'm sure I mentioned - I have a line on a kennel that comes highly recommended for those who pamper their dogs. This place will even cook for your dog, if like me that's what you do at home. I'm going out Saturday to check the place out, and if all goes well, at least I'll be able to go out to Pennsic during War Week. Maybe not for as long as I have every other year (Saturday to Saturday) but at least something.

A&S 50 Work

I began one of my projects this week ... I started carving the mold for my first attempt at pewter casting. This cast will be coins with a musical piratey emblem on them, for members of the Sea Chameleon to give out to bards who, in our humble opinions, go 'above and beyond' during Pennsic.

I started with outlining my basic circle, using a dollar coin as a size guide.


I believe I didn't really prep the soapstone all that well. For one thing, this chunk is large enough that I think it could have been split horizontally into two pieces, or at least evened up. But I hadn't had Robin do that part for me yet, when I got the time Wednesday to work on it, and didn't want to wait. I suppose, if it can be split, it still could be, even with the mold carved.

Then I carved out the entire surface for the coin ...


... which was a lot trickier than I thought. As I was trying to get it deep enough (but not too deep) to give the coin a nice thickness, I was also working on keeping nice straight side edges. Then I discovered that as you carve around the edges more and more to deepen the design, guess what - you also incrementally widen them as well. So the final size of the coin is somewhat larger than I intended. Fortunately not by much - 1/8 to 1/4 of an inch is all - so it's not going to make that much difference, and I'm okay with that.

I also got it a little uneven, getting it a little egg-shaped with one section of one side sticking out a little more than it should. But that's okay. It's not really that bad.

Next I began to carve the first part of the design. Pop quiz: what is wrong with this picture?


Yeah ... in casting, the design has to be carved in backwards to get it to show properly on the finished piece. This obviously isn't backwards. Fortunately, I caught this before it was a complete disaster, as this was just my very initial roughing in of the design, and it wasn't deep at all, just barely scratched in. I was able to sand it out and start again without significantly deepening the mold.

The final design.


A nice piratey musical note with crossed sword. We did a test cast on this last night - Robin did the actual casting, though when it comes time to make the final coins, I'll be doing it, since it's my A&S project.

But the results weren't good, yet. The design didn't show up at all. Apparently it is not yet deep enough nor wide enough. Some of the lines in the mold are very, very thin, and apparently it's difficult to get the pewter to actually get down into those thin lines. We even tried re-heating it right in the mold, to see if we could get it to seep down in, but it wouldn't.

That's okay ... the basic design is good. All I have to do is widen and deepen each line, without ruining the whole thing. Should be fine! (she said with forced perkiness and unwarranted optimism!)

I really wanted Robin to have these for Pennsic, and I am unsure how I'm going to accomplish that now, unless I work on it Sunday, and can manage to fix the mold and cast the coins all that day, then run them out to him that evening or one evening next week. But ... that may be possible, if that's all I do on Sunday. We'll see.

Cell Phones Don't Swim

Which I knew, but had to experiment with anyway. Yesterday morning I accidentally dropped my cell phone into my mug of coffee. I immediately pulled it out, pulled the battery (upon which coffee ran out), and tried to dry it out, but it wasn't doing well. After about an hour I did get it to power on, but only as far as the initial splash screen ... and there was coffee squishing around under the screen.

I have to have the cell phone now, especially, as we haven't had a home phone in years, and this is all I have ... Robin was about to leave for 2 weeks at Pennsic, which made it even more important.

So I went to the Alltel store, and the girl initially told me to just put the phone and battery in a bowl of rice, that it would draw the moisture out, and often people said that would fix it. I was skeptical. Then she and some other employees there did acknowledge that even if it works, the phone usually never works quite right, and probably wouldn't last all that long. It might be a temporary fix, but not a permanent one.

I didn't want to take the chance of it working only long enough for me to, say, get to Pennsic, then my phone to die (if Tyler's at the kennel, I need to have a reliable phone on all the time), so I splurged and bought a new one. I'm glad I did - I love it! It wasn't that expensive, either (something like $80 after rebate). It's an LG Banter, and yes -


it's got the slide-out texting keyboard! I admit it ... I like texting. My old phone had the usual keypad thing where you had to hit each key multiple times to get the letter you wanted, and it was a pain. When they showed me this, and it was affordable, I was like, "Oh yeah!"

