Author: peterb51

15th February 2024

The snow returned. Waking up to a shroud of white was a bit depressing, I had plans to get the saw out to cut some timber.

There are three projects that needed bits making, so getting the saw out was crucial to getting them started.

Boy it was cold outside, everything I touched was metal and that is not respectful of my skin.

Eventually I found some gloves, but even those weren’t much help. I managed to do the cutting in record time, I couldn’t wait to get the door closed and switch on the heater.

Straight away I started working with my newly cut timber.

First were two door frames that I salvaged from some old organ panels we acquired back in the summer. I broke these down and these were perfect for the doors on a cabinet.

Before long everything was glued and clamped up, a good start. I then went on to finish scraping the tall Jackson Pollock.

Kelli put the finishing touches to the repainted dresser, and even managed to back a loaf of bread.

By the evening a lot of the snow had gone, leaving behind the wet pools of slush. With all these various and dramatic changes in temperature it’s not surprising that the roads suffer so badly. I sure tarmac is a bit more forgiving than concrete, but the potholes are taking over the state.

14th February 2023

I woke up this morning with a strong feeling of guilt, I didn’t have a Valentine’s Day card to give to Kelli. What was worse, I did know it was coming up, but I have very little opportunity to buy one because I was rarely on my own. I did go to the corner store a few days ago but what cash I had was spent on eggs and cheese.

Last night I looked at the calendar on the side of the fridge and saw the date, suddenly I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach. The only chance of redemption was if Kelli had forgotten the day as well.

I should have known better, it was six years ago that I asked her to marry me, it is carved deep inside us both, and I had failed.

Her card was warm and loving, making me feel even worse. I explained why I didn’t have one for her, and even though she said it didn’t matter I could sense the disappointment, and I had to put it right.

We had a customer arrive early to view the large dresser we had posted, so it was my job to seal the deal. That done, it was going to be a busy day. We had another visit to Plato’s closet with more Kelli’s cast-offs and whilst she waited for them to be sorted and priced, I took the opportunity to drive to get petrol and even buy a card. The heavens opened up, the sun shone down as I found a suitable example. I then planned what to write in it and decided to give it to her over dinner at the Boatwerks restaurant.

I smiled at my cunning, my guilt was replaced with smugness.

The rest of the day was filled with food shopping and stuff typical of our Wednesdays.

Our dinner reservation was early, closer to a late lunch, but four thirty was the only time available, other than eight o clock, and that was too late.

So we arrived with all the other senior people, it wasn’t that bad, but we laughed at how early it was. After we ordered our drinks I handed over the card I had secretly wrote out as she was getting ready. Actually I had enough time to write out hundreds of cards, but one was enough.

I thought it was especially appropriate as there are many pill bottles in the house.

The meal was good, we had a view over the lake and we were back home by six thirty, and it was still light outside.

13th February 2024

We are now in, what’s known as the second winter. The two days of first spring was pleasant, but now we face more wrath.

We got up late, had breakfast late and got into the garage late, so we didn’t expect to get much done.

Kelli had the dresser to paint and I had the Jackson Pollock to continue stripping. Slowly the finish came off in small curls, landing on the floor making it crunchy underfoot.

There are a couple of drawer sides pieces that need repairing, so I ran some timber through the planer to the correct thickness, but there wasn’t room to get the saw out to cut stuff down, I will do that another day.

Kelli finished her painting and went inside to make dinner, when I finally closed up shop there was a wonderful smell of a chicken pie coming from the oven.

12th February 2024

The burst of cold air flooded the garage as the doors were opened.

I was the lucky one who went out first, because the large mid century style dresser was being collected today and there were last minute checks to do, although I didn’t know when it was being picked up.

I also continued on the Jackson Pollock, scraping another few millimetres at a time. This made a mockery of my “ this will be easy” remark.

It was going to be interesting because the buyer of the dresser being collected was also bringing a dresser that they wanted painting in the same black colour, simple.

Whilst we waited, we took the dogs for a walk, the sun was shining making it a pleasant one, but once it had gone, it was freezing.

The lake looked good, still and blue reflecting the sky, this is a great place to live, in the summer.

It was a longer walk than normal, Phoebe was sniffing at very regular intervals that was sometimes annoying.

Soon after we got back things started to happen.

A truck pulled into the driveway, up went the tailgate, there was the dresser we were going to transform.

The lady had bought a mid century piece from us before, although I didn’t recognise her until she spoke. She had a childish sound to her voice, making it very distinctive.

11th February 2024

Oh a day of rest, I wish.

We made good progress on the new dresser yesterday we wanted to get it finished, pictured and posted.

After finishing breakfast, clearing up and putting on some warm clothes we made a start.

Kelli was doing the painting whilst I started to strip the Jackson Pollock dresser. I had tried paint stripper, heat gun and scraper, but nothing seemed to make an easy job of it.

In the end I used the heat gun, slowly removing a few millimetres at a time then finishing off with a sander. It was unpleasant, and I had six drawers to do.

Kelli was working like a maniac, but with a concerted effort got everything finished.

