Pre-Vacation Miscellanea

Why I love Knitty ...

... 'cause you find things like this there.

Since I haven't been knitting for a long, long time, I hadn't been to Knitty for a long, long time. This morning I decided to pop over (mostly just to check my link and make sure it was still working), and browsed this issue's free patterns. And found the above, which has no purpose in life other than being completely adorable, looking relatively quick and easy to knit, and being a free pattern.

But lest you think Knitty's all fluff, let me tell you that in every issue they have a bunch of patterns - all free - and most for extremely useful and beautiful things like sweaters (yes, entire sweaters - and cool ones), hats, socks, and a variety of other wearables. Did I mention they are all free? It's just so unusual to get such high-quality, unique patterns for free, consistently.

But I just might have to make some ZoZos.

This has made me think about knitting ... which I would like to do again. I know what happened. I got too lost on the project(s) I was working on, and there's just about nothing harder than trying to pick up a several-year-old project, re-orient yourself, and get it back on track. But I have some mental issue about starting a new project when I have old ones languishing.

There was the self-designed sweater I was knitting. For one thing, it wasn't going well, which was part of my frustration in not keeping up with it when it began to lag. For a second thing, I had grown to detest the color I'd chosen (and bought $100 worth of for this project), which doesn't encourage stick-to-it-iveness, either. Sigh.

Then I'm pretty sure I was working on a pair of socks, the whereabouts of which I do not even know. Sigh again.

I was working on a sweater a few years ago (Celtic Icon) which was going horribly wrong, and I remember that it actually caused me to stop knitting for awhile ... because I couldn't bear to pick it up anymore, yet I couldn't enjoyably justify starting anything new when I had that one that I wasn't working on. I finally made the tough but necessary decision to scrap that project, and rip it all out. Then I was able to move on.

While I hate the thought, that may be where the self-designed sweater is headed.

So I'm getting ready to go on my annual beach trip to North Carolina. I've always taken knitting with me. I've almost never worked on the knitting while there. I'm debating whether to dredge up some project, take it with me, and renew my knitting skills while on vacation; or wait till I come home and save the packing space. Decisions, decisions.

I'm paring down seriously this year on what I take. I usually took at least one knitting project, and five or six books. I often never even unpacked any of it. It would turn out that we'd either be busy the whole time, or even when I was just sitting around on the deck, I was too busy looking at the ocean to watch my knitting or words on a page.

This year I'm taking exactly 2 books (one fiction, one non-fiction - my mood varies), and was going to take an embroidery project 'just in case' ... but I don't really have one ready to go. My embroidery of the Death tarot card has reached a point where I need to draw on some more of the design before I can continue, but it's a complicated bit of drawing for which I'd prefer to use the light box (tracing). But to do that, I need an enlarged copy of the card, which I've lost, and it's tricky to make a new one ... the room our copier is in at work is always crowded with people, so it's hard to find a chance to copy something when no one's around ... and I don't really want to explain why I'm standing at the office copier making an enlargement of a tarot card with the Grim Reaper on it.

(Although a simple "mwaahaahaaaa" might suffice to get people to leave me alone for the rest of the week ...)

Three more days ... we're now hoping to leave Friday night after all, and drive part-way and get a hotel room. We originally weren't going to, and were going to leave super-early Saturday morning - but even if we do that, we're liable to not get there till late Saturday evening, maybe not even before dark - and that just sucks.

But there's a lot to do to get ready by Friday night. And what really pisses me off is, I could have done it - except that I woke up Sunday morning with the worst back pain I think I've ever had. It's all concentrated around a spot on the right-hand side about mid-way up, and feels for all the world like a pulled muscle - which would be fine, I could know what to expect if that was it - except I'd done nothing in the preceding days to cause a pulled muscle, and have not been able to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. Also, pulled or strained muscles (on me anyway) usually begin clearing up in a day or two, but we're going on Day 4, and it's as bad as ever - and most of the time excruciating. I can barely move, which has put a real damper on the energy and motivation needed to get things all packed up in time to leave on Friday.

Ah, the week leading up to a vacation. Always a joy.

The Last Weekend ...

I always love to do seasonal and holiday decorating ... or at least, I like the idea of doing it. I'm such a procrastinator that usually it's two days before, and I'm thinking "It would have been nice if I'd have ...".

