Odd Jobs

I spent a couple of days in the wood shop with my dad last week, starting to build a music box.  I had intended to do this last winter, but I didn't get the music box parts in time.  So far, I've had a few accidents, which didn't injure anything except a few pieces of wood that I had intended to use.  (Which is pretty amazing, given my lack of history using power tools!)

I started off by planing a BUNCH of pieces of wood.

 

This will be the walnut lid to my music box.  You might notice my new silicon Groove ring.  JP got us matching ones for Valentine's Day.

Later, I cut 45* angles in the pieces, and cut a groove into the bottom to form a box, which was glued and clamped together.

 

There is a second box made of oak inside the main box.  This is removable, and acts as a sounding board for the music box.

 

Over the weekend, I spent a few hours outside clearing out my flower beds.  I trimmed and discarded a lot of the old dead parts of the plants, and uncovered a few Spring flowers:

Hellebores

Crocus

 

Hooray for Spring!

We Are Family

One of the reasons that JP recently changed jobs was that for the past 9 years or so, he has spent several hours each weekend, holiday and vacation day fielding phone calls from his office or from the call service, and dealing with labs, letters and radiology reports coming in on the electronic medical records.  Because of this, even when he was home, he was not able to spend quality family time with us.

It has been a bit of an adjustment for all of us getting used to his new schedule that is not at all regular.  Before, I felt like I was single parenting a lot of the time, but now JP is very involved in carting the kids around and doing things around the house on his days off.

There are still a few single parenting days, but we are managing fine, and they are fewer and further between than in the past.  Friday was one of those days.  Unfortunately, he missed J's ukulele debut at her Choral Cabaret fund raiser.  She played the uke and sang with her friend, and did a wonderful job!

Yesterday he missed seeing L make a basket in her Basketball game.  Only 5 team members showed up, so she played the entire game, although they pulled in another teammate's little sister to give a couple of the other girls breaks.

 

I wanted to show a picture of one of my favorite birthday gifts this year:

Totoro and friends join my family of other matryoshka dolls, which I find nearly irresistible.

 

They all have stories, too.  My brother brought back the light colored set from Russia when he went on a school trip.  The blue set was purchased when JP and I took our trip to Alaska...we found it in an old Russian settlement near Soldotna.  The singing pigs are also Russian, I believe, although I found them in one of our favorite haunts, Glen's Fair Price, in our college town in VA.  The snowmen only come out at Christmas time with my other snowman decorations.

Today JP is home, so we can sit around and watch the Olympics together as a family.

Happy Sunday.

Ups and Downs

The temperatures have been going up and down around here.  We are currently on a spring-like streak, and it is in the 40's.  This follows 2 or 3 days of ice on the driveway that made me feel like I was risking my life every time I tried to leave the house!

Not only the temps are going wacky around here.  Crazy stuff is going down.

The low tire pressure light came on while I was driving L to school yesterday morning.  This is the second time in 2 weeks, so I took it to the tire shop.  They found a nail AGAIN.  This time they were able to patch it, however.  Today I am going to take the big magnet and search around in the barn for nails because I suspect it is happening when I back into the barn to unload bags of chicken feed from the Subaru. (Down.)

I spent a good part of the day out and about with my friend.  Although we didn't have much success shopping, it was good to spend time with her again. (Up.)

When I got home from my outing, I took some scraps out for the hens.  The majority of them were clustered at the far end of the chicken yard, one was trapped in the walkway area, and there were feathers EVERY WHERE.  I went into the chicken house and found this guy staring at me!

One poor hen was trapped in there with the hawk and the partially eaten body of her sister.  I am now treating her for PTSD with counseling and corn.

My dad rushed over to dispatch the murderous bird, and I cleaned up the mess and tried to soothe ruffled feathers as best as I could. (Down.)

Later last evening, J had a special concert at the HS.  I bought some raffle tickets, which I rarely do, and ended up winning a gianormous basket of awesome stuff.  I got all of this loot...

...PLUS a Contigo travel mug, an essential oil dispenser, a scented candle, and some fancy hand lotion. (Up.)

Whoop whoop!

Today is Saturday...a definite UP. 

Hope you enjoy your weekend.

Super Bowl Sunday

We woke this morning to more snow coming down.  Our winter weather has been on and off lately - we will have a few days in the 40's or 50's, and then it will get colder again and we'll get some snow.  It doesn't stay cold long enough for the snow to stick around, and we are only getting an inch or two at a time.  This makes it seem like it's bobbling back and forth between Spring and Winter.

I thought I would take advantage of the huge, soft flakes dropping to take a walk this morning.  It was beautiful and still - almost gorgeous enough to make me love winter again. 

Here are a few of the pictures that I took:

This evening we are planning to make a bunch of homemade finger foods (chicken wings, jalapeno poppers, and pigs in a blanket) to nosh on while we watch the Eagles vs. the Patriots in the Super Bowl.