I have had in my possession a very nice set of acrylic and water colour brushes that I bought in 2001 when I went to Sheridan College for Art School for a year. I used and abused those expensive brushes every single day for a year, and didn’t put much effort into cleaning them very thoroughly afterward. Now here I am in my forties, with a treasure grove of good brushes, if I can only find a way to remove all the accumulated gunk. Oh I’ve done boiled soapy water, paint thinner, mineral spirits and brush cleaner (all well after the fact mind you), but have never managed to clear more than just the very outer most surface. But, last night I came across a YouTube video of someone using Murphy Oil Soap concentrated floor cleaner on an old acrylic crusty dried up brush, and after 3 to 4 days it revitalized that brushes bristles. For the low low cost of $7.00 CDN, I too hope to breathe new life into my collection of Windsor & Newton brushes. My old clam pack brush cleaner is a lost cause, being about 21 years old now. But I’d love to salvage as many as I can of my five hundred dollars worth of brushes. At $20-$45 a pop (iirc), back in 2001, I can only imagine what a whole new set of Windsor & Newton brushes would cost me today to replace them all. I don’t want to think about it. I see the package says new formula, so I hope it works as well as the older stuff I saw that YouTuber use. Time will tell.
The first batch of offending brushes caked full of old grungy acrylic paint.
So today we begin with a warm temperature wind storm, and will finish the day with a snow squall slash blizzard. Sounds about right for a Thursday, ten days from Christmas. I can only imagine what my kids will do next week at school. Movies, crafts and lots of bouncing off the walls. Good for me at home away from it all, not so much fun for the teachers who will take the brunt of all that restless excitement. Although snow means, snowball fights, king of the hill bouts, forts, raids, and rolling heavy snowman parts. All great ways to tire out school aged children. Which reminds me, I need to put a second reserve pair of gloves in my kids back packs. I sorted out the youngest on Monday, but my older one is still going the whole day with one set of soggy gloves. Seems I am playing catch up! I have the second pair up here all ready. I never put them in the back pack though. So I’ll do that when the kids come home later today.
I think I need to get the last of my invoices out this week, or run the risk of not getting them processed in 2022. So I’ll sign off for now. Ciao Bella!
That’s it, game over, today is the last day of my 365 day writing challenge. Obstacles met and over come. Bam! Something about apples….
But seriously, it’s a big day for what amounted to a difficult task. We had power outages, illnesses, trips, travels, and heavy work days that made this a real barn burner of a challenge. But I got through it all. Wow!
But now what? Maybe I go the whole Calendar year? that adds what, an additional seventeen days? Not bad. Maybe I can break the 200,000 word mark? I thought i just might do it, but I got to around 185,000. So close enough, I think.
So what’s on the docket today. I think I’ll do a double header and will begin my year in review of the wood working projects I built this year. There are several, so settle in. I made furniture, jigs, objects, and some pretty random items to be certain. I did at one point have the list in chronological order, but that list has gone into the ether, so now i’ll just have to randomly talk about the things as I recall them. No don’t worry, it’s not off of the top of my head, I did spend some time the other night writing them all down – again. Just not in any order beyond what i could remember first.
