As stated one day previously two of my brothers share a birthday two years apart. So in celebration of their 45th & 47th we’re hosting a food and fun filled family weekend at the cottage. Music, boating, paddle boards, swimming, booze and fun. Hard to miss a good time up here.
I haven’t sculpted a full humanoid figure in a number of years, so starting off with a Ninja Turtle in a medium I don’t typically use was going to end up one of two ways. Either the best thing I had made to date, or a low res copy with lots of learning curve errors for the type of materials I used. Can you guess how I feel it went? Yeah, the latter and not the former. I will say this though, free standing, a plus, looks like a turtle, kinda, and now it’s done. Three pluses in its favour. A great introduction to Apoxy Sculpt. I like that I don’t have to bake it afterwards. But as I don’t sculpt full time, I’m not able to wait for things to semi harden to go back in and make crisper adjustments, like I would with Sculpey. I have six some odd pounds of sculpey so any more sculpting done this year will use it ( Super Sculpey), rather than the last 1/3 of the Apoxy sculpt I have left. I like the idea of apoxy for weapons or add ons that want to harden before I finish the figure/bust I’m working on. Green stuff is great that way too. Next steps, more sculpting – yeah! And also painting my two finished items.
Work on the shelf unit is coming along slowly, as per usual. Have the box built, and round overd applied to all front facing edges. Needs a hell of a lot more sanding, and some minor fixes on the top display surface. Then I can stain and apply finish to it. Which completes the top. The base requires twelve mortises to be cut, and I want to use my table saw for the through and throughs. The rest get hand chiseled out. Which takes forever.
Plus the actual legs are Ash, so that’s a great hard splinter wood to work with. But sturdy as all get out. Measured the top box, and it is reliably 15 ” and 15/16ths tall. I was 1/16th from my goal of 16″. Not bad, not great. I think the noted thickness for my boards was approximate and not definite, which is where my discrepancy comes from. No matter. It’ll fit under the windowsill which is my main priority. The floor could dip, cup or bow, and I’ll be glad of the extra room to maneuver when I comes time to bring the thing indoors and really get moving on cleaning up the kids toys.
I’m not totally sold on painting the shelf unit white. I’d like to stain it dark, like Walnut, to match the rest of the furniture. We’ll see how it looks unfinished once totally assembled. I can make my decisions then. That’s future me’s problem to wrangle with. My reasoning is, as I can’t let this go right now, is that white paint will show dirty finger prints and scuffs, and hard wear, whereas the dark stain will just start to look more rustic and worn. Which will match the state of the house – ha. I know it’ll get beat up, so why try to draw attention to that by being a brilliant white?
As an aside : I really should put wheels on the toy box so it can get moved into the room to aid cleaning up too. Just a thought.
Today is Friday, and a warm hello to two of my older brothers whom both have birthdays today. If I recall it is #45 & #47! Happy birthday Amigos. Here we are last year on the hottest day of August playing Swamp Golf at the Thunderbird course in Kanata Ottawa. Our father melting in the background.
Ah, just being dramatic is all. School is officially underway, though I believe Monday will feel more real for some reason. Probably because this school week started on a Wednesday, and so much was going on here Monday & Tuesday. I am trying to get back into my own groove now that I’m back to having six hours to myself to work, and complete tasks around the house once more. I really need to tackle the kids toys in the living room, but that means getting the storage unit done, which means wood working and not doing paid work, of which I have a bunch to do in the coming weeks. There has to be a happy medium in between. Some compromise I can find between waiting to get hours of sanding, staining, gluing and cutting done, or tossing the whole lot in a garbage bag. No easy fixes to be found here.
I’m still surprised by which post titles seem to get likes without being shown as read. Perhaps in another life I should have gotten into creating headlines for tabloids and such. I don’t imagine that act being very lucrative though. Click bait style grab’em by the eyeballs seems to be the flair of the day. I want to read articles with titles like; “A Reasoned and Nuanced Admission of Hatred For Hello Kitty”, or “A Timely Exploration of (Ex/In) cel Believing Everything is a Date”, to name just a few. Perhaps those articles have been written but I don’t cast a wide enough net when looking for reading materials.
Speaking of which, reading that is, I’m one book back on my one book per month goal for 2022. I’m still reading the eight book for August, even though we are well into September. The Grapes of Wrath was a heavy choice. I’ll stick with it, mind you, but I’m not flying through it like a sci-fi novel, or something less colloquial. I don’t think I’ll get too upset if I only hit 11 of 12 books this year. Nothing to beat myself up over. Just you wait until I try Moby Dick, The old man and the sea, or War and Peace. May not get through too many beyond those in a calendar year. I’ve heard they can be challenging reads. I won’t know until I give them a go. But before I go that route, I have a Carl Sagan book to read that I am excited for. The Demon Haunted World, oooh…. I’ve heard good things. I have seen that book quoted a number of times over the last few years. Time to read it first hand, well, after GoW anyway.
