Spring Cleaning

Happy Spring Equinox!

I finally decided that part of the reason I don't blog much, after losing my old blog and moving back here, is that the mobile app for Blogger is a pain in my ass. It doesn't understand HTML, so you cannot use it to post images that are hosted elsewhere (like Flickr or Instagram). Instead, if you want to post images, you have to upload them directly to Blogger. For a lot of reasons, I don't like doing that, and it's really made me disinclined to blog.

But there is a solution! I moved back to WordPress. Only this time, I am not self-hosting, because that was a whole other pain in my ass. I think this will hit the sweet spot between getting the flexibility I want and not having to deal with the hacking crap that comes with self hosting, which I do NOT want.

The only thing that gives me sadcakes is that I didn't jump on the .com domain name I wanted fast enough. It was available, but it's been snatched up. I got the .net domain name, though: http://redpaperboat.net.

I'm still arranging the furniture there, but it's functional.

Deer Bones

"Look at the bones!"

I did a major cleaning and rearranging project in my work room. Phase one was to empty out the closet, set up shelves inside it, sort ALL THE THINGS, then put away everything I was keeping. Phase two was getting my genealogy files into storage that was easily accessible. During that whole process, I came across a box of bones.

Sunrise

Spring has arrived.

"Are you there, Ceiling Cat? It's me, Henry."

Fog

We had pea soup today. I'm not complaining, because it looks and feels like OMGSPRING! Finally.

Happy Got Day!

For humoring me and wearing her tiara for her official two year anniversary photo, Franny got a hamburger on a bed of peanut butter, with two matchstick carrots for "candles." I can't believe it's been two years already, but at the same time, it seems like she's always been with me.

A Tiny Poem

My stony moon sleeps
and dreams of
perfect waves
crashing
in the raw season

Apple Crate

I have been putting off and putting off and putting off cleaning out the closet in my spare room. The bad weather and cabin fever finally got to me, though. I pulled everything out of the closet, put shelves in it, sorted ALL THE THINGS, and put them back neatly, in labeled boxes. Now, I can actually get to things, whereas before, whatever I needed to get to was sure to be in the bottom box in the very back corner.

In the process, I came across an old apple crate. It still has most of the label attached to one end.

It snowed. Then it snowed some more. Then I shoveled the patio. And then it rained. We do not like rain, so we spent our day looking out the patio window and sighing heavily.

Basil in Snow

The winter that had no end.

The Song of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Credit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM – CC BY-SA IGO 3.0


From: Rosetta Blog

Not only did we puny humans land a probe on a freaking comet, but we also recorded it singing the song of its people.

A Poem

A better mess
A perfect cyclone
tendril climbing from
the mother cloud
to lick
the salt
of a slow lazy dream

Brasses

Before


After

The person who stripped and painted it the first time didn't remove the hardware for stripping, so why would they bother to do so before painting? The brasses are slopped with green and cream paint. I boiled them in water, then scrubbed away the paint with a toothbrush, then gently buffed them with #000 steel wool. I didn't want to remove all the patina.

Oiled

After a coat of linseed oil. One coat every day for a week, then one coat every week for a month, then apply another coat once a year or so. This wood is so maltreated, though, that it may need more than a week's worth of intensive treatment. We'll see!

Scraping and Sanding

You can see in the second photo where the drawer pulls were, as well as all the scratches made by the person who originally stripped the piece.









These are too deep to sand out. I'm not even going to try to get the rest of the paint out of them, because I don't have the patience or the motivation. They are honest scars.

Bubble, Bubble

A Couple of Handy Tips

Those stupid fake credit cards that come in the mail make great paint spreaders. Every arty-crafty person knows that. They also work really well for spreading stripper. Much better than a brush.



A dry, hard kitchen sponge makes just about the best sanding block EVAR.

The more you know...

Before

Before


Missing trim


More missing trim


Cat scratches (My cats did not do that.)


Paint job (I did not do that!)


Paint job

I got this dresser from a coworker a couple of years ago. I've been meaning to re-finish it or paint it or do something with it, because A) the colors are kind of awful and not something I'd choose, B) the paint job is kind of awful and not something I'd do, and C) it's got a lot of damage.

I finally got around to starting on it this weekend. I thought I'd strip the top and maybe the drawer fronts, then paint the body, since there was so much trim that was damaged and missing. Once I got some of the paint off, though, I realized that it had been stripped before, then re-painted. The person who stripped it the first time did not remove the knobs, so they left paint under them. (And paint on them, because they also didn't remove them when they re-painted it.) Worse, though, they scratched the living hell out of it. I'm assuming the deep gouges were from rough living, but the lighter scratches I found were clearly made by someone who stripped the piece and had not one single clue what they were doing.

Basically, it's a hot mess. I'm not sure what I'll do with it. Right now, the plan is to finish stripping the drawer fronts and maybe the sides, oil them with linseed oil, and paint the body. I'll just live with the scratches. Of course, I may change my mind tomorrow.

I Call Shenanigans

So I ordered this cute, reflective, PINK harness for Franny, from Amazon. It said right on the damn item description that it is sold by and ships from Amazon.com. So why the hell is it shipping from China? And if that's legit, WHY don't they indicate on the item page that it's not shipping from within the US?

Shenanigans. I call them.

Pretzel Pelvi

Pretzel Pelvis #food #snacks #pretzels

A photo posted by @ellypdq on Jan 21, 2015 at 6:34am PST

These things. I just don't even.

Things That Are Orange

Sunrise Over Wright Quad


Clementine

Clementines exist to remind us that winter cannot last forever.

Esther's Senior Yearbook Photo

Artubus, Indiana University, 1923

I've got a couple of photos of Esther, but not many. This is actually quite lovely in an unfussy kind of way. She was, I think, an unfussy kind of woman.

Beautiful Day

It's supposed to be 50F today. And I don't want to jinx anything, but when I got to work this morning, it was 74F on my floor. HUZZAH! It was warm at work yesterday, too, and I'll be damned if people weren't complaining about it.

From the "You Just Can't Make This Stuff Up" Files