Something unexpected that I was proud of in 2021.

Earlier this year I built a series of four terrain panels, each measuring two feet by two feet, and almost ten inches tall on the highest elevation. I was originally going to build just one, but I had such a good time making the first that I decided to go ahead and all three more to it to make a larger gaming table for D&D or war gaming. It’s not something I have done before, but it sure was a lot of fun. I can see why people get addicted to terrain building and 3d printing and such. It was a wonderful creative outlet, and I wish I had the room to use and store an eight foot gaming table with modular mix and match panels. I would love to build a proper wharf, a seaside fishing town, a mountain pass, ancient ruins, a meandering river bed, a proper cliff face and waterfall, try water effects, real rock moulds with plaster of paris etc… a hot wire cutter, a grass applicator and those uber swanky high class model train trees too. There are just so many things you could do with the time and resources to tackle them. My only hope is to help my kids build dioramas for elementary school projects! Or try to build a bunch of much smaller and more compact elements, like castle walls, or ruins or individual hovels & town houses. I’d love to see any of your work if you have images handy!.

The day after ‘The BIG Day’…

And I feel hung over without having had anything booze or beer related to drink. It was a long and somewhat unconventional Christmas day, you know, with the isolation and the quarantine and the pandemic still running amok in the general population. I know for a fact that at least a couple of the kids gifts were a slam dunk, home run, field goal, Uno! And a few were near misses due to the aforementioned grand slams. While none were entire failures, so I’m happy with that. It’s a long day, preceeded by a terrible nights sleep, ensconced in over stimulation, sweets and hyper activity so that there were a multitude of melt downs, hard feelings and squabbles among the children. Par for the course at this age bracket. Otherwise getting them back into bed by 8:00pm and then watching ‘Don’t look up’ until around 11:00pm in relative peace and quiet was a great cap to a long and challenging day. If the weather could either warm up or snow a bunch we could figure out how to entertain our isolated family over the rest of the school break and through the last five days of our isolation that would be greatly appreciated.

Aiming for those last few days of 2021 writing streak…

Which means pulling out all the stops to create something written every day until the new year begins in order to fulfill some weird kind of anxiety about not doing enough creative writing during the year. For all those days when I followed the white rabbit down the hole on YouTube regarding wood working or welding or sculpting or entertainment news about movie spoilers. For those lull days when I didn’t do jack shit. For those weeks in September and October where my singular focus was on home DIY projects and not being creative in any way, shape or form. For those days when I really wanted to watch a movie instead, or bury my face in a good book. Now it is a race against time to prepare some short, fun ‘content’ for my blog. On the plus side, by skipping writing in September I was also able to buy our Christmas presents and avoid busy stores, malls, parking lots and any possible supply issues. The big show starts tomorrow, with some champagne and orange juice at days first light. Stay sane, stay safe, and be merry (where possible).

I too am excited for Christmas…

Whether or not Covid looms over it like a bloody great black storm cloud threatening to drown us all at the slightest whim. Regardless of hand washing, masking, social distancing and drastically limited contacts to anyone beyond our immediate family. Even with that horrific tangible threat just looming on the horizon, my childrens bottomless zeal for Christmas, Santa, family fun and presents is keeping us on the cheerful side of what could potentially be a drab and dreary worry filled occasion. God bless the blissful ignorance of children and their singular fixation on Christmas time! While the inexhaustible energy levels can be bothersome, some might say, the optimism is hard to beat at a time like this.