In the new house, I'm determined to get over that. So I jumped on an idea this weekend that I'd been wanting to do for years, at the old house, and never got around to.


I also did a little fall decorating in the living room ... just a tad so far. I bought some faux fall decor at the craft store the other day, and created a little spontaneous arrangement in my kim chi pot.




I like it.

Yesterday I cooked the food for our vacation. Every year we rent a beach house. It does not come with a cook. We don't like to eat out at restaurants every night. Ergo, we need to provide our own food. The first year, with some misguided idea that it would just 'all work out,' we had almost nothing to eat all week, except junk food. I was not happy. Last year we went out after we got there and bought a bunch of groceries, but then we had to cook most evenings ... something that doesn't thrill me on vacation (who wants to drag themselves up from a gorgeous beach at 5:00 p.m., when the rum's just starting to settle nicely, and go inside and cook dinner?). And spent a lot more money than we needed to on a lot of food that ended up not getting eaten, anyway. This year, in my new Seal-A-Meal phase, I cooked up some stuff in advance and froze it. Then most nights I can just heat something up, and voila ... delicious, hot dinner without all the vacation effort.

I also cooked all of Tyler's food for the entire week plus a day or two after we come home, and froze that up in little individual serving portions.

Today will be laundry and packing. And painting the dining room, because I'm determined to get it done before we go. At least the walls ... we haven't picked our trim color yet, and I'm not rushing it. We have a little collage of choices we're thinking about ..



... but none of them have really jumped out and said "I'm it!" yet. I'm waiting till just the right color hits me.

It will. I have faith in my creative inspiration. It's often slow, but eventually, it gets me there. I think that I will definitely delay any decision till after vacation, because since the theme of this room is going to be 'beach house,' and we're going to the coast, I wouldn't be surprised if some particularly luscious color combination jumps out at me from somewhere on this trip ... a particularly nice sunset, an interesting shop, someone's boat, a random beach crab ... and I'll say, "Aha! That's the color we need!"

Slogging Through Till Beach Time

I'm just muddling along till vacation ... nine days to beach!!! Woo-hoo!! Cannot wait.

The insulation work is getting done this weekend. I hope to finish painting the dining room then, too, so more pictures soon. Otherwise, just trying to get everything done to go on vacation. I've been buried at work, and trying to get all that caught up. And there are certain projects I want to get done here before we go (like the dining room; and planting the azaleas I bought a month ago ... I'm such a bad gardner).

Speaking of planting, I'd better get it done soon ... it's freaking freezing this morning, only 49 degrees ... at this rate we're going to have frost soon, and if I don't get them in the ground and let them get stabilized, they're not going to survive. May already be too late.

Well, my out-front gardening scheme kind of fell apart this year, anyway. I was disappointed I didn't make more progress, but ... there was a lot to do around here this year, and we did get a lot done, so I can't really be too upset about it. When the winter blahs hit in January, that will give me plenty to do, planning out the gardens a little better. That's one of the things that held me up ... not really knowing what I wanted to do.

I know we want to move the front steps and install a front walkway, and that's also something that held me up ... because the plantings need to be based around that walkway, but without it being in place, it was hard to know what to do or get started. My goal is to get that walkway project done next spring, and then I can start the re-landscaping in earnest.

Oh, in other important news: Tyler has had an allergy problem most of his life that would cause him to, off and on throughout the year, scratch and chew on himself to the point of craziness - he'd have raw sores on his body, he'd keep us all up half the night with his snorfling and chewing, it was always pretty awful. I'd tried everything I could think of - Benadryl, Pet-Ease (a sort of mild, herbal pet valium), different medications and lotions and sprays. A few years ago I even took him to an allergy vet about an hour away, and spent about $400 for a consultation with her, to no avail ... she had nothing to suggest other than the Benadryl (which never worked). Some people had suggested an 'allergy diet,' but it turned out he was basically already eating that - things like rice and chicken.

For a long time I thought it was fleas, but we'd find no fleas on him (confirmed by his groomer), so I began to figure it wasn't just that.

