What a wonderful vacation! It was close to perfect. This year was my best Pennsic. Okay, so I have only been to three, but still... Before going this year, I had decided that I would probably start alternating years due to lack of vacation days. Going for two weeks this year depleted my vacation. However, after this year I am all hyped for going ( Read more... )

Last weekend we traveled to Georgia for my niece's 11th birthday. We took an extra day this year, so we had 2 entire days there with 2 days for travel. I think that made for a more relaxing trip. We had a good time and still managed to do some Pennsic prep ( Read more... )

I'm so excited about the gatehouse. Friday evening when Eldred got home from work, it was too hot and humid to go outside so we waited a while before heading out for the test fitting of the roof. Unfortunately, it got dark before we finished. We discovered he needed to trim the panels anyway. We did get the frame put up with wall headers and ( Read more... )

I keep trying to convince myself that it was progress even though the same pieces of wood are still on the worktable in the shop. I put a second coat on the pieces then ate breakfast while they dried. I flipped them all over and painted the other side of each. I had to leave them 3-4 hours to dry. I did some washm, Roomba'd a couple of rooms, and ( Read more... )

Yesterday and today I awoke with a headache. Bah! It took longer than planned to get moving and get out in the shop for painting. Yesterday I finished all the priming before heading to my finance commitee meeting ( Read more... )

When I arrived home from work Saturday evening, Eldred was in the driveway finishing up nailing shingles on the roof for the Pennsic gatehouse with Lucien helping. Lucien had to leave right after I got home but the work was pretty much done. It looks really nice! Those roof pieces are heavy though ( Read more... )

In dragonazure speak, I have reached my progress goal. After dinner and some TV and chatting with Magnus, I went back out to the shop. I put a second coat of primer on the two sheets of plywood. I took a break to let them dry. Then I stained the other side. That completed my goal for the day. Whee! Now Eldred can assemble the gatehouse this weekend, a week ( Read more... )

This morning I took Aelfgifu and Ignatius to the vet for their annual checkups and shots. I found Aelf first and shoved her in the carrier. She balked and hissed but eventually went in. She screamed as I gave her a final shove. That's when I realized I should have snagged Ignatius first. I went upstairs and saw kitty eyes under the bed. Terrific. I ( Read more... )

I finished staining the shingles last night. Yay! It seemed to go faster than before. I must be getting the hang of it. This time I tried to concentrate on keeping my shoulders relaxed, so my neck and shoulder muscles didn't get as tight. I also took the opportunity to stand in the basic tai chi posture, which helped my back and gave my thighs a ( Read more... )

Last night I finally got back to the woodshop to help with the gatehouse. I stained another third of the shingles. Tonight I hope to finish staining the shingles. I'm not sure what dragonazure has lined up for me to do after that ( Read more... )