Maybe I’ll go sand for a bit as I await feedback, edits, change requests or all new projects. No point sitting around typing, when I could get something checked off my list. Another time then. Ciao Bella!
It started on the wrong foot from the get go. Terrible nights sleep, over sleeping the morning alarm, failure to check shoe sizes for indoor/outdoor footwear, tears & trickery to get my youngest off to class. Ugh. I feel bad for tricking my youngest into going today, but in my defense I put off all of yesterday’s work until today, so that we could all have a grand last day before school together, and I absolutely had to have today free to work on the ten or so projects I have on the go, with four different clients. Plus, my youngest is never all that sick, and just wants to hang out and have me take them places on the DL. Given the walking at the zoo for three hours yesterday I knew they could go today. Mask wearing and playing with pals. Not exactly a ball buster of a first day of senior kindergarten. Not only that but I had to run errands that matter for this weekend. So no time to play hooky today, I’m afraid.
The oldest was excited for school today, thankfully. I was running behind I never got any morning photos, I hope my wife did. I had plans for signs, and a photoshoot, but rotten guts, a bad sleep, and all manner of other oversights on my part lead to a bad start to the day. I was so focused on the kids getting fun out of the nine week break I didn’t double check the shoe situation for either child. We’ll have it sorted by Monday, so no major issues.
Lots going on. Need to eat my breakfast slash lunch just after 1:00pm. I’m cranky and moody. But my work is coming together as needed. Plans for the household DIY projects are on pause for the moment. Check in later for more details… maybe. Ciao Bella!
Got out the door just before 9:00am, and were among some of the first guests into the Metro Toronto Zoo this morning. After a three hour walk around the park we called it a day and have come home for cold drinks, and to rest our weary feet. It’s great to have a membership because we don’t feel like we have to see every single thing on the day. We can go back just to see one specific exhibit whenever we like. That’s a pretty sweet way to make your own way around the park in my humble opinion.
Tomorrow school starts! OMG! It’s finally here, can you believe it. On a side note, the proposed trip to Wonderland was quashed when they only open on weekends after Labour Day weekend. Oh well. Maybe next year.
If I never build another springless trampoline in my lifetime it’ll have been one too many to begin with. What a horrendous pain in the ass this monstrosity is. Counter intuitive. Washed out colour coded stickers. Oblong netting that only fits if it’s exactingly precise. A nightmare all around. Plus it’s second hand, and has seen some wear and tear, Nay! Neglect, I would venture to say. Bent frame pieces, legs that are 5° out of wack, and the sockets for the fiberglass pins all splayed out willy-nilly. My god. I hate it. I hate with a passion. I detest it with the fire of a thousand suns. We’ve gotten within 5% of complete, only to realize the instructions put us off by mere inches. Had to strip it back down and start again, three fucking times. I hate it, I hate it, I hate myself. Bah gawd lowrd in heavon! Fuck. Taking photos of it to take to the main office in Markham to see if we in fact have a lemon, or if these contraptions are among some of the worst things designed ever. My palms are bruised, my knuckles scraped, my arms are tired, and we still have fifty to sixty of these springless pins left to attach to the canvas mat at some point in the near future to look forward to. To say I am frustrated, angered, livid or disagreeable right now, is to put things mildly. I care not, for you or your ilk, springless trampoline. I would take a saws-all too you if I could. Pitch your parts into a burn barrel and watch your essence boil and bubble away into an equally ineffectual goo. You bother me, and I hate you. Fin.
For those people who did not move alot when they were kids, teens or adults. You know, those people who still have friends from grades school, middle school, and high school. People that have a several decades long healthy connection to their friends. I wonder what that’s like.
I have a reoccurring dream where I go back to my old schools, and I remember every square inch of them, and can recall the names of my old friends and class mates. It’s weird. I still know 95% of the names of kids from sixth grade or below. Not very useful information to have rattle about in the skull. After all this time I can remember those grade school details, but I’ll be damned if I can remember the years in which I did almost anything else. Dates seem to escape me.
I have more to say about this, but it’s kind of a downer for a holiday Monday. So, nope, not today my old friend. I think I need to eat. Yeah- I definitely need to eat breakfast. Ciao Bella!