He hadn't had this problem since we moved in, but it ramped up again in the last few weeks. I was getting desperate - I hadn't had a full night's sleep for weeks. He generally sleeps in our bed, and when he starts chewing and slurping and snorfling, it always wakes me up - and this would go on for hours at night! I tried moving him to his doggie bed on the floor, but it didn't help, it still woke me up. A couple of nights, in desperation, I put him out of the room entirely, but I always hate to do that - since he's always slept with us, it seems like punishing him, and it's not his fault, plus he's miserable enough from the itching, without adding insult to injury.

So anyway, I was at the local health food store the other day, and remembered they had a pet section, and decided to go see what was new over there. I ran onto their homeopathic display (not new, but I'd never considered it before), and thought, "Hey ...". I found a homeopathic remedy made by Newton Homeopathics for Pets, called "Itchy Skin" - and decided to try it.

Most of you are probably familiar with homeopathic remedies, but in a nutshell, it's an all-natural remedy made by extreme diffusions or distillations of different substances, to the point where there's almost none of the original active ingredient left, but more just the 'essence' of it. They're totally safe, as there's not enough of anything in it to hurt anyone. While I have a deep respect for any natural and holistic treatment, I was always a little skeptcial of homeopathic remedies like this. I know a lot of people use them with good results, but ... I just couldn't put much faith in them. And I'd personally tried a few, which never seemed to work.

But for $14, I thought, what the heck.

It works! It's the first thing I've ever tried on Tyler that actually works, but it does indeed work. Three drops of the liquid in his mouth, and in minutes he's stopped itching, chewing, etc. It's totally astounding. I give him a dose in the morning, and one when I get home, and one before bed. Although the directions say you can give a dose every 15 minutes until it works, I've never had to give more than one.

I don't know how the one in the morning works throughout the day, because I'm not here - but I know I haven't come home to find any more sores or raw spots on Tyler. Throughout the evening it'll seem to start wearing off in a few hours. But when we give him the dose before bed, that's it for the night - he either doesn't chew or scratch at all once we go to bed, or he might have one or two very brief episodes which quickly stop, and then we're good for the night.

I used to think that even if they worked on people, some of it might be just 'headology' as Granny Weatherwax would call it ... but it can't be that with Tyler, as he has no clue what I'm giving him, so he's not expecting or hoping for any result.

I'm totally amazed, and very grateful. And wishing I'd have tried this years ago.

Update: After I posted this, I wondered if I'd described the manufacture of homeopathic remedies correctly (it's been a long while since I read up on this topic), so I went and did a little research on Wikipedia. I had it pretty right - it's dilution and 'succussion' (tapping or hitting), not distillation. And often, depending on the degree of dilution, there is none of the original substance remaining in the preparation. Although they are generally harmless (because of the dilution), occasionally a toxic reaction occurs, either in the much lower dilutions (where some of the original substance may still be present) or in incorrectly manufactured products.

One interesting note that I read was a section on veterinary homeopathy, which said that it was generally considered unproven and unfounded, but also that 'placebos' used on pets often had the effect of making the owners believe that some cure had taken place. Well, that's fine for something that an owner wouldn't know whether it was cured or not (like an internal condition). But when I physically see that my dog is no longer scratching and chewing, it's kind of hard to call that a 'placebo effect' - or if that's what it is, hell, I'll take it!

I'm still unsure about homeopathic remedies in general, but all I know is that so far, this has worked - I have no idea how, but as I said - I'll take it.

More Good News - Imaginarium

Our guy came out this week to look over the insulation work we wanted done in the Imaginarium. I really was concerned we wouldn't be able to afford it this year, and I'd either have to resort to doing it myself (crawling around in cubbies installing fiberglass insulation was not something I was looking forward to), or endure another freezing winter and try to do it next year.

He called back today with the estimate. To insulate all the walls, plus do blown-in insulation up in the ceiling / peak area, plus do the mold remediation work we need done - total, $1,800.

I was ecstatic. I thought the insulation alone would cost well over $2,000. The previous mold remediation job was estimated at $400, so we knew we'd be spending at least that. $1,400 for all that insulation sounds like a deal to me.

The mold remediation - when we bought the house, we knew this - there was a spot on the underside of the roof, accessible through a panel in the cedar closet, that had some mold. It wasn't that big, and it wasn't out in the main room. We had this same guy come in to look at it before we ever made an offer on the house - we wanted to know if it was dangerous, or fixable. Turned out it wasn't dangerous (not that 'toxic' mold) and was very treatable. That's why we didn't worry about it and went ahead and bought the house.

