Another Lifetime to go

22nd December 2022

My snow blower was delivered, and I hurriedly opened the box to start the assembly.

The weather was due to get bad around mid afternoon, so I kept looking out of the window.

It started with a few sprinkles, and didn’t really get that much worse, although the temperature dropped, and the wind blew up.

I charged the batteries in eager anticipation, but it looks like I will have to wait until tomorrow to see if any more snow falls.

We took a walk up the road to deliver a card for Mike and Lesley. We hitched up the dogs to give them some exercise. I didn’t put the sling on Dharma as she appears a bit stronger on her back legs, she is still taking her anti-inflammatory medication, she is probably high all the time and doesn’t give a shit.

Well the anticipated snow returned as I was turning in for the night, this time the flakes were much larger, so we may have to dig ourselves out in the morning.

21st December 2022

We finally finished the large piece of shit cabinet, and surprisingly it didn’t look bad.

Kelli changed the handles on the drawers and that made the difference.

There was also good progress on the two side tables made from the maple desk.

There was a lot of concerns for the cold weather that is due to sweep across America tomorrow. That will mean disruption to Christmas travel arrangements. A lot of people have decided to leave early, causing congestion on the roads. Another typical people response is to panic buy stuff. The supermarkets are bursting with people stocking up for a winter siege. As Christmas over here is only one day so it’s pretty pointless.

I remember days of old when I was young it was important to have plenty of bread and milk, for all those cups of tea and turkey sandwiches. In those days all the big shops closed, so you had to be fully stocked.

Now there is something open somewhere.

I’m looking forward to having two days off, yes including Boxing Day.

20th December 2022

We had cancelled the poo man, it was cold and all the dog muck would have frozen solid.

Even with a new truck he would have been able to suck up something that big without exploding.

We did drive over to the north side to visit the lady who wanted three kitchen units painted to make an island.

As we drove over I asked a pertinent question to Kelli.

“What if these units are crap, should we take it on?”

“I think they look pretty decent from the pictures” she replied.

The lady lived in a condominium, that is semi-detached in English.

She welcomed us and led us through to the kitchen to show where the island was going to be positioned.

The kitchen units were downstairs in the basement.

My fears were realised when I saw them.

These were obviously secondhand and made from the cheapest material, except for the doors which was the only real material.

Vinyl skinned furniture are the pits, difficult to paint without special primers, they fall into the “ piece of shit” category. The back panels were just chipboard and would have to be sealed well even before priming.

In other words, quite a lot of work, but we agreed to message her with a quotation by the end of the day.

On the way back we stopped off at a hardware store to buy a couple of Christmas tree ornaments, being so late there were only the dregs left, but we selected the best of the worst.

Once back at the ranch there was painting to do.

Kelli continued to add more paint to the crappy piece, fighting with stains that kept bleeding through. One day it will be finished, and I will be relieved to see it gone.

19th December 2022

I took the maple desk apart. It was well made and heavy, unlike others that we work on, the amount of repairs needed were minimal.

We spent a couple of hours watching the January 6th committee come to their conclusions. Not that it was any surprise, Trump was a villain, a crook, a cheat and a bully, he deserves everything the Department of Justice can throw at him. The sad fact is that 47% of Americans still believe his lies, so watch this space when he is indicted.

The large piece of shit is giving us problems. Stains are bleeding through the paint, a problem where the tannins in the timber come to the surface, but as there is hardly any real wood in the piece, there must have been contaminates left, even after cleaning.

But it means having to apply stain blockers and waiting for all that to dry before more coats can be added.

18th December 2022

There was more snow to clear from the driveway, but we should be free from anymore for a couple of days.

This was another day not to travel too far, but we had plenty to keep us busy.

I made the decision and ordered the rechargeable snow blower, with more storms expected before Christmas I just hope it arrives before then.

I ventured out on my own to get some supplies from Menards, I have been used to driving in snow, but you can never underestimate American car drivers.

We get through a lot of bird seeds, because our colony of sparrows is very large, and very hungry. Sacks of bird food are often on my list of purchases.

We finished the small commode, or dresser after it took an age for the top to dry, but we brought it into the house to take pictures.

Once posted, the stream of scammers begin.

These come from all over the globe, Africa, China, India, and Russia. These are a pain in the arse, but finally we had some real interest so here’s hoping the person turns up.

17th December 2022

There was another two inches of snow on the driveway meaning more physical effort to clear it. I wanted to get it done as we had a customer coming to collect a dresser.

There are a number of work in progress pieces in the garage, but that did not stop Kelli buying a small desk. Her motives were genuine this time as she had pre-sold the matching side tables to the customer of the dresser.

It was made from solid maple, I gathered that as soon as I tried to lift it, it was heavy.

When we unloaded it from the truck, it almost seemed too good to take apart, but there is very little demand for desks and more for matching side tables.

Kelli had to return some clothes to Plato’s Closet, not a difficult task in itself, but it was made more complex by the price tag that had to remain attached to the garment.

