Author: peterb51

17th December 2024

I was on a roll today, I had a lot planned, and I was determined to achieve them. 

Dispite an early awakening, I wanted to take advantage of it.

Noisy jeep man did his bit and woke Kelli at six thirty, with little chance of her going back to sleep we spent the time updating ourselves with the latest news, then finally getting up to meet the day.

I was disappearing under a pile of crystalline dust from the finish on the mid century pieces. I had repaired damage on the pedestals caused when I broke apart the desk, getting them ready for printing. I cut the top to make the pedestal tops. I had my music blaring out, and I was into it, things were working right.

The drone mystery continues, although the story is now that they are looking for radio active material lost from a container. Now that news must have had people in New Jersey shitting themselves. First they thought they were being invaded by creatures from a different planet, then there were under attack from a hostile country, but thank goodness they will only get doses of radiation.

The whole thing is a joke, the feeling the establishment are planning something to stop Trump taking office in January, the Democrats have been very quiet, there have been no demonstrations or any signs of civil unrest.

Maybe they have finally accepted that all the positive proposals for the new administration will actually benefit all Americans,  like stopping bad food and all the pesticides used on the farms that can kill indiscriminately. Just maybe things can get better.

16th December 2024

Not the best of nights, again. Kelli had trouble getting to sleep. One of the reasons was uncomfortable pillows. This amazes me that there can be ways that pillows are not comfortable. She says that getting them “right” is important, and that beating them into shape is the key.

I could sleep on a brick, that’s why I don’t understand her problem.

We finally got to sleep just after two thirty, we had to be up early as Kelli had a doctors appointment in Zeeland.

We were both surprisingly alert dispite our lack of sleep, but we were early, so looked around Goodwill.

This is not my favourite place, but we did find a couple of furniture pieces to add to our stock of projects.

After her appointment, we drove around the back of Goodwill to load up our finds.

One was a low television stand and the other was a lousy painted vanity unit. With careful loading we managed to get both in.

When we got back I successfully stripped apart the two pedestal from the mid century desk, these are pieces we want to get finished quickly.

It was a merky grey day, but surprisingly mild in comparison to what we had a couple of days ago.

15th December 2024

It was nice to have a good sleep and a little lie in, after all it is Sunday.

It had rained overnight so a lot of the snow had gone, the temperature was also rising melting the rest of it by the end of the day.

Kelli was on a mission. We haven’t put our Christmas tree up yet because we can’t get in to the storage room where it’s stowed.There are lots of things in that room that would have to be removed, and we didn’t have the appetite. 

The mission was to find a smaller tree that could fit on top of a dresser or bookcase, that entailed going to Goodwill.

The one on the south side was our first port of call. I didn’t hold out much hope, but I was wrong, we spotted a small tree.

On closer inspection it turned out to be half a tree, that could hang on a wall.

Kelli was excited, it had coloured lights that worked, she also found a number of coloured willow sticks, some white, and some red, of course we had to have those. I tried to get a discount on the tree saying that there was only half a tree, so it should be half the price. Although that got a laugh it didn’t get a discount.

Next we had to travel to the north side to collect a solid maple coffee table.

He had got things from the people before, when they were moving from a large house on the south side. Their new place was a condominium on the north side within a controlled residential development, something they were struggling to get used to. The table must have had a hard life, as the scratches illustrated, but it will be as good as new once I get my hands on it.

Next was ice cream at Kelli’s mums, and to finish the repair to the lock that I started last week.

That entailed chiseling out a cavity from the frame and setting in a new piece of wood that I had already  cut to shape. With a dab of epoxy adhesive it now works perfectly.

We did manage to take pictures of the table in between the rain.

14th December 2024

There was a lot on today.

The record cabinet had to be returned, all freshly painted and looking good. They were pleased, as I would expect, they trust us.

Then we had to drive to Grand Haven to collect a mid century desk and dresser. Also up for grabs was a small desk, that we would only take if we could get everything in.

From the photos we were sent both pieces had seen better days, the tops looked like a skating rink, covered in scratches and in a sorry state.

From our experience, mid century stuff usually sell quickly and at a good price, so paying a little bit was a good investment. 

Somehow we managed to get the dresser and the desk into the truck with a little space left. Trying to get the other piece in was a bit of a puzzle. I moved my seat forward and with a bit of weaving managed to get it in.

We had to bungee the back door closed, turned the header up full and set off back home.

I was a bit crunched up with my knees against the dashboard, I urged Kelli not to have an accident, not long after, as we were on the highway, a deer broke cover and ran across our path. A few seconds later we might have hit it.

Those animals can certainly do a lot of damage to a vehicle, and we could only imagine having a wrecked truck, stuck at the side of the road, in the freezing cold with a load of furniture in the back, it didn’t bare thinking about it.

This does happen a lot of times, often there are dead animals by the side of the road as a warning to others.

From then on we were much more vigilant.

13th December 2024

There is so much interesting information that is starting to filter through relating to the January 6th “insurrection “. 

It was long suspected that federal agents stirred up the crowd urging many to carry out the actions that were captured on video and used in evidence at the tribunal and subsequent criminal trials. 

When the FBI director was questioned about how many federal agents were mixed in the crowd, he couldn’t answer.

Today it was announced that there were twenty six FBI agents working the crowd.

I don’t expect this to be announced on any main stream media at all, but it call into question what else is true.