We just hadn't gotten around to having him come in and fix it yet, till now. When we did finally call him about it, we decided to talk to him about the insulation at the same time. So that's how all this came about.

I'm pretty happy ... hopefully this new insulation will make a huge difference in the Imaginarium this winter, and I can be comfortable up here without having to crank the heat up ... all part of our plan to save energy, and money. I have no intention of paying $300 a month to heat this place in the winter, but it is a very large house, so it will take a lot of shoring up, insulating, and blocking drafts to reach that goal, but this is a big first step. And I think it's going to be very successful. We only lived here for about 6 weeks of bad, cold weather last year, but we were able to keep the thermostat down really low, and the main rooms of the house - especially the bedroom - were toasty warm. I mean, toasty. The basement was only mildly chilly - nothing that couldn't be dealt with by wearing a sweatshirt instead of a t-shirt. So as long as I can get the Imaginarium warmed up, we'll be well on our way.

The next room that needs help is the kitchen, which was consistently cold. But, there are two outside doors into the kitchen, both of which have major air leaks (you can see daylight through these cracks when the door is closed), plus it was right off the dining room which had the broken mail slot in the door that didn't close all the way - another major air leak. We plan to deal with the small problems in the two kitchen doors, and if we don't get around to replacing the dining room door this winter, at least we can permanently seal the mail slot, since we now have a mail box.

Looking forward to an inexpensively toasty winter!

9/11 - You Decide

I am not usually a big proponent of conspiracy theories. Oh, it's not that I don't think our government or other powers that be would stoop so low. I have no doubt they would and do. I just also know the world is full of anarchist drama queens who will be happy to blame the government for everything from a terrorist attack to their latest hangnail. I have never felt I had the time or interest to sift through the mountains of rubbish to find the conspiracy theories that might be true. I - like so many other people - figured "oh well, stuff goes on, what can I do." Best to ignore it and just get on about my day.

Until recently. I was bored one day and poking around online, and ran onto some information about the 9/11 theories. I knew they existed, but like others, I just hadn't ever paid any attention. As I was perusing some of this information, thinking "yeah, yeah, yada, yada," something in my lemming brain began to kind of wake up and start paying attention.

I read a little more. I paid a little more attention. Then I began to wonder. I did some more research. I went in search of 'the other side' - the people 'debunking' the "consipiracy theories," to see what they had to say. Then I went back to see what the "conspiracy theorists" had to say about that.

Well, to cut to the chase, after lengthy review (not all just that one day, over time) of voluminous information and questions online, I have to tell you ... I believe there's something here. The evidence is overwhelming in favor of there being something very wrong with the 'official version' of events. And not just wrong in that "there are some things the government must keep from the people, to protect vital interests" line of BS way. I mean something wrong in the 'flat out lies and cover-ups' kind of way.

Let me make one thing clear. Just because I believe there is something wrong with the "official version" of 9/11 events doesn't mean I buy, hook, line and sinker, every theory out there. I've heard some I find implausible. I've heard some I haven't yet taken the time to thoroughly investigate.

But, contrary to some arguments, this isn't an 'all or nothing' proposition. I've read some sites purporting to 'debunk the conspiracy theories' which say if you believe any one of the theories, you must believe them all, then they will go on to debunk only the most fallible of the theories. I believe that is ludicrous. There are some theories I don't buy (like there was no plane at the Pentagon, it was a bomb; or that all the passengers from all the planes were actually spirited away to an empty NASA building in Cleveland, and weren't even on the planes that struck the buildings, to name a few).

Just because I don't buy some of the more implausible theories, doesn't mean there can be no merit to some of the other theories. It doesn't work that way. Some people may have jumped on the bandwagon and embellished things that were perfectly legit. That doesn't mean, however, that all of it is perfectly legit - or that none of it is.

But I think what gives me the most pause are two things: first, I believe it is an undisputed fact (I can't swear to it, but at this point in my reading I believe it is true) that many of these issues were never addressed by the 'official version,' and will not be. They just won't deal with them. Why not? If there's nothing going on, then why not put the worst of it to rest by addressing it?