I didn't drop the phone in the coffee on purpose, but I'm kind of glad I did. Love the new one.

A Proper Piratey Birthday

The Dread Reverend's progeny, Brennan, is turning 11 in a couple weeks. But since this auspicious day takes place during the pilgrimage known as Pennsic, a birthday party was held this weekend at Casa DeRaynged.

And a proper iconographer was on hand to capture the event.

The blowin' out of the candles.

And then there was the proper piratey cutting of the cake - with a cutlass! Witnessed by Logan, Olivia, Evan, Rachel, and Megs.


Brennan's present from me involved a bit of work. He got a card, in which were written the message: "Arrrgh, ye be thinking ye deserve some treasure for yer birthday? Maybe yer parrot be having something to say about that!"

Now, in Brennan's and Logan's bedroom be a stuffed parrot (fake - shut up, PETA), and what should the old bird be holdin' in it's mouth ...


but a message sayin' "Do ye prefer 'cold hard cash' or 'money to burn'? Choose swiftly!" Depending on what he chose, there'd be his next clue.

Since Brennan chose "cold, hard cash" - Logan, Leah and Brennan next explored Clue #2 - found in the freezer! It said, "Treasure doesn't grow on trees, ya know ... or does it!"




Quick, out front to the big maple tree! And at last, the treasure ($20 to spend at Pennsic) was secured.

And we had a fine piratey party with good company and fun had by all. Thanks Jen, Leah, Brendan, Carol, Evan, Rachel, Olivia, and drat it all, I forget the last chitlin's name. My apologies to the clan from Eastlake! But thanks for coming ... can't wait till ye all venture into these waters again.

What Happened To Global Warming?

WTF? It's the middle of July, and I'm trying to sit on the back porch for a bit before work, and it's only 62 degrees. In fact, I could count on the fingers of one hand how many days this summer it's been warm enough for me to say, "Hey. It's warm." Highs in the 70s in July!? This Saturday the high is only supposed to be 68! Again I ask, WTF?

The only good news out of this is that it bodes well for Pennsic ... a Pennsic where it's not 90 degrees every day is pleasant. I think I vaguely remember one year like this. It's weird because it actually gets chilly at night (something I don't expect there), but the days are great.

Alas that I still don't know whether I'll be able to enjoy it myself, but 11,000 other people will.

I'm wondering whether this is just as good as it's going to get this year, and we'll slip into an early fall, and an early and cold winter ... or whether it's the 'season shift' and in another week or two it's suddenly going to ramp up to the 90s and stay there till, like, October.

I do know I'm not liking the trend. Northeast Ohio had a limited enough summer as it was ("summer" being defined by me as those hot, sunny days in the mid 80s) (temperature, not years), July and August being about it. If we're getting that taken away from us too, I'm really not liking this.

Craziness

I haven't been doing anything around the house this week, because our bi-annual disaster had to strike at work.

Almost every year someone quits in the weeks or months before my Pennsic vacation. This has happened so many times as to have become an office joke. Well, ha, ha. It wouldn't be so bad if this were a normal vacation, where I really only needed to throw some stuff in a suitcase a night or two before leaving.

But it's not like that. Since most of the people who read this blog go to Pennsic, you know exactly what I'm talking about, so I won't bother with the gory details. Suffice it to say that getting ready for Pennsic is a lot more work than any 'normal' vacation, and most of it doesn't get done till just now, in the weeks prior to going.

So, just now, suddenly I have to work over during the week, and work on the weekends, to deal with both the daily work of my former co-worker that she's not there to do, and the enormous backlog of work she left, since she was weeks behind when she decided to quit.

It's beyond frustrating.

For quite awhile I wasn't sure I was going to get to go to Pennsic, at least not to camp. I thought I was going to have to daytrip, or something. But just a couple days ago I got some information on a very pampering 'doggie hotel' where I might feel comfortable leaving Tyler. If so, then I could actually go out and stay.

But to make that happen, I have to have time to go check the place out, and then do everything I'd need to get ready to go - something I'm not getting with all this overtime at work.

Well, anyway ... whine for breakfast isn't so palatable. The point is, I haven't had time to work on any of the projects I wanted to do, or do anything more around the house. And don't know when I will.

I'm hoping to at least get the mold carved, and cast the bardic coins, because Robin wanted them for Pennsic, and this weekend would be about the last time I'd have to do that. So hopefully, I can get that done on Sunday.