For my sister in-laws baby shower I made two new Cedar newel posts for my in-laws house. As I recall those were about 8.25″ square, and about 2″ high. I painted them white, and they are still affixed to the front exterior stairs. For the new rabbit Butter Scotch, I made two rabbit houses, one was a 13″ square, the other was smaller to fit into the reserve cage at the cottage. In September I used dowel construction to build a Pine display unit for my kids toys, and for them to play dolls on. My youngest has since etched her name into the top with a black ball point pen. I made a rather tall end table to display things in, that was Walnut & Ash. I made a tapering jig for the legs, so that counts as another build item too. I made a Hickory & Ash end Table / coffee table with slatted shelves. That currently sits in our basement and has not been attacked by either child as of this time. After several long years I completed the last 80% of the Ash screen door, that went up prior to my wife’s birthday party in early June. Has not collapsed or fallen off it’s hinges as of this time of reporting. Ha. I used a bunch of scrap wood to build a cubby system for all of my drills, drivers, heat gun, and staple guns, pin nailers etc… It was more shop infrastructure, than anything else. Much like the wheelie cart for my planer & jointer. It isn’t much to look at, style wise, but it’s sturdy and easy to move around in the confined space of my shop. I took some time to try to see if I could build a proper floating shelf drawer out of Walnut. It has a blue felt pad on the interior, and has remained fairly square since I built it. That also taught me not to use Wax on Walnut, as it clouded over almost immediately, so now I use the wax only on non visible portions to lubricate drawer slides and moving parts under jigs etc etc… For the farm orchard I built a scrap wood bench, that was four feet long, and a foot wide, and about fourteen inches tall. My wife, and my mother in law wanted some place to sit when watching the kids down at the farm when they go tree climbing, or apple picking. It weathered the Dericho wind storm and stayed put, also remained upright, when trees fell, and the silos were mostly ruptured. Go me! At the cottage I refinished an old iron & wood bench. Sanded it down, and put two or three coats of tan stain on it. That was done in about a day, less than that, late one afternoon in August. On the lathe I turned down some Walnut bases for some sculptures, namely my Hellboy bust and the cruddy looking great ape I made where I botched the nose terribly. I also turned down a handle for the screen door out of Maple from our tree out front. In the shop I built two peg boards, a Dado jib, the aforementioned tapering jig, and a 45 Degree cutting jig, plus a smaller tenoning jig that I used on my Pine Display Unit. In the way of metal work, I built a router sled flattening jig out of angle iron and nuts and bolts, doing the cutting with my angle grinder and a cut off wheel. That was pretty loud, and thrilling. Didn’t set fire to anything, so that was a major plus. I built a whole slew of Ash chisel caddy’s that hang on the wall. I built two toy boxes, one large one out of Pine, soon to get caster wheels, and a smaller one out of Cedar for my little ones bedroom. And last on the list is the Air brush caddy I made for all my paints, mask and the air brush compressor unit. That feels like just about everything that I made this year. If I remember anything else, I’ll be sure to mention it. I have posted photos for many of these items in previous posts throughout the year, so i won’t bore you with more at this point. Just kidding. Here they are in no discernable order. Also, just realized I made a massive Ash charcuterie board this year too. Duh!?! Can’t believe I forgot about that, I only see it 8n the kitchen every single day.
That wraps up the build portion. On to THE BOOKS! This year my goal was to read twelve of them. Sometimes I waste precious hours scrolling twitter when I could just as easily read a book, so try as I might to resist the sirens song of doom scrolling, I often did, rather than read. So I’m a bit short. I gave up on the Grapes of Wrath about half way through. But I do know I will go back to it. It was just starting to lag a bit back in August. Also the last book, Carl Sagan’s about the Demon Haunted World, is good, but I’m not sure if I’ll actually complete it before 12:01am on December 31st, or a few days into January. Here is the list of what I read this year.
The twelve books of 2022.
This year I found Adrian Tchaikovsky and read four of his novels. I have a fifth ready to go as a Christmas present. I also have a Mary Robinette Kowal book to open aswell. I am anxiously awaiting any new Lady Astronuat books she might put out. Also if Martha Wells could pump out two Murderbot books per year I’d be very happy about that as well. I will also pursue more of Don Winslow’s books in the coming years, as Man on fire was really good. I don’t typically do crime drama, but it was compelling and easy to read. More of that please. I was more than happy to find a Robert J Sawyer book I hadn’t yet read in the Oppenheimer faux history. That was really great too. I, like many others, have been waiting for George R.R. Martin to finish the last damnable book of the Fire and Ice Series, so I’ll drop fifty sixty bucks on that hard cover whenever it comes out. Not to forget the fun romp that was John Scalzi’s The Kaiju Preservation Society. That was a pleasant read last spring. I’ll have my eye out for any of his new releases aswell. I see that Fart Quest has book four out. I’ll order that for my birthday come Spring time. That’s a really beautifully illustrated series that turns on D&D charm, and general fantasy tropes. Meant for kids and pre-teens but I get a kick out of it just the same.
Not much else to say. Had an email from a client whom I did work for late last year, looking to pick up where we left off, and that’s about as great a recco as I would like to get. Repeat happy customers that come back year after year. If you could only see my grin.
So this is it. The big Kahuna. Once I press send the challenge is complete! Wishing you all well. Those who followed along playing the home game. I don’t think I’ll stop just yet. I’ll aim for New Year’s Eve. Put another 17vseconds on the clock ref, I have a few plays left in me to go. Ciao Bella! Love you all.
Yesterday was a big day in our household. I saw my oldest daughter finally master a couple of goals she’s had her eyes on for about six months or more. At gymnastics she managed to pull off a free standing handstand, a front round off, and a cart wheel. Both from the tumbling floor and off of the balance beam. It was impressive to see her go hard at it and then finally get there. She is brave. That full size beam is at least three to three and a half feet off the ground! I don’t think I would even attempt it, pads or no.