Second, unfortunately most of the 'debunking' I've read doesn't itself stand up to great scrutiny. As I mentioned, much of it takes the most ludicrous and fallible scenarios, debunks them, then says, "There, we've dealt with all of the conspiracy theories." Not true. Or their debunking consists of saying "That's silly" or "there's no evidence for that" - without presenting any of their arguments. Merely saying something is silly isn't the same as showing it to be untrue. Some of their answers simply do not address the question being asked. They give a red herring answer that sounds fully plausible if read on its own, but when you compare it to what's really being said, or asked, it just does not address the real question.

If it were just one or two things, that'd be one thing. But it's not one or two ... there are so many things that are questionable. And, to me at least, legitimately questionable.

So, I'm not saying, I'm just saying.

This is my little contribution in the Truth War. I'm going to post at the bottom of this page a list of links to some of the more interesting pieces of information I have found. I urge everyone who has read this far to go check this out for yourselves. And / or do your own research (just type anything about 9/11 in a search engine or on YouTube, and you'll turn up everything you could ever want to find).

Don't take my word for it. I'm nobody, but an interested and concerned citizen. But I don't know eveything. I just know some people raise some very valid questions, which deserve answers. And which to date do not seemto have been adequately answered.

Think for yourself, make your own decision.

But do us all and yourself one favor - don't make your decision "just because" or only based on half the facts, or God forbid just because "the government says so, it must be true." Do the research, check out the evidence. Make an informed decision, not a lemming decision.

WhatReallyHappened.com
A lot of information here; follow the links within the articles for more in-depth information.

911Truth.org

Scholars for 9-11 Truth

Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth

Pilots for 9-11 Truth

Firefighters for 9-11 Truth

Prison Planet
Find their search box on the right-hand side of the page, switch it to search their site only, and type in "9/11"

Charlie Sheen's Message To The President

9-11 Research
This site handles 'both sides' of the controversy, upholding the 'official version' of events when the facts warrant. For example, some conspiracy theories claim there was no plane that hit the Pentagon, and in fact it was bombed (by us). 9-11 Research has a lengthy article dismissing that claim and offering evidence that there was, in fact, a plane flown into the Pentagon. However, the site also thoroughly researches - and when applicable, supports - other theories that do indicate 9/11 was an inside job. In other words, they are 'fair and balanced'.

"Loose Change" video on YouTube



In support of the official version of events:

Debunking 911 Conspiracy Theories - Exploding the Myths

Popular Mechanics rebuttal

I'll add to this list as I find anything new worth posting here.

Finally - The Dining Room!

I finally got started painting the dining room Monday. I didn't get it done, but that's okay - just getting it started will give me the momentum to keep going till it is done.

Here's the wall I was working on Monday, before I started. That dark, dreary paneling had to go!


Two coats of primer.


And, first coat of paint.






It was very hard to get this to show up well in a picture, but it's a pale green ... I don't remember the name of this color, but it's very similar to a color I had my dad paint my bedroom walls when I was growing up, which was called "seafoam green" - so that gives you an idea.

I was very concerned about this color ... we thought and thought for weeks about what color we wanted, specifically what shade from the dozens of paint chip samples we'd picked up. We finally settled on this, but when it was mixed and the guy showed it to me, I was worried - it looked a little too "minty green" to me just then, almost like some type of 'candy green.'

But once it was on the wall, it looked much better. Actually, I'd have preferred something just a little 'greener' - more of a sagey-celery color, but this color is really good. It's actually got a tiny, tiny hint of a blue-green in it in certain light, which is also reminscent of the sea, so I'm happy.

It almost covered completely in one coat (it looks much better in person than in these pictures), but later we did notice some thin spots. We decided to wait till the whole dining room is done, then go back over all the walls with a quick second coat, just to even things up and cover those thin spots - I thought that sounded better than trying to spot touch-up. I waffled a long time about what paint to buy, too, and the salesguy talked us into the more expensive Valspar Premium, but it was worth it - it really was a dream to work with, went on very easy and smooth, and almost covered in one coat - probably would have covered in one coat if I hadn't been in kind of a hurry because I was axious to see how the whole wall looked, done - and the light is so bad in there, it's hard to see what you're doing. There was almost no paint smell, too. (and it wasn't *that* expensive - it was $20-something a gallon, whereas the cheaper stuff we were considering was something like $17 or $18 anyway; I'd heard of paints costing $40 a gallon or more, but this didn't).