Kelli, as alway, tore that out. The task remained how could this tag be reattached?

She had the components, the tag itself and two pieces of the plastic bit that is threaded though the garment.

“Could you glue these pieces together?” She asked.

These plastic pieces were about half a millimetre thick and made of a cheap plastic.

I had my doubts that it would bond, but I applied Superglue and that did not hold.

I then tried a soldering iron hoping to fuse it all together, but it was so thin it just melted.

Now with a slightly less material to work with I tried just to create a blob of glue on the end that would prevent it pulling through. I laid it on the back of a sheet of sand paper and dropped the glue on it, after squirting some accelerator everything had set hard.

However I now couldn’t separate the dried glue fro the sandpaper.

Kelli came up with the idea of trimming the paper and tucking it behind the garment label and putting a stitch through it. That not only hid the sandpaper but also retained the price tag.

Now it was just getting it though the return process.

As it was a Saturday, they were quite busy, and the ruse paid off. One day someone will discover the tag with the blob of glue on the sandpaper and wonder “what the heck?”

16th December 2022

The snow returned, about two inches fell overnight. The scene that greeted us was wonderful, full of Christmas imagery, but we know it will now drag on and become boring.

It snowed lightly most of the day, restricting what we could do in the garage. That was fine because we had to get ready for Steve Kubica’s Christmas party. Kelli needs a couple of hours, me about five minutes.

It was still snowing as we made our way to Saugatuck, the roads were okay but Kelli was taking it carful. It was a fun party, we missed last years, but this was good that she was strong enough to attend.

There were some interesting people, some we recognised from when we went there last, and the food was delicious. I had a few glasses of wine to keep me happy.

That came to abrupt conclusion when I fell asleep on the sofa once we got home.

15th December 2022

We surprisingly had someone wanting to buy the sofa table, but not until Kelli reduced the price. Fortunately it was a freebie, but there had been a lot of work on the top, stripping it back and refinishing it.

There was doubt that the colour was wrong, and I was more in favour of repainting than selling it cheap.

But I kept my cool and seethed quietly as I loaded it into the lady’s truck, I could see that it was new, so clearly she could have afforded the full price. My seething continued as she drove away. Sounding like a massive gas leak I had to calm myself down and tell myself that it was just furniture.

I spent a bit of time making two door frame for piece of shit 2, and repairing some damage to piece of shit 1.

Kelli was frustrated painting the small dresser. Areas of tannin leached through places that had been sanded even though sealers had been sprayed over it, so that something we have to deal with.

The tall dresser hasn’t attracted any interest leading to doubt about its colour. We had bought some unusual knobs for it, and Kelli wasn’t sure if those were turning people off, so she changed them to boring black.

That was posted on Marketplace, so we’ll see it that generates any buyers.

14th December 2022

From my vantage point on a stool in Starbucks, sipping my coffee I could watch all the cars lining up for the drive through. Most of the vehicles looked new and driven by youngsters, and I thought “ how can they afford them?”

It’s a fact that car prices have increased a lot in the last few years, with insurance being as expensive as it is, plus finance it must take out a lot from the monthly pay packet.

So how do they manage? Rent for even the smallest apartment is much more than a mortgage payment, but many can’t afford the deposit to get accepted, so they get in a spiral and with budgets stretched, the only answer is eating cheap food.

That is why there are new cars at all the drive throughs.

With all these, there is a explosion of new car washes, one has just opened next to Menards on a wonderful patch of grass that was just crying out to be dug up and turned into a large concrete slab. I guess the store needed the money. On another patch of grass opposite the car wash is another development, this is going to be storage units for Hollanders to store all the crap they no longer want but dare’t get rid of.

The landscape of the city is changing.

When I used to visit I never used to see a traffic jam, and there was always somewhere to park downtown, that is all different now.

The big corporations are busy recruiting the smart people from out of state, they need houses, and boy, are they springing up.

Green fields have gone and replaced with bland housing estates full of new cars.

It is amazing what a trip to Starbucks can do.

All the time I was pontificating, Kelli was at Plato’s with another three bags of clothes to sell, she returned with three bags of new stuff.

Then it was off to Zeeland for a doctors appointment, after some clicks and snaps she was back in shape, so we headed home.

Most of the day had gone, by the time we had gone to the post office and the corner shop, and had some soup leftovers, it was ready to start work.

I added to my workload by lifting down another furniture piece we shouldn’t have bought. We were seduced by the solid look of it’s oak construction, but little did we realise how bad the drawers were.

Now I have two bits of shit to polish.

13th December 2022

There was a risk that we would have two dressers finished on the same day. The top for dresser one was still tacky so we brought it into the house to dry off. That didn’t stop us from taking pictures though.

Kelli painted dresser two and we even got pictures of that one too.

I did some staining of tops, one for a small side table, and another of the dresser we collected yesterday.

This was not on my goals for the day, I should have been working on the piece of shit we got for a customer, but I needed to do some repair work first.

I am still convinced that I can polish this turd and get a decent price for it.