Then later on we had the Yellow Stripe Belt Ceremony with Taekwon-do. She was happy as a clam to have passed her test for the four directional punch/block combo, along with various other kick types, and punches, and a heel directional turn. Proud to see her stick with it and achieve her goals. The initial crowd that she started with dwindled considerably by the end of the session, and testing requirement.
Now I hope we can funnel that physical discipline into our educational goals, and we’ll have ourselves a very top notch go getter of a kid. Proud either way. Very teachable child, as long as the instruction isn’t coming from dear old dad. Ha. I’m ok to leave it to the Professionals rather than inserting myself into every aspect of training, and practice. I’m here to cheer and clap, and hoist the water bottle when required! I do the driving, so she can do the “thing”, whatevervtgat happens to be.
Also – today is Tuesday. A particularly cold one at that. Winter is very close given the south side of zero degrees we’re in right now. Brrr. Nasty. This is day 364, if my count is correct. Tomorrow is the day. The big day. The whole finish line is right there. Crazy to think about. Should I do the wood project review tomorrow, or the book review for the twelve I wanted to read this year? I don’t know. I haven’t decided. I gotta get some groceries and water softener salt to boot. Have a great Tuesday December 13th, 2022.
If you haven’t started your holiday shopping might I humbly suggest you do so. Before you end up looking at bare shelves on Christmas Eve, and start buying random gear from the 7/11, or gas station convenience store on your way home, so as not to return empty handed. Some restocks have happened by now, so get cracking!
In the end, you’ll do you. You know your family better than I. So, maybe let this serve as but a simple reminder.
I was pretty busy myself last week, and if I have multiple more weeks like that until the year’s end, I could just as easily forget about Christmas being in a mere 13 days. Easier to do than you’d think, once the work starts to pile up, and you have to keep your head down to complete all that work. So take a second, mark a break down in your calendar, and go get your kids or spouse something from the heart.
The snow has stuck around, and the lights look ten fold better because of it. The roads suck, but the strings of lights look amazing. I’m sure we’ll get to see more this evening, what with Gymnastics and our Yellow Stripe Belt Ceremony at Taekwondo this week. Chances to hop in the car and see different neighborhoods all lit up and twinkling.
Which reminds me, some gifts from relatives showed up over the weekend, so I need to wrap those for the kids. I still have not put a single item under the tree. I know the temptation for my kids would result in fist fights and tantrums. So best to not lay the ground work for major fights this close to the winter break. Now that my oldest is moving up in grade school I wonder when they start getting homework for the break? When does that start? Grade four, five or six? It has to be soon right? I don’t remember ever getting through a winter break unmolested by classroom assignments such as, daily journals, math sheets, a book report, and geography maps to colour in and add a legend, borders and other such things like arrows and stuff. I do not miss any of that.
We had the kids sweep, vacuum and mop the floors yesterday, so I can cut that from my list today. I washed towels yesterday, but need to run the kids clothes through the laundry today. I cleared out the recycling, ready for tomorrow. And the oldest helped me tidy up a bit after we did some snow shoveling. Bit lighter on the Domestic Duties Monday today. The windows are covered in the remains of snowballs, which is how I know the kids helped me clear the patio & deck of snow. That and the thud, thud, thud of them pelting the glass. The snowball makers they have work pretty well. I’ve just been pinged for a job, so I best go. Ciao Bella
With a soft blanket of fluffy white snow falling, a cool wind blowing and all the holiday lights aglow. If you paused just long enough to hear a Christmas Carol that you aren’t sick of yet, it almost feels “seasonal”. Then you realize that if you have to drive anywhere, or do anything today, the roads, and thus the traffic will be worse than usual. Oh dear!
But it’s Sunday and we don’t have anywhere to go, and nothing to do. The kids can watch The Loud House Christmas Special, and I can shovel the drive way, and patio and paths in peace. Test out my new winter coat, since my eleven year old jacket finally crapped out. I have some presents for the kids arriving from extended family today, so I can wrap those this afternoon/evening. Or whenever the last of the parcels arrive.
Yesterday we had a family vote on potential puppy names. Though we won’t be in a position to adopt a new pet for atleast another eighteen months. The kids were adamant we begin the process of picking names for a dog. Right now the front runners are, in no particular order : Kevin, Green and Max. A strange mix if I do say so myself. I also don’t imagine the kids will forget these names when we are actually ready to go and choose our new family pet. Gotta love it.
