Another Lifetime to go

31st December 2020

It is never a good idea to wish time away, but this last year has been bad.

I feel for the people who’s life has been changed by incompetence of the people who are supposed to be in charge, and lead in a positive and inspirational way.

Kelli and myself have been in a small controlled bubble ever since the pandemic hit this country, so it has become our way of life.

I have heard how it affected my friends, family and other people I know, most of whom have been positive and focus on the future.

This has changed my outlook, usually I get to year end and look back at events of my life past, but now I look forward. I cannot do, or influence what I’ve left behind but I can for the future.

I received notification from the USCIS that I have to go to have my Biometrics taken, which in proper speak is have my fingerprints taken.

It is another step in this arduous journey of gaining residency. I expect to wait another three months or so for the final interview.

I collected my antibiotics from the pharmacy to treat my gum infection, next week I have to book an appointment with a specialist to have my root fillings.

Kelli has an appointment with a chiropractor to have herself re-aligned. I was sitting in the waiting room and I could hear her going through the procedure. I did witness it once and it almost made me faint. Not for me please.

We took pictures of the latest dresser, the one with the children’s graffiti and burn mark on the top, it came out pretty good.

30th December 2020

The snow had turned slushy this morning as we drove to my dental appointment across town.

I explained my problem, as they took several X-rays, then led me to the inspection area.

The dentist came round and looked at the screen. He then fired off his diagnosis which I didn’t understand. I then repeated back what I thought he had said. He explained that the damaged tooth would need a crown as well as the one next to it, but both would need root canels that would have to be done by a specialist. This whole treatment will be very expensive, almost the price of a small family car, and not something I was prepared for.

We delivered the graduated stained drawer front dresser to one of Kelli’s friend and in part exchange we got her old dresser to renovate.

I continued to add finish to the black stained dresser top, I think it will require another couple of coats before it is as smooth as I want.

The new stainless steel pans turned up today.

Kelli had been using some utensils that were really old and rather stained and tatty. I want to gradually replace all the old pans with good quality items, which is also what I am planning to do with my teeth.

29th December 2020

The plant stand that I ordered from Amazon turned up along with six tins of Heinz baked beans.

The stand was China’s finest, included in the box were the assembly hardware, a single white glove and a set of mini gardening tools suitable for a five year old, which quite by coincidence was the age of the person who made it.

It can’t be difficult to find a one handed five year old woodworker in China.

The material was bamboo finished in a thick polyurethane coating.

It was easy to assemble even without instructions, thirty-six years in the furniture business was not wasted.

We had to go out to look for drawer handles with seven inch fixing centres. First stop was “Habitat for Humanity” our go-to place for hardware, but even they came up zilch.

I had to get new draught excluder for the front door, the existing stuff must have been original, so a change will hopefully make a difference, and keep the wind out.

There was a return of the snow during the evening, just as the first lot was thawing, oh well I guess that is to be expected.

28th December 2020

I had been nursing a cracked tooth for quite a while, but finally my gum has become infected.

I was intending to get it fixed a while ago but a combination of the pandemic and terror prevented me doing anything with it.

As my gum has swelled up to the point where a mini-me could burst out, Kelli called a dental service for an appointment.

Throughout the evening I kept moving my tongue over the loose part until it dropped out.

Now I’ve a hole the size of an ornamental pond, but an appointment for Wednesday.

Work in the garage didn’t stop, the re-veneering of the two side table tops went really well, my improvised press using paving stones worked a treat.

The other dresser top with the burn mark took the black stain well, with the burn hidden in the denseness of the colour, now I just have to build the finish up.

27th December 2020

I had organised a quiz for my son’s and their families using Zoom. I had spent the week working out the twenty questions, and felt happy to have included a good span of general knowledge subjects.

Each of us would ask their questions to other couple giving a total of forty possible answers.

I had the usual abuse from my boys with the question I fired at them.

Then it was my turn. Talk about crash and burn, my arse was charcoal by the time we finished. I laughed it off blaming Kelli for not knowing the answers.

We arranged another quiz for New Year’s Day, and I will do much better because I will bloody cheat.

Out in the garage I cut up strips of veneer and taped them together. I glued up the top and laid the veneer on top. I had intended to use some spare paving slabs as weights, but unfortunately they are under four inches of snow and frozen to the ground.

In the end I used my thickness planer, which weighs a ton to hold it down.

I sanded off the stain that I added yesterday to the pine top with the “spot” . That took an age, eventually I got the surface clean and flat ready to take the black stain that I hoped would hide the “spot” better.

I brushed on the stain and it appeared to do the job, now I will have to wait to see how it dries.

26th December 2020

It is sad that in the US there is no Boxing Day, things get back to normal, except for what is happening around the world.

The only similarity is eating all the leftovers, food often tastes better the second time around.