More Busyness Updates

Dining Room Progress

So the former owners of this house stuck this weird shelf thing between the kitchen and dining room.





We called it the "tween" - because it was between the kitchen and dining room. (duh) Admittedly, it was handy for just stashing things on (making it a junk catcher). But I hated the sight of it. In fact, the very first time we ever looked at this house, the first words out of my mouth were, "If we buy this house, that has to go."

Well, this weekend was it's time. We took it out, in preparation of painting the dining room.





Itwasn't too bad ... it was mostly mounted on iron brackets underneath, which were just put in with screws. The only tricky part is that it had these cutouts underneath, to fit over the wall ledge thingy, so Greg actually had to saw off one side of it with a small powered handsaw, in order to just slide it out of it's slot. If that makes any sense.

But that's done - Yay! Now I can start prepping the dining room walls for painting.

Pennsic Prep

It's that time of year! Greg set up his idea for the family area of the Pennsic camp, in our backyard this week, to test it out.


I think it's looking pretty awesome. We have a tent for me and Greg; a tent just for the kids; and a storage tent, for extra stuff. It's a great set-up!

Hopefully I'll get to be there enough to enjoy it. I have a bead on a potential dog-sitter for (hopefully) about 6 nights running - which would be awesome! The best plan I had before that was someone for only about 2 nights total. We'll see.

Happy Poo

Yeah, that's what we have here.


He had his teeth cleaned Monday, which freaked me out because they have to anesthetize dogs for that, and with him being older, and (allegedly) having kidney problems, that's always a risk. But he did really well, no problems, and now his teeth are all cleaned.

Of all the pampering and holistic things I've always done for this dog, one of them was not brushing his teeth. But as worried as I was about his having to have anesthesia, I don't ever want to go through that again. So, I'm going to do it ... I'm going to start brushing his teeth, to hopefully avoid ever having to have another cleaning. Oh boy.

We've Got Mail

We came home Monday to mail in our mailbox. Yay! No more mail slot in the door, walking in on top of the mail on the floor. The handiest part is, I can put outgoing mail in it, too ... no more having to find a mail drop box or drive to the post office.

I know - little things amuse me.

And that's all my news for now.

House Project-Palooza

We've been busy here at the homestead.

This one was actually from a couple weekends ago, but I forgot to post about it. In our shower there is the *%#*& ubiquitous tile 3/4 of the way up the wall, and worse, wallpaper above that. For the rest of the room it's fine, but why people do that in the shower is beyond me. Because of course if you use the shower, the water will get above the tile.

This is very good quality wallpaper - all the wallpaper in this house is - but one of the seams was coming lose, and I didn't want the wall behind getting damaged from the moisture. But I wasn't yet ready to start a major bathroom remodeling, like re-tiling the tub area.

So we had an idea. I wasn't sure it would work, but I figured it was worth a shot. This is what we did.



We bought a couple pieces of plexiglass and mounted them on the two back walls opposite the showerhead (the ones that get the most water, and where the seams were coming loose). We mounted them with screws with those neat little flower-shaped things that go between the screw and the thing you're mounting (like a washer) to make the screws look more decorative. (It looks nice in person; in the picture they just look like dark blobs) Then we caulked all the edges and the corner where the two sheets of plexiglass meet with clear caulk.

(added note: Greg made a good point in his comment, but since not everyone reads the comments, I'll mention it again - he put rubber washers behind the screws, to keep moisture from getting in that way, too)

It seems to be working fine. I really can't see any reason this won't protect the walls above the tile from moisture. I suppose we could have done all the way around, but I really didn't see any problems anywhere but that far corner.

The next bathroom project is to repaint the ceiling over the tub, as the paint there is actually peeling. We have the paint for it - moisture-resistant bathroom paint - so we'll get to it, one of these days.

Next project - Paddy got us some lobelia plants as a housewarming gift. I felt really bad that I hadn't gotten them planted yet, but I just hadn't decided where I wanted them. Today I chose to put them in a cluster by one of the front trees.



The plants require full to partial sun, and that's one of the few spots in the yard that gets a pretty good amount of sun. When they fill out, they'll be a great start to the next phase of the gardens, moving out from the dining room garden to under the trees.

I also finally got the azalea planted.




Yeah ... it looks kind of forlorn all by itself in this bed, but ... it'll all come together eventually.