Oh the joys of self employment. I ran into this all the time when I worked in-house for a few companies over the last two decades. You’d pay a half a million dollars or more for an idea, and in the end you would only be supplied with the raw pieces, and a little lone production guy (formerly me) would put those elements together while getting paid a tenth of that over a whole year, and not just for that one campaign element. If you want the creative folks to put it all together you need to cut a different, equally high Studio cheque to have it put down so it can be printed, or go live on the App/Website.
Now I get to do both, which is very creatively fulfilling. Production work is the bread and butter which funds the time it takes to create new and exciting things. Can’t spend your time contemplating new ideas if you’re dead ass broke. Have to fund that kind of time with the more straight forward stuff. Things like moving a line of products from one die line to another. Taking existing artwork and rejiggering it to fit new parameters, and tech ical specifications. Like migrating web banners of a landscape orientation, into a bus stop print ad in Portrait orientation. It takes technical skill, and compositional know how to get one to look and feel like the other. To carry over the essence while being almost entirely different. Which is challenging, and fun all at the same time.
I don’t make a habit of chasing RFP’S, and bidding on work. That all takes an awful lot of time, effort and opportunity cost to do. Whereas if I build relationships with people, you can be assured that those positive experiences can, and will carry over as Marketing people, Brand Managers and such move from product to product, and industry to industry. You don’t forget the ease at which you can work with some folks. And when the opportunity presents itself, they will seek you out to further that working relationship. It’s rather nice. Word of mouth is a real help too. But mostly if your friends, are friends with people whom are Managers, Directors, CEO’s and persons of clout. That helps a lot. Hard to pull in new clients from the very ground floor. It is doable, but good grief what a slog that is. So many hurdles and obstacle to jump. Not to mention the constant harassment about compensation vs. Exposure, or timely payments. And the endless nitpicking over your invoices, asking for by the minute break downs to account for every single penny. Makes being creative very difficult if you spend half your time fighting for yourself & reputation.
Here it becomes readily apparent just how easily they’d cut a $50,000 or a $100,000 dollar cheque without batting an eye lash, versus paying your the $3,125.75 invoice. For that they want a line item by line item audit. Meanwhile you didn’t pull from a prearranged template like those big guys likely did, and built them something custom and totally individualized. I don’t have an account manager to massage the client into accepting the first idea. I don’t wine & dine. I tailor my work to suit, and that needs to be enough. Oh, I’ll have a business dinner, or a round of drinks with my largest clients if/when it’s needed. But I don’t do that weekly, or even monthly. That can come up once a year (Covid has impeded this practice) or every other year depending on circumstances.
So as much as I hate it, Networking is important to growing your business. That and technical skills, quality products, a high degree of accuracy with the end file, and the ability to successfully juggle deadlines, and your time. I don’t wish to grow so large that I no longer do the design work and spend all day managing people, budgets & meetings. That sounds horrendous to me. No thanks. A small boutique that caters to its clientele, and puts out great work which everyone is happy with. I’ll stay there for as long as I am able.
So pay your artists! Invest in quality photographers. And most of all, take care out there. Ciao Bella!
Going out on a high note with four new pieces of international work! Feels great when things come together. Super happy to be rounding out 2022 with a fair chunk of work. Will make it far easier to budget for my down time come winter. Speaking of which, what’s up with this weather, one day it’s frigid, blustery cold of minus -8, and the next day it’s sunny and 9°. This planet is off kilter. Going to get ugly before it gets any better.
I failed to eat breakfast so now I’m ravenous. I need to get some things out the door before too much longer, but the growl in my belly was breaking my concentration. So best eat, then hop back to it.
Happy Merry Jolly Seasons Greetings to all of you. Ciao Bella!
That’s all fun and games but believe you me, no one really has a hard on for spinach except for Popeye the sailor man. It shrinks so damn much. It’s almost as bad a ratio as sap to syrup. Which is close to 40:1 ratio, of supplies in to final product out. Blargh! Now Ice burgh lettuce, and Romaine lettuce? Those are leafy greens you can put your whole personality behind. Add in some occasional Dandelion Greens and you have yourself some variety. Along with cherry tomatoes, carrots, cucumber, green onions, sweet red onions, bell peppers, a radish or two, and massive chunks of cheddar cheese, and some bacon bits – Now you’re having yourself a party. A gassy, farty, bloated party, but a tasty one at that! At least to begin with.
