Day: January 8, 2023

Four months later and a squirrel/chipmunk or large black bird has recovered my 1/4 inch socket and deposited it on top of the leaves & dirt a foot from the garage door. Now my set is whole once more! I did have to buy a $4 replacement, and an extra deep version too, but the point is, I have found it months after giving up hope and forgetting about it. On top of all the downtrodden leaves. Imagine that. I forsure thought that was gone, lost to the ages. I’m so happy. Stupid think caused me a lot of grief. Searching here and back between the yard and garage. Sweeping on my hands and knees. But I have it back in my possession. Hurray!

Back at home, just in time to sort things out for the week ahead. School is back on, so are extra curriculars, and work responsibilities; like after school staff meetings. Going to be atleast two weeks of transitioning with my kindergartener if history is any indication of what is to come. Crying and histrionics in the mornings, and falling asleep before the bedtime story is half way through at night, for two weeks until the new schedule settles in. I hold out hope that it won’t be that way, but deep down I know that it will. I just need to remain calm, and try not to escalate because I’m tired, or hot, or out of sorts myself. If I’m clear headed enough I can catch myself before i make things worse. It’s a process.

Best guess is today is Sunday. At least I hope it is. I can’t recall if I wrote anything yesterday or not so perhaps my streak heading to 400 days is over, and I don’t know it yet. Oh well. Back to the drawing board if so. If not, Party-On!

My next model kit project has arrived in the mail. It is the correct model, but the incorrect build up, if that makes any sense. It has only just dawned on me that the best build up version of the Valkyrie was purchased directly from Japan via HLJ. It had the multi colour injection moulded parts. Whereas the kit I just bought is all white. I’m going to paint it, but I thought I was getting one kit, and got another. No matter. Not going to swap them out now. First thing to do is open the sprues, and wash the parts in soapy water. Remove the mould release so that the paint & primer adheres without cracks and ripples. Also, this time around I’m going to build, and paint in smaller sections before I fully assemble. The markings on the cockpit are far easier to add when it’s not attached the rest of the fuselage. I have a set of all new USAF colours, mainly greys, for this build, so I hope to make it look a bit more custom than the last two of these I have made. One straight out of the box, the second I attempted to paint, and then weathered it to fix my many errors.

This next one I hope to remove mould and seam lines, and to make it look as clean as possible before I add some lived in weathering details. Not as much as before, but enough to make it look like a working military machine. Could be cool. I need to write out my plan of action first, otherwise I will definitely miss something vital. Like the cockpit interior panels, or lights on the wing tips. Tiny little parts that are easy to overlook until you review it at the end and go whoops! Missed those minor details. Damn.

So… a new year ahead. The weather is a tad strange. There must be some more snow and cold on the way. I can’t imagine going all winter with green grass showing through every where. It got down to minus fifteen last night, so winter is still very much here. Just not the snow – as of yet. At least if the temperatures are below or at zero the snow hills can produce snow for the slopes. I’d like to venture out myself to hit the slopes for a refresher. It has to be at least twenty four years since I’ve gone downhill skiing. Luckily around here, we’re dealing with hills, and not mountains. So I can bone up on my skills without too much going wrong, I hope. But don’t mind me. I wanted to hit the links, or even the driving range while my kids were at school, and wound up being too busy to do either. So skiing may be a far off dream as well. At least while I have a warm office to putter around in, and an unfinished model kit at my disposal. No sun/wind burns to contend with, or expensive rentals and lift tickets to purchase. We will have to see how things play out.