Ironically, we bought 2 gallons of paint and only one of primer, and it's the primer we're looking likely to run out of, while I doubt we'll use anywhere near even one whole gallon of paint. We can't return it since it was custom tinted, so something, somewhere, is going to be seeing a lot of this green. That's okay ... it's a nice color, we'll find a use for it. (The Imaginarium comes immediately to mind).

The dark window-thing in the middle of the wall - that's tricky. It was probably originally an actual window (as this room used to be a porch) which was turned into a pass-through into the room next door, closed by two shutters. We're leaving it, mostly because I don't want to go to the expensive of having someone patch that big hole in the wall. We decided we'll leave the shutters as they are (they're actually a pretty wood) and paint the inside of the opening with one of our trim colors, then use that for something - I'd suggested putting shelves across it, and using it as a little knick-knack cubby or something.

Just this wall color alone isn't enough to 'fix' this room, but we have Plans. The room is going to have a 'beach house' theme, so this color is a great base for that. We're going to be deciding on trim and accent colors (I'm leaning toward a cream color, and either a melony or yellow contrast color). Eventually the carpet's going away, and we'll have some type of tile put in. New curtains, a new table and seating (I love this table, but we need a bigger one; this one will go live in the Imaginarium), add a little wall decor (some of which we already have, stuff we found this summer and knew would be perfect for this room), and the room will be done, and will look 175% better than it has since we moved in!

I'm psyched. This room needed the most work of any place in the house, so it's nice to be getting it done.

We're also having a guy in tonight to talk to us about the insulation issues upstairs (the house is an over-sized Cape Cod, so the Imaginarium has those half-walls and slanted ceilings, behind which there is no insulation to speak of; the upstairs was freezing last winter, and I'm determined to fix that before this winter).

So some significant progress is being made now on the more important things, and that makes me happy. Once we get the bigger stuff out of the way, we can settle into the fun little details.

A&S 50 - Pewter Casting

I completed my second A&S 50 project in pewter casting today - I cast 60 medallions for our local group's upcoming event.

The first step was to carve the mold, and the first step of that was to get the shape and depth right. This was the mold before I'd added the design.

Looks kind of alienesque at this point (like a satellite-picture crop circle kinda thing). This is the first time I've used a sprue - that funnel-shaped thing (appropriate, since that's what it is) at the bottom of the mold. That's the 'correct' way to do it. In the past we just carved the mold, poured the pewter in, and slapped a handy piece of marble on top. That was a hit-or-miss method, as if you got just the right amount of pewter in the mold it was fine; and if you didn't, it would squirt out between the two pieces, making a useable piece but one that needed lots of trimming.

With a sprue, you use a 'backing' piece for the mold - basically two pieces of soapstone clamped together - and you use the sprue as a funnel to pour the pewter in. Like this ...


Then it only fills the mold, and the extra comes back up the sprue, instead of squirting out around the edges ... like this ...



Well, more or less ... I didn't have the molds clamped together tightly enough, so I did have a bit of leakage, but nothing like when you don't use a sprue. It's not really gold-colored, either - that's just the way the lighting was making it look.

An interesting change that I made was, usually the sprue is carved into both halves of the mold, to make basically an oval shaped funnel. But I was experimenting, and only carved the sprue into this half, not the backing half - but it seemed to work fine, so I didn't bother to carve the second piece of soapstone. That way, it's still a pristine piece of soapstone that I can use for future molds.

The seond new thing was, I'd never made a piece with the loop at the top for a string. Robin wanted the bardic medallions made that way, but I didn't think I could do it, so instead I just left an empty space at the top, and drilled a hole in them.

But the event medallions I was using as a model all had the string-loop at the top, so I thought I ought to try to do it 'right.' It was tricky.

So first I did a test cast before adding the actual design, just to check my shape and depth (and the string loop at the top). It turned out pretty great.


I made a few minor modifications, and was ready to start on the design. Unfortunately I had issues with that part, but that's always the hardest part. For one thing, despite that I did this last time, and reminded myself all morning not to do it again ... yeah, initially I forgot to carve the design backwards. Which meant I had to buff out half the design that was done wrong, deepening the mold. Fortunately, it didn't deepen it too much, and my medallions were still good, not too thick.

