Another Lifetime to go

27th January 2019

Today I had to make two wood frames to fit into the front windows of our home. The place suffers from being a bit draughty, so we decided to do something about it. The easiest option was to try thin plastic film stretched over the windows. Our first attempt was shambolic, there was plastic film and double sided tape everywhere, it stressed us both out, it would have been easier to fit a condom on a pineapple.

That was when I decided to make wooden frames.

We looked on YouTube for the best ways to attach the stuff, and felt confident we could do it.

Everything was ready, the frames were fitted in the window recess, the double sided tape was attached,and the pieces of film were cut to size.

I was standing on a stool ready to start the fitting. Kelli had the job of holding the film away from the tape, and mine was to remove the backing off the tape and fixing the film. As I was working my way down, Kelli got distracted by a bird outside. I had to reminded her of the complexity of the operation. We completed the first one, and armed with the hairdryer, an appliance she is an expert with, She heated the plastic until it was as tight as a drum.

For the second frame we took everything we had learnt from the first, or rather Kelli suggested we do it a different way. When I say a different way, I mean Kelli’s way.

There were some advantages, although there was the same level of panic, but we did it in the end.

26th January 2019

We slept in later than we wanted. Kelli had two people interested in a couple of pieces of furniture at Hudsonville. I had my list of jobs that I wanted to progress. Kelli agreed to collect her mothers prescription, and I had some timber to buy. We had petrol fumes in the truck so the first port of call was the petrol station. I went into the shop to pay and had to join a queue. In front of me were Mr and Mrs Large, their hands, and arms holding their hot dogs with extra onions, and a large coke. There was some hold up at the register so I suggested they start eating while the food was still hot, they looked at me and smiled, I’m not sure they got the concept of eating standing up.

Kelli dropped me at Menards and drove off to Meijers to pick up the medicine.

I managed to find the timber easily, but I had to wait over half an hour for Kelli to collect me. It did give me an opportunity to observe people.

Firstly, some men bought an amazing amount of timber, sheets of plywood and stud timber, it made me feel totally inadequate with my weedy strips of softwood.

There is something manly about buying sheets of good ply, not the cheap OSB this is the real stuff. The other manly attributes to have are, bushy beards, lumberjack shirts and a backward facing baseball cap. I am lucky to have the lumberjack shirt (I have several) but even that did not help with the cold as I waited for Kelli’s return.

The weather did eventually drive me back into the store to wait in the warm, but that was provided I didn’t activate the electric sliding door. I learned to take small breaths, because the action of a full breath allowed my stomach to break the activation beam, causing the door to open and exposing everyone inside to a rush of cold air.

Eventually the truck turned up and I threw my bits of wood in the back, and we set off to deliver the medicine to the in-laws.

Kelli told me that each pill cost $14, that is why they have to store them in a safe.

25th January 2019

We had lunch at Grandville with the couple that conducted our marriage ceremony, Stephen and Cathy.

Our time is always fun and the conversation deep and meaningful, I always come away refreshed, a kind of mental yoga.

It is the start of a cold week with lots of snow forecast, a good opportunity for Kelli to wear her winter clothes, or should I say all her winter clothes. She does feel the cold a lot which is odd for a person who should be used to harsh winters. I still enjoy seeing the snow, but seeing it last longer than a few hours is unusual.

Kelli had to do a bit of “ladies” shopping (clothes) I went to Starbucks for a coffee, and joy! The wooden sticks were back, so I grabbed a handful of those.

We had stopped at Painted Farmgirl on the way through to add a few things, nothing much had sold, but that is to be expected with the weather.

A couple of days ago Kelli had read a story on Facebook about a local family made homeless by high medical bills. They were living in a van at a truck stop. She immediately searched around for old clothes that she could donate, because that is the person she is.

This is a common story, and medical bills are the main reason for people losing their homes.

I still can’t understand why there is no safety net for working people. There is the same risk for the government workers that don’t get their pay cheques.

I have not meet these people yet, and I’m sure their story would be tearful, but where do they go from here? Donating clothing and food is one thing, but once they have fallen so far, what is the future?

We spent the evening watching the film Footloose, talk about going back in time, all that music and dancing left me breathless, and most of my joints aching.