I had to machine two drawer guides and that was my total involvement of the day on that piece.

We carried the piece outside to take the pictures, it was a transformation from what we started with, I like that, hopefully people out there will agree.

10th February 2024

Well I finally bit the bullet and got an American phone. I had failed to get my old iPhone unblocked by O2, and I was fed up by the whole situation. The company rely on off-shore customer services that aren’t connected to any technical support. They tried, they failed to deliver, enough said.

So I have a spanking new Samsung and nobody to call and no one to call me, yet.

The temperature dropped quite a bit from yesterday, making it hard to work in the open, but we did anyway, priming a large dresser.

There was an interview with Vladimir Putin by an ex Fox News journalist/ opinionist that was causing a stir on the networks. He put his side of why the invasion of Ukraine happened. Of course the USA doesn’t like any other facts emerging that are different from their narrative, so confusion and misinformation continues.

9th February 2024

I was getting a little concerned that we hadn’t sold anything so far this month. We had the dining table and chairs that we recently finished, but there was very little interest. We also had a number of pieces in various stages of work, but we really had to pull our finger out.

We still had the large mid century style dresser that although we had sold it at the end of last month. The buyer wanted us to repaint it black, which we did, but that didn’t count.

I was working furiously to get the long dresser we collected earlier this week, ready for Kelli to paint, but the prospect looked bleak.

It was in the afternoon that Kelli announced that we had sold the table and chairs to the same lady who had already bought a number of pieces that we were holding until March, so out of the gloom came a chink of light.

Kelli sent a picture of the repainted black dresser to the buyer, and she was so impressed she asked us to repaint two dressers she had, to match, the chink was getting bigger.

8th February 2024

The weather was remarkably spring like, I could work outside without gloves, and a runny nose.

I took the opportunity to trim the top from our latest dresser. One end had been hacked off and needed straightening. I did the same to the other end then bonded on a strip of oak to tidy it up. The top itself had a thin oak veneer so I had to be careful not to sand through it.

The month so far is really lean, so we’ve got a lot to catch up on, and the one we picked up yesterday with the Jackson Pollock paint job is going to take so much work to scrape that shit off.

No action on the table and chair set we finished yesterday, I hope they go soon as they take up so much room.

7th February 2024

There is nothing more infuriating than an ATM that won’t accept money, not that it happens to me because it alway works the other way round.

Kelli was trying to feed bills into a machine, it spat them back out. She tried to feed them one at a time, and it continued to happen. She started shouting at it, just in case there was a small person inside, but alas there wasn’t. The temperature inside the car was rising, there were no more money machines in the area, the next nearest was in the town, and she didn’t want to drive down there. I was trying to de-fuse the situation by giving a few dollars to see if that made any difference, but it didn’t, leading to more bad language. I thought she might do an Incredible Hulk and tear the unit out of the wall.

I felt for the car behind us, all they would see is her arm pushing in the notes in, waiting a few seconds and taking them out again, then the truck would rock, as her anger rose even higher.

We admitted defeat and headed to the town. There was a call to the Bank’s customer service, somewhere in America where Kelli gave a poor guy grief about the problem, and adding that they needed more machines, as that one was in the wrong place.

The whole episode was exhausting, as was what we had done before. There was a trip to Plato’s to sell more clothes from Kelli’s wardrobe,(yes it is that big) then on to a doctors appointment for more physical treatment, then back to Plato’s hoping to get her money, and any things they didn’t take, but they hadn’t finished sorting through her stuff.

Fortunately we had other places to go to, first to take a couple of return packages to the UPS store, and then to CD exchange to pick up some DVDs of The Big Bang Theory, yes we try to keep up with the latest trends.

Once that was done we drove back to Plato’s to complete the transaction.

All this, and we hadn’t even started our food shopping yet.

Once that was done there was a dresser to collect. This was an interesting piece. Covered in dribbles of pink paint, like the result of a giant sneeze.

Then it was back home to do some work. Phew!

6th February 2024

Today was our firearm training session at The Chick-Owa shooting range just outside of Holland. We loaded up our equipment and headed out.

First we met James our trainer, he took us through all the safety procedures and some simple maintenance steps. He was definitely well into it, he had a pistol in his belt, three in his bag and a couple in his truck, not to mention the armoury he had at home, definitely not someone to piss off.

Once the indoor stuff was done we moved down to the range. This is where the rubber hit the road. Two targets were stapled to a couple of plywood panels that didn’t have much plywood left. Then there was more training, the stance, how to hold the weapon, and then came the loud bit.

Kelli was the first to try, I wasn’t prepared for the noise, even though I had my ear defenders on, the crack was loud. Under instruction she fired off more rounds grouping them well around the centre of the target.

Then it was my turn, my hand were much larger than even the trainer’s so it was a challenge to hold it property. Once that was sorted, I fired my first shot, it went close to the centre, bloody amazing. Our session lasted three hours and between us we fired sixty shots, removing even more plywood, but although my grouping was slightly better, we were both pleased with our first attempt.