Today's big project was finishing the mailbox. Here's the deal: the house has a mailslot in the dining room door, which I want to get rid of. Well, I plan to replace the whole door, and not to have a mailslot in the new one. So I wanted a regular box on a post.

We got the post a couple weekends ago and got that in, but hadn't figured out what to do about a mailbox yet. We wanted something nice, something unique, something special. But I could no way justify the prices they wanted for these things. Like this one ...

which was $44.00. Or this one ...
which was $99.00! We really liked this one ...



but it was $300! Give me a freaking break.


So ... we bought a plain white one for $15.00.


Then, Greg fixed it up with some spray paint and strips of copper, and we got ...


... for about $25.00.

Yay, creative frugality! By the way, that awesome cool trellis behind the mailbox was a find today - $10 at Marc's! I loved that the second I saw it, and knew I had to have it. I'm not sure this is where it'll stay, but it's a good spot for it, for now.

That's all the projects for today. It is a long weekend, so who knows what else we'll get into.

SCA Stuff - A&S 50

I've made the beginnings toward my first A&S 50 projects. Awhile back Robin had an idea to cast some pewter coins to hand out to bards who particularly impress us, or in some way go above and beyond, at Pennsic and other events. He was going to do this, but I usurped the project from him for one of my A&S 50 projects. He's done pewter casting before, I haven't.

So far I've got a line on some soapstone from a friend who has a bunch of it, and I'm working on laying my hands on some pewter. The design is already created, once I get the soapstone I can start working on carving the mold.

I also had an epiphany yesterday. Years ago I tried tablet weaving, and loved it ... but in not too long a time gave up on it in frustration, for a couple reasons. First, I couldn't find any loom setup I liked. I'd heard of people using inkle looms for card weaving, but at the time I didn't have an inkle loom, and didn't want to get one just for that, since I thought it limited both the width and the length of the bands too much.

After doing a ton of research online, I built several different loom designs, but wasn't entirely happy with any of them. The main reason was that all the loom designs I'd seen or tried involved tying off the warp at both the front and back; but tablet weaving creates a great deal of twist in the warp (usually; it can be avoided with certain patterns, but I wasn't managing to avoid it) which will creep up the warp till it's so close to the cards you can't turn them anymore. Then, to continue weaving, you have to go to the end, untie all those individual warp threads, work the twist out, and retie them.

While I realize that's just part of the process, I detested that part of the process. When you combine that with the time it takes to warp a loom for tablet weaving, I found I spent 95% of the time fiddling with the loom or warp, and only about 5% of the time actually weaving the pattern.

I decided I'd like to try a weighted loom, but knew I'd need a lot of space to set that up, so I shelved tablet weaving until I had the room for it.

It only just occurred to me yesterday - hey! I now have the room for this!

I was never sure warp-weighting would work with tablet weaving, but a bit of research online yesterday gave me reason to believe it would. (I found at least a couple people who said they do it this way, with great success).

I had initially left tablet weaving off of my A&S 50 list because I had shelved it, but now that I have a chance to do it again, it went back on the list. I did some practice bands in the past, but I never completed anything, so I believe this can count as a 'new' A&S project.

I have to tread carefully this time ... the second reason it got shelved in the past was, since I was so fascinated with it, I tried to do too much, too fast. I tried immediately to start designing my own complex patterns, but they never worked out. Tablet weaving is (to me anyway) extremely complex - the theory, not the practice - the physical act of tablet weaving is not difficult. But to understand how to create certain patterns and images, there's a lot you have to understand about how the process works. I didn't have that basic understanding yet when I tried to jump too far ahead, and all it did was frustrate me.

This time I'm going to focus on pre-printed patterns or patterns I can design that are simple enough not to screw up (simple diamonds for one; or words - I have a book that shows how to weave letters to make words, and I did have good luck with that, it was pretty simple). In time, as I do more weaving, and if I pay attention to what I'm doing, hopefully the structural theory will begin to make enough sense that if I still want to, then I can design my own patterns.

Last but not least, there's another A&S 50 category I'm also taking on - learning or developing 50 things about your persona. It's always bugged me that I never had a clear persona, so I've decided to work on that as well. Last night Robin and I did a bunch of research and brainstorming, and came up with some fascinating stuff. But I'm going to post that separate. (If you're interested, you'll be able to find it from the link in the side-bar).