At Pennsic we bought a little pewter casting kit, because it had a bunch of stuff we thought would come in really handy (and it did!). One of those things was 5.5 lbs of pewter in an iron pot. Easily enough, you can just set it on a stove burner and melt it. And handily enough, there's a stove up in the Imaginarium!




Although it did take almost half an hour on high to melt the pewter, but still ... far, far easier than trying to do this in the fireplace with a propane torch. (sounds like a game of Clue).

Here's the medallion in the mold, after it's opened and before it's popped out.



Some medallions laying around before their sprues were broken off.


After breaking off the sprue, I used my Dremel tool to smooth the edges, and they were done.

So I carved the mold, cast and finished 60 medallions all in one day - nothing like waiting till the last minute (the event's next weekend), but it goes to show casting doesn't take an enormously long time. I did have help, as Robin helped me with the casting for awhile, before he went off to work on his own projects.

The chest of finished medallions.


And a close-up of one.


I would like to say this isn't my best work, but unfortunately it probably is - seeing as how this is only the second thing I've ever cast, and the first one left a bit to be desired. I kind of messed up the "I" of the "IX" and my "S"s are crooked (though yes, they are supposed to be straight and spiky like runes, not curvy like normal S's). Well, it's a learning curve (S pun not intended) - rather, carving the mold is. The actual casting isn't that difficult, but carving the mold is everything because once you're done with that, that's what you're stuck with - and to me, that's tricky. But all in all I'm pretty happy with them, and the event autocrat said they were good, so as long as they're legible and serve their purpose for the event, that's what counts.

Busy Day; Fish; Moroccan Veils; Stars

I had a busy and productive day - despite being an utter idiot last night, staying up till 4:00 a.m. playing Zombies, drinking too much, and not getting nearly enough sleep. In fact, I felt so poopy this morning, and was so mad at myself for being such a tool, that I dived into one of the weekend's tasks - cleaning the garage - with a vengeance this morning mere moments after I'd woken up, semi-hangover and all, purely for personal penance.

It worked out well, however. I feel better, and got a ton of work done on the garage. Here's what it looks like now ...


... and while that may not yet look very good, you should have seen it before. If there was even a path through it before I started this morning, I don't remember it. All of the stuff in the garage either went upstairs in the Imaginarium, or downstairs in the basement ... which meant a lot of trips up and down stairs today, carrying stuff. I'm finally building up a tolerance for it, a couple trips up and down no longer make me feel like chewing a Bayer aspirin and calling 911, just in case.

There are obviously still some things to deal with, but it's really very minor. The few things left all have a place to go, I just finally ran out of steam before they got there. The rest of the stuff is gardening and lawn stuff that stays in the garage, just needs stored a little more neatly so I can get my truck into a space that only leaves me a few inches of clearance. It'll be interesting, and require some creativity, to see where and how I can store stuff I need in the garage, and still be able to use it for the truck.

The back half is another story - it's still a disaster, but ... one thing at a time. Today accomplished the goal of being able to get my truck in the garage again, which I wanted to do before winter. Also, the garage door opener needs fixed, but I couldn't have someone in to look at that until I could clear a space for them to actually get to it. (I'm hoping the home warranty covers that ... it may).

We'll worry about the back half another day.

Meanwhile, Greg was up on the roof ...


... doing some little repairs. I'd noticed awhile back that some shingles were kind of popped up, as if there was something underneath them - and that didn't seem right. When we bought the house there was an issue near the front door which had caused water to get into the closet just inside that door. It wasn't a roof issue per se, it was an ice dam issue at the gutter. So as part of the negotiations, the sellers hired and pre-paid a roofer to come out when the weather was better, to install a moisture guard on that section. We finally just had him out last month, and while he was here, we asked about those popped-up shingles. Funnily enough, he told us exactly what was causing it (nails popping up), and said he was too old to be climbing around on a steep-pitched roof, so he showed Greg how to fix it instead. Nice guy. And that's why Greg was on the roof today.

This roof is not in the best of shape. It's been patched and repaired quite a bit, and has a lot of moss growing on it. We're going to look into having the moss cleaned off, but even so, the roof is not in its prime. I had estimated it would cost between $7,000 and $10,000 to have a new roof put on this house, and our roofer guy confirmed that was the ballpark.