There are stories about victims of the recent hurricane Helene, not getting any help from the government because there was no money left in the budget, most of that was used to support the illegal immigrants. These people have had their homes and livelihood destroyed and they have been offered a loan of seven hundred and fifty dollars to get by.

You cannot make this up, money that could help these victims has been given to Ukraine which in turn has been passed to military suppliers like ;

Boeing, General Dynamics, and BAE Systems.

So if you want to make a killing on the stock market, be like members of congress, buy your stock now. 

I won’t even comment on the drone situation.

It was still cold, we managed to finish Lloyd and Nancy’s record cabinet.

12th December 2024

Well the snow is back, about two inches fell all day, and it’s bloody cold.

I never thought I would live in a place where it snowed a lot, it makes me yearn for England and its mild winters.

I had to drive to the post office which is further down south shore drive, the main road was gritted right up to the city limits, then nothing, just white roads and no grit. That was a bit dodgy, but I survived. The guy that man’s the place is not the happiest person, he took my envelopes, weighed them and gave me the stamps without saying much at all.

It was my beer tasting day, so I met up with Lloyd and some old speckled hen.

At least the place was warm, not many customers, well who in their right minds would go out into the cold to drink cold beer? I know this one, me.

We had lots to talk about, but this time Lloyd ordered some food. He had to get his own dinner  this time, I had a lasagna waiting for me when I got home.

The burger and fries was placed on the table, my mouth watered, the fries were big and chunky, not the thin weedy ones that other restaurants serve. I swear they called to me, and if Lloyd had offered me some I would have grabbed a handful, but he didn’t.

I had to sit and watch him devour the whole plate, leaving only a lettuce leaf.

It was still snowing when we left, but thanks to the city’s under pavement heating system  kept everything clear.

The thought of the hot lasagna waiting for me drove me on.

11th December 2024

It was a terrible night, Kelli couldn’t settle, and neither could I. 

The same playbook continued of anger and frustration, finally our exhaustion led to sleep at about 5.00am, of course the loud jeep man added to the horror half an hour later.

I vacated the bedroom, and sought sanctuary on the sofa for the rest of the night, eventually waking at about 10.00am.

  I can deal with five hours, Kelli can’t, so the tone of the day was set, although she did make it through the shopping, which was very late, so no work today.

I did listen to podcasts that were discussing the assassination of the CEO of the largest healthcare insurance company in America.

This company had made record profits, but denied thirty three percent medical coverage to those who needed procedures. So although a person can pay their premiums all their working life, and just when they need possible life saving operations, their claim is denied. 

That is why there is mixed opinions about this assassin, some say “it’s about time, he deserved it”, which is alarming but not unusual.

When health is a commodity, and these large insurance companies play god, the anger that has been under the surface emerges.

It is also a fact that this CEO was summoned to give evidence in a huge fraud case that happened to include a prominent democratic politician, mmm, convenient. 

Another interesting point that within a short time of the arrest of the assailant every little detail of his life was broadcast to the world, but very little was shared about the kid that shot at Trump, in fact it has gone very quiet. 

I’m not even sure that the guy they arrested is the same person who did the shooting, if it is, then his eyebrows have rapidly grown back.

10th December 2024

We finally finished and delivered the desk. That was a great relief,  not that we could add that into this month’s numbers, because it was paid for a couple of months ago. 

We installed it into Lloyd and Nancy’s spare room. It required a bit of moving of existing furniture but finally we got everything straight.

However we didn’t leave empty handed. There was another piece that they wanted refinished. This was a simple piece that Lloyd stored his records in, it had a small barn door and three drawers, a simple unit that shouldn’t take much time to do.

There was also a wooden table that they gave us, which will require a bit of work to resell.

They have given us so much work over the past year, they are currently top of our client list, and we appreciate that they are happy with our work.

The bureau is almost complete, the stays that I bought from Menards may not be the right ones, they are a little small, I ordered more from Amazon, they are larger and more appropriate.

9th December 2024

There is more unrest in the Middle East, this time Syria. There is no doubt that America is involved, they alway have their sticky hands in the pot when it comes to regime change. This, no doubt will cause more unstable fractions to emerge, and cause more death and destruction to innocent people.

Why don’t they just keep their noses out of affairs that don’t concern them. 

There are arguments on both sides, but history shows that if a country’s leader is deposed, the balance that held that country in check, is broken and unrest continues.

It seems that a peaceful world is an impossible dream.

On a calmer front, we finished the bureau and the desk, and hopefully we can deliver the desk and post the bureau tomorrow.

8th December 2024

The snow went just as quick as it had arrived, by morning it had all but disappeared. It felt very spring like outside as we collected all the dog poo that had been hidden under the white blanket.

This was our day of rest, but I couldn’t resist doing a bit of sanding, well could I?

There was another task ahead up at Kelli’s mums house. First I had to refit legs to a sofa, and adjust a door so that it latched.

The first job was simple, the second not so.

The strike plate needed to be moved a little forward and bit down so that the lock would locate. The trouble that I found was the top fixing for the lock plate was now in fresh air. The recess in the frame was cut too big, so I was unable to fit it.

So what started as a straight forward job is a little more complicated.

I will have to block up the hole in the frame and recut the aperture, but that will have to be another day.

Then there was Christmas dinner planning.

We had decided to have a buffet style spread, as there will be ten of us it would be easier to allocate the responsibility of buying all the different foods on the menu.

Fortunately or unfortunately it won’t be held at our place this year, after our disastrous thanksgiving, I’m glad.