Wow, so it’s Thursday already. Had two sick kids at home kinda washed out my week. I had plans. Plans I tells ya! Moot now. The eldest spent much of her birthday on bed, or throwing up in the bathroom & feeling shitty. Poor thing. Two years in a row she’s had to isolate on the date. Luckily (he says with side eye) it was just a 24-48 hr tummy bug and not Covid. Lots of nasty things making the rounds again. Just in time to have to postpone Christmas if something really awful comes home from school with the kids.
Waiting on news for open projects, and having a quiet cleaning morning. The sink, dishes, stove top, counters, dishwasher, fridge. Oh yeah, fridge is on the blink – again. Turned off the water line to it, which didn’t seem to work at all. Same ice build up on the vents issue as before. Oh well. The downstairs beer fridge is mostly empty, so it’ll keep us food safe until we can get it sorted out reliably. Wee!
I didn’t know this, but my WordPress App has a widget that tells me my total word count for this whole year. And you know what, I might have over estimated my year in my head by about 10,000-17,000 words. So far, with less than ten days left to go, I have written approximately 183,000 words worth of blog posts in 2022. Not to shabby. I imagine if I had of kept doing with the 1,600-3,000 word story posts, that number would have jumped significantly. But I didn’t so it won’t. That is beside the point. The point being, I was going to wager an educated guess of somewhere close to, possibly just under 200,000 for the one year writing challenge, and I’ve come very, very close. That’s a lot of content. That’s also a lot of written/verbal diarrhea that I’ve poured out into the interwebs. Some good, some bad, some fairly middling. I can’t complain. That’s nearly a full sized novel’s worth of writing. Go me! So glad I don’t have to guess at it, when the app widget did all the counting for me! Bonus. With something along the lines of 413 posts so far, that would have been a lot of work to track down, and reliably add up. I won’t lie, the guestimation was about as far as I was willing to take finding out. Even making 413 entries in Excel and having it count for me was going to be a tonne of work. Happy to avoid it! Yay!
Was tidying up around the fireplace and noticed something odd with a lone flat, laid out tissue (unused), so I picked it up, and what did I find you ask? I’ll tell you. The letter “H” carved into the top surface of our new display unit. In black ball point pen. Sunken into the wood grain. And some other random drawings, equally pushed into the wood surface. I was not impressed with the youngest. Not in the least. She gouged it in there good and deep. I am impressed with myself for not losing my shit. Not much I can do about it, without having to sand the whole top surface. Restain it all, and then add all new clear coat to it too. It is too cold for much of that to be done in my garage. And far too smelly to do inside the house. It off gases for so long. I left it outside for a few days after each step when I built it in September, and it still smelled strongly once it came inside for set up.
The youngest’s handiwork. Pitted and gouged up real good. Thanks random ball point pen.
Why it wasn’t done in pencil, I’ll never know. Oh well. That’s a 2023 downtime problem to solve. Or a spring cleaning effort come April.
Otherwise it is now Wednesday December 7th, 2022 and I don’t have much else to say today. I mean, I do, but it’s not kind. And doesn’t involve my marred table. So happy hump day. Oh, also we are now well inside the last ten days before I reach my 365 days of writing goal. I am very excited to finally see that big number, and know that i somehow managed to stick with it, even with the storms, illness, vacations, and hectic school/work schedules we all have. I wish i could say the same thing about my exercise plan, but that was always second fiddle to the writing. It is still important, now that i am getting into my near mid forties. Staying in some kind of shape besides round, or pear are of a higher importance to longevity, and general satisfaction when looking in the mirror. So perhaps i will shuffle my priorities in 2023, and put exercise first and writing second? I doubt it, but it’s a fun mental exercise to play around with. What would that look like. How do i monitor success? Do i have to go “buy” an app or Fitbit or membership somewhere? If so, count me out. 2023 should be a year of cheapness. Saving since you never know if things are going to tank hard, and leave you wishing you’d put more away for a bad year.
2022 may wind up being one of my better years for the business. No where as good as when i worked full time in house for another company. But good for me still. It can get real easy to fall into the trap of living up to your new found wages. If they slip, fall shy, or disappear you are pooped. So best to find your line, and live there through good years and hard. Keep it as simple as you are able without being a deprivation weirdo. You know the type. All boisterous about going without, but then secretly binge behind closed doors instead of using sensible moderation. But I digress. Take care out there folks. Ciao Bella!
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