1.45pm found us at Holland Hospital emergence room, where Kelli’s mother was being treated for an irregular heartbeat. There was drama when her heart rate dropped to 35 bpm, but it quickly stabilised, and by 2.30am she was discharged, and we were driving her home in the driving snow.

24th January 2019

Snow was forecast so I had no intention of going out. I had plenty to work on, and rather than laying awake worrying about it I decided to get on with it.

I lifted Old Shaky into the kitchen because the first job was to make it less shaky. I had taken all the back panel sections out to give them a good clean. I remembered to number them so that they would go back in the correct order.

With the aid of a mallet and a block of wood I slid them back into place. Using a couple of sash clamps the carcass was all squared up and rigid. Next I Looked at the drawers. They hadn’t fitted very well when we brought it home, and this was the first chance I had to look at them. It seemed like they had been in a bar fight, all the side pieces had the bottom panel grooves parts broken off.

The bottom panels were random pieces of wall panelling held together with Duck tape and nailed to the drawer frame. This was why they hadn’t fitted properly. So ahead of me will be making new drawer side pieces.

Kelli risked the weather and went out for supplies, of course this also meant a visit to Goodwill, and a collection of more stuff.

I continued sanding some chairs in the basement. We have plans to turn these fairly basic pieces into some cool seating. However these are bastards to sand, even though I just have to strip the seat section, it takes for ever, so I do it when I haven’t anything better to do.

When she returned, Kelli made the most wonderful potato and leek soup, I would have happily ran out into the snow naked, but that would have turned a few heads, and also many stomachs.

23rd January 2019

Had a brunch with Dave, and went to the International house of pancakes (IHOP) I think this is the first time I have been to one of these places ever. I resisted the “ All the pancakes you can eat for $4.99” as I didn’t wish to be found dead in the place. There were quite a few “ large” people who live there because they are, A) Jammed in the seat, or B) Not able to squeeze through the door to leave.

Whilst we were out I had the pleasure of walking round Meijers as Dave had to buy some supplies. As I waited, I noticed just how many plastic carrier bags were used. The carousels spun dispensing hundreds of them while I was watching, but worst of all there is no charge for using them. This is contrary to other items that are collected or recycling.

I attempted to stain the top of the low dresser with a walnut stain the I got from Meijers.

This was not my regular brand, and as soon as i applied it I knew it was a mistake. The top ended up much too red, and not like any walnut I’ve seen. So I mixed in some black stain and redid it.

22nd January 2019

I spent a lot of time on the low dresser scraping off the paint stripper, washing down and adding more stripper. In between this I was out in the garage breaking down old Shaky and removing the back panel. The top was held on with nails, that I eased up carefully but not carefully enough as a piece broke along a glue line, which is not the end of the world. It was really cold today at -2C so my time periods in the garage were dependant on whether I could feel my fingers or not.

Kelli and Greer went off for a girls day out, leaving me and the dogs to fend for ourselves. I have to let them out several times for a piss, sniff or a bark, but often I get distracted, and forget to let them back in again. Regularly I will get a text message reminding me to check that they have not frozen solid on the step.

Kelli kept up the Goodwill visits with another collection of flotsam and jetsam. I know she likes going there alone as I usually make facial expressions at the things she finds. This is because my imagination cannot appreciate how these pieces could ever be re-sold.

I trust Kelli, as often many go very quickly, and others will eventually join the growing pile gathering dust in the garage. On the positive side, she will often go through them again, and re-paint them and find a buyer.

There have been the occasional crazy piece that can never be sold, these become legends, and the subject of me teasing Kelli mercilessly.

21st January 2019

Today is Martin Luther King day, and like most minor national holiday the Americans would rather earn a dollar than have time with their families. We are no exception, with the truck full with the hutch and freshly painted shelf drying in the back we headed off the Hudsonville. The panic, as usual was due to a dresser selling, so we were off to rearrange the booth yet again.

On the way, a text arrived on Kelli’s phone informing us that another dresser had sold. This was great news! it was one of our favourites, it had been there over a month, and we were worried that we would have to either lower the price (again) or paint it another colour.