I made an attempt to work in the garage, but my heart wasn’t in it. The pine top that had the burn mark couldn’t be hidden with the walnut stain that I applied, so that was frustrating.

Also one of the side table tops had a couple of small burn marks on the front, which spoiled it and was difficult to disguise.

One could argue that it is reloved pieces, so a few blemishes are to be expected, but, I want the tops to be perfect, it added to my dissatisfaction, and compounded the frustration that I was suffering.

I decided that the day was not working, so a cup of tea was in order.

Whilst sipping the nectar, I had a brainwave to re-veneer the underside and make that the new top, brilliant! More work to do.

In the evenings we sit and watch some British house renovation shows on YouTube. The show is called “ Building a new home in the country”. The format is consistent for all episodes, a couple spend their life savings on a pile of crap, and spend three times as long, and often four times the cost. The man works his finger to the bone seven days a week, fifty two weeks a year, and somehow the wife gets pregnant, how does that happen?

Now he has more pressure to finish it ether by Christmas or before the baby is born.

If that is typical of what happens during a renovation, then we better not do any.

25th December 2020

Yay it’s Christmas, snow is falling, it’s perfect.

We opened our presents straight away.

Kelli bought me a Tilly hat, it is brilliant, ideal for winter. It has a lining that folds out and covers my ears, I was so excited, I didn’t want to take it off. Another pressy was a new set of ear defenders, as my previous ones broke.

I had lots of tool things sent to me from my family in England that will be very useful. I had a set of bits to remove screws with messed up heads which occur often in furniture restoration.

After a hearty cooked breakfast we started on a marathon session of FaceTime sessions with my family. It was really fun to see my Grand children turning their homes into a state of chaos, so satisfying that my boys are experiencing what I had to go through when they were young.

Then it was time for our Christmas dinner which had a German theme with potato salad, red cabbage and sprouts. It was so good I had two helpings in remembrance of how I felt living at home, when I ate so much I thought I would die, only to have Christmas pudding five minutes later, followed by a couple of mince pies. The day was just one eating fest with good things on television, those were the good old days.

24th December 2020

It started snowing this morning, to an Englishman it is rare and wonderful.

As a child, snow was always special, and I knew my mother looked forward to it even though it hardly ever fell around Christmas.

I stood looking out of the window, the whiteness is a great leveller hiding things you don’t want to see.

Both the dogs rushed out through the sliding sunroom door, and just as eagerly want to rush back in. They never do anything out there, they just want the treat that is associated with the action.

We finished another dresser and carried it into the house to be photographed. It doesn’t look that we did much work to it, being left unpainted, but the top was stripped back restrained and refinished and all the drawers needed repairs to all the drawer sides.

We didn’t expect much activity before Christmas Day but there were a few question asked but it led no further, we’ve come to expect a few time wasters.

It has been a difficult time for families, and especially Kelli’s mum who looks forward to the gatherings, but this year the protocol was a lot stricter. We agreed that we would exchange presents with her as long as we wore masks and stayed just to unwrap then then we would leave. That worked as well as we thought, although it did feel strange wearing face protection in the house.

This illustrates just how much the world has changed, and it will continue for quite a while to come.

23rd December 2020

The buyer for the grey dresser didn’t materialise, “It was the wrong size” she said.

A little disappointing, but we move with the punches, and we have two more in progress.

I had to do a repair to one of the drawers, whilst Kelli primed the carcass.

We then drove to Grand Rapids to drop Greer’s and Dylan’s Christmas presents off. It was agreed that we would leave them at the front door then retreat back to the truck whilst they opened them.

They live in a dodgy area of the city although I didn’t see much evidence of that. There were no burnt out cars in the street or bodies in the gutter. All I noticed were cars with super loud rap music thumping, creating sonic waves long before they turned the corner into view.

It made a change from collecting furniture, it felt like we should have stopped to pick something up, but around this place I’m not sure what we would have “picked up”.

Although we hadn’t really touched anything, we still felt the need to wash our hands with sanitizer, many times.

22nd December 2020

Finally there was some interest in our finished furniture.

We tend to sell things as we finish them, never having a build up of products. If we do, Kelli mopes around thinking she has painted them the wrong colour. I reassure her that the right customer hasn’t seen it yet.

Finally we had someone on the buffet, and another on the grey dresser.

The buffet people wanted to collect it in the early evening, which meant I had to make sure the final coat would be dry by then, fortunately it was, but I was sweating for a while.

I had more tops to work on, the pine one had such a thick clear coating on it I had to scrape an inch at a time to get through it. This is when my old man hands ache, and cover the floor with dust. It took quite a time to strip it, but what I thought was a large knot was a burn mark, that requires more work.

We lifted the buffet outside awaiting the arrival of its new owner.

It’s always a good sign when the tailgate is opened meaning they already decided to buy it, always a tense moment.

I helped with the lifting of it into their vehicle, after they thrust a wad of notes into my hand.