Well, that is unless I decide to trim out the basement bathroom, but that’s another matter. This project that I picked up again today is the screen door for the back of the house. Now I originally started this last year, or possible the year before that. I know the Ash took forever to flatten on my Busybee planer, and it pushed my Ryobi table saw to the near limit. Since my project is just shy of 2 inches thick, and i had to cut all the pieces down to just under four inches wide. The snipe on such heavy pieces was a real nasty pain to have to deal with, but I went longer than needed to try and limit that to the outer most edges that I could cut off, which kind of worked, but not as well as you might have expected. Plus my garage is tiny, and building an eighty inch long door, that’s about forty inches wide is harder than you might have guessed. But I took a day or two’s worth of time and milled it all up, and jointed the edges and then left it to sit in my garage for a year or so. Now, after all this time, I am once again, back at it. Today’s foray into wood working saw me using a SKIL® circular saw to cut the beginnings of my tenons on the long pieces of the door body. Took some getting used to holding the saw 90 degrees to the floor, but I see it done regularly by Youtube® peeps like the Samurai Carpenter, and his stuff always looks clean AF (Never mind he’s been at that sort of thing for a decade or two!). So after getting my heart rate back down to normal, I put on my head phones and goggles and I fired up the saw and took to making all eight of my cuts. At least, that was the plan initially. Then I quickly stopped after only four, because I’m shit with the circular saw, and want to see how I progress with a hammer and chisel to take out the meat of my mortise. If that proved to be a less dangerous affair then I would cut those out now, and get my nerves back for more circular saw cuts later on. One hour of hammering, shaving, peeling and general buffoonery with hand tools later, I had my first full through cut mortise completed. And she’s a dogs breakfast if ever I saw one. But I got it done, and I think I know how to improve for when I go back for numbers two through four. The tenons will be done on my radial arm saw, because that I’ve done before and I’m more confident there. I also need to leave more wood on the tenons so I can make a snug pressure/friction fit due to my shaky saw work previously. If I don’t manage to get the door together and up by November first, then it’ll be a May 2022 project for sure. Don’t aim for perfect, aim for done!
Month: October 2021
Having trouble visualizing the headspace I need
to be in in order to write creatively at the moment. I have a couple of one off short stories rolling about in my head but I can’t seem to get them out on paper. I mean, sure I’ve done a very brief point form outline, but that’s not helping me find the voice of either set of characters. I have had a few spells of just plain day dreaming where I have thought up something fun, but then just couldn’t get it to come to life. Which is irritating to say the least, but at least I am not where I was a few months ago where I had no ideas at all. Here I was thinking that after I had published my book of short stories back in March, that I would wile away my time adding a couple thousand words more in the time I had before me. But besides three of four small posts here I haven’t written anything at all. I will amend my list of outstanding short stories as ideas come to me, and I hope that I will soon be able to work towards fleshing them out properly in my own idiosyncratic style.
Actually here I’ll just tell you what sort of short stories I have in my bag which I want to write out. I do usually tend towards micro short stories of about five hundred words or so, but if it really grabs me, I have been known to add on additional stories in that line of thinking. Sometimes there are multiple peoples perspectives in the same event, or just different people on the same side of a conflict having wholly different experiences. So the next three stories I intend to write revolve around the creation of the first AI in my interconnected space stories series, which revolves around a character named Kelvin, whom you may recall had a whole portion of my book; The Chronicles of Kelvin. I like him, he’s an interesting guy that has done some pretty weird shit. He’s also comfortable alone, much like myself. Now that story line could have one long but sort of abridged last chapter, or could be broken down like I have in my outline into five meaty chunks. But, you know, sometimes my eyes are bigger than my fingers and I can’t possible write interesting, character driven stories with that many chapters right out of the gate. I’ll have to build up to that, if I ever get a head of steam in me. The second story involves a father and his young daughter, where they are playing out of doors, in a forest, and the young girl is regaling her father with stories of mystical whimsy from her imagination, but the father is transcribing them and adding in all the sorts of details young kids leave out of their stories, but then she gets bored and he’s absolutely hooked, and she looses her train of thought in the middle of this fantasy of epic proportions (due to a vivid childhood imagination unencumbered by things like, logic, physics & linear thinking) and the father goes mental trying to tie it all together in the end. Which is a sentiment I understand completely. The third story is more anecdotal about one of many situations brought about by having Crohn’s Disease. It has a comedic bent to it, because how can you not when you are dealing with such a shitty topic. Ha. That’s all for ranting and whining right now. I’m off to get blood work done at the lab, so stay safe, and have a great autumn season.
Honey Do List
The first month of the kids going back to school has been a doozy. I managed to get through a laundry list of items around the house. I am so very happy that I managed to get these projects done, both the big ticket items and the smaller stuff. Things I’ve been able to do this September since my kids went off to school for six hours per day:
Paint Fire place – Paint the downstairs hall way – Cut and frame sixteen photos and collages & hang them up in the hall – Wash all household Cabinets – De-clutter upstairs of the house (That alone netted me 3 full over sized garbage backs of junk!) – Deep clean from exhaust fan, to tub drain the main floor bathroom – Sweep & mop the entire main floor to a sparkling shine – Manage children’s wardrobe – Clean front door cubbies – Clean front hall closet – Give to charity various boots, coats, hats and jackets – Resurface the dining room table – Clean off the kitchen island so you can see the counter tops again – Wash the winter coats and snow pants – Clean the girls rooms (under the beds and all) – Scrub, pressure wash, sand and stain the back deck – Sand and prime and paint the garage door and trim – Prune all of the trees and shrubs – Dig up 11 Black Locust Trees – Edges and weed all of the garden beds. All of that a more. It really has been a busy September and I’m pleased as punch about it.
Now that we’re into October I’d like to finally build my screen door for the back of the house, and start up on the Harry Potter trunks again. I have two left to go just sitting and waiting for me to get started. Haul away all of the brush that lies in piles around the property – Wash all of the exterior windows – Give both vehicles a fall clean both inside and out – Properly breakdown and store the pressure washer and hoses – Begin fall clean up of leaves and dead flowers. I think I might even tackle the trim in the downstairs bathroom if I get up the courage to try my hand at multiple mitered cuts. Depends on how expensive the trim is I suppose.
Hey not to mention during all this I’ve been able to read three books from cover to cover, which is really quite lovely. And not just doom scrolling on twitter, real paper bound books again. Ah, it’s been lovely. Work has even started to pick up a bit too, so I have invoices going out and coming in again. Plus I am still able to do school drop offs and pick ups every day, which is really great. I hope you are all doing the best you can with what you’ve got. Cheers! ~ M
Greatwall Studios Graphic Design 