Year 17, Week 29, Day One (week 915)

Year 17, Week 29, Day One (week 915)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-29-17 Saturday

Mid to high 80s in the morning and late afternoon, 90 in the middle. In the morning, we were bracketed by two trains of clouds heading to the North East. It was clear in between them. Radar showed each one with moving radar blips. After yard sailing, I had stopped at a couple stores. When I left , I could see the road to the south grayed out. I arrived home and the ground was wet. The radar showed the trains still following their rail but dots formed between them and zipped across the land. I was missed, other than a couple driplets on the windshield, everything that was out there. Those dots were heading to the north east. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.


Mom goes to a painting teacher’s convention each year in the spring. She is on one of the organizing committees. Each year they have a theme which one day they dress up. This next year is LOS VAGUS. Mom got the idea of giving art materials as prizes. She decided to do part of the yard sale loop in hopes of finding art stuff that would be good gifts for the people to win.
One woman had a treadle powered singer sewing machine. I keep looking at them and wondering if I would ever use one if I got one. It is one of those space taking things one would like to have. If I knew it worked perfectly, I might have considered it. Not really for that price, but..... One problem is that I cannot sew. Also Mom has several modern machines that I could use if needed.

We finished the route, so I then went out on my own. I found one yard sale that mom missed, about the time the mom decided to head home. This woman had sold most of her stuff in the morning, Our conversation started with what we look for at yard sales, then on collections, hobbies and into arts and crafts. about twenty minutes later, it was time for me to leave. She had decided that since no one had come while we were talking, it was a good time to pack up.

I found one other yard sale that was at a storage unit. Our eyes always go to the things that are most interesting. there was a meat slicer in the box. This was a high quality home-style unit. I have lower quality ones at home. I have one motor for two bodies. I also have that commercial one I accidentally picked up.  I never asked the price, but I lingered several times....  
Several of the yard sales had glassware on display. Me and glass don’t get along too well. 

After a quick stop at Lowes, I went to a restaurant supply store called Gordons Food Supply. I ended up picking up a 17.5 pound boneless pork butt. I did not have time to deal with it tonight so it is in the fridge. It will become a bunch of steaks. 

I got home, and we lingered a little, and then went out for Chinese. As we ate, mom told about a book she is reading. It was like an hour and a half later when we left there. when we got back, I laid down and napped for a while before leaving.



Year 17, Week 29, Day One (week 915)
(January 17, 2000 was my first carving day.)
07-29-17 Saturday

90 degrees, 60% humidity, partly and then mostly cloudy. Large blobs on the radar passing from the west, but avoiding us. This weather report is brought to you by the City Of Pompano Beach Department of Tourism.

I found a yard sale in the morning on the way to Mom’s. He was still putting his stuff out. I picked up a small wood box with a nice lid design. I have an idea for it. 

I later stopped at a “community” yard sale at a historical house. There were like ten people with displays, one had food. Many looked like vendors (stuff in original packagess). One person had all sorts of elephant figurines. A couple had glassware. One had a old style sewing machine. Just the machine in the box and it was three times the price of the one I saw yesterday. There was a “high hat” cymbal stand. This is the stand with the foot peddle where you step down on the peddle and the two cymbals clang against each other. This is another case that if I buy it, I will kick myself, and if I don’t buy it, I will kick myself. I found myself out by my truck when I realized I did not buy it.

I found out that my brother was coming up, so I decided to cut the pork roast I picked up yesterday. I have all those meat slicers. What did I use to slice it? A knife. This was two boneless Boston Butt roasts. They simply removed the bone and sealed two of them into the same package. I sliced one for lunch and I sliced them thick. I sliced the rest of it into thinner steaks, and cutting some of the larger pieces into smaller portions. 
I am one of those people who, “If I cannot tell the difference, why pay the difference?” and if it is a whole lot cheaper, I will gladly go with a lower quality.  I eat a lot of pork steaks as the quality is close enough to a cheap beef steak, and at half the price, I can have a lot of it, whenever I want. 
I am also one of those people who believe that if a labor savings device takes more labor to clean than it saves, I will use the other way. I used the knife as it is a whole lot easier to clean than my meat slicers. I can slice fairly evenly too. You end up using the knife anyway.  My freezer is now filled with packages of steaks. The meat slicers are best for stuff like sandwich meats where you want consistently thin slices. 
Mom fixed dinner and it was so good. We sat and talked for quite a while. By the time my brother and niece left, it was too late to do anything outside. 

This week, I was thinking about ornaments to make for next year. Each year, I TRY to do four designs, and a dozen of each. These are generally carved out of two by twos. Last year I had planned to do some rocking horses. I have three ways of making them and will try each and see which works best. Because of hurricane Matthew and some other things that were going on at the end of the year, I could not even think about doing ornaments. 
The hardest part is to do an ornament that one has not done before. That is getting very difficult after 17 years of carving. There are only so many variations of Christmas Trees, Snow men, Penguins and Angels one can do. Many times, I have searched the web pictures for ornaments and they end up being all the same. Most years, I try to have them done by the beginning of November and most of the time I am into October before I find something to try. It does not matter when I start searching for ideas, I am always under the gun to find something. Now a few times I came up with ideas early in the year and they ended up being the least liked designs. 
I also should start thinking about art for the Christmas cards to do next year too. I tend to be doing them on Christmas Eve when I am to give them out.... With the cards, I have done too many snowmen, Christmas trees, and palm trees. Again finding good ideas are tough. 
With both carvings and cards, the problem is that it has to be simple enough to do quickly but complex enough to look good. One cannot spend a lot of time on each one. 
With the carving, I have blanks for many of the designs I did over the years that were not carved. They tended to be too tough to carve when it came down to it. 

I will see what I do next week.

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