Day 125 - May 9th

One of those rare days - a full day at home without working either job! So I set out to finish the table. Except for the middle. Without a planer, the middle is difficult. But BESIDES that...behold. Yes, I know, Alexander is missing. He was out running around. I'm still not totally in love with my seat supports and will have to train the kids not to rock back and forth. Not sure what I can do to fix it. And the corners of the tables still need a wee bit tweaking and I may add a bit of flare to the border.

But for the most part, it's done. Finally. YAY!

Day 124 - May 8th

My beautiful wife. Taken with the iPhone :)

Day 123 - May 7th

Happy Birthday, brother! Today is my brother, Dr. Brian's, birthday! YAY!

I was upstairs over lunch and stumbled across this scene. Peter, for the first time, was attempting to duplicate something he saw in a book. He saw this creation of blocks in a book, recognized that he had those blocks and decided to try and build it. It was wonderful!

Day 122 - May 6th

This is the back of a double bookshelf we have. We call it the "art wall" where the kids can tape up their creations. I think we have representations from four of the five up here - Peter's not much more than scribbles right now. :)

Day 121 - May 5th

Sorry about the little blurriness. I wanted to snap a photo of one of the kids sleeping without waking them up. My friend Jamie had her baby on Sunday and I've been a bit nostalgic lately. Jill and I both love to look in on our kids as they sleep so peacefully. Until dad takes a flash picture. Not a good idea. So tried it without the flash. My camera still makes a sound, though, so only this picture turned out - the rest showed her grimacing in her sleep at the loud "click" her subconscious heard.

Day 120 - May 4th

Happy Star Wars day! For those who don't know, today is the day when Star Wars nerds wish each other "May the Fourth be with you!" I didn't do it...honestly!

This is a picture of one of the oddest products. Whoever designed this deer repellent obviously thought it would sell SO much better if they altered the deer into an evil mutant vampire deer. Cracks me up every time I see it!

Day 119 - May 3rd

After work (both days of the weekend I usually work at Fred Meyer 8a-5p or similar), I worked outside on the picnic table. Peter was being a BOY and was running around without a shirt - and unknown to Jill or I - without shoes but with socks. I caught him "digging" in the dirt.

So what was I working on? I'm working on the bracing and structure under the seats. It's tricky since I have nothing to go on - I'm just kind of winging it. Here's a mockup of the structure.

Day 118 - May 2nd

After I got home from work, a big windstorm moved in. It looked like it was snowing with all the flower petals blowing about. They are from some tree behind us...that flowers...a lot. I wish I knew my trees better. They need to make an iPhone app for that - snap a picture of a flower or leaf and it would tell you what plant it came from. That'd be nifty.

Day 117 - May 1st

Tonight was the first night in almost three weeks that I was home without a prior commitment. So, of course, I worked on our picnic table! I got all the remaining parts cut (the seats still need trimming). Then I stained all but the exterior most pieces then went to Lowe's and bought the remaining hardware. I had my camera nearby and when I looked down while cutting some braces, I thought this made an interesting picture.

I should add the above is not quite true. The very center of the table is a solid piece of teak I still haven't figured out how to plane smooth and shape. But the table will be quite usable without it.

I have next Saturday, the 9th, off so I'm hoping to assemble it and move on to the next project!

Day 116 - April 30th

Yesterday, over my lunch break, I went out to see if anything caught my eye to photograph. Instead a cobweb smacked my face and a wasp landed on me. So I chased these two items down and photographed them.