Today we backed the catboat into the shop for the first time, marking the completion of a journey that we began when we got married and combined our 2 lives: the quest to find or make a place that was both of ours, where we could work on all of the projects that we enjoyed.
It took a while. Monte and I don’t do things in a hurry. But I love how it turned out.
Welcome home Cupholder!
I may be traveling on Tuesday next week — Election Day. And, there is only 1 more day left for early voting here in Texas, so I dashed in tonight after work and before Game 2 of the World Series.
Let’s Go Rangers!!!!
Monte’s readying the hull for some minor patches and a new coat of bottom paint. He’s rigged up the shop vac and the sander to keep the job relatively clean, but even so… i guess i’m not so bummed out that I have conference calls until 7pm tonight that are keeping me from helping 🙂
Today Monte and Marty pulled the catboat out of the lake (for only the 2nd time) and brought her home. Thanks, again, to Marty for lending his time and his truck 🙂 This time we have the shop to put it in and working in there will be nicer than working outside.
I see sandpaper in my future.
With year round sailing possible in this part of the country, it’s always hard to pick the right time to take the boat out of the water. We’ve picked this time of year since it’s not too cold and not too hot to be working on it in the shop.
We have lots of sanding, varnishing, painting and patching planned.
Tonight we folded up the sail. This weekend we’ll bring home the spars. And probably next week unstep the mast. Then maybe trailer it and bring it home next weekend or the following.
For now, i’m just very glad it is Friday.
Have a great weekend!
News for the day:
Got some sewing done tonight, had to hem a few things.
It rained (again!) a drizzly rain for quite a while this evening.
Monte made a lovely shrimp pasta for dinner.
Our cable/DVR mysterious stopped working tonight right when we sat down to watch Cash Cab, our new TV program indulgence. I used to think it was so funny how my dad would shout out answers at the TV while watching Jeopardy. I now find myself doing the same thing. Cash Cab: The new Jeopardy. 🙂
That’s all I got. G’nite.
About the time we began the rigging the shellback dinghy (our practice boat), I taught myself how to splice 3-strand rope to make the bow painter and for the end of the halyard and main sheet. This would have been 10 years ago or so (my how time flies). Anyway one of the by products of this little endeavor was this shadow box to display some of my knot handiwork. This was before we were married, so I made one for monte, and one for myself. And, now we have 2 🙂
I also cut, mitered and stained the wood for the shadow box frame, had the glass cut to size and made the fabric covered backing board. Wow. When did I ever have that much time on my hands!?!
The one in the middle is called a braided mat. The others from top left, clock-wise are: a double splice, stopper knot, sailor’s cross, turk’s head knot, a splice loop with a monkey’s fist knot on the end, figure eight knot and a lovers’ knot.
There you have it.
Since the program started around 1999, I’ve been trying to collect one all of the 50 US state commemorative quarters that have been minted at the Denver (D) and Philadelphia (P) mints. The program ended in 2008 or so, but I still am missing several coins. The P ones are hard to find here in Texas. So, every time I get a quarter, I take a really good look at it to see which state it is, and if it’s a P. Sadly, I can gauge the progression of my old-people’s-eyesight over the last decade by how hard it is getting for me to see the mint marks on these darn coins.
Anyway, tonight I got a quarter in some change and when I looked at it, it was an Arkansas — a new one from 2010. Wha??? Come to find out, the US Mint has started another commemorative quarter series this year (!) and I haven’t even finished with the last one. I must have missed the memo. It’s the America the Beautiful series – 56 more coins – and will release 5 new coins per year between now and 2021.
Great. At this rate, I’m going to be a little old lady before I complete these sets. I think I’m going to need a magnifying glass…
To take this shot, I figured out how to use the manual focus on my camera, otherwise the auto-focus wouldn’t allow me to get this close.
This is chop-down-all-the-crap-trees-that-are-stealing-water-from-the-live-oaks week, in case you missed it. You might ask, “why don’t you use a chain saw?” Weeelllll, that would be the easy way. 🙂
It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t 100+ degrees outside. Monte’s getting quite the work out.
I like making things, working with my hands. I’m pretty good at finishing projects that I start. But there are a number of them that remain un-done and frozen in time — for whatever reason.
We have a side-entry garage on our house. So, if you want to park in the driveway and come in the front door of the house, you have to trample across the lawn. One of the projects I started, but haven’t finished, is a pathway of stepping stones across the lawn from the driveway to the front walkway. Two years ago (oh my) I started the project. I ordered a stepping stone mold that I liked with a celtic knot design from Garden Molds, bought some limestone mortar mix and started making them one by one. I made one or two per week, mixing the mortar and letting each one cure in the mold. I figure I’ll need about 40 of them to span the distance. When I finished about 24 of them I stopped. Things got busy. The remodel on the house started last summer and it wasn’t a good idea to put them out on the lawn until that work was all done. The project was put on hold. In the mean time I’ve stacked them out back and they have been weathering beautifully. I walk by them every day when I walk to the way-back part of our yard. When it came time to bury our parakeet Petey, we even used one of them as a headstone.
One of these days I’ll finish the stepping stone project, lay the stones out front and admire the outcome. One of these days.
When Noreen was visiting, she gave me a very nice hand-colored print of an Irish greeting that she picked up during her visit to Ireland last year. Tonight I finally got around to matting it and putting it in a frame, and this is a pic of how it turned out.
The greeting reads:
Céad míle fáilte
pronounced (sort of like): KAID MEE-lah FALL-cha
which in English translates to:
a hundred, thousand welcomes
I like it! 🙂
It was just about 1 year ago that we made the sliding barn doors to hang on the shop. They’ve stood up to the elements pretty well, but it’s time for another coat of paint. So, Monte rolled a coat on after work tonight. I provided moral support. They look good.
We decided to stay at home this weekend and work in the yard. There’s much to do. Monte worked on preparing the compost pile. I cleared some old firewood, bricks and limestone that had been cluttering up a future flower bed along the fenceline near the shop. This is a shot of my growing stone wall — a work in progress. Everytime I find a limestone block I add it to the collection.
One of the stones I moved from the fenceline to this pile had a surprise under it…a tarantula. My second one encountered at Deer Track, I must say. Again, had I been thinking I would have grabbed the camera and gotten a picture of him, as it was a truly startling moment to remember. However, Monte came over with Mr. Shovel and before I thought of it, the moment was gone. It’s just as well.
My rock wall is much more pleasant to look at.
I think I’m going to have to get the hang of this “take a picture of a moment from each day” thing. The picture I should have taken, but didn’t think about it until they were gone, was of some people that drove up to the house after work today. We noticed a car pulled up in front of the house, and someone taking a picture. I went outside to get the mail and they introduced themselves. Turns out it was the guy that built and then lived in our house back in 1984, his wife and their daughter who was 1 year old when they lived here. We gave them a tour of the house and chatted with them for a while, then they went on their way. THAT is the photo I should have taken. I didn’t think of it. Instead, what you see here is a moment captured a while later, when we were out working in the backyard — dethatching St Augustine, growing our compost pile, and getting the herb garden bed ready for planting.
Sheila365 