Year 13, Week 7, Day One (week 683)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-02-13 Saturday
   
    54 degrees early morning, 66 degrees in the afternoon. Some blue skies, lots of sun with lots of light clouds. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
       
    Spring is coming. At one point just a month ago, I was driving to Mom's house in the dark. the sky was just getting lighter as we headed to breakfast. Now, there is a morning glow as I leave my house for the twenty five minute drive.
   
    There were not many yard sales. We went to a church yard sale that was relocated to an individual's house. I found a fuzzy blanket that is black on one side and a baby blue on the other. I decided I had to have it. It will be great when sleeping in the recliner when the temperatures drop down in the chilly seventies....
    I grabbed a hymn book and then mom decided to take the entire box which were all hymn books and told me to put mine back in. One hymn booklet was 1900, another was 1904, They are starting to come apart. I got my book, which was printed in 1968 back when we got home. Mom  also picked up two balls of yarn for me. One is fuzz and green and the other is bright red. They will be scarves also. The fuzz yarn is going to be a real challenge.





The blanket is folded over. It is black on one side and blue on the other. The two balls of yarn, bright red and green fuzzy yarns.




    I decided to do a few things with the truck. I went through the cab, sorting and re-stacking stuff. I found several items that I lost. It is easy for this stuff to become buried.
    When we had first removed the bumper on my truck to tow it back in November, we removed some fiberboard sheets that directed air into the radiator. Since then, after several attempts, we failed to figure out how to put them in.
    I decided to give it another try. As I was looking at the left hand sheet, It dawned on me I was thinking about them all wrong. I was thinking of it as MY left hand as I was looking at the truck. It was the Truck's left hand. The first sheet went in within about five minutes. The second sheet went in within a minute. They fit perfectly.
    I looked at installing the bumper and found that my sockets were not long enough. Hours later, It dawned on me that I could have used open ended wrenches.
   
    At around Noon, I headed down to the antique shop to get the work that was on display down there. It took some effort to get the hand-truck and bins into the corner where my stuff was. The passageways were tight.
    I was able to take my stuff out a side door that saved me a lot of work and reduced the damage of breaking something he had on display.
    While my display did not look like much, it took two trips to my truck to get the bins and boxes out there. By then, I was badly hobbled, back bothering me and my knee hurting even with my weight into the cane. I had a bit more running around there before I was ready to go.
    I stopped at a thrift store I like and did not buy anything. There were a couple things that were interesting, but not enough to buy them.
    I had tied a tarp over the back of the truck to keep things from flying around on the way home. I decided to take a slower route to reduce the chance of damage.
   
    I got back to Mom's house and It was all I could do to walk. I am still suffering badly from the Renaissance fair walking I did last week. All through the week, until Friday, I was limping badly. Friday I seemed to be doing all right. I now see I have not recovered.
    At a meeting we went to in the evening, my back was not too bad but my limp was exaggerated.
   
    My plan for tomorrow is to set up a table and practice my display.
   
    I will see what really happens tomorrow.
   
   


Year 13, Week 7, Day Two (week 683)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
03-03-13 Sunday
   
    54 degrees early morning, 66 degrees in the afternoon. Some blue skies, lots of sun, but plates of high shield clouds all over. At about three, the sun went behind the clouds and the wind took on a cool feel. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.
   
    My plans was to set up a temporary three foot wide, eight foot long table and set up my work in the display I plan to use for the art show. The idea is to examine my work and see what condition they are in, see what looks best where, check for missing price stickers, and repack everything in order to speed the setting up of the display next time.
    Plans changed. I was moving like an old man. I grabbed all my knitting needles as a secondary project and headed to Mom's house.
    I sat down, partly in the sun, at the workbench next to the fence and laid out all my knitting needles. I placed them together based on their sizes. I had a size gauge template for checking the ones with no markings. I also found a few that were mis-marked. I later bundled all the same sizes together.
    My original plan was to make as many complete sets as possible. There are a couple sizes where there are two or three of that size. Bundling them together turned out to be a better idea.
    I went through the broken needles. I re-pointed nearly a dozen of them. They need more sanding, but if needed they could be used. Basically, I used the disk sander and holding the needle at nearly in line with the disk and spinning the needle against the sanding disk. I later took a emery board used for finger nails to clean up my sanding job. I need to use a fine sand paper to finish them off, but was not in the mood to dig the sandpaper out.
    There were a few that could not be remade or I chose not to. One plan with the broken needles was to make them into crochet hooks. I still can, but don't have to. There were other things with my collection so I consolidated them. It all fits better into the space I have. The needles are not just jumbled together now.
 

 bundles of needles grouped in sizes.
    
 
 These needles were repaired. Needs a little bit more sanding to finish them.
 Needles in original packages. Also super sized needles
 
 Small needles and accessories. There are a bunch of circular needles.





    My brother arrived as I was taking pictures of my needles, and then we sat in the sun and talked. My body was not in the mood to do much more than sit and talk.
   
    I wanted to ALSO set up my display Saturday for extra practice. Considering how bad I felt yesterday after getting my work together, I figure I will wait until the day of the show and just "wing it" on setting up the display.
    I do have to box up my carvings and that will take some time and effort. They cannot be stacked on top of each other as they are delicate.
   
    I will see what I actually do next week.