Amongst the smaller items to sell over the weekend was the section of a picket fence with a small wreath attached. This was a knock-together item of things we had in the garage that Kelli thought might look good. Well yet again I was aghast that someone else thought it was cool enough to buy it.

We even had lunch at the Winery to celebrate.

On a rare occasion we didn’t stop at Goodwill, I was eager to start stripping the top of a low dresser. Now that we didn’t have any backlog I wanted to get ahead, again.

Kelli decided to open a bottle of wine that had been left on the sideboard since Christmas.

I wasn’t sure if it was another celebration, or it was taking up valuable storage space, anyhow it went down a Little too quick for my liking.

20th January 2019

There are times when the close relationship we have surprise me, things occur that catch me out, and I stop in my tracks open mouthed.

Such an occasion happened this evening when we were chilling out. Kelli has started watching the latest season of Grace and Frankie, and I drift in and out of thinking about forthcoming projects.

I started thinking about toast, I fancied a slice or two, a couple of seconds later Kelli turned to me and said “ I fancy some toast, but I don’t know what I want on it”

At this point my mouth dropped open. Kelli is not a bread person, so to hear those words uttered by her was very rare. I immediately said I was thinking the exact same thing, and accused her of infiltrating my brain. We both laughed out loud because this happens so often. It is our thing, a cosmic occurrence, proving that we are really made for each other.

We both had some toast, although my definition was a little different from hers. Toast, in my understanding is not warm bread, there has to be a bit of brown on it. With a little bit of experimentation we agreed on a standard colour. Thus concluded another lesson in US/UK convergences.

Talking of a cosmic occurrence, tonight was a red moon. So round about midnight Kelli dragged me out in the bloody cold to watch the phenomenon. I am not that interested in astrology, so the whole thing was not high on my chart, I was hoping that there would be different coloured moons happening, now that would be fascinating.

We managed to finish the hutch, after placing the shelf into position it only rested on three pins because it was badly warped. That meant that I needed to make a new one. Fortunately I had a cedar plank that I was able to use, but as it was late I had to wait till tomorrow to run it through the saw at Dave’s.

19th January 2019

Woke up this morning with a thick layer of snow outside. At last I have the chance to really freeze my ass off.

We had a few errands to do and a house to look at. From the pictures on the agents web site it looked interesting, so Kelli arranged a viewing for 3.30. We got there early, so took a drive around the area. It was on the other side of Lake Macatawa to where we are now, but you could see the water. The moment the front door was opened it smelt bad. Obviously it had been empty for a long time, but it had some potential, the layout and the room sizes were good, but it would have to be stripped back so much just to get rid of the smell. So we closed the door on that one.

Another visit to Goodwill resulted in the acquisition of a low dresser that had been marked down, it was painted dark brown but once that is stripped off it will be a little gem.

18th January 2019

We are now desperate for new projects. Painted Farmgirl is fully stocked with cool furniture, but we anticipate a strong level of interest both in-store or on Marketplace so we need a constant flow of new things.

This brings up the subject of what our customers value, and what they are prepared to pay for a piece. This is a common point of discussion between Kelli and myself.

On Kelli’s side she wants to move product quickly regardless of the cost, and often reduces the price slightly to make the sale.

I understand her position, but only agree when there is minimum work done. Some of the pieces have been extensively renovated and are greatly undervalued.

This is a subject we cannot agreed on, and may never, but whilst we are in Hudsonville the value ceiling may be fixed.

Whilst we were picking over the new donated furniture at Goodwill, we saw a dresser that had been there a week. This is a long time in Goodwill speak, but the reason was the price.

The condition was a bit rough, so we had discounted it, but as it had been a while, we thought we could get it cheaper. So we looked it over try to find all the things wrong with it. Firstly the drawers looked like they had dropped at the back, not a difficult problem to solve, but was it enough to get a deal? Next I pushed the side to check the integrity of the case. There was a lot of movement, so this could be our winning hand.

We were able to talk to the manager and Kelli showed the sloping drawers, the manager didn’t seemed convinced so stuck by the price on the ticket. I stepped forward and demonstrated the wobbly case. Suddenly the price dropped a lot, a bit above what I was going to offer, but close enough to make a deal.

With old “Shaky” in the truck we drove home.