I don’t know much about you, but I curse a blue streak when I get mad and frustrated. Especially if it’s my kids pretending that they can’t do something that they’ve done by themselves a hundred times, but have grown instantaneously forgetful about, in public, under stress, where I’m the one holding something heavy and/or awkward waiting on them to complete the task. Bothers me just a lil’ bit. Lil’bit – yeah.
We haven’t had the opportunity to have too many partial family adventure days in the past. I used to take my eldest to the movies quite regularly, which was fantastic. Covid curbed that. But now I want to try taking them to Wonderland by myself, but I’m worried they will make me wait for rides and then balk at the last second, which will infuriate me. So part of me wants to try a smaller, less intimidating park, that isn’t as expensive. Because whoo boy, wasted money will ignite my bad mood quickly. Not that I’m waiting on bad things to happen, just to get mad about them. It’s merely a tried and true reality, and it saddens me. Irritates me to no end too.
We could do the Zoo for the fiftieth time, or try Legoland, or something like that. I want to get out to do something out of the ordinary for us. I just don’t know exactly what yet. The less expensive it is, the cooler I am with missed opportunities or mishaps. A mindset that comes from decades of being broke. I hate to pay good money to waste opportunity and experiences. I’ll have to learn to let that go. Just grates my nerves deep down. It hurts me to see good money (hard earned at that) wasted. Frivolously. Bah!
Who knows, maybe the weather will be bad, or I’ll have a slew of new projects come in that will force us to not go anywhere. Maybe I’ll take them to lunch and a wander around a mall. The youngest has gone feral with lack of social interactions. Need to retrain them to behave out in public again. They were real good at restaurants as very little children, but not able to do it now after 2.5 years of eating like a menace at home.
That’s more about our short comings rather than my kids. But being at home 24/7 with our whole family present for more than a year was far more than we had bargained for. At some points them just eating anything was a win, and style or etiquette fell by the wayside. One child became randomly fearful of everything conceivable and the other a stage five clinger at all points of the day. Covid and the various shut downs really hampered them both in real, yet strange ways. Getting back to school worked wonders for breaking those habits and fears. Weird times.
Buried somewhere in here is the belief that we will have a good time, and can make some lovely memories together doing something fun and exciting. Is it that hope that is secretly hilarious. Like Charlie Brown lining up on his field goal kick simply for Lucy to pull it away, every, single, time. Is that when hilarity ensues? I’m not sure. I have high Hope’s though! Ciao Bella!
Does that mean people just find my headlines and titles amusing or is there a way people can read posts without it being counted? I’m genuinely curious. I’m not even mad. I find it weird that some posts run up mad numbers of likes but the view count for said article doesn’t go up to match the number of likes it has. Just an observation I have about some random posts of mine. Does an add blocker restrict view counts too, I wonder? Oh well.
Saturday of the last long weekend of summer. I mean, summer still lasts until September 21st, but this is usually the last big hurrah for school kids and teens, before settling back into a rigid schedule. Time to go big because you are going home afterwards. I can imagine this morning involved some day drinking for a bunch of people. The last big bash also involves a horrendous hangover at some point this long weekend. That’s not my go to play anymore. I don’t party like I used to man. The days of double digit beers, plus shots, and sparking up a doobie are long gone, dead and buried. The ‘Rager’ in me toddled off to bed with the spins for the last time more than a decade ago. Not to say I haven’t had one too many since, but nothing like I used too in my previous youth. Had a too strong Mimosa on Christmas morning a year or two in a row, but that’s one/two orange juice with champagne on an empty stomach, not more than half a two four over eight hours of drinking. Shall we say, shades of grey on the continuum.
In other news I still don’t know which teachers my children will have for school on Wednesday. I have a location with a set of doors to take them too, but otherwise I have no idea. Could wind up being total chaos and absolute mayhem. A fun Wednesday morning interlude. Will be nice to see people again, if briefly.
Picked up three new projects for next week, so I’m going to be pretty busy in September. Or at least initially. It’s all good to me. I’m going to go enjoy the sunshine, and finish my pancakes. Ciao Bella!
Every great show winds up having a clip episode where you get to revisit some of the funniest or most poignant portions of a television show. Usually it’s pretty deep into the later seasons when most of the story arcs are near completion, but they’ve been contractually obligated to provide 22 episodes per season and need to pad one out a bit. So, now I’m going to go through and update some current projects, rather than try to come up with anything new to say.