Ouch. Well, the good news is, he said with care and maintenance we can probably get another 5 to 7 years or so out of it, and in that amount of time we're hoping to be able to either (a) save up the money to pay for all or part of it, and / or (b) get a home equity loan for the rest. If we can finance less than $5,000 payments should be relatively low (I had several loans at the old house for that amount or less, like when I remodeled the kitchen, and the payments were very reasonable) and we'll have a good, brand new roof for another 20 to 25 years before we have to worry about that again (and by then we should be living in North Carolina anyway).

Meanwhile, I found this in the garage today ...


... my old 10 gallon aquarium. Yeah, it's looking pretty raunchy, but I'm debating on cleaning it up and setting it up again. Part of me wants to - I always loved aquariums - and part of me dreads the massive amount of work involved, even in a small one - sometimes worse in a small one, as it's harder to keep the pH and other levels right. I used to really go overboard, though, studying it like a scientist, stockpiling hundreds of dollars worth of chemicals, and really getting kind of O-C about it. Maybe there's a happy medium of doing what needs done, but not getting excessive about it. I could set it up with a nice sea theme, and then only have a couple of really nice fish - not try to get a tankful, as I used to try to do.

This also got dredged out of the garage today ...




... my dad had bought me this telescope for Christmas some years ago. It isn't a super high-end one, of course, but it is a fairly nice amateur star-gazing one. It has a built-in star finder computer that does a lot of neat things, and amazingly still works, for the fact that the telescope is somewhere between 7 and 12 years old, and had been stashed out in the garage since February. You input your location, do a few orientation settings, and then when you point the telescope at anything you can see in the sky, the little computer screen tells you exactly what star or planet or whatever, that you're looking at. Also, if you want to find a specific star, planet, nebula, or what-have-you, you find it in the computer's list and the screen will guide you in moving the telescope to center whatever you're looking for exactly in the view. It's pretty cool.

Anyway - I never used it much, because at my old house there was so much ambient city light that I really couldn't find anything with it. Several times I considered taking it out to a local state park or something, but I never did.

But here, though we still live in a city which is never the ideal situation for viewing through a telescope, it's much, much darker at night. I mean, our back yard is inky like being out in the middle of nowhere. So when we unearthed it today, Greg brought it out and set it up, and once it gets dark, we're going to see what we can find. I'm pretty psyched - one thing I do know is that I was able to see some pretty amazing detail on the surface of the moon with it, and the moon's full right now, so we should at least get some awesome looks at that tonight.

And now that's it out and functioning again, I think I'll take it to North Carolina when we go ... we ought to be able to see amazing things with it from the deck of the beach house at night!

Last but not least, the Tangier antique shop owner finally got back to me, and sadly, my Moroccan veil has been sold. Bummer. Well, I'll just have to study the pictures, and embroider my own.

And that's all my news for the day.

Meal Plan's Working; and Vacation's On!

The meal plan is proving itself out quite well. Tuesday night night it was pop a pan of lasagna in the oven, and eat when it was hot ... meanwhile, I sat in the backyard enjoying a fire Robin built for us, and doing some embroidery. Last night was throw a bag of Hamburger Helper in a pot of boiling water and go downstairs and embroider while it heated, then eat, and no dishes except the two we ate out of (the pot only held boiling water, so it was clean).

Yep. I'm liking the plan. It's a keeper.

Meanwhile, we finally booked the beach house today for the annual pilgrimage to the Sea (aka our yearly Outer Banks vacation). We waited late to do this, and the selections were extremely limited. We'd finally narrowed it down to two acceptable choices, and it was tough ... one was beautiful inside, but near a nature preserve so had a huge dune between it and the beach - quite a long trek through the dune sand to get to the water. The other was not as nice inside (okay, nothing wrong with it, just not as fancy-schmancy) but right on the beach - as in, mere feet away from sand while sitting on the 'front porch.'

We opted for the 'beach in your face' choice in the end. My take on the whole thing is, if I'm going to the ocean, I want to be AT THE OCEAN - right there, 24/7. I don't want to drive 14 hours and then still have to walk half a mile to get to it. Now that it's officially booked, I feel we made the right choice. We'll give up a little in posh indoor living, but who cares ... we'll spend most of our time outside anyway.

So now that it's official, I am so totally psyched! Can't wait, can't wait, can't even wait. I think I'll go start packing.