Category: Projects

Mar 7, 2011

Day #365!!!

Today’s post makes the 365th moment that I have shared with you.  This is a shot of one of the geraniums I planted yesterday that I took today during a break between conference calls.

I’m very pleased that I have stuck with this post-a-photo-per-day-for-a-year project.  There were some days that I found it difficult to see something worth sharing.   But I have to say that most days I looked forward to toting my camera around with me, and was usually pleased to find a moment that was either a photo that I liked or at least made for a nice story to share.

Wow, a year.   365 moments.   It goes by fast.

I look forward to keeping my blog going.  I don’t know that I will be posting something every day, but I am definitely looking forward to posting more moments worth sharing.

A colleague of mine passed away over the weekend after a fight with cancer.  He was only 51.

I can only hope that you all have many more years left on this earth to share with your friends and family.   But since we never know when our time will be up, we have to take the time to enjoy and be thankful for each and every day that we get to spend with them.   I have done that for a year.   And I hope to from here on out…

Feb 20, 2011

Before and after.

I set out to weed the flower beds today to get them ready for planting.   We have a bed about 4 feet deep that runs along our fence for about 30 feet, and several other beds scattered throughout the back yard.

The image on top is what greeted me in the wasteland left over from the basil and zinnias last fall.  The image on the bottom shows the bed after weeding, rototilling and fertilizing.

I finished up right at noon.   We came in and had lunch — leftover vegetable soup that monte made last night.   I have to say this is the Best Vegetable Soup Ever.  I should have taken a picture of it last night, but I didn’t.   It’s chock full of carrots, turnips, celery, leeks and cannelloni beans — delicious.   The least I can do is post the recipe, which we once again lifted from our bon ami Jacques Pepin (recipe and video from the episode here) – Happy Cooking!

Feb 18, 2011

Prep.

Monte has been getting the boat stripped to bare wood and prepped for a new set of varnish coats.   Progress has been slow due to him being laid low by the cold/flu/fung that’s been going around — that, and the fact that I haven’t been much help lately.   Seems like my time has been sucked up with other things.

This is a shot from tonight – the wood is ready for varnish, taped and prepped.  We’re looking forward to making progress this weekend.   The mahogany  brightwork looks beautiful and I can’t wait to see it with its first coats of new varnish.

I’m having withdrawals from not getting to play with our B-dock friends.   I can feel the anticipation of the first raftup awaiting us in the next month or so!

 

Feb 8, 2011

Focus.

Something to strive for.

 

 

 

Feb 5, 2011

Roofies.

Big day at the homestead.  As monte said…. we assembled a crack crew of computer professionals to reroof the little garden shed out back.

I couldn’t resist taking this shot of said hard-working crew with the laptop in the foreground.   They were able to get the wireless all the way in the way-back so that they could google DIY how-to’s for installing shingles.  🙂

 

Feb 2, 2011

Show business.

Well, today’s post is not a photo that I took, but it’s a screen shot from a movie I made this morning (you can check it out here)!

xtranormal is a website/tool that you can use to create movies using animated characters.  You pick the characters and setting, supply the script, and direct the characters in the scene.  You may have seen some of the humorous animated videos created with xtranormal on the web.   I have, and just wanted to try it out for myself.

When you create an account you get 300 xtranormal points for free that you can spend on your set/scene and to publish it… that was just enough to cover my first attempt…. I call it…… “Welcome to my blog”  🙂

Jan 30, 2011

Voila.

The curtain project is complete!

My quest to put window coverings up in the gameroom to ward off the cold this winter was delayed a tad by having to back-order the curtains.   But they finally arrived last week, so I set out today to hang the  traverse curtain rods and pinch pleat draperies over the 2 sliding glass doors.

After several hundred trips up and down the ladder, I think they ended up fairly level and the right height off the ground.

Mission accomplished — just in time for the next arctic blast tomorrow.   We’ll see if they make a difference.

Jan 19, 2011

Boat shop at dusk.

This was a shot Monte suggested — i like it — Cupholder in the shop.  We’re anxious to finish all the sanding, painting and varnishing and get her back in the water.

Dec 12, 2010

From Santa's workshop.

Monte made a couple of wooden ornaments for the tree this week and brought them in to hang on the tree.   The first one is made from mahogany boat scrap and epoxy.  The second one is made from pieces of the many thin cedar branches that we cut down every year in the wayback.  And the third is from mahogany and varnish sawdust from planing one of the dropboards from Cupholder — very sparkly.

Dec 10, 2010

Which one?

Yay Friday!

Tonight we made it to one of the area tree stands to pick the one that was meant to spend Christmas at our house.

 

 

Dec 6, 2010

Pick-up sticks

While I was sipping that cold green beer yesterday, Monte was out in the wayback cutting down dead trees and branches and bundling them up.

I felt a tiny twinge of guilt, so I went out and helped him tie up the last 2 bundles.  🙂

After work today he hauled them out front.  This is a shot of them lined up for the nice brush-be-gone garbage men to pick up on Wednesday.

…and, yes, those are little bowline knots on the twine holding them together 😉

Nov 26, 2010

Curtain shopping

I decided to brave the Black Friday hoardes,  figuring that the things I was shopping for might keep me out of the mainstream retail frenzy.

I want to put curtains up over the sliding glass doors in the gameroom this winter.  So, I set out with some color swatches for the wall and floor color to find something that would work.

I found some things I really liked.   However, I am going to have to keep looking, as I realized about an hour into it that what I needed was a traverse curtain rod.  Two of them, actually – one that opens to the left, and one that opens to the right… so that we don’t have curtains blocking the doorway when they are drawn.   *sigh*

Back to the drawing board.

Nov 7, 2010

Messing about with boats

After many weekends of work-working and rushing around I have finally enjoyed a weekend working on a fun project that I have put off for too long.

When we went to the Abacos last summer, we stopped at Man-o-War Key.   We walked up and down the island, and one house had the most awesome wind vane in the front yard.   It had four boats with real sails that tacked as they rotated on the pole.   I wanted one!

When we walked by again on our way back to the dock the owner was in the front yard adjusting it and we asked him where he got it.  He said somewhere in Washington State.   Well, when I got home I searched for this little gem online and was not able to find it.

Christmas came around and guess what was under the tree?   Monte had hand carved four little catboats with masts and barn door rudders  just waiting for sails.   He’d made me a sailboat wind vane of my very own!

Well, THIS was the weekend I was determined to make the sails.  So I hustled off to the craft store yesterday and today cut out and sewed the sails.   We just finished rigging them.  They’re so cute!

Now all we have to do is mount it atop a pole somewhere in the yard.  The biggest challenge will be digging a hole in our backyard, where we have about 1/4″ of topsoil ontop of solid limestone.  🙂

I can’t wait to see them sailing around.

Nov 2, 2010

Election day 2010

It turns out that I was asked to take on an additional high priority project for the next week or two, on top of the other things I have on the plate, so I decided to cancel my trip this week.    It was an easy decision, really, and so I’m happy to not have to travel.

So instead of being on a plane tonight, I was able to watch the election returns as they came in.

This is a pic of the outcome at the end of the night…