First off is the Ninja Turtle sculpt. One which I have worked up and torn back down three times so far. I’ve since decided to work the whole thing in Apoxy Sculpt rather than intermingle with Super Sculpey firm. The self drying, uber sticky substance is pretty wild. I’m not going to lie, I struggle with it. I don’t typically sculpt for hours on end, so staying with the apoxy as it gets slightly stiffer to rework it isn’t what I’m doing. I should change my working style to meet the medium, but I haven’t, so I may not. At least where this turtle is involved. It’s in very rough form, but it has a full body, arms and head. The feet are going to appear to be in standing water, so they are just lumps for the most part. Needs a lot of refining, smoothing and details yet. A work in progress that could take a few dedicated days to finish, or at my current pace, two more months in dribs and drabs.
The second project update is the shelving unit being built using dowel construction instead of my usual mitered box corners, or box joints. So a shit tonne of butt joints. Bland, but hopefully sturdy. So far so good. The plans I drew up call for eight inch high legs, and the outer most dimensions of the top box to be sixteen inches high and seventy two inches wide, by sixteen inches deep. All made with three quarter inch Pine. Except for the 1.75″ x 1.75″ x 8″ Ash legs or feet. It should stand twenty four inches tall, which gives me a quarter inch of room to slot in under the window sill. My true goal is to have the final build meet the pre-determined spec’s on the drawings, without having made any major edits on the fly. Not that that is a deal breaker, but if I can get better at building to plans that would make me happier. It’s pretty humid around here, so warped wood is something I really have to be aware of. Could funge the whole project if I leave it in the shop for too much longer. The top box is cut and dry fitted together, but needs to be sanded, glued, rounded over and stained, and have final finish put on it. I have a ways to go with the base portion. Cut my pieces, and did the round overs on the legs. But I have a lot of mortises to cut. Twelve of them to be exact. I probably need to round over the stretchers along the base too. More work! If I treat it with respect I hope to have a decent looking bit of furniture to have in the living room. Could be a fun reveal if all goes to plan.
The third project, is a doozy. It encompasses the whole house, mainly because it’s my fall clean up as the kids go back to school, and my wife off to work. I started with a bang, cleaned the appliances, counter tops, cabinets, both inside and out. The hall walls, door frames and doors, as well as the base boards. Washed the floors but did not polish them. In socks you’ll fall over and slip if I polish the floors. Lesson learned with bumped knees and one bruised tail bone. Ouch! I have a paper purge coming. I’ll sort the girls best artwork into a binder, and the rest can go to recycling. Between the two kids we have a seventeen inch tall stack of school work just sitting in the dining room. That’s gotta go. Plus I want to purge broken toys, and remove stuff to the cottage, which doesn’t get played with at home. My niece and nephew are both still small, and would love to play with that stuff still. Oh the memories. I got a jump on it, sure. But the real work will start once school starts again next week. I went through their closets, so that too is done, for now. Growing kids, so clothes and shoes will be a consistent issue for years to come. Ha. Lots to do around here.
Lastly is paid work. I have a solid line up of projects between now and November, so I am very happy about that. I have the room to slot in other projects inbetween my planned work, which is handy. And I’m ok if one or two drop off the map until next year. Next year? Yes. Only four months left of 2022, can you believe it!?! Every so often I think about going out and gathering up more clients, and then when I see what I actually have in the pipeline during the summer & fall, I’m glad I haven’t done so. Busy is great, run off my feet is no good. Creativity suffers when I’m too stressed. Have a solid work life balance right now. Love it!
So there it is. The clip show of what’s going on around here. I could mention, though it’s a bit late. That I also have a model kit I built more than a year ago on my desk that needs panel lining and it’s water slide decals placed on it. This thing has more than two hundred decals to place on a twelve inch tall 1/100 Gundam model kit. Going to be at that project for about eight hours or more. Will look great when done, but ugh. That’s a commitment I’m reticent to make right this second. Stuffed in a box in the closet is a much larger 1/60 scale resin kit that needs weeks worth of work. I lean into my model kits over the winter months when my garage is too cold to work in. Keeps me occupied when not working or cleaning, or shoveling snow.
Lastly is the childrens book I wrote and am currently illustrating (poorly I might add). That’s another item I’ll leave for the winter months when I can’t work outdoors. I have eight more background illustrations to complete, and then I need to tackle the two main characters. It fell off the radar, kind of on purpose, but still I’ll be glad when I get it done. Which reminds me. I’m not entirely certain if I will write a third novellas worth of short stories this winter. I never officially published book two on Kindle Unlimited. I probably should do it. Accompany book one so it doesn’t look so lonely. I sold one copy. In the UK. I believe it was to one of my cousins. It was great to write it all, edit it and then collect all those stories together into one unified thing. Felt amazing to have actually done a thing on my bucket list. Now with book two I’ve written more than 100,000 words worth of short fiction. I’m proud of that. Regardless of whether or not it sold any copies.
Ciao Bella!
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